Lou Koller - The Blood and the Sweat: The Story of Sick of It All’s Koller Brothers

A POST HILL PRESS BOOK

ISBN: 978-1-64293-225-6

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-64293-226-3

The Blood and the Sweat:

The Story of Sick of It Alls Koller Brothers

2020 by Lou Koller, Pete Koller, and Howie Abrams

All Rights Reserved

Cover and Interior Design by Donna McLeer / Tunnel Vizion Media

Front Cover Photo by Joel Ricard, Back Cover Photo by BJ Papas

Photos Provided by: BJ Papas, Lou, Pete, Mei-Ling Koller, Steven Koller, Laurens Kusters, Gary Humienny, Joost van Laake, Squirm, Silvy Maatman, Dirk Behlau, Jeff Pliskin, Rod Orchard, Inti Carboni and Bill Florio

Stick Figure Illustrations by Howie Abrams

This is a work of nonfiction. All people, locations, events, and situations

are portrayed to the best of the authors memory.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Post Hill Press

New York Nashville

posthillpress.com

Published in the United States of America

1.So, What Are You Going to Do?

1.Not Opening the Floor to Political Discussion

1.Harder Than You

1.I Dont Even Know How Anyone Got Our Phone Number

1.Your Record Came Out on Sony Here, and Now People Say They Hate You!

1.Just Smack Those Kids Already!

1.Weve Got More Than Three Days This Time. Thats Good.

1.Time Doesnt Matter, Age Doesnt Matter

1.Scratch the Surface

1.Too PC for Their Own Good (924 Gilman Street)

1.If You Had Been with Fat, Youd All Own Your Own Homes by Now

1.My God. Its on the Cover of the Daily News!

1.Fuckin SLAYYYEEERRR!

1.Death to Tyrants

1.Theres a Fucking Stigma Attached to Hardcore!

1.Hes Uncle Freddy, and Then Theres Uncle Vinnie, and Uncle Davey, and Uncle Lou.

I was in high school and I was super into heavy bands. Of course, this was in the pre-Spotify era, so you had to wait around for somebody to tell you what records to get. I had this friend who worked at our small local record shop, and he hated to clean the store, so, if I came in around closing time and vacuumed, sprayed the counters, and took on his less glamorous duties, he would give me a couple of records as pay. I did the work and got the records, but he insisted on picking them for me. He would play me what he was going to give me while I worked cleaning the shop, and he would play it loud.

I remember him playing this one record and thinking to myself, I need to hear this whole thing. I just have to hear this. So, I took my sweet time cleaning that place and listened to the whole thing. I was absolutely floored, but played it super cool. My friend handed me my two records when I finished cleaning, but neither was the one he had spun while I was cleaning. I was bummed, but I didnt want to give it away that I was nerding out so hard, so I just let it go. Turns out, it was a pre-release copy of an album he received from one of the record labels. I hounded him for a few weeks until I thought he was tired of the record, and finally, he gave me the promowithout mentioning that it was coming out only a few days later. I could have stopped begging and just waited for the regular copy, but he kept me hanging so I would keep cleaning the bathroom, which was no easy feat in that store. Now I had the record, and I became obsessed with it. It was Sick of it Alls Scratch the Surface.

At my school, nobody knew about hardcore bands. I didnt know anything either, but I wound up talking to one of the older guys I skated with after school and he told me it was their third album. I went straight to the record shop for the first two.

Fast forward a little bit, and Sick of It All is coming to play in Fort Lauderdale. I have long since forgotten the name of the venue, but it had an upstairs room called The Attic.

So get this. My band was picked by the local promoter to open for them. The band I was in predated me, but by the time my best friend and I joined, it had evolved, or devolved, depending on your taste, from a prog-rock band into a kind of post-punk thing, and then it became closer to post-hardcore; something like Jimmy Eat World meets Hot Water Music, even though I dont think wed even heard Jimmy Eat World yet. We were beyond psyched to play the show, and didnt think it was that odd for us to be playing with hardcore bands, because in Florida, there were so few bands to begin with that genre overlap was very common at shows.

Even though we werent a straight up hardcore band, we had a draw that the promoter thought would work for this show. It was going to be the biggest show our band would play to date, but it wouldnt have mattered if we were going to be playing for two people. All we cared about was that somehow, through some exceptional turn of fate, we were going to be opening for our heroes, Sick of It All. I think it was probably the bands biggest show that we would ever play, and it was sold out in advance of us being asked to be on the bill. The pressure was huge. We practiced our asses off and then we practiced some more.

The day of the show was finally here. The other guitar player and I show up, and then, we wait. We wait for our rhythm section, the Bonebrake brothers (their real last name is Bonebrake). Im still confused as to why we didnt name the band after them. Anyway, we wait for them to show upand they never do! The promoter tells us if we dont play, well never get another show. Ever! Having no idea what to do, the two of us idiots just go up and play our most rhythm-section based songs. I played guitar and my other guitar player, John, had his guitar in one of the Bonebrake brothers cars, but he had sombodys bass in his car, so that is what he played. I dont think hed ever played bass once before that night. We were just terrified, and, Im going to be real honest here, it wasnt good! Lets just leave it at that. We played just long enough to have not killed ourselves with the promoter, but wed definitely embarrassed ourselves. We were thinking, do we even want to stay around and see Sick of it All now that weve had our lowest moment? So, were walking off stage and Lou Koller comes over and says, Hey, what happened? I said, The rest of the band didnt show up. He said, But you played anyway? I didnt go into it having been do or die for our fledgling band in our fickle and political music scene. I just said, Well, yeah, and he just replies, FUCKING AWESOME! In that moment, it didnt matter that we werent good, it mattered that we stood up and did what we were there to do. That struck me hard and has stayed with me all these years since. I think Lou saying something positive to some kid he had never met before was one of those moments for me where a seed was planted and a root would soon take hold. Lou let me feel like I was part of it for simply being there and following through. He made sure I felt included, even though I was so aware of how small my part in that evening was.