Arkanoid

ORIGINS: Hornsby, Sydney

GENRE: Hardcore

YEARS ACTIVE: 2003-2004

 

MEMBERS:

• Simon 'Slaughter' de Gersigny - Vocals
• Shervin Emami - Guitar
  
• Ari Rintala - Drums
  
• David 'Mong' Mangnall - Bass (2004)
• Al - Bass (2003)
  

RELEASES: 

 

• Demo (2003) - Download Here.
  
• 1. The Past is Dead
• 2. The Socialite
• 3. Let's Get Blind
• 4. Ten Million Mouse
  

SUMMARY: Arkanoid was a shortlived hardcore band formed by some members of Cheapshot. After recording one demo and playing a handful of shows, the band broke up as guitarist Shervin moved up to Queensland.

 

SHOWS: 

• Lansdowne Hotel, Sydney - unknown date, 2004
  

ORAL HISTORY:

SIMMO: Sherv had this crazy mechatronics genius brain; he was always building robots and computers and shit out of kerbside cleanup scraps when we were younger. And his riffs he'd write on guitar reflected that brain. They weren't normal riffs, haha, like weird, cracked riffs. So Ari decided he wanted to do a project using Sherv's weird riffs with me doing vocals. Even though I'd never done vocals before, I'd only drummed in bands up 'til that point. But I was a lunatic back then, so Ari in his infinite wisdom thought the combination of me being a maniac up front and Sherv's cracked guitar riffs would be a hilarious recipe.  

Simon de Gersigny (Vocals), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

 

SHERVIN: We'd all been part of the North Shore Sydney underground hardcore punk scene since around 1997. One day in early 2004, me and Ari were chatting with our mate Simon Slaughter and saying our old thrash punk band Cheapshot could be more raw and abrasive if Simmo was our singer. So we created a new band with another guy, Al, and we called it 'Al Qaeda', and we overlaid a photo of Osami Bin Laden in our band photo - since me and Al are Middle Eastern and it was a time when Iraq and Afghanistan invasions were always on the news. Al ended up not playing in the band and people kept saying our band name was too controversial, so eventually we chickened out and changed our name to 'Arkanoid', after a video that me and Ari played lots during high school.

Shervin Emami (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

SHERVIN: The three of us would jam at my mum's place in St Ives and work on the songs together. Half the songs were based around my riffs and half were based around Ari's. We went through a few different bass players, with Mong being our main bassist. Six months later we played our first show.

Shervin Emami (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

SIMMO: We recorded a quick 4 song demo in 3 hours at Zen... We had a rotating roster of bass players but Bin Laden was credited on the demo. 

Simon de Gersigny (Vocals), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

SHERVIN: Our first show was at the Lansdowne Hotel, but after our set our friends caused some mayhem and our band ended up getting banned from the Lansdowne! Over the next few months we played a few more shows, which included getting banned from another venue. Because of our abrasive style and since we got banned from multiple venues, we were starting to get the reputation we'd hoped for. But then I moved to Brisbane to work on robots, so our band broke up at the end of 2004.

Shervin Emami (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

RELATED BANDS: Fistfull, Gorbash, Worse Off, Cheapshot, Quietus, Carpal Tunnels, Nintendo Police, King Kong, Baltic, The Blurters, Zen Demon, ROFL, Ether Rag, Bloody Ripper, Crisis Cult, Crust Fund Kids, Forakt, Wilbur Wilde, Snitch Trial, S. Van, Meataxe, Bad Skate Unit