Luke "Crew" Dolan (White Male Duminance, The Dead Walk, Life Love Regret, Arms Reach, X-Claim, Pitfall)

1- NCHC, as in Newcastle Hardcore, not the other one, haha,you were there from the very beginning. How awesome was it to be a part of something that you and your friends created and watched grow? What were some of the bands that you first think of when you think NCHC? And also what were some of the questions that a very young straightedge youth crew you and Chippa asked Ian Mackaye when he came through Newcastle with Fugazi?

When I first started going to shows in 93' there were no hardcore bands in Newcastle, let alone a "scene". I mean there were bands that had HC influences and a few older guys that collected records and stuff, but the closest thing we had to HC were melodic punk bands like No Reason and Big Men Fly, or thrash metal bands like Angry Earth Mutha. It was a really small and tight knit underground scene, where these bands would play with grunge bands, ska bands, or garage rock type bands, simply because there weren't enough people to splinter off into different scenes. Me and Chippa would go to these shows and dream of doing a straight up HC band, something really in your face and unapologetically HARDcore. We didn't want to fit in with the long hairs and pseudo rock gods, we wanted to emmulate our idols Minor Threat and Youth Of Today! Occasionally bands from Sydney like Minute Minder and Toe To Toe would play Newie and we got to be mates with a couple of the guys in Minute Minder. We would jump up and sing Side By Side covers and stuff with them which inspired us to start jamming with a few skater mates from school. That band became what I consider the first ever NCHC band, Disengage. Originally it was going to be me and Chippa on dual vocals but I got booted out before the first show haha. Anyway Disengage started playing and me, Craig Edge, and a couple of my other mates from school would go to shows X'd up, heads shaved & moshing like lunatics haha. The older punk crowd didn't know what to make of it but we didn't give a fuck and it slowly started to catch on with the younger crew. New bands started forming like Pitfall, Shutdown, Anomie and Nihilst and a true hardcore scene emerged when we started to put on our own shows, make up our own demo tapes, do our own zines etc. It's fucking rad to look back on it now and have people acknowledge that we started something, a self sufficient HC scene that's been going strong for almost 15 years now. As for what we asked Ian Mackaye when Fugazi played Newcastle in 93', well the photos on the White Male Dumbinance myspace say it all... how could we ask him anything with a mouthful of his nuts??? hahaha

2- Pitfall was def one of my favourite bands as a kid, and Ben from Parkway still has his signed Pitfall shirt, haha.What does that band mean to you now thinking back on it? And how awesome was that last show at the Black Box? My leg almost fucking snapped in 2 when the biggest dog piles occurred directly on top of me! haha

Pitfall will always mean a lot to me as it was my first band and I had been busting my balls to sing in a band since day one. I'll never forget how stoked I was when Rod Pack told me they kicked out their old singer and asked me to do it after a Poison Bruno gig in which I jumped up and sang their GB "Hold Your Ground" cover. The first show I did with Pitfall was at the Hunter On Hunter with maybe 25 people there haha but I wouldn't have cared if there was 2 people there, that first night I sang with my own band it was a dream come true... and I've been an addict ever since. I'm proud of what Pitfall did in terms of putting NCHC on the map Australia wide and we were also one of the first bands to have outspokenly straight edge lyrics in a time long before SXE was remotely cool or trendy. The last show was actually at Hardcore Superbowl 97' at the Iron Duke in Sydney and the Black Box show was a reunion maybe a year or two later? Anyway yeah the Black Box show was off the hook with kids traveling from all over just to jump on top of each other and heckle my crooning during "Torn Between" haha.

3- Whilst in Arms Reach you became quite politically correct, haha, even saying some things in zines that got you into a little hot water. Do you look back now and think what was i so wound up about? Or is it just one of those things that happen when you are growing up and doing bands?

The first 2 years or so of Arms Reach was great, we had so much fun and managed to find a balance between politics and balls out hardcore without shoving our views down peoples throats. The last year of that band is difficult for me to recollect because somewhere along the way I lost my fucking mind and became a self righteous cunt haha. I think what happened is hardcore became an unhealthy obsession for me, I mean I had nothing else going on in my life and the band became a vehicle for my growing closed mindedness and blind ego. I had this distorted view that you could talk shit about your friends bands and make fun of them but at the end of the day everyone would still be cool and want to hang out with each other haha. I mean yeah part of it is just growing up and trying to figure your own shit out and I think I expressed that in songs like "Seasons For Growth" but then you have songs like "Run For Your Fucking Life" what the fuck is that about? haha. I'm in two minds about that era, part of me is still that shit stirring, arrogant cunt which can be healthy in such an arse kissing, non threatening environment that is hardcore today but you have to have the tact and wisdom to pick worthy adversaries if you're gonna choose that path, not just being a prick for the sake of it which is just boring and lame.

4- Life Love Regret was fucking intense, everyone knows what the band was about, and the first few shows i saw you were fucking INTENSE, but do you think due to the lyrical content the band had an expiry date from the start? Also,The Dead Walk has now finished up after a solid 4 years as a band, what are some highlights from both bands?

LLR definitely had a pre-determined shelf life and unfortunately we stuck around a little past our use by date haha. In truth I could've quit the band after the first few shows and been completely satisfied as nothing could match the intensity and validity of the first few shows we played. LLR was like the closure of a fucked up chapter in my life (that incidentally started in the later AR days) and the highlight of that band would easily be the first show we played at Hornsby PCYC. To be singing those lyrics for the first time in front of an audience was such an incredible emotional and spiritual release I remember being on such a high that I couldn't sleep that night. The Dead Walk! was a long overdue fuck you to all the prolonged self pity, indulgence, and inner band turmoil of later day LLR and was all about bringing it back full circle to embrace and celebrate fun, simple hardcore. The culmination of this was definitely the tour we did with Ringworm and Mindsnare which was basically a bunch of old fuckers playing hard and partying harder every fucking night... definitely one of the most amazingly fun and wild couple of weeks I've ever had.

5- Fuck iam just thinking you have sung in alot of bands,haha, but your newest band, White Male Dumbinance could quite possibly be my favourite. I think it has touches of every band you and Chippa have done, plus more. What are your goals with the band, and will there be more genius lyrics like that found on " I Dont Think So Honey"? Also, like me you are getting older, haha, but continue to do hardcore bands. What keeps you involved with the core?

White Male Dumbinance is like Life.Love.Regret playing Infest covers. How long can a band like this last? Well if you were to sit in on one of our practices you'd hear Chippa and Murray argue about the price of dildos in Thailand until they almost come to blows. I'm not even kidding. I'm stoked we finally got the 7"s released and we're playing Melbourne on New Years Eve with Extortion which should be killer but beyond that, well, anything's a bonus. At 33 years old I've come to the conclusion that I couldn't quit hardcore even if I wanted to haha. I think once you've been into something for so long, for better or worse, it just becomes part of who you are. I mean I just found out today that Gorilla Biscuits are touring Australia in December and I shit you not, I put on "Start Today" and moshed around my room with my dog for the entire album. Is that normal behaviour? No, of course it's fucking retarded and juvenile but at the same time it's kinda rad that I can still get so pysched on the prospect of seeing one of my favourite bands and I'm not completely jaded.