Misconduct is one of those bands I have listened since I was a young hardcore kid, so it was a huge pleasure to interview the band at this year´s Punk Rock Holiday. Their music and lyrics have been such an inspiration for me throughout the years. I enjoyed doing this interview.

Are you guys tired?

-It took us three hours from where we live in Sweden to get to the airport, like we left at 1 in the morning, go to the airport, our plane took off at 6 in the morning and we ended in Venice around 9, or 9:30. We were tired, but now we are not anymore, we had some really good scrambled eggs on toast and some beers, it is so nice here. This is such beautiful location and beautiful people.

Is this your second time here?

-Yeah, it is our second time at Punk Rock Holiday, but we played Slovenia many times in the past, like in the good old nineties, I think we were first here in 97.or something.

It seems to me that you as a band are not so much present in social media online, on your Facebook page, on Bandcamp and similar, is this on purpose and you don´t like to do interviews or something else? Maybe you have some outsourced agency to do PR work for you?

-No, it has nothing to do with that we don˙t like interviews, I think, basically that we suck when it comes to time management, social media, and all that stuff. I mean, it˙s like there is a lot of young bands that formed only yesterday and tomorrow they will like have ten thousand followers because they are good at managing social media. I am just talking here about perspective of promoting your band and sell yourself like a product but I think for us it has always been about the music and more and the touring life has always been the most important thing for us, like in the beginning we only basically did records to have something to play when we are touring, it was not to have big record sales if you know what I mean, because we love to bring music live, because for us it has always been fifty percent coming from the audience, like to make Misconduct whole, there has to be a connection with the audience at the gigs. That˙s when I think our music works best and the message comes out. But I think maybe we should think more about promoting ourselves better and hire a publicist, pr or something.

I didn´t mean to ask you this in a mean way, I was just curious, because when you type your band name in the internet browser, not many things jump out.

-We are not shy or anything, we love to do interviews, you´re welcome, give us a call, we are here.

Five years have passed since the last album, any new material coming soon?

-Yeah, we are writing right now, we wanted to release two new singles before the Summer, but it was just not possible, one of the songs has a guest artist involved so we have to wait a little bit for that, then our whole studio where we are situated in Sweden is moving to a new location, so the new songs are going to be out this Fall, I think so. Blood On Our Hands, our last studio album, was like a long release for us. First, a couple of singles came out in 2013. Then the whole album like in 2013./2014. Then, the vinyl came out in 2015., so we played a lot of shows promoting that album.

You also cooperated with Roger Miret of Agnostic Front on the title track, how did that happen?

-We played with Agnostic Front many times in the past and Madball as well. It was actually the guy who founded Strength Records, Onno Cro-Mag was a huge fan of Misconduct and we always stayed in touch and he always wanted to release some our stuff  and he and Roger reached out and said they wanted to do the next Misconduct album and then we started talking more with Roger and then we did a couple of shows together in Germany and some festivals and like they were always so friendly to us.

Yeah, Onno was a great guy, I was so sad when I heard he passed away.

-Yeah, it was a disaster, such tragedy. Roger was also sad for us with the release of Blood On Our Hands, just when we were supposed to push everything, the tragedy with Onno passing happened and his death really affected a lot of people in the scene, we are so sad and we miss him a lot. But, he was a connection with us to start working with Roger Miret and when Roger heard the song, he was like, yeah, I totally want to do this. Then we did the video for the song together.

I think he totally fit really well into that song.

-Yeah, our voices are totally different, but that contrast makes it interesting. Plus, we can also show that, when I started with the music I call hardcore, it was more like punk hardcore, I was listening to Minor Threat, Gorilla Biscuits and similar. But then, hardcore evolved into more like metal stuff  and you just couldn˙t have that positive message, like this message of love anymore. We have always been a very positive band. It is a cool thing when you have Agnostic Front who play a bit more heavier music and meld together with Misconduct and we are more melodic, it becomes very interesting and also shows that hardcore is about accepting all kinds of music and like have an open mind.

It´s not like bragging about who has the bigger record or t-shirt collection.

-Exactly! You were here yesterday for H2O show?

Yes, we were, it was an awesome show!

-H20 is a really good example that you can listen whatever you want. I think for Toby and H20 it doesn˙t matter if you are into hip hop, death metal or Agnostic Front.

Obviously your lyrics and the message are important part of Misconduct. Are you a political band?

-I never actually considered us to be a political band, like to put us in a box of a kind. We wanna be a positive force to inspire people to just care. To care about each other, to care about the world, this planet. I like to write my songs and input two messages in the same song. One message can be very personal, like I give something from myself. But, in the big picture, this message can relate to anyone. I am really passionate about the enviroment  and we work a lot with Greenpeace and also Amnesty in the past. But, I don˙t want to be the one that says, okay you have to think like this or you have to think like that, instead I want the people to just explore and see the world and care. It is more important to go and vote for something you believe in than not to vote at all. Silence is really dangerous, you have to speak up. Change comes from caring. If you see evil going on and you just stand there and do nothing that is the worst thing. You have to do something. And to spread positive message about peace and about love, understanding and having an open mind, that is just the most important thing for us.

The whole atmosphere in Europe right now really reminds me of the 1930-ies and it is just dangerous situation.

-Really. When you see the unemployment in many countries and like I said, the most dangerous thing is to do nothing and to be passive and only pretend nothing is going on.

The last question I wanted to ask you. Many bands talked and sang about unity between the scene, between the people and is that only hardcore punk myth, like a hardcore punk arcadia folklore to sing about or does it exist really?

-I think you should always strive for like a global unity, even if it is utopia, it is a very beautiful thing. I wanna see unity in the scene, but there will always be bands that come out and point their fingers saying things like for example Misconduct you˙re not tough enough and similar. Even if we have played the same music more or less all our lives, people have called us that. We grew more melodic, because we love melodic music and we have grown up on Bad Religion and Pennywise same time with Minor Threat or Gorilla Biscuits. We think you should have an open mind and because of that we would be really stupid not trying to involve in some new things. I have actually witnessed unity between the bands and in the scene. As a part of the tour package, we have sometimes toured with really mixed bands  like Madball, H2O, we also did so many shows with Sick Of It All, Dropkick Murphys, we played with so many different bands. Once there was this great package with us, Satanic Surfers, AFI, Anti Flag, Ensign, Sick Of It All, there were so many different bands, but it was such a great tour, everybody was good friends. We did Canadian tour with Death By Stereo and Bigwig.

Have you ever played with some Croatian band or listened to any Croatian band?

-I feel ashamed because I can˙t say I know a lot about Croatian scene, but I would definitely love to learn more about your bands and scene. We would also love to play Croatia.