Interview to André from The Press/Maninblack [EN]

Category: Interviews | Date: 2004-06-28

Finally online this interesting interview with André Schlesinger, once vocalist for the legendary NY skinhead band The Press and currently in the Maninblack, an interesting project whose purpose is to add to the old oi! punk sounds external influences like reggae and soul, even using unusual (for punk music) instruments like synthesizers, drum machines and samplers.

André was also a founding member of SHARP and that's another reason why large part of this interview is about this topic, both for the new generations and for the old rumours about the original SHARP members being nothing but a crew right-wing homophobic bigots ...

Unfortunately even in our scene rumours carry more weight than facts so that's why we had this long chat with André ...

Stop press! The Press are about to be play a reunion show in Nov. 6th and 7th at the Knitting Factory! André is also talking with a few record labels about re-releasing the entire The Press discography including some un-released tracks.

Very few people here in Europe really know about The Press very well except for a couple of songs and for the fact that you've been the first SHARP band. Can you tell us a brief history of the band?

The Press formed in 1984 as a three piece with myself on guitar and lead vocals. We rehearsed and unsuccessfully auditioned lead guitarists for over a year before recording and releasing "Just Another Warning" on the Moon Records compilation "New York Beat: Hit And Run," which was later released as "Skaville USA" in Europe on the Oi!/Ska Records label run by Roddy Moreno of The Oppressed. About a year later we recorded three songs ("21 Guitar Salute," "It's Not What I Want," and "Break Up Dub") with Bob Hingley of The Toasters as producer which were never officially released although somehow a young Al Barr, who would later go on to sing in the Dropkick Murphys, somehow got a copy and recorded "21 Guitar Salute" on the Split EP in 2002. Around 1986 we started taking on extra members and playing regular shows in NYC. In 1987 we recorded eight songs for the split Skins 'N' Punks Vol.5 album which was released on the Oi! Records label and played regularly for the next several years including the first SHARP benefit in NYC and the first SHARP national conference in Cincinnati.
Apart from The Press, in 1992 I danced (yes, I said danced) along with about 25 other NYC Ska fans for the USA cable network's Up All Night New Years Eve Special and I acted in a commercial for the Anti Defamation League playing a racist Skinhead. We went through various personnel changes, played more shows including live on WNYU radio, and in 1994 we went into the studio and recorded three more songs, one of which, "Friday 5 PM," was released on the Oi!/Skampilation Vol. #1 on Radical Records. Some time in 1995, after several canceled shows and general non cooperation in the band, I decided to call it quits. The Press also appears on the "Best Of Oi! Records" as well as several illegal audio and video bootlegs that were released over the years.
As far as being known in Europe, I get more acknowledgments of The Press from Europeans than anywhere else.

Are you still in touch with the other members of The Press? Are any of them still involved with Skinhead/Oi! stuff?

I'm still in touch with Chris Noone, who played guitar in the final line-up, he's living in Norway now. Chris and I made a half hearted attempt to keep The Press going in 1995 and later I had recruited him as a member of my new project Maninblack before his ill fated vacation trip to the land of Thor. Chris' last words before he took off to Norway was "we'll start rehearsing as soon as I get back" and my last words to him were "don't meet any girls." Chis got married about four months later. Thus was the beginning of what we now refer to as the "Maninblack curse." I still work with "TC" who was basically our booking agent and promoter. He's been a lot of help with my new band Maninblack. Other than that, no, I'm not in touch with anyone else and the few contacts I've had with old members over the years have been disappointing.

Can you tell us more about your attempt to re-form The Press?

Chris Noone and I were talking about releasing The Press' two unreleased songs, "Carry On Harry" and "Shot Heard 'Round The World" as a CD single called "The Press: 2 Bullets Left" and starting work on Maninblack. We had some photos taken for the single cover, we had met with TC who was going to manage Maninblack and help us get the CD single released, and we were planning on starting to rehearse as soon as Chris got back from two weeks vacation vacation in Norway. Before Chris left I said "do me a favor and don't meet any girls." When Chris got back he called me and said "I did the only thing you told me not to do" and I said, sarcastically, "when are you getting married?" and he said, I met a girl and where getting married in four months." It was ill fated because I had a strange feeling before he left and his getting married forced me to have to find other musicians. I get "strange feelings" quite often.
This was the beginning of what I, and others, have called the "Maninblack curse" which is that I can't seem to hold on to any good members for any length of time.

