Interview with Jay White

Interview with Jay White.

Interview by Andrew Stanton.

Overthrow are a Brutal Blackened Death Metal band from London. They are releasing their debut album in September. Andrew Stanton talked to frontman Jay White to find out more. Hello and welcome to Inside the Darkness.

Hi. Thank you.

- Can you tell our readers a bit about your history, please?

Overthrow started in 2011 in London (where I’m from) with myself and our former guitarist jamming on riffs together. We very quickly realised we had something cool, got a full line-up together and played our first live shows within a year. Fast forward 10 years later, the band has had numerous line-up changes and various ups and downs (what band hasn’t right?) but we’re still here and stronger than ever. Musically, we feel we have evolved into something truly wicked and spectacular, so obviously it’s been a lot of hard work. And we finally have a debut album to show for it.

- What bands did you like growing up?

Personally, I grew up in a We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved. very musical household. My parents were always playing me and my siblings lots of different styles of music (all of my siblings are musicians too!) but I naturally gravitated towards Rock & Metal.

The first band I can consciously remember hearing on the radio at the age of about 4 or 5 was Oasis, as they were the biggest band at the time, and being mesmerized by the sound of the guitar. Another major musical memory I have is my Dad taking me for a ride in the car and full-blasting ‘Black Dog’ by Led Zeppelin on the stereo, when I was about 11 or 12, that made a huge impression on me. In my teenage years, I first found out about Metal through friends and watching Metal music TV channels like Kerrang, Scuzz and MTV2. I also discovered Punk when I was a teenager and loved bands like Dead Kennedys, Sex Pistols, Ramones, Minor Threat, Black Flag, The Casualties and Lars Frederiksen & The Bastards. The first bands that made me want to play Metal were Metallica, Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, Motorhead, Slayer and Slipknot.

- How do you describe your music?

We’ve been called ‘Blackened Thrash mixed with Death Metal’, so I guess that sums it up. There’s definitely an amalgam of different components to Overthrow’s music, we just throw loads of different ideas together that we think sound awesome and if they work, cool. If not, we try something else. Our motto has always been “don’t think, just do.” You can’t really put a definitive label on us, which I quite like. Someone once said to me: “Your music is the perfect soundtrack for driving your car off a bridge.” Praise doesn’t get much higher than that.

- Unlike most countries, the UK Metal scene seems to be dominated by more vintage bands like Iron Maiden or Judas Priest, do you think it will always be this way?

I don’t think so. Maiden and Priest deserve to be where they are, as they’re both legendary bands that have been around for the best part of 50 years so good luck to them if they can keep going (I hope I’m doing the same in 50 years!) At some point in our lifetime, however, they will probably have to call it a day. All good things must come to an end at some point. Look at what happened with Black Sabbath and Slayer. But I think it’s good to appreciate these classic bands while they’re still around, touring and writing music, because one day they’ll all be gone and someone else will be at the top of the Metal food chain. Circle of life.

- What are your lyrics about?

Our lyrics cover a variety of topics from hatred, internal conflict and mental illness to death, philosophy, religion, war and chaos. It depends on the song; 9 times out of 10 I write the music first and the lyrics second, so it just depends on what the music is making me feel/think about and I just go with it.

I don’t usually write your typical graphic/gory Death Metal lyrics and I consciously avoid writing anything political, as it is something I absolutely despise. The lyrics are personal but written in a way that they’re not so obvious as to what exactly I’m talking about, which is usually the goal. Outside of music, I am also an English teacher in a school and I enjoy reading a lot of classic authors, as well as stories from ancient, archaic mythology, so that helps to fuel my inspiration when it comes to writing lyrics. As well as listening to the music of bands, I also enjoy reading their lyrics, therefore I definitely put as much work and thought into the lyrics as I do the music of Overthrow.

- Will your new album be very different from Now Fear the Mercenary?

Very different. It’s basically an entirely different band on the new album, but it’s still Overthrow. The songwriting is better, the production is incredible, the performances are outstanding and the overall vibe of the album is both sinister and uplifting. It’s a perfect storm made up of blood, sweat and beers from the last decade. We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved.

- Bolt Thrower said they split up because they were sick of all the subgenres. Is this something that affects all bands?

It certainly doesn’t affect us. We’ve never really given a shit about sub-genres, we kind of transcend them. I think bands (particularly younger bands) can get too obsessed with fitting into the mould of a particular sub-genre. They like the sound of it and want to recreate it themselves. Some do it really astutely and more power to them, but there is also the danger of oversaturation and not being able to tell two bands apart from each other, because they follow the same formula. They forget to put the time into actually creating something unique to themselves.

We’ve had the opposite problem; you can’t really put a label on us, as we’ve devoted all of our time to creating the music that we love, without any real regard for what category we fall into. We let the music speak for itself and then others say “You sound like this or that.” and we don’t dwell on it too much, we just keep doing what feels right to us. When we first started, we marketed ourselves as a straightforward Thrash Metal band, so initially we would only get on bills with other Thrash Metal bands, which was great in the beginning. But as we’ve evolved as musicians and individuals, we’ve ventured into other avenues of music and Extreme Metal (particularly Black and Death) but with one foot still dragging back into Thrash, I think. Being the only original member from our inception, it’s important to me to keep the band going with the same attitude/goal in mind: writing killer Metal songs, while also maintaining a healthy level of awareness but also not getting preoccupied with labels and sub-genres.

- Have you toured much around the UK? Where are the best and worst places to play?

We haven’t really toured that much to be honest. In the early days, we played a lot up and down the UK and obviously we’ve played loads in our hometown of London, particularly Camden Town. Camden will always be my favourite place to play, because it’s where I was born and basically where the band started. I also have great memories of playing in Southampton and Norwich. Hard to say where the worst place is. We once played in the basement of a pub in East London which had no stage and people were sitting down in armchairs watching us play, that was memorable. We’re very keen to get back out there and start playing live again, once this pandemic has dwindled.

- Do you have a message for our readers?

If you dig Extreme Metal in all its twisted forms, Overthrow is the band for you. Listen to our music, share our videos and support us by buying our merch and spreading the word about us. Hopefully we’ll be coming to a town near you in 2022.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for the interview.