EARTH CRISIS tends to provoke extreme responses from music aficionados. Some bemoan their unwavering support of animal rights and straight edge, while others tattoo the band's name on their face.. I fell somewhere into the former category before I conducted this interview, but after a good, long conversation with EARTH CRISIS guitarist Scott Crouse, I realized my opinion of the band had been strongly influenced by internet shit-talkers. Crouse is an intelligent, polite person who happens to shoulder a strong distrust of authority, and vehemently opposes cruelty to animals; he is nothing like the extreme portrayals lurking in hardcore and metal internet forums.
EARTH CRISIS started in Syracuse, NY back in 1992, and played their final show almost ten years later. Now they're back with a new album titled "To The Death," which Scott explains is a return to the ideology that EARTH CRISIS is known for: vegan and straight-edge rants and raves over harsh metal riffs, ideas Scott thinks have not received enough attention in hardcore scenes since the band's dismemberment. So leave your preconceived notions about the band at these words, because even if you're not into EARTH CRISIS' music, Scott's an insightful and articulate person with a whole lot to say.
Pastepunk: How are you doing today?
Scott Crouse: Good man. How are you?
Pastepunk: I’m doing very well. It’s nice here in San Francisco.
Scott: Cool. I actually live in Bakersfield, so I’m not too far from you.
Pastepunk: Oh cool
Scott: Yeah. My wife works in a prison near here. She’s a psychologist there, so that’s why we live in fun, old Bakersfield.
Pastepunk: Is it hard to get the band together? Where does everyone else live?
Scott: Uh, all over the place, actually. A few of the guys still live in Syracuse, that’s Karl and our other guitar player Eric. Our drummer lives in Buffalo, New York. Our bass player actually lives in North Carolina. We just fly in a couple days early, before a tour or a show, and just practice. When we just went to South America, we made sure we were there a day early so we could rehearse while we were down there.
Pastepunk: So you guys have like a cram rehearse session right before the tour kind of thing?
Scott: Pretty much. We’ll get a set together, and everyone goes over it at home. Then we’ll get together, and fine tune everything. It usually comes together pretty easily, just because we all kind of have the stuff locked in our heads from years, and years, and years of doing it. It’s usually not too painful. We usually just knock it out at one time. I feel pretty comfortable that we could, at this point, just show up to shows and do it, but it always makes you feel a little more confidant to go over stuff, at least one time before you play.
Pastepunk: What are you guys doing to celebrate for the release of the new album?
Scott: We’re going to be on tour, actually. We leave May 1st, and we start in Connecticut. The record comes out May 5th, and I think we’re in Wisconsin or somewhere strange when it comes out. The record release show will be kind of weird because it will be in an off market area, I guess you’d say. We’re excited. It’s going to be cool. We’ll be on tour the entire month of May, and then we go to Australia in June. Then Europe at the end of the summer.
Pastepunk: Outside of hardcore, what are some of your main ideological influences?
Scott: A lot of the things that inspired us early on were the Earth First movement, and Animal Liberation Front. I’m not sure if you can get it anymore, but there is a book specifically called “Declaration for War,” which is an animal rights based book. It’s got some things that, even back then I didn’t agree with, but I feel like it raises a pretty interesting philosophy on the ideas of animal rights, and human rights. Kind of what our purpose for being here as humans is. Those were things early on that really inspired the band. It’s still stuff like that. We are all big fans of Derrick Jensen, and all sorts of history, not even animal rights or earth friendly stuff. Just history in general. Karl and I could sit and watch the history channel for days on end and just be interested in it. All sorts of things really inspire us.
Pastepunk: I read an interview recently with Karl, and he said he wanted to re-record some of the early EARTH CRISIS songs. Is that something that might happen?
Scott: Yeah. We’ve talked about it. Unfortunately there are a lot of legalities in that. We are on a different label now, and a lot of that stuff is on Victory Records. It’s not that it would be impossible, but right now it’s not something that I personally want to get into. Maybe a year from now, it might be worth opening up that whole can of worms. My idea is to just basically take the songs we would play in a live set, and just kind of 2009 and 2010 ‘em up. Not really change much about the songs. Just the recordings, because some of them weren’t the best. And stuff, when you get ten years in, always seems to sound a little dated. It would be nice to give them a fresh make-over.
