Interview w/ Daniel Albaugh formerly of Die Young, now of Band of Mercy

*Daniel, or the Reverend White Devil as some may know him...is a cool fellow and a good pal. Here he shares some insight on some wacky topics in one of my favorite interviews for Slightly Jaded thus far, enjoy it*

SJ: What are your thoughts on the current state of hardcore?

No comment. It's best that way.


SJ: So Die Young is now obsolete, and as many may already know you usually toured 364 days a year and were used to regularly playing the whole USA, Europe, Mars, etc etc. Tell me how life has been without Die Young?


Well, for starters I have more money haha. I am still traveling a bunch for my job with PETA, and I am still doing things I care about doing for change in the world, and I am still doing music--but the music has taken a sideline to my job with PETA. What I miss the most about DY is just getting on stage and losing my mind for 30 minutes, and saying whatever I wanted. I find myself less stressed out these days since I am working with a lot of positive people all the time for justice for animals, but I will always be angry and bitter about things to some extent. Playing live shows really helped me let that frustration out. I think I spend more time working out now instead to make up for not being able to play shows. Sometimes I am out on the road with PETA and kids recognize me at an event, and that makes me miss playing even more. I don't see Jeff and Kayhan much anymore since they live in Alabama and we aren't in a van together every other month. I miss those dudes often. But overall, life is actually good without DY, just a different kind of good than when we were on the road, in random parts of the world, living like pauper kings.


SJ: What ultimately led to the end of Die Young?

It was actually well planned out since the end of 2007. That was when we started talking about "exit stategy" anyway. We never planned to make a career out of a political hardcore band. Anyone who would do such a thing is not only crazy, but also really stupid. From the start, I wanted to take the DY ride as long and as far as I could, and after Graven Images came out I started to see the end of the line coming up for us. Graven Images was our defining collective statement as a band. And we toured like crazy on that album--more than we ever had before. We got to a point where we realized we had done most of what we wanted to do as a band, and to a point where things didn't feel too much like fun anymore. We knew that we couldn't keep doing the DIY circuit, playing houses all the time without exhausting that DIY scene of seeing us. We knew we'd have to look into "playing the game" of management and booking more if we wanted to expand our audience and get out to new ears and faces. And that really wasn't an option we ever took seriously. We were a get-in-the-van-and-GO kind of band. We didn't want anyone else to have their hand in guiding our mission. So we started talking about breaking up at the end of 2007, to try and end things before they got too pathetic haha. We decided to do one last EP and to do a few more tours--one in North America, and atleast a couple international to check those things off our list of things that we'd be unhappy for not doing if we had opted to not do them. We didn't end up going back to Asia because of money issues, which still bums me out some, but we toured Europe twice more, and South America, and the last North American tour we did was really eventful and successful in terms of leaving on a good note.

SJ: So you do a little work with PETA, tell me a little about that and what you do exactly.

Basically, I am a tour manager for the peta2 division of PETA. That's the youth outreach division, so it focuses on reaching kids of high school and college age about animal rights issues. I get in a van with several other young people who want to get out in the world and promote veganism and animal rights, and we talk to kids on concert tours that peta2 sponsors, or we work at universities, often with student groups, to affect some kind of local issue concerning veganism or animal rights. We gather a lot of petition signatures, answer questions people have, and give them free media to check out concerning animal rights.


SJ: Have you yet to convert any Juggalos or nu-metal fans to vegetarianism or veganism? And do you feel like you're now a prophet of a cruelty free and meat free lifestyle, or more of a dude hanging out doing his job?

I will always be some sort of a dude hanging out haha, but it is important to impact and inspire people too. Most people care about issues concerning animals being abused on some level, whether they eat meat or not. It's important to approach people on whatever level they're at, and make them understand that animal rights isn't just something "hippies" and "gays" care about (or whatever fucking stupid steretype some people have). Most people just need to realize that they do actually care about animals, too. I've had some interesting conversations in the last year and a half with hunters, medical students, and animal agriculture students, (juggalos too!), and more, and I won't say I regularly convert these people to vegetarianism, but I think it is important to find the right dialogue to make these people--who are often in support of killing animals or animal testing--realize that they do care about animals in some way, and to make them make the connection about the injustices going on. To get anyone to take any step reduce animal suffering in their lives is important, because the animals in factory farms, breeding mills, fur farms, and laboratories,need whatever mercy they can get urgently. I don't think it would be possible for me to make those connections with people if my co-workers and I were coming at them from a holier than thou perspective.

SJ: You have a new band called Band of Mercy, what are your plans for this? Will relentless touring ever return to the list of priorities or are you tired of such things?

Relentless touring will not ensue. I think my work with PETA is far more important than any kind of DIY hardcore band I could do at this point, and I was lucky to have experienced a lifetime's worth of experiences in DY, and I am happy to leave that at that. But there will be some touring for Band of Mercy, hopefully in 2011. We won't be everywhere, but we will try to get around some for everyone's enjoyment. I think the songs we are writing are a lot of fun, and it would be great to share them in a live setting.


SJ: Lets say the entire hardcore scene was ONE dude. He embodied everything about todays hardcore: the music, the merch, everything. What advice would you give him?

