Interview: Comeback Kid
Dung Beetle Interviews have posted an interview with Andrew Nufeld of Comeback after their recent Hong Kong show. Top stuff!
Comeback Kid share a special place in a long running argument between my 53 year old mother and myself. I complain about the lack of excitement of her hometown— and she replies with “well, you know, it’s always been strong musically,” and then I lose the battle.
You see, Comeback Kid and my mother share the same hometown: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. And despite the fact that I have again and again questioned the sensibility in naming a city without even an amusement park, a provincial capital, I’ve had an urge recently to visit, owing to its hardcore scene, which has undeniably produced some of the greatest bands in the genre.
Comeback Kid is one of my favourite bands, so upon hearing they were going to play a show in Hong Kong it was only understandable that everyone who was sitting in my vicinity at school became instantly aware at 7:52 in the morning of their impending arrival: I was kind of excited. Come April 27th, getting to interview the band’s vocalist Andrew Neufeld I was pumped.
You’re Andrew and you do vocals.
Correct.
Your lyrics seem to be very personal, so what things in life have influenced your writing?
I guess just frustration with— with our latest record— frustration with situations in my life where I feel like I get put into positions where I am kind of backed up against the wall, or like expected to do things I don’t want to do. Our last couple records, me and our old singer kind of shared the duty[of writing]— I used to play guitar in the band— I tried to touch on a few more worldly— I wouldn’t say political— more so, normal dude kind of thinking about the state of our world, and the way that humans act, and how we all kind of make compromises. You know, there’s things that I do I know that I don’t think are right necessarily, or companies that I probably support indirectly that I don’t really agree with, even lifestyle choices that I don’t really agree with, that I find myself falling into. I guess, everyone has their breaking point and everyone has their boundaries, those are some of the things I talked about.
You guys are signed to Victory. Does it have anything to do with that, at all?
They are a very very big label. So I think that if it weren’t for Victory, it would be debatable whether we’d be able to come to places like this and play; you know maybe we’d be able to do it on another label, who’s to say— like you’d never know unless it did happen. They are definitely a business, and definitely – every label’s a business and that’s fine— I wish sometimes that certain people at Victory would – ah, I don’t know. There’s ups and downs like every label, I could probably complain for a while about them. Sometimes we don’t feel like they support us as much as we’d like them to, probably because we make choices that they don’t want us to make, so , whatever. Agree to disagree, right?
How has the band changed from the time you came out with “Turn It Around”, to “Broadcasting”. I mean, you guys have gotten pretty big, and people definitely know who you are.
It’s pretty awesome. We were talking about it the other day. I feel like all of us collectively, we’ve played with pretty much all the bands that we always wanted to play with. Like every band that I’ve ever wanted to tour with, that makes sense, I’m not talking about like some huge band like The Fucking Police or something like that. That’s something that wasn’t relevant to us, but any band that was like relevant, pretty much that we wanted to tour with, we’ve had the opportunity to play with, so that’s like – we feel super super lucky and sometimes its weird and sometimes I feel like just touring for the last like you know I think I’ve been touring between my old band and Comeback Kid for like eight years of my life or more. Sometimes I feel like its really hard to get excited, and stuff kind of seems a little bit— I don’t know, I do get excited and we’re super super appreciative of stuff. Even my girlfriend, for example, she’ll bust my balls cause she’ll be like, “If you don’t even care, like you’re doing this, and you don’t even care…” But I do care, it’s just sometimes — I don’t know. But we got to do the South East Asia tour this time, and this year we wanted to dedicate to touring a lot of places that we’ve kind of missed out before. Like this was a really really awesome opportunity for us, we played Kuala Lumpur, we played Singapore, we played Jakarta, now we’re playing Hong Kong. Last week we were on tour with my favourite band of all time— Propagandhi in Japan.
I know! Oh my god, oh my god!
Yeah! Oh my god, right? So I got excited about that, and it’s so funny ’cause you see all the Comeback Kid guys on the side of the stage, and we’re all like loving it so much!
