The Press - MRR Interview
From Maximumrocknroll #304, September 2008

The Press were one of the first American Oi bands. Proudly working-class and anti-racist, they existed in one form or another from 1984 to 1994, with frontman André Schlesinger always at the helm. Their total recorded output has just been released on Insurgence Records. Here's a bit of a chat with Andre about the band and what he's been up to.

MRR: The Press have been referred to as 'North America's first Oi band'. Was this really the case?

A: For years I had been satisfied knowing that we were the first authentic Oi band in NYC being that we were performing original songs directly influenced by various bands who comprised the original Oi movement and many of the bands who had in turn influenced them and of course we were also openly identifying with the Oi genre. While other bands played a few Oi covers or had one or two original songs that had an Oi influence they were basically Hardcore/Punk bands, and then there was all those Skinhead bands playing slowed down Hardcore along with the predictable cliché lyrics. I don't know about the whole North America thing since I'm aware of at least one or two bands in Montreal, Canada who could make that claim as well but I won't argue with the idea that we were the first in the US knowing which bands some will suggest were actually the first. Skinhead is more than just a hair cut and Oi isn't just about Skinheads, right?

MRR: How did The Press come together, and why?

A: As early as 1982 I had been interested in forming a new Punk band in NYC after fronting a few low level projects in my hometown in Upstate NY. After hearing bands like The Gonads and Cockney Rejects on the NYU radio show "Noise The Show" (formerly "Oi! The Show") I had become increasingly interested in the Oi sound and subject matter which I felt I identified with on many levels and I was becoming somewhat disappointed with the development of the Hardcore Punk sound which by then had become more "Hardcore" and less Punk. After several trips and an extended stay in Montreal, which had a strong Oi following at the time, I came back to NYC on a mission to create a dedicated Oi band. By 1984 I had the band formed with a preliminary line up and after tossing around a few ideas for a name (early considerations included "The Spy Boys" among others) I came up with "The Press" after having been a power press operator in a drawer slide factory and working in several print shops.

MRR: OK, so what was it about the Oi sound and subject matter that spoke to you? Any bands in particular that you found inspiring?

A: Environmental factors and personal experiences influenced the songs of The Press as much as anything else. Just prior to starting The Press I had worked in a factory operating a power press and driving a fork lift and both before and after that period I had worked at various printing press jobs. Now I don't think that working in a factory, shop or manual labor is bad, it builds character and a bit of muscle when it's done within reason. There's a certain camaraderie that develops around the work place and that went into songs like "Carry On Harry" and "Friday 5 PM," but when it becomes redundant, boring, demeaning or even dangerous and you've become bitter over it, well "It's Not What I Want" and "Revolution Now!"

As far as sound and style I'd say a big influences was The Gonads and I believe that it was their song "Tucker's Ruckers Aint No Suckers" that was the very first Oi track I had ever heard and it definitely inspired the sound on songs like "Revolution Now." Cockney Rejects, another band that introduced me to Oi, figures prominently in there as well as Sham 69, Cock Sparrer, The Business and Angelic Upstarts. Prior to that, when I was a kid, The Stranglers, Sex Pistols and The Clash, The Damned go without saying. I think that the album that I repeatedly listened to the most back then was "The Good, The Bad & The 4 Skins," particularly the studio side, I was always impressed by the album cover's artwork and the way the band looked on the back cover. And then there was The Redskins...

I had hopes that The Press would become a bit more progressive and perhaps we were perceived as such in comparison to our peers. I had always been a big Stranglers and Roxy Music fan, and I had appreciated certain unpopular tracks and albums recorded by the Angelic Upstarts and Blitz, you know the ones... I also had a lot of appreciation for the Pathetique bands, apart from The Gonads, like Splodgenessabounds and Peter & The Testube Babies who were very progressive if not experimental, and then there was a Reggae, Ska and Soul aspect to us, so I was open to broadening our sound. Certain songs, particularly "ASAP," "Try," "Carry On Harry" and "Shot Heard Around The World" were begging for keyboards and we performed at least one show with an additional saxophone player. Some songs like "It's Not What I Want" had originated in visual art and I wanted to incorperate this into our live performances. The music I was beginning to write was more complex, particularly the Reggae songs. I was becoming very curious about using synthesizers in the band and since Mick Jones' Big Audio Dynamite was another favorite around that time I was entertaining the idea of using samples and tape loops. I think I'm starting to realize that concept now.