I wouldn't give advice, just a list of orders. I'd tell him to quit buying stupid cliche merch with no creativity from bands who write cliche flavor of the week bullshit. I would be sure to tell him what bands too, haha. I'd tell him to stop wearing flat-brimmed hats and thinking he is hard, or pretending that he isn't white. I'd tell him to read more books, go vegan, and get involved with some sort of activism--human, environmental or animal related. I'd probably have to tell this douchebag he needs to stay away from cocaine and other hard drugs, unfortunately. It would be a lot of work on my end to reform this asshole.


SJ: Tell me of the oddest, wackiest show you have ever played.

I think one of the only times that we collectively looked at each other on stage and asked each other why the fuck we were playing this specific show was in May 2006 in Fairbanks, Alaska. Please have a look at a map to see exactly where Fairbanks is if you are reading this. It's in the middle of Alaska, and there is no hardcore scene there. Die Young played there. Don't ask why. Maybe we did it just to do it and say we did it. We were actually supposed to play two shows there, but the second got shut down by the cops before anyone played. Okay, so this first show was in a rustic looking bar. One band opened for us that played Avenged Sevenfold covers. Their families and girlfriends came to see them play, and needless to say, those people checked the fuck out of the bar when Die Young started playing haha. As if this wasn't bad enough--that we were playing to ten 30-40 year old people in the middle of nowhere, we had to play two sets because it was a bar and they wanted live music to keep the bar open. So we played the same set back to back with an hour intermission or something. There were some cougars there who kept yelling for us to take off our shirts. They were the only people that supported us for either set. That was probably the only 21+ show we ever played. Never again. We ended up staying at one of the cougar's apartments the next night haha.


SJ: Who do you think has the BEST veg eats in america?

New York City easily. There's too many good spots there to list. But I do have to say that The Veggie Grill in Los Angeles metro makes Southern California one of my favorite destinations for vegan fare. i could eat at The Veggie Grill every day.

SJ: Do you think that aliens...or should I say "other intelligent life"...exists out there in space, on earth, or in other dimensions all around us? Why or why not?

I think that aliens are already here--they are just viruses, airborne or otherwise. Those are some pesky intelligent lifeforms who adapt faster than we can eradicate them. The concept of aliens doesn't have to some weird green space guy with big eyes. It can be any form of life that we haven't encountered yet, or even the seemingly hard to understand forms of life already among us. If you think about viruses, they are pretty intelligent lifeforms, and they will likely wipe a lot of us out of existence in the next century because we can't see them, and we often don't suspect them. Plus, we increase our vulnerability to viruses by living in cities by the millions, and by having factory farms where we raise sick, tortured animals by the billions. Ever heard of avian flu or swine flu? Of course you have. Thank factory farms for that shit.

SJ: Recently a fuckin ton of oil was uh...accidentally spewed into the waters of the gulf coast. This is just one of the many reasons why humanity is a waste of space. What are your thoughts on the current state of humanity?

There's some good people in the world, but not nearly enough to make this a peaceful place to live among other consistently kind and rational people. There's a lot of people out there who mean well or have good intentions, but they just don't "get it," so they make me feel hopeless on some levels, for sure, because how far can we get with changing things if the people who care on some level are incapable of making simple changes in their lives? Then there's just some major assholes out there who don't give a fuck about anything but themselves, and a lot of them write policies that dictate our lives, or a lot of them just do whatever it takes to make the most money possible, no matter who or what it hurts...kinda like this BP situation. Let's just say I am "not too stoked" on people as a whole, and I don't foresee that changing...possibly ever. I am lucky though to have a good family, and be surrounded by a lot of dilligent and compassionate people where I work.


SJ: Will the aliens ever come down and help us, or are we doomed for all time?

The aliens, whatever form they come as, will most certainly be out to destroy us...probably just for fun...as they likely should.

SJ: Scenario: you murder and decapitate 50 men and mail all of their heads to 50 senators of 50 states. You end up on death row. It's your last day of life. What will be your final meal?

Mo Mong is a vietnamese/thai restaurant in Houston. They have the best tofu dish ever--Tofu Luc Lac. It's basically garlic tofu, but it's really indescribable how they make it. I will be having Tofu Luc Lac with brown rice, lemon pepper dipping sauce, and their tamarind soup with pineapples, okra, celery, and beansprouts. I'd be feeling pretty kick-ass and ready to die then.


SJ: That's all I've got, thanks for the words and feel free to include any recommended books or films here. Peace!

I'm going to call on the reader here to recommend these books to people they know who need to be more "in-the-know" about animal rights and veganism:

For the common person who likes a fun read: "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer
For the christian or religious fanatic: "Dominion" by Matthew Scully
For the nerd, philosophy student, or science-loving vulcan: "Animal Liberation" by Peter Singer
For the people who think animal rights activists are terrorists: "Free the Animals" by Ingrid Newkirk
For the jock: "Meat is for Pussies" by John Joseph
For the soccer mom and/or her daughter: "Skinny Bitch" by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin

And of course, if you're not vegan yet, pick any or all of these books and get to reading. Thanks!

*You can download Daniels new bands demo here: http://rapidshare.com/files/342203238/Band_of_Mercy_DEMO_2009.zip They will be recording a 7 inch real soon so keep your ear to the ground. To hear his previous band Die Young go to myspace.com/dieyoungtxhc*