"A lot of what’s coming out now is over produced, non-natural sounds, even when something is 'raw,' it’s produced to sound that way."
That quote above is attributed to Colin Campbell, vocalist of Colin of Arabia, aka COA. He said It to No Echo contributor Ryan O'Connor late last year when the band was promoting their EP, Trauma Dump.
But the thing about that quote is that when it comes to "raw" music, Colin of Arabia—and Campbell's lyrics and performance style—delivers in spades. Ever since arriving onto the scene in the '00s, the Massachusetts-based outfit has delivered gnarly hardcore punk that has always been as confrontational as it's been—dare I say it—effin' catchy.
The antagonistic spirit of Colin of Arabia is welcomed if you ask me. There's always room for it in aggressive music.
With 2000s Hardcore Week in full swing, it's perfect timing to get further into Mr. Campbell's head to see where's he's coming from, both literally and figuratively.
You’re known for being outspoken and getting people riled up for various reasons, but what kind of kid were you? Was there ever an introverted version of Colin Campbell?
I was always a weird kid, there was never an introverted version of me. I burned that building very early on. I didn’t see myself as weird, but others certainly did. I don’t think I matured as quick as others and I was certainly still a kid growing into a man’s body.
In high school, I ended up in remedial schools and classes of all sorts to help me get through. I’ve always brought a sort of “why is this a rule?” To any place I venture. In retrospect certain teachers and other students really pushed me to be who I’ve become. It is okay to be a late bloomer.
My filmmaker/screenwriter friend, Shawn Simmons, is from Brockton and his work has been informed by growing up there. Was is it about that region that has such a lasting effect on the people that grow up there?
Brockton is a very particular place. It’s an ever evolving immigrant community. Right now it’s Cape Verdian and Hatian. When I was a kid it was more Brazilian.
It’s always had a pride of toughness, of course Rocky Marciano is venerated as a saint. Marvin Hagler gave us the city of champions moniker. Is being tough something to be proud of, I don’t know. But the further away from that that I tried to get the less real I feel.
READ MORE: Wayne Creator Shawn Simmons on Getting His Dream Project on TV, Growing Up a Hardcore Kid
What was your first musical love? Were you a metalhead before you discovered hardcore/punk music?
My love for music and rebellion falls solely on my older brother Erik. Mötley Crüe , Iron Maiden, Guns N' Roses, Faith no More, and AC/DC were among my first batch of bands I got into as a little boy. I came of age at a time when Nirvana was the biggest band in the world and Green Day was breaking on MTV. So when I started to develop my own tastes I knew something lurked underneath where these bands were coming from.
Being poor and needing to work as a teenager introduced my to your run-of-the-mill degenerates who work in the back of house at catering places and restaurants. They were more than happy to show a 13-year-old kid a harder dive into the underground and dirt weed.
One of the dudes would wear a Sick of It All windbreaker everyday and I just thought, “yeah, me too” and didn’t know it was a band for at least a year. My first hardcore and punk records were Uniform Choice and Dead Kennedys. I played the later on my parents record player at 33 RPM because I thought there was no way it was this fast and this guy can’t actually sound like this. If you’ve never played "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" on 33 RPMs, you should give it a whirl.
When you started deep diving into hardcore, who were some of the figures from the scene (musicians or not) that intrigued you? I feel that there were so many more unique/outspoken people in hardcore when I was growing up in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Maybe that’s a symptom of the PC-ness of today?
My first real in the city hardcore show was Bitter, Cast Iron Hike, Slapshot, and Sam Black Church. So the answer here is Choke from Slapshot. At that time, he was just so commanding of the crowd. It was a “I have found what I am looking for” moment for me. Typing this made me put on 16 Valve Hate. If you’re reading this give that record a listen. It’s #2 on my all time hardcore LP list.
As far as Political Correctness goes, I think it’s important to treat others the way they want to be treated. Punk is a leftist movement, always has been. We can get mucked up about the I don’t give a fuck nature, but politically we are all in the same boat. The degrees in which we are separated from each other has formed cliques and crews and has taken away from our possible might. Outcast will always outcast others. There’s always someone to bite at because you and your friends don’t like their aesthetic.
When you and Kris Mission came up with the idea to start Colin of Arabia, did you talk specifics on the style you wanted to play, and the influences behind it? What was discussed during the earliest stage of the band?
