Endless Disappointment 15 - THTHTCTH by EndlessDisappointment

Well well, another issue that wasn’t entirely planned yet saw the light of day all the same. You see, I was offered the prospect of publishing a mini-comic for Wallowing that added further context to their outstanding graphic novel “Planet Loss”; given it was only a short mini-comic it seemed a bit cheeky to sell it on its own, so I started writing this to compliment it. Yep, that’s right, I literally wrote a zine so I could practically facilitate working with Wallowing on something.

Of course, like any other issue, I’ll threaten not doing another one for a bit; and just like any other issue, that’ll probably not be the case. That being said, next year sees the 10 year anniversary of F H E D, and with gigs being back in full-swing it’s like I’ll go back to what I know, haemorrhaging money on shows and starting arguments I can’t win with Booking Agents/Band Managers. First show back is in November, I’m already in talks over another show so hopefully 2022 will be the most prolific year for F H E D since 2015 or some shit.

Anyway, for this issue we’ve got some snazzy interviews from bands that I reached out to assuming they’d ignore me, only they didn’t and I got a full interview out of them so that’s actally pretty cool. And of course, as always, stupid puzzles and bits where me (and possible other people) talk shit about bands.

Also, this is the end of year issue so I’m just going to cram in a huge body of text thanking everyone that I can recall before this goes to print: Vacuous, Razoreater, Defod, CryptRot, Thundering Hooves, Wallowing, Burial Rot, Martyn of SHLS/SMP, Underdark, Tides of Sulfur, BlackPyre, Levitas, Mortal Kombat for being the first thing I had to look forward to in 2021, Tom from Celestial Sanctuary for taking sympathy on me when ChurchRoad lost my order, David Sweet for knowing a fucktonne about football and wrestling and having god-tier pub trivia knowledge, whoever put on that Celestial Sanctuary/ Slimelord show in London because that was class, Nuclear Family Records for being the realest in South Wales, Jo at CHF Promotions for putting on Repent Fest (I wasn’t even there I just like the idea it exists), AEW for putting on some of the best wrestling this year, Bombers Sandwich Bar, Scott Parker for keeping Bournemouth top of the Championship, Wolves In the Throne Room for putting out the most delicious album of 2021, Haast for getting their album out so I don’t need to keep it secret anymore, anyone who was part of the KillTheBill protests or has subsequently supported those standing trial for their participation, Max out in Austria for his unbridled love for music, Andreas out in Norway for supporting what we do in spite of horrific shipping costs, Frenchie for his PR work on both the Vacuous and Razoreater EP’s, any band who took part in an interview for this zine, and most of all, anyone who has picked up a zine, tape or record this year, your support sustains me and I am humbled that anyone would ever give a shit about any of this nonsense I create.

No Proof-Reading. No Mercy.

1 - This is Hell Awwwww shit, one of my favourite hardcore bands ever and they’re being interviewed for this issue. We take a look back through their time as a band, also take a shitload about wrestling. It’s probably one of my favourite interviews ever. 17 - Brutality Will Prevail South Wales Kings - the most successful hardcore band to come out of South Wales; we speak with long-time drummer Marc as he recollects the highs and lows of being in BWP 26 - Black Metal Bands that need to get in the bin Going to pick out the cring 27 - Genocide Pact Relapse-records’ own Genocide Pact discuss their upcoming new album, also they drew the short-straw and got roped into this issue’s “would you rather” round. 32- The F H E D recap of the year Fuck, it’s nearing the end of the year already. If you’re like me, and 2021 has gone past like a blur, I’ve clambered together what memories I have of the year and managed to fill a page with it. 33 - Inhuman Nature London’s own Hardcore/Heavy Metal hybrid puts forward the case as to whether Denim and Leather will indeed bring us all together. 39 - Puzzle Corner Last puzzle-corner of 2021, it’s nothing special but I’m dead-happy with the last one.

Whether it was the UK bands trying to emulate Knuckledust (which is fair enough as Knuckledust are sound, but still far too many of them), the bands who decided to smother their songs with breakdowns to cover for their lack of musical proficiency, or the fans/bands that just needed to calm it down a bit, there were a lot of hardcore cliches in the mid-00’s that I didn’t have much patience for (and probably still don’t). For me, This is Hell became somewhat the antithesis of some of the more vapid/tedious elements of Hardcore; musically they were tighter than most stuff out there at the time, their lyrics were as grounded as they were meaningful, there was a genuine passion and emotion there that was more visible with them than any other band I had seen prior. Sundowning has stuck with me to this day, as has Misfortunes, and no matter what happens This is Hell will probably be one of the best hardcore bands I’ve ever listened to. I reached out to them, but didn’t actually expect to hear back from them; I’m a shitty printed zine in the UK and ThisIsHell are a) Relatively inactive and b) probably far too busy for this shit. Needless to say, here we are, with probably one of my favourite interviews of all time. Enjoy.

First of all. I went my whole adult life assuming your name derived from Bad Religion’s “Fuck Armageddon... This is Hell” song, and quite frankly was not ready for the fact the name is shared also with an Elvis Costello song. The true story is that its not from either of those, and its not from an Undertaker promo in the 90’s either; it’s from a horror comic book from 1975. I won’t reveal which book but I will tell you that it wasn’t Marvel or DC. So let the speculation continue.

So despite there being lots of Books/Documentaries on New York Hardcore, a lot of them place particular focus on the 80’s and 90’s, often a significant focus being placed on bands like Agnostic Front, Sick of It All, Cro-Mags and Warzone, in turn focusing less on the hardcore output from the 00’s and beyond. It’s not ideal as it’s a knowledge-blackspot for anyone who likes learning about various hardcore scenes worldwide, but it does allow me to break out the question about your experiences with hardcore growing up in New York. As far as NYHC goes, the 80’s and 90’s are so much more revered than the 00’s not just because of the difference in documentation, but because of the actual distinct nature of NYHC pre and post that era. Once the internet really became what it did, geography played such a lesser role in sound and vibe. I grew up on Long Island, but as far as hardcore goes, I was a NYHC guy more than a LIHC guy until I got really involved in playing in bands on a serious level. Sick of it All, Agnostic Front, Fahrenheit 451, Shutdown, etc as far as hardcore was more my vibe. Shows at Castle Heights, Tramps, Coney Island High, CBGB, Wetlands were my go to’s in the mid to late 90’s. Taking the train and eventually driving off Long Island and the feelings that came with that was what I associated with hardcore.

The later 90’s, when my first band became a bit more serious, is when I started to go more to Long Island shows and get involved a bit more beyond being a show go-er. Despite what other people think, the bands from Long Island to me that really mattered aside from playing “cool guy clique know it all tastemakers” at that time were Overthrow, Perception, VOD, On The Rise and the like. Despite being a little pipsqueak, I always gravitated towards the hard and heavy more than the messenger bag and sweater exclusive-minded, pseudo-hardcore crowd. I got into HC to get away from that weak bullshit that we all experienced in school. That shit’s fucking revered on LI more than ever now so what do I know? Well, I’ll actually tell you what I know.... I still play in bands and do pushups.

I read in an interview ages back that you don’t particularly enjoy playing in New York, specifically your hometown of Long Island. Given the propensity for bands to closely associate with their hometown, it seems quite the antithesis that you see it almost as just another stop on the tour. Discuss... Long Island has always been incredibly pretentious as far as hardcore goes. Who knows why. Aside from my little tirade above, I haven’t even considered it in years. Maybe thats the answer... the ones still revered built their entire personality around being un-inclusive double-talking snobs. I have a lot of friends at home obviously, I still live here. And my thoughts are split on this because I haven’t been heavily involved in the local Hardcore scene in a long time, despite keeping my ear to the ground, catching a show here and there and TRYING to bridge that gap with the LIHC scene and the metal scene with my “newer” band Extinction A.D., but my main local show experience over the past several years has been based around XAD, which is obviously a ton more metal.

With This is Hell forming from a few other different bands in the scene at the time, was there any particular aim/ambition you had with TIH that your previous bands at the time simply couldn’t provide? Turning the band into the main focus of our lives. That was the main goal. We took the members from a few bands that loved playing music so much that we wanted to make the band our lives. Not that we wanted to be in a band and make it big.... we wanted to play, write and record music and make it our lives. The way to do that, get like minded individuals and push it as far as possible.

In an age where social-media has drastically influenced how music is consumed and scene activity is formed, there’s a tendency for people to look back at the pre-social media days pre-2004 with rose-tinted glasses somewhat; to a degree I think people who weren’t around at that time sort of forget how much of a ballache it was, relying solely on radio/compilations to find new music, putting your trust in zines/magazines for new bands, and finding out about shows weeks after they happened because bands never updated their websites. Given TIH formed just before social media started playing a greater part in being a band, what were your memories pre-social media norms? In a sense, things mattered more and the “hard work to half ass effort” ratio was wider, which I appreciated. With social media, you can post some stuff once or twice a day and be considered a hard-working band as opposed to making flyers, writing music, planning tours etc. and busting your ass to stand out. Is this the perspective of an old person? Of course it is, but it’s also the facts and it shows. There are a few really big heavy bands right now and that’s great. The gap between bands doing really well and bands that simply exist and chug along is VAST. In my opinion, thats because it’s so easy to simply exist and be scrolled past, skipped, previewed and ultimately ignored etc.

If it counted on the non-internet days of promotion, there would be A) less bands in the pool and B) more of an investment in the bands that are still giving it their all. I may even change my mind in that point of view in a week, a day or a minute, but right now, that’s how I view it.

There’s not a lot of stuff online about the early days, but all sources suggest you were pretty active even in the first year of the band. How easy was it to get shows in the US/overseas in the early days, were there any contacts you had back then that were particularly helpful? If memory serves we played over 200 shows in the first year of our existence. In 6 years we had played over 1000 shows, released a handful of records, eps, etc. It was never easy, but what is? If it was easy, EVERYONE would do it. It’s way easier now and thats why there are that many more bands doing it. A DIY European tour on a 4 song CD-r demo pre-EU and international phone plans... no not easy. What was helpful was our work ethic as a band and our desire to make shit happen whether we had label or booking agency help or not.

Despite the difficulties you mentioned about touring Europe back then, a lot of US bands found themselves in similar circumstances, which was ideal as virtually all the touring bands ended up in Cardiff/Newport as part of their schedule. Are there any particular horror stories that would be typical of a DIY band touring Europe for the first time? I don’t even recall where we were specifically, I think it was either Germany or Poland, but we couldn’t find the venue. The only one with a cell phone was our driver and even he was just a fill-in for a few days for some reason and he was as clueless as we were. We drove around the city for a few hours and then wound up saying “fuck it I guess we missed the show” and had to find some janky-ass two hundred years-in-the-past hotel to stay for the night. Club rampa I think was the venue.

