Punk veterans No Fraud are coming to Gainesville — a music scene the hardcore thrashers are more than familiar with.
The 33-year-old band has played a lot of early shows in Gainesville and with one foot on the inside and the other on the outside, they watched the music scene change around them.
“It was really diverse when we first started going there in the mid-to-early ‘80s,” frontman Dan Destructo said. “Even until the late ‘80s it was still pretty diverse.”
The band will be playing the Sizzlin’ Summer Showcase Spectacular on Aug. 14 at the Atlantic Nightspot, located at 15 N. Main St. The show will begin at 10 p.m. and doors open at 9. Tickets are available for $6 at the door.
Local band The Howleez will share the stage that night, and according to lead vocalist Debra Fetzer, a No Fraud show is something you don’t want to miss.
“It’s going to be epic,” Fetzer said. “Everyone should go.”
While many of the early shows the band played in town were backyard parties, house shows like those have almost disappeared across America. Those were some of Destructo’s favorite shows to play because they were usually free and the people who came were “stoked” to see the bands, he said.
During a show in Gainesville when venues were starting to become legitimate, the band had a part in tearing up a freshly painted floor at the now-closed Hardback.
“We peeled the paint off the floor, because they painted the floor and then they were selling beer for a quarter,” Destructo said. “And, you know, we trashed the place, and there was a big circle pit hole in the paint where people were dancing.”
Eventually, the Hardback became a real venue with bouncers, a full bar and ID checks. This happened all throughout Gainesville as venues began to legitimize, and according to Destructo, when they played that show at the Hardback the venue wasn’t a punk club. It wasn’t even technically a venue.
For a little while, Gainesville nearly overdosed and was mono-cultured around pop punk. The once-raging music scene narrowed itself. Destructo said they were lucky because they had contacts to play shows but other people weren’t so lucky.
“People can say it got bigger, but what really happened is it got more commercial,” Destructo said. “And that’s happened across the scene in general, but in Gainesville it happened like on steroids compared to everywhere else.”
Other than that, the band has had great times playing in Gainesville, Destructo said.
“Great shows, craziness, full-on raging parties and all kinds of good stuff,” he said.
They got to know a lot of diverse people and learn a lot from those around them in one of the early alternative music scenes.
“We’re pro-Gainesville,” Destructo said.
In the past five years or so, it seems like things are opening up, Destructo said. There are more older punk bands, older rock bands and even older metal bands that are being booked.
“It seems like the scene is starting to revive a little bit as far as diversity and musical taste and genres, which is good,” Destructo said.
The performer takes pride in putting on a lively show and has been known to get crazy with his surroundings. He believes that people can listen to music basically anywhere now, but people come to shows to get involved.
“We’re all existing in this society that has us upset at this moment making this angry sound,” Destructo said. “So let’s interact, you know, make it social.”
There’s a lot more to Destructo other than being just a wild veteran of the music scene. He fronts a band that poses some serious questions about society, and he has a lot to say.
“Some of the songs talk about politics, of course,” Destructo said. “Because we’re a political, hardcore thrash band.”
Their message isn’t centered on complaining about the world around you, but what you can do about it.
“It’ll discuss not just always accusational stuff like ‘this sucks, that sucks, this person sucks’ but why they suck,” Destructo said. “What we should do to resolve the suckiness.”
He also raises two questions: Should we even do anything about it? Should we accept the world around us just because it’s what we know?
The important thing is that we question it, he answered.
“Don’t view things from one angle, especially if it’s given to you by somebody else,” Destructo said. “So I try to communicate all that in a short period of time and in a fairly unintelligible version cause it’s going so damn fast, but that’s kind of the emotions that are going on.”
Whether it’ll be about socio-politics like involvement in society and reality or politics about the good and bad in government, it’s all fast and intense.
It’s not always super intense, however. He writes about personal relationships and things that we all deal with, but he still poses interesting questions to encourage thought from a philosophical standpoint.
“If I just say ‘yes’ and I agree with you the whole time, neither of us are really gaining anything from the conversation,” Destructo said.
Destructo is looking forward to returning to Gainesville. The last time he played a show here, he crashed through a beer tent. He also called on almost every deity to bless his show mates, The Howleez, who are coming off of a successful, short East Coast tour and just released their new album, “No Shame.”
Fetzer has been anticipating her band’s show with No Fraud.
“Mostly, I’m thrilled to be playing with No Fraud, because I have the upmost respect for them and they’re highly entertaining,” Fetzer said. “I love the entertainment factor, and the music’s great.”
[A version of this story ran on page 9 on 8/5/15]
