Sahan Jayasuriya is the author of the recently released and highly excellent Don’t Say Please: The Oral History of Die Kreuzen. Covering all ten years of the Midwestern band’s existence,it is an enlightening read that follows them from their humble beginnings in the nascent American Hardcore underground to the creation of genre-smashing releases like October File (1986) and Century Days (1988). Despite its’ quickly-moving pace, it leaves no stones unturned telling the story of how this crew of Kiss-loving heshers became one of the most innovative bands of the 1980s.
Having dug the book so much, I reached out to Sahan to ask a few questions and luckily, he answered them. Read on…
Due to your age, Die Kreuzen didn’t enter your world until 2006. When you first heard them, were there any present day bands to compare them to?
I think the initial listen was blindsiding because I didn’t instantly compare them to anyone else. The vocals struck me first, just because of how intense they were by comparison to a lot of the other things that were happening around 83/84; at least in relation to what I had heard in 2006 (I didn’t hear Siege and Terveet Kadet until a few years later). I was really into bands like Reversal of Man, pageninetynine, Majority Rule and Orchid around then, so Dan Kubinski’s super high screams instantly connected with me because of that.
After a little bit more listening, I think I was able to see a bit of a connection to bands like Born Against and Charles Bronson. I recently found out that Die Kreuzen was an influence on that first Das Oath record, which I was super into at the time, so maybe that too? When I started to do interviews for this book, learning of the influence they had on the San Diego scene, bands like Drive Like Jehu/Hot Snakes and the Gravity Records crowd, it made a lot of sense, but I don’t think I would’ve made those connections back then, even though I was really into that stuff back then as well. Either way, I think what stood out the most about that band was that I wasn’t able to instantly connect it to other bands, and I think it’s that singular quality that made me want to dive deeper into their catalog.
How long after hearing them did you decide to write this book?
I didn’t start writing the book for almost another decade, and that’s because I hadn’t started writing about music yet. I was just going to school, working in a record store and making music. By the time I started writing the book in 2015, I had only been writing about music for about three years.
Do you have any theory as to why Die Kreuzen weren’t as revered or documented as other first string Midwest Hardcore bands like Negative Approach or Necros?
My guess is because by comparison, those acts had pretty short lifespans and put out records that were easier to classify than Die Kreuzen. Die Kreuzen’s journey away from hardcore that started with the October File album...while that helped them find a new audience outside of hardcore, it also didn’t sit right with people who just wanted them to continue to release records like the first one. I think if they had just put out the first 7” and first LP, they’d be spoken about differently by a certain sect of people. The flipside, of course, is that they wouldn’t have given us the awesome records that followed. I dig their whole catalog and I really love that they never repeated themselves.
I’d say the most illuminating part of the book is when the band goes on their first US tour in the summer of 1983. You can see the freedom this new form of punk brought them as well as the quickly constructed boundaries being put upon it both musically and politically. Do you think this was the catalyst for the material that would end up on October File?
I’d imagine that touring changed their mindset a bit. Playing with other bands, for sure. Leaving your hometown for the first time can be a pretty life changing experience. I think the biggest catalyst was their personal music tastes, cause those dudes were such music heads, and I’d imagine that touring shaped their tastes to some degree. Being on the road, you’re prone to being exposed to a lot more new stuff by virtue of being around so many other people, making new friends and absorbing their tastes, so maybe in that way, touring contributed to the evolution of their sound.
During the late 80s and early 90s, bands formed from the first wave of American Hardcore bands like Fugazi and Laughing Hyenas. These bands seemed to garner more attention than Die Kreuzen in their later days. Do you have any theory for this happening? Do you think people expected them to still being playing Hardcore instead of what they were doing at the time?
The Fugazi/Laughing Hyenas comparison is interesting. I don’t know about this in relation to the Hyenas, but when Fugazi first started , there were definitely people who didn’t really know what to make of it. By comparison to the things that came before, it was pretty different, and I’ve heard stories about people saying stuff like “what’s this reggae bullshit”? But by comparison, yeah, Fugazi and the Hyenas were definitely a bit more celebrated for sure.
When you think of The Supremes, you also think of Smokey Robinson, Martha and the Vandellas, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye...the whole Motown community. I think that community aspect definitely played a role in not only the success of that label, but also in those artists individually. With Fugazi, they were part of the DC scene and the Dischord community, and I think that definitely helped with people adapting to the way that the music started to evolve. The Hyenas were part of the Touch Go Records community, which Die Kreuzen were also a part of, but The Hyenas were a little bit more straightforward and easier to grasp than what Die Kreuzen were starting to do circa 1988. Die Kreuzen were connected to that community, certainly, and played with a lot of those bands, but they weren’t as easy to categorize and didn’t really sound like them.
