SONIC SHOCKS Issue 40 - September/October 2015

Issue 40 - September/October 2015

plus Trampolene, Sisteray, God Damn, Monster Magnet, Venom Inc, Frizzi 2 Fulci, Denner Shermann, Huntress, Children of Bodom, The Black Dahlia Murder, Harlott, Burlesque, Dismaland...

the mighty voice of rock'n'roll

ON THIS ISSUE P 03: THE LAST

INTERNATIONALE

Interview with Delila and Edgey and all photos by Cristina Massei

P 50: HUNTRESS Interview with Jill Janus by Matt Dawson

P 10: GOD DAMN P 54: THE BLACK DAHLIA Interview and photos by Cristina Massei MURDER Interview with Trevor Stmad by Matt P 18: MONSTER MAGNET Dawson Interview with Dave Wyndorf by John Morgan P 58: VENOM INC Interview with Abaddon by John Morgan P 26: TRAMPOLENE Interview and photos by Cristina Massei P 66: FRIZZI 2 FULCI Interview with Fabio Frizzi by Cristina P 34: SISTERAY Massei Interview by Cristina Massei P 74: THE GOLDEN AGE OF P 40: CHILDREN OF BODOM BURLESQUE Interview with Janne by Matt Dawson Feature by Sophia Disgrace including ENTERTEASEMENT, LADEDA P 43: HARLOTT BURLESQUE CABARET and Interview with Andrew Hudson by M BURLESQUE BAKERY Dawson P 76 : DISMALAND P 46: DENNER SHERMANN Feature by Sophia Disgrace Interview by Matt Dawson

SONIC SHOCKS TEAM Editor in Chief & Creative Director CRISTINA MASSEI

Front page photo credit: Cristina Massei

Associate Editors MATT DAWSON & NELLY LORIAUX US Correspondent DENISE BRITT

Other contributors on this issue: Sophia Disgrace, John Morgan

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This is not their first time in the UK: New York hispanic duo The Last Internationale have visited our shore with Kings of Leon, then twice with Robert Plant. With a full length out and one in the works, Delila and Edgey are set on bringing their multilayered, passionate rock sound to an even larger crowd on this side of the pond. But there’s more they feel Europe should know right now, and they’re not holding back…

How's the conquer of Europe going?

D: It’s been pretty great so far, we did some northern Europe dates, first time in Poland, that was awesome and we went back to Glasgow this time, it was an amazing, rowdy crowd. We did a club show and then these festivals, it’s been very good, very rewarding. We’ve been opening for a lot of amazing bands, we did some shows with The Who, a lot of these classic bands so it’s just been a crazy, great learning experience.

A lot of big names, different bands with different sounds and that kind of reflects you in a way, your music is quite versatile. Who influenced you as musicians?

D: Woody Guthrie is always a big influence, Victor Jara – he’s a political folk singer from Chile – Nina Simone, Jimi Hendrix. There’s a lot of soul singers I love: Al Green, Howlin’ Wolf.

There’s a vast collection but I guess it’s mostly influenced by early blues, folk and soul from the US and the UK. So from the bands you’ve supported what’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned?

E: For me the biggest lesson - and I can speak for both of us on this one - was from Tom Morello: he was giving us advice before going to South by Southwest a year and a half ago and he said ‘It’s a big clusterfuck when you get there, a lot of bands are playing, all you need to do is be focused, get ready when you hit the stage, use your inner rock power, rock the fuck out and just kill it! You have to destroy the stage every single time you play.’ It’s something that’s just common sense, but hearing it from your mentor makes you feel you need to step things up and since he gave us that lecture every time we play a show we try

to outdo the last show, we always try to push ourselves, we’re never satisfied with where we are, we’ve always got to keep pushing, always be the best that we can be.

Quite an early slot here at Reading today, did you find that difficult?

E: No, not at all. It’s difficult getting up in the morning but that’s about it! [laughs] Once you hit the stage adrenaline kicks in and you’re ready to go.

D: Sometimes I like not sleeping. We only slept two hours last night, we had a gig late in York so sometimes when you’re a little tired it feels more grooving on stage, all the other bullshit like doesn’t matter, just like ready for the music because you feel tired.

It feels like when you don’t sleep enough your brain doesn’t want to encompass everything at the time so you let go of everything else and concentrate on one thing.

D: Definitely!

RATM drummer Brad Wilk has been kind of a third member for quite a long time…

E: We met Brad through Tom Morello when we were in desperate need of a drummer because we were going into the studio and we had some dates booked. We got into a room with him, we jammed for two weeks and went into the studio right away with Brendan O’Brien who’s our favourite producer and we cut the record in two weeks. Within that process of recording he joined the band as an official member and we did some touring with him for a pretty long time – a year and a half, at least a year – he did all the gigs we mentioned except for the Robert Plant gigs. He has children so a lot of his time is devoted to them which I think is a great thing, fathers should be fathers, so we all mutually decided it’d be better to get another drummer because this band is way too time consuming. To break a band is very difficult especially a band with a political message and loud guitars, very uncompromising to what the hell is popular nowadays.

We make it very difficult for ourselves but I think the people want something like that and we’ve been very fortunate, it’s been working out pretty well.

So what’s happening with the new drummer?

E: We’ve been touring with him, his name is Fern, he’s fantastic, a great drummer. We’ve just got out of the studio and he works real well there too. We’re going back to LA to record with Tom Morello, we’re on his record label now. Everything is chemistry about us: chemistry works, things are going well, couldn’t be any better.

You recently did some recording in Portugal. Why there?

D: Actually it’s one of my favourite studios, it’s analogue and the room is amazing and one of my favourite cities in the world.

E: It’s called Studio Sa Da Bandeira, the most important part is all the people that work there are great people and they understand the band.

Do you have Portuguese roots?

E: I do.

D: My father’s from Puerto Rico and my mum’s French/Swedish.

That together makes New York!

E: Hers is Brooklyn, ours is Queens. We’re rivals! [laughs] Do you think that’s been a big influence not only on the music but on the way you are?

D: For me definitely, you can’t help but feeling a piece of New York inside of you. It’s a very diverse and a little bit of a rough city, a lot of people struggling there, a lot of my family struggled with homelessness as many families do over there so I think that’s part of the reason why you have a social consciousness growing up there.

E: That’s not because we’re from… there’s a lot of bands in New York that are not socially conscious, there’s a very shallow scene if you can call it a scene. I guess Delila and I gravitated towards the rawness of New York, we both have older siblings and I guess that contributes to it, we both grew up on N.W.A, we went from Fuck The Police to whatever’s out today so I guess that really stuck with us and influenced our music. As Dr Cornel West said: ‘We are who we are because somebody loved us.’ A lot of the influence comes from family members and people that we know.

I saw you flipping your guitar over and in the air at the show, which made your position on the current immigration crisis here quite obvious… Would you like to expand on that?

There’s a lot of rich people with a lot of vacation homes and a lot of rich people even in the homes they live in – plenty of empty rooms!

I would highly suggest that we take these rich people’s homes and put refugees in them

believe in yourself, believe in your art and believe in what you do, don’t be afraid to be different and be rebellious, be unique, stand out, it’s OK.

E: Refugees Welcome! We take a very hard stance on that. Refugees welcome, they are human beings.

D: We’ve been watching the news as we’ve been in the UK and one of the things that caught is that a lot of times depending on the news you watched a lot of times they called them migrants not refuges and I think it’s important that we call them refugees here because they’re people that need help, they need assistance and it brings a human element to them, we need to help these people.

E: There’s a lot of rich people with a lot of vacation homes and a lot of rich people even in the homes they live in – plenty of empty rooms! I would highly suggest that we take these rich people’s homes and put refugees in them, the government should do that and the people should force the government to do that. That’s my stance on that.

Do you ever feel disillusioned about the reality of politics in the battles you fight?

D: Of course, in the songs we sing and looking back at songs like Deportees by Woody Guthrie and just reading the lyrics in the songs, the same exact thing is happening today but I think it’s important to have those feelings but you also need hope. There’s always going to be power on top.

Someone said hope is a dangerous thing (The Shawshank Redemption).

E: Another writer said hope is the leash of submission (Raoul Vaneigem) so it depends how you look at it really, but we’re told all the time as a band that the youth just don’t give a fuck, they don’t care, make happy music, they’ll dance and smile and forget their worries. This band’s approach is the complete opposite of that: we confront people with reality, injustice and what’s going on in the world. At our shows we don’t allow people to sit on the fence, you need to take a stance and we’re very outspoken on social and political issues. I don’t see that stopping anytime soon, we don’t see ourselves compromising.

Is there any other issue you would like to raise right now?

