From “Une vie pour rien? » n°4-March 1999

The Templars were created in April 92 when they play the first part of a hard-core concert. Phil (drums) and Carl (guitar / vocals) played together for 2 years. They had a few compositions and covers that Don, a mate contacted before to play the bass, will learn quickly. The name of the band comes from their passion for history and the middle age times. It's also to illustrate their "crusade" to prove that being skinhead is not a racist / politics matter.

Their main influences are Angelic Upstarts, Menace, The Clash, Skrew 77, the Strike, Cock Sparrer, the Rings, Criminal Class, Snix and little Bob story (?!). Compared to the American bands at that time that mixed oil! and hard core, the Templars search for a traditional oi! sound like old English bands. That's why they call their first demo in 1993 "pure brickwall oi!". This demo is recorded in their studio, which actually is Carl's cellar. They record all their albums there (except for the last one).

Don only plays for the concerts which means that before Perry's arrival, Carl was playing the bass in the studio. They also record some songs with some people passing through New York, such as Riton (West Side Boys) and Ivano from Asociale (the song they played together called "lavoro" has recently been released on the compilation EP "kill the boyscouts" and on a 45 released in 500 copies sold with the Italian fanzine "pinhead generation"). Just after their first one, they release the second one that is greatly appreciated. They are interviewed in "Un monstre est en moi", at that time the main French skinhead fanzine.

After their first EP, they released "poor knights of acre" which is maybe one of the most rare of the 90's (only 600 copies and re-released in 666 copies in 1998). The year after, they release a split EP with Oxblood, their friends. Their 1st album is released just after and makes a good score. At that time, the band plays many concerts, including shows with the Business, Red Alert (whom they release a split LP) and of course, with Oxblood.

In 95, Don leaves the band and Perry replaces him. At that time, Perry was doing the fanzine "carry no banners". Then, productions continue to be released as the time passes: The album "phase II" and many EP and splits. The demand is important and all the productions are re-released. In the beginning of 98, for the 1st time, the band records in a "true" studio, in Atlanta, for the label GMM that produces the album "omne datum optimum". To conclude, on the 13th March 99, the Templars came to Beauvais in France. It was the opportunity for us to ask some questions to the most productive band, and to our opinion, one of the best oi! Band of the 90's.

The Templars

Carl, you seemed nervous during the show, are you usually nervous?

Carl: No, I was nervous because there was no stage and I don't want to have my teeth knocked out by the microphone. It's happened before, but not bad. I know a lot of other people who have had their teeth knocked out by microphones.

How did you get a concert booked in Beauvais? Why only France, and not Germany?

Carl: Philippe Wagner is a friend of us. He organized the show and we are also friends with Gundog, and France is a great country. It was impossible to play London or Germany this time, and this show is all we are playing because we have to be back in school. We'll be back next time and we'll do more.

Are you all students? Perry, you look older...

Perry: Yeah, well I just fucked around for a few years and I got to go back to school and get educated.

C: He's the grandpa skin. 33 and still going strong.

Carl, do you have any contacts in Finland?

C: I do, but there are a lot of Nazis in Finland, and we like France…

Phil: The next guy who comes around knows the Templars because of Wagner and the Beauvais connection.

You live quite far each other, when do you have time to practice? And how do you do?

C: We live very far apart. We only rehearse before gigs and we didn't even get to rehearse before the show tonight. We just show up at shows, play, and it works. We don't practice because Phil lives in NY, Perry lives in Chicago, and I'm living in Seattle because I go to school. It's too far. Next year I'll be studying in Finland, but while I'm in Finland we can play Europe more because we'll only have to pay for Phil and Perry to come over.

How we do it is Phil and I will record the songs in my garage on an 8 track and we send the tape to Perry and he learns the basic lines for it, or Perry will send me tapes with songs he wrote. He'll send the base lines that he came up with lyrics and I'll come up with the guitar, then Phil and I record the songs and send them back to Perry. When we record, usually Phil and I improvise and record while we are playing, and if it sounds good, it works and we'll keep the song. It's a problem too because we'll have all these songs that we've recorded, but we never practice them. We've only played them once, so when we play a show we have to relearn them. It's a pain in the ass.