You were on tour with Propagandhi— so that’s two bands from Manitoba…
And that’s kind of funny too, cause they’re from Manitoba and I’ve met them before, kind of. But even at the airport when we met up with them, we were like,”Hey, I’m Andrew”— like I wasn’t sure if they remembered me. But you know when you are a fan so much, you don’t really know, so I’m like “hey how’s it going” and like just still that is the least band you want to be star struck around, but for me, just the importance of that band to me, from when I was a kid. They are the first punk band I ever got into— pretty awesome.
I’ve heard that Winnipeg is supposed to have some good hardcore bands.
Sometimes, it goes in waves.
So how’s the wave now?
In Winnipeg? It’s alright.
It’s alright?
Yeah, it’s alright. I don’t live in Winnipeg anymore, I just moved out a few months ago, But the other guys live there. There were some really good bands in Winnipeg that disbanded, like who aren’t really doing things anymore. I’m honestly a bit out of touch with what’s going on in Winnipeg right now.
The fact that you guys are here— it’s crazy— like people they do Asian tours and its like: Japan.
Well, this is our third time doing Japan, so it’s like might as well. I think next time we go to Australia, we’re going to try and work in some more South East Asian shows, like I really really want to go to Thailand.
What are your all time favourite bands you’ve toured with?
Propagandhi, and Madball. We did a tour in Europe called the Persistence Tour with them, and it was Sick of it All, Madball, us, Terror, Walls of Jericho, and some other bands. Very cool.
How were the shows there? Where did you play?
Awesome. We played Belgium, Germany, Holland, the U.K. It was a shorter tour, it was just like core, mainland Europe and the U.K.
Do you like playing bigger shows or smaller ones?
It depends on if the venue is packed out. If the venue is packed out I like it big, or small. I don’t really like barricaded at all. Who likes barricades?! Besides wanky rock bands. Like we’ll go on tour with a band like Rise Against, and there’ll be barricades like every single night, and those guys are awesome, they’re a fucking amazing band. Also, certain bands just draw too many people, and some venues have insurance issues so sometimes it’s not even up to the band. Like, we’ll have shows where we don’t want a barricade, but there’s nothing we can really do about it. It’s just like the venue has some insurance policy, and if someone stage dives and gets hurt, they can get sued. But on the other hand, sometimes you’ll have a barricade, and you’ll have security guys, and it’ll make it worse and more dangerous for the crowd, cause like the security guys are like pumped up on steroids or something, or just their egos or whatever, you know taking matters into their own hands. Sometimes I think, the funniest thing, being in a hardcore band, is like watching security guys because they probably got picked on in school, or their need to get their aggression out somehow so they like take it out on little kids when they’re moshing for a hardcore band.
They actually do that?
Yeah, like over-zealous security.
When you guys play England, are there barricades there?
Our last show in England did have one. We’re playing Download Festival this year, if you’re familiar with that, because we’re playing that, our shows have to get booked by the same company that does that, in London. So I’m assuming that probably— Download will for sure— but the stipulation is that you have to book your show in London— if you’re playing London— with that same company, I’m assuming they’ll put us in a room with a barricade. This June we’re going to Europe and doing a whole bunch of festivals. I think we’re doing three or four shows with Motorhead, I think we’re playing with Kiss and Iron Maiden. All these like big festivals, but then like we also get to play with Madball a few times, yeah should be… Yeah I get excited still; I’m lying I do get excited.
Comeback Kid originally started as a side project from Figure Four, so what’s up with Figure Four now?
Nothing. We haven’t played a show in years.
So what are the guys in Figure Four doing now?
Bailey has a new band— Bailey was the bass player— the new band is fucking awesome, they’re called Grave Maker. Bailey is like what you just said, he just wants to travel. They were a band, they put out a demo, and they went out on tour right away. And they’ve only been a band for a few months— three or four months— and they’re in Costa Rica now, and doing Central America. He’s one of the most motivated guys— as far as music, that I know. Steve, the old drummer, I think he has a girl friend, might be getting married. Mel, the old guitar player, she, I think, goes to school. And me and Jeremy play in Comeback Kid.
