Iron Lung Interview

This was a joint effort between me and a guy called Jaimie Thompson who I have never met for Vice Magazine.

Fetch The Pliers!
-Iron Lung Will Dissect You-

Iron Lung are two guys from Nevada. They did not like it there so much so they moved to Seattle where they formed a two piece band that plays power violence. Power violence was an early 90’s kick in the ass for the bloated, fat, pointless corpse of what hardcore had become. Bands like Infest and Crossed Out and labels like Slap A Ham and Lengua Armada put out fast, blasting records closer to Siege than Cro Mags that made everything feel vital again. Ten years later and things have got shit once more but along with bands like Fucked Up and Commercial Suicide, Iron Lung are here to stop you weeping every time Bring Me The Horizon comes on the radio. They have songs with names like ‘Sternal Abnormalities’ and ‘Horizontal Respiration’. Don’t let the Dougie Howserisms get you down on these guys though, they just toured the UK and played so hard and fast that all the New Era cap kids in the cut-offs didn’t even have time to play the dance-in-a-circle-and-touch-each-others-bum game that they usually love so much. It was all just too fast and too hard. And there was only two of them. It was great! Talking to Jon and Jensen after the shows they seemed pretty nonplussed by what was being hailed on messageboards as the tour of the year so far. They just wanted to play 20 songs in 10 minutes and leave. They are my new favourite band.

Vice: What’s with all these little hardcore fags wearing Crossed Out patches when five years ago they were into Earth Crisis and Hatebreed?
Jon Kortland (guitar, vocals): Dude, It's only a matter of time before they'll sell Crossed Out T-shirts in Hot Topic, but I guess “power violence” can be used as a term to describe a form of music totally separated from whatever 'hardcore' has become. As far as our role in continuing that sound, we have no plans of stopping any time soon.

What’s with the obsession with medical equipment, death and the general crushing futility of existence?
Jensen Ward (drums, vocals): We live in a world where shock value has been totally negated by the reality of existence. All the 'sick shit' imagery in music is totally idiotic. I have a hard time believing that some guy recording music on his computer in his mother's basement would have the courage to leave the house, let alone murder another human being ... and write a song about it.

Are you saying that you would murder somebody?
No. That would be totally illegal.

Iron Lung's new album Sexless//No Sex is out now on Prank Records.