This is a interview that was done of the internet with the band 3rd dergee....there from nj....they play a sick metal/hardcore style of music.... Q. So what's everyone's name, age, and what do they play? A: I'm Erik, I'm 16 and I'm the singer, Dave's 16 and he plays bass, Matt's 16 and he plays the guitar, Joe's 18 and he plays guitar and Al is 19 and he's on drums. Q. What is the history of the band? A. All of us were friends before the band started, but when we had the first practice, there wasn't the same lineup that we have now. When we first started out, I wasn't even in the band. We had Al and our friend Scott singing, and a kid named John on drums. That didn't' work out too well, so the next week Al played drums, Scott sang, and our other friend, Lenny was also added to the lineup. This didn't work out either. Scott wasn't singing, and Lenny wasn't really interested. One day at practice, I came along, and just started singing when they were on a break. Since then, I've been the singer and we've had our current lineup. Q. How did you guys all find each other? A. We were all friends. Dave and Al are brothers, and we have all been hanging out together for years. I don't know why we didn't start a band earlier. Q. What hobbies do you guys have outside of the band? A. I like working on my magazine MoM metal on-line mag and basically that's all I do outside of school. Everyone else basically isn't into and stuff which is too intresting. Joe likes to draw and goes to some art classes. Q. Is anyone in any side bands? A. I used to be in With Blood On Our Hands, but I was only a temporary singer because they got some crazy guy to replace me. Q.What's the best and worst show you guys have ever played? A. I think our best show would either have to be at Club Bene when we played with Arson, or our show at East Windsor Firehouse with Alterkation, Pale Horse, and some other bands. At first, when we showed up, we didn't think the show was going to be too good, but then when we went on there was a lot of kids there and they were all flipping out. It was great. Some kid came up to us after the show with blood gushing out of where his bottom lip used to be and said how great we played. It was kinda crazy seeing that. I would have to say that the worst show we ever played at would have to be our first out of state show with 25 Ta Life. There was a bunch of stuff that happened with promoting the show, and basically no one showed up. There was maybe 30 kids at most. The thing that made the show bad was that the people there were basically dickheads and some were even yelling shit from the back. That really pissed me off. Q. Is there anything new in the works such as a 7inch or full length? A. Right now we're playing shows to raise up enough money to put out a full length cd. We already got a name for the cd. It's going to be called "Descend Into Reality" and will feature probably 5 or 6 new songs, and 3 songs which are already on our demo. Q. What do you guys have out as of now? A. Right now we have a 5-song demo which we've been selling at our shows. The quality is real good, but the only bad thing about it is that it features our old songs. They're still real good songs, but I just feel that our newer songs are a lot better and everything. Q. What is your favorite bands to play live with?

A. We got a lot of bands that we like to play with live. We like playing with ...With Blood On Our Hands a lot. We're friends with them, and want to do a doing a double-booking thing with them. Some other bands we like playing with are Livid, NEC, Point Being, Arson, Send 72, Flipzyde, I Refuse, and there's a ton more that I probably missed. Q. Where did the name Third Degree NJ come from? A. The name really doesn't have a big background behind it. Al used to sing in a band a while ago with the name Third Degree NJ. They broke up, and then when this band came together and needed a name, we just decided to use Third Degree NJ again. It's basically just a catchy thing I guess. Q. Is their any meaning in the lyrics? A. I'll be perfectly honest with this. When I first started writing the lyrics, I really had no idea what I was doing. I kinda of just wrote down whatever came to mind and hoped it sounded good in songs. A while ago, I started to read what I wrote down and basically said "What the hell was I thinking?". Now I'm writing about various things which mean a lot to me and if you read the lyrics, you'll probably be able to tell what some of them are about. The future lyrics in Third Degree NJ are going to be a lot more from the heart.