Pastepunk: Yeah, for sure. Do you guys own those songs? Or is that where the legal stuff comes in?
Scott: Yeah, it’s like a co-ownership. Tony of Victory Records has been very reasonable with us in the past. I know a lot of people have had bad experiences with him, but I can’t say that’s been our experience. I think if we approached him with it in a certain way, then we might be able to get that to happen. It’s definitely not something that would be as easy as saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to do this,’ and he would say, ‘Ok.’ He would definitely be a little bit more involved.
Pastepunk: He’s a business man so…
Scott: Exactly. And unfortunately, we would have to delve into all that stuff and lawyers. It’s an unfortunate side-effect to wanting to play music. You have to deal with that stuff which I hate.
Pastepunk: Right. It’s not why you got into music.
Scott: Exactly. Not at all interested. I don’t care about lawyers and contracts, and all that stuff, but unfortunately it’s just the nature of the beast.
Pastepunk: I was reading something else where you guys were talking about certain militant animal rights groups that you guys supported. I was curious to hear what your ideology is to activism? How far do you think it’s ok to go?
Scott: This has been brought up a few times in interviews just because Century Media put our bio out there that used the word militant in it. It’s not a word that I think we shy away from. But unfortunately, I think there are some connotations with the word that don’t necessarily fit what we believe. We support groups like Earth First and Animal Liberation Front, like I mentioned already. Those are groups that are basically putting themselves in harms way, and are doing what some people would consider violent actions to stop the destruction of the environment, and stop the torture of animals in laboratories.
One of the things that bugs me about the way people view these groups…you know, they call them extremist groups. But if you’ve ever watched a vivisection video or slaughter house video, I can’t think of a better way to describe the images that I see on there than extreme. That’s some of the most extreme torture and unnecessary slaughter that I’ve ever seen in my life. Of coarse it is going to take extremes to stop extremes in those situations. So yeah, we definitely support the animal liberation front. I don’t support the harming of human beings, but I certainly support the harming of property, and definitely the breaking in and freeing of animals from laboratories. Same for the Earth First movement. If they are going to disable tractors that are destroying the rainforests, then more power to them.
Pastepunk: Yeah. You just don't want people being harmed.
Scott: Yeah. We don’t support people being harmed. Even the word militant. People get an idea of an individual being militant to another individual. That’s not what we support. We don’t support kids going and hurting other people who are eating meat or smoking cigarettes, or anything stupid like that. That’s not what we’re about and unfortunately people draw that conclusion from us a lot, and that’s not what we support.
Pastepunk: Do you ever get fans that come up to you who have drawn that conclusion, and maybe agree with that, even though that’s not something your promoting?
Scott: Yeah. That happens from time to time. Somebody will come up and be that type of person. I do try to explain to them. It’s not even just in person, but it will happen for example on our Myspace page, or somebody will get a hold of an email. I do make a point to tell them, look that’s not really something the band supports. It just doesn’t really make sense if people thought about it.
Pastepunk: It sounds like that would be kind of an awkward exchange because part of you doesn’t want to going around lecturing people, but at the same time, you don’t want to be affiliated with…
Scott: Yeah. Sometimes it can be tough. I think sometimes these people are a little disappointed that we don’t act that way. It’s been a very big hurdle for us the entire history of the band. Usually people go into talking to us or coming into contact with us with a preconceived idea as to how we are as individuals. They are usually pretty surprised because we’re really reasonable people. The band, for us…it’s our way to get out a lot of these negative feelings and emotions that we have towards the world. Sometimes they’re not meant to be taken very literally. People do take them literally unfortunately. It's something that we have to take into consideration too.
Pastepunk: What other types of music are you into besides metal and hardcore?
Scott: I like just a huge array of stuff. If you were to look at my I-pod, you'd probably be shocked. I'm a huge fan of PRINCE. I really like PRINCE a lot. I pretty much think everyone in the band likes PRINCE. I know for a while, his best of CD was pretty much playing non-stop in our van. It's just stuff that people would be surprised at. Obviously a lot of metal and older hardcore stuff. And, I don't know man, just a really vast array things. You could hear anything from CARCASS to MADONNA sometimes.
