So, where did the name CHUD come from?
we took the name from a cheesy old movie about mutant bums who go eat people in new york. we were originally gonna be called TSS, short for toxic shock syndrome but no-one but me liked the name . We wanted a 3 letter abbreviation: I'm not sure why. we were listening to a lot of SSD and DYS back then, I think that influenced us. chud wasn’t 3 letters, but it just kind of stuck in our heads. plus, it rhymes with crud, which is what we thought our music sounded like at the time.
so who is in chud?
I am on vocals, then we have twin brothers Nick (guitar) and Andrew (bass) and our drunken drummer Robert
drunken drummer?
well, that’s what I call him cause sometimes at gigs he gets too drunk to play and we have to go without drums and I just kind of mouth them. :)
haha I know you are sXe, are any other members of CHUD sXe?
when we started out in 95, we all were then everyone but me got real heavy into drinking and pot. I am still sXe, Nick is now sober, and Andrew and Robert are still drunks originally, pretty much all of my friends were sXe and around the same all of the sudden pretty much everyone 'sold out’.
that must have been crap for you. did it bother you alot?
sXe is a personal decision if it wasn’t right for them, so what? they are still my friends, and I don't judge them. we still are into all the same stuff, they just like to get fucked up every now and then.
I’m not sXe myself, I reckon it only really comes between friends when people disrespect the lifestyle they once shared.
ya, exactly they are all very cool and respect my decision even more now than they did when we were all sXe.
so what is the scene like where you live?
well, it is very fragmented. most of the kids who call themselves hardcore are into new school exclusively. there are a buttload of experimental noise core bands which isn’t really my thing. we generally don't play many "hardcore" shows cause the guys who run those don't like our music but there are a lot of punk dudes up here who are totally cool and into our stuff. a lot of our fan base isn't into other music like ours. we have a pretty diverse crowd: lots of grind and crusty kids love our shit, which we didn't really expect.
what would you say CHUD sound like?
the only band I have ever really heard that sounds like us is an old 88 NYHC band called Go. we play some pretty heavy hardcore punk, with some breakdowns. our original inspirations were bands like Negative Approach, The Necros and the Meatmen all the early midwest bands and there aren’t many bands around like that here, so that’s what we started out to sound like but we have a very different sound like that it is probably because we have such diverse people in the band. Nick is a total metalhead, into King Diamond and Maiden and shit, Robert is totally into grind, crust, and almost anything political Me and Andrew are into lots of old school stuff, and lots of old punk.
you have a pretty rad sounding show coming up soon
ya, a couple I am really pumped about this show we are doing on the 14th of December we're playing with Good Clean Fun, Tragedy (ex his hero is gone) and Long Live Nothing (ex Charles Bronson) then we play another show on the 30th with Fast Times and some other bands that I forgot.
sounds like you are doin ok for yourselves
well, what I have found is that if you want something to happen you have to make it happen. we never played many shows until about a year ago then we realized , what the hell are we doing? if we want to play, lets go play so we found out who was putting on shows, and bothered them till they put us on the bill our first big gig was opening for Aus Rotten and Broeken (the one from Connecticut) and after that, people just came, we just started finding it easier to get on bills, so we just bother people when we want to play. it works out well cause we play lots of diverse shows last week we played at a death metal festival, cause our guitarist knew the guy putting it on. so it was this ridiculous HC punk band goofing off in front of a couple of hundred metal heads who just stared blankly at us. it was pretty funny, we just ended up fucking with the crowd like, before a song, instead of saying what the real name was, I would say it was some anti metal thing like I called one song 'get a hair cut you dirty metal bitches' and everyone in the crowd got pretty pissed
hahaha so was this metal festival in Iowa?
it was in Minnesota. it was put on at some guys farm, pretty crazy we travelled way into the country, we had no idea where we were.
were there any 'big' names on the bill? a farm gig is pretty awesome!
ya, slipknot was the headliner. they were friends with the guy putting it on too. there was some definite friction there because when we were getting started, so was slipknot and we used to be friends. they ran a club and gave us shows but when they started getting big they became assholes. one of them has a credit card with a slipknot logo on it.
that is pretty funny . you should steal it , spend the money and then auction the card
aha, that would be really funny, although, some of the guys in that band are very psycho. I took some pictures of them sans masks at a party and joked about putting them on the internet and he flipped out and threatened me with this big ass bowie knife.
so are they really ugly? is that why they wear masks?
no, they are complete geeks a friend of mine owns a comic shop and they hang out there a lot. they are just normal looking guys really. they dress like kid rock.
ahhaha . so where do you see chud going in the future?
well, we were talking a record deal with Tony victory, but he totally fucked us over so, no. :) I was talking to Rick Healy yesterday and it looks like we might get a new 7" on back ta basics.
haha sounds good mate ;P
ya, before that we did a few 7"s on Mortville Records, lots of demos and we're on tons of comps as well.
do you have any tour plans?
we might do a us tour with black market fetus.
US tour? come to Australia
actually, I was thinking about coming to Australia and touring with captain 3 leg, a grind band but, it all depends on how much money everyone in the band can get and how much we would lose on tour, if we could afford to do it and still pay the rent, yknow?
yeah , well if you ever do make it down here we can look fwd to some rockin shows .
ya, definitely, if you’ve got places to play, we will play, for free if need be. when I went on tour with black market fetus last summer doing dual vocals, we played about 15 gigs in the south-east for free. we just lived on other people’s food who would put us up for a night.
I’m gonna have to finish it off here any last words?
just want to thank you for doing this interview, and if anyone in Australia wants a demo tape or anything email me at zhoyt@home.com and we can work out how I can get something to ya
thanks for doing the interview zach!
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