Gary Meskil and Dalia (Gryphon_spirit) -                   pic taken by Absolut_Evidence

Dalia-  We are here together with Gary Meskil of Pro-Pain, metalcore legend, and we are very happy and proud to ask him some questions. It’s the time of  “Shreds of Dignity” Tour. You are at the moment at the half of your tour in Europe ....

 Gary Meskil - Yeah about half we have done, and the tour is going great. We started in the Netherlands for six shows and we went down in Belgium and we also played some great gigs in France and Spain. And now  we reaching the end of the Swiss gigs and we had a nice run here in Switzerland, which is usually the case: we always had some nice shows here and we are looking forewaed to the show tonight here at Sursee.

Dalia – Do you have the impression that Swiss audience is very interested in your music ? Cause  I see that in Switzerland the metal scene , and "related music" scene,  are growing very much.

  Gary Meskil - I think so too, I think we keep up building a sort of interest here for the past years. You know , at the beginning, our first gig in Switzerland had been in 1994 and we had some really big shows then, but that’s  when the hardcore thing was a bit more trendy so, it was  a little  bit covered to indoor the years  afterwards,. We are still here and it’s always a building process, don’t matter where we go. And you know Switzerland is no exception to the rule , each year that we play there it’s a little bit more. You know we have really a die hard fan base here which is great.

Dalia - And for  your band and you, is it important to have contact with the fan base in clubs and everywhere?

  Gary Meskil -Yes I think it’s important to be in touch with the fans. We have always been accessible .we are hanging out with the fans before and after the show. And I think that’s pretty important, it’s an important part for establishing a long last fan base. When your fans don’t put any sort of   problems can see you as a friend coming in town. That happens to play music that they can enjoy. For us I think  it’s an important part being an underground band.

Stefan- Do you think that the base in America  is different from the base in Europe? You made a lot of gigs in America, you made a lot of gigs in Europe. Did you notice any difference?

  Gary Meskil  - The fan base changes his head a little bit quicker in the States. I don’t know whether it’s because  the music scene might be  quite a little bit more trendy or the fact that the attention’s  ban is a little  shorter  as far as the American public it’s concerned. Even on  television there is not  a lot of shows that are going longer than an half a hour in a leg. I think it has to do with American attention’s ban.

Dalia - Frankly, what’s your  opinion about your new album “Shreds of Dignity”?.

  Gary Meskil - It speaks very well for the band in this particular point of time I wanted to  make a record that was a little bit different as far as would. Now heavy bands are doing this these days and there are a lot of slow and midpaste groups that are played out by the nu-metal bands right now. So I think that that void is completely fault. So I want to come on with some music that not a lot of bands will doing these days. Kind of a little bit of returning to the trash days and bring back.  that cause there was some excellent music coming out in that period of time. It was time to pick up the pace and play some fast trash once again. When the others slow down we wanna be the ones who speed up and when others speed up we wanna slow down. (laughing)

Stefan - Some bad voices are telling. “hear one record of Pro-Pain and you know all of them”. What do you think about that? What do you think abou that kind of journalism?

  Gary Meskil - I think that those kind of statements come from people who just aren’t fans of the bands. They tend to generalize just because they are not interested in it. The same thing could be said of  Slayer and of Motörhead . I think that’s good company right there, if I have to be associated.

Stefan - I’m opened for any kind of metal from medieval to trash , black, death and when we write a review we consider objectively the content of an album and we have no prejudice for the style of it. But often on the zines you can read a lot  of crap. Do  you think that those journalists are just paid for filling up the lines?

  Gary Meskil - Well Pro-Pain has a certain sound, you know. And you can hear  a lot of that sound in our first album, you can hear a lot of that particular sound running through   the main ordery in all of our records. And I think we have parameters that we have set for ourselves . We certainly could be more instrumental but that’s not all about, that’s not what Pro-Pain project. I think Pro-Pain has a purpose in this music scene, and I think for that, one particular purpose we have  we wanna  do it very well. The more we go outside of these parameters we entering a zone , and a place  where other bands do it better. You know, we know our place in this music scene and we experiment within those parameters.

Dalia - You are very engaged in many social things, so what does it mean “Shreds of Dignity” in itself for you? Why that title of the record.

  Gary Meskil - I like think that it could be interpreted at least  in 2 different ways and the more you look into it, the more you will find the real meaning behind that is. It’s kind to have to do with somewhat I love and Shreds of Dignity has to do with a lot but it’s not political.  For me it has to do with the pride in this band entirely self made and it’s been a long hard road for us. And this our latest offering. It’s been over ten years with us now and we managed ourselves the whole  time, we sacrificed a lot  to maintain this band’s dignity and our business. And most of the money that was to be generated by the band, was made by the band’s member and not by any outside interest. And I think we sacrificed a lot of popularity because of that. I think "Shreds of Dignity" was a perfect title for the band at this stage in our career. You know, having ten years behind us now…

  Stefan - You believe in what you do, and keep on doing what you do…

  Gary Meskil - Exactly!

Stefan - I have read on the web  an interview  done by a certain Chris….with you in the far 2000, concerning your troubles with the producer Mayhem, but I couldn’t find any other info how the story developed. Did you work that story out, cause it’s quite bad to read something like that…

  Gary Meskil - We had a problem where we signed a licensing deal and we didn’t take an advance, it was a good profit sharing deal and after all the expenses where we took, we would have made 80% and Mayhem was made 20%. It was a good deal but “you” don’t  take any money upfront, you risk. Somebody can walk away with your money and that was the case, and exactly that  was what happened, they closed their doors on us, they owed us a lot of money. We ended up taking in the Court, going a legal way and we won. We didn’t got the all huge at one time, we got  a payment plan, but  it can take the eternity, this way we didn’t  win entirely.

Stefan - I’ve  read that the payment plan was interrupted and that you gonna fight that guy another time by law.

  Gary Meskil - This is true. There was another legal round after that and we had a “freeze his back account” and we made it so that any money is coming in as results of any his businesses will go to us first. And it was pretty cool cause there are another lot of people after this guy legaling , but we decided to go after this guy all the way.

Stefan - That’s great!

  Gary Meskil - Yeah… That’s great (laughing)

You know unfortunately the music business is shark infested water (laughing) . It’s an easy place for people with money to manage a band with no money . The band generate a certain amount of money, the labels a lot of times won’t pay back and the band don’t have the money to take things up legal….strange business…

  Stefan - But we enjoy cause we love metal!! (laughing)

  Gary Meskil - Absolutely (laughing)

  Dalia - Artists give a joy to their audience and themselves , so it is worth to run such risks…

  Gary Meskil - Yeah..yeah..that’s true, and the whole music scene would be better  if the labels were really really  behind  bands and their career, instead of not caring about how many bands they turn over. Their just looking to make out a little bit of profit of the bands. They will do another record of a band but at least that doesn’t speak very well for the bands, their career and their families and everything else.

Dalia - Now the last question, a more technical one. How much important are drums and bass, about these instruments and people who ply them is not that much talked…

  Gary Meskil - Well , for a professional band  the drummer is very important and he has to have a good meter. So it’s very important to us that the drummer is playing with a good meter, not matter how many fills he’s playing. The first sign of a professional band is to play with a good meter and you can move your head like this (headbanging) . Number one for us is a good drummer. You know the bass and the rhythm guitars log in to the kickin’ snare . In the new career of Pro-Pain lays somewhat of a power metal band.

Dalia and Stefan - Thank you very much!

  Gary Meskil -Thank you!