4 Skins - O regresso - Entrevista Abril 2008

Os míticos 4 Skins estão de volta. Para os amantes do Oi! original esta é sem dúvida uma boa notícia. Já começaram a dar concertos para salas cheias, como por exemplo o último Punk & Disordely em Berlim onde actuaram para uma pequena multidão. Já estão programados mais uma série de concertos na Europa e nos E.U.A. Parece que também estão a preparar alguns temas que só serão editados se tiverem grande qualidade. Nota-se que a banda não quer baixar do patamar que atingiu nos anos 80. Para mais informações deixo aqui uma entrevista, em inglês, realizada este mês (Abril 2008) para a revista britânica Street Voice News.

Muitas das letras dos 4 Skins, como de muitas outras bandas Punk e Oi! originais, eram descritas como rudes e violentas. Não haja dúvida que muitos dos membros dessas bandas e a sua assistência não eram meninos de coro. A verdade é que as letras desses conjuntos descreviam de uma maneira muito fria e realista alguma da realidade do nosso mundo. Fome, guerra, violência, desigualdades abismais, violações, etc são uma realidade para centenas de milhões de seres humanos. Era disso, e não só, que essas bandas falavam, sem grandes floreados, para desespero e inquietação das elites políticas e económicas que nos querem apresentar um mundo cor-de-rosa onde o único mal parte dos simples cidadão, dos trabalhadores, das classes baixas, dos jovens dos subúrbios, mas nunca das suas políticas anti-sociais. O tema Evil, de que aqui deixamos um clip, é um exemplo disso.

Apart from the Cockney Rejects the 4-Skins were the most popular Oi! Band doing the rounds in the early 80’s. Despite having several line up changes the better songs were written by the first line-up of the 4-Skins which included Garry Hodges on vocals. After the Hodges era the band were a bit hit and miss and towards the end were dreadful. After hearing Gary Hodges had reformed the band and seeing various rumours posted on various internet boards and receiving two recently recorded ’Slade’ covers I decided to drop the man an interview and find out what the newly reformed 4-Skins are up to. Here’s what Gary had to say for himself

Street Voice: So why decide to reform the 4-Skins after all this time? I was persuaded to appear on Kings of Street Punk compilation, I thought it would be good for my 11 year old daughter to be involved, after that I started getting offers to gig, which I didn’t really want to do. In the end it was my daughter that talked me into it as she wanted to see me on youtube, and show her friends.

Street Voice: Who’s in the band and who plays what? Vocals=Gary Hodges, Drums= Sedge, Bass= Bacon, Lead= Big Tom

Street Voice: How come the other members of the 4-Skins didn’t want to get back together? GH: Tom McCourt didn’t want to get involved as his job isn’t really compatible with appearing in an Oi band. H wanted to get involved, but as he hadn’t even looked at a guitar in 25 years, let alone played one. He wasn’t able to get up to scratch in time (we literally only had 2 months to get ready for Berlin). John Jacobs has moved on, and I don’t know what has happened to Steve Pear. As far as I’m concerned they are the only ex 4-skins that I would worry about.

Street Voice: I know there’s been some criticism in the UK about the band not having the original line up which must piss you off as I can’t think of one reformed Punk/Oi! Band doing the rounds with its original members? GH: The 4skins had about a dozen different members in its various incarnations, but I started the band with H, the songs we are performing, are the songs that I wrote. We can replicate the 4skin sound, but if people preferred my sound over Panther or Roi, then they can come and see this band that we have put together.

Street Voice: You recently played Germany. I’ve had good and bad reports about how you played but as a band playing its first comeback gig how did you feel it went? GH: It was a great buzz; the place was packed and most seemed to enjoy it. The sound could have been better, but at the end of the day we were playing in a massive warehouse.

Street Voice: So you’ve got the large Oi! Festival and Rebellion to play now so how does it feel to come back to be playing high profile gigs? GH: I’m looking forward to the USA, as I’ve seen the venue and if it’s a sell out it should be really good, and reports from the previous year’s festivals reckon everyone has a great time. Blackpool will be the nuts, we are going up for three days on the piss, and I’ve got a lot of friends coming up for the crack who have never ever seen an Oi! band.

Street Voice: In hindsight though wouldn’t it have been better to play a few warm up gigs to smaller crowds? GH: The problem is getting the venues, and silly as it seems you have less control at the smaller gigs over the crowd. If too many people turned up for the size of venue that would lead to trouble. We would be dead in the water before we’d even started.

Street Voice: Now you’re back playing these high profile gigs do you think that some of the audience you’ve always attracted will keep their right arms down? GH: Let’s hope so; we had none of it in Berlin. Hopefully people have moved on with the passing of the years.

Street Voice: Talking of right armers I used to feel puzzled as when I used to go to Oi! gigs in the 80’s as I couldn’t understand them being there as the things that most bands sung about like Police Oppression etc the Fash were thinking the total opposite. So therefore did it never surprise you that gigs used to get so frequently trashed? GH: Thing is the Right and Left are not too different with most of their views, but a lot of people in the right and left can’t see it, or won’t admit it.

Ed Note: I think Gary is talking about the likes of the SWP and Respect here and he does have a point. Left wing organisations like the IWCA are in tune with the working class as they come from the same estates etc. They know the score.

Street Voice: So now you’re back playing gigs are you writing a new album or just doing it for a few drinks, a laugh and a bit of cash for doing something you enjoy? GH: I’m definitely doing it for the laughs, but H has been penning some lyrics so some new stuff may get released.

Street Voice: If you’re writing new material can we expect something to be released this year? GH: We will have to see what sort of quality the stuff we produce is. I won’t bring anything out just for the sake of it.

Street Voice: How does the Oi! scene of 2008 compare to that of the early 80’s? GH: It’s full of old people.

Street Voice: In between you splitting up and reforming what have you been up to? GH: I had nothing to do with music at all, after doing a couple of years inside for football violence (18 months) and armed robbery (3 years). I kept my head down and concentrated on being with my family.

Street Voice: So who’s the HC beer drinker of the band and have you got any stories to tell regards drunken misbehaviour? GH: We are all t-total

Street Voice: Anything you’d like to add? GH: Thanks for the interest, and this ride is probably going to be short and sweet.

Thanks to Gary for doing the interview and Milky for sorting it out. Nice one! I left out questions about Southall and other incarnations of the 4-skins simply because we’ve all heard the rumours/stories over the years and there was no point in re-visiting them. On the basis of the Slade covers I’ve got by the 4-Skins I hope they go out and release an Album or EP if only just for fun. The Slade tracks were spot on and not blatent copies either. The 4-Skins are back and they’re better than ever!

Fonte: Street Voice News