Final Conflict Frontman Talks ‘Ashes To Ashes’ Reissue + More

By Andrew Bansal

Long Beach CA hardcore punk veterans Final Conflict were one of the innovators of the genre back when they started in 1983, and have more or less continued along the path for the past three decades. Recently, they sprung into action making appearances at various festival gigs, and put out a reissue of their iconic 1988 debut album ‘Ashes To Ashes’ via Oakland-based DIY label Tankcrimes Records. They’ve also been confirmed to participate in the Breakdown Fest at Los Globos in Los Angeles, slated to take place August 15-17, with Final Conflict scheduled to appear on the final day. Last month, I had a pleasant and insightful chat with vocalist Ron Martinez to discuss this reissue in detail, along with a few other things. Read the conversation below.

Ron, it’s good to have you on Metal Assault. The ‘Ashes To Ashes’ reissue was released on Tankcrimes Records recently. First of all, how did that come about?

I’ve been friends with Scotty [Heath, Tankcrimes owner] for a few years working together. What I do as a day job is I’m a booking agent and I happen to book a couple of the bands that are on Tankcrimes, like Ghoul, Toxic Holocaust and a few others. So, there was already a relationship between Scotty and I on that front, but I was also a big fan of the Tankcrimes label. I’m still an avid music collector and listening to new stuff, and Tankcrimes is one of my favorite ‘new’ labels. Throughout the years, there’s been people who’ve approached me about reissuing ‘Ashes To Ashes’, and that’s what we came right down to when the band decided to start playing live again. I had a very short list of labels I wanted to work with, and Tankcrimes was at the top. So I just called Scotty and it was really that easy. I brought it up to him, and I was prepared for him to say, “No man, I’m not interested”, or “I’m too busy”. But instead of turning it down he was really enthusiastic about it. It was just a handshake, we’ve never done a contract with him. Scotty is just crazy about music like we are, and it’s been a great combination with us working together because I wanted the record to be released on a label that’s contemporary with what’s going on in the crossover music scene and also is a label that’s putting out stuff we genuinely like. So it was flattering that he wanted to do it. The ironic thing was, immediately after we had confirmed the release, the other labels that I had on my very short list contacted me weeks later about re-releasing the record. We hadn’t told anybody that Tankcrimes was going to release it, but then I got a phone call from Greg at Southern Lord and got a message from the guys at Relapse. Too late! (laughs)

That’s awesome, man. From I understand, the material for this release was remastered from the original tapes? 

Yeah, we actually had the original mixed quarter-inch reels still. We gave them to a friend of mine Ulysses Noriega and he had the tapes baked, mastered it from analog to digital transfer in a high-end studio (The Laundry Room Recording Studio in Los Angeles) where they archive a lot of stuff like Hendrix and Beatles recordings. He handled that part and then we gave the files to Jack Control at Enormous Door Studios. Everyone that’s been tied with this re-release has been a friend and family member or a fan of the band, people that generally cared about the project and wanted to do a good job. And Jack did an amazing remastering job. This is the first time that I’ve been actually able to really listen to Ashes, because it sounds exactly the way it sounded when we mixed it in the studio. The clarity is there. I always had a problem with the [original] mastering, it sounded a little cloudy. Now it’s all there. He brought out the guitars again and it’s vicious. It sounds the way it’s supposed to sound.

That’s great, and I think the deluxe edition of this reissue also has a bonus disc. That’s the 1985 demo that you put out last year, isn’t it?

Yeah, the demo was released on vinyl last year by our friend Timmy Hefner. He’s the guy behind Chaos In Tejas fest. He released a limited vinyl pressing of a 1000 copies on 540 Records. So we wanted to include it as a bonus to anyone that bought the CD version, because the vinyl versions of both these releases are super-deluxe versions that came out with additional posters and all kind of stuff. So we wanted to give the CD people a little something extra as well.

Right, and as you mentioned earlier, you’ve been playing live again. You’ve done quite a few interesting shows. You did this year’s Maryland Deathfest I believe, and of course Tankcrimes’ Brainsqueeze Fest up in Oakland, and then Punk Rock Bowling in Vegas. How were those shows?

