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Groupies, Crack and Trashing Venues
Groupies, Crack and Trashing Venues
_kp_ by Kate Price April 25th, 2003
Microsoft Messenger. All the coolest people spend their free time on it these days dontcha know. Even the rock stars manage to fit it into their hectic schedules, and none more so than Violent Delight guitarist, Tom Steenvoorden. Naturally, DiS has grasped this Bill Gates sponsored opportunity to get the latest gossip and find out what life’s like in the land of top 25 chart hits, trashed venues, groupies and other rock ‘n’ roll happenings…

DiS says:
So what've Violent Delight been upto for the past few months? You seem to have been in hiding for a while.
VD TOM says:
Well we've been touring with Hell Is For Heroes and doing our own tour, we recently recorded the video for the new single 'all you ever do' and that has started to be played on TV, plus we've been doing b sides and generally chilling out
DiS says:
Good stuff. What's the video like? Where did you record it etc?
VD TOM says:
The video's got a couple of references towards TATU and Eminem. I.e. The fat obsessive fan and the wet, kissing, school girls (except ours are legal), it's basically set in an American stereotypical trailer park.
DiS says:
Sounds very punk pop
VD TOM says:
Indeed!
DiS says:
Whats the new recorded stuff sounding like? Any change in sound or direction?
VD TOM says:
The B sides are different versions of old songs we'd done, we didn’t just remix them, we did a lounge version of an older song and a punky version of a slower song, but I can't give out names, not that anyone gives a toss anyway! But there's a lot people haven’t heard from us, we have songs that aren’t pop punk at all, it's all on the album!
DiS says:
Any gossip or stories from recent tours then?
VD TOM says:
Christ, loads
DiS says:
Rock n roll activities n such like. Are you crazy r'n'r TV smashing punks or do you prefer a quiet night in with a hot water bottle and a good film?
VD TOM says:
What sort of thing do u want to hear?
VD TOM says:
Trashed stuff?
VD TOM says:
Arguments?
VD TOM says:
Girls?
DiS says:
Yeah all that stuff. Spill the beans!
VD TOM says:
Ok well...Newcastle is our favourite town to play and the Newcastle university is a GREAT venue that will loved playing. Our last gig there we played in the loft upstairs (the smaller room) but it was SO packed it shoulda been downstairs and we ended up playing a rubbish gig with Metal Hammer reviewing it
VD TOM says:
and as it was our last night of the tour with support band Schism we all decided to go out and get pissed but instead we drank absinthe in the venue and ended up throwing fruit, which changed to throwing chairs, which went to throwing glass bottles to smashing lights and then the fridge they so kindly let us store the amazing rider they gave us
VD TOM says:
So all in all we totally destroyed it and got a call the next day saying there’s no chance Violent Delight are EVER playing at Newcastle Uni again.
DiS says:
Did you feel ashamed and remorseful? I hope so.
VD TOM says:
Well at first we were like 'haha how cool' then we realised there’s nothing cool about being banned from your favourite venue, but the ban stands and now only Northumbria Uni will have us in Newcastle.
VD TOM says:
So all in all it sucks
DiS says:
Nightmare.
DiS says:
Have you ever.. uhh.. taken advantage of a groupie?
VD TOM says:
Haha well I'm the only member of the band who has, Ben and Rodney have girlfriends and never stray, but in the past I certainly have had a few encounters with groupies. They'll HATE the using of that word but it doesn’t matter now cos I have a girlfriend! Groupies suck, really.
DiS says:
Yeah. Was it as glamorous/smutty as people make out?
VD TOM says:
Erm it was smutty, certainly not glamorous but at the time I didn't really think about how pathetic and meaningless it is! It's just a hot girl wanting to fuck you...could be worse things but I don't really like the idea of it any more!
DiS says:
Yes but, did you have RESPECT for the girl after?
VD TOM says:
Not really... again another answer that will earn me a slap if I see them again...
DiS says:
Hehe. Nice nice. At least you're honest.
DiS says:
What about drugs? Are you all cokeheads?
VD TOM says:
Haha no not at all. I've smoked crack once and Ken smokes cigarettes like a proper addict but we don't do drugs cos on tour you'd just get so ill and fucked! I smoke weed if it's free...but that's so rare!
DiS says:
Ah maybe when you're rich and can retire to some crack den somewhere eh?
VD TOM says:
I'll think about it..
DiS says:
So on a scale of 1 - 10 how r'n'r are VD?
VD TOM says:
I'd personally give us a 7, however that's only on our own tour
VD TOM says:
Whenever someones kind enough to take us out on tour with them we're extremely quiet and try not to piss anyone off!
DiS says:
Likely story
VD TOM says:
Haha it's true! Kind of..
DiS says:
Is there anything else we should know about VD? Secret motives? Scandalous secrets; that kind of thing
VD TOM says:
I can't think of anything that's scandalous...people might be surprised to find we aren't manufactured...but that's all I can think of
DiS says:
Didn't you hold auditions for your bassist or something?
VD TOM says:
Yeah we did
VD TOM says:
And our drummer
VD TOM says:
We couldn't find a good enough bassist or drummer so we had to put ad's up everywhere to get them
VD TOM says:
But that was waaaay before we got signed
DiS says:
I see. So you're not Warners little puppets?
VD TOM says:
Lol no, we'll leave that to Linkin Park
DiS says:
Oh come on, they must boss you around a little bit. Tell you how to cut your hair etc
VD TOM says:
They're really good, when the idea of selling the single for 99p came about they welcomed it, they don't mind that we refuse to charge more than a fiver for most shows, they let us do what we want in the video (the latest one Rodney had a lot of ideas for that got put on), the album was recorded with who we wanted and where we wanted, plus they don't ever comment on a creative level
VD TOM says:
Which is fantastic cos the last thing you want is to have some record company exec. breathing down your shoulder! To be honest I think they're an excellent label for bands who want to do their own thing and they're certainly excellent at what they do!
VD TOM says:
And the fashion thing, we had a stylist for the video only, and we all wear what we like, as you can probably tell!
DiS says:
Sounds like you've got it sorted then.
DiS says:
Anyway I've gotta go now.
VD TOM says:
Aah ok thanks
DiS says:
But thank you for your time mr rock star!
VD TOM says:
Thats ok it is precious
VD TOM says:
Hence the amount of time I spend on here
VD TOM says:
Anyways have fun tonight, thanks for the interview, bye bye!
DiS says:
Bye!



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