Noise Within | LA Rock trio w members of SNOT, Amen, Epidemic.


"You either do everything you can to be loved by everyone, or you do nothing at all. Our options are pretty clear." Noise Within singer / guitarist Boris Bouma slouches in a downtown LA lockout stacked tot he ceiling with amps and guitars. He scratches his head and looks bewildered. "This place looked huge before we put our crap in it" Bouma moved to Los Angeles in 1999, and signed with Elektra Records in 2001. But after a short lived stay at #34 in Billboard in 2002, he shelved his musical aspirations. “We had been dropped by Elektra, soon after which my band Epidemic called it quits. The whole experience left me with a bad taste. After a decade of blindly pursuing a dream, and then seeing it all fizzle like that, I was kind of, over it, you know? I kept making music, but not in a 24-7, let’s take over the world type of situation. I did a soundtrack for a graphic novel pilot, ring tones, I got a day job, and began to build a home studio, which allowed me to focus on my increasingly immense drug habit as well". "I won't bore you with yet another cliché recovery story, but I am pretty stoked that the story doesn’t end there.” Why the comeback? "I am doing this for my pleasure, at my convenience, and to save rock n roll", Boris deadpans. "Not to dismiss the music I made in the past, but Noise Within wasn’t created to secure fame or wealth. There was music before there ever was a band. John (Fahnestock of SNOT, AMEN, and LO-PRO) and Aaron (Slipp of Prong, Tad) lit a fire under my ass to go do a band again. John had been through way more devastating shit than me and was still going at it, which definitely put things in perspective for me. What is different in 2009? "The last band I was in received close to one million in advances. When you’ve been broke your entire life, it changes things. It becomes this awkward situation where you, on top of your band mates’ scrutiny, end up sculpting your music to keep the money coming. It’s not the label’s fault, but you’re catering to an imaginary audience, playing to what you perceive as the taste of your benefactor. As a writer, it is not only distracting, it ends up debilitating you”. So change has made things less easy, but more pure? “The lack of options (available record deals) also removed the need to torment myself searching for that “nursery rhyme” to attract potential investors. The glass is half full, and worrying about bills in stead of how to get to the chorus the quickest is not a bad place to be.” About the dying industry, he raves. "I think it's awesome. Fans have been overcharged for years, and now stealing music is a natural result. Evolution is routing out the middlemen. Those that don’t adapt will go extinct. In the end, music WILL survive. There will always be music worth listening to. Like ours, which is free, might I add!” Don’t musicians have to adapt as well? “To a lesser extent, sure. You either do everything you can to be loved by everyone, or you don’t at all. We do the latter. Besides, the odds in rock n’ roll have pretty much remained the same: a few open slots on the Major’s rosters will go to Satan manufactured corporate manure, channeled through sleeve tattooed fashion models.“ “With the help of purchased Clear Channel time some of these puppets will make it overnight, the rest will return to manning the perfume counter at Macy’s. The rest of us will have to tour and sling T-Shirts for a living

"You either do everything you can to be loved by everyone, or you do nothing at all. Our options are pretty clear."

Noise Within singer / guitarist Boris Bouma slouches in a downtown LA lockout stacked tot he ceiling with amps and guitars. He scratches his head and looks bewildered. "This place looked huge before we put our crap in it"

Bouma moved to Los Angeles in 1999, and signed with Elektra Records in 2001. But after a short lived stay at #34 in Billboard in 2002, he shelved his musical aspirations.

“We had been dropped by Elektra, soon after which my band Epidemic called it quits. The whole experience left me with a bad taste. After a decade of blindly pursuing a dream, and then seeing it all fizzle like that, I was kind of, over it, you know?

I kept making music, but not in a 24-7, let’s take over the world type of situation. I did a soundtrack for a graphic novel pilot, ring tones, I got a day job, and began to build a home studio, which allowed me to focus on my increasingly immense drug habit as well".

"I won't bore you with yet another cliché recovery story, but I am pretty stoked that the story doesn’t end there.”

Why the comeback?

"I am doing this for my pleasure, at my convenience, and to save rock n roll", Boris deadpans. "Not to dismiss the music I made in the past, but Noise Within wasn’t created to secure fame or wealth. There was music before there ever was a band. John (Fahnestock of SNOT, AMEN, and LO-PRO) and Aaron (Slipp of Prong, Tad) lit a fire under my ass to go do a band again. John had been through way more devastating shit than me and was still going at it, which definitely put things in perspective for me.

What is different in 2009?

"The last band I was in received close to one million in advances. When you’ve been broke your entire life, it changes things. It becomes this awkward situation where you, on top of your band mates’ scrutiny, end up sculpting your music to keep the money coming. It’s not the label’s fault, but you’re catering to an imaginary audience, playing to what you perceive as the taste of your benefactor. As a writer, it is not only distracting, it ends up debilitating you”.

So change has made things less easy, but more pure?

“The lack of options (available record deals) also removed the need to torment myself searching for that “nursery rhyme” to attract potential investors. The glass is half full, and worrying about bills in stead of how to get to the chorus the quickest is not a bad place to be.”

About the dying industry, he raves. "I think it's awesome. Fans have been overcharged for years, and now stealing music is a natural result. Evolution is routing out the middlemen. Those that don’t adapt will go extinct. In the end, music WILL survive. There will always be music worth listening to. Like ours, which is free, might I add!”

Don’t musicians have to adapt as well?

“To a lesser extent, sure. You either do everything you can to be loved by everyone, or you don’t at all. We do the latter. Besides, the odds in rock n’ roll have pretty much remained the same: a few open slots on the Major’s rosters will go to Satan manufactured corporate manure, channeled through sleeve tattooed fashion models.“

“With the help of purchased Clear Channel time some of these puppets will make it overnight, the rest will return to manning the perfume counter at Macy’s. The rest of us will have to tour and sling T-Shirts for a living

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