E: We’ve been campaigning for Leonard Peltier. He’s been in prison in the US since the seventies, he’s an American Indian and we feel that if enough people pressure Obama to grant him clemency, we hope that Obama will listen to the people and grant this innocent, beautiful human being clemency. We tried with Clinton, didn’t work, we’re trying with Obama.

We encourage people to call the White House - even if you’re not from the US - just flood the lines with pleas for clemency for Leonard Peltier!

Do you think all the petitions going around work?

E: No. It has worked to a certain extent but not on the petition alone, petitions are useful and they have a role within social movements but the petition alone will not get anything done.

A petition is only effective if there’s some kind of other strategy involved, it cannot be a strategy in within itself. People need to disrupt institutions of power, people need to take it to the streets, people need to deliver consequences to the system and as long as people do that they will get concessions. That’s how it’s always been throughout history, if people do that they will get something from power. A petition plays a role within that but a signed petition alone is not enough to achieve anything.

Back in the day people used to go onto the streets a lot more, nowadays people think put it on Facebook and its sorted…

E: It’s unrealistic, it’s a way for people to make themselves feel better about themselves like they’ve done something. Delila’s been involved in this a lot longer than I have, she grew up going to protests like that because of her father.

D: The first time I felt like alive and like ‘woah something is happening’, there was this excitement when we were at the protest – think it was a worker’s rights protest. We also used to protest on Thanksgiving: go to Plymouth Rock, for me it was just a normal thing, got to go and protest, it’s not even an angry thing, it’s just something that I always felt the need to do in this world. You have to be out there, you have to keep showing you don’t like what they’re doing to you, we know you’re messing with our rights, we’re here to stop you in any way we can.

E: It’s funny that you say it’s not even an angry thing because we’ve been put on the defensive a lot with our music, our message and as human beings. A lot of times we’re told we’re too angry and I don’t even think so, we’re not angry at all compared to some of the radicals that existed in the sixties, it’s funny how we’re always put on the defensive and accused of being

too angry, I think we should be angry.

Governments taking away our rights, rich people usurping all of our power.

If that doesn’t make you angry what the hell does? Not having Wi-fi?!

First World Problems!

E: People get angry about the weirdest things man, like their latte’s too fucking cold or it wasn’t done to their specification, it’s really weird, our generation’s fucking weird. Years back John Kerry was giving a speech and one of the students got tazed, the famous line was ‘Don’t taze me bro’ but the students watched and they did nothing, they just got home and blogged about it! If someone did that shit in the sixties someone would have got their asses kicked, there would been a revolution right there on campus.

Those days are long gone, the youth is not angry anymore but they feel wronged, they know something’s wrong but it takes bands like ours to get them to open their eyes a little further, get angry and deliver consequences to the system.

Do you think music can be a strong vehicle to try and wake them up?

E: That’s the plan, it’s working, we keep hearing from people that we’ve changed their lives, before our band they didn’t even know that you can protest, that you can have an opinion or say something about power, government, the one percent, they didn’t know! No one gives them a platform ever: at our shows we give fans a platform, we often give them the mic and let them speak. This is what rock and roll’s about, rock and roll needs to be reclaimed by the people, we need to take it out of the clutches of corporatism and all these big corporations and labels, the people need to own this music because it’s their expression, if they cannot express themselves then what are they going to do? They’re just going to be passive obedient citizens, they’re the ones being consumed not the ones consuming.

It’s kind of a generation thing: smartphones – you’re now on 24/7, everything goes fast and you’re distracted by it…

D: I do notice the older generation can think better.

Some say there’s something about technology affecting our brains, I see it all the time; even me, if I’m on the computer too much my brain doesn’t work as well. There are studies that it depletes nutrient in your body…

E: I will say this about the youth though: I feel that they still have rebellious tendencies, they want to rebel but they don’t know where to direct it a lot of times. This generation wants to do something, they just don’t know they can do something and they feel helpless. That’s why socially conscious music is important, for the people listening to this one person could change the course of history, one person could make a difference.

When I was eight/ten years old I always distrusted authority and I didn’t know why and I felt I was never good enough, someone else must have all the answers but it’s not true: believe in yourself, believe in your art and believe in what you do, don’t be afraid to be different and be rebellious, be unique, stand out, it’s OK. Now for the ones that don’t know you tell me about this album…

E: I encourage our fans to steal our debut album, we don’t own it anyway, download it, share it, do whatever, just listen to it and spread the message!

D: It’s called ‘We Will Reign’ and it’s produced by Brendan O’Brien our favourite producer.

Talking of ways to get your music – thoughts on streaming?

E: We’re going to be broke no matter what, there’s always someone up there with a secret/ invisible hand into our pockets taking all our money. Whatever takes power away from the corporations and empowers people who will want the music I’m all for it. Come to shows though as that helps us get from one city to the next and it does put food into our stomachs.

I encourage the people to buy the vinyl, we’re now on Firebrand Records – this label is for the artists - we’re thinking of releasing a 7 inch of new material we’ve been working on in the studio, we don’t know when we’re planning to release that but when we do I tell people to be prepared because it usually goes real quick, our fans are eager to buy two to five copies!

I think that’s what helps keep music alive: when people actually pay to get the vinyl/records and if it goes to the musicians you’re allowing the musicians time to create more music and stuff like that. Other than that – total revolution! People need to take the power back – why are we paying so much for drinks/food/tickets? And the fact they pay it shows how dedicated fans are; we love the people, crowd, fans.

We give them as much as we could possibly give them on stage, we put everything into our show because we know they’re the ones fronting the money; they work hard, they have to work God knows how many hours just to pay for a ticket to sit here for a day or a weekend just to watch the bands they love, and a lot of bands forget this, a lot of bands get paid a lot of money and they forget how they were – we were all fans at one point, we weren’t always musicians you know? They forget that love for art and love for the musicians. That’s one thing I inherited from reading Muhammad Ali’s books and watching that guy, to this day he still makes time for the fans. The humanity is what missing in art today and that’s what we’re trying to put back into it!

And to finish, plans for the near future…

D: We’re putting out a bootleg CD soon including some unreleased stuff and then we’re going to record an official album.

Great music, great show, great guys. Open your ears and let them in. Claim your rock'n'roll back.

When I meet Ash and Thom at Reading festival we all look like we had too many beers already: in fact, we just didn’t have enough sleep. Yep, that’s the whole not so rock’n’roll truth. Still, nothing better than putting the world to rights with the God Damn lads to wake up…

So how many beers have you had?

Thom: It’s not a question of how many beers have we had, it’s how many hours have we slept!

And how many is that?

T: Not enough! We caught up with a mate who used to play in a band called Wet Nuns and now he plays bass for Drenge, we hung out in his dressing room last night, had a couple of beers but we didn’t get drunk or anything, we just had a sociable chat in his dressing room ‘til stupid o’clock in the morning. Pretty tired out, we should probably go to bed early tonight really!

I keep saying the same thing, I slept two hours last night but I know it’s not going to happen! Who’re you hoping to catch on the bill?

Ash: A few of our friends are playing: Peace and Swim Deep are on later on, probably like Limp Bizkit, The Bronx.

Thom: That’s the ones we wanna see really. Go over there to see our mates Peace and Swim Deep, we don’t make music that sounds anything like them but they’re mates of ours, same music scene, we like their music so it’s quite cool, quite fun.

I saw you guys live for the

first time today, great energy, fantastic and you haven’t slept!

T: We’re now sleeping with our eyes open aren’t we? That’s what it is, our bodies are on tick over. To save money on hotels we stopped in our agent’s flat that he still has the keys for but the new people were like moving in so the cleaners were coming to sort things out and we were technically squatting on sofas and stuff like that, trying to save some money. We should have just got a hotel, it’s not that expensive after all!

So it’s safe to say it’s your year, debut album is out and it’s going really well, everyone’s talking about you but you’re still can’t afford a hotel room?

T: Well we can, we’re just tight-arsed northerners, tight-arsed Midlanders but we do actually get a break after this festival, we’re playing Leeds tomorrow and then we’ve got pretty much…

Ash: A month off really.

T: Which is good but then we go on a full UK tour.

I had a look at your schedule – you never stop!

T: I think we need to do that thing where we stop for a bit, tour heavily then take a bit of time off maybe, do some bits and pieces here and there but not as heavy and then back on it again! I think that’s the way. It’ll be Christmas before we know it!

I know! It goes so fast. So the album that came out in May – how long did it take to write?

A: We wrote it in quite a short succession really but that’s why it kind of fits well together I think.

T: We pretty much sat down and wrote an album, it wasn’t like bits and pieces here and there, we just wrote an album. You know how some bands take bits from like two years ago and this, that and the other.

