Sluggy interviews "Terrible" Bob Schreiber for CARBON14

Not music, but interesting ! This interview with MMA legend Bob Schreiber was published in the great CARBON14 mag out of Philadelphia.

"No place for a streetfighting man" – the Rolling Stones
"Free fight, that's pussy stuff. Cage fights are where it's at.No rules only, of course,"

No one in their right mind would take such a bold statement seriously. Unless, of course, it comes from Bob Schreiber. A.k.a. Dirty Bob, Bob Schreiber of the Netherlands is a total hard-ass with a never surrender attitude. Boasting an incredibly succesful career in international M.M.A. (Mixed Martial Arts), his favorite style is fighting in a Russian cage without any rules, where head butts and other unorthodox techniques are allowed. This is clearly a man on a mission, and that mission is : KICKING THE WILLY DILLY TURTLE SHIT out of the opposition. Charging at his opponents with the fury of an enraged rhino, administering series of lowkicks powerful enough to fell an oak, the 233 lb. athlete's bone shattering punches have roughly the same effect as a wrecking ball dropped on your ass from high altitude. When that hammer comes down, dude, it's hard to stop. And I'll bet you half my record collection that your toughest buddies will drop a pound of patty in their pants at the sheer sight of this man. Although Bob is a TRUE legend among Martial Arts fans, it is a little known fact that the Multiple World Champion Free Fight was, in his younger (and I DO mean younger!) days, back in the late seventies, guitarist for Dutch uber-punks JESUS AND THE GOSPELFUCKERS.
This group did not only have the best bandname around, they also out-heavied all their peers, including yours truly (it pains me to say) . Think : the first DISCHARGE releases but 2 years earlier. The criminally underdocumented outfit from Amsterdam featured Bob's older 8 foot something brother Fred, and later Tos Nieuwenhuizen from the WHITE LINES, who went on to join FUNERAL ORATION, GOD., and is now in SUNNO))) Eventually, JESUS AND THE GOSPELFUCKERS morphed into AGENT ORANGE, (not to be confused with the Californian band of the same name) and their only legacy is the mercifully re-issued 1982 demo on Kangaroo Records.
It hardly captures the ferocity of the GOSPELFUCKERS early days, but it's better than nothing, and still castrates the opposition (despite the crummy graphics). After Bob had left the band, the group went nowhere, exploding like an off-course spaceshuttle , in a haze of enough drugs to make MOTLEY CRUE look like a straight edge group.
Well, Bob and me go back a long, long way.
No more guitarplaying for him, as he's broken just about every joint in both hands too often, on too many jaws. What makes this man tick ? And what will be left of me after the interview ? It's time for talkies ! Also present is Bob's wife, reigning world champion muay thai boxing, Irma "the Gladiatrix" Verhoeff.

Bob, the first time I saw you must have been mid 1978..

BOB : Christ, you remember that, really ?

remember it well. You were playing guitar for JESUS AND THE GOSPELFUCKERS.. At that time, the singer wore a priests outfit, and on stage he carried this stage prop around, an enormous cross with It had a life-sized, three-penis having crucified Jesus Christ effigie dangling from it. And in the middle, where the beams of the cross connect there was a round hole, big enough for the singer to put his head through. It was a real funny sight !

BOB : Really ? That so ? Jesus Christ man, you're right ! I can't fucking
believe you remember all of this, Tony ! What was that singer guy's
name again ?

Peter Paranoid or something. It was, like, a punk guys name.

BOB : Oh yes, shit..that's right !! Hahahaha ! Oh, man.

TONY : Now I don't mean to sound like, Sigmund Freud, but how did it all start ? How did you, as a young kid end up in a heavy punk rock band
back in in 1978, at the tender age of 12 maybe 13 years of age ?

BOB : Stoned as hell ! Well..OK, now you're gonna get a real sad divorce story...! See our parents divorced and the judge decided that my brother should live
with my dad, while I had to live with my mother. And my brother and me, we're like two peas in a pod. To this very day I never understood how the judge could decide anything to tear two very close brothers apart from one another during such difficult times when he should have kept things together. For our sake. Both of our parents where too much involved in their own trip to care, so my brother and me, we went our own ways. Back then I was doing really bad in school, you know what it's like..Smoking in the boys room, drinking beer when I was ten or eleven years old. Stuff like that. But in the weekends, me and Fred would hang out together, and we thought it would be a great idea to start a band. There was a little bit of punk stuff on the radio, we had heard a few records, the Sex Pistols, Stranglers.
In hindsight that was all fake punk, but what did we know ? My brother is musically gifted, I'm not, he plays the piano, and everything.