Your Debut Demo was put out via Run For Cover Records in North America, with Broken Glasses records overseeing the release in Europe. I know that giving a physical release to Demos is not uncommon, in fact in Hardcore it’s almost a right of passage for a hardcore band these days to get a limited-tape release for their demo; that being said, Demos are inherently unrefined declarations of concept at best and can often be a moment of cringe for bands that go on to have an expansive catalogue of releases. What are your memories of the first Demo? We wrote, recorded and released our demo before we even played our first show. Songs were absolutely unrefined and moment catchers. The band was conceived and put into motion extremest quick. We recorded at Jeff Tiu’s (our first bass player) home studio, we had CD’s pressed and covers made at a copy shop. When those ran out, we made CD-r’s and spray painted a stencil onto a manilla envelope and sold them that way.

I actually had a European pressing of this Demo, alas I was also broke as shit and had to sell my turntable and huge amounts of my records. Devastating.

Eventually RFC released it on 7” by us and Broken Glasses overseas but we were still making our CD’s. That time period was fun as the beginning of every band should be. The “Fuck it we’ll do it ourselves” attitude was always there. I have distinct memories of those songs being written in Jeff’s basement and also reading the lyrics to “Dear Midge” and saying “Yo what the fuck is this?!” Thats the name of the song right? Last time I read those lyrics I was still “Yo what the fuck is this?!” That guitar lead at the end of that song is a funny thing to listen to.

Not long after, your self-titled EP came out via State of Mind Records. I remember someone trying to convince me back in 2007 that it was better than Sundowning, but I think it was more because he knew I hadn’t listened to it at the time and he wanted to get points on me or some shit, either way it was a relatively arduous conversation. Back to the question though, it was almost like a completely different band compared to the original Demo, what the heck changed in the year between releases?

It’s hard for me to view it as a different band because I was part of writing the stuff and in the band but the same thing could be said from every release to the next. It’s just evolution. Playing together the first few days and writing the demo then fast forward a few months and tons of shows and all of a sudden theres a song in drop C# like Ad Infinitum. In many ways, if you listen to the last The Backup Plan record, the last Suberfuge record, the last Scraps and Heart Attacks record, then the first TIH demo and THEN the first EP.... it all makes sense in a way. But also, TIH is like the most anti AC/DC band in progression ever. Not in the way that we don’t love AC/DC, but thats a band that found their niche immediately and stuck with it for 175 years. We added and subtracted several elements from release to release.

You’ve got Daryl Palumbo (of Glassjaw / Head Automatica) on the record too. I’m pretty certain at the time Daryl was really sick, as I can remember around the time he cancelled a few European tours due to his health, what’s the background to him doing guest-vocals on the EP? He was a friend of Travis and his brother for years prior so the idea came up and the consensus was “yeah that sounds like fun” so we did it once and then figured “fuck it lets do it again” so we did it twice. Who knows, maybe in 15 years we’ll do it thrice.

The Mid-00’s was arguably the last boom-time for Record labels before the globaly economy went to shit, with labels like Victory, Ferret, Deathwish Inc. and Bridge9 all enjoying periods of expansion around the 00’s. Ultimately, it was Trustkill Records that you went on to work with, were there any other labels in contact with you at the time? We spoke to a handful of labels before deciding on Trustkill, but if I had to relay a list of them now, I would relaying false information because I’d probably wind up just naming labels I remember existing from he time period, as opposed to ones we did or did not actually speak to. I’m happy we went with Trustkill though. Josh Grabelle remains a friend of mine and had this massage chair in his office that I sat in for over 2 hours straight one day.

Looking back at Trustkill, their legacy is somewhat tarnished by artists like Terror, Throwdown, Bleeding Through and Poison The Well being quite vocal in having fairly unpleasant experiences with Trustkill. How did Josh Grabelle present when you first met him? Were there any reservations or did you find what he offered to be pretty decent? I’d be lying if I remembered anything negative about our interactions with Josh. In fact, Josh saved the first Soldiers full length mid-studio recording. The label we were recording for dropped out after we’d begun recording and Josh said he’d take over the project, signed us and released “End Of Days”. I can’t comment on anyone else’s experiences because I don’t know them and haven’t lived them but hey, we’re all human. Sometimes shit happens and sometimes you wind up with the good fortune to say you released the Soldiers full length.

In 2006, your debut Full-length Sundowning came out, arguably a watershed moment as it was the first time audiences saw the band on the same platform as emo and hardcore bands that were seeing success at the time. Having already been touring quite extensively prior to this album coming out, were there any huge adjustments around this time, or did stuff carry on like it had before? It was a mix of carry-on-as-before and be excited that things are happening and we’re being afforded this platform to play more and for more people. It was a fun and fulfilling time in the band’s career and my life. I was enjoying it quite a bit but I wish I would have enjoyed it even more, because its so easy to be swept up in the routine of it all and to take things for granted. That’s something that I’ve learned from the experience of TIH overall... enjoy the positives and attempt to never take things for granted. If 1, 2, 75 or 4000 people come to see you, they chose to spend their money and more importantly, their time to have an experience with you, and that is the most important investment a human can make.

Token reminder that bonkers tours like this were perfectly commonplace in the 00’s. Also, there was a point in history where Yeovil was a viable touring destination for bands.

What appealed to me the most about the record was how there was evidently a lot of emotion in the record and the lyrics, but it didn’t fall into the trap that Hardcore records often fall into of being a bit cringe or tongue-in-cheek. Expanding on your retrospective you did for Kerrang! A few years back, were there any life-events or situations at the time that inspired the record? I’m sure we went into it in other pieces througout the years but the time period of writing and recording this record, we experiences a lot of life, a lot of death, a lot of triumphs and tragedies. Life lessons like everyone else, but ones we experienced while having this travelling circus be our compass and poured it all into this record. This entire time period are the events that shaped my life even more concisely and my first toe in the water of what going bankrupt may be like.

Whilst I imagine your collective will to push TIH as far as it could go definitely made the sacrifices easier to accommodate, was there any anxiety or worry at the time as to how it’d affect your future? Constantly. And not even long term future but immediate. “Where am I gonna sleep on Thursday when the tour ends and who can I convince to let me shower at their place?”, something people who haven’t been in this position will never understand is the dread of thinking about the long-term when the short-term is a question mark unto itself.

Despite remarks I’ve read previously about “Procession Commence” being your least-favourite song on the album for a while, for the lyrics alone it was without doubt one of my favourites. I’m not going to ask for you to break down the inspiration of every song on the album, but before the opportunity goes I feel compelled to at least ask what spawned the “I’m tearing out the last few pages of every book I own” and “I am a modern-day Nero...” lyrics Jeff Tiu wrote the lyrics on Sundowning and remains my favorite lyricist in hardcore history. I feel like it may be unfair to dissect his lyrics without him, but the entire album follows a narrative of our lives, especially around the 2004-2006 period where we experienced the things I mentioned before and live through it. The metaphor of tearing out the pages of the end of a story or even the Nero comparison... I say follow those threads and you’ll get a fair explanation.

Around the time Sundowning came out I saw you at Cardiff Barfly, and I’m dead-certain you opened a few dates on the Lostprophets/BringMeTheHorizon tour. At the time BMTH were on the cusp of hitting it big, and Lostprophets were at the peak of their fame (with not one suspicion at the time that their frontman was an utter turbo-nonce), what were those shows like given that musically there wasn’t much common-ground between yourselves and the top-names on that tour? Those shows were absolutely bonkers. They were at these huge theatres or smaller arenas; Travis knew a dude or two from LP and thats how we met BMTH. Musically, its a ridiculous combination, energy-wise, it’s also a bit absurd. Fun level: it was maximum. I wasn’t then, and I’m not now, a hater of bigger venues. I was a metal guy way before I was a hardcore fan so even once HC was dominating my life, I was never a “wah this venue is too big” type. Definitley was a bit of a whiner about barricades for a while but hey, just a further obstacle course for stage diving, and that’s what happened at those shows. So I’m unsure what the common ground was aside from us all being guitar bands, but the upside was playing huge shows, having a lot of fun and probably introducing some kids to their first experience with stage-diving and stage-stomping.

You’ll undoubtedly have a better awareness of it than I do, but I noticed a lot of mega-tours around USA and Europe where Hardcore bands were ultimately paired with metalcore bands or Emo bands at the time. With your roots set deep in hardcore shows, and the capacity for diverse lineups to not go down well across the board, did you ever find any difficulties dealing with bands/crowds/promoters that you weren’t necessarily familiar with or maybe had a different mindset to yourselves? If anything I would say the factors had difficulties with us, and by us, I mean me. I tended to have such a shitty attitude towards people telling me to do something in a different way than I wanted to. I’d like to think I’ve grown up a bit in that way, but who knows? I may still be as shitty and stubborn as I was when I was a kid. The diverse lineups were a necessity of the time because in the mid 2000’s, most straight hardcore bands didnt want to do things on the level we wanted to do them as often. Now I’m not saying that we were the only one and I’m definitely not saying that we were even successful at it; Comeback Kid toured with different types of bands all the time and were successful doing it as is evident today. We wanted to play big shows on big stages just as much as we wanted to play smaller hardcore shows on tiny stages.... we wanted to do it all. So therefore we would tour with Most Precious Blood and then Bayside. We’d tour with Comeback Kid and then Bring Me The Horizon. Did we ever reach superstardom? Obviously not, I don’t think that was ever the goal. “Hey, this tour will be fun and packed with kids in a small venue, then this tour will be cool with our friend’s band in tiny rooms and maybe only 25 people, then this tour will be way different and weird and in really big rooms to kids that think we’re dumb as fuck.... rad let’s do it all and have some fun. See ya” ..... that was the mindset.

Left: The sort of Hardcore show you could expect in the 00’s (unless you lived outside of the USA) Centre: Don’t suppose anyone else remembers GodForbid? No? Just me then. Right: Unholy trinity of pop-punk influenced hardcore... and This Is Hell

Your follow-up LP “Misfortunes” came out in 2008, arguably having big shoes to fill given the standard set by Sundowning. By this point you had been touring fairly extensively for 4 years with This is Hell, were you starting to experience any burnout or disillusionment around touring and promoting a record? Not at that point. It was still fun being swept up in the machine. In fact we (I) was so swept up in the machine that my personal life and mental state had gotten kinda fucked and that’s what made that record so dark and brooding. Touring ON that record that’s where the burnout and disillusionment really started.

This was the last release through Trustkill before you found a new home with Rise Records; what are your memories of dealing with Trustkill and how did that relationship end? It was just time to move on. Misfortunes wasn’t what they were expecting and in all fairness, it didn’t come out how we’d hoped. I’ll fight to the death that the record is a gem in the catalog but I also get DEMO-ITIS, where I write and demo the songs and listen to them to mind-numbing numbers and before the proper recording happens; by the time we get to the studio, I’m almost at the “ok let’s just get this fucking done” state. There’s a bunch of sonic snafus on that record and it could use some editing in structure which is what I hear when I listen to it now, but I also hear the emotion, the struggle, the purging of feeling, the hard work Johnny and I put into the writing of that record. Maybe we can collaborate with Terry Date and give it the Reinventing the Steel treatment. Although those tapes are lost to time so that’s not gonna fucking happen. Far as Trustkill goes, it was time for both of us to go our separate ways and learn a new hold.