A: It was all over the place.

T: I think that’s pretty much how we do albums anyway, sit and write an album then go and record it, most of it’s done in a week. It’s just the tinkering around afterwards and finding the right person to mix it and mastering, you know finding and picking the right singles and all that kind of stuff, that’s the stuff that takes the time. The actual creative and recording part of it doesn’t take that long really, we just get it done because that’s the bit we enjoy and that’s the bit we’re responsible for and we just get it done, you start getting other people involved and it does actually slow things down at doesn’t it which is nobody’s fault, it’s just part of the way things work.

What made you feel that it was the right time to write an album?

T: We signed a record deal with One Little Indian but we didn’t actually…

A: We were kind of already working on it before we signed to One Little Indian, we had a lot of the songs in the bag before we signed so that wasn’t necessarily the reason why. We don’t really stop writing anyway.

T: We’re always writing and sometimes maybe we’ll write one or two songs every couple of weeks or something, sometimes we’ll go to band practice or we’ll get in a room together or sound checking three or four songs come out and you don’t see even half of what we do, what we actually create, which is how most people work I’m sure.

What inspires you?

T: All the bands we like, all things we smell and probably go into it, we never think ‘we need to sound like this’, we just do what comes out and it still always ends up sounding like us; we’ve done songs that are shuffles, we’ve got swing songs, thrash metal songs, acoustic songs and it always sounds like us. That can be quite a knobheady thing to say but we just do what comes natural to us to do, what we enjoy doing at the time.

Name three records each in particular that made you want to be a musician…

A: Something by Billy Joel!

T: We did a sound check and there was Billy Joel playing, I don’t know much by Billy Joel so I asked Ash, he said yeah and I went this is fucking wicked so our next album’s going to sound like Billy Joel! [chuckles] A: Something by ELO and probably Led Zeppelin IV. If you asked what influenced me afterwards there might be a couple of changes but they gave me the basis of my music.

T: Nirvana, that’s it I think! Nirvana, a lot of nineties grunge. In Utero, Queens Of The Stone Age – Songs For The Deaf and Radiohead – OK Computer.

Quite a mixed bag! Did you expect this record to go so well?

T: We knew it wasn’t to everybody’s taste, my mother always said ‘You know, most people

won’t like the music you make.’ That’s true but we picked up surprising fans, the press was fantastic on it, we’re still building it. We were never going to be that band that were just like *clicks fingers* ‘that’, we are working on and still will be for a long time to come. We want to make a big body of music not just one/three albums, we’ll just keep chipping away but it’s gone down really well!

What do you think sets you apart?

T: We’re two scruffy, chubby blokes from the West Midlands! [laughs] A: Different people like different energy within the music.

T: We have a smile to it, we enjoy what we do: maximum effort, maximum soul. It can be difficult at times because you really are putting your soul on the line and you’re trying to be honest as you possibly can, something we always try and do is you learn a lot about yourself when you’re writing and playing music, you learn restraint, you learn to free yourself a bit.

It’s very hippie ways at looking at it but it’s kind of just making sure it’s honest and if you believe yourself people will believe you.

I don’t think we’re the best thing in the world but some people do and that’s fucking wicked!

Live – there is a lot of energy from you two.

T: It comes from how he (Ash) plays drums, just the attack of everything really. I try to make a little bit of a soundscape, try and not just think I’m competing with all the bands that have loads of members, I want to sound bigger than the bands that have ten members but we never said we want to be a two piece forever, we weren’t a two piece before. We’re a two piece now and it’s working out great and we enjoy doing it but I think as soon as the time’s right to get some other people in we will do.

A: If it’ll benefit the band at any point then of course.

T: It’s not even if it’ll benefit the band, if it just felt right and it would benefit the music more than anything, in theory because we’re so open in

getting other members we’re probably in the current climate of lots of two pieces it would have made sense to get another member, we almost did and it didn’t quite feel right but we might do it again.

Is it more draining when you get off stage?

T: That’s the fun bit isn’t it. If you’re not exhausted you’ve not worked hard enough, if you’re not dead while doing it you’re not alive. You’ve got to really push yourself to the limit, that’s the fun bit. It did age us a little, we’re actually like seventeen years old, it’s just the music’s tired us a little bit hasn’t it. [laughs] You mentioned honesty earlier on, now you’re signed to a label and normally that’s where things start going a little bit not in your direction…

T: That’s the cool thing about our record label.

A: It’s pretty much an indie label so it’s all about the music really and what we want to do.

T: I’d be lying if I say they leave us completely to ourselves, there are some times when they go ‘yeah we like this song, let’s go for this song’ rather than ‘write a song like this, act like this, dress like this, don’t be yourselves’: they have never done that at all. They’ve gone with ‘let’s work with what we’ve got’ rather than work towards what they want.

How did you come up with the name?

A: It was a bit of a joke really to start with, and once we played a few shows it was hard to go back really!

T: We wanted to piss everybody off, our early music – we didn’t even like our early music!

You played in a church last week as well! The wrath didn’t come down…

T: Not at all! I come from a family where my dad’s side are Italian, my grandma was born in a small town in Italy so they’re all Catholics and all my Mum’s side are C of E (Church Of

England) and I’m a humanist. When we signed a record deal it was like ‘Shit, no one’s playing us on the radio because of our name!’ then they just kind of came round to it and liked it in the end, so we get played on the radio and that’s cool.

Some of my favourite bands have horrible names like Selfish Cunt.

Anal Cunt is a good one too!

T: Yeah, Anal Cunt! so it’s not that dodgy a name but it’s just I think we’re more in tune with who we are and less in tune with our name, we know who we are as a band and we just have this name, it’s not like we are God Damn. The church didn’t collapse! Are you Catholic?

Not really, my Mum yes, my Dad not so much. A lot of Italians are Catholic on paper but they don’t really practice or deeply believe in it.

T: On paper in England you’re apparently C Of E, I was christened.

So was I. T: Sometimes I think with Christianity it’s like a social club for a lot of people, I know for my grandparents it’s a community for them. I think you can believe in God and the whole establishment of it is kind of humoured in a way, we just go to this little club because it’s a community rather than it being ‘we actually believe these sandstone walls are the house of God’. If you look at a lot of Christian rules they are kind of humanist rules. Being a humanist is just being nice to people, that moral fibre which religion used to give people, but now people are educated and you don’t need that.

You’ve been touring pretty much since May, now a break then a full Uk tour in October.

T: From London to Glasgow and everywhere in-between. We’re playing Boston Music Rooms, I’ve never been there and it’s supposed to be really good.

It’s a nice venue! There’s a venue next door where if you sell out it might be upgraded to…

T: I think that’s the plan, but we’re not the biggest band in the world!

How big do you want to be?

T: We want to take it as far as we can possibly go!

A: There’s no limit to it.

T: If we end up playing stadiums we end up playing stadiums.

A: Whatever happens, happens really.

T: We’ll take it as far as it will go. I would hate to have a fanbase that thinks we are a cool band of the time, I’m sure that’s all fun and games at the time but I would rather that our records be timeless. I’m sure people will look part of it and say we were part of the two piece revolution or something like that and that’s bollocks, we were never a two piece and we just are at the minute and we won’t always be. I don’t want to be a fad band, it’s so depressing.

I’ve seen it happen with fad bands where they come down and they come down hard because they’ve been used to all kinds of success, there’s this kind of depressing air around it all which further breeds; as fast as the exponential growth goes up the exponential decay comes down.

What are the plans after the tour?

T: There is one but we’re not ready to say yet, we’re just going to carry on recording – an EP of Billy Joel covers! That’d be pretty cool actually, let’s do that! [laughs] Ash gets to do his disco beats again!

That’s the amazing thing.

T: We’ve done shuffle songs and everything in-between, I’m quite happy that we’ve got this band really otherwise I’d have to be in five other bands! [laughs] So fans, readers and curious, how many would pledge for an EP of Billy Joel covers by non other than God Damn? You must admit at least you could not resist a sneaky listen… In the meanwhile, debut album ‘Vultures’ is out now on One Little Indian and you can catch them live in the UK over the next few weeks, dates below.

© Jeremy

Saffer

When John Morgan called Mr Wyndorf to talk about Monster Magnet’s next release, he didn’t expect to debate the possibility of starting a new band with the spacelord himself… Here they discuss old and new records, life on the road, the Temptations, the three albums rule, bandcamp and the youth of today. Read on.

Cobras And Fire (The mastermind Redux) has been labelled as a remix album but I understand you’ve completely recorded it from scratch again. Can you tell us a little bit about the process?

