1.How did the Skinflicks come about?
J: The SKINFLICKS were formed after a hard drinking afternoon in 1997. At that time there were only 3 members in the band. It was me (Jerome) on drums & vocals, Tom on guitar & Muck on bass. After playing gigs  here & there in some pubs of southern Luxembourg, a first little recording was released, a demo-tape called "CIDER LANE 77", of which a limited amount of copies were sold.

2.What made you call yourselves the ‘Skinflicks'?
J: We wanted the name to be a bit funny and easy to remember and we love skinflicks and I like sexual connotations as in "4-skins".

P: Hey! I guess we just chose a name we could all identify with....yes we might be somewhat obsessed, hahaha!

And it has the word "skin" to it, which makes it work on two levels, alright?

T: We tried to find a pun with skin in it , an since we all like pornos, this was first choice.

3.What else do you all do apart from the band?
J: I play in another band called MACK MURPHY AND THE INMATES along with Tom and Patrick (TOM WAITS/NICK CAVE-kinda style) and I'm an active member of a drama group.

T: I'm studying law in France and apart from the band , i do my girlfriend.

P: Previous to becoming a member of this band I was probably their biggest fan, as I attended almost every gig since the band was formed in 1997 and I knew all the lyrics by heart....back in those days, the SKINFLICKS even had a song about ME, hahaha!

I used to work for a company that made commercial signs and letterings. I was a graphic designer. But some weeks ago I started a career as an executive officer for the state....not very "working class" any more, I know, but me is gettin' old, knowamean? And I need to get meself some security in loife, right?.

 As far as hobbies are concerned, my first and last love will always be the music, as I play in several bands (TOXKÄPP!- Ska-punk, SURF ME UP, SCOTTY!-Wild Sci-Fi-trash-horror-B-Pictures-Surf-instruMentals and THE LAST MILLENNIUM SUCKERS- the local Death Rock-Punk outfit) but apart from that I enjoy reading (both fiction and non-fiction, i.e. both philosophy(history) and novels), as well as collecting films (not just the dirty ones, hahaha!) ....I am a total movie-buff and I go to see films at the cinema on a regular basis, but apart from that I also collect them at home. I own way over 600 films, mostly trash horror and science fiction flicks from all over the world! I also have another hobby and that is SCOOTERING! I ride my scooter as much as I can (very often several hours a day!) and I love the traditional scooter-skin lifestyle!!!!

I am a proud foreign member of the WARRIOR SCOOTER CLUB of Northern England and I wear their clothes live on stage to promote them and influence the youth, hahaha! That's all very subliminal, so if you come to see the SKINFLICKS play live often enough, you will find yourself riding a scooter and joining WARRIOR, although you don't know why....so you've been warned!

4.Your debut  album ‘lies, damned lies and skinheads' is all in English. What made you decide to sing in English?
J:  Our idols sing in English, so we thought it might sound better to do it in English as well, rather than in our mother tongue.

P: Well, no matter how you look at this, but the true language of Oi! IS English and if you try to recreate something specific from a specific place as well as period of time, I guess you've got to go with the flow in order to achieve your goal. There was never any discussion among the band concerning this particular topic, it's just what comes natural, knowamean?

T: To me, english is the best language to sing oi music. It just sounds so much better than anything else.

5.Would I be right in saying that you are heavily influenced by British Oi!? Is this your main musical influence?
T: Yes , it is!

J: Yes we are and it is. I love the old shit. Why do something else? Never change a winning tune!

P: Our main influence is classic British Oi! music of the 80-ies, that's right and I think people are able to hear what we are trying to do by listening to our records. We always like singalong choruses and quite simple Punk rock music as background. We don't care to show off what we can do technically, we leave that to METAL bands, hahaha! The most important thing for us is the song itself. Who cares if it is simple as long as it WORKS?!

We are also not too fond of the modern-day mixtures of Oi! with METAL or HARDCORE, we just simply like to play good, old-fashioned, PUNK ROCK-influenced Oi!....just like Mommy used to make!

Personally, I listen to a great deal of a lot of different musical styles, so a list of my favourite bands would take up all the space in your zine, hahaha!

So I will limit myself to my favourites in PUNK ROCK and Oi!, if I may....as I said, all the classic Oi! stuff such as THE BUSINESS, COCK SPARRER, THE LAST RESORT and COMBAT 84 and I also love some of the American Oi!, IRON CROSS, of course and OXBLOOD, THE TEMPLARS and FIRST STRIKE....oh, and BATTALION 86 who are mates of mine. I also listen to some old-school H.C. from time to time.

