Rob has been around forever. His gentlemanly demeanour and clean looks meant I never had him pegged as a closet gamer. But between playing music and combing his tache, the lad loves a bit of Bloodbowl and has some good tales to tell. I swung him some questions last week and he was good enough to spend a fair bit of time with his responses. 

Tell me who you are, and drop your hardcore credentials.
I’m Rob Camp. Wrong side of 35. Resident of Brighton & Hove. If you’re involved in hardcore punk, you might know me as the frontman of defunct (albeit dredged up) band, Abandon Ship. Also put on a bunch of gigs in Brighton in the mid 00’s. Also played bass in the The Hard Way, and guitar for both Bases Loaded and Legal Highs.

You’ve been kicking about for a long time now. You came up north and went to Uni in Salford before going to Brighton right? I was only a fresh faced little tit back then but I’m assuming it was around the time of the late 90’s ‘UKHC’ boom. Any good stories about Boardman pretending to play bass in Area Effect?

Mark and his brother Gav befriended me when I was at Salford and we hung out at Jilly’s Rock World. In hindsight, I probably should have stuck with them rather than the sorts that I went to Uni with as I probably would have got more shit done, and wouldn’t have ended bailing after the first year but being the shy type from a leafy town in Hertfordshire, I didn’t know how to handle somewhere like Manchester at all.

I remember there wasn’t much going on in Manchester when I was there. At least, I don’t think there was. Area Effect and Dog Toffee were going definitely and there were gigs but it wasn’t as big as it’d become. If there was more, I wasn’t aware of it – definitely didn’t go to any gigs while I was in the area. I do remember Damnation AD touring that year and playing Manchester (or somewhere up North) the day after I’d left to go back down South for the weekend, and then playing London the day after I was due to go back up North. That fucking bummed me out, no end.

If I’ve got it right, the UKHC boom in the 90s happened just around the time I left uni. Next couple of years were really cool – Damage Control alldayer in Walthamstow, and that alldayer in New Cross with Withdrawn and xTurnbucklex. I went to more gigs down South purely because of familiarity of the area (and accent).

You played in Abandon Ship for a long time. It had a longer shelf life than a lot of UK hardcore bands. What do you reckon it was that made you last so long, and what prompted your reunion a while back?

I’m sure you know this one – it comes down to playing music with your mates. The reason we did the reunion is purely because Steve and I were out in London one evening, talking about how we never got round to writing an album we’d always wanted to do – which, incidentally, was inspired by the story in Classic Rock of how the Young brothers got back on with writing what would become Back in Black after Bon Scott’s death.

Steve said he’d jam some stuff out and a week later he had the basis for 3 songs. We all got back together, got Dearlove involved on bass, practiced twice for 6 hours, wrote a 4th song, and then booked ourselves in with Atko for a day.

Off the back of that I figured it’d be best to play a gig just to get the record going. Pat and Tom from Carry the Weight, and Bryony and Tim who ran Dire Records helped out immensely to get that going. Was a really good weekend – Turn Cold and The Permanent got back together for the day, we debuted the Querelles, hung out with so many good people – I knew 90% of the crowd. For that one day the good times of mid-2000s Brighton Hardcore existed again.

We also got back together again last November to help LePub in Wales when the venue was going through a shaky patch. Got a lot of love for the place and the people. We did a little warm up in Brighton beforehand as well. Both gigs were good and I still love playing some of those songs but I think that weekend really made me think maybe the band should be left alone now. Onwards with new stuff.

It was also lyrically a few rungs above a lot of what was about at the time. I don’t know if you lads ever felt like this but I always saw Abandon Ship as fish out of water at the time (in a good way of course). Did you ever think that? As someone who knows you, the way your lyrics flowed seemed pretty natural, but I might be wrong, was it a conscious effort to stand out from the crowd?

Was it? I guess I’m just honest or something – venting my angst and all. I mean, some of those lyrics do make me fucking cringe when I re-read them now. Some still hit the spot though – Thaw, Second Skin, Insomnia – they take me back to where I was when I wrote the lyrics. Cheers though, man. Very cool of you to say.