This is so not a remix album man, if that’s a remix album then remix albums are really hard!

I’ve been on a tear lately in the last couple of years taking Monster Magnet into more of a home grown area: all the production stuff is done in my home town two blocks from my house, it’s like a cook factory of cool tones and vibes and me trying to mix and match different instruments. It’s not the same deal as we were five or six years ago when we were in a mainstream mode, and Mastermind was probably the last record we did in a mainstream style fashion and I was nice getting a chance to do it over again.

I wanted this one to be something else so I went in, I did both of those reimagining’s, tried to do them at the same time then they got broken up by touring, but I was in the same mood which was: tear the old shit up, try to do it as fast as possible so it’s not over thought and just

go with instruments that would bring something else out of the material, try and make a different vibe out of it. The risk of failing is high, but the potential for something cool and an alternative listening experience is high as well and I just couldn’t resist doing it.

I heard there was sitar, organs and all sorts on this. How much fun was it to introduce that?

Awesome, there’s something about having to do it differently because you’ve already done it one way that liberates you, it liberates ME! It’s not a matter of ‘should there be a keyboard on this song?’, I already said there’s going to be and we’re going to make it work, I don’t care, we have to make it different! It kind of fuels me to push in areas that I probably wouldn’t have pushed as hard before and it sounds awesome. I went from lo-fi to total hi-fi and back and forth, mix and match, old gear, totally modern stuff, just a barbaric style recording and then high class mixing and vice versa, it’s really fun.

I know Phil [Caivano] had a lot to do with the record as well – was it basically the two of you that dealt with most of the remix stuff?

Yep, once again. Well Bob was involved a little bit too because we re-tracked some drums on ‘She Digs That Hole’ and ‘Hallucination Bomb’, but because of the nature of it already been recorded we had to dissect the original track. I just kept it with Phil and I because it saved time and then we cleaned up the old tracks, which is a major operation especially working with Matt’s old ones: cleaned out any old plugins, any crazy digital shit that was on there from the original - which was totally illegal by the way and not sanctioned by me - and I plugged in the fuzz box and the organs. At that point it seemed faster for me just to work with Phil but as it turned out I learned a big lesson: if I ever do this again I’m just going to rebuild the whole thing with the guys, because I miss the guys and Phil does too.

I always remember you saying Monster Magnet was always a band thing and it always took the four of you together to create music, so this must be a whole new way of doing things for the two of you…

It’s kind of the way I did it at the beginning, it was very much me and John McBain for a little while then me and a producer tracking the band really fast, then overdubbing the shit out of it, and I did that for a long time then I got lazy because it was easier than have everyone just play it. In the middle period of Monster Magnet I got a little bit TOO lazy and the thing was packaged, all done and monitored by a producer while I was on the floor with the band and came out in a way that I think wasn’t imaginative enough, so now I’m trying to work out a way where I’m completely on it as far as tweaking is concerned but also on the floor with the band at the same time.

Mastermind was a 2010 release and it seemed like you guys were going through a really big rise again in popularity. Do you think that had an influence to the classic rock sound that record had originally?

Yeah I guess so, I didn’t think about it too much except I wrote songs with bass in mind like a little ropey; I wanted it to be more classic rock and riff orientated than it had been in the past, a little less all chords and a lot of riffs and did a bunch of stupid things like ‘There’s not going to be one Strat on this album, it’s going to be all Gibson!’. Stupid things like that drove the guitar player out of his mind. That was the point – the major effort was to get that ropey kind of muscular bass driven riffy thing going where we hadn’t had a lot of that; it seems weird but we didn’t and I put Phil on bass. That was the main thing, to have it as natural as possible. What happened was though I managed to get away with a lot of it but some of it slipped away from

me like the way it was recorded: again I was on the floor with the band while someone else was recording it and was enhancing things digitally here and there, which was in my opinion really unnecessary but that’s the way records get made now unless you’re really on it, there’s always ways to make it got a lot faster and not always necessarily good.

My original intent with Mastermind was to make it as muscular as possible and I didn’t really think much beyond that until the record came out and I moved on to Last Patrol; I was going to do Mastermind right and by the time I was onto the reimagining of Last Patrol – I mean the reimagining is just another record – I was like ‘I just missed this, I could have done this on Mastermind, what the fuck was I doing?!’

That’s what always struck me as a fan – I mean to me ‘Milking The Stars’ sounds like a quintessential Monster Magnet record.

Me too, it’s more old school.

That was an inspiration then to re-imagine Mastermind was it?

I kind of made the decision with both the records at the same time. After I did one track for the re-imagined Last Patrol I was like ‘fuck it, let’s do them both!’. The record company heard the first track and were up for it. After ‘Milking The Stars’ was done we went on tour because we’re always on tour; when we got back I opened up Mastermind and thought ‘this is going to be a lot different’. The songs are completely different than on Last Patrol so I had to re-imagine the re-imagining and bring out the best I could in these songs to make them different. Again I love fuzz, I love organ so that what I wanted to put the emphasis on; I also love movie soundtracks too so there’s a lot of that.

You’re doing a cover version of The Temptations’ ‘Ball Of Confusion’ – how did that come about?

© Jeremy

Saffer

© Jeremy

Saffer

We were doing Mastermind and at one point Phil was so fucking tearing it up on bass and Bob was tearing it up on drums I was like ‘everything stop, I just want to record five minutes of us three jamming out Hawkwind style, fucking Lemmy that shit! I don’t know what I’m going to use it for but I just want to hear it’ so we did it, in one take. Those guys completely tore it up and I’m just there keeping time with one note while Phil is jamming/riffing all over the place Lemmy style and Bob’s going nuts and I was ‘that’s fucking awesome, I don’t know what we’re going to use it for but it’s awesome’.

So I forgot about it, put it away and then took it out for the re-imaging but I still didn’t know what to do with it: I got the guitar over the track, started playing and moving chords around over the bass, because the bass isn’t hitting any chords so I’m thinking ‘it’s impossible to do a song like this because the bass is doing whatever it wants’, BUT I figured out a way to make guitar chords not clash with the bass and then for some reason ‘Ball Of Confusion’ popped into my head I don’t know why. I was like ‘Yeah but if Hawkwind played it THIS is what it would sound like!’ then we were off, tracking all these guitars over it and Phil doing leads. It sounds so ancient, the fidelity is barely there but it’s cool!

They always had that ‘less is more’ quality in those sort of songs, real soul to them.

Totally! This is the vibe, it’s like cinema: sometimes you want CGI, sometimes you just want fucking black and white!

I understand Tim Cronin added backing vocals to the cover – how did that happen?

I was sitting imagining the whole ‘Ball Of Confusion’ thing, singing it in the room and in my mind heard background vocals; there’s not a call and response on The Temptations version but for some reason it seemed like there should be another voice. Tim’s right around the corner which is one of the good things about the way I record now: it’s close to my home, Tim lives right next door to me, it’s not like living in Canada or LA or something. I just got on the phone and he said

‘Ball Of Confusion? Yeah, fuck yeah!’ and he walks over, done. Tim should be a singer on a Monster Magnet record.

In the UK some of the recent tours you have done have been showcasing specific albums, are ‘Spine Of God’ and ‘Dopes To Infinity’ ones you would re-imagine in the future?

Possibly, if it comes to it. It’s weird, I have my fill of re-imaging right now after doing two in a row but anything’s possible. I always wanted to re-record ‘Superjudge' as I always thought it was a little light in the loafers and I got into a studio situation I wasn’t happy with on that one.

It was my first multi track record and I always thought that could be heavier and a little tripped out, but aside from that I’m going to stay away from a while until it hits me again. I guess it’s my job now to write a new record.

Do you ever get to that point as an artist where you just to want to concentrate on what you want to do?

Oh yeah, it gets to a point where you’re just not into it and if you’re not 100% into it it’s going to suck so you might as well not do something new, because your fans or the people that know you have had such an attachment to your older music that there’s no way you can beat it out.

It’s like that horrible law of rock where after three albums you have to suck! I may be old but I don’t forget that law, I never planned for Monster Magnet to be around this long. I’ve been walking around out of my element at all times like ‘what, we’re still around?! I thought it was five years ago’ and people are like ‘dude, that was TWENTY FIVE years ago!’. My answer to that always is we’ve got to go on the road because I can get lost on the road, when you’re on the road you don’t think about how long you’ve been around, you’re just in it and when I get home and have to write it just seems to come out brand new again in my head. But after eleven albums I do recognise the point that no matter what I’m thinking there may be something in my way and when you’ve been in a band/ been a writer for twenty years the thing that’s in your way is you! Your previous material stands in the way of your new material, I mean everybody does it, that’s the law and I try really hard not to obey that law.