MRR: What was people's reaction to The Press at the time? Today it seems The Press is held in high-regard and even considered "legendary" in some circles...

A: People's initial expectation of a Punk band, particularly a Skinhead band in NYC back in the 1980s, was that we'd sound more like a Hardcore band. Of course we weren't a Hardcore band and in the beginning, or at least when we started playing live, people's response varied between pleasant surprise to unpleasant disapproval. Again, although it wasn't always to the extent that I wanted it there was a progressive aspect to The Press, we were playing Ska and Reggae songs like "Try" and "Break Up Dub" and the Motown/Soul influenced "ASAP" on top of Punk songs with a rhythmic and melodic sound, not to mention that I'm a singer, not a screamer. Also, we had been associated somewhat with the NYC Ska scene early on through our friendship with Rob Hingley of The Toasters and since we released our first track "Just Another Warning" on the "New York Beat: Hit And Run/Skaville USA" compilation on the Toaster's Moon Records label. Additional I had played guitar with the Mod band The Scene for a short period of time. Those were the latter days of the CBGB's hardcore matinees, which we refused to play, where it seemed that everyone was trying to emulate Agnostic Front. People seeing us for the first time often said that they didn't realize that a band like The Press existed in our area and in fact apart from us there didn't. We were definitely providing a much needed service.

I'm really tempted to expand on this but I feel like I can't do the feeling justice. You really had to be there to understand. There was this void between the Hardcore scene and the Ska/Mod scene in NYC, a place were you might expect there to be a middle ground. There was no Oi scene at the time although there were plenty of enthusiasts, my self and the guys who would eventually be members of The Press and many of our friends and loyal fans included. The Press was really the kind of band I wanted to experience as a spectator and a major aspect that went into our sound and style was that we were what I wanted to see and hear as a Punk music fan as much as being a product of our own creativity and other bands' influences.

The 'legendary' status surrounding The Press is likely due in part to that we were under everyone's radar. By the time most people were discovering us we had already ceased to be a band. Although we played plenty of shows in Manhattan we didn't venture out of the area much, we never toured, and we only released a handful of tracks. Perhaps if we had proliferated more we'd seem less legendary. In a way The Press is a band that exists in a certain place and time but is still waiting to be discovered.

MRR: Everything I've read about The Press points to the band's involvement in the "original" SHARP (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice) Movement. In fact I've seen The Press touted as "the originators of SHARP." What's the story behind that?

A: We were certainly involved early on, having played the first SHARP benefit shows in NYC, but we didn't start it, that honor goes to Marcus Pachecho who is now a successful tattoo artist in San Francisco. We were instrumental in SHARP being exported to the UK and abroad since I had introduced Roddy Moreno to Marcus while The Press was making arrangements to appear on Oi! Records' "Skins 'N' Punks Vol. 5" on which the SHARP logo appeared next to ours on that album cover.

MRR: Why did SHARP come into being at that particular time (1980s) in New York City? And what was the guiding philosophy of the original SHARP chapter?

A: Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice was basically formed to educate the media and public about the Skinhead subculture which, in the early 1980s in the US, was starting off on the wrong foot. As it is with most everything else it's the loudmouths who get noticed and the subsequent press coverage. Skinheads were quickly becoming synonymous with racial hated and violence in the US and almost no one had a clue that the vast majority of Skinheads weren't racist or that there were even Skinheads of non-white racial backgrounds. Some of the organized racialist groups were actually trying to convince people that that Skinhead subculture had originated out of the racialist movement in the Southern US and, much like Holocaust deniers, rewrite history to further their agendas.

