Warzone - Josh Thackaberry Interview

The Warzone Centre in Belfast is home to The Warzone Collective. The non-profit gig group has been active since the early ‘80s, nurturing music, art and activism in Belfast. The latest incarnation is hard at work promoting shows for local and touring acts of all genres from their new building in Belfast city centre. The centre also houses Giro’s Café which was the first vegan restaurant in the city.

The Warzone Collective began in 1983 when a few Belfast DIY punks, inspired by the Crass peace-punk era and anarchist tradition, decided to pool their efforts and get their own venue, practice rooms and social space. Towards the end of 2003 the original Warzone Centre closed but it left a gap in radical Belfast culture. In 2007 discussions began and eventually in 2009 the Collective reformed and by 2011 a new centre was opened once again.

Musos’ Guide spoke with Josh Thackaberry, one of the Warzone volunteers about the centre and its activities.

MG: I was surprised when we got there by the amount of people involved in the collective.

JT: There’s over 200, possibly 300 people from what I can gather, across the country and in other countries. They come and go. But we have a regular volunteer group of 30 to 40 people. We try to get ourselves out there and try to get people in through the door. You wouldn’t usually find it. I found when I first went, it’s the kind of place where you have to know people to find it.

It’s a big family. We all know each other. We all love going down and helping out. And providing a centre which provides bands with a means to get themselves out there into the music scene, and into the music industry as a whole. Bands that play Warzone have gone on to play Voodoo and Limelight, and go across different countries with their music.

MG: It amazing to see Giro’s Café back there.

JT: It runs every Wednesday, and sometimes full weeks, as an exception. I’m not personally involved with Giros Café, I primarily volunteer at the weekends because I’m free then, but it runs as a vegan café. It’s all homemade food.

MG: This is the second iteration of Warzone. The first was going back in the ‘80s and this one has been going for five years now.

JT: It started in 1983, the collective. I don’t think they were putting on gigs until ’85. It stems from anarchism. It’s an anarchist centre. It’s not like we won’t let certain people in. Everybody is welcome. But it’s a safe space where you can come and have like-minded people, and the bottom line is it’s all about music. You come for the music and to have a laugh with your mates. It’s an open space. If you come down you will get to know all the different people who regularly attend, volunteer, or go to gigs. You build up connections. You become part of the family.

MG: It has a community feel and there are so few places to go where you get that.

JT: There are so few places. Especially with me. When I first went down to the centre, I think it was a year and a half ago, the minute I walked in it wasn’t like anything I’d seen before. I lived in the countryside In Wicklow for a good few years. I was always into hard rock and punk. I never had any mates I could relate to. When I moved up here I was going to different venues like Blackstaff Mill. Trying to get into Voodoo. Being fifteen and trying to sneak my way in. It didn’t always work out. The venues I was going to, it was less about the music and more about the money the venue was making. And about how much drink everybody could get into themselves before they got kicked out. It wasn’t my place. I didn’t like that idea. I’ve never been at home with the idea of going out and getting plastered.

So when I met the guys in Warzone, the first night I went down the first thing I realised was that these guys are here for music. It was so friendly. That night I went to one of the volunteers, Matt, and got talking to him. At the end of the gig I asked him if I could volunteer. I’ve been there ever since. Every week. It’s just become natural for me now. I help out and I do the door. I do little things around the centre. I help keep it running. I believe now that because the other volunteers are getting older, they’re not going to be there forever. Someone’s going to have to take the reins. I’m the youngest person in the centre, the youngest volunteer. It means it’s a big responsibility for me within the coming years to try to get some of my mates down who are willing to volunteer. Hopefully within the next 10-15 years I’ll be running all the gigs and stuff.

MG: There’s a lot going on there besides the music. It’s a centre for people who wouldn’t normally have an outlet.

JT: These places within the punk scene and the metal scene and all the alternative groups are important as a whole in the UK and Ireland, like Tenterhooks in Dublin which sadly closed down about two or three months ago. The reason they are so important is because these genres of music are very community orientated. If you have a centre that takes in all the metalheads from the surrounding area, who get together once a month or every week, it creates a good community spirit.

Going back to the anarchist roots it also allows for the people who are politically left wing, like myself, we can arrange stuff. A good few of us are with the Solidarity collective and we would go out to the demonstrations. For example, women’s rights on abortion, and those kind of things. We all know each other and go to these demonstrations. It’s a great collective of great people. The Anarchist Party are lining up with Haven, the homeless outreach programme. We are putting up stalls outside City Hall.

MG: Having a place in Belfast that welcomes everybody, it’s even more important there than anywhere else in Ireland or the UK.

JT: Especially If you live in one of the areas on the rough end of the spectrum, and particularly in Belfast. You’ve got West Belfast, you’ve got East Belfast, some of us are from one or the other. And if you’re from that left/anarchist state of mind and you’re living within that system in East Belfast, or a system in West Belfast, you’ve got all this hatred towards each side; that tension.

I’ve lived here in East Belfast for about two years. I got to know the place by going around the parks. I befriended people doing my GCSEs up here. I saw the attitude that some people had towards people from West Belfast. I didn’t believe in that segregation. Whether it’s “we want to belong to Britain” or “we want to belong to Ireland”, my stance is that I would rather have no nation at all, then you wouldn’t have any of that; that hate, that violence, that general nastiness.

The Warzone Centre is a safe place and you can openly talk about these different things. But funnily enough it rarely comes up. Usually, when we are together having a drink, it’s all about the music. It’s not just punk and metal. We’ve had techno nights. We’re looking at a hip-hop night. We’ve had traditional music from different countries. There’s a wide range of things in the centre.

We have bands coming form other countries. We had two metal bands come from the Basque country. They befriended some mates of ours, Deathbus, who ended up going over to the Basque country and touring with them for a month. The volunteers we have in the centre, some of them come from America, some of them come from Australia, and it’s a big multicultural centre.

MG: Is there anything coming up to plug? 

JT: The next gig is the tenth of December. It’s called Season’s Beatings. It’s bunch of metal bands. It’s BYOB, no glass as ever.