CAMERON TONGS | Drums

IGRIDH | Bass

RUAIRIDH | Vox
ZODIAC | Guitar
http://archinet.fsancho-sabio.es/html/Peg_pol_EH.html
oipolloi_alba@hotmail.com
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Oi Polloi uma banda anarco-punk escocesa formada em 1981 em Edimburgo. Os membro
s tm sido apoiantes da Anti-Fascist Action e da Earth First!, eles usam o lema "S
em compromisso em defesa da nossa Terra", que uma adaptao do Earth First!. Eles api
am a ao direta em defesa do meio ambiente, do boicote a caa, e da resistncia contra
o racismo, o sexismo, a homofobia, o fascismo e o imperialismo. Eles foram forte
mente influenciados no incio da carreira por bandas de street-punk como Cockney R
ejects e Sham 69, mas depois tornaram-se grandes admiradores do anarquismo receb
endo influncias de bandas anarco-punk como Crass e Antisect.[1] Quando a banda fo
i fundada os membros ainda estavam na escola, no final de 1981 eles fizeram o se
u primeiro concerto em Melville Stewart's College, em Edimburgo.[1] Desde 1988,
eles tambm visitaram a Europa continental (principalmente a Europa Ocidental), os
Estados Unidos e o Canad.
===
After numerous gigs in the Edinburgh area and the recording of the group's selfrecorded first cassette demo, Last of the Mohicans, drummer Stu "Doccy" Dunn lef
t to become a karate instructor and was replaced by Muz, who later recorded with
the Apostles.. Oi Polloi's first studio recording was the demo Destroi the Syst
em, which was released in 1984 or 1985. After Sounds magazine gave their previou
s home-recorded demo a favourable review, demand increased for gigs. A second st
udio demo, Green Anarchoi followed before the release of the first vinyl EP, Res
ist the Atomic Menace.
Oi Polloi started singing in Scottish Gaelic in 1996, recording the Carson? EP,
(released 2003), then recording & releasing the full length LP "Ar Cel Ar Cnan ArA-Mach" in 2006.[2] They also use the language in day-to-day communications.[3]
They consider the use of Gaelic and other endangered languages as important to m
aintaining the biocultural diversity of life. They toured Europe with Seattle-ba
sed punk band Mill a h-Uile Rud, who sing only in Scottish Gaelic, and Les Ramon
eurs de menhirs, who mostly sing in Breton.
Apostles and Political Asylum drummer Chris Low also played in Oi Polloi for awh
ile. Drummer Murray Briggs, who played on several of the band's 7" records, as w
ell as the Fuaim Catha LP, now plays in Scottish indie pop band Aberfeldy along
with brother Riley, who had a brief spell as Oi Polloi's guitarist in the 1990s.
Brian Tipa was instrumental in writing a great deal of material for the band in
the mid 1990s, including the Fuaim Catha LP, which was co-written with Calum Ma
ckenzie two weeks before it was recorded. David 'Rat' Connolly was the guitarist
through much of the early years, playing his last gig and album in 1991. Connol
ly wrote the music for songs such as "Pigs for Slaughter" and "Boot Down The Doo
r", and he went on to become an archaeologist and Middle Eastern adventurer.
Former bass player Calum Mackenzie (1992 99) relocated to the United States and we
nt on to play in several bands. On the "Omnicide" 7", bass and some vocals were
by Morag Cruickshank from the Aberdeen grindcore band Grunge. Guitarist Ricky Ol
sen first appeared on 1999's "THC" 7", having replaced Matt "Keith Chugwin" Finc
h in 1997. Olsen was replaced in 1999 by Ethan Buck , and then by Yaga who left
to join Disorder. Olsen later rejoined the band and a stable line-up has existed
since 2001 (with the exception of Calum Nicolson's replacement on bass in 2006)
: Deek "Ruairidh" Allan on vocals, Cameron Tongs on drums, Oigridh on Basses and
Olsen on guitars.