There did seem to be that thing where we didn’t really fit into any particular sub-scene – we weren’t a thrash band, weren’t a mosh-metal band, weren’t youth crew, weren’t punk. Somehow we managed to do odds and ends of each. Playing fast and hard – I think that’s all the guideline we ever had and I’d like to think we did OK. On the matter of the band, I’ve got to give a MASSIVE shout out to Max Mitchell as he kicked up the initial interest in us and I don’t know if we’d have gotten far out of Brighton without that. Was always nice to play to all sorts of crowds as well – punk, push-moshers, two-stepping bro’s,etc.

With regards to flow, I never worried about rhyming each line as I think some lyricists do. It was all written as prose and then shoe-horned into a rhythm of sorts. That way I could say exactly what was on my mind and not be limited by the rhythm. I’m a big fan of lyrical patterns – it makes a massive difference to the feel of a song as opposed to just doing the same number of lines per bar. A good example would be Stranger Than Fiction by Bad Religion. The way the lyrics are worked out in that is almost perfect to my ears. Greg Graffin is definitely one of my favourite lyricists when he’s not wanking off to girls on skype.

I was a latecomer to Abandon Ship. It only really struck home for me after all those younger Liverpool kids like Pimlott and all that decided that Abandon Ship was hands down the best band in England. After talking to Tom a few times, it started to click for me. What do you think it was about A.S that really resonated with that small crew of younger Liverpool lads?

Well most of that lot rode BMX with Matt and Andy so there’s friendship angle there. Guess they were all young and new to DIY and maybe every local scene has it’s one band that maybe kicks everything off for them. We did have a bunch of good times with that lot. Like anytime any of the Scouse bands played in town or the Til I Burst release show, etc. They’d all come down and we’d have a dozen scousers crashing in the frontroom for a weekend. Then there was that gig in New Brighton that they set up for AS. That was a cracking time and I think that was the first gig they did – I think it got them all doing a bunch of stuff.

Man, it’s weird to think about – “why were we important to people?”. I don’t think anyone could answer that properly without sounding like a dick (if I haven’t already). I guess I can say that If I influenced someone like Tom Pimlott in what he’s doing hardcore or music-wise in any way, then that’s unreal to me as he’s done fucking tons and I’ve got a lot of admiration and envy for the man – he’s pretty much become the UK’s answer to DFJ or something. Tom does hardcore punk right. (this is where you add the subsequent quote of him saying “yeah, they were OK, I guess..”).

Are you working on anything new at the moment musically? Do you still feel connected to hardcore and punk? A lot of lads my age, me included, have started to settle. I’m content watering my tomato plants at home these days. What are you listening to at the moment?

Andy and I have our 60s/70s rock outfit we’ve always wanted to do – The Querrels . I play bass in that and Andy sings. I love playing in that band as I get to pretend I’m in the MC5 but it’s a weird one as not being punk or anything, we have zero connections so it’s a lot slower moving than AS (and kind of made me appreciate how good AS had it as well).

I’d like to do another hardcore band and am always jamming riffs. Just need to find the right people really. And I guess, finding a reason past wanting to rock out as I think for hardcore to be good, it has to be purposeful. Like you want to go and tear the world apart or something – have an unhealthy utter obsession with a vibe or an idea (regardless if said idea is well thought out). In my head, the band would be fast. Or something utterly bleak like early Damnation A.D. See how it goes.

One thing, if I did do it, I’d want to go hammer and tongs at it – gig a lot, put a lot out. It doesn’t feel as as essential to do as it once did so I wouldn’t want to do things by halves.

I’m not as connected to hardcore as I used to be at all but I always feel like doing something else or helping out in some way. Having said that though, I’m perfectly happy to let anyone else get on with it. Especially new generations in the scene – I think Adam Malik put it best – “A hardcore gig that 90% full of people over 25 would probably be shit”. That goes for the people organising it as well – it’s a youth movement and I’m 4 years removed from 40. Change is always good.

