INTERVIEW: Gap of Holding On Records and Jino of Loudly Prefer Talk Judgement Night

INTERVIEW
Gap of Holding On Records
Promoter, Entrepreneur, Label Honcho, All Round Amazing Dude

Jino of Loudly Prefer
Promoter, Vocalist, All Round Great Human

Photos by RQ777, Neton

Using our small platform to interview some amazing people who are doing profoundly important things for their scene is one of our biggest joys. Last weekend was one of Thailand’s biggest hardcore events in recent times (due to COVID killing everything of course) called Judgement Night and our entire timelines across all our platforms were inundated with the most amazing photos and videos that captured all the passion and emotions that Thai hardcore kids have been bottling up inside for the past few years. In one glorious night, them muthafuckas let the fuck LOOSE on that dance floor. Photo after photo, video after video all captured by the most amazing and brave photographers. Photographers at hardcore shows are crazy – always throwing themselves right in the pit, ducking people punching and kicking, and then running to a different corner to grab another angle. Please should always give it up to photographers and videographers.

Of course, without insane bands and a passionate community of people supporting these bands what do you have? Nothing. Thailand has built itself a scene of dudes who just keep KILLING it both in creating hard-hitting music and a community that goes OFF for hardcore. This show, the photos and videos are all testament to their passion. Respect.

Today, we got to shoot the shit with two dudes involved in bringing this night, entitled Judgement Night, together to celebrate everything beautiful about the Thai hardcore scene. We sit down with Gap of Holding On Records and Jino of Loudly Prefer and discuss how the show came to be.

Enjoy.

UA: Yo Gap! Congrats on that amazing Judgement Night show from a few days ago! I’m still watching the videos every day! Now that the show is over what are some thoughts going through your head?
GAP: Oh man I have no words to describe my feeling…haha… It was a crazy night right from the excitement of opening the doors to the audience to them rolling into the venue to when the show started and everyone was having so much fun. This is the first hardcore show for us here in a long time because of COVID. The last time was Whispers ‘Narok Bon Din’ record release show which was back in 2021. I just couldn’t believe how many people came and packed the venue for this show. It was completely crazy. I really, truly appreciate them for supporting the bands and my label.

UA: For sure man! I wasn’t even there but just looking at the photos and videos even I got emotional! So let’s go back to when you originally had the idea for this show. When did you start planning it and why did you decide on the cool name “Judgement Night” – the best soundtrack in the world hahaha…
GAP: Around two months ago we sat down with the guys behind Loudly Prefer because they had begun organizing shows for Thai bands Annalynn and Defying Decay. So we were wondering if we could maybe work with them to put on a full hardcore show.

Get The Most – Vintage Shop
https://www.facebook.com/getthemoststore

The title “Judgement Night” came from my crew and me. We all own a vintage store here in Bangkok and when we started thinking of an appropriate name we all saw a vintage Biohazard show in the store. So we instantly thought about the collab track Biohazard did with Onyx. The meaning of that song was perfect and it looks crazy hardcore too! Hahahaha…

UA: Jino, Loudly Prefer has been organizing some HUGE and very successful shows like the recent Annalynn one. What has inspired you guys to raise the production level and size of your shows? Lido is a big venue!
JINO: We simply want to take any type of rock or heavy music and bring it to the next level. Eventually, we want to be able to put on large-scale outdoor events in the future. Thailand still lacks major music festivals such as Hammersonic, Pulp Slam, Summersonic, etc. At the end of the day, we just want to support the local scene.

UA: So how did this come together for you and Loudly Prefer Jino?
JINO: We’ve been excellent friends for a long time and have always gone to shows together. We’ve even worked together booking shows. A couple of months ago, after Annalynn’s show, we decided to work on Judgement Night together to help keep the hardcore scene alive.