While Kris pushed me to do a band. It was Mike and I who started the band. I wanted to do an E-tuned hardcore band that was mean, sorta punk, faster then what was happening immediately around me. It was more important to be punk than metal. I think we felt like we were in a drop-tuned chugga chugga world. The earliest part of the band was just to have fun doing a band. When Nick joined the band it became more serious.
What do you remember about the reception the band received in the Massachusetts hardcore scene when you guys first came out?
We were part of a swell of bands to begin a scene in Brockton: Cut Throat, Shere Khan, Black My Heart, On Broken Wings, Back of the Neck. We all really supported each other and formed our own little thing. Any of those bands could headline a Brockton gig every Friday.
On top of that I had a deep history with Boston Hardcore people and we played a lot of shows thanks to old friendships. Jimmy Flynn and I did a lot of cool shit together. RIP to the silliest goose.
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Let’s talk a bit about the material on the Illegal Exhibitions of Speed album. Much like your public persona, your lyrics are unfiltered, getting to the point in the most direct way possible. Did you catch a lot of flack from people close to you from songs like “Sleeping with Someone I No Longer Love” or “50 Bag of Hate” when that record came out?
When you’re fucked up all the time, you don’t care about catching flack. At that time, I didn’t really care what an ex lover thought. "50 Bag" is about pain relief. I was able to push my pain to the back by doing drugs and partying. Don’t get me wrong, I still like to push my pain into the back with partying, I just think I understand it better now.
“War on the Poor” hits close to home for anyone from a blue-collar, working-class area. It’s the whole “...I ain’t no senator’s son” idea, but much bleaker. Did that come from a personal experience with someone you loved who served in the military?
I served in the US Army. I got out right before the invasion of Iraq. I had a lot of people I served with get fucked up there. Survivors guilt is a part of my mental illness. "Casual Casualty" is on the same record and is about the same broader topic.
Describe the atmosphere at COA shows in and around Massachusetts back then.
Crapshoot. Total crapshoot. We would play anywhere, all the time. You might see us at a BBQ or a bowling alley. We would okay anywhere any time at a moments notice. It might be a great crowd reaction or not. We got a lot of stares. I think this molded me into the singer I am.
If people didn’t move, I was going to make eye contact (this makes people feel out of place, uncomfortable) I would run around and go bonkers and try to make people feel like I might come off stage and hurt them.
What were some of the bands that you feel were doing cool shit during the 2000s hardcore scene COA was part of? Did you feel a close kinship to any bands back then?
Without our brothers in Death Before Dishonor, we would be nowhere. With Cut Throat and On Broken Wings and COA all living in the same apartments, someone was always writing something. The space was big on creativity and ramen noodles, light on income. Just poor kids in bands scraping by. We loved playing with the Carrier and The Bonus Army because the party was on.
Crime in Stereo were our boys on the road at that time. The Troubled Stateside is a perfect record. Death Threat was an older band who really brought us out and showed us to the hardcore world. We shared some wild times with Donnybrook and those guys are bad kids like us so we were fast friends.
That was the time of message board gossip and wild rumors about people in hardcore bands. You were one of those people that came up a lot in those forums. How closely did you follow that stuff? Did you find it amusing or was it annoying?
The B9 board was such a fun time to be an active band. Was it true? Did mine throw a plate at an afterparty at me in someone’s parents mansion? Am I addicted to angel dust? Shit people said on the internet would get them beat up. To be alive before camera phones, we lived in the moment.
The COA/Palehorse split was a heater. Tell me about that project, how it came together, and the story behind my favorite track on it, “The Badlands.”
Musically, The Bruisers have a song called "American Night." It has this cool rockabilly guitar intro on cruising for a bruising. Later, I found out it’s influenced by "Ace of Spades" by Motörhead. On a We Bite Records. The Bruisers put out it has a slam intro. We wanted to do that. Go back and re record the song with a slam intro. We still might, but who knows.
Both versions of this song are awesome, so go listen to both and figure which you like better. The Bruisers is one of the coolest bands ever. Seeing them early on in my journey made me love Oi! music and hate skinheads all at the same time.
The guys in The Bruisers continue to ooze coolness. Richie got diagnosed with cancer recently, which sucks, but if you got a buck to spare he could use it I’m sure. Shout out to the fucking Bruisers.
