AGNOSTIC FRONT - ROGER MIRET

13 June 2017

AGNOSTIC FRONT is set to return to Sofia on 25 June.

Bulgarian hardcore leaders LAST HOPE will be joining the gig with KIN CORRUPTION opening the whole show.

A great occasion to talk to ROGER MIRET himself about the next AGNOSTIC FRONT album, his book, the new documentary, his own Cuban roots, the source of energy, living so close to VINNIE STIGMA and many more.

an interview conducted by Alexander Boyadjiev and Vassil Varbanov

photos: Nuclear Blast

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IT'S BEEN 2 YEARS SINCE OUR LAST CONVERSATION HERE, WHEN YOUR LATEST RECORD ‘THE AMERICAN DREAM DIED’ WAS ABOUT TO BE RELEASED. I REMEMBER, EVEN THEN WE TALKED ABOUT YOUR COMEBACK TO BULGARIA, BUT SOMEHOW WE HAD TO WAIT FOR 2 MORE YEARS.

NOW FINALLY AGNOSTIC FRONT WILL COME BACK TO SOFIA AND OVER THE BALKANS, AFTER A LONG GAP OF 9 YEARS. AND THIS TOUR MARKS 35TH YEARS ANNIVERSARY OF THE BAND EXISTENCE, WHICH MAKES IT EVEN MORE SPECIAL.

PLEASE TELL US - DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOU WERE THINKING WHEN YOU JOINED THE BAND IN 1982? AND DID YOU HAD ANY VISION BACK THEN WHAT WOULD FOLLOW?

When I joined the band, we were just a bunch of friends on Lower East Side – we never had a vision of doing a US tour for sure, let alone a world-tour. We were just a bunch of friends, a bunch of outcast, misfits, rebels – who thought alike and we gathered together, making music writing stuff about what we saw and thought was going on. Almost exactly the same lyrical content as the latest record The American Dream Died. But if you would have told me in 1982-83 that I was going to tour the world I probably would laughed at your face. I would have been like ‘’Are you crazy – who the hell would like to see my shitty band?!’’

TELL US MORE ABOUT THE DOCUMENTARY ‘’THE GODFATHERS OF HARDCORE’’ – WE SAW COUPLE OF TRAILERS ONLINE AND WE ARE VERY CURIOUS TO SEE THAT ONE?

The documentary is really amazing – I got to see it and I must say it’s cinematic and beautiful to watch, it’s very different than the traditional music documentary – this documentary is a very personal look at me and Vinnie, like our lives, who we really are as people and together collectively in AGNOSTIC FRONT. Of course it has a lot of music, shows and such stuff - you are going to see Raybeez, Todd Youth, Jimmy Gestapo... all the regular fellas. You are going to see also almost a whole live show that we played in Berlin at SO36.

But it’s very very personal, because you get to meet me really on a personal level, outside the band, outside stage – at home, you get to be in my house with me, my children, my wife and see who I really am... and the same for Vinnie. It’s very genuine, it’s about everything I always speak about – people being real. And I think this documentary is bringing that to light.

DO YOU KNOW WHEN IT’S GOING TO BE OUT?

No – unfortunately I don’t know yet. I just talked to Ian (Ian McFarland – the director/Nb) yesterday – it’s going to be out very soon, it’s complete – they’re still waiting to see what the next step is, so I assume by the end of the year, sometime after the release of my book, it’s going to be probably out.

YOU JUST MENTIONED YOUR UPCOMING BOOK 'MY RIOT' – TELL US MORE ABOUT THIS?

Again – that’s also a very personal thing to me. As you may have known – I started writing this book-journal in 1999, then I lost it a few times – especially during the 9/11 attacks and then with all the viruses hitting computers I lost it again... and then having children, moving, having 3 bands and all of this, so eventually it took a long time to finish it.

But I’m very glad to finally have it finished – it’s a kind of weird, for everybody who knows me, knows I’m a very personal humble kind of person and it’s a kind of weird to put myself out there and share some of my life stories, my life-experiences...

It’s a story of an immigrant coming to America and kind have gone for that American dream with a lot of struggle, some failures, some wrong decisions, but turning it back around and making the best of it. Your life is full of choices – you could make the right choice, you could make the wrong choice and yes – I’ve made some wrong choices, but the outcome of that has always been for me to see and kind of learn the best of my bad choices so I wouldn’t repeat them.

