The Medicine We Need Now

© Girlie Action

No Surrender originally gained some fame in the late 1990’s while playing a big part in the New York City underground music scene. The band put out their own record - an album filled with aggressive rap and heavy political overtones - before taking a hiatus to pursue various acting careers and other musical endeavours. Now, the year is 2010, CBGBs is a clothing store, and No Surrender returns to the scene with their new album Medicine Babies. The political overtones remain, but the beats have found a delicious electro-synth pop-soul vibe that is additively danceable. Recently band members Seraphim and Pat Gnomad caught up with me to discuss their history, journey, and what Medicine Babies is all about. 

What was it like getting your start in the NY underground music scene?

Seraphim: It was good, you know, when we started the scene was really already changing; we started doing music and playing semi-professionally in the Lower East Side. And everyone knew one another. We were all at raves and it didn’t matter if you were a rocker or a club kid, it was just all this music going on and we all enjoyed it. Antipop Consortium, Mike Ladd and Apollo Heights, just a lot of great people. A lot of the people who spearheaded the fusion music that is going on right now, and especially in New York, they were all there then. We made a lot of great friends through that scene and future partners in collaboration.

Gnomad: It was just like this kind of big family kind of vibe so that on any given night there were people performing and there were all sorts of people to collaborate with. It was a really fun explosive kind of time because you had all this creative energy bubbling up and there was space for it.

Do you still find yourself performing as part of the scene?

Seraphim: Oh for sure. Although I think that it is now a much more fragmented scene. Basically there was a heavy dance element that was injected about five years ago and there were a lot of people who weren’t as down with that. For us it was just sort of an evolution of what we were already doing, but for sure I think some people saw it as an infringement on what we were already doing. Less intellectual or however you want to see it. But we felt like it was just six degrees of separation.

Do you find the reactions to be different now than when you were playing/creating music it back then?

Seraphim: I think so, yeah. I mean we have been changing as well. It was important for us to represent ourselves in a new light as time went on; our old stuff was darker and heavier, had more of an edge. And you get a little backlash for that.

Gnomad: But it is fragmented. There is a necessary evolution in the scene as well and an evolution of the movement we have been doing and making. It lends itself to flow very naturally. The things we are doing now are very different than stuff we did years ago. We have been able to merge and blend rather than pigeonholing ourselves into a sound that is locked in with a scene.

I know that you guys took a break for a while to pursue some different things, acting and guest vocals and so on. Did you find it to be difficult to pick up where you left off?

Seraphim: Honestly it did take a little bit of time to reorganize. Speaking for myself I do tend to start a lot of musical ideas at my house away from the other guys anyway, and then bring it into the studio. So in the few years that we weren’t active I was kind of going in a new direction and when we did get back together it was a matter of seeing if we were still in the same place. It felt quick; we have all known each other for a very long time and we are kind of like family so it wasn’t too hard.

Gnomad: The very reason why you are asking the question is the very reason why you know that a big change didn’t happen. I want to say that we picked up almost seamlessly, you know, individually within the group we each have a lot of different dimensions to us as artists and so when that time was spent on somewhat of a hiatus we came back and there was a different direction with the music and in general, but it wasn’t something that was pressured. It was natural.

Seraphim: I will admit that this album is like a true metamorphosis. There was a lot of time and songs we worked on that didn’t necessarily fit the new ideas we had for the band. There is almost a half an hours worth of material that was just used as a testing ground.

What do you think the inspiration and influences were for Medicine Babies?

Seraphim: For me, a lot of the early music we did was very political in nature. Which, of course, was inspired by a lot of the music we were listening to at the time that had a political edge to it. For me, you start traveling a bit and your opinions and your views change and it wasn’t a matter of doing away with any ideas or notions of radicalism, it was more that there are so many political discussions that go on and they don’t always resonate with people who just live and exist basic day to day lives. And it just seemed that there was a lot of rhetoric back and forth. We wanted to try to appeal to what makes people happy. What I set out to do was to explore the simple emotions like love and what that means in a time like this. With the war going on and the economy the way it is, people are just not able to fulfill the emotional needs that make us human. So this album is more an exploration of emotion more than politics. The title of the album, Medicine Babies, which Steeples came up with, this is the medicine that we need right now.

Gnomad: Another thing that lends to everything is just kind of a basic growth as an individual. You try to break things down on this cerebral level, and after some time when you see the world and your perspective broadens, some of that cerebral approach gets broken  down and you can experience a wider breadth of emotions. And you have this urge to express that. It is a mutual emotionality as human beings rather than a perspective of analyzing the world. You keep viewing the ills and social problems, but in the way of how the affect people. What people feel at times like this.

Some of the songs are a bit harder and aggressive while others are these smoother dance beats and rhythms. Did you feel that it was important to have this mix?

Seraphim: Definitely. When we stated out a lot of the fusion stuff that is happening now with rock and dance and jazz, it was just starting. And we were definitely a part of that at the beginning but with Steeples going on My Name Is Earl and stuff, we really didn’t get a chance to explore it all that much. Art is a conversation and a lot of artists tend to talk to themselves. A lot of our older music, we were making it for us. Preaching to the converted, and that church was getting pretty small. So we certainly didn’t want to come back and make a record that was hard to listen to.

Gnomad: One of the things that I noticed and we all noticed is that people appreciate a certain level of consciousness and intelligence but no one likes to be brow beaten. Maybe for a minute when it is new, but even then it is only cool for those who want to believe themselves to be more intellectual than everyone else. You can’t just beat people in the head with what you know; you have to consciously understand what you are doing or putting forth. You don’t want to run around some Mr. Spock world where everything is straight logic. If we don’t express a full spectrum of emotion, not just as artists, but also as people, then we will lose the people we are trying to address and connect with.

Seraphim: For me it was a little bit of an epiphany too. We were doing all this really hard political music, and a lot of the things we were talking about social equality and stuff, you can find it right in the middle of the dance scene. It is one thing to get up and brow beat for what we aren't doing, but what about talking about all the good things we do and have. Black, white, Mexican, gay, straight, rock club, punk club, whatever; you are existing in this world that you are singing about already while you are here dancing with everyone.

You want everyone to listen but also dance. I can get behind that.

Gnomad: Well you want them to celebrate and dance! You want them to look at the same pain that one person or a group of people are going through and choose to concentrate on the myriad of circumstances and socially engineered aspects that cause that pain. And inspire them with the strength to overcome it. Choose to celebrate strength and ability to go through life with a vision and desire. It is better than just relentlessly… just…

Seraphim: …complain about shit! (Laughs)

Where did the band name No Surrender come from? Let me guess, it is political?

Seraphim: (Laughs) Yes, yes. I mean, I loved Public Enemy but I loved Jane’s Addiction. But okay, yes I also listened to a lot of angry music growing up.

Gnomad: (Laughs) We were a bunch of angry dudes.

Seraphim: We wanted to be like the psychedelic, weirdo version of Public Enemy. But even in those days I think we contributed a lot to the downtown scene. And we were very do it yourself until very recently, so we weren't the most PR savvy people, but now we are getting a chance to do it a bit better.

Gnomad: Another thing with the name too is that yes it came from political angst, but it is also much truer than that because it is something that represents basically anything. From anger to love there is a feeling of “no surrender” in it. When you are dealing with love there are people who refuse to give up. Or those who get out of a relationship and refuse to give up on the concept of love. That is the spirit of No Surrender right there. It comes from that part of the human spirit that doesn’t break. It doen’t have to be against everything, it can be very pro everything.