Freshkills: The _Heeb_ Interview

By Jay Diamond

Brooklyn’s Freshkills‘ menacing sound reaches back to the days when indie rock largely consisted of disturbed weirdos creating violent racket. On their second full-length, front man Zachary Lipez (above) is in full on spazz-mode. His singing brings to mind Birthday Party-era Nick Cave at a Pentecostal revival and is backed by a sound that recalls the post-hardcore sound of At the Drive-In and The Jesus Lizard. Lipez and I sat down and talked about the band’s new self-titled album and what it takes to try and run a band as a D.I.Y. enterprise in 2008.

So you put this album out by yourself?

Yeah. Our last label were sort of our friends. They were awesome but they just wanted to do CDs we wanted to do vinyl so we figured we would do it ourselves. We have since found out it is beyond our capabilities

Has it been a financial burden?

We are 20 grand in the hole. That’s being your own label.

Does it seem worth it?

I don’t know. Everybody’s talking that it’s the new paradigm…it’s the new fucking thing… being self released. People see it and they don’t see a label and are like, ‘eh.’

Everything the band is doing right now is self-funded?

Oh yeah. Thats why it’s so herky-jerky. We do one thing, then we all save up our money for two months, then we do the next thing and save up our money for another two months. It’s probably not the best way to do it….The thing is, you see bands that are doing it and they are doing it really well. I don’t know if I’m talking shit, but a band like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, they do really well on their own and then they either get picked up or they don’t get picked up, but I can’t let go of the suspicion that if they weren’t making music they would be doctors. I have no ill will, but they seem like really together human beings. They aren’t fuck ups.

So are you a normal human being?

No, but I know the music I like and the people I associate with, the company I enjoy, they have problems. They have drug problems or they have a litany of grievances from a litany of ex-girlfriends and a litany of ex-boyfriends. I know it buys into some bourgeois nonsense, but I think our music is better than music by more together and competent bands.

Do you guys see the band evolving in a different direction?

I think we definitely got a lot poppier. We are still a bunch of early 90’s DC fetishists. All these writers talk about how they love Fugazi and Drive Like Jehu, but at the end of the day they are still at Vampire Weekend’s dick.

It seems like we are going through a period in which people are not as into bands with strong lead singers.

My gut reaction (without trying to sound bitter) is that a lot of people don’t want a singer that is trying to communicate something. The frontmen that I have really liked are really strong personalities. Like Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi) or Ian Svenonius (Nation of Ulyses, Make Up)–these guys are rock n’ roll guys.

What do you think?