SPEAKING ABOUT THE DOCUMENTARY, YOUR BOOK AND YOUR CUBAN ROOTS – YOU’RE BASICALLY A CUBAN REFUGEE, WHEN DID YOU COME TO AMERICA?

I arrived in America in 1969 I believe or it was ’68, can’t remember – I was 4 years old, came with my mother, she had 3 kids and me being the oldest and my sister was still 6-7 months old. My mother was 20 years old, coming to a foreign country not knowing a word of English, it was a scary thing – it was a scary struggle all my life – you can read all about it in my book, but it kind of all shaped me, all this thing made me who I am.

And let me tell you – the main reason why I really wanted to do this book and finish it, is that I wanted my children to know my history, who I am, where I come from... so they can tell their children... because they live a very different life than I lived and I think it’s important for them to know the struggles that myself and my wife and people around me made to get where we are.

THERE WAS A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THE ROLLING STONES PLAYING IN CUBA CALLED 'OLE OLE OLE' – IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO WATCH IT YOU HAD PROBABLY DISCOVERED A LOT OF THINGS ABOUT YOUR COUNTRY OF ORIGIN - HAVE YOU?

No, I didn’t watch that, but now that you mentioned it I would like to go back and watch it. You know we tried to go to Cuba – that was part of the documentary, we had a show booked, we had airline tickets booked, my mother, myself and my brother were going, my mother was about to show us where we live and everything else. But at the very last minute, on Friday, when everybody was about to get their Cuban visas, because we just can’t go to Cuba – you need to have a reason, even if they say it’s open for traveling, it’s not true... in America you have to fit 12 criteria why you go to Cuba.

And this was of course about the documentary filming… but they would not give me, my brother and my mother a visa. So, we lost our airline tickets and everything – we couldn’t play the show. It was Friday, we were supposed to leave Saturday, but we were stopped and everything was cancelled. The whole reason to go to Cuba was to film the documentary, film the show … and this way didn’t make any sense, so everything got cancelled.

WELL, TIME IS IN FRONT OF YOU – YOU CAN ALWAYS TRY AGAIN TO GO BACK TO CUBA. HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT TO HOOK UP WITH OLD RELATIONS AND FAMILY?

Yeah of course I would love to go to Cuba – half of my family lives in Cuba, everyone from my mother’s side lives in Cuba. It was my father side that came to America. I have aunts, cousins and a whole family out there. And we have played with a Cuban hardcore band – we helped them get to America and play the Black & Blue Bowl – ARRABIO, they’re our friends, they were booking our show and helping us go to Cuba.

So it’s not like we don’t want to go there- of course we want to go, but I guess the problem was they are not allowing any of the Cubans that left the country before 1971 that easy back in, because those are the Cubans considered as anti-Castro regime I guess… so there’s still stuff going on, but I feel in the next few years things will change fast and hopefully we just can get on the plane and go to Cuba, like everyone else.

ALSO VERY FEW PEOPLE KNOW THAT IT WAS VERY HARD FOR YOU TO TOUR BACK IN THE DAYS AND EVEN FOR YOUR FIRST TIME OVER HERE IN SOFIA / BULGARIA IT WAS VERY HARD FOR US TO ORGANIZE THE PAPERWORK, BECAUSE BACK THEN YOU DIDN’T HAVE AN AMERICAN PASSPORT.

Well, I officially became a US citizen in 2006! The very first time I started traveling the world and coming to Europe, I had what they called a US re-entry permit. And it was very difficult to travel like that and of course back then they didn’t the Schengen visas or anything like. Each country had to give me individual visa and nobody wanted to be the first one to give me a visa, because that US re-entry permit states that you can re-entry USA, but I can also officially go to any other country and claim citizenship – I could just go and say I want to stay here…

So nobody wanted to let me in… so I finally made friends with someone at the Holland embassy, someone whose brother was a big AGNOSTIC FRONT fan, and he would help me get my first visa so then everyone else could give me visa as well. Of course I would always get him on the guest list in Europe ha-ha! But it was very tough. Then my mother went to Cuba and she got all our old paperwork back and got us applications for passports and we got Cuban passports in 2001. But still with that was difficult because every time I show my Cuban passport and they would be like “is this real or fake??” because not many Cubans travel, everyone was so unsure, because I guess Cubans could claim nationality everywhere else. Plus I had a lot of legal problems getting American citizenship up until 2006…

YOU SAID THAT BACK IN 1982 YOU WOULD HAVE LAUGHED LOUDLY IF SOMEONE WOULD’VE TOLD YOU THAT YOU ARE GOING TO TOUR THE WORLD, BUT AGAIN BACK THEN IN 1982 IF SOMEONE HAD TOLD YOU THAT THE WORLD IN 2017 WOULD BE THAT FUCKED UP, WOULD YOU LAUGHED AS WELL?

