Birds Of A Feather

When No Denial broke up Big and Pepijn started with Jonas Birds of a Feather. All of them used to play in Mainstrike. They came up with the name when Mainstrike toured the US East Coast in the summer of 1999, indeed listening to Side by Side all the time. Although Maintrike broke up after the summer some members wanted to continue playing music together, but in some way or another it never happened. Beertje was in Das Oath, Johnny already did Reaching Forward and Pepijn and Big started No Denial after a while. The name Birds of a Feather came from a Side by Side song, it implies a call for unity and was really special for all band members because it was 10 years ago when they recorded the first Mainstrike 7". Here they were again 10 years later doing the same music with the same goal in mind, with the same motivation and dedication. But the story goes even further. Peter from Crucial Response Records found an old tape with some guitar riffs Big had sent him years ago. Those songs were supposed to be on the first No Denial record but it turned out that only "We Should Move" and "Overcome" became No Denial songs. No Denial changed all the songs and Peter thought the band would still record these '88 inspired songs. It turned out that No Denial recorded Cro-Mags styled songs tuned in D. Peter liked the new songs from the beginning but he had still the desire that those songs from the old tape should be recorded one day, so when Peter started with Arne "Voice of a Generation" fanzine he offered Big a deal to record those songs for the first issue. Anyway that old tape where it all began, got lost, Jonas ended up wrting five new excellent songs which came along with the fanzine. That's the story in a nutshell how Birds of a Feather began and how an old tape was responsible for forming two hardcore bands. That hasn't happened in hardcore, not even in the whole music history before. And who knows what will happen when this old tape will surface one day again.

Related bands:
Colt Turkey, Mainstrike, ManLiftingBanner, No Denial, Profound, Strike First