==Please give a brief history of the band, including current line up.
Well, we started the band way back in 1981 when we were all still at school and
had an average age of about 14 or something. They used to have these charity roc
k concerts at our school about once a term and we got really fucked off having t
o listen to these older kids who were wannabe rockstars just playing ROLLING STO
NES covers and so on all the time when most of us wanted to listen to punk and o
i.
We soon realised of course that the only way we were gonna get to hear some good
music was if we did it ourselves so we started practising in a garage with one
tiny amp, no mike and a drumkit mostly made out of buckets of fertiliser. We wer
e just playing covers at first and so we soon had enough for our first gig at sc
hool which was great as we hit the kids with a string of classics by BLITZ, THE
4SKINS, THE STRIKE and the mighty COCKNEY REJECTS. Brilliant as the music was th
ough it wasn't long before we realised that a lot of the oi lyrics weren't exact
ly penned by geniuses and as we started to listen to stuff like CRASS and DISCHA
RGE we started to think about a bit more than just aggro at football matches and
getting pissed. We then tried to combine the more thoughtful lyrics of these ki
nd of bands with the excellent oi type music with the old sing along choruses et
c so we have always been a kind of mixture of the two types of stuff really.
We had started really just for fun and did an 8 song practice tape to send to "S
ounds" (a music paper who reviewed cassette demos at the time) just so we could
get a mention in print to impress our teenage mates but when the review came out
we got hundreds of letters from all over the country wanting copies and after t
hat when we discovered all about the whole underground scene of fanzines and dis
tros (through flyers these folk sent us in the mail) we were encouraged to go on
- and after a few more gigs it was too much fun to stop! Since then we have don
e a load of records and toured all over the place.
We started touring abroad in 1988 and since then have played in every single cou
ntry in western Europe as well as in Poland, Czech and Slovak Republics, Sloveni
a, Estonia, Latvia and Hungary. We have also been to the States three times and
Canada too. We have had a load of line-up changes over the years with people com
ing and going and oming back again. Right now some of our ex-members are playing
in EXPLOITED, IN DECADES DECLINE, DISORDER, DREAD 101, DIVIDE AND CONQUER and B
OXED IN.
Our current line-up consists of Ricky who has been a long time stalwart of the E
dinburgh underground punk music scene on guitar, Cam who I have known for years
through the Edinburgh Hunt Saboteurs on drums - and Calum on bass - he is the yo
ung pretty boy.
Discography.
We have done so many records now that I'm not sure I can remember them all now!
I think somewhere on the web is a discography of some sort and we did put one on
our CD compilation "Six of the Best" but I am not going to write one out again
just now. It is not so important anyway - and this interview is gonna be pretty
long already.
What is the funniest thing that has happened to you whilst touring?
I think a lot of the funniest stuff that has happened to us wasn't actually funn
y at all at the time but
looking back on it you had to laugh. Like one time we ended up playing as the "g
uest live band" at this under 18s fashion show in some disco and to try to get o
ne of our mates in free we had told the organisers he was a backing vocalist. We
thought they would just forget about him but they thrust him onto the stage wit
h a mic just as we went on and as he didn't know any of the words he just stagge
red around the stage shouting out "Oi Oi!", the sound was fuckin appalling too a

nd the bouncers didn't let any of our mates in so we ended up getting chased off
the stage by trendies
pelting us with soft drinks cans and had to escape out the back door.
Another time in Estonia we ended up getting attacked by most of the audience and
had to
fight our way out of the venue - the only folk who helped were the two Russian b
ar owners who were these guys who looked like Josef Stalin and just picked up th
ese big lumps of wood to lay into folk. As we were driving away in our bus most
of the audience seemed to be surrounding it trying to kick fuck out of it - fuck
in horrendous.