6.What bands would you most like to play with, or have enjoyed playing with the most?
P: EVIL CONDUCT from Holland, always and ever again! Because they're mates and some of the finest blokes around, but also because they are an absolute kick-arse live band!!!! Check out their records as well, everyone who calls him- or herself a decent skinhead should own this, it's required listening!

And Frankie Flame and his SUPERYOB were and are as friendly as they are marvellous! Frankie's really the "gentleman of Oi!"! A force still to be reckoned with and still among my top five favorite Oi-bands....can't wait to hear their new album!

CONDEMNED 84 were pretty nice too, especially Kev, their singer, was very polite and funny backstage at our gig in Northfleet, England....and wot a band!

ANTI NOWHERE LEAGUE and the UK SUBS was really cool as well and a dream of mine come true!

I would love to play with THE TEMPLARS, also my mates from BATTALION 86, STOMPER 98 from Germany and the TOWER BLOCKS again (I nicknamed them the "POWER BLOCKS" after our gig in Germany!) awesome band!!!!

D.N.I. from Germany are also always a pleasure to play with, as they are really decent folks, and they ROCK! We would also dream to play with our heroes, COCK SPARRER and THE BUSINESS....we almost played with THE BUSINESS in Germany....Micky Fitz insisted we open for them after hearing our demo, but unfortunately only half the band was present!

J: EVIL CONDUCT  are great guys.

T: The Band i enjoyed playing with most  is definitely Evil Conduct.

7.I have noticed that none of your songs seem to have anything to do with politics (good job), do you, as skinheads, try to keep away from that side of things?
J: Personnally I try to keep the hell away from it, it can ruin everything. It already did and it surely might again.

T: Yes we do! I think evryone should do his politics as a person , not as a skin.

P: I think it is really sad that skinheads always get automatically linked with (extreme) politics of both the left AND the right wing. That is mainly the fault of the mainstream media who have been distorting the public opinion on this particular subject for almost three decades now and a lot of irreparable damage has been done.

(there will be a song on our new record about all this and it's called "Media")

You told me you guys were non political over there and hated both Nazis AND Redskins....way to go mates!!!!

That's how it was MEANT to be! Fuck them politics!

Personally I don't see any use for a Black and/or White Power, because I am not a racialist and the "14 words" mean diddley-squat to me, hahahah!

SIEG-HEILING is a joke in any other country than Germany and Austria, since I cannot understand how these people can give the sign of the enemy that tried to invade their land and drive their families out of their own country in front of their countries' respective flags and still call themselves "Patriots"?!

That just doesn't make ANY sense to me! A patriot is someone who fights FOR his country and is NOT someone who undermines the laws of his land to let the  invading enemy in through the backdoor.

That is someone I call TRAITOR!

Racism is  a very complicated theme in our P.C. world today....on the surface you could say that I am a racist, inasfar as that I believe that different races of the homo sapiens EXIST.

That is something you cannot say in a P.C. world. they all bombard you with slogans like "ONE RACE - THE HUMAN RACE"....well kiddies: that is BULLSHIT, there is (biologically speaking) no such thing as a "human race" - there is a "human SPECIES" which is divided into several RACES!

What the difference is, you ask? Well, ask your bio teacher and he will explain to you that RACES can mix, but SPECIES can't! i.e.: black people can have babies with white, yellow or red-skinned people just the same as an Angora cat might be able to procreate with an Egyptian cat, but a Rabbit cannot have a baby with a CROCODILE, got it? Now that might seem pretty clear to you, but a lot of people disagree on that point, they state that there are no races and that we're all exactly the same....but that is the same kind of nonsense as if you would say that there are no German Shepherds, pitbulls, poodles, terriers and Dobermans and that there are only "dogs"....see how silly that is? Good.

Now, what I don't believe in is the inborn SUPERIORITY of any of these races (whose existence we just proved, remember?) and I think no one has the right to be the judge of that except history maybe....under certain restraints...

and xenophobia is "understandable" if not excusable under certain conditions since it only means a healthy sense of mistrusting against everything strange to what you are accustomed to see - to me it is perfectly normal that someone wants to protect their families and adopts a conservative attitude toards something he doesn't know. But of course everything has its limits....when this phobia (= fear) turns to  open HOSTILITY and  gratuitous violence, the fun stops, alright?

Oooooohhhh, I made meself lots of new ennemies now I reckon, but always bear in mind that these are MY personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the band's opinions, ok?

8.How does the band go down in Luxembourg, is there a big skinhead scene over there?
T: Nope, there's no "skinhead scene" worth that name in Luxembourg.But we have some fans over 'ere too.

P: Not quite as well as one might be inclined to think....it is a popular misconception that we are some kind of local 'eroes here or something....quite the opposite, in fact!