And what about you? What kind of music are you into? Do you still consider yourself a skinhead?

I've never been a big music consumer, with the exception of my old and long gone vinyl Redskins and Oi collection, and these days, especially after 9/11, I'm more likely to have CNN news reports playing in the background rather than the radio or other music entertainment.
If I have to listen to music I prefer the music that inspired me to write the songs I wrote in The Press: original Oi, UK Punk, certain Reggae and Dub, Motown and Soul, Glam, although I'll refrain here from listing the various bands that were of obvious influence to me in The Press.
When I'm at my computer I sometimes listen to the internet radio station Total Punk Radio. As far as being a Skinhead goes, well, I still have a those goddamned tattoos!

I guess you and the rest of your band were in the original SHARP chapter. You were and still are a Socialist. I don't know the ideas of the rest of your band but with songs like "Revolution now" they obviously weren't against left-wing ideals.
There are other proofs about the original SHARP being neither pro- nor anti-socialist/communist with various skinheads who held different ideas but here in Italy lots of SHARP detractors claim that original SHARP was strictly anti-Communist and non-political which is obviously not true.
Can you tell us something about the way the original SHARP was?

The myth-conception about The Press was that we were all Communists when in fact it was just me and me alone that held any Socialist views and I had been a member of the International Socialist Organization (formerly the US branch of the Socialists Workers Party) for a brief period. Actually, early on some of the other members of The Press gave me a hard time about it but they were never able to back up their arguments which were based mostly in that they didn't like what some other people were saying. Although I feel that what other people think and say is important to a point, I don't think it's important enough to change your stance if you are committed. As with most things I like to stick to my guns. I think it's also important to note that in those days, almost 20 years ago now, there was no Redskin crews or anything even close to that in NYC, just me, and I didn't get a whole lot of support for what I was doing. A funny incident that I remember from back then was that at the request of a friend I went to speak on behalf of SHARP at a local Anarchists meeting and what was funny was that I went basically unnoticed throughout the meeting, sitting there surrounded by Punks and Hippies, until it was my turn to speak and I said something like "well, I'm a member of Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice" and they were all suddenly very upset that a Skinhead had infiltrated their meeting (even though I had been sitting there in plain view for most of the meeting) and then I added that I was a Socialist which didn't go over too well either.

As for SHARP I wouldn't say that they were ever particularly anti-left wing and as for myself being an early member that kind of disproves the detractors. In the beginning SHARP wasn't necessarily political although SHARP's mission would dictate that it would eventually need to become politically conscious. By the time that The Press played the SHARP national conference in Cincinnati things had evolved towards the left with the International Socialist Organization sponsoring that event although I had nothing to do with that collaboration. My guess is that at around that time certain people in and around SHARP realized that there needed to be a more politicized alternative to SHARP or at least individuals who were willing to take a stronger and more general anti prejudice stance, with the left often being the vanguard in such areas, hence RASH and other groups.

What took place at the SHARP national conference?

Basically the event was an organized get-together of several of the SHARP chapters around the US. In the afternoon we met at a university in Cincinnati, Ohio to discuss organizational procedures, Marcus Pacheco and myself, and other representatives of the various SHARP chapters spoke about our activities, and that night The Press headlined a show at a local venue.

What about Marcus? Little information exist about him except for some references in some SHARP web sites.

Marcus basically started SHARP here in NYC from a small crew of personal friends. They went to shows handing out flyers and recruiting members, making a show of force if nothing else, which meant a great deal in the beginning when people were fast to talk about anti-racism but slow to actually act on it. Marcus came up with the concept, designed a logo, had it made into patches, organized meetings, the activities, etc. Eventually the small crew became a group of about 30 or 40 individuals who met regularly with one another and many more who floated in and out. I know Marcus tried to keep things organized but eventually things got a little out of hand and as the organization got larger it became less organized. While Marcus was struggling to keep SHARP on course he was also working steadily as an up and coming tattoo artist (several of my tattoos, including The Press' logo were inked by him), so when the opportunity presented itself for Marcus to work under some of the world's better known tattoo artists he took it and these days he's Marcus a highly saught after tattoo artist. It's a little known fact that Marcus had also managed The Press for a short time.

