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Get Wise

Get Wise from Belgium was on my list to be featured for quite some time, but for whatever reason I kept forgetting to ask them. Singer Kristof is pretty active promoting his band and his two(!) zines, which is something I always like to see with starting bands. They’re trying to get something going, DIY. When I heard they had new songs coming up I just had to put the stuff I was working on to the side and send him some questions. So here you go, an interview with Kristof, singer of Get Wise, zinemaker and the guy who turned shirts & vinyl buying into an extreme sport.

Hey, what’s up? What’s on your mind? Working on any zines at the moment?

Yo Pim! Just sittin’ round at home, looking for a job, watching too many movies (Rocky! Ey yo!), listening to Metallica and the War Hungry LP and figuring out what I’m going to eat.

As the matter a fact I’m working on 2 different zines at the moment. Issue 3 of Living in Gomorrah is in the works but it might take a while till you’ll see any results. It’ll contain interviews with Packo (not afraid, true colors, building), Emile SoM, Foreseen, Speak Up, Easy Way Out and others… And I just realized you’ve already got interviews with 3 of the 5 people/bands I just summed up. Stop stealing my interviewees dude! 😉

The second zine I’m working on is called ‘Swaggerlo Times’. Nothing serious really. It has all the crucial intel as to good venues to hang before, during and after a show, talking on moshstyles, interviews and food-worship, a whole lot of fucking food-worship! Second issue out real soon!

Our new songs have more of a Breakdown and Outburst-feel to it. Or maybe not, don’t really know but hey, it got your attention, didn’t it?

Haha sorry dude. Great minds think a like I guess. I still need to pick these up, we’ll talk about that soon. Anyway, let’s talk about Get Wise. Who’s in Get Wise? Any people we might know from other bands?

You’ve got Stef kickin’ it on drums (and looking like a pirate with his chipped tooth, everybody should ask him how he got that chipped tooth!), Colin shreds the guitar (and listens way too much Mastodon), Joris handles the bass (and wears black metal shirts while performing) and there’s me, Kristof, I try to sound like Ray Cappo (and buy too many shirts and vinyl so I can’t afford any pizza after shows).

Stef used to be in Pitch and Toss but they had some line-up changes and changed their name to Trapped Inside. Keep your eyes open for them! He also fills in for Conviction from time to time, be sure to check out these younglings! (You played their first show, right?) And lastly, he runs Open Up records (be sure to check out the next release: Rebuild).

Colin turns into some kind of monster when he’s singing in his other band Blade. People who aren’t in the know, Blade will fuck you up badly!

Joris and me don’t have other bands going on but I’m always dreaming about hundreds of project-bands.

Haha, yeah we played that first Conviction show. Really liked them but didn’t hear much about them after that. Anyway Kristof Cappo, how would you describe the band to people that never heard you, that are wondering if they should check you guys out?

That’s such a difficult question bro. I’d like to think we play old school hardcore with youth crew influences and some kind of groove into it. If you’re looking for some namedropping: Old Justice, Mental, Floorpunch and True colors are bands that have been used to describe us in reviews of our demo. Our new songs have more of a Breakdown and Outburst-feel to it. Or maybe not, don’t really know but hey, it got your attention, didn’t it?

What are the (future) plans for the band? So far you guys only released a demo right? How about that split coming up?

That’s right, we only released a demo up till now. It took us a while to write new songs. I guess we work somewhat slower than most other old school bands. We recorded 4 new songs last weekend and I’m absolutely stoked to hear the final mix of it!

Those 4 song will be released on a split with xEisbergx. Fuck, I’m so glad we get to work with them. They really sound amazing! We’re still looking for a label to release the split though. So interested labels, get in touch!

Another thing is to release our very own 7”. It would be a dream come true for me to hold a piece of vinyl with Get Wise-songs on. I would be so proud!