Do you always play the same songs at shows?

C+ Pe: No, not all the time, we usually mix it up and throw in two or three new songs. Tonight we played two French covers “Tous ensemble” (Komintern Sect) and “Vivre la bière,..”. (Skinkorps), but we had never practiced them or played them together, we just had tapes we listened to.

How many songs do you have? how do you do to write so many songs?

C: 100 something. We have a lot on our minds. You can just pick up a newspaper and say, “that's kind of fucked up, we should write about this. Can we do it?” The song we have, “Worth my while”, on Phase II, it's about me at a bar when I was trying to pick up this girl who I was talking with the whole night, but when the bar closed she said “well I'm going home whit my boyfriend now.” It made me really angry so I wrote a song about it.

In an interview you said that the fact that you record in your own studio is what makes the Templars sound different from other Oi bands, but the last album you recorded in a real studio. Do you think the sound will loose its character?

C: I had mixed feelings about it, I wasn't sure. Still when I listen to it, it's not really us, it's not the old Templars, but it's good for what it is. We are planning to go back to Atlanta in June or July to record again in the same studio, but I think we are going to do it a lot different this time: a different guitar sound, it won't be as distorted and we'll try to keep it more like our old sound, but better produced. The next full length CD is going to be on GMM, but different from the last one because that was the first time we spent doing a full album in a studio. We didn't know what we wanted from it and we were not as prepared as we should have been. I know what I want to do different now.

Will you stay with GMM or change to a stronger label?

C+Pe: The way it works with GMM is they will set up a show and fly us out to Atlanta and also pay for us to go into the studio, it's a good offer so you can't really say no, but with Vulture Rock it's a little more laid back. He just asks us if we have some songs, if we do we just send them and if it's good he'll put it out. Mark from GMM has already pressed 5000 CDs of the album that just came out, and he has already gotten rid of a good 3000. Vulture Rock only puts out vinyl which is harder to distribute than CDs, whereas GMM can sell CDs to the big places like Tower Records and Virgin Records.

You seems to be vinyl collectors, isn't it a probleme for you to have some of your albums only on CDs?

C: Phil collects a lot of vinyl, but I like CDs because the sound is better. When I listen to our songs on vinyl it sounds different than the way we recorded it and something is lost because when you put songs on vinyl the sound is speed up so that it can fit on a record.

What French Oi bands do you listen to? Which bands influenced you in Europe and in the U.S.?

C+Pe: Komintern sect, Trotskids, Camera Silens, all those old French bands are great. As for new bands: P38, 8°6crew, we saw them last night with Hepcat, also, tonight the Teckels played really well.

We listen to a lot of different music besides Oi: everything from Lynyrd Skynyrd, Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, Celtic and Scandinavian folk music, right on to 70s punk, early Oi, like the Angelic Upstarts, the Cockney Rejects, and the 4skins. As for other U.S. bands: early Iron Cross, the Effigies, TSOL, Black Flag, and the Anti-Heroes.

I read in interviews that you were influenced by Skrewdriver and Ultima Thula. Has that caused any problems for the band?

C: It's music. I don't know why people get so uptight. If you are so stupid that music tells you how to think, come on! Look at a lot of rap music. If you listen to a lot of what they are saying, it's fucking stupid and makes no sense. There is something about the music that makes it good. We are trying to be honest, every skinhead I know listens to Screwdriver. They might not say it, but I know they do. Just because you listen to a certain type of music shouldn't cause problems.

A lot of those Redskins are Nazis on the other end, and they are just as bad. You can be a bigot against different races or against people with different political views, but it's still hate, only one is more politically correct than the other is. Everyone has their own views and that's fine, but you have to respect other people's views. If you don't, you are just making it harder for the rest of us who just want to hang out and have a good time. Fights happen and it's not always wrong, but it is if you start with someone for no reason. You can be a Redskin if that's what you believe in, but the problem is that you're fucking with everyone else who's not what you are. We could go around beating up Nazis, and if we did, after we beat them up, they would still be Nazis, and they'd come back looking for us, so what's the point?

You seem very different from a lot of the other american bands that only sing about beer and fighting. Did you have problems because of bad reputation of New-York skinheads?