And what about US SHARP today? It seems it's also living the very same contradictions it lived in other countries: kids fighting each other because of their different ideas instead of fighting the real enemy ...

As it is today SHARP is unorganized. It lacks any central body and for the most part anyone is free to slap a SHARP patch on their jacket and say they're a member of SHARP when the truth is that there is no actual organization to be a member of. There are individuals calling themselves SHARP, there are crews and small gangs calling themselves SHARP and there are even individuals, crews and gang who are all aquatinted with each other and calling themselves SHARP but for the most part they are all free to interpret "Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice" in their own way without having to answer to a recognized code of conduct. For some this lack of centralized organization might seem like a good thing but it's not when you you have people running around wearing the SHARP insignia and misrepresenting the cause.

Back to SHARP detractors ... Some emphasize things like "patriotism" and "gay bashing". Patriotism in not necessarily anti-left-wing and homophobia actually used to belong to some SHARP members and not to all of them. It also seems that one of the reasons from which RASH originated was that "gay bashing" lead to the death of a homosexual. What about such issues?

I heard about an incident involving SHARP members and gay bashing but at point I had not been involved with SHARP for quite some time. I'm not even certain as to what the circumstances were surrounding the incident however I figure that something like that was bound to happen once SHARP had grown beyond a group of people who basically all knew each other. By the time I stopped hanging out with the crew there were new faces showing up and a lot of people wearing the SHARP patch who had little or nothing to do with the organization. From what I've been told there was at least one gay SHARP member and a small but growing contingent of Redskins in NYC around the time after I became scarce.

What are you ideas about RASH? Are you more of a RASH type or do you still support more traditional ways to take a stand against the racist scum? (like SHARP, Trojan Skinheads, etc.)

I don't really know enough about RASH to talk about it and, unlike SHARP, I've had no personal involvement in the organization so I'll save my thoughts for a time after I've had some sort of interaction with them although I consider myself more of a Trotskyist than what they might find comfortable given their Anarchist and Stalinist elements.

In saying this I'm not trying to undermine what RASH and SHARP are trying to accomplish, and of course I have my own idea of how things should be done, but personally I would like to see both organizations become a bit more centralized and because of this, or the lack thereof, I'm not likely to throw my hat in with either organization at this time, although I would consider going so far as offering some sort of support for both. Either way I don't consider myself involved with anything unless it's on a face to face basis. On a personal level my stance against racism is that I just flat out refuse to deal with racist and after that I'm involved in a few minor activities, ones that I can't discuss.

Back to the old times ... What about The Radicts? From what I heard they were also into SHARP but their history was the opposite of The Press: they started with a large amount of support and ended with a small audience ... why? What are their former members currently doing? Are you in touch with any of them?

The Radicts' involvement with SHARP went as far as their involvement with The Press: they were along for the ride.

I know that you currently have another band, Maninblack. Can you tell us more about it?

Maninblack in many ways takes up where The Press left off and in other ways it's something completely different. In Maninblack I'm doing a lot of the things I wanted to do with The Press but was unable to due to personality conflicts and overall lack of cooperation. Like The Press, I'm singing in Maninblack but I'm also playing guitar synthesizer which for all intents and purposes is like having a keyboard player in the band and that's something I always wanted in The Press.
The sound of Maninblack is experimental to a certain extent within the confines of the styles of music we're playing.
Yes, I'm still very much into Oi and the early UK Punk sound but we're also playing more Reggae influenced songs. Again, this is a direction that I wanted to take in The Press but I was constantly being fought on this. Bands like Big Audio Dynamite, The Redskins, and later Blitz (the one that everyone seems to complain about: Second Empire Justice, etc.) were influential to me back then and now with the use of my Roland RR-33 guitar synthesizer, keyboards, electronic drums and drum machines, samples, computers, etc. I'm finally able to put those influences to paper.

