VITAMIN X recently toured the USA to promote their new album ''Full Scale Assault''. I caught up with them at their show in Cleveland.
Interview by Abigail D.

A:Why doesn't everyone introduce themselves.

AX: I'm Alex I play bass.
MK: I'm Marko, I'm singing.
M: I'm Marc, I play guitar.
W: Wolfi, drums.

A: All right, so how long have you all been a band?

M: Well, we put out two 7" in 98 and 99 and our first album was produced in 2000. Alex, the bass player, entered the band in 99. Alex, Marko, and I (Marc) have been in the band since 1999 and Wolfi entered the band two years ago.
MK: First practice we ever did was November 1996.

A: How did you all form as a band?

MK: When we started the band, it was me, another friend, and Marc. Of course, in the beginning, we didn’t take ourselves seriously, we just wanted to play music that we liked; 80’s hardcore punk without any (mosh) metal influences. At that time, the hardcore scene was really down, nothing was really happening. The scene was just filled with bad metal bands who called themselves hardcore. Fortunately there were quite a few new kids that liked our style of music, so after only a few weeks practicing we already started getting show offers and we started taking ourselves more serious.
M: Yeah, when we started, we just had some practices for fun, with me on drums haha. I've been in tons of bands but with this band we already after one month had an offer to play. We didn't even have songs. We just played everything we had which was like three songs. The show went down great and we got more show offers and then someone offered to record us a 7". One thing led to another and here we are playing our 160th USA show and touring the world. I don't know...Its really strange that we got so far.
AX: The whole scene in Holland was really on the rise at that point, from 1995 to 2000. There was a surge. There were a lot of new bands from all over Holland. We just had a really good scene going. VITAMIN X was one of the bands that started and helped the whole thing.

A: What was the scene like before 1995?

M: The 1980s were great for hardcore punk but then from 1991 it started to go down bad. Of course, there have always been some cool bands, but actually between 91-92 and 98, there were almost no hardcore bands to go to and watch. I just started going to alternative rock bands or just rock bands because there was nothing else to go to. That's why we started the band; just to start something we liked.
MK: I'm originally from Serbia, from Belgrade. I came as a refugee in 1993 to Amsterdam with the idea that Amsterdam was the epicenter of European Hardcore scene but I was really disappointed because it was really pretty dead. Nothing was really going on. I mean, there were some old bands, American bands passing through like YOUTH BRIGADE or SNFU. The first band that really blew me away was LOS CRUDOS in the summer of 95. They had a big influence, playing intelligent political hardcore.

A: What's it like there now, in Amsterdam or the Netherlands in general?

M: I personally think you can't just talk about the Netherlands in general. In the hardcore scene, there are no borders. So, I think in the hardcore scene in general in the world, after 97, 98 its much much better. There are so many good bands at the moment.
MK: I agree with Marc, but in the last couple of years we've had some of the greatest moments in our local Amsterdam punk hardcore scene. We had a squat called De Baarmoeder. A whole new generation of young kids who are like 17, 18 year olds, squatted this place and organized shows all the time. No borders between ages. There are a couple of great new bands in Amsterdam: GEWAPEND BETON, SICK MORMONS, THE SHINING and a couple of other bands from the south of Holland like our friends CITIZENS PATROL and BRAT PACK, amazing bands, amazing music. Since I moved there in 1993, this, in my opinion, is one of the best moments in the Dutch hardcore scene in the last 15-16 years.