Pastepunk: Is it a challenge to eat vegan on the road?
Scott: It was really hard when we first started, just because the world was not as vegan or vegetarian friendly as it is now. Now it's really not hard at all. A lot of these chain restaurants that are popping up everywhere...you can pretty much go to any city in America, and there's a Panera Bread or a California Pizza Kitchen. There's that one little stop in every town that has all those restaurants, and they all offer something that's vegan on the menu. So it's really not too bad anymore. But when we first started it was pretty tough. It was a lot of Taco Bell and just really crappy stuff. You were forced to eat the same thing every day.
There were some good things about back then too. There was a little bit more of a community feel. There would always be some vegetarians or vegans in most of the cities who would invite us over, or bring food to the show. That was a nice, little bonus to it not being as open as it is now. Now we'll just go to the local vegan or vegetarian restaurant.
Pastepunk: So back then, when there weren't as many options around, people would make their own options...
Scott: Yeah, people would bring us food, and a lot of times the local promoter would get a hold of somebody in the town who was vegetarian or vegan, and say, 'Hey, I've got this band coming, can you maybe make some food?' Sometimes that backfired because sometimes the food wasn't good, but it was just a nice idea, that people would actually make you a home cooked meal. That was pretty cool and it doesn't happen to often.
Pastepunk: So EARTH CRISIS is a very opinionated band. How do you guys agree on the topics for songs? Do you agree on most of the things you tackle? Do you have band meetings where you're like, 'Ok, we want to talk about this, is everyone cool with that?'
Scott: On this record not so much. Since it's been a while since we've been out, we just kind of wanted to tackle some more familiar topics that I feel like were the key points of what the band was about. These are also things that I feel like weren't being represented in the hardcore or metal music scene like they were in the mid-nineties. On this record it was more like, let's revisit some of these topics that were kind of key components to what the band was about. But you can only write so many songs about straight-edge, and vegan.
I've read some stuff online lately that say, 'Oh, how many songs can you right about this?' But we definitely tackle a pretty broad range of other issues. There are political issues like New World Order type stuff, illuminati type stuff. We have an entire record called Breed the Killers, which really deals with that kind of stuff as opposed to any other straightedge or vegan message. I don't actually think the word straight-edge or vegan appears on that record once. That record is kind of more imagery based, and it's got really dark subject matter where we didn't deal with too many specific topics. It was more like imagery, fall of humanity type stuff. I think we are kind of pigeon holed into the, 'Oh, this is the straight-edge, vegan band,' but I think if you really look through our discography, there's a lot of other topics that were touched upon.
Pastepunk: What were some of the ways that you tackled straight-edge or veganism on the new record. Is it all kind of general, or are there any very specific issues that you had in mind for the lyrics?
Scott: There's a couple ways. The first song on the record is called "Against the Current," and it's kind of more of a statement of...that it is a tough lifestyle. You become somewhat of a social outcast when you take on a straight-edge lifestyle. That's kind of what it is. It's more of a personal empowerment type song. Karl wrote the lyrics and I definitely talked to him about it, so I feel like I can speak pretty clearly on what they're about. It's more of a personal empowerment type thing. Don't get roped into this social aspect of drinking and doing drugs and stuff. When you do take on a straight-edge lifestyle, that is one of the hardest things, especially when you get older. You don't really fit in with anyone, because all the things that people do socially involve drinking and drugs, you know all the stuff like that. So you're the guy at the party sitting in the corner and drinking water. Especially if you're around other people who don't have the same ideals as you.
Pastepunk: And they want to talk about it. Like, why are you drinking water?
Scott: Yeah. You know. You're basically going to get a lot of shit for it. It's more of a personal empowerment type song for people who have chosen that lifestyle. More of like, alright...keep going with it, even though sometimes things get tough. You're doing the right thing. A pat on the back, you know? But then there's other songs like "What Horrifies" that kind of goes into a little more depth of the real dark things that happen, as a result of drug and alcohol abuse. There's some stuff like drunk driving that it touches on, and there's other things like that. It's really dark. I like the lyrics on that song a lot because it presents, I think, a very real vision of some of the things that we've encountered first hand from people who've abused drugs and alcohol. Then the title track to the record, "To the Death," is kind of an introduction to animal rights and vegetarianism for people who don't know much about it. It goes into describing slaughterhouse situations basically.