Other future plans are a small UK-tour together with Speak Up and Think Twice. This tour will happen in December and I’m so looking forward to it! I can’t wait to be jumping and yelling at those stages and hangage should be cool too.

We’d also like to play a few gigs in Germany and the Netherlands to get our name out there, you know.

It’s difficult to always stay positive and it’s only human to feel bad and suffer from some weltschmertz every now and then, just don’t let it control your life.

Who would you like to get wise? Don’t say humanity, because that’s never going to happen. World peace can’t be done.

There are so many people we’d like to get wise. From Roger Miret (Why hasn’t anyone told him he sounds like a seal since One Voice was released?) to Madonna (don’t always be changing musicstyles to what’s popular you cunt!), from anderlechtfans (fuck you vargas!) to organized religions (Yo, extreme jews, muslims and christians, I’m not racist, I hate you all equally!), from Charles Manson (though I like the Beach Boys) to Americans crying of happiness because of an opened fastfoodrestaurant in their city. And probably me for hating so much.

PMA Kristof, PMA haha. What’s your favorite Get Wise lyric and why?

That’d be the lyrics of one of the new songs called ‘Clock’s ticking’. Here are the first few lines to it:

“It takes and takes and takes,
But never fucking gives,
It runs out before you know,
Changes me, kills inevitably”

When I wrote the lyrics to this song, I didn’t yet realize how much truth those lines actually hold. Some shit went down and every day I’m confronted with the undeniable reality that life is (or can be) over before you know. That’s also the reason I like this lyric the most, because of the truth it holds. It’s difficult to always stay positive and it’s only human to feel bad and suffer from some weltschmertz every now and then, just don’t let it control your life.

When they’re done reading this short introduction, what do people really need to remember about Get Wise?

That we’re just kids playing the kind of hardcore we love and we’d play anywhere, anytime just cause hardcore is awesome!

Something totally unrelated, but I’m curious to see what you come up with. If you could go back in time and change a single moment in history. What would it be and why?

I’d probably go back to prevent George Lucas from ever making Star Wars episodes 1 to 3. Obviously because those movies aren’t worthy to be called Star Wars (though Darth Maul is bad-ass)! And as long as we’re talking about time traveling and movies, how good are the ‘Back to the Future’-movies!? Mad love!

Haha, great answer. Ok, let’s close this off. I’m going to let you take control. Ask yourselves a question, and answer it too.

I kinda love those ‘basic’ questions you always see in hardcorezines like “Which are your 5 favorite non-hardcore albums?” so I’m gonna ask myself that question.

De Posse deel 3 v.a.: Damn, I still love this album after all those years. I remember having it on tape when I was like 10 years old and it never left my walkman. Nederhop’s probably the reason I got into underground-music.

Nirvana – Nevermind: The first ‘punk’-album I really liked. Back then I didn’t understand any of the lyrics but it all sounded so hard and yet so fragile. Still gets some playtime here from time to time.

Cock Sparrer – England belongs to me: This is some sort of ‘best of’ and fuck, I didn’t play much more than 4 skins, agnostic front, condemned 84 and this when I was 16 years old. So much good songs on this with ‘Sister Suzie’ as my favorite!

Tigers Jaw – s/t: It can be sunny outside, you can be the happiest person on earth but I guarantee you, as soon as you start playing this album there will be rain inside your head and you will feel down. Melancholia all around.

Sonic Youth – s/t: I simply love those first few Sonic Youth-albums but I chose this one because of the song ‘I dreamed I dream’. That song is soooooo good! That bass-sound, that dark twisted guitar and Kim singing with Thurston on the background is just magical.

Anything else to add?

Thanks for the opportunity to speak up! Listen to Bang Bros and kneel down in worship for Cornered! Oh yeah, tell Patrick Kitzel to get in touch with us, we’re in need for a label!

Shout outs to the ‘Westel Wolfpack’ and the ‘Barkruk Moshcrew’!

NEW TRACK “WISE CREW”

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DEMO 2010

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