I remember Fred was known as someone who "could play", he could play leads ! A virtuoso ! But in retrospect, all he really did was pull up the G-string !

BOB : Haha..Yeah ! And we all thought it sounded great, right ? Then we worked for a while to generate funds to buy equipment with and started the band. Every weekend we would practise. And our first gig, god, when was that ? We called that place...the "ice palace".

TONY : It used to be a punk rock club called "no name", right by the royal palace..

BOB : Yeeeeeah. At the time the venue was still downstairs. So we did our
first show there...That's how we met...Christ, what were those guys
called again..? There was one Amsterdam band called INFEXION, and the
other one was called..?

TONY : The Bugs ?

BOB : (laughs) yes, that was them ! You're very well informed ! So the Bugs
said, why don't you guys use our rehearsal space. Down on Sarphatistraat. What was the name of that squat house again ? the Chaos House..?

Yeah.

BOB : So we moved our equipment there, and in the weekends we'd stay over.
And eventually my brother and me decided, fuck it, we're not going
home anymore, might as well just camp out here. I must have been maybe
12 years old back then. And our parents didnt care, anyways. It was
easier for them that I guess. So we never really saw them anymore. Me
and my brother talked about this later, how could they not even bother
about what we were doing and how we were doing ? Well, maybe they
did..I don't know.
TONY : Now you have children yourself I can imagine that would make
you wonder...
BOB : Yeah ! I don't want my kids end up doing the same jacked up shit that
I did !! (laughs)..
TONY : Dude, whereas the first wave of homegrown Dutch punk bands, The Speed
Twins, Panic, etc. may have been great in their own right, and some actually made great albums, basically they were semi-established musicians who cut their hair and tried to make a buck with punk rock. Then the generation after that, from 1978 on, the second generation, which was us, was punk kids who started playing music with no musical knowledge, experience or background whatsoever. Now a lot of the stuff
at the time, such as the EX, was all, ploink ploink, about being innovative and experimental.. But the GOSPELFUCKERS rocked really hard. What I'd like to know is why did JESUS AND THE GOSPELFUCKERS were so much heavier and faster than the other local bands of the time ?
BOB : We never thought of it that way. We didn't think we were heavier than
the others...But my brother and me have always been competitive and
really into fighting. Nowadays I can channel that in a more positive
way, that's why I have my own gym now and stuff...I turned my hobby
into my profession, hehe. We come from Haarlem (town 10 minutes west
of amsterdam) and we hung out with these guys..Man, these were
maniacs, total nutcases, who used tons of drugs, and were drunk all
the time. So these guys were a pretty dodgy. This may have been one
the reasons we were a bit rougher and maybe more streetwise than other
bands.
TONY : My band did a benefit for the Gospelfuckers in 1979 or so, because
their equipment had allegedly been stolen or something... And rumor
had it that Fred had simply sold the equipment, Raked in the insurance
money, and then organised a benefit gig !
BOB : Nonono, that is not the way it went. Look, this is the truth : There
was this three day punk rock festival for which we provided the
backline for all the other bands to play on. And the first day was
cool, but the second day, shit got totally out of hand. All these
local farmer yokels had come down from villages far and wide to beat
on these "punk rock freaks". And people from both sides ended up in
the hospital, trashed pretty severely. Then was riot police involved,
all kinds of stuff like that. So the next morning we discovered those
guys, the ones who had fought the punks, had broken into the venue,
and those motherfuckers completely destroyed our drumkit, amps etc.
Cut up every damn speaker in our cabinets. And then the local
authorities cancelled the rest of the festival.