Then there are a few kinda funny things that happened due to our involvement in
the "crusty" side of things where you get some of these folk who really seem to
think that it is cool or punk
to be as filthy as possible - some of the stuff that goes on with these folk is
unbelieveable. One time in London we were playing in this squatted dole office a
nd were going to stay in another squat nearby after the gig but when we went the
re before we found out that the folk that stayed there were real crusty types wh
o had some dog they never looked after and the stench of shit was everywhere. Th
ere was dogshit all over the house - it was fuckin horrible - even when we
were looking through the guy's LPs there was dogshit on some of the record sleev
es! After the gig we decided to stay in the gig place but then so did half the a
udience and then they started playing this really clever game of throwing darts
in people's heads so after seeing a couple of folk staggering around with darts
imbedded in their skulls we thought it might be better to go back to the house.
We knew there had been one bedroom with a mattress and no shit so we thought
we would kip there but by the time we got back there was a huge piece of shit ri
ght in the middle of the mattress! Eventually we found another room and although
the stink of shit in there was really strong we couldn't find it anywhere so we
had to just crash out in the end. Next morning when we got up to go though our
guitarist picked up his guitar case to find he had put it down on top of this hu
ge pile of dogshit so it was all over it! Oh dear oh dear, I honestly don't know
how folk can live like that.
It is sometimes even worse in Europe - we played in this Polish squat last year
and when Cam asked this guy there where the toilet was the guy just looked at hi
m like he was really stupid and said "Toilet is everywhere" - ah, right, very hy
genic. The worst had to be in Cologne in Germany though. When we arrived to play
in this squat there afew years ago this guy offered to give us a guided tour an
d started by saying "There are three kinds of people who stay here - there
are the political people and they are ok, there are the punks and they are ok and then there are - the people with body lice" and we were like "WHAT THE FUCK?
!!" and then he took us into this big hall just full of piles of rotting clothes
and blankets interspersed with buckets of something black. "Don't go too close
- this is where the people with body lice sleep" he said. Turned out the piles o
f stuff were like their nests and the buckets were full of shit and piss and the
y were black cos the tops were covered with a layer of floating dead flies - you
had to see it to believe it. What is it with some people? Another time some squ
at gig we were doing in Luxembourg got stopped after only three songs cos the ne
ighbours got really fucked off after some of the punks started shitting on their
lawns. We have a lot more stories about shit but I suspect you have had enough.
We have some funny piss ones though - last summer in Finland we were playing in
this place with a couple of really annoying folk in the crowd so we had mixed up
these bottles of brutal Finnish homebrew mixed up with our piss and just gave t
his to them to drink. Then at the end of the gig I had a bottle in my hand that
I had pissed into cos there was no toilet there and one of these idiots came up
to me and said "give me your cider" - I was trying to explain that it wasn't rea
lly for drinking but he just took it out of my hand and downed it in one - class

ic. Actually another time in Finland our old bassist was really drunk and pissed
all over this guy who was passed out on the front of the stage. When he woke up
he thought it was really cool and when we got home we got a letter from some wo
man who had been at the gig who said she was a piss fetishist and that it was on
e of the best things she had ever seen on stage! Shit, piss - ah yes, vomit next
!
One time we played in Wales at this gig put on by a couple whose relationship wa
s on the rocks and the guy was really depressed and got really really drunk all
night. The next morning when we had to go he demanded that we go to the pub with
him so he could buy us a drink before we left. We were all a bit uncomfortable
with it as it was really a very sad situation and there wasn't really anything w
e could do to sort it out but he was so insistent that we went along with him an
d his six month old baby he was looking after. Well, he had had a two litre bott
le of white cider for his breakfast so he was really out of it already and after
a couple more pints he was swaying on his chair and burping and we were a bit w
orried about his ability to look after the baby in his arms when suddenly he jus
t went "Fuck - BLEEUUURGHH" and puked up all over the poor baby - it
was covered in vomit - oh man, one of the worst things I have ever seen. I don't
think this exactly comes under "funny" as in amusing though unless it is a case
of you have to laugh or else you'd cry.