On the flipside of that, I definitely haven’t settled down at all and still having a lot of good times down in Brighton and I can’t that stopping anytime soon. I’m way more focused on work nowadays as I took over my old bosses business so have to keep on top of that. On the quieter side of things, I do seem to listen to a lot more radio 4 than I used to.

Anyway fuck all that. Lets talk about the good stuff. I had to give Boardie a call to check my facts on your time up north and he had no idea about your murky past with regards to gaming. I must admit it came as a shock to me too when you threw that amazing photo of you musing over the Blood Bowl pitch on Facebook. Why are you so ashamed of your gaming past? What’s your fucking problem man? To my knowledge you were a big Blood Bowl guy right? Did you ever dabble in 40k or Fantasy?

Nah, I jacked in gaming about the time I went to uni. None of the people I hung out with were into it and and the sort of people who were – Salford Uni Rock Soc, basically – were like Gareth from The Office. Proper dickheads.

Also, when I started getting more into hardcore, money obviously got siphoned into the record buying fund. It wasn’t just gaming – my comic collection stopped growing about the same time. At it’s peak, a bunch of us would have all-day multi-game sessions in my mate’s Mum’s school on a Saturdayafternoon. By the time is disappeared, it was just a game of Star Wars roleplay in someone’s front room on a Friday night and at the age of 19, I’d figured there were more laughs to be had on a Friday night.

Maybe it was something about me being sentimental and nostalgic about stuff, I did decide to keep all my Bloodbowl stuff and this is across something like 11 house moves in 14 years. That ropey old box of stuff – 2nd edition Blood Bowl, 16 man teams and all – came with me and never made it to a charity shop. I recently decided to give it a nice new box so it’s not going anywhere. The board you mentioned is about 22 years old – think it was my second board that I bought. As I mentioned to you elsewhere, seeing all your handiwork with the paints made me want to get back to it so I stripped down the human team I have – if you remember, I did ask your advice a while back about stripping paint with Dettol – and got on painting them. It’s nicely therapeutic.

I don’t think I was majorly into anything in particular – just that Bloodbowl was the one that got kept out of everything else. I played Fantasy Battle (dwarf army – always got slaughtered), 40k Epic (which got ridiculous when 4 or 5 of us pooled everything), and Space Hulk.

Roleplaying-wise, I played Star Wars, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, and WH Fantasy Roleplay. I love reading roleplaying books and still have Chill, and Vampire the Masquerade just for the back stories in them. Used to have the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles book and the DC superheroes books (think 2nd and 3rd editions) but none of them ever got played. They had cool artwork in them though.

What was your team for Blood Bowl? Or did you have multiple? What was it about that specific gaming system that appealed to you over others? (If indeed it did trump the other games on the GW roster at the time.)

The Gouged Eye were my team (see attached). Don’t laugh as I’m sure the paintwork isn’t of the standard you’d usually promote, but I actually tried a proper job on these back in the day. Pure grown-up painting – coloured washes, highlighting, vanished, each numbered with check patterns on the armour. I’m kind of proud of them.

At the moment, as I’ve said, I’ve got a human team on the go that are being painted up is a stripe that’s a homage to Watford FC – yellow/black which red greaves. This probably won’t be as involved as the Gouged Eye as I want them painted up pronto so I can get the game going but maybe as I go through the team, they will be a noticeable improvement. As I say, it’s therapeutic and chill thing to do of an evening (while listening to Radio 4).

I ALWAYS wanted that Chaos Allstars team that appeared in White Dwarf back in the 80s. It blew my mind what could be done with a mini-drill and milliputt. And Morg’th N’hthrog is by far the best character they created.

ON A SIDE NOTE – going back to the question as to why I jacked it in – there is one thing I should highlight – Games fucking Workshop standardising the fuck out of everything! I’m reminded of this as I remember checking out new Bloodbowl a couple of years ago and they’d dumbed it down and renamed Morg’th N’hthrog, “Morg’n Thorg”. That’s some Orwellian horseshit right there. But it was a while back that I was turned off it all – I couldn’t fucking stand that – this was about the time I got into ragey, politicised music like RATM and Downset, btw – theythey decided the Emperor existed in Fantasy Battle and could be played and that Bretonnia all of suddent vanished off the map. Was bollocks. Other changes meant everyone updating their fucking armies and of course, the price of lead never ceased to increase, did it? Yeah, that killed off a lot of interest for me. I preferred when the rules were a bit more freeform like 40k Rogue Trader – wasn’t there a man-eating flannel that your army might encounter or something? That said, haven’t not played any of the modern games, so I’m probably not one to say if they improved the gameplay or not. But at the time, all the revisions just seemed a cynical ploy to suck more money out of me and my mates.

