Having just finished their latest UK tour, Roadrunner got the chance to chat with the awesome Walls Of Jericho leading lady Candace Kucsulain, with a little added in from the other guys, Aaron Ruby í¢ä‰åäóì Bass, Chris Rawson í¢ä‰åäóì Guitar, Mike Hasty í¢ä‰åäóì Guitar, Dustin Schoenhofer í¢ä‰åäóì Drums, at their show in TJ’s Newport, How is the tour going? Candace: í¢ä‰åñThe tours going good, um.. this is the second day/ no third day , the shows have been good, lots of energy, there’s been a decent amount of kids, a couple hundred, which is cool cause we haven’t been back here in a year, with our new record this time, playing with seventh cross and local bands from the area, but the last time we were here, there were just as many kids, just wasn’t as high energy, and now there’s more energy, with all the kids dancing which is what any band wants, u’know?í¢ä‰åŒ Have you/do you think you may incur any injuries touring this time? Candace: í¢ä‰åñI always every tour, within the first week I mess up my mouth, can you see? ‘points to her lip’ that’s a cut from the other day, I always, always, mess myself up, but that’s just from people singing along and bashing myself in the mouth with the microphone, or from dancing I’ve definitely hit myself in the nose, everybody is hurting each other, everyone is moving around, Aarons constantly just missing my head, I think I almost knocked him off stage yesterday. It’s so intense í¢ä‰åŒ_ we try and watch out for each other but it doesn’t happen, the last tour.í¢ä‰åŒ What are your musical influences? Candace: í¢ä‰åñThere would be tons of musical influences for everybody in the band, I’m gonna talk as a whole as a band, y’know old Metallica, Slayer, there’s tons of bands, Earth Crisis from back in the day and others, I mean everybody influences everybody nowadays, all we’re trying to do is try something that’s our own.í¢ä‰åŒ Do you think there are any differences between the British and the US hardcore scene? Candace: í¢ä‰åñI don’t know, I mean the kids still, there’s still a lot of possi going on in the British Hardcore scene, it’s not as possi in the US anymore, which I think is a really good thing. Um I dunno, we did hear a really weird rumour from one of the guys that we’re close with that’s on this tour, that a lot of the underground hardcore kids aren’t coming out to these shows that came out last time, they’re not coming out this time because we’ve recently been in a couple of metal magazines, so they think that we are getting too big? I dunno if they realise but they’re killing off their own scene when they do that, we’re not big, we’re not a huge band, we’re a hardcore band, hardcore doesn’t get big like metal bands, so what’s kinda lame is the fact that we played a show last night and there was less kids than there were last time, and it was a really good show, there was energy and there’s no reason not come out, it’s not like we are packing places out u’know, we’re just coming here, we’re doing our thing, we’re taking out Seventh Cross, which is a hardcore band from this area, u’know just coming out to do a few shows, I’m just tired of being dedicated to the hardcore scene and the hardcore scene not being dedicated to us, so when you hear that shit you get bummed out, but the other kids who are coming out that we’ve seen, that we remember seeing, that come out, it’s great u’know , anybody come out and have a good time, that’s all we care about!í¢ä‰åŒ How do you feel about playing with bands that have influenced you? Candace: í¢ä‰åñYeh, we really get really excited especially when they’re nice people, we did a resistance tour, two years ago and we played with Sick Of It All, we did a tour with Madball, so like, it’s great touring with bands like that that have been around for so long and realising they are amazing people as well, so we get really stoked, especially when we’re friends cause that’s the most thing, cause if going out with a band that you don’t like, it’s horrible.í¢ä‰åŒ What led you to doing hardcore vocals? Candace: í¢ä‰åñWhen I was younger I liked a lot of different stuff (music) like, I believe 6th grade I started listening to Beastie Boys, I started getting into Punk stuff, Minor Threat, and then getting into more grindcore, not so much metal at that point, a little bit of Metallica, but any real Death Metal or anything. So, just different types of music influenced me all the time, and Hole I liked Hole a lot, because she had this more aggressive thing going on, she wouldn’t just sing and preach, she didn’t give a fuck, which I love that, I love that attitude, and then I went more screamy, so there’s a lot of other bands, that kinda verge on that, like singy/screamy stuff. I went to a local hardcore show, that was the first time I really fell in love with hardcore, I saw the scene and what it meant to people, and how it was a bunch of people, just there for a good time and even if you’re screaming, it’s one of those things that’s all emotion, you’re screaming cause your putting your body into it, you’re putting everything you have in, because your pissed off at something, or you’re upset with something. Scream at the world basically, so that’s why I like it.