I dunno, I could go on for ages - like when we arrived too late for one gig in P
oland and these kids at the gig said "don't worry, you can play in my girlfriend
's house" and asked us to follow them in our van to this house. When we got ther
e they said they didn't have the key but that she wouldn't mind them going in th
rough the window so they went in and opened the door and we were taking the stuf
f in and then started to notice that the house looked pretty normal with picture
s of Jesus
and Mary and so on and when we asked where his girlfriend's records and posters
etc were the guy got really evasive and we realised they had just broken into an
y old house to do a gig in the living room - fuckin insane. Another time in Pola
nd we had to stay in this cheap hotel after the gig and a load of the organisers
were there as well and they started making these home made molotovs and testing
them in the rooms. The next morning half the stuff was burnt to fuck and THEN t
hey tell us that the hotel is run by the Polish Mafia and that we have to jump o
ut of the windows to run away - fucking nutters.
Yeah, sometimes you have some close shaves but I honestly can't recommend tourin
g enough - you are always guaranteed some craziness or other - it's fucking grea
t - even if it might not always be quite so amusing at the time!
You no longer look like skinheads, when did this change come about and why? Does
this ever cause a negative reaction?
I think I should point out here that we were never ever all skinheads at the sam
e time - the band was always a mixture of punks, skins and herberts and we liked
it that way as we have always been all about unity. In the early 80s in Scotlan
d there wasn't much difference between the punks and the skins - we all hung abo
ut together and it wasn't really something we thought about too much - we were a
ll into the same kind of music and having a laugh, getting bevvied etc as well a
s organising gigs and going on demos, marches etc. especially during the miners'
strike where there
were loads of us involved as it really brought so many sections of the working c
lass together against the cops who had a lot of the mining towns up here under v
irtual military occupation. I think most of the time I personally was a kind of
herbert - you know, harrington, sta-press or combats and boots, Fred Perry etc a
nd I have had a shaved head many a time but we never ever made a big thing about
how you had to be a skinhead or something. Our big thing was punks and
skins being united. Some punks gave us grief about this thinking that it meant t
hat we wanted punks to hang out with nazi boneheads but that was not the case at

all - we don't consider these bonehead fuckers as real skinheads at all - they
are just nazi tossers with shaven heads - fuckin stupid if you ask me. We always
remember the fascist National Front guy Webster who said "when we come to power
the skinheads will be the first to hang" so I mean what else can you say about
folk who still support a wanker like that except that they must be fuckin idiots
. Anyway we never at
down and made some deliberate decision not to be skins - it is just that as time
went on we really didn't find it important how people look - it is what is insi
de your head that is important to us, not the hairstyle on top of it. We get a m
ixture of folk at our gigs from crusty punks with dreads to spiky tops in studde
d jackets and good anti-fascist skins and we don't judge anyone on their appeara
nce - they are all welcome. Honestly nowadays we take pleasure out of deliberate
ly not looking punky or anything cos it is nice to surprise people and make them
realise that you
shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Folk often say to us "oh we thought you wer
e all huge skinheads" or something but anyone with sus is going to see us for th
e music and ideas and are not going to be put off if I have a big beard or somet
hing - as long as we still fuckin rock. One skinhead kid did come up to me in Sw
itzerland last year after one of our gigs looking rather horrified at my hair an
d beard and say "After everything you have said how can you go on stage looking
like that?" which made me laugh but I just asked him how old he was (17) and sai
d "well look, I am almost 20 years older than you now and when you have lived an
other twenty years you'll have learned that it is just not important what kind o
f hairstyle someone has - it is what they are like inside. We are still true to
our ideals - we still play the same mixture of Oi and punk that we have always p
layed, we are still out there playing cheap gigs all over, we never sold out or
went away and we still fuckin rock and that is what counts" and the guy was cool
after that - he seemed to understand what I was saying. I mean if you like to l
ook smart with short cropped hair
and you feel good like that or if you want a massive green mohican or something,
fucking great - good on you, it makes the world a lot more interesting place th
an if we all looked the same and I have to say that some folk's hairstyles look
fucking mental which is great - but personally we are not really bothered about
our own - we just don't give a fuck to be honest. We are more concerned with roc
king!