In the mid 1980s SHARP was a good idea whose time had come but it had many limitations that weren't considered by the large circle of friends and supporters who made up the initial organization. There were aspects of SHARP that bordered on organized political activism while the group overall maintained more or less a crew mentality and structure. As the idea spread and became less centralized.

MRR: THE PRESS, because of their association with SHARP (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice), get lumped together with other 'political' punk/Oi bands. Did you consider yourselves a political band? Was there a particular political message you were trying to get across?

A: From my point of view that seems a bit ironic since there were people who viewed the NYC SHARP crew as being political by way of their association with me and The Press. In the same respect the other members of The Press, throughout the several line up changes, had little or no political stance and would have preferred to distance themselves from any political labeling although everyone who had been in the band believed in what SHARP had set out to do and fully supported it. That being said, I formed The Press, kept it together, was the obvious front man, wrote all the songs, and was the only consistent member over the years so naturally it was going to be associated with my disposition.

MRR: Although it's been a whole lot of years since The Press performed or recorded you've just released a "The Complete Press," on Insurgence Records. How'd that come about? How'd you end up on Insurgence?

A: A few years ago I had been approached by another label about releasing a collection of studio recordings by The Press. While this was being negotiated a couple of other labels approached me with a similar deal and after the initial deal dragged on for an inordinate amount of time I chose to go with Insurgence Records who had been very enthusiastic about the idea.

MRR: The song "21 Guitar Salute" was covered by The Dropkick Murphys on one of their earlier releases. Any idea why they chose that particular song to cover?

A: Actually, the song appears on their split EP with Face To Face and on "Singles Collection - Vol. 2." I think Al Barr has explained that he received our demo tapes with the song at one of our early shows and that, after he joined them, The Dropkick Murphys had been covering the song for some time before they decided to record it. Would have been nice if they had followed up on their offer to have me perform it live with them at one of the several shows they've played in NYC since then. It would have also been nice if they had asked my permission to record the song before they recorded it.

MRR: You've got a new band, ManInBlack, that I've seen described as a mixture of Streetpunk, Synth and Reggae... are you basically updating The Press 'sound,' or is this something more and something different? You did say earlier you wished that The Press had sounded a bit more progressive...

A: Maninblack is definitely more of what I've wanted all along and, not that I have any more control over the situation than I had in The Press, I'm more mature and resolved to stick to my guns while the goal here is to accomplish what The Press couldn't. In a way I've taken ideas that I only entertained in The Press, while others were developed during my several years hiatus between the two bands, and have implemented them in Maninblack. The concept is similar and Maninblack owes a great deal to The Press but there are resources, such as computers and the internet and my association with Garry Bushell, at my disposal that I just didn't have back then. What I'm writing is more educated in the literal sense but also in life experience. There's a basic Oi and Punk influence here but I've expanded on this much further than I ever did or could with The Press.

I don't think Maninblack plays any more Reggae, relatively, than we did in The Press although since I'm counting on accomplishing more than we did in The Press there may be more individual songs. The content is more inspired and personal. When I wrote songs like Maninblack's "Straight Out Of Babylon" and "I Don't Believe In Jah" I was looking for an authentic feeling that I just didn't get in The Press's "Break Up Dub" and "Try." I wanted to emulate the sounds of Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come" and Desmond Dekker's "Isrealites," something primitive that I think is lost in today's Ska and so-called Ska-Punk bands.

Although there are synthesizers present in the music I don't think that "Synth" is quite applicable to Maninblack as a genre. We're currently using guitar synthesizers, keyboards and electronic drums as well as conventional electric guitars and acoustic drums but this is as much a matter of bringing the sound up to date as it is anything else. Maninblack is Punk and the Oi influence remains absolutely prominent but it's also evolved in a 21st century direction and in a way that reflects me personally. I think in some ways Maninblack speaks to a people that feel disenfranchised by what Punk has become in the media and music industry and in other ways it's something new. Like with The Press I feel that Maninblack is something I would otherwise like to see and hear as a Punk music fan myself.

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