As the singer of 7 Seconds, he gave us hope against hardcore nihilism and championed community like few others. Forty years in, Kevin Seconds still has so much to give.
"Kids who were angry, but not cynical. Kids who were hardened by circumstance, but sensitive by nature." I've never heard/read such a succinct summation of my experience and why I gravitated to hardcore/punk from the moment I heard it. This is perfect. Thank you, Norman.
This was a fantastic interview. Maybe it was because 7 Seconds kind of fell "in between" Minor Threat and Youth of Today, but I don't think they ever truly got the respect they deserved, no matter how much some of the most important punk and hardcore bands cited their influence. You did an excellent job of reminding folks of how important they were.
I think they definitely got the respect they deserved. However, maybe they just didn't sell as many records as some of their contemporaries. But then again, selling a lot of records doesn't really mean a whole lot. I feel like there are a lot of people who just buy records to listen to. And then there's a smaller group, who live and die by those records. Bowie did that for me, a working class kid growing up in a small town in New Jersey. Those records opened up a giant magical looking Glass into the world At Large... Punk / hardcore had very little impact on the core of my life, I simply loved it like I did surfing and skateboarding, two other outsider activities.
Thanks for an amazing interview. Thanks Norman, and thanks to Kevin for being so open and continuing to be a positive and empathetic person in the scene. Needed then, needed now.
when I was reading this interview with Kevin Seconds I was reminded of a book I found at the strand bookstore near union square in Manhattan called the "The whig interpretation of history" by Herbert Butterfield . Butterfield, who was a British historian( hence the term "whig" The British whigs advocates of the power of parliament who opposed the tories advocates of the power of the king) wrote this groundbreaking book in 1931." Butterfield's purpose with writing his 1931 book was to criticise oversimplified narratives (or "abridgements") which interpreted past events in terms of the present for the purposes of achieving "drama and apparent moral clarity". Butterfield especially noted:
It is part and parcel of the whig interpretation of history that it studies the past with reference to the present.
Butterfield argued that this approach to history compromised the work of the historian in several ways. The emphasis on the inevitability of progress leads to the mistaken belief that the progressive sequence of events becomes "a line of causation", tempting the historian to go no further to investigate the causes of historical change. The focus on the present as the goal of historical change leads the historian to a special kind of "abridgement", selecting only those events that seem important from the present point of view." (taken from wikipedia) I have been accused of "overthinking things" but can there be a whig interpretation of punk rock history?
"Kids who were angry, but not cynical. Kids who were hardened by circumstance, but sensitive by nature." I've never heard/read such a succinct summation of my experience and why I gravitated to hardcore/punk from the moment I heard it. This is perfect. Thank you, Norman.
This was a fantastic interview. Maybe it was because 7 Seconds kind of fell "in between" Minor Threat and Youth of Today, but I don't think they ever truly got the respect they deserved, no matter how much some of the most important punk and hardcore bands cited their influence. You did an excellent job of reminding folks of how important they were.
I think they definitely got the respect they deserved. However, maybe they just didn't sell as many records as some of their contemporaries. But then again, selling a lot of records doesn't really mean a whole lot. I feel like there are a lot of people who just buy records to listen to. And then there's a smaller group, who live and die by those records. Bowie did that for me, a working class kid growing up in a small town in New Jersey. Those records opened up a giant magical looking Glass into the world At Large... Punk / hardcore had very little impact on the core of my life, I simply loved it like I did surfing and skateboarding, two other outsider activities.
Thanks for an amazing interview. Thanks Norman, and thanks to Kevin for being so open and continuing to be a positive and empathetic person in the scene. Needed then, needed now.
I discovered punk rock because I loved the music, but people like Kevin are why it is more than just music to me.
when I was reading this interview with Kevin Seconds I was reminded of a book I found at the strand bookstore near union square in Manhattan called the "The whig interpretation of history" by Herbert Butterfield . Butterfield, who was a British historian( hence the term "whig" The British whigs advocates of the power of parliament who opposed the tories advocates of the power of the king) wrote this groundbreaking book in 1931." Butterfield's purpose with writing his 1931 book was to criticise oversimplified narratives (or "abridgements") which interpreted past events in terms of the present for the purposes of achieving "drama and apparent moral clarity". Butterfield especially noted:
It is part and parcel of the whig interpretation of history that it studies the past with reference to the present.
Butterfield argued that this approach to history compromised the work of the historian in several ways. The emphasis on the inevitability of progress leads to the mistaken belief that the progressive sequence of events becomes "a line of causation", tempting the historian to go no further to investigate the causes of historical change. The focus on the present as the goal of historical change leads the historian to a special kind of "abridgement", selecting only those events that seem important from the present point of view." (taken from wikipedia) I have been accused of "overthinking things" but can there be a whig interpretation of punk rock history?