Jona Weinhofen

"Around the time I was first getting into hardcore/metal/punk and going to shows, I had a lot of friends who were vegan and vegetarian and after having a few conversations with them regarding the subject I realised I'd never really thought about things the way they did. I was never pressured into anything and I found myself doing my own research on the subject matter and after finding some cold hard facts about the meat and dairy industry which disturbed me deeply, I made the decision to go veg and then a year later vegan and I've now been vegan for eleven years with no problems whatsoever."

"I found for me personally the easiest way to think about things [in the transition to veganism] was to not actually think about the products I was boycotting as food, but for what they actually were—for instance, the flesh of an animal or the embryo of a chicken."

"So many people don’t know about what happens behind closed doors in slaughterhouses and with animal testing. We’re a small minority of people up against large corporations with billions of dollars, but if we can sort of chip away and slowly spread awareness through whatever medium it is, whether it be music or television or anything, it’s going to help toward positive change. … According to PETA, some of the biggest animal-testing companies are Colgate and Gillette … and so whether it’s just having a shave in the morning or brushing their teeth with toothpaste, it’s not just women who are funding animal testing …. Changes in government legislation won’t come without social change. … [We activists] are trying to get information out to people so they know what they’re getting involved in on a daily basis."