Taken By Force Interview made with Chris Could you give us a brief history of your band (who you are, when did you start). Well, Taken By Force was first kinda thrown together back in the early spring of 2004 by myself and Travis. It started off kinda as a post Scheduled Beating pratice jam session. Both me and Travis were into alot of other styles of music, and next thing you know we started writing songs. We talked about starting a side project at that point, and asked Chris Alshire (former singer for the now defunct Erase the Past) if he would be interested. Of course, my boy Edlock hear the material and next thing ya know, we got a full band. We started writing songs, then kinda took a involuntary break due to a lack of a pratice space (all the bands had to leave the beating house, our reg pratice spot). We finally got everything going again around may or so, and then kinda bulldozed our way thru the rest. About 2 weeks ago now we aquired Tony from FUA to play 2nd guitar. We're psyched to have him aboard cause not only is he a good guy, he's also an amazing guitar player. What are you all doing for a living? Chris Alshire is a Network Engineer, Travis is an apprentice steamfitter, Edlock is a carpenter, and i'm, for the 1st time in years, unemployed and going to college... so buy our merchandise so i can eat and pay rent dammit. Is this your first experience as a band or where any of you involved in previous projects? No not at all, Chris Alshire old bands were Carved In Stone and Erase The Past, Travis sings for a "METAL" band (we give him alot of grief over that one) called Black Body Lotus. Both him and Travis were part of the Infamous Backhand, Ed also sang for some other bands, and I still play in Scheduled Beating, and have been in other bands as well. How would you define the kind of music you're playing? Straight-up hardcore. No frills, no fruity pants, no stupid "my feelings are hurt teen agnst" screaming. Where does the name Taken By Force come from? From the Merauder song, "Take by force". What are your main influences? Oh christ, where to begin. Merauder (like you didn't see that one coming) Madball, Cro-Mags, Bulldoze, basically all that late 80's early 90's style Hardcore that all these young kids seem to not know about. You've just released a (brilliant) ep. Sell it to the world: why should people definately have it? Because we said so... naw for real though, people are either gonna want to get it or not. For me, this is the Hardcore band i've always wanted to do. The style is exactally the style of hardcore i love the most. If anyone out there reading this likes heavy based hardcore, not that CHUGGA CHUGGA breakdown style that's out there these days, then check us out. What are your lyrics about? Everyday life through our eyes. Friends, war, hate, betrayal, respect. Chris Alshire and Ed write most the lyrics. I just tell them if i think it fits or not. What does those words mean to you: -hardcore: brotherhood, a way of life. -fashion: homoerotic, a trend that doesn't belong in Hardcore. -Baltimore: running gun of the east coast scene. This is where the so called "scene" is at these days, and its still getting stronger. What's your view on today's hardcore scene and the so called 'new hardcore' bands? Hardcore is hardcore, like evolution everything's bound to change though the roots/spirit will always remain. Thing is though, there are bands out there that really don't sound hardcore. Instead they sound like emo-screamo-metal... i have no idea whats up with that. A lot of these kids also seem more worried with how they look than the actual music. Tha'ts not hardcore. I have no idea why a young guy would strap on a pair of girl's pants and think it's cool unless he was going to a Village People's reunion. Could you describe us how a typical show of your band sounds/looks like. Well, we have good shows and bad shows, like most every band. You'll get shows where kids maul each other, and then you get shows where everyone wants to just stand there, no matter what you say or do to get them going. It happens. No matter what though I'm gonna have a good time. What is the best memory you’ve got of one of your shows? Probably the show we had with Merauder and Hell to Pay. Nothing too crazy or anything, but it was just a really cool show. What is the worst memory you’ve got of one of your shows? Honestly, none as of yet. Like i said, im happy to just be playing... so's the rest of the band too. We're doing this for US ya know. Trust me, if we weren't having fun, we wouldn't be doing this ya know. How do you see yourself and/or Taken By Force in 5 years? Touring when we can, having a good time, releasing good music that people can relate too. Maybe have more Merchandise and be a bit more known as well. Then again we could be in other bands. Who knows. We just try to take it day by day week by week. How can people get hold of your material? Any of us, we'll have our website up soon. It should be www.takenbyforce.net. Hell, we even got a page on Myspace you can hit us up there too. You can e-mail me chrispfitzgerald@gmail.com or Chris Alshire Chrisinstone@gmail.com if you want a demo. Do you have any last words ... or do you just wanna shout something out? Yah we got a few... Charles, Douglife and all of Bring It On, my boys in Scheduled Beating, the Slumlords (Scotty P, Jeff, Dom, and Doug e fresh), Baltimore's Strength, Stout (T.a.d., Scotty P, Doug e fresh and Josh), JR Glass, the Sidebar Tavern in Baltimore (Megan and Jeff), all the baltimore hardcore bands, Full Blown Chaos, Mickeys Crew, B.C.S, E.G.H, all the fools i know in NYC, Jen and Heather, Dee, Allison and anyone else that has promoted us, bought us beer, or called Edlock "down-low" hahahahaha