Sooper Records cofounder Glenn Curran speaks elaborately with conviction and altruism about what drives him and his partners to pour their heart and soul into the super-duper Sooper Records—and release albums they believe in, as art for art’s sake. Read my profile on the bespoke Chicago label for Music Connection.
Archive for the Interviews Category
Sooper Records Pursues ‘Authentic Expression[s] of the Human Experience’
Posted in Interviews with tags Sooper Records on 07/24/2025 by Kurt OrzeckOn Tyranny: Haggus Frontman Blasts Punk Bands’ Silence on Gaza, ICE
Posted in Features, Interviews, On Tyranny with tags Haggus on 07/11/2025 by Kurt Orzeck“If you use weak-ass, purposely offensive artwork or lyrics just to ‘shock’ people, or stay silent during times like this in attempt to walk the fence in fear that your reputation might be tarnished, then fuck you. We don’t want or need you as a peer.”
-Haggus’ Hambone
Haggus is the band leading the charge for “mincecore,” a form of “grindcore,” to be accepted by the punk underground community. But founder Hambone doesn’t mince words when it comes to Nazis, racists, bigots, sexists and other propagators of hate. To paraphrase the admirable musician, they can all fuck off.
Three weeks ago, shortly after the Oakland band released its new album Destination Extinction on Tankcrimes, Hambone spoke in great length with The Bad Penny about Haggus, the band’s history, his views on punk music, and just about every other issue under the sun.
Buckle up, kiddos. You’re able to hear the straight dope from a wicked talented musician who has no tolerance for dopes.
Continue readingAustere Say Their DIY Decision Spawned LP They Had Always Wanted to Make
Posted in Interviews with tags Austere on 07/11/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
If there’s one thing we’ve to come to expect from a studio album by black-metal duo Austere, it’s that it’ll be a no-nonsense affair that eschews humor in favor of maintaining a laser-like focus on cerebral, emotional, and even spiritual growth. In our recent exchange with the Australian duo–consisting of Tim Yatras (drums/keyboards/vocals) and Mitchell Keepin (guitars, bass, keyboards, vocals)–we discovered that, as human beings, they as direct as their no–frills music.
The symmetry between art and the personality of the artist who created it is not to be confused with what corporate suits call “on brand.” Those shysters insist that artists, in order to make a living, must prove their artistic mettle in tandem with their ability to socialize and hock their wares–honest advertising be damned.
Continue readingPygmy Lush Share Conspiracy Theories About JFK, UFOs
Posted in Interviews with tags Pygmy Lush on 07/10/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Hear the entirety of a dusted-off Pygmy Lush album the band hadn’t previously released, read about their theories on the JFK assassination, and learn why every “UFO sighting” isn’t to be believed in my FLOOD interview with the recently reunited experimental hardcore punk posse.
Mark Mallman Says ‘Suffering Artists’ Are a Myth, Making Art Isn’t a ‘Job’
Posted in Features, Interviews, On Tyranny with tags Mark Mallman on 07/09/2025 by Kurt Orzeck“This myth of the ‘suffering artists,’ the myth of Van Gogh and ideas like this—perpetuated by Hollywood—have become abstracted. It guilt-trips us all into thinking that if our art is our job, it lacks purity, and purity is the highest art form. But really, all we’re doing is trying to manifest joy, or insight, or translate the human experience.” Read more of my interview with Mark Mallman on New Noise.
Crystal Viper Conjure ‘Pure Magic’ with Live LP
Posted in Interviews with tags Crystal Viper on 07/09/2025 by Kurt OrzeckThe nine tracks featured on The Live Quest provides arbiters who dare distinguish “good metal” from “bad metal” with an ample amount of evidence that Crystal Viper firmly belong in the former bracket. Read my New Noise interview with the band’s leader.
Ex-Gram Rabbit Leader Jesika von Rabbit on the Heartache of Losing Her Pet
Posted in Interviews with tags Gram Rabbit, Jesika von Rabbit on 07/07/2025 by Kurt OrzeckJesika von Rabbit recently reached out to New Noise say she enjoys our Pet Sounds series and wanted to pay homage to her recently deceased pet, Buzz (who, for the record, was a cat and not a rabbit).
Sheer Mag Guitarist Sheds Light on Side Project SJB Like Never Before
Posted in Interviews with tags Sheer Mag, SJB on 07/07/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
It could be argued—hell, let’s have it out right now; why wait for a rainy day?—that there’s actually no better time for a musician to launch a side venture when their primary project is experiencing peak success. Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme pulled it off with Them Crooked Vultures and Eagles of Death Metal. Jack White kept his seat with the White Stripes warm while engaging in extracurricular activities with the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather. And Chino Moreno put them all to shame by dividing his time between Deftones, Team Sleep, Crosses, Palm s and Saudade. And you have the nerve to call yourself busy?
The latest band to experience the music equivalent of polyamory is Sheer Mag. The Philadelphia punk-rock posse quickly started gaining traction less than a year after congealing in a dilapidated house in which they creatively made room for a studio too. Slipknot started out in a similarly shared dwelling, and it took them about four years of surviving their hellhole before terrestrial radio came a knockin’. Sheer Mag managed to do it in less than half that time, finding themselves transported to Coachella and a late-night TV talk show only two years after they set sail with their band.
Continue readingShearling Frontman: ‘We Didn’t Have Anything Left to Lose’
Posted in Interviews with tags Shearling, Sprain on 07/06/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
The two principal members of Shearling, a new band formed after the demise of Sprain, recently shed a lot of light on their ambitious, hour-long, single-track debut album, Motherfucker, I am Both: “Amen” and “Hallelujah”… Read my recent FLOOD interview, the first one the band gave in support of their debut album, for more.
Pretty Rude Wake Up and Smell Their Dreams Coming True
Posted in Interviews with tags Pretty Rude on 07/06/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
There’s a default word that society uses when it deems someone to be neither pretty nor rude: mediocre. Unlike the gnarly way that the badass villains in Fury Road employ the term as a cutting insult, in real life, the term is—in the common parlance of our times boring. So, while the guys in the band at issue in this feature story might not exactly make hearts go a-twitter when they saunter down sidewalks or even grace stages at music venues, they seemed far more polite than rude when The Bad Penny caught up with them a month ago. “Mediocre” was the one of the last words we’d reach for to describe them.
A far better descriptor for Pretty Rude would be “ballsy.” Brooklynites James Palko and Matt Cook connected less than a year ago to form Pretty Rude, signed with revered, 30-year-old punk label SideOneDummy Records in February. Just a few days later, they introduced themselves and showed their sweet side by presenting their first release—a self-titled EP—on Valentine’s Day. A pretty rude gesture that most certainly was not.
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