I did this interview with Alex Russin of Cold World several years ago with the best intention of getting a zine done shortly after. Life had other plans. Rest in peace Sean Price.
For anyone who might not know, what is your name and what do you do in Cold World?I’m Alex Russin I play guitar and sing in Cold World.
What is the Cold World story? How did y’all get started?
Uhm, that’s a long time ago now. We started in like ’04, which is really weird to think about. We started… Nick, Dan, and I had been in a band when I was in, like, high school. It was called Magnum and I really liked Dan as a front man, and I really liked Nick as a drummer. In Wilkes Barre, it was a lot different than anywhere else at the time. I mean, things are a lot different now, so it’s kinda weird to look at it in the perspective, but looking at it through this lens it was, like, a lot more segregated. If you liked Underdog and Youth of Today, you didn’t like Life of Agony and Biohazard. It was, like, one or the other. I remember talking to Nick one day and we were like “we should do something that’s kinda right in the middle of all that stuff” because that’s what we liked, and that’s what we ended up doing. There isn’t like any singing, like “Biohazard-y” type vocals, but in the music you can hear it. You could really tell what we were trying to do with that part. The hip-hop thing was really Nick. Nick is really into hip-hop. We all really like it, but I don’t know anybody that knows as much about it as him. He just kinda wanted to bring it in, I thought it was cool, and we did it tastefully.
That’s funny you say that last part because that into what my next question was going to be. Cold World obviously has some hip-hop influence.
I’m not gonna say that we were the first people that found the correlation, I mean, obviously we weren’t. It’s been around a long time—the direct line between hardcore and hip-hop. There’s always been a ton of hardcore kids that were super into it, but you knew who you were. It was a thing within itself almost. We thought we could do it tastefully, in a way that was almost like icing on the cake instead of making it the backbone or something. Nick did that. He has a great ear for that sorta stuff.
So is that link to hip-hop culture what ended up leading to the collaboration with Sean Price?
Kinda. That was actually our friend Max who lives in New York and runs Fun City Tattoos. He has this thing called the White Glove Group and he just wanted to put out wild ass stuff. That was kinda his thing. We had no connection to Sean Price—we knew who Sean Price was, but we had no personal interaction with him on our own.
So it wasn’t like he was coming to y’alls shows or was friends with Nick or anything
No, no, no. The first time we met him was in the studio. It was a crazy experience. He was like, listening to it, and when the mosh part comes in in that song, he was just sitting there and he starts making this face and says “that part’s Satan.” He heard me singing and he was like “how do you do that” and this and that, and I was like “I don’t know man, you just do it.” He was like “I want you to sing and play on my next LP,” and I was like “yeah, definitely.” That was the last I heard of that. Then when we saw him at the video shoot, it was like he had never seen me in his life. I was like “What’s up? I’m Alex,” and he was like “Oh, what’s up? I’m Sean. Nice to meet you,” but I mean it’s cool. It was really cool. It was really fun to do.
If I could see Sean Price and Cold World do that song live, I’d leave the realm of the living. Was he weirded out by all these kids jumping around and whatnot?
Filming that video was one of the weirdest days of my life. He thought it was so crazy, like so cool. He had a decent amount of people that were with him. Like, maybe ten people that were with him. It was a packed show. He kinda stayed with the people that came with him and we stayed with our people. Apparently, it was originally supposed to be Trapped Under Ice and somebody else, but it fell apart.
I want to say that the last time I saw Cold World play, George from Blacklisted was doing vocals.
I haven’t actually been doing any touring with Cold World recently. Arthur who plays in War Hungry, he’s pretty much in Cold World. On that tour Dan, who lives in England and has a girlfriend and three kids, and they have, like a business and stuff—so he can only go away for X amount of time, so when he went home George met up and he filled in for him. I’ve known every member of Blacklisted for a long time now. I’ve known George for like fifteen years. Those guys are just, like, old friends who happen to be in a band that’s awesome.
That’s been a band I wanted to see for forever, but I’ve never seen them. I feel like I missed out on seeing a lot of bands because I don’t think they’ve really toured a lot since I started going to shows.
I was actually thinking about that the other day. I was getting sucked into like a YouTube cypher or something. No matter how old you are, unless you started going to shows in like, 1980, you are always going to have missed something. I’ve been going to shows since I was fourteen. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed. I still saw a lot of cool stuff.
That’s a long time to be going to shows. What’s been your favorite era of hardcore or your favorite thing about it?