Part of this re-imagination thing is some of that: until I’m ready to write something I really want to write I’m going to fuck around anyway. It doesn’t mean I don’t like music at all and these two re-imaginations I’m totally glad I did it, I’m not embarrassed by them at all, this latest one is better off being out there than not being out there.

People can make up their minds but at the end of the day it’s better to get it out there.

Yeah. The thing is the way I release records now, my mindset for the modern world is not to let everyone judge it at that time and go this is a reaction to the previous one, this one has to top the last one. I don’t think that way anymore, I think in terms of body of work: how is this going to swim around in the Monster Magnet soup five years from now, instead of ‘I have to make a record that does something the absolute opposite of ‘Milking The Stars’’ or ‘have to top it because people don’t really listen to music like that anymore’ but I don’t think people make up their minds on records until four/five years after they’ve come out. We’re on this horrible treadmill: so many releases, so many bands, nobody pays THAT close attention to something until it’s had a chance to ferment.

With a lot of the bands you don’t get the ones that are around for ten years releasing seven/eight records – it all seems very throwaway.

Yeah, a year. They’re basically playing bandcamp, they’re just taking advantage of modern

We’ve decided in culture not to make great art anymore, we’ll just slap each other in the back, drink our own Kool-aid and make shit up! Do you like me? Yes. Press like. Do I like you? Yes. Press like. OK we’re in it, we’re all good. Un-fucking-believable! That’s a horrible expression: all good, it’s not all good, the kids AREN’T alright.

technology which means if you can get a couple of sounds going for forty five minutes, make an album cover and put it on Bandcamp that means you’re a band. In the old days that never would have flown – in the Seventies to be a band you really had to work, have many records, tour like all the time, you have to go in one hundred percent; now that doesn’t count anymore.

Now you and I right now could start a band and have it on Bandcamp like in a week, we could email stuff back and forth and even if it was shit people would pay: between you and I we could come up with a really cool band name and cover! [laughs] You can handle the music side!

We play off that Wyndorf’s in Monster Magnet, the guy from Monster Magnet and this guy do a totally new thing and we could write something that’s the best thing in the world, between you and I we could write something like God came down and put his dick in your mouth!

I’m going to hop on a flight to New Jersey in a minute!

The actual music would be like [Dave does something equivalent to say the likes of SunnO)))] but if we made it mysterious enough, we would count as a band. Now that’s totally new, so many can do that and they do it all the time, maybe not quite that simple but pretty damn near it. A lot of people got bands that are not really working out, the kind that are just like ‘yeah, you’re going to be a band in two years but you’re giving it all away now, I don’t want the beginning I want the finished stuff, you’re clogging up the arteries here’. That explains how all the digital space – which we thought was infinite – turned out to be really close; it’s not infinite at all, we hit a wall so fast! It’s unbelievable: culture’s gone [makes a raspberry sound].

We’ve decided in culture not to make great art anymore, we’ll just slap each other in the back, drink our own Kool-aid and make shit up! Do you like me? Yes. Press like. Do I like you? Yes. Press like. OK we’re in it, we’re all good. Un-fucking-believable! That’s a horrible expression: all good, it’s not all good, the kids AREN’T alright.

It’s going to be a couple of generations before things get cooler I think.

Things have just changed that quickly.

That’s what change is all about. It makes sense to me, in the twentieth century we taught ourselves to look up to people that were on a screen in movies and in magazines, now technology allows us to make their own movies and magazines, the template is set, that’s more of a focus than on ours. Poetry right now – which is the way Rock and Roll was seen in the sixties/seventies – is going back to the dance thing for the mainstream: music is something for us to shake it out and then go back to our lives and we’re the stars of own life.

I get it – Facebook and social media, I’m going to brand myself but the thing that’s lost is for the most part you guys aren’t that good; it doesn’t mean you’re a bad human but everybody doesn’t get to be a good artist. But who am I to say that, what’s the definition of suck, life, friend?

That’s changed. I don’t know where I am, I just do what I do off in the fourth dimension!

Are we going to see you guys soon in UK/Europe?

I’m trying to get some action on in general because I’m going to write some stuff and it takes some time to sit on it and work it out with the band, so in the meantime I want to tour at the top of the year and that’ll definitely mean the UK. Europe and the UK keep the promise of good music alive. The US is tough, the bottom line is if it’s inconvenient for anyone it’s pretty much out: so if it’s inconvenient for a bar/club to upgrade their PA system they won’t do it. If it’s inconvenient for a fan to go watch something, he won’t.

Inconvenience is ruling everything so the taste for new live music and weirdness has really

gone down here, the country that invented rock and roll is now the lamest place to play. How did this happen? I think the culture is disposed of more quickly here while places like the UK remember their culture, they’re more in touch with their culture and their songs, there’s waves of generations in the UK that love fucking music and they love it from a lot of different times: they remember being punk rockers, when Nirvana came in, Goth came in and they put them all in these spots that were very revered; they may show some shit back and forth, Goth sucks , metal rules, but you know at the heart they have a love for it. In America sometimes I wonder, America’s all like ‘What’s new?’

That’s the way I feel in how western culture is changing. it may be changing a lot more than I think, but I just see America leading the charge: more me, less everything else.

Many bands say they find touring in the States not very rewarding…

We had a great tour but as opposed to Europe it was nothing to compare. There’s a lot of weird stuff going on: litigation, finances and everything, nobody gets into these shows unless they’re twenty one years and if you’re a rock band you have to play to twenty one and up and that’s it?! Rock and roll only exists as a limbless torso without kids involved, the only way they get into shows are package shows and festivals. It’s not the way it used to be, rock and roll was a normal part of life when I was a kid, most of the places that had music shows also served alcohol. Now it’s places that serve alcohol that may or may not have music so these guys haven’t figured out a way to make a profit on just music, they’ve decided to go for the money and if that means excluding certain age limits that’s fine and the kids are falling in line, they’re not being exposed to a lot of live music like it used to be, you can see a couple of generations stuck in their ‘tweens’ because there’s so much marketing to twelve year olds.

It’s no mistake why this stupid Justin Bieber shit is so big, the marketing behind it to twelve year olds it’s amazing and for the first time the guys like it, un-fucking-believable! Can you imagine you and I as a kid going Justin Bieber’s cool? We’d get the shit beaten out of us! The kids aren’t alright and when they try to take it back with electronic music, well that’s just too easy for a kid to go ‘I’m a fucking renegade, beep, boop, bop ,boop. No! You’re not. Where’s the songs?

Do you find with personal life settled it makes it easier to tour?

Yeah, absolutely. I know I’ve got some peace and quiet but my life on the road has gone on so long I can’t honestly say if I don’t like that better even though it takes a lot of me, there’s a forward motion and there’s a thing that happens with live touring, people around us, we’ve got a mission and it never got old to me and sometimes I feel more at home out there but right now they juxtapose each other very nicely.

That’s the key.

Balance was not my strong suit in the past but it’s a lot better now.

Any message for the UK fans?

Make your own fucking future dudes, don’t just sit back and consume. Make something that’s worth listening to and if you see bullshit call it out, it’s not impossible to call out bullshit. That’s the one thing I don’t see now, I see everyone trying to be a reviewer, if you’re not happy with something speak out and say why isn’t there more good shit? Don’t just complain about personal artists you don’t like, say how come I read about history thirty years ago and it seemed to be better? If you feel you’re not getting something out of art make it known!

Cobras And Fire (The mastermind Redux) is out on 9th October on Napalm Records. As we go to print, there is no update on any possible bandcamp project…

It’s been a few months since our first encounter with Trampolene’s charming young frontman Jack Jones. This time bassist Wayne joins us for an obligatory update on one of the hottest new bands on the map. According to our chat last time, Wayne also takes care of the rock’n’roll side of things for both of them, but today we’re all sipping green tea in even greener Muswell Hill…

Let’s start talking about pocket album number three coming up, ‘It’s not rock’n’roll’, out on October 2nd but already available for pre-order on iTunes and making a lot of noise (since we talked, the title track and first single made it to BBC Radio 1 Huw Stephens’ playlist and was track of the week on XFM)…

J: There’s five tracks on it as always: one poem, the new single which is It’s Not Rock & Roll, another track called Concept Lover. The poem’s called Ketamine…

I think I’ve heard it live.

J: You have, yeah. There’s another track we do as well - just me and Wayne - called ‘No One’s Got Love Like We’ve Got’ and our first cover, ‘Tonight Will Be Fine’ by Leonard Cohen.

And of course all the rest: poems, all the videos, some of Wayne’s paintings. All the stuff we

usually do, I can’t remember what it is, we just kind of gather as much as we can all the time!