Lyrically, "The Badlands" is what we saw everyday, this place will devour you if you let it. You have to be willing to go from the moment you walk out the door. theres an intensity wavelength that this place operates on thats full on ten and also incredibly weird.
Connecticut has always been a second home for me. We would meet up with the Connecticut Brotherhood boys at the El 'n' Gee in New London a lot. They put the CD out together as friends. Palehorse is a weed band. COA is a weed band. They are our real friends. I do a guest spot on their B9 record. They stayed at our houses recording it at the Outpost. The tracklisting is fucked up, but sometimes that was just the way it is. I really like all the songs on that record.
The Snitch EP has a sort of love letter to touring in a hardcore band called “You Guys Were Great Don't Put Gas In Our Van.” How much touring was COA doing at that point and how much trouble did you get in?
We were pirates. stealing everything that wasn't nailed down. biting, fighting, and fucking our way across the northeast and then the US. I only got arrested once in Poughkeepsie, New York. There was big fight and a bunch of cops showed up and I ran. The police headed me off and they had a German Shepherd that was so amped up that it started to bite the cop next to the handler. I just got on my knees and was yelling, “I don’t wanna fuck with that dog, you got me.”
I spent the night in a cell next to Dre from Donnybrook, got arraigned the next morning, and never went back. Might still have a warrant for missing court.
We always held down jobs, but we were out every weekend and gone for weeks at a time every other month. Save enough money, leave, come back, make more money, leave.
Talk a bit about the other guys in COA through those years. How close were you to them outside of band-related activities?
Mike, Nick, and Mickey have shared more with me than any other people. They are all great people and being part of growing together has been really cool. It’s cool that the band is still us. Mike and I see eye to eye on everything but still argue like brothers, Mickey brings an energy and a punk sarcasm that is unmatched, and Nick is the egoless best musician in the band who is cooler than the other side of the pillow.
Mike and me both have ego and Nick knows how and when to call us on it or be a buffer. It’s family. These guys really circled around me when my father died and we wrote a bunch of songs at that time that only a few came out on the Science of Violence demo but they gave me something to focus on with the pain of my father's passing.
There’s that song on the P.O.W. split called “Save it for the Judge” which begs the question: how tangled up were you in the system?
I struggle with PTSD and manic depression. though it’s gotten better it’s still a thing. My episodes end when the cops are called. Rage takes over. I don’t end up in the hospital. I end up in jail.
I been a few times to the house of correction and have spent enough time on probation to get a doctorate in it. The reason I don’t have tattoos on my hands or neck is that I could end up in front of a judge again.
What led to COA going away for so many years? Do you think the time away helped the way people perceive the band?
We didn’t go away. We just went underground. It’s cool to be underground. When you don’t give a shit what people think you can just do whatever you want. Playing regionally and in Boston is something we hardly took a break from.
As you get older, it’s harder to do things like a band. With COVID, we were able to get some time without a foot on our neck and came up with Trauma Dump. If I wasn’t playing I was putting on shows. I ran a bar where we had shows. Sometimes you don’t need to push your own shit so long as the feeling is right. It does feel good to make new music though.
There’s this romantic notion where people often say they don’t have any regrets when they’re being interviewed, but I usually don’t buy it. How about you?
Most of the songs are about regret. I regret and second guess a lot of shit. I regret how I treated people. The trouble I’ve caused for those I love the most. I regret so much, how can you not when you’re insane? Things I started and should have finished. Not having good answers for the cost of my actions.
I regret not taking great opportunities presented to me more seriously. At the end of the day, it’s all coulda shoulda-woulda stuff. I’m safe and happy now. What a ride it’s been. Most normal people would think this life is fiction.
What’s the best thing about Brockton?
The food. It’s an immigrant city. If you’ve never had Cape Verdian food, you’re missing out. Shout out to Marylous Coffee, Birdies Hot Chicken, Tin Rays, and Bracks have price apps on Mondays
I love that on my street everyone looks out for each other real neighborly and shit. I love that if I put some “good trash” in front of my house it’s a come up for someone else driving by. The random insanity is always up front and on point. The shit you see here you can’t see anywhere else.
Thanks for reaching out. We play This Is Hardcore in two weeks. Hope to see everyone there. This is a victory lap.
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Colin of Arabia on social media: Instagram
Tagged: 2000s hardcore week, colin of arabia
