 |
International Noise Conspiracy has got it right. They believe in social,
political, and racial justice for every being on Earth—including
animals.
Their new album, Bigger Cages Longer Chains, was released in the U.K. in November and will be available in the states in January.
Just before the first concert of the Plea for Peace tours, a PETA2 agent spoke with Dennis Lyxzen, frontperson of the International Noise Conspiracy.
PETA2: Can you please say your name and what you do in the band?
INC: My name is Dennis, and I am the vocalist/dancer of the International Noise Conspiracy.
PETA2: Are you vegan or vegetarian?Why?
INC: I am a vegan, and I’ve been vegan for almost 10 years now. I got into animal rights around 1989. I just got into hardcore/punk rock and started thinking about why I should become vegetarian, and then I became a vegan because I could, basically. It’s a kind of simple thing to do ... well, not totally simple in Sweden 10 years ago, but it was fairly easy to do it, and I just figured that I should do it because if you’re a vegetarian and you look at the industry around animal products and so on, it’s kind of the same industry that kills the animals so I just figured, let’s have as little as possible to do with that.
PETA2: Is there any particular issue within animal rights that you are especially interested in?
INC: As I said, I’ve been into animal rights for a long time, and I’m vegan, and the band has three vegans and two vegetarians. But it’s been a long time since I’ve been involved in animal rights issues because we talk about a lot of other political issues and so on. I think that for me, a lot of that stuff is interlinked with why I am a vegan in the first place, but there’s no specific issue. I think something like the fur trade should be abolished, no questions asked or anything, but I don’t think that’s the most important issue. I think one of the most important issues - is to maybe see the big structures between why we’re actually using animals as products and why we’re eating them at such a relentless pace, and so on, and I think that I am more interested in looking at the economical/social/cultural structures as to why we are actually eating and abusing animals the way we do.
PETA2: You already touched on this, but can you talk a little more about how you feel animal liberation is linked to other struggles?
INC: I think that for me, I got into animal rights and the anti-capitalist struggle at the same time because I think a lot of the effect of why we treat animals like we do is because the structure of labor and the structure of mass production of commodities. And I think in a capitalist society, there is no meaning to an object if it’s not a product to be bought or sold, and therefore animals as animals have no meaning - their only meaning is as products. And so for me, the animal rights struggle has always been an anti-capitalist struggle, it’s always been a struggle against big corporations and that kind of stuff. For me, it’s always been interlinked.
PETA2: Where do you get your inspiration for your songs?
INC: Just life in general. I mean, if you have an agenda with why you are in a band and why you play music, it’s not hard. First of all, there’s all this shit you see around you, which you basically see everywhere, all the time, and obviously that’s going to influence you to try to do something better. But then there’s also all the amazing things like the cool people you meet, the protests, all the cool organizations, all the people who are actually involved in doing something good. So you get inspired by that and by the people you meet and by the books you read and records you listen to. So it’s like you accumulate all different aspects of the world and just try to take the best and the worst of the world and put it on a table and show people that there are really bad things and really good things and just "here it is."
PETA2: What advice do you have for any fans or anybody who is interested in getting involved in animal rights or any liberation struggles?
INC: I think, the first thing you need to do is realize that there are all sorts of liberation struggles, whether it be feminist or animal rights or anti-capitalist or ecology or gay/homosexual rights. It’s all a matter of finding something that is close to you and finding something that makes sense in your personal, day-to-day life. And it’s always tricky because it’s like you become an anti-capitalist, and it’s like a very big issue, but then there’s the small struggles that you can get involved in on a day-to-day level. So I tell people to get involved in something that you think matters to you right here and right now. And get educated about the issue: Go to a political bookstore, just pick a book that you think sounds interesting, and then you get organized with your friends, and you just go on from there. There’s no right way or there’s no wrong way to work or act politically-there’s just different ways. And some people form a band or some people do a ’zine or some people join an organization or some people pass out fliers or someone does a documentary or whatever. I think, as long as you’re creative ? there’s tons of ways to work and act politically for social change. Just do it, basically, because no one is going to do it for us. That’s another thing. George Bush is not going to save us—that’s just how it is. So we’ve got to rely on ourselves and our friends and the people in our surroundings.
PETA2: Thank you for the interview, Dennis, and good luck on the rest of the Plea for Peace tour.
|
 |