Is there any particular reason Misfortunes isn’t up for streaming? Every now and then I do TIH deep-dives on Spotify and that album (especially Disciples, killer song) is always one I miss. I think that may be a Uk thing because it’s definitely streaming in America

Left: Cancerbats, another band that seemed to be on every tour in the mid 00’s. Below: One of This is Hell’s many European tours; to think I only saw them twice between 2006 and 2010 was a woeful error on my part.

In 2010 you released “The Weight of The World”, which was as much a Hardcore record as it was a “Crossover-Thrash” entity. With fans having a capacity to be creatures of habit, and the record being quite the departure from your last two albums, was there any concern that fans wouldn’t necessarily take to it in the same way? Concern, no. At that point the last thing I was concerned with was what anyone fucking thought about whether I was strumming chords fast or double picking an Eb before I hit a wah-pedal solo. Did I acknowledge that people would be possibly confused? Sure. But I’m not their parent, it’s not my responsibility to make sense of anything for them. Hell, I’m no ones parent and I’m never having kids. I’m busy.

At the time I remember you saying in an interview with Noisecreep that one of the themes around the album was the expectations society places on people. Having been a touring entity for a while by this point, were you facing any pressures to slow it down a bit or maybe adhere more to the 9-5 lifestyle most conventionally follow? Of course. Sundowning was my first toe in the waters of bankruptcy. Weight of the World was “hey, keep getting your credit-limit raised and ride as many couches as you can until your next tour knowing full well you’re never gonna pay this shit back and it’s gonna fuck you for the rest of your life, but who cares? you’re playing music and that’s the payoff”

As a fan of wrestling, knowing that you’re also fans of wrestling, I refuse to let “The Night The Line Was Crossed” song-title go unnoticed. If you were a wrestling fan and you did let it go unnoticed I’d be mad as hell. There are countless wrestling references both vague and hammer-fisted on that record. That was the first TIH album where I was the main lyricist. Let it be stated that ECW Shane Douglas is the most underrated heel in history and could be fantasy-booked against any top face in wrestling history. ECW Douglas v 80’s Hogan or Rhodes, 90’s Austin or Michaels, 00’s Rock or Cena.... possibilities are endless.

I do wonder to what extent a lot of his under-utilisation was down to him; his best promos inherently took aim at people who held a lot of sway in both WWF and WCW at the time. He is also a sucker for airing his grievances with both Vince Mcmahon and Ric Flair, to what extent do you think he was probably the author of his own demise on that front? I would say it plays a large part for sure. I also think higher-ups (not just in wrestling but overall) much rather shut someone down when they voice a grievance, or have a strong varying opinion, or really stand up for themselves, and then level them a problem. Granted there is a line between being confident & vocal and self-sabotage and Douglas seems to have danced it.

With the followup album “Black Mass” coming out little over a year later, moving This is Hell further into the Thrash direction, was this album written around the same time as WOTW, or do you just have the talent to churn out Thrash songs at an alarming rate. I was a riff machine back then. Once one album was done being written there was no break, it was more more more. The main riff of Black Mass was the only one that existed during the WOTW era. I think in 2010 I wrote 3 albums and 3 eps worth of music for a few different bands between tours and being a 29/30 year moron in Huntington.

At what point in the ThisIsHell timeline did you start to think “fuck it, I want to play Thrash”? This is a ridiculous answer but Fall 2008. Like I said, I was a metal kid first and foremost. My first favorite band was Def Leppard, then Metallica. It was years before I got into hardcore, so metal is my roots, punk is what made me open my eyes wider and start playing in bands and hardcore is where I got involved. We were touring on misfortunes and I was getting sick of the same old same old. Same music. Same shows. Same people. Same scene, politics, bullshit etc. I was listening to a lot more crossover and metal again at that time. After a show we had a long drive so I brought my guitar and computer in the back and wrote “The Search” just out of sheer fucking around and was so siked on it that it opened the doors for the band to expand again. That door turned into flood gates. WOTW happened and eventually came Black Mass. To me it was natural and instinctual.

There was a cliché I heard a while back that Thrash is essentially what Hardcore bands play when they learn to play their instruments properly.... Discuss. I think that was the 80’s progression. For me, I was playing Megadeth songs before Sick of it All songs. That being said, I was playing Megadeth songs badly before I was playing Sick of it All songs properly. So I think there is absolutely truth in that, but I don’t think it’s exactly fair because playing hardcore shittily is easy. Playing hardcore well is not. I like to think I always played hardcore well. Is there a learning curve? Of course. I think for me, I just hadn’t applied myself in a metal way in a while and it was fun to get back on that horse.

With the exception of the “The Enforcer” EP in 2013, which I’m guessing is at least an indirect reference to good old Arn Anderson, things went eerily quiet for a few years in the This is Hell camp. What happened during this time and what was the mood within the band at the time? Arn Anderson is one of my favorites ever but the Enforcer is a reference to, and the song is about, Savage Dragon, the Erik Larsen Image Comics character. One of my favorite books. The XAD song “Instruments of Death” has a AA reference though in the music. After the release of that record, that’s when I was completely burnt on TIH. I wanted to do something new and different and shed the lineage of the band so I started Extinction A.D. and thats been the main focus since June 2013.

In 2016, This is Hell released their most recent recording “Bastards Still Remain”, a explosive burst of songs where none go over the 2-minute mark. A departure from the hardcore sound prevalent in the first 4 years of This is Hell, it reminds me almost of GoodCleanFun. Not only was it released almost by surprise to mark the 10-year anniversary of Sundowning, but word is it was recorded in a day, is there any truth to that rumour? Yeah we recorded and mixed the entire record start to finish in one day at Barber Shop Studio with Rat from I Am The Avalanche. We teased an announcement for the 10 year anniversary of Sundowning knowing everyone would be thinking it’d be a tour or a re-release or something but thats not in our nature. We honor our past and aren’t above nostalgia in any way shape or form, but TIH is about progression and expansion, always has been and, hopefully, always will be. Even if we had told everyone “we’re releasing a new record” no one would have guessed what it was gonna sound like because every one of our records is in some way shape or form, a surprise to the listener, for better or worse in their eyes. Even if people were to guess what Bastards would have sounded like, with the way we promoted the 10 years, they would have assumed either Sundowning 2 or more metal in the Black Mass vein but instead we did a straight forward hardcore punk record. It’s what I was feeling and I love that record.

Whilst I know the band is into wrestling, and references to wrestling in songs shouldn’t surprise me anymore, I still got thrown off with the last few lines on “Space Mountain”. Out of curiosity how many hidden references to wrestling are there in “Bastards Still Remain”. That record there aren’t as many because I wasn’t the sole lyricist on it. Even Space Mountain if memory serves, is all Travis. So I couldn’t give you a truthful answer to that question without listening back but I dont have the time to do that right now... who ever has time to do anything?

Looking back on This is Hell’s run, there’s no doubt that you put the work in and undoubtedly managed to achieve a lot and experience a lot of things that probably aren’t available to most hardcore bands these days. Are there any regrets or things you wish you’d done/places you’d wish you played? Regrets? The only things I regret are things that would have been close to impossible to control in the moment. I can look back at specific times where I lost my temper over dumb bullshit that I NEVER should have gotten so heated over. There are times I wish I could have not taken things for granted in a sense or two and just lived in the moment a little more, but thats hindsight. The point of my life is to live in the moment and bask in it best as possible, but the reality of life in general is that the future is concerning and sometimes overbearing and clouds the way you “could have” experienced a specific moment. And above that, could my life be better today if I had made this or that decision along the way? Possibly, but my life is where its at now because of every decision that I made and experience I had and the way I experienced it, and I can’t live wishing it was a different way more than I can appreciate where its got me to.

Did I have to file bankruptcy because of this goddamn fucking band? Yes. Did I have to live without a home a handful of times because of this dumbass shit? Certainly. Have I destroyed a few relationships because of this band? Well, no, I can’t blame that on the band as much as I can point to being self absorbed and/or waiting for the right relationship to come into my life. So hey, fuck it. I love This is Hell and I’m happy to be where I am in life in music despite having bad credit, being broke as hell and old as fuck.

Your story is one I’ve heard before, I remember Mitch from Suicide Silence (RIP) mentioning in interviews that he was coming back off tours on the assumption he likely wouldn’t have anywhere to stay and his phone was likely going to be cut off, Set Your Goals had to drop out of some European festival dates due to financial hardships from the Warped Tour that year, and tidbits from lots of bands circling the hardcore/metalcore circuit seem to suggest going all-in and risking financial ruin was part of the territory for being a band at that level back then. Referring to your comments previously about bands maybe not putting the work in as much as bands used to, to what extent do you think that is a product of a culture around the mid-2000’s of bands touring for prolonged periods of time, haemorrhaging money in the process and maybe not seeing any returns from the work they put in, and bands these days maybe not having the same appetite for taking such huge financial risks? There’s a few things here. A) People get more flakey and timid as time goes on. B) People are more about to go all in on their Instagram and YouTube where they can achieve some type of notoriety with no risk. After years of playing music I’ve seen more and more that an alarming number of people love “being in a band” but don’t really care about the music, the expression or the collaboration. To them being in a band is a path to notoriety. Spoiler, it’s not. No one gives a fuck about people in bands.

With you focusing more on Extinction AD these days, what is the current state of play with This is Hell? Do you plan to revive ThisIsHell again anytime soon? We’ll never stop doing this band, even if we don’t play shows consistently or record music enough. During the pandemic I wrote a new EP that we’ll record and release as soon as Reilly gets off his ass and puts lyrics to the music. Maybe this being on the internet instead of his text box once a week will get him to finally do it. New shit rocks and I’m siked on it. If all goes well, we’ll play a show in 2022 with a lineup of TIH stars. That’s another thing I love about the band; we’ve had so many members in and out that the current lineup is whatever group of people that have ever been in the band in some way shape or form; I feel like it would be fun to merge for a few months. We released a Fugazi cover for a comp with a mish-mash lineup that had never played together before and that’s sick. I wanna do that forever. What else are you up to these days? Extinction A.D. is the full-time gig and we have a new EP coming out Nov 5 on Unique Leader Records called “Chaos, Collusion, Carnage & Propaganda”. We have a YouTube show called “It’s Go Time, You Assholes!” Every other Thursday where we drink a surprise energy drink and bullshit on a topic, I do personal training/remote workout write-ups under IRONHAWK TRAINING, I do a wrestling podcast called the Stiff Shots Podcast every Friday, I take care of my dog Paco and watch Marvel movies with my fiance, Alyssa. I have no money.

What else are you up to these days? Extinction A.D. is the full-time gig and we have a new EP coming out Nov 5 on Unique Leader Records called “Chaos, Collusion, Carnage & Propaganda”. We have a YouTube show called “It’s Go Time, You Assholes!” Every other Thursday where we drink a surprise energy drink and bullshit on a topic, I do personal training/remote workout write-ups under IRONHAWK TRAINING, I do a wrestling podcast called the Stiff Shots Podcast every Friday, I take care of my dog Paco and watch Marvel movies with my fiance, Alyssa. I have no money.