í¢ä‰åŒ There’s a new vibe to devils amongst us all isn’t there? Where has that stemmed from? Candace: í¢ä‰åñWell, we wanted to do something different, but that was still more us, music that has been influencing us over the years, basically, and there’s a lot of different bands, that say Chris likes or I like, Mike likes. We wanted to mix together different sounds, we don’t feel like we have to do the cookie cutter straight hardcore shit, you know, we don’t feel like we just have to be a certain way, we wanna do what we wanna do. If we want singing parts, we’ll have fucking singing parts. If we can do it and have the ability to do that, then why can’t we do that, it would be a shame if I couldn’t, if I felt like I was not completely doing what it was I felt I needed to do in music, to fulfil myself, not in this band, if I couldn’t do it in this band cause we’re supposed to be a ‘hardcore’ band or we’re just supposed to be a ‘metalcore’ band, No! we’re musicians that want to play music, of course we’re not going to start writing pop-punk songs, but we’re gonna do what we feel, what we wanna play on stage, which is going to be metal/hardcore but we are going to throw some fun stuff in there as well.í¢ä‰åŒ What is it like fronting in a male dominated genre? Candace: í¢ä‰åñIts fun, why? Because you get to talk about really funny stuff, last night we talked about an embarrassing incident I had in Ozz-fest being a female in a male dominated field. You have to read revolver to read that one though! It’s a bunch of bullshit half the time, because you get asked these questions, cause people don’t let it go, cause people constantly wanna compare, fuck that, I don’t care anymore, you know, what is fun about it is I have the advantage cause I can hit people, I can show people while we’re playing and get away with it and most guys can’t, so right there, that’s such a good point.í¢ä‰åŒ You make an awesome role model to women: how does that make you feel? Candace: í¢ä‰åñI appreciate when people say it, I never really wanted to, I mean it’s cool, I just never really thought of it that way, or wanted it to be at any point in time especially when I growing, because I was still searching myself for who I was, so to hear that before made me a little squirmish, because I never want to take away from what somebody else is doing, if there doing something because they have the strength enough and get up and do it, they should get the credit for it not me. As things are going on and I see more people coming into the scene, I do understand as I’m getting older I do understand how it’s very important to have role models, or to have somebody to look at and say you know what yeh, she can fucking do it, and you wanna know why I think that’s good? It’s because I still hear way too many girls not doing things because they’re afraid of what guys are gonna say or how they are going to criticise them, you know what guys still do that, constantly, so, I think it is important to have a girl who can like, I can get up there I can rock a skirt, and tell you to fuck off, because I’m gonna do my own thing and I’m gonna do it in my own style, and I’m not gonna care about what other people think, I think it’s very important, so if somebody looks at me for that, that’s amazing.í¢ä‰åŒ In the past, some members of the band have day jobs, is that still the case? Candace: í¢ä‰åñMost of us still have day jobs, I’m a body piercer at a tattoo shop whenever I’m home, every once in a while I get fired from there. Chris, randomly works at a grocery store, it’s pretty amazing, Dustin í¢ä‰åñwhat do you do?í¢ä‰åŒí¢ä‰åŒ Dustin: í¢ä‰åñ Bartenderí¢ä‰åŒ Candace: í¢ä‰åñHe does a bunch of shit, he’s a bartender, and Aaron tattoo artist and a dad, and then Hasty(mike) he don’t do shit, I don’t know, He’s a dad,í¢ä‰åŒ (conversation ensues about if Mike still has a recording studioí¢ä‰åŒ_ we didn’t get to the bottom of it) What are your plans after this tour? Candace: í¢ä‰åñWe got the Sick OF It All stuff, right after, the Persistence tour , right after, then we go home for Christmas which is really nice, cause we deserve to go home for Christmas, and then I don’t know, we want to tour as much as we possibly can, we wanna be out as much as we can.í¢ä‰åŒ Catch Walls Of Jericho live on Friday 1st December 2006 í¢ä‰åäóì London Kentish Town Forum (Persistence tour with Sick Of It All, Madball, Terror, Comeback Kid, Destiny, + Distance). If you can’t make that, check out the pictures from their awesome live show at TJ’s, Newport HERE.