C: That's because we're not that way. We don't go out and beat everyone up. Some guys are like that because that's what they want to do, so they sing about it. I'm not going to sing about something that I don't so. It's hard to get gigs now because of a lot of fights that have broken out at shows. In New York we couldn't play anywhere for a year. The clubs thought that all of the problems were related to Oxblood, and they knew that if we played, Oxblood would be there because they are friends of ours. It wasn't true, but that's what they saw.

In particular, in the song “Easy way out”, you say “there is no pride in ignorance, strength is in independence,” that's not usual for U.S. Oi bands, or Oi bands in general...

C: That's me and that's the way I think. A lot of people I know are smart and I see them going down hill with their life, not trying to do anything, accept drink themselves to death and getting into trouble, winding up in jail, and ending up dead. They think that's the skinhead way, but why think that way just because it was in some book or because some band said that is the way that you are supposed to be. You've got to think for yourself.

Have you played a lot in the U.S.?

C+Pe: No, because we all go to school and we all work. You can't drop everything and go on tour. We are very busy outside the band, but we play as often as we can. When we first started we played a lot, but mostly in New York and New Jersey. We don't any more because we are so spread out, but we managed to play 8 shows last year. Now we play more outside of New York, because Phil is the only person in New York right now. So, in the past year we played Washington D.C.; Atlanta, Georgia; Phoenix, Arizona, and two in California: San Francisco, and Sacramento.

What's the NY scene like now? Is it still what it used to be?

C+Pe: NY was the strongest scene, but it has mellowed down a lot in the last couple of years, only because all of the older skins who were around at that time are getting even older. Not as many young people are taking our place, and that's the problem. I've seen so many skinheads come and go. At one time we had bands like the Press, the Radics, YDL, but that died out in 1992. There was also Oxblood, First Strike, and Bottom of the Barrel.

Which Templars records do you think are the best?

C: Normally I can't listen to anything that the Templars do because it's me, but sometimes I have to listen to them so I can relearn the songs. We have a lot of songs that have never been released. If we can continue putting them out, and if people still want to listen, we will keep writing more songs. Hey, when we get bored, we'll become a cock-rock metal band, as long as it's still fun. Some of our favorite songs are “easy way out”, “pawns in the game”, and “Land of the morning calm “, a true story which was written by Jeff from 90 Proof. He was in the Army and was stationed in Korea, nicknamed land of the morning come. He had to leave his wife and two kids in America and spent a year in Korea. He wrote the song on the plane to Korea and sent me the lyrics.

We had a great time, thanks to everyone in France; everyone has been really cool. Thanks to everyone who came over to see us, it was a great time.

Gig in Beauvais on march 20th 1999

For the first time, the Templars are in Europe and thanks to Phil Wagner, the show can take place in Beauvais, located at 80 km north of Paris. It was impossible for us Parisians to miss it. The parisian skins show up, along with skins from all over the country. There are about 30 Germans, and even 2 swedish guys who know Carl Templar. The show takes place in a friendly bar, the place quickly becomes very crowded with about 140 people. Originally, Phil and Hervé were looking for a larger venue in the suburbs of Paris but they didn't find it so, probably also for problems of security, they organized it as a semi-private gig (tickets sold only before the gig). The show begins with Les Teckels, a parisian band, actually the best oi! band in France. The parisians enjoy whereas the others discover with pleasure. After comes Stomper 98, the special guest, a new german oi! band with saxophones. They have just released their first EP. Gungod played very well with as usual many covers, Combat 84, Last Resort and "mémoire d'un skin" of RAS with their manager, Hervé (who is french), singing. The audience enjoy, and everyone is now ready for the Templars.

The room was too small, there wasn't any stage and the heat was stifling but what a great show! The Templars play all their best songs, the audience is very pleased and now all the songs and covers: "Keep on running" of Crux, the classic "Violence in our minds", "Vive la bière…" of Skinkorps (in french of course). All these songs keep the crowd moving. But after, "tous ensemble" of Komintern Sect is played, wich is in perfect harmony with the current atmosphere in the room: everybody is singing so loud that we can't hear the music. And Carl was worried before the concert of forgetting the lyrics!…