So we’ve kind of skirted around the subject a few times in this interview, but now the career-retrospective part is done I can revert to the other passion of Endless Disappointment Zine: Wrestling. Talk to us about your fascination with wrestling and how it started? I grew up in the 80’s so wrestling was always around but it was late ‘89 when I took an interest and 1990 when it took over my life. The Ultimate Warrior grabbed me and I’ve never returned. I spent all of 1990 and 1991 thinking I WAS the Ultimate Warrior. I was initially a WWF guy but quickly found NWA/WCW and would video tape every single show that was on and watch them own repeat. Great American Bash 1990 was the first PPV I ever purchased and has my favorite match of all time: Ric Flair v Sting when sting gets his first title. Wrestlemania 6 the prior April has my 1 favorite match, Hogan/Warrior. I started collecting WWF hasbro figures, which I still collect and haven’t completed the set still, but im poor and won’t spend a lot of money on anything so I seek out cheap ones still even if they’re in shitty condition. My interest waned a little once I started playing in bands in the mid 90’s but like everyone else I was all the way back in once the Monday Night Wars boom began. I lost interest for a few years post-ECW closing and dropped out completely for like 3 years aside from the off-hand PPV at my friend’s house, but was all the way back in with the first ECW One Night Stand PPV in 2005 when we were on tour with Another Breath and it’s been top of my obsession-list again ever since. So I’ve been Mr. wrestling know-it-all essentially since 1990 with a gap in the early 00’s for a few years. I was skeptical of AEW in the beginning because I didn’t think they’d hit homeruns right off the bat, but I think they are absolutely on fire now and I’m so excited for what they bring to wrestling. I’m a WWE lover and an AEW lover and an other-promotion supporter. No one bats 1000 but if one company bats 750 and another 450.... that’s still a lot of good wrestling and I appreciate the differences between the two promotions instead of choosing one and hating on the other. AEW has really taken the lead to MY likes right now but that’s just my opinion and even though its a competition, it’s not really competition. It’s like music, you can love as much as you want and it doesn’t mean that takes away from the other. So for real, anyone with any hasbro wwf, get in touch. I also want every Ultimate Warrior and Ric Flair toy from any other line.

You’re not alone, I tried watching all the PPV’s from 1998 onwards and you can just seem the excitement fall off a cliff-edge after Survivor Series 2001, there stars were there and the matches were ok but it was as if the urgency and excitement was lost. The end of the Monday night wars, along with the breeding ground of ecw, really killed the urgency of wrestling for me. I wouldn’t state that “it was good then sucked” specifically because it’s not exactly fair, it just lost its lustre for me while I was also extremely invested in other things that took precedence, combined with the overall burnout of almost a dozen wrestling shows a week.

FCW wasn’t shown in the UK, and it was such a ballache to find a way of watching it that I only ever did it from time to time, but I swear Seth Rollins came to the ring wearing a This is Hell t-shirt. Am I remembering this wrong? And are we in agreement his cashing-in his MITB briefcase at Wrestlemania probably the best way that main-event could have ended? Definitley the best way that show could have ended and yes, he wore a TIH shirt to the ring for a while. We met him and Paige in florida during the FCW days at a TIH show and have been bros ever since. Dude is a star and good brother. Just an OK circle pitter.

Do you find a degree of irony that someone in peak-physical condition is only “ok” at Circle Pits? Or is that more a testimony to the great-equalizer that is the circle-pit? The mosh just isn’t always as forgiving as the squared circle.

Maybe the perception is different in the US, but for a few years now in the UK it’s felt like WWE is still the top-dog, but maybe not the preferred option and there’s arguably more choice out there now than ever. With WWE moving away from hoarding the top Indy talent, how do you see the future of promotions like Impact, ROH, MLW, PWG and GCW playing out?

Above: Seth Rollins, back when he wrestled in a dreadful gym littered with old WWE PPV banners. Also, before he had that terrible HIAC match and pretended to throw up when he temporarily took away Rey Mysterio’s Eye.

Future is bright. WWE is top dog still for sure, even if the wrestling crowd is more hyped on AEW. WWE deciding to step away from indy talent, that is something people should be excited for not bummed on. There are many promotions and tons of wrestlers to go around. WWE has their way of doing things and what they want to present, so be happy about that. The WWE product is the WWE product. The smaller talent have a lot of other options and not just small indy options, but bigger indy options, televised promotions like ROH and Impact, major promotions like AEW and NJPW. And of course, GCW is growing before our eyes as well. I want everyone to succeed. I also want someone to give me a large check for some music. Or just give me a large check. Or lunch. Im starving

As an aside, but have you ever watched NXT:UK? I have and I actually always enjoy it. The reason I don’t stay up to date with it consistently is because I just dont have enough time. Some of my favorite WWE wrestlers of the past few years are NXT UK guys and my favorite match of the past 8 or 9 years is the Tyler bate/Walter match. Imperium NXT UK is the first new WWE shirt I’ve bought outside of Wrestlemania in almost 10 years. Pete Dunne is spectacular. Andrews is think is real cool. Kay lee Ray I think has a great future. Devlin I really appreciate. I know im missing a ton but I give it a thumbs up personally and even more than that, just what it represents in a regional WWE show, Im siked on.

Are you referring to their match at Takeover in Cardiff? Brilliant match, if you haven't already that's essentially a rematch from when they wrestled at Wembley Arena with Progress Wrestling. 10/10 would recommend as I think that event is on Youtube now. I knew nothing about Walter before he debuted at the conclusion of that one NXT:UK show but he’s such an insane presence that you just completely understand that he is important. I went back and watched a bunch of his stuff at that point and was able to catch him have a match live with Chris Hero/Kassius Ohno (who is a friend of mine in Brooklyn a few years back at an Indy show). Dudes a beast.

I think the issue is that NXT:UK was it detracted a lot of talent away from promotions like ICW and Progress, and NXT:UK show seemed to portray a very homogenised/WWE-esque take on the British Wrestling scene, which at times was as subtle as a bag of hammers. Anyway, if you get chance I'd definitely recommend searching out AttackProWrestling, some of their shows were silly as fuck. I try to stay with my ear to the ground with non- Wwe/aew shows as much as possible especially because I do the stiff shots podcast weekly but it’s so hard because there’s SO much wrestling around. A great problem to have

Right. Let’s wrap this up. Final words? Follow ExtinctionAD on all platforms @extincitonad listen to our new single “Chaos” and pre-order our new EP. Bombard TIH social media with your desire for a new TIH EP because maybe we’ll finally finish it. Help me find cheap hasbro WWF toys and hit me up for a personalized workout write up because being out of shape sucks and I want to help you get in shape.

Hopefully this will not be the last we hear of This is Hell; if you haven’t listened to them properly before now I 10/10 recommend doing a deep-dive on their discography. For more information follow the links below Twitter @ThisIsHell Facebook.com/ThisIsHellNY downrightmerchinc.com/collections/this-is-hell https://thisishell.bandcamp.com/ https://soundcloud.com/stiffshotspodcast

In a genre that evolves fast and churns through bands just as quickly, a band like Brutality Will Prevail will always be a bit of an oddity. Outside of London and Essex there aren’t many hardcore bands that have lasted as long as BWP have; however, after 17 years, BWP will be calling it a day in 2022, leaving a solid legacy behind that them I doubt any hardcore band will surpass anytime soon. With it being a logistical quandary to get a fully comprehensive of BWP’s history from a variety of current/former members, the burden for this interview rests largely on Marc to piece together the various memories from BWP’s history.

Around the mid 00’s, South Wales had its own distinct hardcore scene, the abundance of venues allowing for fairly regularly shows around the Cardiff/Newport area, with bands like Champion, Comeback Kid, Modern Life is War and Converge all playing the area. What were your memories of Hardcore in South Wales prior to joining BWP? The first few hardcore shows I went to were all because we knew a skater who was a good friend’s brother who played in a hardcore band called 21 Meadow Street so ended up discovering the scene through that really. Me and our guitarist Nick got into it around the same time and the first few shows I went to were Down To nothing in LePub and Comeback Kid and Bane in TJ’s. Literally blew my mind as I’d never seen anything like it. We kind of just got hooked after that and gradually met people and it all grew from there. LePub at the time had almost every good hardcore band you could ever think of play there so we were massively spoilt.

By the time you joined, the band had already released 2 EP’s (not taking into account the South Wales Kings EP that was recorded but never formally released), had already gone through a few lineup reshuffles and were a recognised name in the UKHC scene at the time; how did joining them come about? Nick had joined the band before me but we had always done bands together since being about 12-13 and I used to tour with them a lot just chilling. Ajay hit me up one day about filling in for a few shows, which I did and then when they needed someone to jump in full time I jumped at it. It was so easy writing too as me and Nick have this strange annoying way of writing that literally no one else in the world understands as it sounds like nonsense but always makes sense to us two somehow.

People who knew of BWP in the early days may be aware of the “South Wales Kings” EP, which was recorded and never released (bar a few CD-r’s). Word is there’s another EP from a few years on that that never saw the light of day as well? Yeah there was. I suppose the easiest way to make sense of it is to say that it was done just before a whole bunch of line up changes, mainly James at the time on guitar, so it didn’t make sense to release it when the band already knew they were changing. I wasn’t on board at the time but was around it and then Nick moved from bass to guitar and that’s how you got the sound that was Forgotten Soul.

The South Wales Kings EP: It never saw the light of day, but if you’re like me then you may have been able to snag one of the CD-r’s they posted out.

BWP had a reputation at the time for really putting the work in, playing every show possible and spending prolonged period bouts on the road; people always talk about the glamourous/rewarding parts, I want you to talk about the shitty parts and the not-so-good memories. Honestly there aren’t a lot of bad memories from those times. Its easy for me to be miserable now as I’m over 30 so sleeping on wood floors in some random shitty town after a turnout of 50 kids just won’t happen. At the time though I was so young and it was all new to me it was hard to hate any of it. We were going away and playing shows every single weekend then going straight back into work Monday mornings and carrying on the grind. That was probably one of the massive shit parts : through the front door 4am, up for work at 6-7am. An 18 year old kid can handle wood floors but in hindsight it explains a lot of my current body issues.

Would it bum you out if I was to tell you that is probably quite a good turnout for some shows these days? I am totally out of touch now but yeah that is a bit of a shame. It just seems like hardcore has so many ups and downs in the UK with specific scenes etc. Maybe 50 kids will be the norm again shortly.

Looking back at that mid/late 00’s period, which bands were you closest with at the time? There were so many really. Before I joined it seemed like BWP and Your Demise basically came as a package deal. We did countless tours with a lot of the same bands that became good mates like Almost Home, Hang the Bastard, Last Witness, Broken Teeth, Breaking Point and gradually a lot more Welsh bands that came around like Ironclad, Crossbreaker and Ark of the Covenant. We would basically make 3 bands packages every weekend and just play any and everywhere. There’s probably so many I’m missing but the whole UK was thriving hard at the time.