How many of those pocket albums have you got out now?

There’s two out at the moment so we’ve been quite steady on it, quite well. If you think about it we could have had two albums out by now. Maybe more!

You have an album out actually, out in Japan… How did that happen?

We were approached by some fans basically.

W: Just stuff we stuck out like singles or tracks off pocket albums, they wanted to compile it for people in Japan and sell it as a kind of album, not a best of but they just picked what they wanted to compile.

People have been importing it over in England as well!

W: It’s the first CD that’s gone out, we’ve always been putting out either digitally or on vinyl so it’s the first time people had a chance to get stuff out on CD. J: They were just really sweet, they came together with the idea and asked us, it was made for fans by fans. You can import it now on Amazon and it’s quite funny because it’s all in Japanese, the lyrics are in English, there’s an interview with me in HMV apparently translated into Japanese and there was one person from Japan who came to Swansea just to visit the town of where his favourite band grew up and he took photos of all the little places there.

We have a song called Swansea to Hornsey, he called it Tokyo to Swansea or something like that!

I did see some people with cameras around Hornsey not that long ago!

He came up to Hornsey, took photos on the train, tweeting about us.

You’ve gotta love Japanese people…

We do!

You’re getting a really strong fanbase, thanks to the music and the kind of band that you are…

What kind of band is that then?

One that’s a little bit different, wearing their heart on a sleeve and putting out more than music on a CD. Speaking of which, Jack, you’ve also been doing some spoken word stuff as well lately…

Yeah, I’ve done my first two spoken word shows, very funny – well it was for me!

Was the audience the same from gigs?

Kind of, the first one was at The Great Escape festival in Brighton and the second one was Stoke Newington Literary Festival so it was very strange. Lots of people read from books, phones and stuff, I just try to remember it all! Unless I really remember the poem I don’t feel that it’s finished, it’s got to be that well known in me before I can even say it.

W: It’s not like you read sheet music when you play a gig!

J: Exactly! It’s the same principle I suppose, that’s probably what the band brings to my words.

You are right though, it’s partly why we’re creating the family, that’s what it’s all about. I have got a family but not relationships in that way so I put all my love into the band, fans are as close to me as anyone else.

Wayne – you’re the visual artist in this. Do you do the artwork or will you be doing so?

I contributed, my old man’s got a good selection of photographs so we put our heads together and knock stuff up. Maybe it’ll happen but there’s no rush really.

Let’s go back a few months after we met and everything that has been going on since: Isle Of Wight, then Glastonbury so there’s been a moment where things really picked up for you guys…

J: With Glastonbury I put out the ‘Health & Wellbeing – At Wood Green Job Centre’ poem and The Guardian did a piece on that; somehow it got sent to someone at Greenpeace and they were really interested in me doing a spoken word set and somehow they found out I was in a band, loved the band and wanted them to do a slot instead. With that more people noticed the band and we got Isle Of Wight, Koko…

How was the residency?

It was surreal, it was like having a taste of what life could be like for us if we keep our heads together.

W: Each one got busier, the first one was quite busy, the last one was packed from the floor to the roof really, rarely do I look at the crowd because my hair’s in my eyes but I took the opportunity to check it out this time, pretty insane.

Are you thinking of doing more residencies?

J: I don’t know what we’re planning to do London wise yet because the tour we’ve got coming up is regional, none in London. We’re just trying to get out of London for a bit, I would do another at Koko probably or try somewhere else because you can bring that vibe into the night and it becomes a bigger thing.

Glastonbury – big crowds, legendary festival. Any nerves at all?

Not at all. There was people from Japan there and they were at the front waving a massive flag they’d made specially. It was great, really sweet. It was good because loads of people came to see us at four o’clock and then it got delayed by two hours, everyone left and I thought ‘oh shit, no-one’s going to come back!’ By ten to six it was full again so that meant as much to me as the actual gig itself.

Did you check out any other bands?

We watched LOADS! We honestly had the most amazing time, I thought it was one of the best times of my life!

W: We made sure we covered the whole festival and it was something!

J: We saw John Cooper Clarke, that was amazing for me.

Someone actually compared you to him...

That’s a sweet thing to say but how I see spoken word world, if you’re a film director and you want to make a Sci-fi movie you can’t make one without someone mentioning 2001 because it’s like an all encompassing [movie] that just owns the genre; John Cooper Clarke owns that genre so anytime you do work inside that genre it’s compared to someone like him.

W: In painting you can’t do abstract or cubist without being compared to Picasso.

J: Exactly. You just accept that and get on with it. There’s also a lot of Dylan Thomas in what I do, somewhere between those two is where I think I am a bit if I’m lucky!

We also did a massive DJ set at Glastonbury which is amazing.

Do you still do those Spotify playlists?

J: Yeah, it was that kind of thing, we had everyone singing along.

What did you play?

Libertines, basically a classic indie disco, songs that people like to sing along to, it was a silent thing so when you take your headphones off and people are singing the music it’s the most beautiful sound.

Which songs went down best?

‘Last Nite’ by The Strokes. And some Smiths probably, I can’t remember!

W: We didn’t sleep much at Glastonbury so it’s hard to remember, I remember my hair was pink and my face was covered in paint! [LOUD laughter] Only from the photograph mind, I didn’t realise at the time.

Did you survive at Glastonbury by drinking tea Jack?

J: I did, I had to look after Wayne! He’s amazing when it comes to being absolutely abolished and being with it, he’s like on another planet but on point if that makes any sense.

Any times off point?

When we were leaving he couldn’t find where he parked the car!

That’s a classic.

Yeah but it’s a big place to lose it, SOMEHOW we found it! We didn’t sleep, we just wanted to take in everything about it. We did the Friday at Koko then went straight to Glastonbury; we didn’t leave Koko on Friday until 4am and we were playing Glastonbury at 3pm Saturday!

Sometimes I find if you don’t sleep and have a really charged weekend you feel better.

W: From experience it’s pretty stimulating…

Were you camping?

J: Yeah we had Rob’s tent!

Did he get it back?

I don’t know actually! It changed us Glastonbury, even the sound man at Koko said we’d always played well but the show we did after was so different, it can just magically tune you in even more. People really listened, people usually when they come to Koko jump around and go mad but at Glastonbury they’re actually just listening to your music.

Could it be because you were new to them or is it just a general thing?

I think that from the more bands I watched even on the main stage at say Reading everyone’s jumping around where at Glastonbury it’s a different kind of vibe, everyone’s a little more chilled out so that’s why I think poems work at Glastonbury; when we were at Koko it was important to keep music behind the poems because everyone wants to keep going mental.

W: It gave us a chance to be festival goers, we were on the same page as everyone else and that got embedded in us when we came back I think.

No Japanese following you around while you were watching bands?

J: We were with them for quite a while, I remember having a picture with them while I was holding the flag, I loved it!

You’ve never played in Japan?

Never been there.

W: We’ve played Paris a few times.

J: We did some amazing shows supporting Carl [Barat], that’s as far as we’ve gone.

You said you were trying to get out of London for a bit, does that mean shows outside

!

the UK as well?

I’d love to. I think we are going back to Paris because there’s something awesome about the gigs, something really special.

If you think how well it went for Peter [Doherty] allowing himself to express every face of his muse…

Poet and a painter in the band, where else are we going to go to than Paris!

It just sounds right! Any other countries?

Japan, love to go all over the world but more important to me is making the greatest art we can and see where that takes us.

You have a lot of material out – do you have a particular favourite?

I think personally the ‘Artwork of Youth’ poem might be something people remember me by. That changed a lot of the perception of the band because even though we were never the kind of standard rock and roll band I always felt we had intricate thoughts that would put us somewhere totally different, no other band could really scratch that kind of itch.

Lot of people have commented particularly on the end – isn’t it nice to know they are listening to the whole thing?

Yeah, that is sweet. That comes through with everything we do, it’s a whole journey.

W: When people sing the words back – we played a festival in France, they knew the words better than us! When they remember a poem from start to finish…

So many bands’ songs pass by these days.

J: When you go to gigs you see bands and people sing along, it’s quite strange to see people do a poem, when they finish the poem for me that was a funny thing that I noticed!

When I saw you at Camden Rocks I heard a Poundland poem I quite liked…

When I had the idea of doing the poem and I wrote down about what I saw, there’s a Patti Smith song Birdland and I just thought it was quite interesting and I thought I could do something with that. Poundland was funnier so I went with it. It’s one of the most amazing songs, she’s speaking over piano at the start. Whenever I listen to a band or artist I wonder what they want me to do; if I’m listening to Patti Smith I’m thinking what is she trying to tell me, there I thought she was telling me to write Poundland! When you get that feeling it’s impossible to ignore for me.