TONY : I remember that. Law abiding citizens must have thought some biblical locust plague had descended upon them. Crazy haired freaks in leather jackets just everywhere, having sex in the open right in old people's rose gardens, oceans of puke, piss and beer everywhere. It was like, hello ! Armageddon just moved into your quiet rural town...
BOB : Hahahaha ! Yeah, Because punks had come from all over. From every part
of the country. By train ! And of course by the end of the night
everybody was too drunk to find their way home. they missed the last
train so the village was flooded with drunken punks. I remember having
about 30 people stay over at my mother's house which she did not like
one bit.
TONY : Say goodbye to those family jewels eh...? There was a lot of aggression directed towards punks back then. I can remember one time once you and me walked around Amsterdam and suddenly we find ourselves getting chased by 20 guys who wanted to kick our asses. Then we ran a few blocks down to the nearby squat house. I thought, "whew, sanctuary, we made it !" but all you wanted to do was get your
nunchakus !
BOB : To fight !!! HAHAHA ! Yeah !!! I always had them with me but maybe not
that particular day.
TONY : Hahaha that's right. Oh, man those very good times...
IRMA : he still knows how to use them !
TONY : Here's a picture of you and Fred, ca. 1982 from the Paradiso Stills book by Max Natkiel, where you have your nunchakus..The look on your face. You look possessed, man !
BOB : Hahaha, yeah !
TONY : (leafing through the pages of the book) Look how messed up everybody
is, ..All.. so whacked out.
BOB : Me and my brother did every damn thing God forbade... Heroin, speed, LSD, you name it, we done it. But we always managed to keep our drug habits in check somehow. Seriously, we could control it. After we had been on heroin for 2 or 3 days, we could just not touch it, leave it alone for another two or 3 weeks. But the people around us couldn't do that and most of them became addicts. Some lost their minds. Then it was just awful. I think everybody from our house was a junkie at some
point. But me and my brother just wanted to see how far we could take it, but we never became junkies. And when I was about 16, everything fell apart. I was in trouble with the police, you know ? Because I stabbed someone and made a shish kebab out of that guy. So they put me in prison. For quite a while actually. And when I got out, I got a job in a factory, melting copper. So the judge had told me to do something with my life, and channel my aggression. So I figured maybe I should
join a gym to practise judo and karate. But back then I was still smoking, drinking and doing a lot of drugs.. Dude, I snorted everything people put in front of me. And suddenly I noticed I wasn't quite as in shape physically as the other guys at the gym. Then one day I decided to quit all drugs. And I never touched any dope after that, ever. From that moment on I was completely focused on the sport.
TONY : Is there truth to the story you were kicked out of the band because
you were always too stoned ?
BOB : One hundred percent TRUE !!! (laughs)
TONY : That's ironic, and a paradox, even, given the Gospelfuckers later, let's say, preference for chemical inebriation. Some years down the line they had quite a few songs about drugs, and they certainly weren't "straight edge" anthems.
BOB: I was the first one in the band who starting using dope. This is back in the early days of the gospelfuckers, Fred began doing dope years later. He had envisioned himself to become a rockstar, of sorts. He thought there would be this "great musical career" for him somewhere down the line.
IRMA : And he's still trying !
BOB : But I discovered, very early on, that music was not my calling (laughs) . I always thought the band was a big joke. Just something fun to do for a while. So when they kicked me out, it didn't matter much to me, I didn't give a shit really, hehe
TONY : Do you remember that one time we played together somewhere in the rural south..Early 1979 maybe. And we all got arrested ?
