CarlxJohnson: Full Health, Armor, and Powerviolence

With their second album HESOYAM, CarlxJohnson unlock the cheat codes to powerviolence mastery.

CarlxJohnson is a powerviolence band from the quaint town of Postojna in southwestern Slovenia, drawing heavy inspiration from the video game GTA: San Andreas.

Their latest offering, HESOYAM, blasts through 11 new tracks in uncompromising 16 minutes. This album serves as a masterclass in stop’n’go fastcore aggression, featuring grinding riffs, punishing blastbeats, and Spazz-style dual vocals that follow-up after ridiculous GTA samples. With track titles like “SPEEDITUP”, “ONLYHOMIESALLOWED”, “R1, R1, CIRCLE, R2, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT”, and “GOODBYECRUELWORLD”, each combining in-game cheat codes with hardcore punk scene in-jokes, the band injects a huge dose of fun into the genre.

Released today, HESOYAM is available on vinyl via Rope Or Guillotine Records and on tape from MKDC. Scroll down to catch our interview with the band and stream the album in its entirety. Nobody fucks with CJ!

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📸 Jahvo Joža

When I first heard about your band, I was like “fuck yeah”, CarlxJohnson is the ultimate powerviolence band name, and using samples from GTA: San Andreas just slaps. I was surprised you guys were the first to nail this idea—are you actual fans of the video game, or was it more about riffing on concepts until you landed on this idea?

Haha, thank you. The name is perfect in our opinion because it represents GTA: San Andreas in just two words and it also sounds really similar to Charles Bronson (great band!!). We are huge fans of the game, of course. All four of us played it when we were kids and spent countless hours escaping cops, just driving around the map or flying around with the jetpack. Smeče and Mini Sajo came up with the idea around 2018 when we were thinking about forming a powerviolence or fastcore band and around that time we also discovered bands like Goolagoon and xDeloreanx, that are Spongebob and Back to the Future themed powerviolence/fastcore bands. So, the name and theme of the band were decided upon before we even had any songs written.

I feel like powerviolence is one of the most gatekept subgenres in hardcore. How do you distinguish between what’s considered ‘real’ and ‘false’ powerviolence? Do you intentionally rip off from the sound of certain iconic bands?

We don’t really like the terms ‘real’ or ‘false’ when describing genres. We also don’t like calling bands ‘false’ for trying something new, because we believe in mixing genres. The genre would stagnate if all the bands would sound the same. We like to mix some grindcore, d-beat and even neocrust in our music, but at the same time we are influenced by the legendary powerviolence bands like Spazz, Charles Bronson, Infest etc. But we are not trying to copy a certain band’s sound, we just play the music that we like and listen to, even if we accidentally steal some riffs haha.

Yugoslavia holds a special place in punk history, with bands like Patareni among the pioneers of grindcore and legendary ‘80s Slovenian groups like U.B.R., Odpadki Civilizacije, and S.O.R. Do you draw any inspiration from these ex-Yugo forefathers, or do you merely lean towards the American sound and contemporary bands?

We listen to these bands and we are aware of the effect they had on the Slovenian punk scene, but we are not directly influenced by them. We were all born after Yugoslavia’s breakup, so we are too young to have witnessed these bands in their time. When we first entered the punk scene in high school, we discovered music mainly through live gigs and the internet, so the influence for us comes mostly from the foreign scene.

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Given GTA’s portrayal of exaggerated realities, how does your new album HESOYAM reflect or distort the current cultural or political narratives through its lyrics or themes? Is entertainment its primary purpose, or does it also address issues relevant to today’s society?

Although the main focus of the band is entertainment and we don’t include political themes in our music, as individuals we do not ignore the terrible events that take place around the world. We are horrified at the current state of the world, where human life has no worth for power-hungry maniacs. We are and will always be against any form of oppression.

HESOYAM is the ultimate cheat code that provides armor, health, and money. Personally, if you had to choose one—armor, health, or money—which would you pick and why?

Health. It is the only thing that money can’t buy.

The soundtrack (radio stations) of GTA: San Andreas is famously eclectic, capturing the essence of the early ’90s across various genres and cultural themes. What are your favorite songs on the soundtrack and why? If you could include any additional tracks from the hardcore punk and hip-hop scene, which ones would you choose?

Anyone that played GTA: San Andreas already knows that the radio stations are one of the best features of the game. You can listen to all kinds of music with some great commercials in between the songs. Some of our favorites are “Personal Jesus,” “Barracuda,” and “Pretend We Are Dead,” but all the radio stations are great. For us these songs are filled with nostalgia, they instantly conjure up pleasant memories of carefree afternoons spent in Los Santos city. If we could, we would add some more punk stuff, such as Minor Threat or Black Flag.

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📸 Jahvo Joža

Your hometown Postojna seems to have less than 10,000 inhabitants. Yet, you’re also active in bands like Green Crack and Nefarious Vermin. Could you tell us a bit about Postojna and the current state of the fast hardcore and grind scene in Slovenia?

Postojna is very small, but the scene is very active—it has four active concert venues and many bands, such as Agregat, Degress, Grinta. If you include legendary MKNŽ in Ilirska Bistrica and Jalla Jalla in Ljubljana (both a 30min drive from Postojna) you can visit at least two punk/metal concerts every week. The fastcore and grind scene in Slovenia is exploding right now, there are a lot of new and cool bands popping up (Propad, Ku-Ri-Boh!, Smedja in Smetke, Kultivator, Gastritis, Tupatupatam, Tvrold, Šafla). It is literally a powerviolence renaissance. We are all very connected, we help each other out with gigs and support each other in different ways <3.

Aside from GTA, what other video games do you enjoy playing, and do you have a preferred gaming platform? Are you predominantly PC gamers, or do you favor a particular console?

Sadly, with jobs and other life stuff we now have limited time for playing games. In our free time we mainly play games on PC. Our drummer (Mini Sajo) likes to play Dota, our guitarist (Smeče) likes The Witcher games and indie games such as Piku Niku, vocalist (Mark) likes World of Warcraft and League of Legends and bassist (Aidin) plays mainly CS:GO and Euro Truck Simulator 2.

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The 12″ vinyl from Rope Or Guillotine will be ready just in time for CxJ’s tour with Propad & Ku-Ri-Boh! (Yu-Gi-Oh! inspired powerviolence), two more key acts of the emerging powerviolence and fastcore scene in Slovenia.

26.04 Graz, SUB (AUT)
27.04 Bodenmais, Jugendtreff (GER)
28.04 Linz, Secret location (AUT)
29.04 Augsburg, Kraetzwerk (GER)
30.04 Leipzig, Axxxi (GER)
01.05 Plzen, TBA (CZ)
02.05 Prague, Eternia (CZ)
03.05 Bratislava, Garáże (SK)
04.05 Ljubljana, Jalla (SLO)

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