He can only rock.....but does a damn good job at it.

“As far as getting back together I never thought it would happen in a million years, but Touch & Go got a hold of me and asked if NA would do it. O.P. and I decided to do it. I did contact Rob (McCullough-ed.) about doing it, but after talking on the phone a few times I knew it wouldn’t work with him. So we got Ron Sakowski, and Harold Richardson, from Easy Action. I knew I could only do it with people I trusted; who could pull it off.”

Like I said three weeks ago, I did an interview with John Brannon for RE/fuse fanzine. Quoted above is an excerpt of that interview, of when I asked him what made him decide to revive Negative Approach after more than twenty years.

So, last weekend, only five months after the UK-shows, we went to see Negative Approach perform again. This time it didn’t take us a very scary crossing with a ferryboat in the middle of a December storm, and hours and hours of driving to the southwest of England. In a mere two hours from Amsterdam we were in Antwerp, where almost a thousand people had gathered from Belgium, Holland and beyond. It was very nice to see a lot of familiar faces again, some people I hadn’t seen in years.
There were several bands playing that night, of which I have only seen a few. Discharge stood out the most, because they were so horribly bad. And then, at around eleven, the moment had come. The band came on stage, Brannon took the mic and the second they started playing ‘Can’t Tell No One’, hell broke loose. For half an hour, it was complete mayhem. Hundreds of punks and hardcore kids were dancing, stage diving and just going completely nuts. A friend of mine actually broke his leg, and I saw someone jumping off a speaker and not getting up anymore. The band just carried on playing, clearly enjoying the amazing crowd reaction. When it was over I felt sweaty, bruised and extremely happy.
I actually had the chance to meet John Brannon that night before they were on. I felt shy and stupid going up to him and introducing myself, but he was very cool. We talked shortly, he signed my NA silkscreen poster (I felt like a total retard for asking) and told me they were going to play a last minute-set on Sunday at the Lintfabriek. Needless to say, the next day we headed for Belgium again. To my surprise, there were only about a hundred kids there. NA played a short set: Brannon let the crowd call out for requests. The atmosphere was much less aggressive, but nonetheless great. It felt like a private little party. Afterwards, I had a long talk with Brannon about their reunion shows, Easy Action and music in general. He was very sympathetic and most of all completely ‘normal’ and modest. He gave me some cd’s, we had the picture taken and said our goodbyes.
At a certain moment, my friends and I all looked at each other, started laughing and said: “This is too absurd. In ten years, we’ll all call each other to find out if it really did happen.”

“I made my first record with NA when I was 19, and never looked back. I know I’ll always be singing in a band. Rock ‘N’ Roll doesn’t always pay the bills. But I’ve given myself to this and there’s no turning back. I’ll be singing 'til I die, and I don’t see myself giving up anytime soon. I’m glad I still have a chance to do this. And I will be doing this by any means necessary. I’m always rehearsing or touring with Easy Action and now that these NA shows have come up I’m busy as fuck.
Bottom line: I weight it out, split the difference and I know I’m still fucked. I can only rock.”

(RE/fuse fanzine featuring the interview with Brannon and a whole lot more, will be available by the end of June: refuse_fanzine@hotmail.com)