Having been really putting the work in for a few years, from a fan’s perspective it seemed that 2010’s “Root of All Evil” release was somewhat of a transformational one for BWP, both musically and in terms of how the band was perceived. I remember Tumblr (one of many social media platforms that had its day in the sun) being inundated with posts about the record, the hype around your merch reaching ludicrous levels too; what are your memories of the record and do how do you think it weighs up against future BWP albums? I feel after the grinding we did with Forgotten Soul we definitely had eyes on us seeing what the next move was and then it just totally blew up after we dropped ROAE. It was strange but obviously we weren’t going to question any of it. Honestly, the whole writing and recording process was so unremarkable as we were just young and a bit dumb to that side of stuff so didn’t really care all that much. Me and Nick wrote the songs and Ajay wrote the lyrics then I’m pretty sure outside of a few songs the vocals and music never even hit until the studio on a lot of the songs. I remember the writing period being quite short too. Always funny to see your most popular song to date be the one you questioned at the time if it was good enough to even include and on top of that was written in like 2-3 hours. I feel the album does stand up song wise but I totally feel we have done better. That will always be subjective but still. You can’t talk ill of an album that gave you so much at the end of the day.

I remember there being an onslaught of BWP shirts that sold out real quick, ended up on Ebay not long after and I never saw that often in the wild. Was there any conscious effort to focus on merch in the absence of there being less opportunity to make money touring/playing shows, or was it just one of those opportunities that popped up out of nowhere and you had to seize? Yes and no is the short answer. We started by just doing designs and rips of shit we thought looked funny and cool and it just blew up after that. it got to a point where it was selling so well we almost made it so obnoxious to see what we could get away with. the one that springs to mind is the inside out tshirt we did for Ghostfest one year where the print was on the inside so you had to turn it inside out to wear and I think it said something like "Ghostfest is Mega Lolz" on it.

Looking back, BWP churned out a fair stack of merch designs, were there any you looked at and thought “what the fuck is this!?” Pretty certain there was one with Cheryl Cole on the front. Many. We had a Jersey Shore rip off that was literally just the cast but we changed the writing and that was it. I thought the Cheryl one was insanely dumb too but was jokes. We had super dumb stuff like that sat next to super cool shit that we had Sin Eater design for us so it evened out my questionable thoughts I guess. Above: “That” Cheryl Cole shirt As an aside, if any of you have copies of the more absurd BWP merch designs, please email me via worldofshit@live.co.uk as there is no comprehensive record on the internet of how absurd it got.

It drives me nuts as well, as the front-cover reminds me loads of the old Natwest on St. Marys Street in Cardiff, but I’m not quite convinced it is. Where was that photo taken? I wish I had a prize for your knowledge but just knowing you’re right will have to do i guess

With Root of All Evil’s legacy cemented and your follow-up “Scatter The Ashes” set to continue the upward momentum, Ajay’s departure in 2012 came around somewhat all of a sudden from a fan’s perspective; looking back was there any indication from your/the band’s perspective that Ajay was starting to get worn out with being in the band and potentially may have been considering his exit? Yeah we knew it was coming honestly but we just didn't think it would get that messy as we had plenty of prior member changes so it just came as a shock that it went from being in the band to almost like he was against it. It was so long ago now I don't really hold any ill will to anyone but was just a rough thing to go through at the time. We just spent so many years of people talking to us as if they knew the score when in reality they had no idea. Mainly the money thing as anyone who's actually done this and the things we have over the years will tell you there isn't any money in being 1- A hardcore band and 2- Doing it part time.

Root of All Evil: If you try to recreate this picture now, it’ll be outside a really overpriced cocktail bar.

With the prospect of extensive touring plans for the future at risk, including an extensive tour as main-support to CancerBats, how did the departure impact the band and how easy a process was it to have Louis (of Breaking Point) to replace Ajay full-time? It was surprisingly easy just because just before Ajay left we had Louis fill in for 2-3 shows on a Terror tour that Ajay couldn't do so the ground work was already put it and we were already tour ready. Sadly around this time I had to drop out on a lot of stuff for health reasons but I still supported and tried to be involved with the band as much as possible.

Of course Ajay’s departure wasn’t an entirely seamless transition; having handled the merch/ finance side of things, upon Ajay’s departure merch-orders stopped being sent out, leaving fans with no merch and the prospect of having to undergo a lengthy dispute with Paypal to get their money back. From a fan standpoint it was disappointing to see, but I’d be keen to hear a band-member’s perspective knowing a relatively long-term member could exit on such dire terms? The basics of it are that Ajay ran Purgatory with a few mates helping out and Ajay handled all the merch etc. he was the business side and in all honesty he was on top of that stuff and always seemed to manage it well. I can fully understand why he dropped it all but yeah it was weird that we had to keep directing people over there as we kept getting so many messages and e-mails about unshipped BWP and Purgz stuff. Hopefully some of them got it over time but if not, soz I guess.

Have you spoken since with Ajay? I remember hearing a patchy rumour a while back that he had a lot of “sold-out” stock still at his house long after he left the band and had started his next band MindxControl. We’ve had a couple of interactions yeah but it’s still patchy. We kind of buried it all and spoke a bit here and there but it never really built back up any relationship. We are all just a lot older and still doing what we do so I don’t think anyone really cares about it anymore. He has a clothing brand I think as he’s well into his bikes and he’s got a family now so more power to him I guess. There will be nothing left to argue over after 2022 anyways haha

With losing a frontman often being a momentum-crusher, what kept you optimistic for the future given BWP’s best days were still ahead of you? Honestly the band didn't have time at first to even think about it. By the time he left tours in UK, Asia, Japan and Australia were all booked with festival slots on Reading and Leeds and Download good to go so it was just carry on carrying on really. It didn't really hit until the next record which I wasn't really involved with but seemed like a fair bit of pressure for the boys.

During BWP’s time as a band you’ve been on not only some very high-profile tours, but also sought to do what many other UK Hardcore bands couldn’t and play huge open-air shows such as Brutal Assault, Hellfest, Metaldays, and even the likes of Sonisphere and Reading/Leeds festivals. Typically playing smaller/more intimate venues, were there any teething problems or growing-pains that came with having to play to larger crowds at events where you were just a piece of a much larger puzzle?

Cancerbats / BWP / Empress Tour 2013

It's so much easier playing to thousands of people who largely don't know who you are versus a few hundred kids that hang off every line to every song. As long as you can smash it and keep the energy going on the big stage they generally enjoy it. It's a much easier transition than most think especially when you're used to playing smaller shows and going crazy on stage. You strangely just know how to hype a crowd. Go ask Malevolence as they've literally killed every single festival possible this year and typically are a stand out on every bill. Something about that hardcore energy shit I guess.

Whilst BWP would continue to tour and play high-profile shows across the UK and Europe, none matched the sheer intensity and length of the Summer 2014 schedule, where a string of high-profile festival appearances took place. A lot of bands cite burnout following runs like that, how did BWP come out of that Summer and what effect did it have on the band? Yeah I'd say burnout definitely hit them. After doing the band for a year full time it seemed it was quite hard. After a hard schedule the band almost broke up to be honest with you. More member changes and the band only really came back because me and Nick did a side project called Concave and I started drumming again. This just randomly led to us writing a few songs and next thing we knew there was a second wind and In Dark Places was here.

Touring has never matched that kind of schedule but I feel that’s for the best with everyone’s life commitments anyways. A hobby that turns into a "career" I guess you could say can sometimes suck all the fun you had for the hobby in the first place away so the balance in previous years has been spot on.

With the sheer amount of visibility and momentum gained on that run, was there any expectations placed on yourselves to carry on with the pace? It was kind of dependant on the next record but even then the name alone at that time carried a bit of weight so the bookings kept going ok. Whilst all bands have expectations I don’t feel it was too much of a thought process at the time.

Both Siege of Amida and Holy Roar stepped in to oversee represses of “Scatter the Ashes”, releasing subsequent LP’s “Suspension of Consciousness” and “In Dark Places” respectively. Were you ever subject to talks with any larger international labels during that time? There were talks all over the shop but the correct choices were made I feel. Saying that it was on the cusp of the more modern style of music production etc where digital is king and bands can just release whatever they want whenever they want by themselves which was a bit hard to swallow but we valued physical media so the labels always made sense.

Holy Roar met its demise in 2020, allegations surrounding HR’s founder triggering a mass exodus from key staff and bands on the label’s roster. Having worked with Holy Roar throughout various stages of the label’s growth, what was BWP’s experiences with them like? Was there anything in retrospect that was probably a cause for alarm? Honestly, nothing at all. We had such a basic business relationship. Basically boiled down to “If I pay for them up front, can I do physicals for X record” and that was the relationship. It kind of fucked us a bit when he did close everything down as a few of our music videos were on the HR youtube channel and the backups no longer exist. mainly Forever Restless so yeah, cheers for that HR.

Throughout BWP’s history the music has never stayed the same, and there always seemed to be enclaves of your fanbase that were perpetually never satisfied; there were those that got salty when Root of All Evil went down a far more downtuned/sludge route, with each album having a quiet rumbling in the comments-section from fans who wanted you to be playing the same stuff as you did years prior. Did it ever get frustrating addressing areas of your fanbase who clearly didn’t want to be on board with your new material? You just have to not care honestly. Most of them never even go to the shows. The ones who say we need to play ROAE songs clearly don’t come to our shows because we have played 2-3 song off that record in almost every setlist the last 8 years. I get it as everyone has a band where they only like a certain percentage of a bands catalogue but from a bands perspective you want to be able to just do what you want and explore shit you’ve never done before. Caring about perception and trying to cater to people will just make writing and recording a highly dull experience.

Misery Sequence subsequently came out towards the tail-end of 2019, the ability to tour off the back of that album being somewhat wiped out as a result of the Global pandemic being declared early into 2020. As a band that always stayed fairly active and maintained a strong fanbase through your live shows, how damaging was it for the band to have momentum come to a grinding halt like that? It was damaging but due to the fact that it damaged almost everyone it doesn't feel as hard as it might of otherwise just because all bands were in the same boat. However, the bands that adapted and managed to do cool stuff in lockdown I have to give massive props. Code Orange doing livestreams etc was just class.

In September you made the announcement that the band will be looking to call it a day, citing other areas in life taking precedent. To what extent did the pandemic spark this discussion in the band, or had the sentiment of winding down the band been a long-time coming? It’s been a conversation back and forth for years really. We were saying at the time that Misery Sequence would probably be our last record. People just change both musically and in regards to commitments so it happens to 90% of bands eventually. I don’t feel the pandemic contributed at all really as it was already a conversation back and forth over and over. It’s nice for it to be mutual and no ill will with anyone though. Can’t ask for much more.

Whilst everyone accepts bands call it a day, the rate of which bands stay split definitely devalues the process of calling it a day in the first place; noteworthy acts such as Funeral for a Friend, Dead Swans and Modern Life is War being a few examples of bands that split up and are back in actually a few years later. Be straight with us here, when BWP call it a day what are the odds it’s going to stay that way? 99.9% Unless there's some terrible situation where it's a fund raiser or anything like that I can't see it happening. We all either want to do other music projects or just do other stuff in life. Louis is killing it at tattooing, the other lads are all smashing it in their trades and all doing real life shit like buying houses, having kids etc. We want to say it'll never happen again just to be as stubborn as possible.

