Herve Laurent in Gundog was so nice when he answered my stupid questions in the end of august 2000

-History?

The first ep started everything really, we had a local following in London , but the ep (Power ep, New Blood 01, 1997) opened new horizons for the band!

Bands before, bands on the side of Gundog or something?

-Before Gundog, Brian and Tarik were in the Mighty Mr Men, but this band didn't achieve much except having some really good laughs.  At the beginning, Tarik and his brother were playing in a reagge band, the Xplosions but left them cos they were touring all the time and interests were clashing.  Also, recently, we recorded an ep with the Gundog line up, but instead of being sung in English by Brian , it's sung in French by me (Herve) ....the name of this "band" is Guet Apens and it's released on French label Cranes Blases

Please tell me a little about every member?

-Brian is in his mid twenties, works hard during the day on building sites, drinks even harder at the week ends and sings with Gundog, James is the youngest one and the guitar hero, he works in painting and building too. Tarik is the drummer, works with his hands too and drinks huge quantities of  bitter beer....and I teach French in a school in Dagenham....and play the bass too.

Do you prefer to call your music punk ,oi or streetpunk?

-You choose, it doesn't matter, I quite like Oi! though...

Does oi have something bad over the name?

-Not anymore I think but it's all part of punk anyway, but as I said we do not think twice about names and labels and image....it's all secondary.

How is the rascism thing in England right now?

-It's not an issue really, everyone gets on fine with everyone and apart from some lunatics in extremist parties, everyone is quite happy to live in a multicultural society, well that's the feeling we have personnally, but we might be wrong and there may be some areas in the country where it's not the case..

What do you think about Englands Euro 2000?

-Well, nothing to be really proud of....no comment.

What do you think about the english hooligans?

-They are no worse than their European equivalents, but they very often get the blame for any trouble...OK, they like it, but all hooligans like their fair share of aggro...what about the fuckin turkish hooligans who stabbed some Leeds supporters, did they get banned from travelling to Belgium???  

Do you like football?

-We are not Die Hard fanatics, we especially like to watch football in a pub for the social aspect and the beers...

Any favourite team?

-Not really, Brian supports his local team but we are not too much into it, no time for that.....

How did you cam in contact with Sidekicks?

-I got in touch with Sidekicks after I released the 1st ep letting them know we were looking for a label to release an album, they said OK, which was quite good at the time when we were not well known.

Is it a good label?

-Well they are  good enough, it's hard to compare cos we deal just with them, but they are sound and keen.

What do you know about Sweden?

-Beautiful blonde girls of loose morals, Guttersnipe, Poblers United, and loads of other bands which all sound really good....some hardcore porn too....

How is a good cóncert with you? Is it violent?

-We like a gig better if the crowd is going mad, when there's a wild pit, people stage diving  and jumping everywhere and going bezerk... Some people could say it's violent, but there's no violence intended, just people going mad on the music is what we like.

Do you have many gigs?

-We try not to play too often now, and because we all have jobs, we have to choose our time off work carefully, for example, we'd rather take a week off work to play the USA rather small pubs all across England...we play England at the week ends only!

Have you been much outside England and played?

-We toured Germany, France and Holland, the country where we play the best gigs is definitely France, the crowd is always going mad and as I said that's what we like, they all know the songs, sing along and stuff....they probably know our lyrics better than our English crowd actually....

Is it many interviews? Is it boring?

-The interviews are always good, typing them is a pain in the arse though.

You have a pittbull on the cover, is it a dog which you like?

-I personnally love dogs like these, staffs, pitbulls, bull mastiffs and rotweillers, when I have more time for myself, I will get a bull mastiff ...or a smaller version of it.

Is it forbidden to have them in England?

-They are allegedly forbidden here, but you can manage to have one if you want...

Have you done some more records except from the two on Sidekicks, if you have , how can I get them?

-As I said there's Power ep which is now sold out and a few tracks on compilation records, the best one to have being on a split ep with The Templars (New Blood 04 1999)

Which of the old bands in the genre do you like?

-Most of them, especially Business and Sparrer!!!

Idols when you were small?

-Bon Scott (AC/DC) and Angus Young (AC/DC) are a must for all of us I think.

First and last record you bought?

-You don't wanna know what's the last record Tarik's bought.....we all started buying some Hard rock records when we were kids and all got into punk/Oi! , ska or even HC at various stages in our lives

How is the punkscene in England right now? Any good bands?

-It's OK, there are many good bands like Violent Affray, On File, Beerzone, Retaliator and many more (without mentioning the old ones which are still playing live) to keep the scene alive and kicking, the only problem is that some times, people are too lazy to go to the shows...

-Tour countries we've never played in before, and Sweden is one of them....If any of your readers wanna organise a Gundog gig, we just need 4 plane tickets and a barrel of beer...

-Business: Suburban rebels   Cock Sparrer: Shock troops   Sheer Terror: Old new borrowed and blue   Wretched Ones: 1st lp      Templars: Omne Datum optimum   Agnostic Front: united blood   Meteors:In heaven     etc   etc   I know it's more than 5, but we do love evrything when it comes to music, and it's the same for the gigs, every one of them is special when it's good.

Well thanx a lot for waiting for the interview, we hope to play Sweden soon, all the best Peter, Herve and Gundog.