BOB : Haha, that one I sure remember. Yeah, a motor cop pulled us over and found a bag of speed...So we had to get out of the truck, and there's like 30 people piled in the back, sardine style. "get out !" and More and more punks kept stepping out of the van, and the guy is like WHAAAT ? Another one ? ANOTHER one ? So when he called in reinforcements and they searched the truck, there's drugs, just EVERYWHERE, tons of it ! Weapons.. blackjacks, brass knuckles, knives... "Who does this belong to ? whose is this ?" etc. Nobody said a thing, naturally. (laughs)
TONY : Fun times ! The cops let us go, eventually. I suppose it was too much
hassle for them to deal with 35 drug crazed punkers from hell.
BOB : All they wanted was to get back the equipment from the club that we had stolen. I think we took a record player, maybe an amp and some speakers. Nothing big. No big deal.
TONY : Apparently the christians in the city council strongly opposed a
concert in their town by a band named "Jesus and the Gospelfuckers". It became political, and that was a pretty big deal.
BOB : Hahaha, for reals ?
TONY : Oh yeah. So, another anecdote., several years later, you came down to see
BGK, and we ended up in a local bar having a few beers, which ended up in bloodshed as well.
BOB : Hehehe, I can't remember that.
TONY : Everytime you finished your beer you threw your glass against the wall, shattering it. So at one point the bar owner, who was enormous, stepped up to you and went "Hey ! Stop that".
BOB : The man was right. Sure I can understand that.
TONY : You just said "stop what ?" while shattering another beerglass on the
wall. I cant remember how it ended up, but I'm pretty sure you stomped his ass and that there was an ambulance.
BOB : Hahaha, maybe I did. I can't remember.
TONY : You have to admit you were quite a bar brawler in those days.
BOB : Aww, fuck yeah. Sure. Always fighting…Man, ALWAYS ! I was fighting and fighting, whereever and whoever I could. My whole life has been about getting into fights anyways. Also in my later career as professional fighter ! Let me tell you, I don't go looking for trouble anymore, but I sure as hell ain't gonna step away from it either. No way. (laughs)
TONY : Like Elvis said "if you're looking for trouble, you came to the right place".
BOB : Fuckin A, that's right. For instance just last week Irma and me went to a movie theatre to watch a picture. We're the only people in the theatre except for a couple of guys, one of which was really, really big. And of course they're gonna sit right smack in front of us. Irma asked, politely, if they'd mind finding other seats, because, you know, the dude is so damn tall she can't see the screen. Then he goes "My ticket has this row and chair number on it. forget it, I ain't moving nowhere, and I'll stay put, bla bla." I say, "What's your deal, guy ? There's 200 empty seats to choose from." Next thing this fucking, giraffe looking asshole tells her to "shut the hell up" and flips her the bird. So there we go again ! Right in the cinema. (laughs)
TONY : (laughing) So you two whupped those guys asses ?
BOB : Of course we did ! Punched them all over the place..
TONY (still laughs)...Oh man, hilarious...
IRMA : Well, we gotta watch each other's back, you know ? heh heh
TONY : hehehe, those guys were messing with the reigning world champion muay thai and multiple world champion free fight.. Okay...Sounds like they got their 8 bucks admission worth..
BOB : We don't mind doing a little stomping here and there, hehe
IRMA : It's actually kinda fun to beat the crap out of some numbnuts when they ask for it.
TONY : Are you still interested in music at all ?
BOB : Yeah, a bit.
IRMA : When we hang out with Fred and he puts on this old punk it's like "yeah, this is cool" !
BOB : he's got wall to wall CD's, classic, rocknroll, punk rock. When he plays a punk rock record, I can't recall the bandname but I recognize the music right away, from the UK Subs to, what have you ..But at home I play different types of stuff these days. I like quiet and mellow stuff, lounge music. Because it relaxes me, I don't need loud fast music to get all worked up and aggro, like I used to. But
I'll still rock to old Iron Maiden or a good dose of old fashioned punk rock once in a while.