Right: Nostalgia time, talk us through Top 5 shows Harder to say shows but tours are easier. And this is me personally too. 1- No Turning Back / Cruel Hand: It was our first tour back after 2 year hiatus and it was the most rewarding tour of all time and we made some legitimate good friends 2- Terror / Naysayer Euro tour: Our first time on a nightliner and with arguably the best hardcore band to ever do it. Nuff said 3- Mother of Mercy / Dead Swans: Just a good time every single day with top-tier dudes 4- More Than Life / Basement: It was only like a week but it was just as Basement were getting traction and More Than Life were good mates of ours so was just a good time 5- Harms Way / Dead End Path: Despite some absolutely horrendous drives this was arguably our peak of popularity in hardcore and all the shows were sick.

Worst 5 shows None really come to mind and I'm blanking hard. Anything that requires significant driving for little reward. For the longest time all shows in Italy were absolute dog but in recent times they've been cool so I won't hate on the Italians anymore. Was it literally down to the distance why Italian shows sucked or was there something more nefarious afoot? Don't hold back, no Italians have ever bought this zine. Haha it was literally the combo of everything. The fact it was so out of the way to anything else and the fact there would usually be 5 people there. I suppose the chances of those 5 people reading this is pretty slim

Top 5 memories of the band I could be here for days. I'll just say getting to experience so much mental shit with my good mates that a lot of people don't is rewarding and I will forever be grateful.

Worst memories as a band Probably just the Ajay thing as it sent it all wild for a hot minute or having to leave for health reasons just before all the cool tours came up. You’d think I’d say splitting up but it almost feels the opposite. maybe I’ll cry the last show who knows.

Wasted opportunities? Turning down tours with BMTH and While She Sleeps I guess you could say were wasted but we wanted to go to Asia etc instead for a holiday sooooooo....

Whilst you have to trust your gut, and a holiday in Asia does sound very nice, was there any thoughts about what it would have been like if you had taken the tours with BMTH/WSS? Yeah there was but I feel sometimes bands take those kind of tours thinking it will change their lives when in all reality you are just passing time for the crowds at those shows until the bands they really want to see play. Yeah a few people might think you’re sick and be turned onto you, but in general I honestly don’t think it does too much for your band.

Regrets? Not doing more whacky shit when writing and recording honestly. Always got so many ideas but it feels like you never have enough time to act on them. Maybe a few minor ones like letting Jordan write emails to bands such as "Euro tour no?" and being surprised when we get no reply.

Favourite bands to have played with? This where I cheat as we have done all the festivals. The boys would all give different lists but this is just my fav bands really 1-Thrice 2-Deftones 3-Terror 4-Rise and Fall 5-Shipwreck A.D In respect to playing with Rise&Fall - are you referring to that show in LePub with Harms Way and Nails in 2010? Never envisioned Nails or Harms Way getting as big as they did. Yeah that’s the one man. One of many however. They played quite a few times in LePub on CCHC shows. The best times for me when it comes to hardcore!

With eyes towards the future, are there any other bands/projects/ventures forming now BWP is winding down? I've been doing a little bit of session stuff but it's honestly just a hobby for a laugh. Nick is the most musical out of everyone so I can see him killing it and doing some cool shit. Louis has a few projects going back and forth I believe too but he's a busy lad. Adam started a project too and Jordan will probably sell all his bass gear to buy more Harley Davidson shirts once we are done.

With BWP being an integral part of South Wales’ hardcore output from over the years, the scene has been subject to lots of change since the band first formed. How do you see the state of the scene now and how it fairs for the future? I legitimately couldn't name any other bands outside of Asidhara. I'm super out of touch but I just like to cling onto the older bands I love and be the "back in my day" old man hardcore "kid". I hope it does pop off again someday like it did when CCHC was a thing but that was just a collection of having the perfect venue with the perfect promoter and the bands coming from the US being the perfect size for it at the time. Who knows I guess.

With 2022 being the final year for BWP, keep an eye out for any farewell plans. www.brutalitywillprevail.com www.facebook.com/brutalitywillprevail https://brutalitywillprevail.bandcamp.com/

So there’s a solid argument that the genre itself probably needs to get in the bin, and if it wasn’t for the plethora of good Black Metal bands out there this page would probably take a different turn. That being said, there are some bands out there that genuinely take the piss and probably should get in the bin before they just make a further mockery of themselves.

Satyricon I have no issue with them really, but their merch is so unbelievably cringe and it’s got to the point I think the only way for that to stop is for the band to cease to exist.

Batushka (if they are indeed still the “real” Batushka” For a genre built around resistance to religion, Batushka fans really seem to be a sucker for religious ceremonies and people monkeying around on stage in Eastern-Orthodox regalia. I saw them once, and in a 50 minute set they took 15 minutes at the start to light candles and pose on stage, and then spent another 10 minutes at the end posing on stage whilst they extinguished candles one by one; literally half the set was lost to blowing candles on-stage and making weird religious poses. Apparently at Download the crowd ripped into them and started singing “Happy Birthday” when they started blowing candles out. Adding into consideration the ongoing dispute over which entity is the “real” Batushka, and you’ve effectively got a playground argument played out by adults in fancy-dress.

Gorgoroth So imagine engaging in a legal dispute over who had the rights to your band’s name, winning the court case, then spending the next decade progressively undoing all the momentum your last frontman/lead guitarist built: that is the story of Gorgoroth.

Mayhem When it’s been nearly 30 years since your best album came out, and people unfamiliar with the genre recognise you as “the band where the lead singer was killed” (and that was 30 years ago), at best you’re a nostalgia act and at worst you’re a relic from a time we’ve all moved on from. Dimmu Borgir Imagine recording an album that’s so over-produced that it’s impossible to replicate live, yet you try anyway and somehow manage to avoid having the piss taken out of you for decades. Unless you’ve caught them on the handful of occasions they’ve performed with a full-orchestra, their live experience is so weak it makes you wonder how we’ve allowed them to get away with a half-arsed live performance for so long.

Marduk 30 years is a fairly decent timeframe for a band to last; however, when the band is underpinned by one remaining member and the albums seem to become less and less inspiring with each year, either we’re outgrowing Marduk or it’s time for them to maybe just...well.... stop.

I recall about 10 years back an old housemate was rehearsing a conversation with me, which would eventually be used to kick the drummer out of his band. My housemate’s band weren’t very outgoing, nor were they particularly ambitious; you could even argue they weren’t particularly good either come to think of it. That being said, in the mind of my housemate, their drummer’s inability to play blastbeats was actually what held them back, yep, definitely the drumming, 100% not anything else.

My take-away from that interaction was my housemate being hamstrung by the idea that ,unless Death Metal had blastbeats, it wasn’t good. Whilst the revival of the OSDM sound went on to sink this mindset, even when this discussion happened, this idea was built on bad logic: fact is there were a few Death Metal bands at the time in the UK who had excellent drummers, but were still fucking shit live.

Anyway, back to why we’re here; hailing from Washington DC, I circumnavigated the “oooh Washington there’s Politics there” questions (that every interview with GP have gone for so far) in favour of a would-you-rather round that you’ll find at the end of the interview. With their new album out anytime now, I speak to Genocide Pact about some stuff; this is the first band on Relapse to be interviewed for this zine, as usually their PR person ignores me.

Having been open about liking hardcore previously, and with DC’s lineage in terms of hardcore ranging from Bad Bains/Minor Threat to the likes of CokeBust and Good Clean Fun, I’d be keen to hear about your experiences with the hardcore/grindcore scene in Washington. When we formed the band it was kind of just a combination of the Hardcore and Grindcore scenes meeting. Tim and Nolan were in a devastatingly crushing Grindcore band called DOC (who are still active) and I was in various Hardcore bands. All of our early shows were with either with Grindcore or Hardcore Punk bands, mainly because there wasn’t much of a Death Metal scene anywhere back then - at least not the “Old School” style we play. Playing with Hardcore and Grindcore bands was fun but ultimately a lot of people who came to see us didn’t really get what we were doing. Once we shifted to playing more Metal shows things got a lot better for us. Still have tons of love for Hardcore and Grindcore though obviously!

Going off on a major tangent, I read in an interview about nices places to go to in Washington DC, where you highlighted Hains Point as “a great place to eat a sandwich”. As someone who takes sandwiches seriously and has previously walked up a mountain so I could take a nap, I cannot stress how important it is you tell me more about this place. Haha it’s just a nice little park by the water where you can see parts of DC and Virginia. Very relaxing. I like stuff like that. I’m also a huge fan of sandwiches as well.

The band reportedly formed through a mutal love of Morbid Angel at a show one time; whilst Altars of Madness and Covenant are unfuckable slabs of gold, I love hearing Morbid Angel fan’s thoughts on Ilud Divinum Insanus, as it’s the least Morbid Angel release ever and can stir up some fairly intense emotions in people. Man that album came out when I was in high school at arguably the peak of my Morbid Angel fandom and it totally crushed me. I was so excited to hear some new music from them and they totally let me down. I don’t take it personally anymore but at the time I was so bummed on it. That shit fucking sucks!

I also read you partake of Deicide; I’m a huge fan of Deicide and “Stench of Redemption” is probably one of my favourite records ever ; talk to us more about Deicide as I don’t get to do it often and when you speak about Deicide in the UK it’s more likely going to off on a tangent about Glen Benton’s capacity to drop out of shows with minimal warning. Deicide was one of the major bands that influenced us early on. Their greatest hits CD was in Tim’s car for like... 5 years? So almost every time he picked me up to jam or hang out we’d blast “Dead By Dawn” and all the other classics. We got to play with them in Richmond a few years ago and they were legitimately great. Glen was wearing a Remington shotguns sweatsuit before the gig. Unreal!

Having previously played in hardcore and grindcore bands, did you find there were any growing pains when it came to writing/playing Death Metal compared to just being a fan of it? Totally. Tim and I had played in Metal bands as teenagers, but nothing really worth noting. Genocide Pact was the first truly “serious” Death Metal band we ever did. On those early records we just wrote in a way that was super natural for us. It took us a minute to get comfortable playing the style but I think we managed just fine.

Your debut album “Forged through domination” was released via A389 back in 2015; the follow-up “Order of Torment” came out 3 years later, with a much more refined sound which I suppose put you more on-par with other bands doing the Old School Death Metal sound at the time... 3 years is a fair whack of time between releases, how had you developed during that time and how would you best differentiate the process/outcomes from the two albums? Order Of Torment was where we felt more comfortable flexing our muscles a little bit and adding a little more complexity and length into the music. We had all gotten better at our instruments, toured a lot, and seen how audiences reacted to our music, so all of that came into play when we were writing OOT. The first album was way more “anything goes” and we just kinda kept it minimal and heavy. Nothing wrong with that! The new album is a pretty good mix of the two which is why I think it’s our best yet.

Is it me, or has the last few years probably been the best few years to be in a Death Metal band since maybe the late 80’s/early 90’s? Don’t know how it came about, but it seemed the early/mid-00’s was largely around wanting to sound like Sleep/Electric Wizard and then BAM, bands like Gatecreeper, Necrot and yourselves started popping up on the radar and are paying homage to the OSDM sound without necessarily ripping it off. Yeah totally. There’s a lot of great newer Death Metal bands out right now. Not sure what happened but around 2015/2016 I noticed a lot of people were starting bands like that and it just kinda took off. I’ll take that over all the boring Sleep / Electric Wizard ripoff bands any day of the week.

