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 American Punk rock and hardcore band Ignite have been making music for over ten years and have a world-wide cult following that spans over 30 countries. They’ve released three albums and are currently touring the world with their fourth album Our Darkest Days.
Brett Rasmussen is the bass player for Ignite and he sat down with Komodo Rock's Lindsay Thomas to talk about everything from groupies to politics.
Lindsay Thomas: You guys have been around for a while – is this your first sold out show?
Bert Rasmussen: I don’t think so. It’s the first time we’ve headlined here in London in a long time, but I don’t know, maybe it is our first sold out show. I’m not sure. We’ve played some good shows here before.
LT: Do you have any fun or interesting memories from the times you’ve been to the UK or Europe?
BR: Last night was kinda funny. We played in Peterborough and the club, after it closed, let us basically take over the club and DJ and do the lights and everything so we kinda had a huge party last night with the band and a bunch of friends. It was a pretty fun night. There was actually some casualties. The drummer from one of the other bands kinda broke his ankle dancing to Michael Jackson, but you didn’t hear that from me.
LT: How would you compare the fans here to the fans in the states?
BR: Once the music starts it doesn’t matter to me – California, Buenos Aires, wherever. Everything goes into auto pilot. People really respond to music. I think the big difference over here and in Europe in general is that there’s not really a lot of violence at the shows like there is in America. We have a lot of fights at shows and it’s kind of a bummer. It’s nice that when we come over here we don’t have to break up fights or break shows up.
LT: There seems to be a lot of politics involved, even a sense of spirituality. What’s the background on that?
BR: That basically stems from our singer who brought that all to the table. He’s been involved with environmental groups like the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Earth First, and Doctors Without Borders, before we even started the band. He’s got a lot of different things to talk about. It’s a lot of fuel to write about.
On this record we ended up writing quite a few more personal songs than we have before. Usually we’ve kept it pretty political and social. This time we’ve delved into some more personal stuff, which is cool. For example, the title of the record, Our Darkest Days can be seen in two ways. The political and sociological aspect is basically what’s going on in the world. Our singer Zoli and the other guys think that things are going to get a lot worse in this world before they get better, hence the title of the album.
But actually, I think it’s kinda two sided because writing the record and the whole process of putting the record together was really tough. We lost some family members, we weren’t even sure if we were going to continue. It was kind of a description of the state of our band.
LT: Do you guys have any groupies?
BR: There’s male groupies that are super fans, but not in the sexual sense. They just like to hang out with the band and connect with the band. Sometimes they’re cool, but that’s two-sided too because you get the cool guys who like to hang out and then you get all the others that we call “punishers”…you get a couple “punishers” backstage and everyone is scrambling to hide. I think in any type of music there’s always going to be girls who want to come hang out with the band or whatever, and that’s cool.
LT: Is it ever anything more than just hanging out?
BR: Um…no comment!
I think women feeling pressured to sleep with the band is more prevalent in typical rock or metal, but in punk and hardcore it’s pretty PC. You don’t really have that element quite as much. You don’t have girls in the crowd showing their tits. There’s way more of a respect thing going on. It’s cool. We’ll stop a show if a girl stage dives and we see a guy grabbing her ass ‘cuz that’s bull shit. It’s just disrespectful.
LT: Do you find women act differently toward you because you’re in a band?
BR: We’re not a band that’s all over TV and radio. We play worldwide and have been to over 40 countries and have had a great career and everything, but I don’t think that you need a band in order to get a girl. It could be a good vehicle. There’s definitely girls who come to see the band who adore the band, but I think you could get a girl in every day life – it’s just not as easy.
LT: Touring can be really stressful. Do you do anything to relax and get yourself chilled out?
BR: Some of the guys work out a lot. I do a lot of stretching and kinda yoga based stuff, even though I’ve never actually taken yoga, although I’d love to. I just try to stay healthy and rest a lot.
LT: So no late night drunken parties then?
BR: Yeah there’s plenty of that. There’s plenty of late night partying. But I try to get as much sleep as possible. Our tour bus is giant. It’s a double decker with like 20 beds on it because there’s three bands on one bus plus crew. It smells really bad. This is our 46th show so our bus is ready to get burned.
LT: What bands inspire you as a musician?
BR: The first band I ever really got into was Joy Division and later on it was the Foo Fighters. I think they’re one of the best bands out there. They’re so good live and they’re good song writers. Dave Grohl is so talented and so they’re a really big inspiration for all of us in the band.
LT: If you could tell the world one thing, what would it be?
BR: I know it’s cliché and cheesy, but it’s a Lennon quote: “Give peace a chance.” We’re living in the most advance time in the world, technologically, yet there’s still war and bloodshed everywhere. So many people are getting killed over stupid causes and religious squabbles. It’s really sad that we’ve come so far but we still can’t figure out how to not have wars and how to not kill people.
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