Q: Suck What?
A: There is no real meaning. It is a name that our bassist’s friend Kang Seok-jin made up for the band. When we originally named the band, we thought very carefully and had a lot of opinions. Then we just decided to share them with Kang Seok-jin and decided to become Suck Stuff. There is no firm meaning that we have to show but you could say it has to do with everything in the world being in conflict and contradictory.
Q: How did you first get into punk music in Korea?
A: We formed the band out of our friends that liked going to rock concerts. We wanted to play fast music—we hated the idea of playing love songs—and as we began playing we became punks. It seems that the style that fit us best was punk, and that it would be good for us to take this route.
Q: Your sound seems to come from many different styles. What are your main influences?
A. At first it was the Business, the Clash, Misfits, Rancid, Dead Kennedys, G&R, Slayer, etc, that were our main influences. More recently we have received a lot of our influence from oi, youth crew hardcore, reggae, and skate punk.
Q. How do you feel about scene unity with the division between Skunk and Chaos Class? What did you write “One Unity?about?
A. We don’t really think about the scene as being divided. We just think of the Korean scene as “Korean Hardcore/Punk,?not as divided into Skunk and Chaos Class. We haven’t really seen any of the conflict or division with our own eyes. If there is any division at all we want to have a very positive and good influence in relieving it. However, we haven’t yet seen such conflict and division in Korea yet.
The meaning of “One Unity?is just as it says. When we wrote it we thought about the bands who started before us, and even the bands that will start after us, and we thought of the fanzine that hasn’t been made yet, all of the shows, all the demos. We even thought of the cheap, neighbourhood feasts we’d have when we played. We really thought of the future... whether we will be together when we have to get jobs, when times are tough, when Korea is in dark times. We really do not know. It is also a song that says “Thank you very, very much for what you’ve done and let’s be together in the future?to all of the important people. It is a very simple song with a simple message. It is a song that is sort of like the ‘thank you?to all these people. The phrase “Stand Your Ground?also really comes to mind when we talk about this song.
Q. Many of our friends outside of Korea really like your style. Any plans or hopes to tour overseas (North America, Europe)?
A. We have thought of it. We are very envious of GMC and the various Skunk bands that have gone and toured in Japan. If there is an opportunity, for sure we will go on tour. However, we are at the point where we haven’t completed our full length album, and we need to finishing that first. We’ll practive very hard, and when the opportunity comes, we will seize it.
Q. In what direction is Suck Stuff going?
A. We have no special plans for that. Right now we are just trying to get our message out more, and get our music to everyone that we can. We want to just follow the motive that we’ve had from the start—performing with other bands is really our first priority.
Q. Where do you see punk in Korea going in five years?
A. We think that it will get better. I think that it will get warm er and more intimate. If you think about it, it has not even been ten years since there has been punk in Korea, and the Korean hardcore punk scene has been around even less time, but nonetheless, the Korean scene is no worse than any overseas scene, and has a very fresh sound and unique melody. We think in the future that it will definitely continue to develop.

BPJC Generation