You’ve got your third album, a self-titled effort, out soon on Relapse Records. Whilst the political/social edge that is commonplace in Genocide Pact’s music is as present as ever, we’re to believe this album takes into consideration your own personal grievances and ordeals; when writing for the new album, what pushed you towards venting maybe more personal frustrations/ exhaustions on the album? Unfortunately you’re talking to the wrong guy cuz I’m the drummer and didn’t write any of the lyrics. However I will say that Tim’s writing has always been a combination of politics, social commentary, and personal stuff. My unbiased opinion is that he’s one of the best lyricists in the Death Metal scene.

How else does the new album differ to “Order of Torment”? We went back to the basics and wrote songs in a much more primitive way than we did on Order Of Torment. It’s a little rawer, a little crazier, and it wasn’t tracked to a click so it really just feels like if we recorded one of our practices. And I mean that in a good way!

Left: Genocide Pact’s new Self-titled album. Out soon on Relapse Records. You could change the logo and title nad arguably it’d be a far superior alternative to the last Napalm Death album’s artwork.

In terms of the artwork, who did it and was it intended to be almost a cross-breed between Napalm Death’s “Scum” album art and Terrorizer’s “World Downfall” artwork. Even your band logo now reminds me loads of Terrorizer’s logo. Yeah we didn’t want to do the whole “massive painting” thing that every Death Metal band (ourselves included) does. Tim and Nolan come from a Grindcore background and we wanted to kinda highlight that. Napalm Death and Terrorizer are two of our biggest influences and I’m glad the new art and logo reflects that.

Whilst hardcore/grindcore/punk seem to be fairly safe havens for political views and highlighting social issues, metal’s stance on it is unbelievably inconsistent. These days though I seem to see a lot of people saying “politics should be kept out of metal”, which seems to fly somewhat against bands like Napalm Death, Sepultura, Megadeth and Slayer, all revered bands within their genres who never shied away from political / social issues or highlighting uncomfortable truths. Have you got a slant on this? All the bands you mentioned are huge favorites of ours. We've always thought politics belong in Metal. It wasn't a conscious choice for us to have political lyrics it just kind of happened naturally. There's no reason every band should have to sing about gore or fantasy. We believe that reality is a lot more brutal than fiction. Looking to the future, whilst it’s difficult to plan too far ahead given the constant chopping/ changing of travel restrictions, are there any plans to find your way over to European shores? What is Genocide Pact’s year-plan for 2022? We just signed on with a European booking agency so hopefully we get to come out your way soon! Somehow we still haven’t been after almost 10 years as a band... Need to change that ASAP!

So we’re in the Homeward Bound Universe now: Would you rather be the Wise Retriever, the cool Boxer, or the shitty Cat? No clue what any of that is. Isn’t Homeward Bound the thing Nes is from? I like using him in Super Smash Bros.

Would you rather have shoes for poos, or poos for shoes?

Above: The main characters from Homeward Bound. Never be the shitty Cat

Shoes for poos. Can I pick the size? I’d choose a small size so that my ass wouldn’t hurt too bad. (editor’s note: I always assume the size of the shoe would be equivalent to the bearer’s shoe size)

Trees made of Cheese or Cheese made of Trees? Trees made of cheese cuz at least I’d get to eat

Listen to every song performed by former child-actor Corey Feldman for a whole working day but it can be on in the background, or attend a rock-opera based around Vanilla Ice but you have to give Vanilla positive feedback afterwards. One time my friend called Corey Feldman in a movie theatre when we were at a midnight showing of Lost Boys. He also brought his taxi driver into the movie and left the meter running the entire time we were there. One of the best nights of my life. Would you rather have moderate indigestion everytime Bruce Dickinson says “scream for me (location)” in a live setting, or an urgent need to pee everytime the lead singer of Buck Cherry makes a comment on stage that’s either about drugs or general misogyny? That Buckcherry guy recently said he wanted to be the singer of Minor Threat. Thought that was so cool.

Would you rather relive 1997-2001 as a roadie for Coal Chamber or as the legal guardian of John Davies’ microphone stand? I’d rather die. Nu Metal is the worst.

Right: Coal Chamber Rehashing the Homeward Bound analogy: In terms of 90’s Metal, Sepultura would be the wise-Retriever, Fear Factory would be the cool Boxer voiced by Michael J. Fox, and Coal Chamber would be the shitty Cat. Coal Chamber are forever the Shitty Cat of Metal. I also found out that the Cool Boxer wasn’t a Boxer-Dog at all, he was an American Bulldog.

You had the psychic ability to summon one fastfood item, however you wouldn’t create it out of thin air you only take it away from someone else. I’d be perfectly fine with taking a Chick Fil A sandwich from anyone at any time. Those things are good as hell. Right: Chick-Fil-A. They opened up in the UK briefly, then got kicked out because the UK had no real appetite for organisations who openly donated to anti-LGBTQ causes. They’ve changed since, but fuck it, we still have Taco Bell. Get a court injunction banning Motley Crue from reforming, or get a court order to release the last Wu-Tang Clan album into the public domain? I’d want that Wu-Tang record to be released publicly. It’s probably not even good but I wanna hear it cuz I’m a real Wu disciple.

Football/Soccer but light melee weapons are allowed, or American Football but random parts of the field are rigged with stun-grenades? Definitely American football with stun grenades. That would be pretty entertaining.

Would you rather have smoke emit from your ears everytime someone lied to you, or everytime someone was attracted to you Barry White would start playing? Barry White for sure. His voice is smooth as hell.

Would you rather be able to use the God-Mode cheat from Quake IRL, or the Rosebud cheat from the Sims? No clue what either of those things are. I’d rather use the endless grind cheat on Tony Hawks 2.

Everytime you bumped into someone a clown-horn went off, or everytime you sneezed a foghorn went off? Foghorn for sure. Would scare a lot of people which I’d definitely enjoy.

Genocide Pact’s self-titled album is out December 3rd via Relapse Records. For more information, follow the linkeroos below. https://genocidepact.bandcamp.com/ https://genocidepact.bigcartel.com/ https://www.facebook.com/genocidepact

So from about December 27th onwards everyone seems to speak of their albums of the year; by that point I’ll be having a huge nap and probably not thinking of music at all, so I’m just going to get ahead of the curve and fill this page with redeemable elements of 2021.

Best Releases Chestcrush - Vdelygmia: Absolutely evil Blackened Death / Extreme Metal. Probably the most nightmarish music out there right now that wasn’t written by Akhlys Haast - Made of Light: Mates from F H E D shows finally getting their album out there. Post-Rock/ Prog-Metal grooves that was emailed to me about a year ago so I’ve had to keep real quiet until it came out. Underdark - Our Bodies Burned Bright on Re-Entry: Another case of “took them long enough”, definitely worth the wait, lovely shoegaze/Black Metal from lovely people. Celestial Sanctuary - Soul Diminished: Probably the best Death Metal act to come out the UK alongside Slimelord, this album’s a bit special. Razoreater - Purgatory: I don’t give a hoot that I put this one out, it’s literally head and shoulders above anything to come out of the UK grindcore scene in years. Wolves in the Throne Room - Primordial Arcana: Whilst being the least-WITTR WITTR album they’ve done since Celestite, it’s miles ahead of Thrice Woven (which, let’s face it, wasn’t great)

Labels that also put out the good shit (in no particular order) APF Records, Surviving Sounds, Sludgelord Records, Nuclear Family Records, Dry Cough Records, Things that were good - That Celestial Sanctuary/Slimelord/Vacuous/Mortuary Spawn show at the Black Heart - AEW AllOut 2021: CM Punk’s first match in 7 years, that Lucha Bros/Young Bucks Cage Match, Adam Cole, Ruby Soho AND Bryan Danielson all making their debuts, the show was just packed. - Mortal Kombat: ok so it wasn’t a great movie, but shit was so bad back then and we were all desperate for stuff to look forward to... then the new Mortal Kombat movie comes along like BAM.

Things to look forward to Incineration Fest, Dreadfest, maybe PS5’s will get back in stock? Vacuous will have a new album out (probably), F H E D will be celebrating a decade of existing, I’ll finally get the upstairs redecorated and hopefully some new bands will form.

So there’s two certainties about any musical genre: A) I will probably make fun of it eventually and B) There’s always going to be those bands who linger around forever, rinsing those one or two noteworthy songs for everything they are worth.

Arguably Heavy Metal gets the biggest share of abuse from me; once a beacon of rebellion and innovation, the various evolutions from the genre have left Heavy Metal somewhat in the dirt. The bands still sticking to the Heavy Metal genre also seem to fit into two relatively undesirable enclaves too: those who hit it big and proceed to get wheeled out for some nostalgia ever festival season, and those are revered for staying “true” but have no legacy beyond a few noteworthy songs (Angelwitch, Satan, Diamonhead, the list is fairly long really)

But lo, my mockery of Heavy Metal was not to remain unchallenged forever, and today is the day that I acknowledge that any genre can find relevance in modern-culture if presented through the right vessel . Primarily a hardcore/thrash band first and foremost, Old School Heavy Metal courses Inhuman Nature’s veins and has in turn bridged both Hardcore and Heavy Metal in a mix which finds them in good company on virtually any show it seems. We have a chat with them to see what’s up as they look to kickstart things again after a cruel and unforgiving stretch of restrictions on live music.

So Inhuman Nature is formed from members that have histories with many different bands; which bands have you all played in previously and how did the band come to form? So, when it comes down to it, Inhuman Nature really doesn’t have any original members and at the moment, I’m the longest serving member. Although I was told that Jack, our bassist, had made an appearance at one practice but really didn’t like the OG drummer who had started the band, so he never returned until that drummer left and Simon joined. To actually answer your question, me and Simon used to play in Hang The Bastard, Ben used to play in a thrash band called Volgate, Jack has only recently emerged from his lair and put his bass skills to good use for the first time. I originally joined after the OG drummer sent me some practice room demos, it sounded like Constant Struggle era Iron Age which I was down with. We did the Other Realms demo shortly after but as you can probably hear, the lineup changed when we moved onto the album.

I understand that there were some difficulties putting together a cohesive lineup at first? Yeah, for sure, it was a bit ropey at first. The demo lineup consisted of 3 people and I’m the only one left from that time. We’ve had a change of rhythm guitarists since the LP and Ben’s good friend Mack joined the band at the end of 2019. He turned up to a practice and played the songs perfectly right off the bat, so he’s been a welcome addition and is a lovely bloke as well! I feel like the lineup is at its most cohesive now more than ever!

