vENEREA INTERVIEW... in fucking english! 
    done on 17.09.2003 exHAUS, Trier 

You can't keep a good band down! Venerea are one of Sweden's finest skate-punk rock exports, some people may even say' the best one... we had a nice talk with Fred (drums) and Andreas (guitar) but we can't remember the 100% right sequence of speaking, so with left the names out... let your brain cells work and guess who said what;) vENEREA is: Mike - vocals, bass Dana - guitar Andreas - guitar, vocals Fred - percussion

  
    fRk: You have played a lot of gigs this year. You have already supported "Ten Foot Pole" 
    here. Whats's your impression of the German scene and audience? 

    The German scene has always been really good to us. I guess Germany's the best country 
    to play in' especially for us;) Of course we played a lot in Germany, but we normally never 
    play in Sweden... only this summer one festival. There hasn't really been a scene in Sweden 
    for about 5 or 6 years now. That's such a fucking bad and sad thing for skate-punk... 
    but I cannot figure it out' so we went out and toured Europe instead of touring through 
    no-mans-land Sweden. That's a big difference in comparism to our country. One problem 
    I think is that it is pretty hard to put up gigs in Sweden because it's too much money involved 
    and it's hard for clubs to make it happen. Okay, maybe we could have played more gigs in 
    Swede' but to be honest, we're a very lazy band;) 

    fRk: Do you have a special experience on your tour through Germany? 

    We had a broken tire and we had a lot of problems with my passport. When we wanted to 
    leave Hungary they didn't let us out' because they thought that something was wrong with my 
    passport. That was so disgusting and for god's sake we had a show in Prag the next day... 
    so we decided to drive through Slovakia, gave them 2 Venerea shirts and suddenly everything 
    was fine, just a long way to travel, but nevertheless it's great to be on the road, every day's 
    a different day... you never get bored! 

    fRk: Your latest album "Out in the Red"... Why did you call it this way? Is there a story behind? 
    And what do you personally think about this record? Is there musically, lyrically something new 
    to find or is it typically "Venerea"? 

    Well, in my opinion it has been driven to a harder direction, more aggressive than the last one. 
    This one is more outta punk-rock! 

    fRk: What music do you hear in your leasure-time and what are your own favourite bands? 

    Favourite band, that's hard to answer, because there are so many... of course we all listen 
    to punkrock. Mike, our singer and our bass guy are very into irish folk and country. I like the 
    70's a lot: Reagge, Ska and some old brit pop tunes, too... but it's kind of difficult to say which 
    band I personally' especially punkrock band' I like most and if you count the old bands such as
    the Clash, the Pistols' perhaps it's better to give no answer. 

    fRk: What's your opinion of the earlier records like "Losing Weight, Gaining Ground" or 
    "Both Ends Burning"? Do you think they still represent your attitude towards life and music 
    today? 

    I wasn't a member of the band at this time... I joined them after both had already been 
    published. I have to know the old lyrics, cause I have to sing some of them now... but to be 
    honest I have never waste many thoughts about that theme, so I don't really care and it's not 
    my thing. Mike's the one who is responsible for the lyrics! 

    fRk: So you first write a song and then you make the music? 

    That's difficult, definately. it goes both ways, I guess;) 

    fRk: Concerning to the difficult political situation today, how far do politics influence your 
    songwriting and lifestyle? 

    Not for me. I'm not much into politics and don't know what the others would say. Lyrically 
    I think we have more political influenced songs today than in the past, but that's a part of 
    Venerea. Nevertheless I wouldn't call Venerea a political based band, we just write about 
    themes and spects we wanna write and tell about. We also can't denay that we have some 
    political determined viewers in our audience' even if we are not considered as a political band. 
    Who cares... that's not bad for us;) 

    fRk: Refering to lifestyle. Are you straight edged or you just don't drink alcohol? 
 

Personally I refused to drink alcohol      for 9 years now and it feels good;)      but I wouldn't consider me as a      straight edged person... maybe when     I was younger, haha. I'm just the one     who drives the bus back home...;)      Although I'm vegetarian, not a real      vegetearian' cause I eat fish... I also      can't call me straight edge. The other      guys eat what they want and drink      alcohol except of Martin.

    fRk: Mhhh allright, let's end up with a political question... what do you think about the situation 
    between Iraq and the USA or generally about such a war? 

    All of us agree that it was not right! Of course Saddam wasn't a good guy and I cannot 
    gurantee that there's anyone who still wanted after all, but that was not the right way to take 
    his power, because there wasn't a main reason to attack the whole country! They were only 
    in war with one person and in my opinion the Americans are still hiding the main reason, 
    even if it is so clear: gasoline is just the best example! It is not right that so many people are 
    suffering for such stupid reasons. We were all against that!
 
    interview: ludo 
    text: frankie, ludo