The First Step – “Everything we have in us has a place in punk because it is ours”

With “What We Know”, The First Step released one of the best hardcore albums of 2006 without changing the concept of hardcore in any way – this is good, old school hardcore like Minor Threat and Bad Brains played it 20+ years ago, and the amazing thing is, it sounds just as fresh. From North Carolina, these 4 guys hoist the straight edge flag high, and true to the genre, they actually have something tos ay in their lyrics. Stephen St.Germain took time to set the record straight.

By Jon A

LowCut: Congratulations with “What We Know”. This is your debut full-length album, are you happy with it?

Stephen St.Germain: Yeah! We are really happy with how it turned out. The recording, layout, music and lyrics came out so well. Kyle over at Rivalry has done such a great job with getting it out to people which is awesome cause it’s something we want people to hear!

LowCut: For how long have you been playing as The First Step?

SSG: We started practicing in December 2000 and recorded our demo and played our 1st show in early 2001.

LowCut: Is the name The First Step a reference to Minor Threat’s “Out of Step”? Rather than seeing yourself as an outsider, seeing yourself as the avant-garde? What you describe as “standing on a solid foundation built on caring, honesty, the edge, and dedication”?

SSG: No actually, although I fully support any references to Minor Threat. We really choose the name because it spoke to a central feeling within our group of friends: that whatever you wanted from life, whatever goals, aspirations or even hardships you had all of them requires taking that leap of faith, taking the first step in a new direction. We really felt (and still feel) like individuals could make a real difference in their own lives, their own community or in the larger world community if they just had courage to take that responsibility into their own hands. That feel of the possibility of positive change has remained a real central theme within The First Step.

LowCut: What does the Straight Edge philosophy mean to you?

SSG: You know, at a time it just meant not smoking, drinking or doing drugs. Just that cut and dry. I guess over time as I’ve gotten older and been faced with the question is this something for “then” or is it a part of how I view my life and now I don’t really think about it day to day cause it’s really just become so much of who I am. I have no interest in any of that stuff but if anything I really look at it as a stepping stone. With that clear mind I can either just fall in line with a different norm and follow that blindly or I can use that clear view to better look at my life, the way I live it and the way I fit into this world. I’ve really chose to do the latter because, to me, being sober has always made sense but being sober and a clone is really not much different than being drunk and being a clone. I don’t want to be either: I want to be sober and a free thinking individual.

LowCut: sXe has been criticized a lot over the years, most notably Craig O’Hara in his “The Philosophy of Punk”, for being, I quote: “A movement that went from being a Minor Threat to a conservative, conformist no threat”. Many punks like O’Hara see the sXe scene as self-righteous, violent, and homophobic. How do you counter this notion of sXe?

S: Here is the thing, I don’t think kids not drinking ever made them a threat (or make them a threat now). I think the kids who really made a dent then or now are the ones who cared more about what was going on in their towns or their world and decided to work to make a change. Were a lot of those kids straight edge? Sure. Were a lot not edge? Sure. But I think that it goes without saying that there is no way to really make a sweeping generalization of straight edge because there are several different scenes of kids who are straight edge within the punk/hardcore umbrella. So in many ways that sort of statement is totally unfair but I do see a bunch of apathetic, homophobic, insecure-so they’re violent people who call themselves straight edge and think that that label somehow means they are walking a different path than everyone else in society. It’s really a sham the way a lot of kids/bands who say they are straight edge seem to stand for nothing positive and have no interest in tuning in the rest of the world but would rather just use hardcore/straight edge as a place to hide that doesn’t challenge them to do something real. That sounds harsh I know, but I guess this sort of topic has been on my mind lately cause there are a lot of people in the scene now that really are just sound and no fury, no substance. That is the last thing I need or this world needs. Things are very fucked up nowadays and we need people who really care about the world and the people in it. Straight edge can be a real powerful way to live life or very hollow. I really believe that all people, even the people who look at straight edge in a very shallow, self-serving way have the potential to wake up and do better things. I hope they will! I hope all of us continue to strive to do better!

LowCut: A lot of sXe bands and scenesters have taken the logical next step from sXe to Buddhism. How do you feel about this? Does religion have a place in punk?

SSG: I wasn’t aware that this was something many people did. I can think of one semi-prominent hardcore kid, Jimmy Yu who played with Judge, who eventually became a Buddhist. I guess Tomas Squip from the Dischord band Beefeater was really into Buddhist philosophy too. But those are really the only ones I can think of. Anyways, I felt like Buddhism is something that makes, for me. Maybe not to everyone. Buddhism and the ideals contained therein can have a very profound, powerful affect on a person’s life. To me, it holds so many explanations as to why life is the way it is, why we suffer, how we can stop being attached to everything we encounter, how we can understand ourselves and our existence better and so much more. But it has also got to be the right time for each person, when someone is at a point in his or her life where they connect with the Dharma (the Buddhist teachings). We are not always in the right frame of mind where something like that makes sense. Other times we are. As to religion’s place in punk, I do think punk is an expression of individuality and non-conformity and if this includes spiritual beliefs then of course it has a place in punk. Everything we have in us has a place in punk because it is ours. I support someone’s right to free speech but I don’t really think very highly of people who try to use punk to convert people to a specific religion. There is a difference between leading by example and actively trying to use punk to support a larger agenda.

LowCut: The bands/people I was thinking of were 108, Cro-Mags, Youth of Today, and Vinnie Signorelli of Unsane.

