No Warning (ON) 2006 Featured Interview w/Ben Cook




Here is an interview with No Warning from a couple of years back, while they were on tour with Sum 41. There is nothing all that revelatory in here, but it gives you a good idea of where their heads were at when their controversial "Suffer Survive" LP was released.



On the Project Revolution tour:

We got offered two weeks of that tour. It was kind of weird for us because it was our first kind of non-hardcore thing. It was going to be our first shows playing to like, uh, whatever you call the people going to those shows. So we were psyched, because we had been playing to the same crowd for like a good four or five years, and we were just furious about it.



Yeah, we got offered two weeks, we did pretty well on it, then we got offered the full two months. And we obviously bro'd down with Ghostface and Snoop, and a bunch of other bands.





Funeral For A Friend and the Used were really cool, they actually brought us on tour after Project Rev, so we made some connections, you know?



Was everything finalized for the LP when that tour started?

Delong: It had just finished right when we started it right?

Ben: Yeah, I went down and mixed it with Matt Hyde and like five days later we started touring. And we kind of haven't stopped since.



What has the reaction been to the new material so far?

Ben: The reaction has been good. We've just been playing the shit out of it. We don't really even know the reaction, like we don't read the internet or any reviews or anything. But in terms of the live show, like people getting into it and buying it at the shows, it's been awesome for us.



From like different crowds, you know like the Hatebreed tour, or The Used tour, hopefully we'll do well on the Sum 41 tour. It's cool that we can go on these totally different kinds of tours and like kinda have a lot of fun and do well, and not feel like a bunch of idiots.



Did doing the Hatebreed tour and playing the new material to more of your original fans go over well?

Ben: Um, not as well as the older stuff, but you kind of expect that from hardcore kids, because they kind of don't have the balls to like anything that's not the flavour of the week sometimes. But like, to be honest, I was surprised that people were singing along to the new songs. I thought the hardcore crowd would just fucking, everyone would hate it. I'm sure a good portion of them hate it, and they can fucking suck our fucking cocks off, but uh, yeah, it was cool. Hatebreed was good.



How did the Greg Nori thing come together, and did he influence this LP in any way?

Delong: Nah, we met Greg, what, three years ago?

Ben: Yeah, he approached us on a Bane tour. We played Toronto, and apparently he came up to us and I didn't know who he was, and I was just like whatever. He came up to us and was like "good set" or whatever. Then he contacted us through a friend and wanted to go out to eat with us, and we were just like, "whatever, Treble Charger dude", like fuck that. But we'll go out and get a free meal out of it, you know?



So we went, and we talked to him, and he was just like a really fucking good guy, like really fucking honest and shit. And just had an energy about him that was refreshing to us. And we've know him for like fucking three years. In terms of influencing the album, he produced it and shit, and he'll give us him input even if we don't want it. And we'll try anything he wants us to try, just because that's like how we work, you know? If someone has an idea we'll try anything once. We actually demo'd a few songs before the album that were like seriously poppy, but we also did that to just kind of get the attention of some fucking labels and shit. I had heard the rumour that we had done a pop-punk demo...



Delong: It was just like our album, but probably a little less heavy right?

Ben: Yeah, we just kind of slicked up a demo to go out there and get some attention from people that wouldn't necessarily be into us. And it worked. And then when we went to make the album we had our hands on it a lot, and we had a lot of say in it. So we fucking brought in Matt Hyde, who did Hatebreed and Slayer, to try and make it as heavy as possible, while keeping what we wanted to do, like adding melody and singing and stuff.



What made you turn your back on playing traditional hardcore?

Delong: It's kind of boring playing traditional hardcore.

Ben: Yeah, a lot of people do it, and not to diss people, because like I hated that, when people said what he said now, when we were doing "Ill Blood" I hated that, I thought they were a bunch of fucking fruits, you know? But you know, we set out to do "Ill Blood", we set out to do an LP that sounded like it was from New York, and then once we finished that we didn't even know what we were going to do.



We were like "what now, let's just break up." We were going to break up and do something else. We were going to do another band where I sang and shit. Then Greg came along and was like "No Warning's great." And we told him what we were feeling, like how we were king of bored. He was the guy who was kind of like, telling us we could do this shit. And it helps, you know? Because where we come from, just the elitist hardcore scene, it's hard to break out sometimes. You feel pretty limited.



Do you miss anything from that era?

Delong: Well we just did a Hatebreed tour, which was kind of similar...

Ben: Yeah, that was a straight up hardcore tour,
Hatebreed, Terror, and us, and Full Blown Chaos.

Delong: I got nothing but good memories from the shit before though, it was a fun fucking time, but...

Ben: In terms of the crowd there, it was a straight up hardcore crowd.



What's the difference between playing for a crowd like that as opposed to a crowd like tonight that hasn't heard your stuff?

Ben: Um, there's good and bads to both. If we're going out and playing like a set with new songs and old songs to like a Hatebreed crowd, you get your fucking hardcore kids yelling for older songs and shit, and it's like, "you don't write our fucking set list, shut the fuck up."



Like we'll play you a few fucking songs, we like the songs that we're going to play you, it's great when you sing along to them, but uh, just don't come up to me after we play and (nasal voice) "why didn't you play this one", cause I'll just tell you to fuck off.



Delong: And they always yell out the most random fucking songs.

Ben: Yeah, they yell out shit songs too! It's like play "Leetch!" That song sucks.

Delong:(Laughing) Yeah, we never even played it before.

Ben: But the benefits to playing to a newer crowd, just people who have never heard of us and just are a little more open-minded in terms of coming to a show and paying a lot of money, when you're paying a lot of money you'd better like music a lot, you know? And you'd better get it. You're not just going there to fuck around. It's cool, because people just get into it. But on the Hatebreed tour it was fun playing all the old songs and shit.

Are you worried about being on different labels in the U.S. and in Canada?

Ben: Well, the benefits of that is that if one label does better than the other, than the other label wants to step it up. And BMG in Canada is really good and really awesome for us. And so if they're better than who we have in the States, maybe they'll step it up a bit.



What has been planned out for after this tour so far?

Ben: We've only got Japan planned out. Just after this we go to Japan with Sum 41. And after that, I don't know. After that we'll probably do a full
U.S. tour, I'm not sure what it will be.

If you were doing your own headlining tour who would you want to take out?

Ben: Hmmm. Like a realistic tour right now? I might pick Mental, cause they're our boys.

Delong: Mental for sure, Fucked Up, but they'd break up before the tour, haha. And we'd take Violent Minds, nah, I'm just kidding, haha.



So you would take two hardcore bands for sure?

Ben: Maybe not, we'd mix it up.

Delong: Mental and Ghostface. MOP.

Ben: Fuck, I'm trying to think of something really bad...whatever, joke's over. I was trying to think of a bad screamo band, but I think they're all bad.

Reviews In 10 Words

Doom Cannon _ goonWill sink BC if they play on the fault lineLink
corep.jpgif, like me,you cant get enough mosh get thisLink
Monsters -  THE RIGHTEOUS DEADThis hits the spot and it hits it fucking hardLink

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