TONY : How's Fred doing ?

BOB : He's good.
TONY : Nice. So if we leave the musical part , and fastforward 15 years...Suddenly
you're top of the bill in the international fighting scene. And I'm like, WHOA ! And now for a, ahem, real stupid qeustion, can you explain in a nutshell how all that
happened ?
BOB : Same as my whole life story ! It's simply a gigantic, endless laugh ! All tied together by stupid coincedences and chance meetings. I went to this gym, did a little more of that, started teaching martial arts, so eventually I ended up at a renowned dojo in Amsterdam (Mejiro Gym). This led to tournaments and competitve fighting. And I'm liking it. It kinda went by itself, in a way. So I got really into the free fight thing, M.M.A, (Mixed Martial arts), and began fighting in Japan, which
went really well. Besides, I've always been an entertainer in some way. I want to give the audience a good show. I just love to be the centre of attention (laughs). When I enter a room, people will know I am there. People say I'm cocky, but..
TONY : You're just an outgoing kind of guy. You have been called flamboyant even ! Your routine before you step in the cage and all...
BOB : I took me a long while to prepare that, you know ? The audiences do appreciate it. Thing is, as soon as you're one cut above the rest, half the crowd will love you while the other half will hate you. But here's the catch : the people who hate you will also still come see the fight, because they want to see you lose ! And once people are talking about you, the whole thing grows, and it gets bigger and bigger. Also, because I have never ever EVER walked away from a fight. I'd take on anyone anywhere.
TONY : Bob, you are a maniac ! (laughs)
BOB : Haha, sure enough !! Dude, I have fought MONSTERS. And after those fights my damn head would be fuckin… pulp ! But for some reason I high threshold of pain, and can withstand a great deal of punishment, both physically and mentally. Plus I never give up. I'm used to fight ever since kindergarten. It's a natural thing for me. Then fighting back in the punk rock days, and I'm in the ring, or a cage, with a referee who'll stop the fight when it gets outa hand, hey, what's better than
that ? (laughs) And I have fought eight or ten dudes at a time when I was younger, four of them would be armed. So even though I'd get stabbed, I'd put a couple of those fuckos in the hospital. And afterwards it was like "hey let's go party, have a few drinks."
TONY : Uh-huh, that's how I remember you …
BOB : See, it's all just a big laugh to me. I don't give a damn. So next, people go "who is this lunatic ?" and talk about it. So then promotors want you to fight at their events. It came to a point where I was fighting every single free fight event there was, at least in Holland
IRMA : And getting paid for it
BOB : that's right. Getting paid for doing what you like !
TONY : You can't beat that ! So you're known as a bit flamboyant, I mean, everyone knows you're a tough, but not a particularly stylistic type of fighter. You just..get the job done. The other guy goes down. That's all.
BOB : That's right.
TONY : So how did you get your nickname "Dirty" Bob ?
BOB : I'm known as Bob The Terrible in Europe, while in Japan and the US they call me Dirty Bob. Because I'll do anything to win the fight. So, if during a match I
find myself thinking "this is not really going where I want it to", I'll stick a finger in a guys' eye. If that what it takes..(laughs out loud). So that may explain the nickname. Because I've sure as hell done that more than a few times, hahaha !
TONY : haha, I read you've also clobbered opponents after the bell rang...Stuff like that.
BOB : Yeah, heheh. I'll do whatever it takes. An little extra bonus after the bell, hahaha.
TONY : This one's on the house, eh ?..Do you mind having these, negative nicknames ?
BOB : I don't care what they call me. They can call me whatever they want.
TONY : How do you prepare for a fight ? You must train a lot of course, but do you
have a special diet maybe ?
BOB : Never. No diet. I train a lot, of course, but I never passed up a beer. Nothing like that. I like my beer. An I'd eat junk food too ! This of this has just been one endless joke. See how far I could take it.
TONY : So you don't analyze your opponent, by watching videos of their fights or
anything ?
BOB : Nothing like that. Once, I had to do a fight for some American promotor, he goes, your opponent is, you know, just some karate guy, wanna fight him ? It was just one week's notice so I'm like sure thing, I'll take him on. No problem. And I've always liked to drink my beer. So I get there and this guy, he's is a fucking MONSTER. He was HUGE, very strong, fast, so when they announced him it's "in the red
corner, world champion this, world champion that , fought here, there, this guy fought that guy, black belt bla bla." I'm scratching my head, going hmm that information is kinda new to me. (laughs) So that made for a REAL MESSY, very bloody fight. Simply becuase I don't give up. I keep on fighting guys like that. I never surrender. Never, ever.
TONY : Wow. And in such a profession as yours, how does it all work with medical insurance papers and things like that ? I mean, this is dangerous shit...