Well I’m laughing about it right now! Let me tell you – the world is always going to be what it is. Unfortunately it’s all about power and greed – people don’t care about people, humanity has lost any interest in caring about humanity… on our level. Of course the rich all they want to do is to get richer and they don’t care how they would get richer, they don’t care how that sabotages the poor or the people who are worthy. And that’s what’s special about AGNOSTIC FRONT – we’ve always spoken about oppression and how to overcome oppression and we kind of gather people a group of people of likes, and that’s why people can relate to AGNOSTIC FRONT.

ON THIS UPCOMING ANNIVERSARY TOUR YOU WILL PLAY 31 SHOWS IN 31 DAYS - NO DAYS OFF, NO BREAKS - THAT'S A LOT, EVEN FOR WAY YOUNGER BANDS. HOW DO YOU SURVIVE PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY ON SUCH LONG CRAZY TRIPS? AND DO YOU HAVE ANY SPECIAL PREPARATIONS OR ANY RITUAL BEFORE LEAVING FOR SUCH A LONG TOUR?

It’s something we’ve always done – on tour we don’t take breaks, we just go and go on. We don’t really do any preparations. And you know what – the only thing that really sucks on tour is waiting to play – we are excited to play, we just want to go and play… but we always have to wait and wait all night and be the last to play – that’s the part that sucks. I will lie to you if I say it’s not tougher, because we are older. But we’ve always changed our ways of touring too because of it.

To be completely honest with you it’s hard for us to just jump in the van and we don’t do it like this – especially when we do 31 straight days in a row. A lot of bands just don’t do that. But it is hard – especially for me, I have to scream all the time and I do the best I can – there’s no sick days allowed, scream even when I’m sick. I’ve been on stage with high fevers, but I still go out and do what I have to do. Because I want to come to your country, whenever that may be and want to perform and I would do my best, and I give my 100%, and would do everything I can to do to as much as I can. That’s who I am.

WE CAN IMAGINE YOUR MOM IS CALLING YOU ROHELIO AND YOUR KIDS CALL YOU DAD, BUT WE CALL YOU ROGER – DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THIS AND WHAT’S THE RIGHT PRONUNCIATION OF YOUR NAME?

Ha-ha yeah my kids call me dad. Rohelio is correct, but I’ve been so used to been called Roger ever since 4th grade. For a very long time people didn’t know how to say my name, as it’s very hard to pronounce – people would be calling me Rogilio, Rojelio, Rogolio, then finally the teachers started calling me Roger and everybody knew my name… so I was happy that finally everybody knew my name. But I do love my real name – Rohelio is who I am.

WE ALSO NEED TO ASK YOU – WHAT’S THE BEST PART OF BEING ON THE ROAD WITH VINNIE STIGMA?

Ha-ha, oh man! I was just going to say that the reason I am Roger is that Vinne had already stolen Stigma ha-ha! OK let me tell you something and I’ll be really honest with you – if it wasn’t for Stigma I don’t know if I would be doing as much as I did! He is my entertainment – one of my favorite things to do is watch Stigma eat! Ha-ha! He entertains me and I guess he entertains the world – people just love him! And it’s not just a thing for a show or for people – this is who he really is all the time! Because of that entertainment I’m happy to be on the road.

WE’RE ALMOST ABOUT TO FINISH THIS ONE – DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU PLAYED HERE IN SOFIA?

Yes I do! It was a great show and I loved! I think we’ve played only 2 times there and both shows were incredible, but I do remember the first one was completely insane! I think it was one of the craziest shows that I ever played. You know what’s really upsetting – that we had to wait for 9 years to come back, we should go there way more often there as often as we put records out… but some of that stuff is out of my hands, but now I’m really happy we’re going there! In fact I train Jiu-Jitsu with a friend of mine, who is from Sofia, so he’s excited too that I’m going to his country. Ha-ha!

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