The Meaning of Mayhem

First Blood frontman Carl Schwartz says he’s looking forward to performing in Houston. What does he expect? “Mayhem,” he says evenly. “That’s a good word to describe it, mayhem. At least, that’s the goal. We’ve been pumped up to come to Houston for a while. We were on a bigger tour in the fall, all bigger venues, so I think this will be cool, to play a smaller club and just have a bunch of hard-core kids come out.”

Hopefully, Schwartz is exaggerating. Mayhem might be a little more than Walter’s on Washington can stand after recently receiving a rash of noise complaints. Not that First Blood’s music, including their last CD, Killafornia, isn’t as loud and pounding and, well, hard-core as it possibly can be; it is. It’s just that Schwartz thinks there’s a meaning to the quartet’s mayhem.

“Some hardcore is talking about the devil and butchering your neighbor, all that ridiculous stuff, sure. There’s a place for that, I guess,” he says. “Kids just want to play crazy music and shock the pants off everyone by how weird they are. That’s entertainment for some people. But I got into hardcore because I want to talk about things that matter, that are important, things that affect other people on the planet.”

Schwartz admits that he had to learn hardcore had a serious side. “When I was a kid just getting into hardcore, I thought it was all noise and destruction. Then one day I pulled out a lyric sheet and I saw that all the screaming and loud guitars and drums was about something. It was like, ‘Damn, these guys are screaming about life. They’re looking at real problems.’ It was about things that everyone can relate to in one way or another. Money, direction, why you’re here. True, most hard-core bands don’t necessarily propose any solutions to those problems, but at least they can let you know that you’re not alone, that someone else is feeling the exact same way. Hopefully, that can help people make it through those problems.”

After starting First Blood in early 2002 from the remnants of the band Sworn Vengeance, of which he’d been a member, Schwartz, then a bassist, took the unusual step of moving out front and becoming the group’s vocalist and primary songwriter. He was replaced by Manuel Peralez on bass, with Kyle Dixon on guitar and Brandon Thomas on drums. Guitarist Daniel Fletcher and drummer Mike Orris, Jr. (replacing Thomas) joined First Blood on the road for their tour promoting Killafornia. The group gave Schwartz a freedom he hadn’t found in other bands.

“When it’s not your own group, sometimes you feel like you have to compromise. Sometimes it’s hard and frustrating having to play someone else’s stuff. With this band, I’ve been able to start with it from the very, very beginning. I’ve been able to write almost every word and write music that I want to play. I’ve always been in other bands, groups that already had a history together when I joined. This band, I’ve been able to start with from the beginning,” Schwartz says. “Just having the freedom to do my own thing is really great.

Schwartz says the challenge for him and bandmate Kyle Dixon, who co-writes the group’s music, is to move beyond the expected, the ordinary. “My whole goal is that I want the lyrics to hit people. A lot of times people need a slap in the face, not a pat on the back. People need something to wake them up and help open their mind, help them see something new. I’d rather talk about the things that people don’t want to hear. Maybe it will make people uncomfortable, but there’s a real need for that. There’s a need to challenge what we learn in textbooks and expose how we’ve been conditioned by TV and the media. Everything isn’t really as it seems. People just take what they hear every day and they accept that as truth. They don’t ever challenge it. They don’t even consider that someone in a different hemisphere might have a different truth. I want to write about the things that people don’t have the opportunity to hear. I want to investigate more; I want to challenge ideas. That’s the bottom line for me.

“What you see on TV is not real. They are basically saying, ‘We’re going to show you the kind of life that you should be shooting for. This is it. That’s all there is.’ That’s just to make people forget about war, fraud, poverty and suffering, all this stuff. Why should we forget about those issues? We should be looking at them even closer, not ignoring them.

“I hope people realize that what we’re doing isn’t just mindless garbage. If they can see beneath all the noise and stuff, if they can take a look at the lyrics, they’ll see that we’re trying to say something important.”

Schwartz also hopes that people realize hard-core music isn’t just wild [flailing] — hard-core musicians, including the members of First Blood, are talented, capable musicians playing physically demanding music.

“People just don’t understand what hard-core music drummers need to do the entire show, night after night — the speed, the endurance, the stamina, the sweat. Plus there’s no sheet music for any of this; it’s all just in the drummer’s head. The same thing with guitarists and singers. Go outside and yell for your dog; your throat is going to hurt after just ten seconds. So imagine what it’s going to be like after two hours of that. It’s impossible for someone to just come in and say, ‘Oh, I can do this, anybody can.’ Oh yeah? Well go ahead and try. Be sure and call me when your arms fall off.”

First Blood performs Monday, January 15, at Walter’s on Washington, 4215 Washington, 713-862-2513.