Darkest Hour, Animal Rights, and Zombie Movies

Darkest Hour is one impressive metal band. So impressive, in fact, that AP recently gave their album Undoing Ruin a 5 out of 5. Punknews.org called it an “instant classic.” Here at peta2, we’ve got another reason to be stoked about the album—the band is so intent on educating their fans about the horrors of animal experimentation that they took it upon themselves to include our recent collaboration with Freya as a bonus feature on their latest release. This video shows some of the most hardcore cruelties that animals used in experiments endure. Then, to help out even more, guitarist Mike Schleibaum recently called us up to chat about his views on going vegetarian, fur, animal testing, and of course, zombie movies. Here’s what he had to say…

How long have you been vegetarian?

Since I was 15. Twenty-eight minus 15 is 13 years. You get so used to it, you don’t think of those options anymore. You only see food that you know you’ll eat as options.

What made you originally decide to stop eating meat?

Well, it was 1995. It was the height of when hardcore, straight edge, and veganism [were] usually popular. Earth Crisis was huge when the “Firestorm” record came out. And honestly, all my friends were vegetarian; it was just like a thing that went along with being straight edge. Then it just became a part of who I was and my belief system.

Is there anything that you found out about the factory farming industry after you went vegetarian that made you glad you weren’t promoting that industry?

For me, vegetarianism and veganism [have] always been a very political stance. I read that book Animal Liberation. I read it when I was a lot younger, and it kind of internalized for me the politicalization of vegetarianism. For me, it was all about not supporting companies in order to send a message to them that they have to have vegetarian options. When you actually do research and you see images of factory farming or you actually see a factory farm … the thing about being on tour is sometimes you drive by them. I remember one time we had a van that got a flat tire miles from a factory farm and you could actually see it and you could smell it and it was so intense, it was crazy, and we were there for hours. I think that experience alone is the defining moment, for me, as far as factory farming.

What kind of things did you see?

Well, you could really just see the gray building. It was a really desolate-looking thing. There were these big trucks with live chickens that they would stack crates and crates and crates on top of each other and they would drive by. And the smell of those and the sight of those [were] pretty insane—they’re just animals stuffed inside of little cages. I think the main thing was the smell. You could just smell death.

Do you have any opinions on animal experimentation?

I obviously don’t think that animal experimentation is a good way to figure out how experimentations are going to work on the human body. I don’t think that they’re similar enough. Also, I think there are plenty of people who have every disease that you’re trying to cure who would gladly volunteer to be those guinea pigs because we would learn much more from those studies than we would on any other animal.

People, mostly scientists, and people in general don’t see animals as more than something they can throw away and don’t understand that that’s just wrong. And they must have seen the movie 28 Days Later. Personally, I think that movie was an effective anti-animal experimentation movie.

What kind of messages did you get out of the movie 28 Days Later about animal rights?

When you have a movie that’s a fictional movie but it kind of shows the tampering with animals’ lives and animals’ rights, I think it’s good because people don’t realize how delicate the entire ecosystem of the world is, and how fucked it can get if you experiment with shit like that. I think that 80 percent of the American public is just blind and stupid, and when you have a movie that can kind of reach them and is entertaining, the only way you’re going to sneak any real information in is if you sugar-coat it with a bunch of blood and gun shots.

One of our other campaigns is against fur—do you think people should boycott fur?

I remember Neiman Marcus was a store in D.C. that animal rights people would always protest. Fur to me is kind of like the ultimate wrong. Killing an animal just so you can use its fur for fashion is kind of the ultimate abomination. I think it’s a shame.

Do you have any advice for people who might be interested in vegetarianism?

My main advice is that it is not unhealthy. That is the biggest lie that the carnivore world is trying to impose on anyone who is trying to become vegetarian.


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