Did you see the Banksy? It was a little kid in a sweatshop, I think someone bought it to keep it off there.

That was near our flat! I was there when he went down and saw it.

W: I remember we broke down in the van that night and lost our trainers as well!

J: How did we lose them?

W: Stood in dog shit!

J: A colossal amount!

You live in Muswell Hill now rehearsing, recording…

Rob, our drummer, is one of my best friends from Swansea and he joined the band really recently, he still lives in Swansea and comes up for rehearsals and gigs every week. We live in the flat with my sister and Rob comes up. He’s been amazing in his own way, some life and energy that’s really important.

Last time we asked you where you saw the band going? Is that any clearer now?

W: Keep expanding, reaching more people.

How are you guys at the moment regarding getting signed?

We do what we want but if anyone ever did sign us it’d be great for our fans because we’d have more time to make great art for our people and our families. We just make sure it’s worth checking out, talking to your friends about, coming to see us. The only way you can stand out is be yourself, be so unique. We just want to keep going, we’ve got people helping us like MI7 making sure the music goes to everyone on Spotify, it’s at least out there for people to find.

Would you compromise?

I don’t think we could!

I find a lot of times labels don’t understand what fans want and that just kills the artist.

That couldn’t happen – the root of what we are is people come through in our band, that is THE absolute thing, whether you’re a success or not doesn’t really matter. The way I see it is like a poet and a painter started a band and started a revolution!

If something really amazing happens for Trampolene and you want to throw the biggest party for your fans, where would it be and what would it be like?

Wayne would have to decide! I could maybe greet people as they came in, it would have to have Wayne’s paintings and poems around.

W: Buckingham Palace!

Hell Yeah! I think that’d be big enough!

W: It’d just be a gathering on a bigger scale than what we do at the moment! No guards!

J: It was quite ridiculous our dressing room at Koko, it was almost as full backstage than in the actual venue. That’s the way we are, no pretence, no act. We’d never be obnoxious to our fans because we’re the same.

Anything else?

There might be a Pocket Album four quite soon. Who knows!

If you had to do a proper album would it still be in that style?

We probably will have to. Most new bands’ work really is depressing – they live off one single/ EP for a year!

W: You learn what a band are about, one song isn’t going to say much.

J: It’s not about one song or a haircut, it’s a way of life and that’s the truth. It seems crazy to bank your whole life on a hit record, I can’t see how a band can do that, it makes no sense, it has to be about the whole story. And when you come into our world, everything comes from a sincere place.

Pre-order/Buy ‘It’s Not Rock’n’Roll’ here https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/its-not-rock-roll-pocket-album/id1028990526 And catch Trampolene live in Birmingham on 25th and Bristol 26th September, before they move to France or get kidnapped by Japanese.

More dates will be available soon, just follow the lads on Facebook (trampoleneofficial) and Twitter (@Trampolene_Band) to find out!

I meet Sisteray again at Dublin Castle, where they’re playing the first of two Camden gigs tonight - the second is a late one at Barfly’s Jubilee Club. This time they can’t get away. There’s a lot happening for one of the most up and coming bands in London’s flourishing music underground, and we need to get the lowdown…

So how did tonight’s first gig go? I only caught the end courtesy of TfL… D: Went really well, it was ramshackingly brilliant and that’s the only way to describe it, it didn’t go to plan at all which is not a bad thing.

It was actually supposed to be a secret gig so that’s what you want.

N: Spontaneous!

I hear you had your guitar repaired by someone in the crowd?

D: What happened was halfway through a song one of my strings went and the band brilliantly carried on the song in my guitar’s absence; I quickly picked up Niall’s guitar, carried on, at the same time by some miracle my old man found someone who owns a guitar shop in the crowd who restrung the guitar for me and then we carried on as normal!

It’s important to be able to deal with these kind of situations when they happen.

M: We hope one day to have two/three guitars on stage but at the moment we can’t, smash it against the floor then carry on but we can’t afford to.

You played the Dublin Castle and next is the Barfly…

D: We announced we were doing a secret gig here about a month ago, two weeks ago the Libertines announce one… I think Peter’s subscribed to our mailing list, he’s tracked us down and is copying our every move! They stole our idea and got there first! [laughs] What do you think of Gunga Din? D: The poem or the song? I’m a massive Kipling head myself so I like the poem, the song’s got a good ska feel to it.

M: I’m a big fan of the Libertines and I love all their old stuff but Gunga Din’s my favourite song of theirs by far.

N: Really? It’s good but it’s not my favourite song of theirs.

M: I just feel like it’s an anthem, something people can sing along to.

Aside from the Libertines, what influences Sisteray?

D: At the moment we’re living in austerity which is the popular word of the time, basically just a word meaning raping poor people and massaging rich people… As poor people ourselves that’s our main influence and you can hear that, as times are getting shittier our songs are getting more reflecting that.

M: It’s easy to list influences by other bands and obviously we have ours in our songwriting, playing, whatever: bands like Arctic Monkeys so to speak. But we’re more influenced by times, how you stand up against everything that’s wrong at the moment.

D: Mainstream artists won’t say this but we will… The music industry is a reflection of the times. Today the Tories for example support big business over people and the same thing has happened in the music industry. it’s what’s killing the Camden scene and the Shoreditch scene, because the major labels are profiting in the times that we’re in while independent labels, record shops, venues are disappearing. We’re running out of places to rehearse; Denmark Street’s gone and nothing grass roots is getting supported.

It reflects the times because working class people aren’t getting supported, the rich people are getting supported by the Government and the poor are getting shafted. As a result promoters are being forced to charge bands to play a gig instead of paying them. They pay them £16 for bringing fifty people and bands are giving up. People think there are no indie bands at the moment because people aren’t into that music, it’s not that! It’s because promoters’ revenue streams are getting thinner so they’re paying the bands less and the bands are getting disheartened and giving up.

FREE TUNES ALERT!!!

We have a live recording from Sisteray's epic Barfly show to share with our readers.

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N: There isn’t many coming through but the ones that are doing big gigs are reunited bands, so I think kids these days are short changed. When we were that sort of age getting into music we had Arctic Monkeys, Kooks, stuff like that, a load of small bands, now you’ve got nothing really.

D: I hear a lot of bands can do it themselves, act like a record label and get their music out there, but if you look at the fringe mainstream bands out there nowadays that are kind of similar: Catfish And The Bottlemen, Circa Waves and Slaves, they’re all signed to major record labels and there’s no independent scene at the moment! You get this ethos about any band can do it themselves, so why aren’t there any independent record labels around?!

Pledge was supposed to be a thing for independent bands like you guys to get some support from your fans and put out an album without a record deal, but now it’s being kind of hijacked by major labels and used as a pre-order system.

D: I have to say we did a gig for Pledge and they were lovely, I don’t know too much about

it, we haven’t used it ourselves. It’s like any platform. I don’t think it’s Pledge’s fault, it seems like anything that can get popular the major labels hijack.

N: Companies like Pledge can’t afford not to take money from the major labels; they can throw a few million quid at it, at the end of it we get affected because we can’t use Pledge like we used to, now it’s completely advertising.

D: As a disclosure Joe at Pledge is a lovely man and I do think they genuinely set that up to help bands like us and still do help bands like us!

It absolutely wasn’t a dig at Pledge but at the labels hijacking it as you say and monopolizing the market.

D: It goes full circle, it goes back to the point we were saying about everything becoming mainstream. If bands like us haven’t got enough to invest into things like Pledge, then what is Pledge, unless major labels come along and invest in it? Don’t get me wrong you NEED big bands to invest in something for it to be relevant, but when you get a monopoly like we’ve got at the moment with a few major labels engulfing every independent that gets a bit successful, it’s not healthy. Monopoly isn’t healthy in any form of life.

Just look at the farmers, with people not shopping in local supermarkets anymore: Tesco, Sainsburys and Waitrose can charge what they like and pay the farmers what they like, it’s the same sort of model for music. The difference is music is not bread, butter and milk: music is an art form, music should have different cultures, different influences and in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s you had a wide range of independent labels that were popular, you had money invested into these independent record labels.

N: It happened to Rough Trade and Creation. At the moment looks like they’ll just buy up anything that’s making money or flourishing, then just sanitize it.

What’s your recipe to get your band noticed nowadays?

D: You’ve got to be different. Everyone’s online: Facebook, Spotify all that, but no one does it like we do, from the ground up. We’re a fans band and we only did this Dublin Castle gigs for the fans. We’ve got a late gig at Barfly and rather than make everyone hang around forever we’ll do a gig at Dublin Castle, give something back to the fans that have supported us through this journey.

