Biderben
Biderben is one of the funniest punk rock bands I've come across. Their purpose of existence is to have fun and make everyone enjoy themselves... well, even think of some serious issues whilst doing so... Ladies and gentlemen: Biderben are simply Biderben as they say in the interview that follows... Come and meet them...

1. HELLO! HOW ARE YOU? FIRST OF ALL CAN YOU TELL US WHICH THE LIES THAT WILL GET US OUT (AS YOU MENTION IN THE TITLE OF YOUR ALBUM) ARE?
    They’re the lies we tell to ourselves everyday, to keep up the world of our illusions. They’re the lies we tell to ourselves when we perceive reality: reality is scaring, and telling lies is a way to try to escape from it! It’s not a case that the title of the second track of our CD is ”LOSE YOUR ILLUSIONS” and it sounds like a kick on your face after “Virtual Insanity, as to say: ”wake up: it’s time to lose your illusions and come out of the lies”!
2. YOU STARTED IN 1999 AS A BAND. DO YOU REMEMBER HOW EXACTLY YOU DECIDED TO START THE BAND? WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER, GENERALLY, FROM YOUR FIRST YEARS AS A BAND?
    At the beginning we’ve always considered the band as a game…what we can remember about that period are: very big parties, so many many friends, and a real great big fucking up! We’ve started to think seriously for the band 2 years ago, after they have admitted us to a mental hospital and we didn’t know how to spend our time!
3. YOU STARTED AS A COVER BAND. SO CAN YOU TELL US WHICH BANDS YOU CHOSE TO COVER? DO YOU PLAN TO RELEASE AN ALBUM ONLY WITH COVERS MADE BY YOU?
    We have started performing covers of punk bands like NOFX, RANCID, GREEN DAY (as the majority of punk bands of our generation we think…?) and other Italian punk-bands. Then, for a period, we started making covers of artists like Bob Marley, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Louis Armstrong, Jaco Pastorius,…., but completely revisited by us in a punky way…it was very funny…really not bad, but we’ve never planed to release a cover-album…as we’ve already said:it was just for fun!
4. IT TOOK YOU 7 YEARS TO RELEASE YOUR DEBUT CD. WHY DID IT TAKE YOU SO LONG? WHICH WAS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM YOU WERE CONFRONTED WITH UNTIL YOU SIGNED WITH A LABEL?
    We’ve tried to write serious songs for about 6 years, cause all  punk bands have always done that…then we’ve understood that we were ridiculous: like a parody. So we decided to try to make people laugh in another way: doing what we’re made for: THE IDIOTS! it took 6 years to understand it but we’ve succeeded in doing it! NOT BAD FOR 4 IDIOTS. Don’t u think?  It’s better late than never?!
5. SINCE WE TALK ABOUT THE LABEL, WHICH WERE THE REASONS THAT LED YOU TO THE DECISION TO SIGN WITH BLACK LOTUS? AS YOU KNOW YOUR LABEL IS MAINLY FOCUSED ON METAL. AREN’T YOU AFRAID THAT THEY MIGHT NOT HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE TO PROMOTE A PUNK ROCK BAND?
    All the other labels were too concentrated on making us note that our CD had too much of a variety. We know it is so and we think this is one of the main values of our first CD.  If you’re foreseeable u’re controllable, while, if u’re unpredictable…it’s always a funny surprise! We’ve always known this is dangerous from a commercial point of view…but we’ve always continued making the music we like, and our tenacity has been paid.  B.L. has focused on  the potentiality of our band. We’ve felt it, and we think it’s a good energy to work with! So that’s why we’ve decided to sign with it instead of a  punk label. In our CD you can find punk, ska and metal song: it’s a transition: it’s a passage from a punk mood to a harder mood, through many different shades. Black Lotus is the only label who has understood this.
6. IN THE PAST, MOSTLY IN THE 80’S, THERE WAS, A “HATRED” BETWEEN THE METALLERS AND THE PUNK ROCKERS. ISN’T THAT A BIT STRANGE SINCE PUNK AND METAL HAVE TOO MANY THINGS IN COMMON? WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT IT? 
    After he made the man and the woman, God made metal and punkrock… 
    But like men and women who are both animals of the same species but can’t go along anyway, so metallers and punkers are always quarreling, but sometimes, like men and women do,  they find a contact point and happens something beautiful (and funny…and very pleasant?)!
    Joking apart: It has always been a question concerned with politics, and, as we’ve already told, we’re not interested in it! We’re musicians and we’re interested in music and as far as this aspect is concerned, as you said, there have always been so many things in common between punk and metal!
    The problem is not between the kinds of music, but between the people… 
7. BY THE WY DO YOU LISTEN TO HEAVY METAL MUSIC? CAN YOU MENTION SOME BANDS THAT YOU LIKE AND HAVE INFLUENCED YOU FROM PUNK ROCK AND HEAVY METAL?
    Of course we like heavy metal so much! We like bands like SLAYERS, RAMMSTEIN, PANTERA, SLIPKNOT…
    As far as punk-rock is concerned we’re surely influenced by bands like NOFX, OFFSPRING, MAD CADDIES (we like so much their eclecticism); while, on metal side, we feel influenced by bands like SYSTEM OF A DOWN and LINEA 77 (an Italian band). What we mainly like in a band is eclecticism…    
8. WE TALK SO MUCH AND I DIDN’T ASK YOU THE OBVIOUS. CAN YOU TELL US WHICH THE MEANING OF YOUR NAME IS AND HOW YOU CHOSE IT?