So, you’re religious right?
I used to be religious.
Did that factor into the lyrics before?
Not with Comeback Kid, with my old band, Figure Four, yeah. With the first couple records, and then the last Figure Four record, I was kind of like questioning everything and writing about it, pretty much.
What was the one thing that changed that?
It wasn’t really one thing; it was a lot of different things. A couple of books I read, the books I was reading weren’t even the end all be all of books or anything. You know when sometimes you get an opinion, and it’s like stuff you never really thought about before and it kind of creates a spark and kind of makes you think about more stuff. That’s what it was for me. It kind of happened— for me my whole downfall in the whole spiritual thing when I was getting out of my teenage years, and coming into my twenties, I guess. I don’t know, like Jeremy— a couple dudes in Comeback Kid are still Christian, and then the new guys and I aren’t.
So would you say you are atheist, or more agnostic, like you don’t know?
Yeah, I’m just agnostic. Who knows, who knows? Maybe it is all true, I just think that it’s a little bit too easy. Even the guys in our band, they’re not your standard by the book kind of Christians. They have actually thought out ideas about it. I don’t know I think there is more to all of this than meets the eye, and I like to think of the world as a lot more open ended than just like Christianity, and some religion that people follow, you know what I mean?
I thought you guys were straight edge, but you’re not. Were you once?
Until I was like 19, but not when I was in Comeback Kid ever. I lasted four years, in my teenage years, probably a good thing though cause I got really into doing music. I occupied my time, I played in something like five bands at a time.
What’s your favourite song to play?
“False Idols Fall” is a pretty fun one, because Wake the Dead is really fun, but it’s almost like— it’s sometimes crazy, cause you’re worrying about the equipment behind you. That’s the song that we definitely get the best reaction from, False Idols, is really solid— everyone sings along— you can still play your instrument, you know what I mean?
Are you going to play any stuff from Turn it Around?
Yeah we play songs from every record. We play like five songs per record.
Are you playing Operative Word?
No…
Oh well. How do you decide what you are going to play in a night?
We pretty much have a set list that we’ve been doing, and then we have like two to four kind of variables, but we have like fourteen songs that are like main songs. We’ve had a guy filling in bass for us on the last few tours, but he only knows probably like twenty songs of ours.
Where do you want to go in the future?
I think I just want to be able to be in a kind of band that is able to play wherever in the world, and have people come out, have promoters able to bring us and not lose money. You know, to be able to sustain ourselves, and have awesome shows everywhere. I think we’re getting to that point now. We’ve been really lucky that we’re able to go to places like Indonesia— its like crazy— like we go there and have like 600 people going crazy— like our shows, its so weird to think that a show in Indonesia is crazier than at home sometimes. You know what I mean? I’m so over playing the States.
Really?
Not every place. But like they’re just so spoilt, ’cause they get bands all the time.
What’s your favourite place to play then?
I’m not good at favourites. Some places I really like to play— London is really fun to play; Leipzig, Germany is really fun to play; California’s fun to play. And these last few shows in Asia have been really really fun.
So what are you guys going to be up to while you are in Hong Kong?
I’ve gone out a few times since we’ve been here, cause we were here last week for a couple of days. I’m really really tired— we’ve had like two hours of sleep in the last two days or three days. Actually the whole trip, since we left Japan, has been like no sleep at all. For the last week or something, like two hours or three hours a night, so we’re pretty tired. But get a couple of drinks in me and that might change.
Do you guys play full time or do you work as well?
Full time. Got to keep busy though, I do this, and then when I’m off tour with Comeback Kid, I’m on tour with my other band Sighs & Sounds— we’re writing a full length right now, and we’re probably going to record in September, so we’ll probably start touring and that. Hopefully, we’ll be able to play places like Hong Kong and that.
So when you get back from being on tour, what is the first thing you look forward to?
I just want to go home, watch a movie with my girlfriend, and chill out.
If someone told you when you were a kid that you’d be doing this for the rest of your life what would you say?
I’d be like fuck yeah!
Comeback kid was amazing.
Andrew is so down to earth!