If you could see any band play live, either of the past or present who would it
be?
I have been lucky enough to see a lot of the great bands in their prime like DIS
CHARGE in 82, AMEBIX, ANTISECT, FLUX OF PINK INDIANS etc from the anarcho side a
s well as folk like ABRASIVE WHEELS, ONE WAY SYSTEM, TEST TUBES etc from the str
eetpunk side of things when they were at their best too but I do regret never ha
ving seen CRASS who by all accounts were fucking amazing live. I would also have
loved to have seen the 4SKINS when Gary Hodges was on vocals - that would have
been fucking great.
What is the first record each member of the band ever bought?
Ricky says the first single he ever bought was "Rock the Box" by SYLVESTER which
is not something I think I would be happy to admit to! Then again he is very br
oadminded in his musical taste which is a good thing really I suppose - variety
is the spice of life and all that.
The first single I ever bought was the classic "Into the Valley" by the SKIDS fucking great
Scottish punk - superb stuff - ah, those were the days.... The first Lp I bought
was "In the City" by
THE JAM - another classic band - fuck, this is making me feel all nostalgic now
thinking back to that.
Cam's first record was "English Civil War" by THE CLASH but I am saddened to hav

e to inform you that the first single Calum bought was "Take on Me" by A-HA - oh
dear , oh dear.... In a pathetic attempt to defend himself he said "at least th
ey are Norwegian" but that is no excuse - thankfully he seems to have better tas
te these days. We'll try to keep him on the right track.
How important do you think politics are in music?
In terms of just making music itself I think politics doesn't have to come into
it. I mean, I like plenty music that doesn't have any words you know - just musi
c for its own sake - none of us would say that we would only listen to music wit
h an anarchist message or whatever - that would be pretty over the top. When it
comes to our own music though that is a different story. As we are not an instru
mental band and we have words with almost every song, that means that each song
is an opportunity for us to say something constructive and positive that could m
aybe make people
think or educate them or inspire them to do something positive. If you are going
to sing something you might as well sing something constructive rather than jus
t "Hey, baby come on out on the dancefloor with me tonite" or whatever. We start
ed this band for fun and to have a laugh, not to spread any particular message b
ut as we have songs we want to sing something sensible so that is what we do. We
are anti-political in the sense that we do not want anything to do with party p
olitics - politicians are all full of shit but we are not "non-political" as tha
t is just impossible. Politics with a small p comes into every part of life - if
you get paid fuck all while your boss gets a fortune that is politics, if you h
ave to wait ages for a bus while some fucker cruises past in a Roller that is po
litics, if the tax on beer goes up so the government can buy more bombs that is
politics, if your local hospital gets shut down or the cops try out their new ga
s spray on you or whatever that is all
politics. I can sympathise with folk who sometimes feel that everything is too h
eavy and that they just don't want to think about it all and just get drunk but
that is exactly what the government want you to do.
If you try to be "non-political" and just sing about getting pissed and fighting
at football etc that is politically conservative in itself in that you are doin
g nothing to change things and so are supporting
the status quo by default. You might not like to admit that but that is what is
happening. People have asked us if we are a political band or a "fun band" and I
would say we are a fun band as we want as much fun as possible. We can't have u
ltimate fun though if we or our mates are getting hassled by the cops so that ma
kes us against them, we can't have fun if fuckin fascist boneheads are fuckin wi
th our gigs so we have to be against them and promote anti-fascism, we can have
more fun if gigs are cheaper and without meathead bouncers so we promote squatti
ng and squat gigs where we can control everything ourselves and keep it out of t
he hands of businessmen so we can have more fun, we can't have as much fun if we
are dying of cancer cos some fucker has built a nuclear power station down the
road for example so we have to be involved in environmental issues, we can have
more fun if we don't have to live in a world ruled by fuckwit bosses and
rich bastards telling us what to do all the time - so we naturally try to do som
ething to change things - that is what makes us political - we want fun! Ironica
lly the "non-political fun bands" do nothing to work for a better world of more
fun but if you want real fun you have to go for it - and that doesn't mean borin
g meetings or shit like that - anyone who knows us or has seen us knows that we
have a good laugh and are not some kind of self-righteous po-faced right-on inte
llectuals who spend all our time reading Kropotkin and Bakunin or whatever. Gett
ing involved in direct action and so on can be a lot of fun too - hunt sabotage
for instance can be a lot of fun. Yeah,
basically politics is important to us because we want more fun. Promoting "non-p
olitical" punk is to us either just conservative or another way of saying "let's
keep punk stupid".
