What reporters have to say...

(like we care a pig's rear end)

Index of articles (all of them in english):

• Watt may 1997 The Netherlands
  
• Eindhovens Dagblad 13th may 1997 The Netherlands
  
• Dynamo festival Guide may 1997 The Netherlands
  

Got any more? Mail me! I'm waiting for them...

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WATT, may 1997
Festival guide

Drinking booze, blowing and the intergalactic vacuum

Hicksville, West Virginia. A hamlet somewhere in the mountains. Home of the American stoner rock senstation Karma To Burn. The product of isolation and loneliness, as proven by their self titled debut album. A sheer endless musical trip, surrounded by a haze of self-made poteen and cheap psychedelica, better known as white thrash on dope.

Just like Kyuss and Monster Magnet, Karma To Burn would like to escape from every day reality. This reality consist of doing nothing or watching uninteresting televison. Watching Jerry Springer, just for the fun of it. Maybe that's the reason why their musicis full of superheavy, mindboggling sounds, symbolizing the pain, agony and frustration. It's like the spirit of new wave legend Ian Curtis (Joy Division) is hanging around this fourpiece.

"Why do you think we made a cover of '24 hours' from the gruesome Joy Division album 'Closer'?. That song IS Karma To Burn. We're also confused, lonely and anxious. It's no joke living in these mountains, especially when you have no friends and there is no one to discuss your inner feelings and emotions with, There's not much left then, except drinking and smoking grass. And the creation of your own intergalactic vacuum on earth" according to bass-player Dickie.

But the ungoing groove of Karma To Burn is also related to movies like 'Apocalypse Now', the ultimate picture of the war in Vietnam. A surreal and hypnotizing experience. "'Apocalypse Now' will get you stoned without the use of any drugs" says Dickie. "Sometimes we think that we have actually written that soundtrack. Our music has the same oppressed feeling."

A few schizofrenic hillbillies make up Karma To Burn, according to singer Jason. "Who else might be able to mix The Butthole Surfers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Frank Zappa or Monster Magnet just perfectly?" "Lynyrd Skynyrd is one of my favorite bands!" Dickie adds, "it's one of the most authentic southern rock bands ever. The late Ronnie Van Zant is the poor man's Ian Curtis. For me at least. Although there's almost twenty years between their deaths, I'm very convinced that they have met on the other side. Why do you think we're propagating their musical heritage."

Talking about singers, for a while it looked like son of the desert John Garcia (formerly Kyuss) would join the band. Dickie is grinning. "We've spent two weeks with him in San Francisco. A crazy time. But that ended as soon as John started singing. He sounded way too heavy. Like we had Ronnie James Dio on vocals. On top of that, he had some difficulty with the southern edge in our music. John was born and raised at the west coast and life is a bit more exuberant."

So in the end they dragged tippler Jason in front of the microphone. It was a desperate action. "We didn't have any choice," whispers Dickie, "otherwise we would have lost our contract with Roadrunner. They weren't ready for this instrumental stoner rock sludge. Happily Jason could produce some sound".

For their second album Karma To Burn will be sponsored by the famous porn mag Hustler. "The new songs will be about fucking exclusively. Fucking and gorgeous chicks. That's better than spending the entire day in a trailer park. You can take my word for that."

( interview and article by Walter Hoeijmakers, translation by Pepijn Klaassen)

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Eindhovens Dagblad, may 13th 1997
Pop live 1997 ( festival special )

KARMA TO BURN:
without vocals and solos

Every year the stage of Dynamo Open Air is host to unknown talent from around the world. Bands that didn't play for more than a few hundred people at maximum. Some of these bands see their career change suddenly after the Dynamo festival . Will this happen to Karma To Burn this year? This band is aiming at causing as much confusion as possible. Their biography is full of nonsense, the musicians have the same face and clothes, and they use songtitles like '6', '13', '8' and '22'.

On top of that, we encountered one band-member less than on their self-titled debut album. "Our vocalist? He's working in the pizzeria again, just like before his career in Karma To Burn" says guitarist William. Bass-player Dickie elaborates: "We're back at instrumental music, the original basis of this band. If we think some vocals are necessairy on stage, we'll ask one of our roadies to sing a bit". William adds to that: "Vocals aren't that important anyway. I myself am fed up with singers. Especially nowadays singing seems to be a therapy for an unhappy childhood. At every concert there is some creep bothering you with details about his life and how hard it is. Take for instance a guy like Eddie Vedder, very tiring. In rock and roll lyrics are highly overappreciated."

Karma To Burn is not only entertaining the audience without the use of lyrics, their music is lacking guitar solos as well. The concept of this trio is collective music. "Music is harmony. Solos are just as disturbing and egocentric in the harmonics of the songs as vocals. Rock music just never got over Eddie Van Halen and the likes" concludes William.

( interview by Peter Borgers, translation by Pepijn Klaassen. )

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May 16th 17th 18th Airport Eindhoven, The Netherlands

With: $400 Suits, Amorphis, Backfire, Coal Chamber, Cradle of Filth, Deviate, Dimmu Borgir, Discipline, Dissection, Entombed, Exodus, Goddess Of Desire, Helmet, I Against I, Ignite, Karma To Burn, Keaton, Korn, Laberinto, Limp Bizkit, Machinehead, Marylin Manson, Moonspell, Ni Hao, Orphanage, Pist*on, Rage & Secret Discovery, Samael, Satyrical, Sentenced, Sick Of It All, Skinlab, Slo-Burn, Slyce, SNFU, Sundown, Testament, Therion, Thumb, Tiamat, Totenmond, Travoltas, Type O Negative, Vision Of Disorder, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Within Temptation.

This is what the festival booklet had to say about Karma To Burn:

One of the few ways to escape the great plains of West Virginia is to start a band and be successful. An instrumental demo secured Karma To Burn a deal with Roadrunner. 'Our singers just keep blowing up, like Spinal Tap', was the band's explanation for vocalist Jim Jarosz' absence at the start of their first European tour.

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