400 blows.

THIS THREE PIECE (Skot, vocals: Christian, guitar: Ferdinand, drums) hails from Los Angeles, CA. Around for about seven years, they describe themselves as an anti-melody hand. Probably because the drummer and the guitarist lock themselves into taut, relentless, rhythm heavy grooves. The vocalist then skillfully hobs, weaves and jabs his way around these syncopated, complex compositions of noise with his caustic brand of story telling. Their live performances are well known for being extremely tight, powerful, and unique. The solo guitar player flanks the stage with two lO0-watt half stacks that provide for an interesting blast of sonic intensity. Not exactly anything you'd expect, simply a distinctive fusion of power, rhythm and energy. This, is 400 Blows.--Craig Ibarra and Haydee Del Valle

Congratulations on winning Best Punk/Hardcore band at the LA Weekly awards. How does the voting work for that?

Skot: I guess the writers decide I know were not the most popular band on that list so it can't be a public vote.

Christian Yeah the writers of the LA Weekly decide who gets nominated. and ultimately who wins. It's more of a critical recognition type of thing than a People's Choice Awards.

A lot of people are probably wondering why you don't have a bass player. Did you ever have a bass player and do you ever plan on getting one?

Skot: We've never had a bass player since we staffed playing out. At this point we're having fun with what we've got, so I don't know it we'll get one.

Can you name more than five pro skateboarders that are skating today?

Christian: Not without cheating I lost track of that type of information years ago. My brain's pretty full of useless information already so I need to be a little more selective over what I put in it these days.

You went a long time without putting out anything since your first record 3-19-98 on Total Annihilation Records. I heard you were looking for a label during this time. Your second record Black Rainbow was self-released and then re-released by a new label called Rehash Records. Why did you guys choose an rmestahlished label like Rehash?

Skot: We agreed with each other's terms and thought it was a fair deal. They also scented like good guys and approached us with sincerity.

Christian Yeah, Rehash showed a great deal of enthusiasm towards 400 Blows. We found that and their fair terms very attractive. They weren't interested in owning our music or owning our asses in anyway for X amount of years or for X number of albums. They presented us with a simple and fair licensing deal and we liked the freedom it afforded us. So we went with them and haven't regretted it since

Is burning CDs or downloading music stealing?

Christian: I don't think SO Back when we were younger everybody made cassette tapes and traded them around. Its kind of the same thing I discovered a lot of new music that way either by taping songs off the radio or by borrowing a mix tape that a friend had made. And nine times out of 10, I'd go out and buy the record of the songs I liked so I could hear the whole album. I read somewhere that during the early years of Metallica, tape trading really helped them gain local popularity. I don't doubt that. I think file sharing is a direct result of homogenous corporate radio. It's pissing on the corporate music structure. Now that's punk.

Skot: Who cares? There's nothing that can be done about it. Besides, it probably does more good than bad. The computer exposes people to musicthey didn't know existed.--check out www.400blows.net