Interview: John Kezdy of the Effigies

-

In the secret history of American punk and hardcore, the Effigies played a key role in leading Chicago’s strain of the energetic and reactionary sounds that defined disaffection in the Reagan era. The group’s 2007 CD, Reside – its first in 21 years – is a return to the lashing chops that made them such a formidable band in the early ’80s. With this one-off show, they’re playing at The Earl on Fri., Sept. 11 the group will show that the razor-sharp songwriting and political righteousness that gave the Effigies so much power in the early days of punk rock on American soil, still rings loud and clear. -

Chad Radford:  I never thought of the Effigies, or the Chicago hardcore sound of the ’80s as having much in common with “Hardcore” (with a capital H), like bands from Boston or D.C.-

John Kezdy:  If I were to describe what the Chicago sound was, with bands like us and Naked Raygun — we tried to write real songs but they had the punk energy. Our influences were a lot different from hardcore and I cringe whenever anyone calls us a hardcore band.-

You don’t like being called a hardcore band?-

It’s not that I don’t like it, but I think it’s an error. This may come as a surprise to you, but a lot of the hardcore crowd is kind of bigoted and has a very strict definition for what passes as hardcore.  If you don’t meet it you’re not hardcore. When our last album, Reside came out in 2007 we saw all of these hardcore blogs out there that hated it, and that’s as it should be because we’re not a hardcore band. I don’t mind if people call us a punk band because that’s what we’ve always been. I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but the lineage of the Effigies has always been more along the lines of the Sex Pistols, the Stranglers, the Ruts and that kind of stuff, as opposed to thrash metal or heavy metal which is what a lot of hardcore bands are. People forget that the term hardcore was actually a pejorative.-

The Effigies play The Earl on Fri., Sept. 11 with Customers and Poison Arrows. $10. 9 p.m. , 488 Flat Shoals Ave. 404-522-3950.