Pastepunk: What kind of activism are you involved in outside of hardcore?
Scott: The way I've always kind of presented it is when we were younger, we did a lot of things...protests, and things like that. There was a time frame with the band that, especially where we were in Syracuse, there was a lot of activism going on, and we were targeted, I guess you'd say, by certain government agencies for being involved, or possibly being involved. They thought we were involved in a lot of this stuff. We kind of shied away, a little bit, from publicly going out and doing things because of that. We've always kind of viewed EARTH CRISIS as our own animal rights organization. That's the way we stay active in the community and try to get the word out for animal rights causes.
But for this record, we have teamed up with Peta 2 and we are doing a lot of ads with them. There's going to be a sticker in every record, so when somebody opens it up that doesn't know anything about EARTH CRISIS or the political ideas, they're going to be presented immediately with, 'What's this, some sort of animal rights organization?' I mean, there are other things that we do on a daily basis. My wife and her friends run an animal rescue shelter. Karl's actually very involved with a no kill shelter in Syracuse New York. So there's a lot of other things, but I guess our main input to the animal rights organization causes would be EARTH CRISIS, in my opinion.
Pastepunk: So you guys actually got targeted? Someone tried to pin something on you guys...
Scott: They weren't really trying to pin it on us. It's not something that we ever talked about too openly, but it has been brought up in a few interviews. It was like in the mid-nineties, and there was some...I can't even remember exactly what the act was. I think there were like, some trucks, maybe, blown up or something at a meat packing plant. We did all get subpoenaed by a grand jury. We all went there and talked to them. Basically they said, 'Ok, we don't think you guys had anything to do with this.' But then a lot of pretty strange stuff started happening. We were definitely under surveillance. They didn't even try to hide it, really, that we were under surveillance. There were some other things that went on...like, shady stuff that was going on around our neighborhood. Basically, I think, it was like a government form of terrorism against us, in a lot of ways. Like trying to scare us out of talking about the things that we talk about. We just kind of backed off from going to things like protests, and things like that. Just chilled back for a little while. It didn't really change anything about the focus of the band at all. It was more like, alright, these guys obviously have it in for us. We'll lay back.
There were a lot of other things going on. We were on America's most wanted because there was a guy that really liked the band that did some animal rights activity in Salt Lake City that was wanted. It was actually a positive thing. We were on their, and they were trying to basically say, this guy sited us as one of his inspirations. They asked us to be on the show to say, 'Look, it's not these guys fault.' To this day they run that episode maybe once a year, and my grandmother will call me up all upset...'I saw you on America's Most Wanted.'
Honestly, none of it was too serious. It's not like we were imprisoned or anything like that. They basically asked us a few questions and said we were cleared from the whole...I think we were even on tour when the whole thing went down. There was no way that we were involved. We're not involved in that type of stuff. The things that we sing about are the things that we are inspired by. It's not telling people, 'Ok, go do this.' We'll read something and say, ' Wow, in our eyes, that guy is a hero. Let's write a song about him.' Or let's write a song about encompassing all these people we view as heros. We're not telling people, 'Hey, go out, and burn something to the ground.'
Pastepunk: I guess that's America's way of doing it. Subtle pressure to not talk about those kind of things.
Scott: Yeah. That's what it was. That's what it felt like. Like, 'Hey, let's follow these guys around, put a little bit of pressure on them, maybe they'll cave in and stop doing it.' We've brought it up in a few interviews before, but we've never brought it up too much because it really wasn't that big of a deal. I think it takes away from...talking about stuff like that takes away from some of these real prisoners that are being held. We're not trying to cry like, 'Oh, we were contained,' or anything like that. There's some real animal rights activists that have had some pretty serious stuff happen. What happened to us is pretty tame.
Pastepunk: Right. You guys aren't trying to say you're martyrs or anything like that.
Scott: Right. Not at all. That's our thing. We never really brought it up or anything because of that. We don't want to come across like we're trying to be martyrs or anything like that. It was just something that happened. We kind of all figured that eventually, somebody would have something to say...and that was really it. It was, I think, like '94, '95, and we've never had an issue since.
