Useless ID

Over here in North America, it’s rare that you discover a band from Israel but Useless ID have found a way to breach that barrier for close to two decades now. Since forming in 1994, the quartet has released seven full length albums and toured the world over. Symptoms, their latest album, was just released on Fat Wreck Chords and they are currently touring heavily in support of the release. First with an Eastern Canadian tour and then they will head overseas with Lagwagon.

We shot guitarist Ishay Berger an e-mail before the tour began to pick his brain about the tour, the new album and the band’s recent line-up change.

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You’re about to kick start this short Eastern Canadian tour and then head over to Europe to do a tour with Lagwagon, are you excited?

Super excited.

We love touring and have been doing it for many years now, so we have a lot of friends almost everywhere we go, and touring is a great way of meeting everyone and it’s even better because we know that on every tour that we’ll go on, we will end up making a lot of new friends, too, so yeah, it rules.

I’m just kind of NOT excited about getting on a long ass plane now, hehe.

The rest is pretty much fucking awesome.

You’ve mentioned that you were planning on going out through Western Canada and more of the States but couldn’t because of the Lagwagon European tour opportunity, do you have any plans on extending the North American tour?

Yes, we are going to be on tour in the U.S and will probably hit more spots in Canada in October…

We cannot say much at this point, but it’s going to be an awesome tour with great bands…we’re super happy for that, too!

The tour is in support of your newest album, Symptoms – can you tell us a bit about that?

We took some time after our last album (The Lost Broken Bones) to work on it, we are not under any pressure from record labels or management to do an album every other year, and so we were really into experimenting with the song writing and the arrangements, and yea…it took us about 4 years to put the new album out, but we really take pride in it and we all think that it’s very complex and rad…and off course, we all very honored and happy that it came out on our favorite record label.

It was your third album recorded at the Blasting Room with Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore, what made you decide to go back with them again?

Well, we always wanted to make an album with these guys when we were starting out, they made some classic albums that totally influenced a lot of people and we are big fans of their work so when we actually got to record “Redemption” with them at the Blasting Room, we were like in heaven, it was like a dream for us….

We somehow got to go there for the second time with the “Lost Broken Bones” album and it kept getting better as far as our chemistry AND friendship with these guys so it just made complete sense to make the next album happen with these guys.

They are truly amazing on a professional and personal label and i think our work together brings out a lot of joy for everyone involved, so yea, we’ll probably record with them again and again.

What do they bring to the song-crafting process for Useless ID?

A lot…they have ideas that range from the drum parts to the lyrics and the structure of the songs, it’s also rad because Bill is such a big music fan and so in control of his production work that by the time we get to the studio he already knows all the songs we have from listening to the home-made demos we make and he already has a lot of input even before we start tracking.

I’ve read that you decided to focus more energy on ensuring that the lyrics for the album were completed well before heading into the studio instead of writing them last minute – what was the reasoning behind doing that?

Well, we never wrote that much of the lyrics in the studio anyway, but we definitely got better at getting to the studio with a better idea of what is a keeper and what needs some work…for the new album we made very few changes – I guess we learned that it’s best to go to the studio with as much shit ready as possible.

How did that affect the song writing process for Symptoms?

I really think that the longer that you’re in a band, especially if you’re as passionate about it as we are – shit gets better on many levels, even if some kids here and there want to think that “their first album was the best”, it’s really like the first album is usually a bunch of crazy stupid shit, and the more albums you make, the smarter and better you get about making albums…I feel that for us that’s the way it goes and it really does effect the music, AND the lyrics.

While you’ve appeared on a few Fat Wreck compilations over the years, this was your first proper album with the label. How did that happen?

We wanted Fat to put out the album…

We have been friends with the label people and also big fans of the music that they put out so it was important for us to be on a label like that, and not release the album on like, 5 different labels – like we had done with the last album.

We had Bill Stevenson talk to Mike and we even asked like, other people to nag him a little but so that he hears the final master and then I got on the phone with him and we kinda worked it out so that he will put it out.

He was on tour when we were working this entire thing and I was at work….

Great day for me at work, probably bad day for him on tour, haha.

Speaking about Fat Wreck compilations, Short Music For Short People – which you guys have the song “Too bad you don’t get it” on – is one of my all time favourite compilations. Which are some of your favourite compilations?

Easy!
“Flex Your Head”, “Peace-war”, “”Strength Through Oi”, and “Short Music For Short People”.

You’ve normally had a two year break between albums, but this one took four – why such a long wait?

Mostly writing, touring, working and wanting to be sure that we’re doing a great album.

In between the release of The Lost Broken Bones and Symptoms, you also collaborated with Israel’s hiphop artist Muki – how did that come about?

We played a street festival here in Tel Aviv, it was free and a lot of people were there, we were playing alongside some mainstream-non punk bands and artists and Muki was one of them, which was cool because we always thought he was pretty awesome….

He ended up watching our set and he liked it a lot and we kind of started talking about making music together, with him singing and us writing music and playing…

It started with one song and developed into a full album.

Was it difficult collaborating in such a different style of music than you’re used to?

It could have been hard for us if we had to play a different kind of music, but in fact we really just did our thing, with him singing, it was extremely easy and fun to write together and did not take an extra effort on our behalf.

The split was released on Hatav Hasmini records, do you have any plans to make it available in North America as well?

NO FUCKING WAY DUDE.

In March, Jonathan Harpak announced that he was leaving Useless ID after eight years to focus on other musical endeavors – did that come as a surprise or were you expecting it?

I was surprised but I did think that he was having this problem where like, TOO many projects were clashing and he was getting kind of unhappy with going from one show to another rehearsal back to his day job and on to the next thing….

It’s very hard to stay focused like that sometimes and I think that he just had to make a choice and he stuck with the other things, which was unexpected by us, but I mean, we totally respect his decision and support him in whatever he chose to do with his talent and life.

Replacing him is Ishay’s younger brother Gideon who also drums in Kill The Drive, what’s it like having him in the band now?

Awesome, he is a true punk rock fan and an amazing little guy.

His drumming is fucking unbelievable and he’s really like a huge gift for our band.
We really hope to be able to keep him in the band AND we’re all big fans of his other band (Kill The Drive) so we want them to keep going and keep everyone happy.

Kill the Drive is yet another Israeli punk band, something that many of us here in North America don’t necessarily hear much off. Which bands should we check out if we want a crash course in Israeli punk history?

Wow….LOTS!

Neckhei Naatza are the most important Hardcore Punk band that ever played in Israel, their stuff is a lot like…nothing anyone ever made, really…crazy mix of early u.s hardcore and the scandinavian punk from the 80’s, with amazing political lyrics sung in Hebrew.
Other bands that ruled or still do in Israel are-
Not On Tour, Chaos Rabak, Mefageret, Man Alive, Kids Insane, You’re Next, M.E.S.S, Tamut Amen, Sonne Adam, Smartut Kachol Lavan…damn, there are so many of those!!!!

Thanks a lot for your time, any final thoughts?

We’re just happy and thankful that we’re able to keep doing this thing, it’s been the coolest thing to be able to tour and do all this stuff with our band, everyone that has any question can feel free to approach us on Facebook or whatever, and thank you for the interview!