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FORWARD AREA Forward Area - the Most Hated Band in Punk! Formed in 2002 in Gainesville, Florida, today Forward Area are: Erik - vocals/bass Originally the boys played apolitical hardcore punk. As time went on, they started getting pissed at how left wing punk was getting and decided to bring their personal politics into their music. Thus Forward Area can safely lay the claim that they are the first National Socialist Street Punk band. Mike is a regular visitor to our BH forum so we cornered him for an interview! Thanks Mike for agreeing to do this interview. When we first heard of you a few years ago, we were really excited to hear how far RAC has spread! What are your top 10 most important musical influences? It's tough to narrow it down, but I would have to say my top 10 musical influences are: *Sex Pistols
You call yourselves National Socialist street punk. Obviously not all aspects of Hitler’s National Socialism would be applicable in today’s times. Which aspects are the most important to you? In my opinion, National Socialism's most important aspects are its working-class and ethnocentric social and political policies, environmentalism, anti-Communism/anti-Capitalism, and public health programs. These are what I feel define the ideology and what sets it apart from all other political philosophies in history. I would hope that these principles will always be preserved by National Socialist advocates, though I completely agree that there are aspects of original German National Socialism that are outdated and are definitely in need of modification. In the Sex Pistols documentary The Filth and the Fury, Johnny Lydon / Rotten accounts for the word “anarchist” as the only word he could think of to attempt a rhyme with “anti-Christ”!! Can you please explain to us your understanding of how the punk movement, which clearly didn’t start off as anarchic or anti racist, got hijacked by the left wing? I feel the Punk movement's hijack by ultra-liberals can best be explained by the actions of the media and the music industry in the late '70s and early '80s. Once the Sex Pistols "Anarchy in the UK" single came out the media had a frenzy with labeling Punks as "anarchists" even though the Sex Pistols clearly weren't even anarchists themselves. So naturally the actual anarchists and communists of the time used the media's distortion to take advantage of the gullible youth interested in the subculture. It was rather easy for almost any political group to capitalize on the Punk movement considering it never really had a defined political affiliation or agenda, but it was particularly easy for anarchist groups to due to this. However, I also strongly feel that the music industry did all it could early on to suppress public knowledge of the number of racialist and Nationalistic Punk bands that existed, in order to keep Punk music a viable genre of music to market to the mainstream. Thus, today we find the Punk scene in the twisted and horrible condition it's in. From it being a movement to counter political correctness, to becoming a movement totally poisoned with political correctness...
I would tell them that they are being counterproductive to the cause, despite whatever their rationale may be for it. The spread of our ideology into more White music genres and subcultures is nothing but a positive thing. As you mentioned, Ian Stuart realized this and actually aided in White Nationalism crossing over to other music genres; He was even a Punk himself at one point in his life. I think most practical people understand the benefits as there is really no down side to our message reaching more of our youth. It's important we don't let minor things such as fashion or subcultural differences separate us. Together we can accomplish a lot more. These Skinheads who feel threatened by non-Skinheads claiming White Nationalist beliefs also need to realize that not everyone wants to be a Skinhead and they shouldn't be expected to become one in order to be viewed upon as "acceptable" in the scene. I'm a firm believer in the notion that we'd see a drastic increase in our numbers if people knew they didn't have be Skinheads in order to have a place within the movement. The veterans of Blood and Honour mostly come from the earliest days of Oi! when skinheads and punks still freely attended the same shows. For this older generation, seeing mohawk clad youth at Blood and Honour events is not at all shocking. As RAC has now been around approximately 20 years, there are many skinheads who totally bypassed oi! to find their way directly to RAC. I feel these are the skinheads that will need more convincing that punk’s not red! What would you say to convince these people that punk still has a place alongside skinhead. Well, I would say to them that pro-White Punk music and individuals have existed since as early as 1977 and I feel we've earned our right to have a place in the racialist music movement. I would tell them to look into the history of their own subculture and see for themselves the profound impact Punk has had on it. Just because the Punk scene today seems to have been overtaken by undesirables doesn't mean everyone who claims the label is one of them, just as it would be wrong to assume Skinheads don't have a place within the White Power music scene because of the emergence of SHARPs and Red Skins. There will always be lowlifes that infiltrate subcultures and twist them to suit their own agendas, but we cannot let them blind us from the good people who are also in them.
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