We do not have a great following over here and half of the local skinhead scene here tends to more or less ignore us, because they think we are poseurs or that we don't mean what we say and sing about, just because we cannot hang out with them as often as we would since we all have other obligations and bands to tend to.

That is quite a pity but I reckon it will never change. There are a few of them who always did support us, (got us signed to our record label even) and who did travel far with us to see us play gigs in foreign countries....as for the general public, well they more or less pretend we don't exist, since any self-respecting citizen should be ashamed to know there are some bad baldies running around in pretty, safe, little Luxembourg, knowamean? Hence the undertitle to the new album, roight?

We haven't played in Luxembourg for almost two years now and we've sworn never to do it again.

The scene is just too small, there's just a handful of skins in Luxembourg, not enough to fill even a small venue....and the young local punks won't show up because they're scared and/or have a political lifestyle that won't allow them to support unpolitical, un-PC bastards such as us!

We have played in France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and England but we received offers to play from all around the world! Hopefully we'll be able to tour some day.

As far as the scene here is concerned I would like to point out that it is all pretty quiet here....no gigs of interest whatsoever, except for the local small-town punkrock bands playing tiny clubs on the weekend from time to time.

There has been some skinhead scene going on ever since the middle of the 80-ies, but it all went rather unnoticed by the larger public, also because there were few and far between and nothing of real value ever happened here!

We have to travel ourselves if we want to see some decent Oi! shows every once in a while (to Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium....mostly to Brugge!)

As far as the crew is concerned, we are about 15-20 people who know each other fairly well, if we all do get together, that is....which is unfortunately quite rare!

I have heard of about 30 other skins living in another part of the country, mostly white power oriented though, whom we haven't met just as yet....so you could say that Luxembourg has a total skinhead population of about 50-60, which isn't too bad if you consider the tinyness of our country!

But as I said, life is pretty quiet for us up here.... the only trouble one might encounter every once in a while is with gangs of those ultra-cool hip-hop-ghetto-gangsta-rappa kind of baggy-pants-wearing-French-speaking jerks( and, believe me,there's A LOT of those up here) who think it is mighty cool to gang up on you and try to take you for a ride, imagining this is some kinda L.A. ghetto or  a part of Marseille or whatever!

But those jokers don't scare me. You see, I have been walking this part of town and these streets for more than 30 years now and back then most of these freaks weren't even BORN yet, so I consider this MY territory and MY streets and if these guys look for trouble they might just find some....

Mostly though, they do not even dare to talk back at you (at least not in a language you can understand!) and they let you pass them by....once , about two years ago, three of them jokers tried to rob me at night in a train station....but when I challenged them to fight for my money, they ran away (pussies!)....

I would be inclined to say that Luxembourg is the ideal retirement home for aging skinheads, hahahah! Apart from that there are a couple of very nice English and Irish pubs in the old town part of the capital (Lux.-city) where I live....I particularly enjoy going there as often as I can, yet I am almost always alone as all the others are from the south of the country and far too lazy to travel up here, hahaha!

As far as bands are concerned there has been some kind of Punk Rock explosion over the last few years, there are plenty of new young bands who play their own brand of (street-) Punk....

As I said, the SKINFLICKS do not enjoy playing in Luxembourg all that much any more, since we are almost always misunderstood by certain clowns who want to see some kind of neo-nazi provocation in every single move you make, which is quite sad as the SKINFLICKS opted to leave politics up to every single member of the band, BUT NOT TO THE MUSIC!

9.Have you toured much through Europe?..any plans to leave the continent and tour elsewhere?
P: Actually, we never really "toured" at all! There was simply no time fer that, since we all have so many things to do apart from this band....and quite blatantly there was almost no offer to tour anywhere since we only ever started to get our name spread around the globe.

Now, of course it's a little different and touring could be possible, but now we have no more band to tour with, ever since our drummer Gilbert left us and the other two wanted to focus on their studies abroad.

We had to cancel our scheduled tour through Spain in December because of that and it is quite sad since we have just released a new album and we cannot even play live to promote it in any kind of way....but once the studies are over for the other two remaining band members, we'll get back together again, find ourselves a decent drummer and start playing all over the place once more!

We want to play anywhere! Fuck, you could hire us to play in your living room halfway 'round the globe if you fuckin' wanted to, knowamean?

J: I'd love to play in Australia!

T: Of course we'd like to play in the States or Australia , but for the moment that will be difficult, mostly because of financial problems.

10.Do you get into American Oi!? Any desires to tour to the USA?
J: Of course, I'd love to!