Amazing! We really didn’t know what to expect at Maryland Deathfest because we were shocked that we were asked to play (laughs), and we really didn’t think that anybody except for a very small minority would know who we were and even lesser number of people would care. But the response was amazing and performance-wise, it’s been our favorite show. I don’t want to sound arrogant, but we did destroy that night. As a band we were just totally in the groove and had such a great time at the show. That, and the show we did this past weekend in Santa Ana with 1984/Crucifix, are definitely some of our favorite shows that we’ve done.

Does that mean you’ll do shows more regularly now, specially with this reissue?

Yeah, we’re never going to be a full-time touring band because everyone in the group has families and other responsibilities. Our bass player Warren Renfrow is in three other bands. He plays in Cadillac Tramps, Manic Hispanic and with Johnny Teabags as well, and he’s got a full-time day job. I also play in another band here in Austin, Texas called Lower Class Brats. I’m the bass player. Plus I have my booking agency. So, Final Conflict is totally based on fun. I’m not saying that we’ll never tour, but if we do it’ll be like a short week-long tour. We just want to keep it on a fun level, where we play with bands that we want to play with that are our friends or something. We’re definitely not back to do this as a job or business. We’re going to do keep it like we did when we were young, and keep it fun.

Back when you started, there weren’t too many bands that were doing this style of music. But now there’s a lot of it. You must be noticing that as well when you play these festival shows. How do you see the scene now in this genre?

You know, back in the mid-80s when we started doing this, we didn’t realize then how different we were. We just wanted to combine our two favorite bands, Crucifix and Black Sabbath, into one thing. We just did it, we were just young kids. From that, there were other bands in that era like Cryptic Slaughter and Excel in our part of the world and then overseas there was Napalm Death and all that. That was the whole crossover thing, and with D.R.I. as well. Crossover kind of bloomed. You had these punk bands that were influenced by metal and then you had metal bands that were influenced by punk, but where it went wrong back then was, a lot of people wanted to adopt these heavy metal rockstar attitudes and not the punk ethics. Both sides of the fence, the metal world and the punk world, were to blame for that. It kind of killed punk rock. But now it’s completely different. This new advent of it started with Municipal Waste. They led the charge with the whole thrash revival and bands like Toxic Holocaust. Now it’s better than it used to be, because the bands are incorporating all the good elements of metal and thrash. There’s the musicianship and the intensity, but keeping the punk ethos as far as the DIY element and some of the politics even. It’s better, the scene is better, the people involved in the scene are better. There’s definitely a lot more of a kind of unity, not so much fractioned off as it was in the 80s. I think it’s better now than it ever has been.

Very interesting. So, in terms of your own musicianship, specially live, how do you think you’re handling your vocals and how do you rate yourself right now?

Well, I don’t know if I can say about myself but people are telling me that I haven’t lost a step and that I sound exactly the way I did when I was younger. I will say for the band that the musicians in the band are firing on all cylinders. When we decided to do this again, I took my cues from seeing some other bands that reformed and how amazing they were, and how they blew me away, like Doom, who just completely annihilated when I saw them play a fest recently. I knew that if we in 2014 could not play as well as Final Conflict did in 1986, there was no reason for us to do it. We made sure that we play the songs exactly the way people remembered them, exactly the way they are on the records, the exact same tempos. We don’t try to change anything. This is nostalgia. People want to hear the songs the way they remember them, not some updated version. Our records didn’t have slap bass on the original versions, so we’re not going to add a slap bass breakdown to it. We give the crowd exactly what they remember or hope to get. We’re adamant about that. Weeks before we do a show, I work out, make sure I keep my stamina up, and the guys rehearse intensely for every show. We make sure that every gig we do, we give 110% every time. We will never, ever underperform for the crowd because we’re not doing this for the money and we never did it for the money. We do it for the fun, and if someone bothers, whether it’s 10 people or 10000, we owe it to them to give every bit of their money’s worth, and I think we do it.

I have just one more question for you. You said that you’ll not be a fully touring band due to time limitations with all the members, but what’s the status on a new Final Conflict album?

A new record has already been written and recorded, and I just have to track my vocals and mix it. It will probably be released sometime in mid to late 2015. It’s along the same vein as our first demo and the Ashes record, it’s very short and sweet, to the point. 12 songs have already been recorded and we’re probably going to do 6 or 7 more. We’ll release may be an EP and then a full-length, but yes, there will be new Final Conflict material out there soon.

Final Conflict links: facebook

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