BOB : I never had anything like that. At one point I was working as a doorman, for a very, very dangerous joint. Together with my pal from the Antilles who is a total psycho too. Money was good, but you just spend it. I always lived from day to day. Kinda stupid actually. Even when we got children . People would go , are you ready for a child ? Are you sure ? I say, there's only two things that are certain in life
: that you pay taxes and that you'll end up in a box. And I still live like that hahah.
TONY : So you're fighting for the world title free fight and you get a really,
terrible terrible injury.
BOB : I've had all kinds of injuries..
TONY : I meant your ankle injury ?
BOB : I just kept on trucking and even did a few matches, with a shattered ankle, yeah.
TONY : Jesus, that's not normal, Bob.
BOB (laughs). I know it's not normal, but I have this laissez faire attitude. Everything is all a big joke to me.
TONY : No way you didn't feel that ankle, man.
BOB : Of course I did. But pain dosn't really bother me. I mean I can feel it, but I can somehow push it aside. If I don't feel like having pain, or don't have to time for pain, I simply don't feel the pain. But it came to a point I needed surgery badly, else the whole damn thing would have been pulverized. It still bothers me a bit to this day, actually.
TONY : God damn. You had to adapt your training schedule I would imagine.
BOB : That too. Same with my back injury, I've had a very serious operation in my backbone.But I kept on fihting for three years with a severely fucked up back.Most anyone else would stopwhatever they were doing and say "I can't go on with this pain"
TONY : There seems to be this pattern, you want more and more, expanding
your boundaries, see how far you can go. From Judo, karate, kick boxing, muay thai, then free style,cage fights, all this...You keep raising the bar. That has to stop at one point. Physically, for one, because you're not getting any younger...
BOB : I've reached my limits. I have now retired from professional fighting.
My last fight was a year ago. All kinds of people organised this farewell party for me but I don't give a fuck about any of that shit. As long as I get paid. I was 40 years old when I ended my career. And 40 which is not all that old in a human life, but in ahletics and sports it's very, very old. Now you see these hungry lions about 20-22 years of age...Like my wife fought her last match 2 weeks ago, defending her world title, and she is 40 years old. And this Croatian girl she fought is 22. Someone who is 22 years old recovers MUCH more easily from punishment than someone who is 40. Is in beter physical shape. This girl was very tough.
IRMA : But she didn't beat mama !
TONY : ..Hehehe..
BOB : Nope. She didn't beat mama.
TONY : Congratiulations again Irma. Awesome ! So Bob, What's your favorite discipline or style ?
BOB : Hm, that would be punching. I like to administer a good pummeling. Punching is good (smiles).
TONY : So you're not too fond of, say, groundwork ?
BOB: Nah, Cuddling on the floor stuff ! That's not my thing. Sure I can do it, and reasonably well. If an opponent is stupid enough to give me an arm to play with, I'll put a lock on it and twist it right out of the socket. Sure. But a good pounding to the melon is my favorite technique.
TONY : You go for basic raw power..
BOB : Yeah, sock it on their noggin. Boom !
TONY : Okay, so I Saw footage where you fight this Russian giant, and even though you did win the match, right before he went down this thunderous left elbow slipped past your defenses and hit you right in the kisser..
BOB : Yeah , and ?
TONY : Well, I was baffled to see such devastating blow didn't even phaze you at all. An ordinary person would at least go down KO at such punishment.
BOB : Maybe he was the guy who broke my jawbone. I saw it coming, and could heard my face break, like CRUNCH ! I could feel how this side of my face just caved in, right here. My skull was all shattered to hell.
TONY : Holy shit dude.. that's brutal.
BOB : A lot of people ask me how I do it. I don't know. It's not like I don't feel the the pain, because, only afterwards. To me, pain is just another an emotion. for example, when you have itch, or when you cry, laugh, those are emotions. And you can suppress them. Tell yourtself : Don't scratch that itch...Come to think of it, surpressing laughter is much more difficult than suppressing pain..(laughs).. It's just... I have some kind of ability to flip a mental switch, so that physical
pain doesn't bother me much.
TONY : If you only could market that ability..
BOB : But I couldn't explain to you how I do it, I just know I just block out the pain.Once you're older you make up for it in experience.
TONY : Irma, you won just about everything there is to win...
IRMA : Yeah, Dutch championship, European title, world title, three times.
TONY : Impressive. And now you've retired.
Irma : yes
TONY : Congratulations once again ! What better way to end a career than on the summit. So I understand you guys go to Russia a lot...How did that start ? Does it have to do with the fact cage fights are illegal here ?
BOB : First time I went there was to do a bare knuckle cage fight tournament. That means, anything goes, and contestants don't wear boxing gloves or anything .So, I ended up winning that tournament. Irma had to duke it out with some enormous Russian what was she ? She looked like a big horse. Irma kicked the living SHIT out of that bitch. So Irma ended up also winning the tournament , too. Then one thing just led to another.
TONY : WOW.
Irma : Next month we're going to Novosibrsk in Siberia with a couple of our fighters, our pupils.