There’s like the cycles of everything. So, when I first started coming around, the biggest thing was the “youth crew revival” is what it was called, so bands and like Floorpunch, In My Eyes, and Ten Yard Fight. Those were, like, the big ones, then it was like the littler ones like Redemption 87—all that stuff. That was the huge thing, but it was a world unto itself in hardcore. I always liked that, but at the same time I loved Madball. Now, everything is much more together and I like that a lot, but the thing I miss about when I first started going to shows is the camaraderie. It’s not there anymore. I think that just has to do with the Internet. It’s not like, you know, like the Internet ruined everything. It used to be like if I went away on a family trip and if I saw somebody in a Chain of Strength shirt I’d be like “hey, what’s up? how are you? it’s nice to meet you—” just talk to them. Now, you see somebody in a Chain of Strength shirt and you think “that person may have never heard a hardcore band in their life.” It’s also just, like, the Internet creates fake friendships. People are just less willing to go say “hi” to that person just because they’re wearing a hardcore shirt. I miss that dearly. It was harder to reach out to everybody, but it was so much tighter-knit because of it.
I totally get that, it’s almost like someone might actually snub their nose at you if you walked up and said “sick shirt man,”
I mean-- hardcore is huge now. They sold out the Electric Factory, which is like the biggest venue in Philadelphia. That never would have happened a few years ago. The biggest fest we used to have was Positive Numbers Fest, and that was in Wilkes Barre and it sold out at like 500, and we were like “holy shit.” So it’s just crazy that it has gotten to this point, which is cool, but it’s harder to make that instant connection. Every era has its moments. It’s cool. It’s bad. If anybody wants to read what I have to say listen to every band you can and who cares who likes what. If it sounds cool to you and it makes you wanna mosh, start a band, become a vegetarian, turn the record off and never listen to it again—who cares? That’s how you find out. Who cares what other people think about it?
I can’t say that I’ve met a whole lot of hardcore kids that went on to be lawyers.
Not many hardcore kids that are attorneys—more so than you would expect—but yeah. I get looked at very peculiarly sometimes. Especially by people who have known me a long time and who haven’t seen me in a few years. They’re like “what?” and I’m like “yeah man, I do estate planning.” It’s what I do. I love it. It’s a good job.
Do people every give you attitude for having other stuff going on? Like accuse you of “dropping out?”
My friends will bust on me a little bit. I was at my parents house tonight because my brother is in town, and Hoodrack was there and he was busting my balls in a way only a friend can bust your balls, but everyone understands. I put in a decent amount of time and I go to a show whenever I can. I have a kid, a job, and a wife. I have two kids under two. I’ll never be done with it. When you’re in it for this long, it’s different. I still go to shows, and I feel just as at home as anywhere else. No one can ever accuse me of dropping out. People drop out. I’ve seen it happen so many times. I don’t have anything to prove to anybody. I’m a dad and a lawyer, but I’m still a hardcore kid.
It’s weird having responsibilities. I feel like my biggest fear being a teacher is that one day I’ll land on one of my students at a hardcore show.
Every hardcore kid I know that’s a teacher has seen at least one student at a show and the kid’s like awe struck.
It’s crazy to think about. Some of the best times in my life have been in a car with my best friends. Like, following Foundation up the East Coast. Going to see them in NYC. I had never even been up there before. It was definitely different.
Going all over the place, and seeing how different things are, but even that’s changed since the Internet. It’s become less dissimilar and more similar.
One of the things I actually love about hardcore is how diverse it really is. I mean, you have bands like Xibalba, and then you’ve got Title Fight. I like how a bunch of stuff is included.
You know what? I was thinking about it the one day, and I always, people try to give Title Fight shit. Like, “you’re not a hardcore band.” “You sound like Cursive or The Strokes or something.” Here’s the thing. We can all agree that Supertouch is a hardcore band. Supertouch doesn’t sound anything like what you would say “A” is for a hardcore band. Whether “A” is the Cro-Mags, or “A” is Youth of Today, or “A” is Gang Green. We can all agree that Supertouch is a hardcore band. Why? Because they’re hardcore kids. That’s their ethics. However, we are also going to agree that Slipknot isn’t a hardcore band, but Slipknot actually sounds like a lot of hardcore bands in the 90’s. They could have been on like, Victory in ’94. Why aren’t they a hardcore band? Because they’re not hardcore kids. Title Fight goes out on tour, and they bring Dead End Path. They’ll bring whoever because that’s what they do. If we can’t define it by that then what can define it by? You can’t tell me Give and Xibalba are hardcore bands if we’re only defining it by music. It’s more than that. It’s what comes out of you—as a person.
Yeah, I’ve seen plenty of comments about Xibalba. “Xibalba is a metal band…” or whatever.
Yeah, and Nate is booking— books— I don’t know how many shows every year. He books that big show that’s a toy drive for needy kids during Christmas. If Hardcore is supposed to be one thing more than anything else, it’s that we’re supposed to be a little more aware. We’re supposed to be a little more enlightened. That defines them way more than any LP they’ll every put out does, and I think they put out great LP’s.
I super appreciate you taking the time to do this man. When I tried to do the interview with Expire, I did it through email and the dude just totally blew it off and gave me one-sentence answers.
You gotta do it like this, ‘cause it’s a conversation. I hate doing email interviews.