P: Yes, a lot! I believe the 90-ies belonged to the American Oi! and the scene over there is so fresh and young, it's really interesting!

You see, back in the 80-ies, when the European Oi! scene was blossoming, the Americans HAD NO real Oi! bands. They had skinhead bands, granted, but they were mostly HardCore bands or punk-and-HC-influenced mixtures like the classic IRON CROSS or the ANTI HEROS for instance.

But the last 10 years saw an enormous boom of tremendous bands like THE TEMPLARS, OXBLOOD (with whom we had the honour of playing on one of their last gigs....they are being sadly missed!), FIRST STRIKE, PATRIOT, BATTALION 86, THE TOUGHSKINS, THE FAT SKINS....(not to mention my favourite American bands THE SKOIDATS and INSPECTER 7, but ok, that's not really Oi!, that's more like intense SKA-Punk and American 2-TONE....) to name but a few....!

The U.S.A. have made enormous progress and have tons of bands who offer the world their own brand of quality working class music!

Of course we would love to play over there as well, and we even had an offer to play in Washington D.C., which could, unfortunately, not be realized....but who knows....?

11. What got you into the skinhead way of life?
P: What first got me into the scene was an early 90-ies documentary on SHARP which fascinated me, they showed skinheads dancing to SKA music and interviewed a lot of them....it really impressed me since I didn't know much about non-political or even left-wing skinheads, but I guess it was quite well done and left a lasting impression. The same pictures, samples and statements kept rotating in my mind for several months until I couldn't separate meself from them any more....so I was in!

But I think SHARP has served its purpose of showing the world that "skinhead * bonehead"  ( and NO, I don't think that served as an "alibi"-function it simply was USEFUL INFORMATION!)as well as restoring faith to all the others inside the movement who simply could not identify with our sieg-heiling friends. But once its mission was accomplished it started to become really obsolete and began DAMAGING the scene, inasmuch as it further split up the scene, rendering "unity" almost impossible and then it began to drift off into the left side of the political spectrum (over here at least) which completely destroyed its initial purpose, as far as I am concerned.

Back to my facination with our way of life, though....it is simply the only youth cult with any sense of dignity and a strict code of honour and honesty combined with street-level wisdom and a great deal of good old fucking "good sense", chrissakes!

To me, being a skinhead is about friendship and honour, it is about taking pride in where you come from and not being ashamed of it (like the "peace punks" are). It is about being true to and believing in yerself, about tradition, scooterism and being as hard'n'smart as you can while remaining a reliable mate your true friends can count on at any time!  So , basically you might say that I believe in the spirit of '69, even though that was three years before I was born...but anyway I don't think you had to be there to believe in it...it is just a code of honour that will be just as true 150 years from now as it is today....!

Also, I like to stay "non-political" inasmuch as that you have your personal opinion of yer own, but you don't go around harrassing people with your views.... I have been peacefully drinking with and talking to people in the past whose views were diametrically opposed to mine but  that's alright as long as we don't forget where we come from and stick together still....our mate Lex put it best when I first met him and started a discussion about politics (being a young skinhead freshman and all that....). he said : "Listen mate, if you want to have a drink with us, come inside, but don't forget to leave your politics at the wardrobe. This is just about beer and fun, ok? So when you leave you can pick up your views again and take them back home with your jacket! No harm done!"

Oh, and yesterday he also said: "What's the use of skinheads fighting each other? There's enough people fighting us as it is right now, so we simply don't need to fight INSIDE the scene, right?"

I guess that really makes sense, if you strive to stay out of trouble and away from political nonsense of all kind.

Who wants to be a friggin' puppet on a string for any political party anyway?

J: Music basically.

T: I was trying out different things , and decided to stay with the skinhead thing!(coz it's best)

12. Anything else you would like to add, or say something that I didn't ask about?
J:  It's really great that you guys are interested in what we do, thanks!

T: Thanks a lot for your Interview (and your patience)

P: Well, we have a new album out into which we poured all our hearts and all of our musical skills and vocal abilities. We think it is really worth checking out and we believe that you might not feel you wasted your time, should you lend an ear to our record, so fell free to do so, alright?

Thanks a lot, Fiona and AUSSIESKINS, for all your support, for this interview and, most of all, for giving working class music and attitude from down under (and from all around the globe) a loud and clear voice that echoes the world over!

Please, go on doing what you do, your work is very important and you're doing a wonderful job!

13. How can us folks in Australia get hold of your music?
P: Try to contact our label (and mailorder) BLIND BEGGAR RECORDS (Germany/Switzerland), I guess Peter will be more than happy to ship some orders out to you folks!

"www.oirecords.com"

Thanks a lot!