What was your first experience of gaming as a young lad? Did it start and end with GW, or were you led to those systems from something else? Did GW act like a springboard to any other games? Do you still play? If so, what kind of gamer are you? Are you competitive or do/did you play your teams to their individual quirks?

My brother got me into Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf books (a primary school teacher was mates with Gary Chalk the illustrator of Lone Wolf and got him to sign a couple of my books – wish I’d kept them now). Then my bro got me playing D&D. This lead to painting miniatures and he started playing 40k and let me paint a space marine. It all snowballed from there. A key event was finding out my friend Marcus Stow had been given Dark Future for Christmas while I’d got Blood Bowl. We started from there and were partners in crime in terms of roleplaying for many years.

GW was/is just convenient – all manner of games under one roof and then all the books, paint and tools you need to set it up. One of my favourite memories from my teenage years was the monthly trip to Harrow in Middlesex (bear with me as I’m sure that’s not the most salubrious of visions). We’d get off the train at Harrow on the Hill and walk into town. On the way, we’d pass a really good comic shop, a really good independent model/gaming shop and then hit up GW in the town centre. This all started with Mum taking Marcus and me  to GW in Harrow just after Christmas one year to spend our pennies. It was a bit of coming of age thing as it was the first thing big deal thing I was allowed to do on my own – just disappearing from rural Hertfordshire into South London unaccompanied – seemed like a big deal to me anyways.

I’m far from competitive. Gaming was always a laugh and I never took losing as a bad thing (and how could I when my best mate was fielding the Champions of Death who would always turn it into a a war of attrition and beat me quite easily).

I think going to the independent places around Herts (Orc’s Nest in St.Albans and there was briefly a place in Hemel Hempstead, if I remember right) helped me and my mates into Cyberpunk and Star Wars more than GW. I always loved the miniatures you’d find in those places as they were slightly different build that the GW ones. They’d always be really badly lit and slightly musty-smelling places – like you’d stumbled across some ancient treasure trove or something.

I think right now, I’m happy with my old Blood Bowl set. There’s actually a small queue forming to play this as soon as I get the Ivinghoe Beacons painted up. There’s also a halfling team that I never painted that should be sorted out. Oh and there’s a minotaur who was painted as a member of the Gouged Eye but never got any playing time. Maybe he’ll be the basis of something else. I kept a load of Advanced Heroquest Skaven as well. I have an intention to cut the swords off them and paint them up as a team. AND THEN THERE’S EBAY… man, I’ve seen so much stuff I could blow my wages on on there and I was stunned by the price of some of these things having been out of the loop but that’s something I’ll give thoughts to once everything else is done.

If you were to drop your mic, and your instruments and fall back in to gaming as your full time number one hobby once again, tell me where you’d start, what you’d collect, and why?

Probably Cthulhu – I play Mansions of Madness and Arkham Horror with Sam Horn (you’d know him as Sam Crunch perhaps) and others occasionally. Really got into it as I hadn’t read any Lovecraft until recently. My girlfriend bought me Call of Cthulhu as a present and if I could find other people locally to play that and had the time, I’d happily immerse myself in that of an evening.

If we’re talking miniatures-based gaming, not sure. I love the look of some of the 40K stuff you’ve been coming out with (miniatures I mean – I don’t think I could ever paint that well). Or just collect loads of different blood bowl teams perhaps. That’d be cool. I’ll see where this goes as I think a big part of this, like hardcore maybe, is that it’s best when you’re hanging out with your mates. Maybe the two cultures have more in common than I thought.

You can check out Robs most recent project, The Querells below, or by clicking here.

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