SSG: Just to clarify: 108, Cro-Mags, YOT they are all Hare-Krishna which is completely different from Buddhism. They both started in India but are much different from one another.

LowCut: There’s a pervading positive spirit to a lot of proto-sXe bands like Minor Threat, 7 Seconds, and Bad Brains, that I hear carried on in your music?

SSG: Yeah. We’ve got the PMA. We aren’t that way because they were but because that is the kind of people we are. Life is never easy, but choosing to focus only on the negative is a real dead end.

LowCut: It wouldn’t be unfair to call The First Step pretty old school musically, would it? What is it about this sound that makes you carry on the torch today?

SSG: Yeah our music is certainly in that vein. We aren’t really interested in carrying on a torch though. We just want to play music we love: hardcore. And we want to stand for positive change and sing about what we believe and try to make our corner of the world a little better. This sound is something we really love but the spirit is what makes this music transcendent and undeniable.

LowCut: How do you feel about the old school-ness that’s manifest in hardcore today? Has hardcore become too fixed as a genre, the way you see it, relying too heavily on genre traditions?

SSG:Yeah totally. So many people are really content with being “band X” for 2006, musically. While some of the music is really awesome they don’t “make it theirs”. Meaning that they just fill a mold and fail to lyrically speak to who they are. They just write lyrics that fit the music, which makes it pretty weak, in my opinion. I don’t think there is anything wrong with playing a certain style of music but I think as a community we’ve all got to get out of the mindset that “this is how it is, this is how a band operates, exists, what they sing about etc.” I think we all forget from time to time, I know I have at times, that hardcore/punk is simply about creating something that is yours outside of someone else’s rules or expectations. This can be what we want it to be. It’s sad when it becomes very confined and less of an open community. Because it really loses what made it anything different than loud music.

LowCut: At the moment, hardcore, and especially metal core, seems to be experiencing a peak period, at least sales- and release wise. How do you feel about this?

SSG: I’ll be honest, I didn’t know that. I hope it reaches some people who connect this and it makes them feel a part of something real and they take that to heart.

LowCut: To me, there appears to be two distinct ways of seeing hardcore: In 'American Hardcore,' Stephen Blush declared it an over-with art form after '86, whereas in the Refused movie 'Refused Are Fucking Dead,' the moral is that Refused never got to realize their Full potential, so it's up to the young bands in the scene to carry on the torch. I suppose you'd stick with the last view?

SSG: People are always going to look at something as dead when their time has past. I think Ian Mackaye was right when he said that a band now was already more important than a band from the past because they were doing it now. It’s really easy to say that the past was better but it takes a lot more effort, hard work and courage to do something about it now!

LowCut: There's a great divide between the underground hardcore punk scene and the clean cut MTV bands. Do you see MTV “punk” as in some way an introduction to hardcore for the kids in the suburbs, or are the two completely incompatible to you?

SSG: I mean I hope it serves as an introduction because, to me, it really has very little value otherwise. I hope kids see that many of those people aren’t the real deal and that their clothes/haircuts don’t make them alternative.

LowCut: There’s also a lot of hatred towards emo and emo kids within hardcore. What’s your view on this?

SSG: I think it’s stupid. People should be free to be into whatever they are into and people should respect that. We all should. I mean yes, a lot of current emo (which isn’t really even emo like from the mid 90s) is pretty much a total scam in that it’s something that people try to make seem “alternative” but it’s not at all. But really, if people are into stuff like that then, that’s cool. I think hardcore kids in general should worry more about making themselves better people and less about what other people are into/not into (racism, sexism etc. would be an obvious exception to this rule)

LowCut: There seems to be a strong patriot sentiment running through a lot of US hardcore, with bands like Agnostic Front, Biohazard et al, which is somewhat scary to look at from Europe. What are your feelings on this?

SSG: I completely understand being proud of the place you are from, the people you live with and all that. But even if you didn’t look at the current US government, most governments in most countries are not really looking out for their citizens they are trying to keep themselves in power and to make money. So to say you love America, while people may not mean they love the government, that connotation is undeniable. Ever since 9/11 the attitude of America being an “omniscient, always right and justified” nation has been much stronger and that is disheartening and scary to see because so many horrible things have been done by this administration and for anyone to condone that is just sad. But all this is impermanent so this too will pass.

LowCut: Also, we have seen some violence in the hardcore scene with gang relations and karate slamming. Where do you stand on this? Has it been blown out of proportion?

SSG: I am not really up to date on what has been going on as far as gangs in hardcore, I have seen some evidence but I really don’t have a lot of first hand knowledge. Violence at shows can really kill the potential for a show to be a place where people can exchange ideas (listen to the Our Turn 7” on Youngblood for a great song about scene violence; Carl says it perfectly). I understand that hardcore makes people excited and they want to express that physically but there is a big difference between wanting to dance and having no regard for the people who also came to enjoy the music. I am very much for people getting together and accepting each other’s difference but I don’t support fighting violence with violence or just allowing it to go on. We should all cut that weed before it grows by creating a scene separate from the one that allows people to be violent at shows. People should never allow other people to control something that they love and that’s what violence at shows and violence anywhere does.

LowCut: What does the immediate future hold for The First Step?

SSG: We’ve got a lot of new songs that we are starting to work on for another record. We are going to do a 3-4 song ep first then maybe something else afterwards. Other than that we are just playing shows whenever we can. We’d like to make it overseas again really soon!

“What We Know” is out now on Rivalry Records (Target Distribution). See review in LowCut # 38.

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