FIVE MINUTES IN A CAR UP THE PACIFIC HIGHWAY LOOKING FOR WAVES WITH PAUL ROACH
Paul, sometimes you come across as permanently pissed off, or really agressive. Any idea why? Is it the music you listen to or what?
Well, I guess we can all agree that the world that's built on hate is gonna die in hate. That has everything to do with the music I listen to the way I feel, what I wake up to in the morning, my everyday thoughts and actions reflect this world that I'm livin in, and it makes it hard.
Are you a negative person?
People have told me that I'm a negative person. People have told me that I'm the nicest person theyıve ever met. I think yeah, I'm negative, but only because I'm not fakin you know? I'm not fakin' it. There's only limited things that bring me a lot of happiness in the world, and when I find those happinesses and look around and I see all the negative stuff, it's always overweighted. There's too much evil to let the happiness shine through.
When are you happy?
When I wake up at 6:30 in the morning, there's a full thing of cereal, there's milk and it's not rotten. I drive down the beach, I have a good dump. The surf is good I have a good surf for three hours, cruise, go home. I'm with my friends the whole time, the friends I've grown up with for the past ten years. I don't have any bills to think about cause I took care of em all. I don't have any crazy people tryin' to run me off the road I don't have any people flashin guns at me, you know, no girlfriends bitchin' at me, I have a girlfriend who loves me and can't wait til the night falls and I'm done with the surf so I can see her. When there's somethin happenin in town, where my and my friends can party all night. And that's when I'm happy. I draw and I feed off other people's energy a lot. That's probably why I'm negative some of the times.
And the attraction to death metal?
In a certain way I'm stupid. I don't see how I can like somethin' so much and have it opposed by other people. I found somethin in it that I seriously like. I find it amazing that it's so hard to find someone else who likes it as much as me. Maybe I do get stupid and try and force it on people and hope that they'll go holy shit, there's that light, this shit is fuckin great. But you know it doesnıt usually work like that. I've only converted on or two people. What people don't realise is that itıs only a small part of my life. You guys aren't around when I'm chillin at my pad, listenin to reggae swiggin 40s on my front porch. Shit goes down that nobody knows about. Nobody knows me. I shouldn't be judged. I'm just stupid on this way of trying to bring you guys somethin new and exciting to me, and so, you know. I'm sorry if I do that and I'm sorry if you have headaches.