UA: And in the planning process what were some things you had to consider? Because I feel a hardcore show sometimes has to be organized differently than say metal shows.
JINO: Actually, we only had about 5 weeks to plan the whole thing so we had no time to consider anything like that really. We just booked the show and started working on it cause we all felt this desperation to put on a hardcore show right away. We had just completed the Annalynn show and saw that feedback was great so we just kind of followed that template for Judgement Night.

UA: Yeah those Loudly Prefer shows at Lido all looked massive! And when it came to the lineup – you got all the local greats. But there was a really cool band made up of members of other bands called Calling Hours. That seemed really special! Can you tell us something about that band?
GAP: Ohhhh yeahhh man. Loudly Prefer suggested that we do something really special at this show to make it an even better night. So we thought a lot about it and decided that it would be super cool to bring back a lot of the old Thai hardcore bands. We wanted to get them back up on stage. Some of the bands had already broken up or hadn’t played in a very long time. So that’s what we decided to do under the name “Calling Hours”. So “Calling Hours” is not a band but is what we called that part of the show where we invited all these bands back on stage. Each band played about 1-4 songs and it was so great to see all these bands take the stage again. I loved it. I loved seeing all my friends. Even though we are still in touch, talk often and hang out sometimes, but it’s different seeing them on stage. I loved it.

UA: That’s such a fucking dope idea! Now I understand why I saw the Monument X backdrop. So “Calling Hours” was a special set where each of those old bands came back to play 1-4 original songs or cover songs?
GAP: Most of them played original songs they’ve released in the past but some did do covers. Monument X covered Straight Edge Revenge and Fed The Ripper brought out Khing of Grimtooth and covered Discriminate Me by AF.

UA: Sick! And of course, everyone will kill me if I don’t ask…how did Steve show up on stage with Whispers?!?!
GAP: Hahahahaha…everyone here knows that Steve has lived here for a long time. So we’ve known each other for many years. He had spoken to Whispers and told them he was coming to the show to see them play because it’s been a long time since there’s been a show here. So the band thought maybe they could cover a Kickback song as an encore. Actually, we had no idea if he was actually going to get on stage hahahaha…but he actually did get on stage. It was one of the highlights of the night. He is still one of the best frontmen and his energy made the people in the room go even harder. ‘Forever War’ is the real deal.

UA: Another surprise guest spot was for Depressed when Jino (Loudly Prefer) came out to do his killer feature. Were you aware that he was going to come out?
GAP: Haha yeah I knew that was going to happen. Depressed are really good friends with Jino and since Depressed is a beatdown bands there are a lot of things in common with slam which is the stuff Jino is more known for. So he came out with his guttural vocal skills to sing ‘1279’. He KILLED it.

UA: How about you Jino?
JINO: My friends in Depressed wanted to add some slam vibes to their songs so they invited me to come out to do a guest spot on ‘1279’. I’ll actually do some guest spots on their new songs coming up.

UA: One other thing that was really special to see was all the cool backdrops you guys made for the bands playing. What was the idea to do that and who handled all of that?
GAP: Lido Connect is a really sick venue that is actually an old theater that was renovated into a livehouse. We knew we were going to be allowed to use the huge backdrop for some sick visuals for our bands. Get from Mosherman Friends came out to help us and worked with a friend of his named Duk who handled all the visual artwork. Some of the bands like The Shredder did their own backdrop. And then Ban of Defying Decay helped set everything up.

So everything looked good because of all the help we got from our friends.

UA: Now that this amazing experience is over, I’m sure you guys are thinking about what is the next step for your scene and community. What are some of the plans you’re considering?
GAP: Actually, we have no plans right now hahahaha. But I do think this event will inspire both old and new people to get more into hardcore. So maybe some older bands are going to reunite or some new bands will form. We’ll definitely be organizing more shows in the future.

I just hope through this show it will impact everyone to wake up so we can all do so many more things in the future to help support this scene, the bands, and the people who love all of this.

UA: RESPECT.