Lane Hannah From Control, 8 Count

Please introduce yourself, how did you discover hardcore, what international bands were you listening to and what New Zealand hardcore bands were around at the time?

I'm Lane Hannah and back in the mid-late 90s I was a member of a number of hardcore bands with a group of friends (and family). I discovered hardcore through my cousins primarily. Things mostly started for me when we would stay with our cousins or at their place as kids and I'd spend a whole lot of time listening to their record collections. My cousins were older than me and I always looked up to them and thought they were super cool, so was hugely influenced by what they were into. The memory that sticks out most to me was chucking Gorilla Biscuits Start Today album on and just being blown away by the initial trumpet intro before the guitars kicked in. I must have listened to that one track dozens of times. It still gives me a thrill now.

Also in their collection was Youth of Today, Bold, Bad Brains and Sick of it All amongst others and I just spent hours working my way through all of it.

In terms of New Zealand hardcore at the time - it was again my cousins who were leading the charge in some ways. Whilst bands like Sticky Filth were already around, there was a scene starting in Auckland that took influence from the straight edge scene out of the US and 2 of my cousins were in a band called Corporate Underground and while the timeline isnt 100% clear to me, Corporate Underground would certainly have been one of the earliest bands doing this kind of hardcore in NZ. Of course - given I thought my cousins were super cool - I really wanted to follow in their footsteps so along with my brother and some keen mates we started listening to the same music and decided we wanted to start a band.

Control was Hamilton's first Hardcore band,How did this come about?can you tell us about the 'infamous Barn shows'and what it was like in the very beginning of Hamilton hardcore?

When we started out we were actually called 'Institutionalised' basically after the song by Suicidal Tendencies who we really liked. I think we played a few very small gigs but mostly it was a time where we were just getting the hang of things and while I was the singer, the other members (Dominic Minor, Garth Richards and James Hannah) were really just starting out with their instruments. Mostly attempting to knock out some covers and figure things out. And really it was just about hanging out on weekends and holidays mucking around.

At some point we got a bit more serious and changed our name to Control where we lined up mostly covers of bands like Sick of it All, Integrity and even one from Corporate Underground (hot cup of char). As Control - we entered the smokefree rockquest and made it through to the regional finals - we never had much of a chance but I think the wildness of our on-stage presence was a factor in getting through. It was particularly sweet because the other Hamilton Boys High band that entered were a pack of wankers who basically hated us.

Around this time, through the local hamilton skateboarding scene and from school friends and connections Scott Johnstone asked us to come out and play at his parents property in Whatawhata in an old shearing shed he had set up a bunch of skate ramps in. We probably only had about 6 songs in our repertoire at the time and I remember hiring a basic PA system and heading out there on a Friday or Saturday. We played the same songs over and over while 7 or 8 of the skating crew just skated around us. In hindsight, this is where things started to really build, and the scene started to form out of those early shows. Over the space of a few months, these shows became regular events and Scott kept altering the barn with more staging and open areas and things began to really build. By this time, my cousin Hamish was playing bass in the auckland band Face and we had them down to play with us for one of the epic barn shows.

It was all very DIY, classic punk rock, smell-of-an-oily-rag stuff. We would make up flyers, post things around town and generally rode on a wave of a new scene building. Soon enough we realised that the barn was both becoming too small for the numbers of people turning up, and it was quite a bit out of town so we started to look at venues that were bigger and closer to Hamilton city. From there, things really took off in a much bigger way and the scene grew significantly - more bands started forming and the Hamilton scene started to be drawcard for more bands from Auckland to come down and play and find a wider audience as well as being recognised by other scenes across the country.

One morning I got a phone call from a guy called Brian Wafer ( https://www.audioculture.co.nz/profile/brian-wafer ) from New Plymouth who said he was looking at bringing Sick of it All to NZ and would we like to arrange a Hamilton gig for them. It was that gig that probably helped cement the Hamilton scene and lock in a love of hardcore in Hamilton that has endured to this day.

Describe how it was back then and how you kept up with what was happening overseas?