Despite your sound being strongly of the Crossover/Heavy Metal vibe, you seem to find yourselves playing with anyone from the likes of hardcore bands, to heavier/extreme metal bands and even more traditional Heavy metal/thrash acts. Given that in most scenarios the cross-pollination of different genres at shows would go like oil at water, how do you do it!? Haha, that’s a good question! We just say yes to everything that we can, being in a band is way more fun when you do that. Recently, we played a show in London with Desert Storm who are a very good heavy stoner rock band and the next day we played a beatdown all dayer in Southampton that Gassed Up headlined, we even did a Judas Priest cover at that one ha! Both shows were killer, I guess we have a little of everything that those crowds were looking for. Some big, headbanging riffs and then some riffs you can drop kick your mate to. I’m really happy that we can do that. How boring would it be to just play with bands that sounded like us all the time!?

Playing with all sorts of bands, ranging from bands like Razoreater to the likes of Acid Reign and Fleshgod Apocalypse, have there been any shows where you’ve sunk like a lead-balloon? Luckily, no. Not yet at least! Fortunately, we have gone down fairly well at the shows we’ve played. Even when we supported Okilly Dokilly, I thought that would be a weird one but it was pretty awesome!

On the subject of Acid Reign, did you find their most recent album’s artwork to be really cringe? It’s certainly not my cup of tea but each to their own I guess!

You’ve got a tour coming up with Puppy and Gender Roles too; both of which are distinctly un-heavy, how do you think you’ll go down at those shows? Hopefully not like a lead balloon! I used to think that Puppy were, as you say, an un-heavy band, not that that’s a bad thing, some of my favourite music ever is non heavy. I’ve been listening to their records a lot lately and there’s some definite metal influence in there. They remind me a lot of Weezer, a band that doesn’t play obviously heavy sounding music but when you dig a little deeper it’s in there, with fuzz pedals all over it.

I know this is an interview for Inhuman Nature but I had to highlight how unbelievably cringe this artwork is. Name one piece of album-art with with a clown on it that’s not cringe.... except that Acid Bath album.

With your presence on that bill certainly standing out, may I ask how that tour came about? We just got an email from their booking agent asking if we wanted to do it. I totally get bringing out a different sounding band to your own, it makes it way more fun! We’re doing a small tour with Underdark in February, neither band sounds alike but I’m very stoked about it!

Looking at the UK Thrash contingent, there seemed to be a strong crossover contingent in the mid to late 00’s, with the scene somewhat falling off a cliff-edge around 2011, such is the cycle of genres reaching their peak and then the public moving onto something else. With bands like Asidhara, Road Mutant, Hellripper and yourselves having strong thrash tendencies, is it too soon to suggest we may yet see a thrash resurgence of some sorts? Hopefully! There are some great thrash and crossover bands in the UK and now that shows are starting to happen more and more, I hope we can create more of a cohesive scene. But as well as that, I hope we can get more mixed bill metal shows going as well.

Your debut, self-titled, full-length came out in 2019, which seems to have gone down quite tidy and received praise across the board; is there a plan to follow it up with album 2? Absolutely! We will have some new music out early next year which is a representation of where the band is at right now and we’ll be working on album 2. I think realistically we’re aiming for a 2023 release.

Since the full-length came out you also sought to release a split with Road Mutant (who readers may know as Tom from Celestial Sanctuary’s other band). At face value the two bands may seem somewhat polar-opposites, yet at the same time the two bands aren’t probably as unrelated as people think. Discuss.... Road Mutant have been our best friends and allies from day one. Every band has a best mate band haha! So I think it just made sense to release that with them. Whenever we’ve played shows together, there’s always a lot of energy when playing and it’s fun hanging out as well. Simon and I also knew Tom from his scene kid days back in This Is Colour.

Inhuman Nature / Road Mutant 7” out via Nuclear Family and Night Rhythms

I’ve always felt our sounds were pretty related but maybe that’s because we played a lot together when their first couple of EPs came out. Thinking about it further, I guess we are both crossover bands where we each have clear leanings towards thrash but whereas we lean more towards classic metal, they bring some more death metal influence to their music.

That record was out for a fairly weighty amount of time before the physical 7” vinyls became available, by any chance were you the first victims of what eventually became a widespread crisis for bands/labels who wanted to press their music onto vinyl? I think there were a couple of elements that really messed up that release for us, well more so Nuclear Family Records and Night Rhythms who put out the record. I think you can forgive a bit of a backlog in the factories due to Covid but I feel like one of the main issues is that a lot of the major labels that were going to print 1000s of copies of something were getting pushed to the front of the queue. So if you want to press 250 7”s you are probably going to get shafted.

Split records, whilst never quite as alluring as a full-length album, are great ways of drip-feeding songs into circulation whilst actively working alongside another band. Are there any other plans for splits in the pipeline? We were planning to do a covers split but we just haven’t been able to get in the studio to lock the tracks down, hopefully we can do it early next year! I think because I come from more of a hardcore background, I really love splits! So I hope we can do a lot more, they are great opportunities to try and put something out that’s totally different from what you’d do on an album.

On the front-cover of your album there is a man not dissimilar to Conan the Barbarian sat upon his throne whilst taking counsel a macabre figure; this isn’t the first time this figure has adorned Inhuman Nature artwork, for he also appears on the cover of your debut EP “Other Realms”. Is there a concept behind this nameless character, and to what extent will he become your equivalent to Eddie the Ed? Yeah, it was something that me and the original drummer came up with early on. When Other Realms was first sketched the idea was the character would have more of a Mad Max feel to him. The first sketch we got back was with him holding a gun and sword, while wearing shades. We wanted to go with more of a fantasy meets sci-fi vibe so that’s why he appears in a loincloth but with a metallic arm. I think you will see this character appear at least once more. I haven’t decided whether to continue his story or whether to end it with the next record. We shall see!

I’ve got elements of a theory here, it may not hold much weight but I’m going to put it out there generally. I’ve noticed more people of my age, especially over the pandemic, taking up hobbies like Warhammer and role playing games like D&D / Neverwinter etc. Taking into consideration music like Eternal Champion also sparking the attention of fans who normally would never give Heavy Metal the time of day, and original Bolt Thrower Tees probably being a more valuable commodity on the Stock Exchange than most precious metals, are we all just gradually turning into huge nerds? I think we are haha! If you think about it, being into any sort of subculture comes under the nerdom banner, you just don’t want to admit it when you’re young. As soon as I hit my 30s, I got massively into Rush and A LOT of bands that 23 year old straight edge me would have dismissed outright as boring Dad Rock shit. Maybe that’s what it is but weirdly I get it now, it’s like someone flipped a switch in my head or something. Eternal Champion was a bit of a gateway band for me, helping me find more traditional metal like Manilla Road and reading Michael Moorcock books. It’s more than obvious that Iron Age was a massive influence for Inhuman Nature starting out, I feel like they must be owed some royalties from Other Realms haha. So when I heard that some of their members were doing this new Heavy Metal band, I had to check it out!

I picked up your zine “Heavy Steel: Volume 1” a while back, which documents in rudimentary form your accomplishments over 2019; given the propensity for stuff to just get dumped on the internet and lost in a swamp of social media and rivalling websites, I thought it was pretty cool to document the year in physical form, are there plans to revisit the concept? Thank you! It was really fun to do and put it together. To be honest my girlfriend Issy helped me a lot with that. At the tail end of 2018 my old band Group Of Man did a three week tour of Europe and I documented it in the same way, just using an old point and shoot with cheap black and white film and we put together a photo book called Stray Dogs. I wanted to do something similar on the Inhuman Nature/Dungeon tour so that’s how Heavy Steel: Volume 1 came about. I did make a start on Vol 2 at the start of 2020 but my camera died on me and I couldn’t get a working replacement...there was also a pandemic which didn’t help matters. Anyway, there is a plan to put something together from the Puppy tour, whether it’s Heavy Steel Volume 2 or something different, I’m not sure!

Heavy Steel: Volume 1 I’ve read some utter shite zines during lockdown, this wasn’t one of them, and not because there’s no words in it.

Your zine wasn’t the only one I picked up during that time, and around the start of the pandemic I noticed a lot of other fans started having a stab at making their own zines, maybe because they were bored, maybe because they didn’t have shows going on and they needed to express their passion for music in other ways. With there being far more ways to support music these days compared to when fanzines first did the rounds, do you think there’s still a place for them in music? Absolutely, I think it would be great if more people started doing them. I’d wanted to put out a zine for years but never had the confidence to give it a go. Now I’ve released Heavy Steel: Vol 1, Stray Dogs and the first Mercenary Press zine which is focused around the label I started at the beginning of this year. I guess the pandemic and various lockdowns gave everyone the time and space to pursue the nerdy outlets that they were maybe either not confident enough to work on or just didn’t have the time after work to do. For me, not being able to play shows was massively depressing, almost worryingly so. But putting my efforts into something that was music related felt good, so I just went for it. I got into a really cool comic called Night Crawler, which I think was a result of the pandemic as well. I’d recommend anyone should check that out if you like comics and Heavy Metal. Chopping Heads zine is bloody great! If you like horror and death metal, get into that! I also picked up the latest copy of Trapped Nerve which Nate from xCanaanx/Rot In Hell puts out. Which, to answer your actual question, has helped me get into a few different bands and now a new zine that he recommended in his zine, so I do think that zines still have an important place in music.

I have to be mindful of page-count given some of the interviews that have already found their way into this issue; what are your plans for the future and any final words? Well, as we’ve discussed, we have a tour with Puppy coming up in December, a small run of shows with Underdark in February, a European tour in April and some unannounced shows for the summer! We’ll have new music out early next year and we are going to start work on album 2 very soon!

Inhuman Nature have two tours lined up for 2022 (see above) for more information follow the links below https://www.facebook.com/Inhumannaturehc https://inhumannature.bandcamp.com/

Sure Create-A-Wrestler means we can make all sorts of dumb characters in Wrestling games, but for software developers to put a dumb character into a game? That takes effort. Here’s some of the dumber guest-characters thrown into video games. Also, WCW Thunder plays like Ass but it’s worth playing solely for how much stupid shit they throw into the game.

Terminator (The Terminator in two different guises - WWE 2K16)

Pig (A literal Pig called Sargent - WCW Thunder) Tera Patrick (pornstar - Backyard Wrestling 2)

Ribbie (A sentient BBQ Rib - WWE 2K20) Turok (yep, that Turok - WWF Warzone) Cow (A literal Cow called Bessie I think - WCW Thunder)

Colonel Sanders (WWE 2K18)

Horse (An anthropomorthic Horse called Hoof Hearted - WCW Thunder)

Druid ( one of Undertaker’s Druids WWE SVR 2011)

Fred Durst (Smackdown: Just Bring It)

So a few years back a band in the US called Death Stench got pissy with a South Wales Punk band called Death Stench; they pissed and moaned a bit and the South Wales version changed name. Years later, a mate of mine decided to form his sick OSDM band Death Stench too; they resisted to the point that US Death Stench proper threw their toys out the pram and lobbied bandcamp to remove them from the platform. That band went on to be called Burial Rot, who I released the demo for a month or two back. Anyway, to prove a point, here are a list of other bands who share their name with other bands and don’t throw their toys out the pram over it. Death Stench can suck an egg.

Shining Massacre Desecration Throne Funeral Moon Dissection

Six Feet Under Deconsecration Satan Cancer Mayhem Dying Breed