Interviews: Frank Pavich
An Interview with Frank Pavich who made the NYHC documentary.
Smother - Who exactly is Frank Pavich and what is he doing making a NYHC Documentary?
I'm a guy who grew upin New York and living now in Los Angeles. I've been living here for over seven years now, and in that time I've come to miss the scene in NY. During the winter holidays I would go home to see my folks and go to shows. It just seemed like such a great thing to immortalize in documentary form. My partner, Steve Scarlata, is originally from Long Island, so he had the same opinion that I did. That's why he suggested the project.
Smother - What were the bands like that you worked with for the documentary?
They were all amazing. I didn't know any of them personally before we started. Steve & I just chose eight bands that we loved and we called them
on the phone. We chose a month when they were all playing shows and we flew to NY and shot them. We tried to choose a diverse range of up and
coming bands. We didn't want all one flavor of hardcore, so we chose bands ranging from Madball to 108 and everything in between. They were all
really open and honest in their interviews. For example, Ezec from Crown of Thornz talks about his brother killing himself and Cesar from District 9
talks about his father dying of AIDS. They're not your typical zine interviews, you know? I was surprised how much they trusted us. They had
no idea who we were. We easily could have edited our 40 hours of footage into something that made them all look really bad. I really thank these guys for their trust.
Smother - How did Anthony Edwards from the show ER get involved with this project? Is he into Hardcore?
No, I just work for his production company. I had spent so many years & so much money on this documentary that he took pity on us and gave us some
completion funds. I just really enjoy the fact that his name is attached to N.Y.H.C. People really get bugged out by it. I tried to start a rumor
that he used to hang out with the Cro-Mags years ago and now he's covered in tattoos. I tried to start a rumor saying that he has so many tattoos
that he never rolls up his sleeves on ER. But it's all untrue. It's just a joke. He just likes the movie and wanted to support us.
Smother - One thing that is definitely noticable to me is that the soundtrack and the actual film contain some different interviews and such that the other doesn't. Is there any particular reason for this? Personally, I think it's kind of cool because that way if you get both, it's like this whole NYHC experience in a sense. Like a complete package.
Yeah, I like that they're different too. I agree that it gives you more of a well-rounded experience, but it wasn't necessarily planned that way. The
CD was made years back - way before we had anything close to a final cut of the film. I made the soundtrack for two reasons. One - to get publicity
and interest in the upcoming documentary. And two - to make some money to put towards the editing of the video itself. It got pretty well noticed, but we didn't see any money from it. Don't get me wrong, it sold well, but SFT Records just never saw fit to pay us. I fronted everything for the first pressing of 2500 copies. I never even got that money back, let alone made a profit! I know there have been multiple pressings done, but there you go! So it was a bust and hurt us in the end because then we really had
no money to edit with. And people ask why the video took so long to make! Another reason that they're different is that the video is 87 minutes and I
think the CD is 72 minutes long. There's more interviews in the film and more music on the CD. I think they compliment each other better when they
differ like that.
Smother - Who left that pissed off answering machine message at the end of the soundtrack album? What was that about?
That's just a friend of mine who got really pissed off at me. It had nothing to do with the documentary. I just thought it was a funny end to the CD. It's easily the angriest message I have ever received.
Smother - I was surprised that since this was a NYHC doc. that you didn't include Sick Of It All. Did you think about them for film?
Yeah, we thought of them, but decided against it. But it's nothing personal against them. I don't think they were even around that summer. Maybe they were on tour or something. And secondly, they're just a little
too big for the documentary. The way it stands, all the bands we chose to go with are small, at least when we filmed them. VOD didn't even have a 7" out yet. So to put SOIA among them, it just would have looked weird. I know that some people are going to say that it would have made a nice contrast to the other bands, bit I disagree. Plus, adding another band
would have cut down time from the others. The more bands in it, the less in-depth we could go. As it stands, we have 7 bands, and each one is full
of it's own charcters that you get to know really well. We wanted to keep it small and tight-knit.
Smother - Any chance for a follow up film?
Well, what Steve & I are working on now is a movie about the California's Orange County straightedge scene. Not a documentary, but a drama set in
that world. We want to shoot in ultra low-budget and use as many of the real kids as we can. It's a world that most people know nothing about. Just like New York hardcore. I don't know if I could make another
documentary. It's a long and hard road. But now that N.Y.H.C. is completed, I'm very happy with it. I think it's going to stand the test of time and be around for another 20 years to show the way it was back in the mid-90's.