I also see that you're co-operating with Garry Bushell, you're even part of his band The Gonads ... What about this collaboration? And how is it possible living in two different continents?

When I first launched the Maninblack website I sent out invitations to anybody and everybody who had ever been involved in Oi, and who had an eMail address, asking them to view the site. Garry Bushell was the only person to get back to me and he had given our song "New York, New York, USA," which we had just recorded, a great review. I had been a big fan of The Gonads since before I started The Press and songs like "Revolution Now!" were influenced by The Gonads' very dry and simple sound which is what I have always associated with Oi music. Over the next few months I stayed in contact with him and eventually floated some ideas his way such as our now upcoming "Bushell Of Oi!" compilation. While we were working on "Bushell Of Oi!" (and we're still working it at the time of this interview) The Gonads were seriously considering calling it quits. Bushell and I were talking about getting together in person for some collaborations such as his Streetpunk opera "Parousia," and a Garry Bushell solo project (GBX), as well as his continued influence in Maninblack, so I started sending him MP3s of particular The Press tracks and new demos from Maninblack and he really liked them.
This must have started Bushell's gears turning because the next thing I knew I had been recruited by The Gonads to collaborate on original songs the next CD with the addition of The Press's "Revolution Now!" and Maninblack's "This Is Oi! (Oi, That's Not Oi!)." As far as the production on the next The Gonads CD "Old Boots, No Panties" goes we're still working that out although it's obvious that I'll need to either fly to London or record my tracks separately here in New York City and of course I'll have to travel for any tours. Besides this Bushell and I are collaborating on several multi media projects, I've helped him promote his crime novel "The Face" and I'll be doing the same thing for the follow up "Two Faced" which is scheduled for release in the early Summer. Last but not the least of it all, Bushell has assumed the role of Maninblack's exploitive and opportunistic manager and spiritual guru (alias Baba Gal'Gonad), all in the grand tradition of B.T. Barnum and Arthur Daley.

Is there any US band you would support? Any european band you know and like?

I like a new band called The Bolsheviks from the UK, I like them a lot, so much so that The Bolsheviks and I are talking about some sort of collaboration in the near future. Until that happens The Bolsheviks will be appearing along with Maninblack on the follow up to "A Flame That Can't Be Dimmed: A Redskins Tribute" on Mad Butcher Records and "The Good, The Bad, & The 4 Skins ...Tribute" on Workers United Records. Other than that, and again, I'm not a big music consumer.
The last CD I bought was The Gonads "Schiz-Oi!-Phrenia" and only because The Gonads’ manager, Banjo Vic, had secretly diverted our meager expense funds to an investment in an offshore kebob factory to raise cash to bail out fellow Gonads member Clyde Ward who had been incarcerated for committing GBH on a meter maid in Southampton. Yeah, I know, it sounds complicated, that's because it is.

Can you tell us more about "The Good, The Bad, & The 4 Skins ...Tribute" and Workers United Records?

"The Good, The Bad, & The 4 Skins ...Tribute" is a compilation of 4-Skins songs recorded by 16 different bands. The CD will also feature liner notes by Hoxton Tom McCourt and a word or two from Garry Bushell. The CD is being produced by Workers United Records which is a small independent label out of Baltimore Maryland operated by Mike Ayers of the band Charm City Saints I'm pretty exited about the upcoming release, I think we were extremely fortunate to be able to get 4 Skins bassist and founder Tom McCourt to work on this with us and again we have Bushell's diabolical influence to thank for that. The CD is scheduled for release in late 2004.

Do you have anything to say to the old & new generation of skins and Oi! fans?

Well, to the old generation I'd say congratulations for for keeping the faith and having the minerals to stick to your guns after all the bullshit you've put up with and all the fakes and frauds out there trying to pass themselves off as the real thing and that goes especially for the Oi scene. To the new generation I'd say that this is your legacy and if you're still around in ten years, twenty years, then you'll have something to talk about.

The Press live stills are courtesy of André. Please refer to him and COTD if you decide to use them, or another part of this interview, on your site or publication.

• The Press interview
• Maninblack website
• What is SHARP

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