Did people expect them to still be playing hardcore? Listen to that first record-it has so many elements that you don’t hear on a lot of hardcore records from that time, and I think those played a role in why that record is so loved. I don’t know if people expected them to still be playing hardcore, but a certain population of people definitely wanted them to.
The stories about the band being courted by the major labels is interesting. What do you think would have happened to the band if they signed to one?
I loved learning about this part of their history. Ultimately, no major label wanted to give them what they wanted in terms of creative control until after they had split up. We saw a bunch of bands who made the major label jump in that mid 90’s period. Some of them took those budgets and made amazing records that didn’t sell that much by major label standards, but for an indie label, still did pretty well. I think that’s probably what would have happened with Die Kreuzen. It would have been interesting to hear what they could have done with a bigger budget and more time, probably working with Butch Vig again. That period gave us Yank Crime, Slip, Dear You, Pony Express Record and For Your Own Special Sweetheart, and those are all killer records, so who knows?
How did the process of the book begin? Who was the first band member you reached out to and how did it all fall into place after that?
Prior to writing the book, I wrote a short form piece about them. This was around the time they played those partial reunion gigs in 2012 with Jay Tiller filling in for Brian Egeness on guitar. That piece was well received locally and by a decent amount of people outside of Milwaukee as well. Because of that, someone from the band...I can’t remember who now, but someone definitely approached me with the idea of doing a book. It was something they had thought about doing but never pursued.
I kicked the idea around for a few years because I had never done it before and didn’t really know how to go about it. Once I decided that I was gonna do it, I just started to meet up with the band members and talk. I kinda used that short form piece as a blueprint, because it gave me a rough idea of their story.
At that point, Dan Kubinski and Keith Brammer were in Milwaukee, Brian Egeness was in Austin and Erik Tunison was in Amsterdam. I think the first interviews I did were with Dan and Keith, probably over the course of a few months, meeting up once a week. I talked to Erik a handful of times on Skype and eventually met up with him when he came back to Milwaukee to visit. Brian eventually moved to Milwaukee, and we met up a few times for a few hours and chatted. I talked to everyone chronologically to make it easier for me when trying to organize it all. After a few years of working on it, the band members told me that I should just limit it to what they did between 81 and 92, so that made it easier for me. If I had to talk about all the bands and other things they did after their breakup, I think the book would’ve gotten too long.
How long from concept to completion did the book take? What was your biggest barrier in getting it done?
Start to finish, it took 10 years. I moved cross country a couple times in that period, but pretty much I was working on it the entire time. There were maybe a few gaps here and there, and that was largely because I’ve worked full time jobs this entire time. Currently, I work full time in higher education. I think the biggest barrier came from the fact that I was working on this independently for a long time until Feral House got involved. Prior to that, I had no one giving me deadlines, which resulted in me just getting deeper and deeper into the research and interview aspects of it. Ultimately, I’m really happy with how it turned out, but I think had Feral House not gotten involved, I may still be working on it. Who knows.
Is there any reason you opted for the oral history format for the book?
I chose the oral history format because I wasn’t there. I wanted it to be as accurate and direct as possible, and the oral history format lends itself to a much more direct perspective. Especially considering how many voices ended up in this book, it just made sense to do it in that format. Reading Everybody Loves Our Town, Please Kill Me and Meet Me in the Bathroom all played a role in me making that decision as well. Even Where Are Your Boys Tonight which came out in 2023 was an inspiration in that it just solidified my decision. I just love the way that the format reads.
How did you get Feral House interested?
Feral House had been following the book from the start, and Christina would check in with me over time just to see where I was at. When she saw that I was getting to a place that was more organized and focused, that’s when they stepped in and really helped me get it to the finish line.
Have you done any events for the book so far? Any coming up in the future?
We’ve done a handful of things in the Midwest so far, and they’ve all gone well. I have plans to do more things in the Midwest and possibly on the West Coast this year. Nothing’s set in stone yet, but yeah, I definitely have intentions to do as much as I can.
Any future projects you’d like people to know about?
Promoting this book is my focus right now, but I really appreciate all the love and support everyone has been showing me. You’ve been in my corner for a long time and that means a ton, Tony. I’ve got an idea for a second book that has nothing to do with hardcore, eventually I’ll get to work on that.