Certainly not like you can now. We used to wait for weeks for zines, mail order catalogues and records to come from the US and the challenge of having to send money orders to buy records was painful at times. I remember a story once where a zine article had mentioned a Balance gig in Hamilton and months later someone wrote a letter saying they couldn't believe they'd missed Balance playing in Hamilton, unfortunately for them they thought Balance had played in Hamilton Ontario not Hamilton New Zealand so that was pretty funny. Plenty of people from the scene in Hamilton and Auckland traveled overseas and got involved in various scenes around the world and it was always cool to see NZ kids representing (or even playing in bands) in the scene in the US or beyond.

What are some highlights and favourite memories from back then, what is it about hardcore that stood out more than other genres, and would you say it has still left an impact on your life as an older H.C veteran?

It sounds corny but it's the friends you make along the way ha ha. My favourite memories are simply getting in amongst it and building something that so many people shared in the joy of. We were looking to build solidarity, friendship that meant something and stands out from the crowd in terms of what we believed and what we stood for. I’m unashamedly a lyrics person so it was the words in hardcore that I connected to most strongly. NYHC and bands like Earth Crisis that were pushing for a better society, standing up for human and animal rights and righteously angry about inequalities and injustice in the world - this was the stuff I couldn't get enough of then and continue to be important to me now.

Those messages helped me form a view of the world that stays with me and listening to those bands now still shows how important those messages are. Bands like RATM that managed to break into the mainstream have lyrics that haven't lost potency over the years and while I listen to a much wider range of music now - I still find myself drawn to the themes and messages that I strongly connected with back then.

Favourite show you attended or played at over the years and how did it stand out from others?

There's just so many shows that stand out over the years. In terms of bands we played with that really stood out it was probably the first Sick of it All show at the Frankton Railway Hall. We'd hired all the gear and put together all the flyers and the turnout was amazing. The scene had been quite tight up until that stage but that gig brought people we didn't know and had never met to the show and I think, introduced even more people to the scene.

After we played - the Sick of it All guys started setting up their gear and we saw, for the first time, how much impact these bands who we had admired for years had, they knew exactly how to set things up for the best sound and absolutely blew the place apart! The level of professionality they displayed really set the tone for the future of the scene in Hamilton.

Top 5 bands or albums that influenced you the most over the years?

Hard question this one. I've been influenced by many bands over the years and the bands that influence me change depending on where Im at at any given time. In the early days of the Hamilton scene I was most influenced by New York and the Straight Edge scene, Sick of it All, Chokehold, Outspoken, Vegan Reich, Earth Crisis, Judge, Madball, Gorilla Biscuits and Burn (plus too many others to name/remember) are some of the bands that come to mind and I think the scene in Hamilton reflected that for a while. As new bands started up, the scene had a much broader influence which was awesome and the best way to keep a scene interesting and evolving.

Over the longer term, the bands I keep coming back to that continue to be important to me for various reasons are bands like Bad Brains, Integrity and other bands that continue to be engaged in social issues so I still listen to what might be considered more mainstream bands like Rise Against, Rage Against the Machine, Refused etc.

I still go to as many shows as I can fit in across the punk/hardcore/metal genres but Im also a fan of a lot of New Zealand music so I try to support up and coming artists, As much as I try to stay in touch with whats new, fortunately my kids (and Spotifys algorithm) help keep me up to date with whats fresh/cool nowadays.

Any words of advice for up and coming youth bands?

Just about everything for young people now is harder and there's good cause for being frustrated and angry about the world they are inheriting. It's also true that some things are easier, access to music via the internet and social media are things we simply didn't have access too. In some ways access to learning how to play instruments is easier too so the doors are still wide open for bands to form and build bigger audiences for their music than ever before.

People connect to people who are genuine and passionate so my advice to up and coming bands is to stay true to yourselves, chart your own path within the genre or style you connect to and get as much exposure as you can. We certainly didn't set out to build a following as such - people liked what we were doing and things grew from there. Stay true to yourself.

Would you like to give some final shout outs to end the interview?

None of this happened because of any one person so yeah - the various band members over the years James, Gareth, Ben, Scott, Brad. The Hamilton skate scene, other bands and those who really pushed the scene forward including the Row boys, Stu Barris as well as those who influenced us - Hamish and Richard Wanhill and the Auckland crew.

And finally of course the bands all over the world who form the hardcore and punk scene - it remains a scene where people can truly feel included and supported to be who they are. Much love