What is the Punk/ska scene like in your area?

The place where I live right now is the Isle of Skye off the northwest coast of
the Scottish highlands so it might not surprise you to learn that there is prett
y much NO scene here although the old main man of AMEBIX lives down the road mak
ing swords and castle door hinges etc and there are afew other folk here with go
od taste in music so all is not lost and I do occasionally put on the odd gig to
liven things up. I put on NEWTOWN GRUNTS a while back and afew weeks ago we did
the DANGERFIELDS from Ireland which was good fun. If things aren't exactly jump
ing where you are I
firmly believe in trying to make them better instead of just complaining. Don't
wait for other folk to do it for you - DO IT YOURSELF!
Plans, gigs and releases planned for 2003.
We have a new live CD "Alive and Kicking" out on Step One next week. It has 19 t
racks of old faves and newer stuff recorded with excellent recording quality at
a big anti-fascist festival we played in Geneva last spring. We are very happy w
ith it as it captured the set really well so that is the first thing. Then next
month our new single "Carson?" comes out on Polish label Nikt Nic Nie Wie. The t
itle is in the indigenous celtic language here in Scotland, Gaelic, and means "W
hy?". All three tracks on the record are in our own language as up until now we
have always sung just in
English which is getting a bit boring! The release will come with a big fold-out
cover with loads of info about indigenous Scottish celtic culture and why it is
so important to protect people's linguistic human rights and prevent the curren
t ongoing mass extinction of minority languages and cultures happening all over
the world as we speak. It also fuckin rocks so look out for it soon! At about th
e same time our last full length LP "Fuaim Catha" ( Gaelic for "noise of struggl
e") will come out for the first time on CD on Finnish record label Combat Rock I
ndustry who may also be re-releasing our "Six of the Best" compilation CD of six
of our previous 7"ers now that Rugger Bugger
who had initially released it have stopped and have no copies left. So there is
plenty happening on the releases front. We have also been writing a load of new
stuff recently so we hope to record over the summer for a new 7" as well as doin
g the odd gig or two. We are pretty busy with all kinds of stuff outside the ban
d this year ( this is NOT a professional outfit I must emphasise - we certainly
don't make our living from Oi Polloi as some have thought - in fact we end up lo
sing out as we very often lose money on tour. Still financial gain has never bee
n our motivation so we can handle that!) so we don't plan any massive tours but
we will be playing a festival for a friend's birthday party in Germany on June 1
4th and then I know that later on on September 20th we should be playing a big a
nti-fascist festival in Munich. We have also had invitations to go back to
Norway and Majorca where we played last year as well as Belgium and the US west
coast so getting gigs isn't a problem. I have just heard as well that we are pla
ying Bradford 1in12 Club on Friday 18th July as part of the Leeds Punks Picnic w
eekend - it is a benefit for Rape Crisis. Hopefully we will have afew more UK on
es too cos we haven't played so much in England for a while.
Any final comments?
Just thanks for the interest and thanks to anyone reading this who has ever boug
ht any of our stuff or supported us at our gigs. Hope to see you all next time w
e play in your area and if anyone wants to contact us you can write to us at
Oi Polloi c/o PO Box 421, Edinburgh. EH11 1JD. SCOTLAND
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