    We’ve chosen the name BIDERBEN cause we like how it sounds. BIDERBEN means BIDERBEN. It’s like to say: “what does pussy mean?” answer: ”Pussy means pussy”, then everyone associates to that word something concerning his personal experience. We would like the people to associate with the name BIDERBEN something concerning their personal experience.
9. MAINLY, WE ARE USED TO LISTENING TO PUNK ROCK BANDS HAVING SERIOUS LYRICS. YOU ON THE OTHER HAND LIKE TO WRITE HUMOROUS LYRICS AS I READ IN YOUR BIO. WHY IS THAT? DO YOU THINK THAT HUMOR IS THE BEST WAY TO PROTEST NOWADAYS?
    As someone much more famous than us has already said in his last CD: ”don’ wanna talk about politics…”!?
    In our country most of punk-rock-bands talk about politics. We don’t think we can solve our problems through politics: in our opinion this is one of the lies we’ve to come out of! 
    The problem is somewhere else…but since we’re born someone tries to make us believe we can change the world through politics…and we put our hopes on it! Politics is a BIG HOPES-ENERGIES EATER: it’s like a big pig ?! And it’s growing up… We think it’s  useless protest against politics! The problem is somewhere else, and the people who can help us live in a better world are very far from politics and politicians! They’re near and they speak to us, but many times we can’t hear them cause the shouts of our protests are too loud!
    We don’t think HUMOUR is the best way to PROTEST, but for sure it’s the best way to speak and stay together with people and listen to them! 
    U can go on, only constructing, not destroying! 
    U have always got to be ready to keep the situation on the other side: otherwise u’ re predictable and controllable…and for sure this is not good at all!
    Angry people don’t work: it would be better organize a “world GANJA’S PARTY”!?
9. OK, NOW I WANT YOU TO TELL ME WHICH THE WORST COMMENT THAT YOU HAVE EVER READ FOR YOUR BAND WAS AND HOW IT MADE YOU FEEL.
    "Absolute zero is a fundamental lower bound on the temperature of any macroscopic system. It is unachievable in practice but it exists as a limit for real physical phenomena, and it was inferred by extrapolation from kinetic theory, and from other considerations in theoretical physics. One would like to define it as the temperature at which all motion ceases, but even at absolute zero some motion remains due to the requirements of quantum mechanics. Alternate definitions are that absolute zero is the temperature at which no further energy can be extracted from a physical body, or the temperature at which the entropies of perfect crystals vanish, or the temperature at which the entropy change of an adiabatic process vanishes". Well, it has been achieved. And its sound is "punk rock/ ska/ nu metal". Only Italians could do that.  I hope the whole world´s scientific community will be ready for this amazing breakthrough."
    Well this is a heavy comment, but we think  it’s very original and funny (we’ve put it at the home page of our website: www.biderben.com )…after we’ve read it, we’ve  laughed for one week: it’s not simple to make someone laugh u’re breaking off! We want to Congratulate the critic! Thank u for the fun! 
    We have felt like a group of scientists!
    As we’ve already said: u must be able to take it on the other side.
10. LET’S SUPPOSE THAT YOUR LABEL ASKS YOU TO WRITE ONE LINE OR A FEW WORDS IN ORDER TO PROMOTE YOUR NEW ALBUM. WHAT EXACTLY WOULD YOU WRITE?
    An amazing breakthrough is going to upset the world! Nothing will be the same as before! We hope the whole world  will be ready for this amazing breakthrough: ABSOLUTE ZERO HAS BEEN ACHIEVED. And its sound is "punk rock/ ska/ nu metal".  Only Italians could do that…as it’s common knowledge: ITALIANS DO IT BETTER: so LET’S TRY IT!
11. IMAGINE THAT YOU HAVE A LOT OF MONEY TO DO AN EXPENSIVE VIDEO-CLIP.  WHICH SONG WOULD YOU CHOOSE, WHAT EXACTLY WOULD YOU DO AND WHICH FAMOUS DIRECTOR WOULD YOU LIKE TO DIRECT IT?
    For sure, we'd choose as a director Quentin Tarantino. And we would like to make the video of LOSE YOUR ILLUSIONS! It’s about two years we’re obsessed with a scene (it’s like a collective vision): we imagine a NINJA who breaks into a discotheque and kills everyone. And then, after he has finished his work, he has a FLASHBACK in which he remembers when he used to go to the discotheque when he was a child, and all his friends used to fuck with the girls while he only used to look at them…REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD! 
    Don’t worry: we’re not diseased: we’re completely mad! 
    The only problem is we hate discotheques! We can’t stand them!     
12. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR TIME! THE LAST LINES BELONG TO YOU AND LEAVE A MESSAGE TO THE READERS OF THE WEBZINE…   
    Be careful! Idiots and stupids’ mothers are always pregnant! So let’s run away from them……maybe one day u’ll know u’re the father!
Nick  "William_Kidd"  Parastatidis
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