The Comrades at a glance: Year Formed: 1983 Style: Aggressive but melodic "old-school" socially conscious punk rock Influences/comparisons: Buzzcocks, Naked Raygun, Clash, old Wire, Avengers, Ramones, Sex Pistols, Kinks, Descendents, etc. Members: Jimmy Williams (Vocals/guitar), Greg Matwijiszyn (Bass/backing vocals), Darren Faller (Guitar/backing vocals), Mike Ricra (Drums, Backing Vocals).
The Comrades are a socially conscious punk band from Northeast New Jersey, an dying area that was once the cradle of America’s industry. This is an appropriate setting for The Comrades, given the subject matter of much, but not all, of the band’s material: the failure of our social, political, and economic systems that have systematically reduced masses of people to market commodities, while eroding the human spirit. Regardless of this, The Comrades are not a run of the mill angry punk band. Their songs consist of thought out, intelligent, and at times poetic lyrics, coupled with sometimes complex musical arrangements, while still remaining true to the punk ethos. The Comrades want their songs to inspire listeners to question and think, and hopefully come to their own conclusions, instead of wallowing in misery and hopelessness. The band is also fiercely independent, writing and performing all original material and creating their own artwork.
The Comrades were originally formed in 1983 by two songwriters/singers/guitarists (and friends since the third grade) Randy Gaston and Jimmy Williams. During the two years that the initial formation of the band existed, they wrote many songs about issues like war, blind patriotism, alienation, poverty, and various injustices that few 16 year olds were concerned with during that time, as well as some more personal material. Due mainly to age and inexperience, however, the band’s material was never well played or very astute. Teenagers being what they are, the original band broke up due to numerous personal and musical differences. After this, Jimmy played in several hardcore bands before becoming disillusioned with what that scene had become and almost gave up music entirely.
In 1990, Randy and Jimmy reunited for what began as an occasional writing and recording project. Older and wiser, the two came to appreciate the sometimes painstakingly slow creative process and began to put a lot more thought into both lyrics and music than they ever had before. They experimented with many variants on the punk theme, and eventually settled into an inventive two-guitar sound that was to become prominent in the groups later material. In 1994, they released their rather diverse collection of works on one 14 song cassette entitled A Spectrum Of Light, later reissued as a CD. They also decided that it was time to realize something that they were never able to do years ago: play live shows. Randy recruited bassist Greg Matwijiszyn and drummer Mike Ricra into the group, both of them capable and talented musicians in their own right. With a solid and competent lineup, the band started to play live shows in the metro area, and gathered a small but loyal following.
Later that year, Randy moved to Maryland, leaving behind several unrecorded songs that the two had written. The band continued as a three-piece, playing more shows and writing more songs. With his songwriting partner gone, Jimmy was forced to rely on his own ideas to keep the material coming, but Greg had already started coming into his own as a writer, and collaborated on several tunes with Jimmy. In 1995, the band recorded 4 Gaston/Williams compositions for a planned 7” EP which never came out, but was released as a cassette entitled Please Sign Us. Mike left the group shortly thereafter, and was briefly replaced by Ed Grande, who also did some writing with Jimmy. By the time the much more focused 13-song cassette of all the newer material , The Invisible Hand, was released in 1996 (arrangements to release the album as an independent CD fell through), Greg and Jimmy were all that remained of the band. However, Mike remained on hand to play live gigs, and The Comrades carried on.
In September 1996, Comrades fan and guitarist Tim Lastfogel, who occasionally made guest appearances at gigs, became a permanent member of the band, and now The Comrades finally were able to fully develop their distinctive sound. The Invisible Hand was totally rerecorded and released as a CD. In March 1998, Mike decided to leave the band again. Drummer Joel Gausten, formerly of Squiggy and currently with Graveyard School, filled-in from mid-1998 to early 1999 In mid-1999, what remained of the band attempted to release their long-delayed third release called Illusory Refuge From Your Torment, using raw demo recordings. The new material picks up where the last release left off, building on the same theme and improving on it, but is also more experimental at times in regards to music and subject matter.
In late 1999, Tim left to pursue other projects, and Darren Faller was added to the lineup as a lead guitarist. Darren's talent and enthusiam breathed new life into the often-struggling band. The band played some live dates with former drummers Joel and Mike filling in, and Mike later rejoined the group once again. The new lineup has remained together ever since and has been busy. Illusory Refuge was totally rerecorded in 2000 and was officially released in 2001 by AMP Records. The lineup with Darren lasted throughout the 2000s which saw some of the most innovative and creative efforts from the band. Tne new invigorated lineup functioned very well as a unit. In the beginning of the decade the band performed live more often than by the end of the decade. By that time they instead focused on songwriting and recording for two projects. The full length LP Faceless Landscape was finally released in 2009 after many delays and revisions. It received little to no airplay, and no writeups in the local NJ alternative music press at all, despite arguably being the band's best effort ever. True to the band's spirit, they have the entire album available for free. The planned EP called Fascist Snow - based on a short story inspired by Greg and written by Jimmy - was written in the earlier part of the decade but there were many delays in the recordings and final arrangements. This is still in the works.