When did this journey start?

D: This journey started a year ago; before that we were together as a band playing music but we weren’t as focused as we are now. We did it for two years on our own, the way you think you should do music, the way we were brought up through the 80s/90s: you play some songs then get a label involved. Then we got ourselves a manager. He says the music industry isn’t as simple as that anymore and now we’ve got a direction, a waypoint.

N: A year ago when Marco joined and I think he’s made a massive difference in how tight we are overall and structurally.

You played Italy as well, how was that?

D: Amazing! The people were brilliant, I had this stupid stereotypical thought in my head but they were some of the chilled people I’ve ever met, most genuine people, accepting of these four lads that had come over. They treated us amazing and took to the music. We can’t wait to go back!

I hear you guys are about to lock yourselves in a studio… What can you tell us?

Mi: We’ve got three days with Rory Atwell who’s produced The Vaccines, Palma Violets and just finished with The Ordinary Boys. We have a plan!

D: He did say The Ordinary Boys were a bit chaotic and that boys will be boys!

N: We’re doing an EP of maybe three songs.

D: We’re going to spill blood, love and guts and give it to the people.

When is it planned to be out?

Mi: Late Autumn is the plan.

D: And then back on the road – Bedford Rocks, Hope festival in Liverpool, Wycombe, Portsmouth! A lot to come!

Let’s say you get signed and you want to celebrate where would the party be?

Mi: It’d be somewhere in Camden , everyone’s invited.

D: If something happens we will do a free gig and everyone will be invited!

Even if said label wouldn’t agree with a free gig?

Mi: We don’t care.

D: We don’t give a shit. We’re all from Irish/Italian working class backgrounds so if I got too big for my boots my dad would beat the shit out of me. It’s not going to fucking happen.

Mi: At the end of the day we are where we are because of the fans and if they want something back they can have something, it doesn’t matter about labels or anyone else.

D: Five years from now you can call me on it – if we get somewhere and if I got too big for my boots I’ll buy you a car!

So world domination on the horizon?

D: That’s a bit Illuminati! We’re going to sack our manager and get the Rothschild family to take over, Madonna and Jay-Z are going to join the band as backing vocals and we’ll get Russell Brand on the team.

Mi: We’re going to record this one, record another one and go from strength to strength.

D: I don’t know the Rothschild personally and I hope they don’t kill me…

Mi: They will.

D: I’m probably going to die after that comment.

Who would you get as a replacement?

Mi: Anyone. Probably an Italian! Marco knows people.

Plans for the Barfly?

Mi: We carry on and make it a better night than this already was and make sure it was worth it.

N: Longer set as well. You never know what’s going to happen.

Mi: We do this to give a voice to those that don’t have one in society at the moment, so if it’s worth standing up for yourself come to one of our gigs we’ll give you a soundtrack.

If there was a song to represents Sisteray which one would it be?

D: There’s a new one called Welcome To The Monkeyhouse… The lyrics are I live how I like, how I choose, I’ll die when I want. We’re getting told if you’re disabled and on benefits, you’re wrong. If you’re a migrant from a less fortunate country, you’re getting bombed and you want

a better life by coming to a country that’s supposed to be loving and caring – you’re a wrong person.

N: If you’re young and you’ve not got money you’re fucked really, no university grants anymore.

D: We’re in a time where everyone’s supposed to be accepted but you’re not if you’re different. We don’t want that, we want every type of person at our gigs, anyone that enjoys music, everyone’s welcome, it’s anti-everything those fuckers at 10 Downing street tell you!

If you had to pick the next London mayor who would it be?

D: I don’t believe in power, I believe in shared collectivism. But if it had to be one person it’d be Silvio Berlusconi.

Oh god.

Mi: I’ll have a go at London Mayor!

I’ll vote for you, especially if Berlusconi is the alternative…

So there, we’ve got it all figured out, forget Khan and Goldsmith - especially considered the latter is married to a Rothschild and Dan might never play in London again. It’s Mick vs Berlusconi: let the bets begin.

In the meanwhile, go check out Sisteray if you haven’t yet before the powers to be manage to gag them. There’s a couple of dates early October in Uxbridge (2nd) and Southsea (8th) and more being officially booked and secretly plotted as we speak.

You can find out those and everything else you need to know on Facebook and Twitter, they’re @sisterayuk on both.

Fuck the system. Fuck the power. Not the pigs, David!

With ninth studio album ‘I Worship Chaos’ come some changes at the Bodom camp; it’s the dawn of the next chapter for the group, as Janne Wirman explains to us their plans for touring with Megadeth, why they decided to cover Danger Zone and his thoughts on Pledge…

How was it working with Mikko once again?

We’ve done a lot of work with him before so he knows what we want and he knows exactly how we should sound like and things like that.

What was your keyboard setup for this album in particular?

As we took down the guitar tuning one more step it gave it a more brutal and dark sound so I wanted to match the keyboard stuff to that in some parts so what I did was I ran the keyboards through the analog distortions that I got and made them really over the top distorted and that’s something different that I haven’t done before. I think it really fits the overall darker mood.

With this record there was a lineup change with Alexi [Laiho] doing the majority of the guitar work and also as we’re getting to album number nine what are your thoughts on the band dynamic at this point?

Alexi did play the guitars for this album but I don’t think that was a problem because he knows how to play all the guitars [laughs]. We made the best of that situation, of course it was very unfortunate for us to quit working with Roope [Latvala] but we are in the process of finding a new member.

I know your brother did it for one show recently…

Yeah, my brother has been filling in for the summer and actually he is going to be with us until the end of this year but then I think early next year we’re going to announce a new

member.

What are your thoughts on the touring life these days?

Even though it can be hard it’s why we release albums to go back on tour – we’re all about the touring and the live show so I can’t wait to get this album out there and go back on tour.

Since you mentioned that releasing albums is done to enable you to tour what are your thoughts on the new ways to receive music such as Spotify and Apple Music?

It’s killed all the physical record sales in that sense maybe the live show and touring is even more important but the streaming thing, there’s no money for the artists and it just doesn’t really make any sense.

So far we’ve heard the title track and Morrigan off I Worship Chaos – firstly at the end of I Worship Chaos there’s a moment that causes some laughter in the studio, whose decision was it to put that in?

Oh yeah! It was recorded when we were doing the gang shouts and the producer saved some of those takes where we were just laughing after the take and I think didn’t even approved it with us he just left it in the end of the song and he knew if we hated it we’d cut it out in mastering something but it was a fun little moment in the middle of the album!

What is your favourite track on the new album?

I do like the title track a lot because it’s pretty brutal. It shows the heavier side of things but there’s a lot of tracks like ‘My Bodom’ that’s a classic Bodom song, it has all the usual ingredients in it.

Now on the bonus edition the tradition of covers continues with Plasmatics (Mistress Of Taboo), Kenny Loggins (Danger Zone) and Amorphis (Black Winter Day) - what was the reasoning behind those three and were any other songs considered?

Our cover versions tend to be as random as possible so all three are pretty random! We had a couple of other ideas but in the end we went with these three – the Amorphis thing is a challenge with them to record a cover of a COB song so I think one of their bonus tracks

will be a COB cover.

What are the plans regarding Warmen? I know that there was a Pledge campaign…

Yeah there was last year, right now there’s currently no plans but I’m hoping that next year we get a little bit of a touring break from COB we hopefully can do something.

How was it working with Pledge?

It was kind of weird, it wasn’t great – they fucked up a lot of things so we probably won’t be working with them again. We got a couple of messages from fans who had pledged but never received the fucking album, that’s not how it’s supposed to work!

How are things with the Beyond Abilities studio?

There’s a couple of projects going on that I have lined up now I have a little break before touring starts, I am doing an album for my brother’s band called No Man’s Land.

Of course you’ll be touring with Megadeth, Lamb Of God and Sylosis later this year.

Looking forward to it, we’re doing a full European tour with Sylosis and co-headline with Lamb Of God and with the UK dates Megadeth got added to the bill so that gives us a chance to play bigger venues!

With the rise of Australia based metal, it’s our turn to recommend some Eighties inspired thrash metal in Harlott. Andrew Hudson speaks to us about whether he considers the band to primarily be a political thrash band, his personal best and most overlooked thrash albums and thoughts on touring with Annihilator.

Which song would you say is your personal favourite on Proliferation?

Hard to say, there is a lot on the album that we are really proud of. Proliferation is something that came together with such an awesome level of aggression, and from start to finish it’s a pretty punishing track, and songs like Civil Unrest kind of opened up new avenues for us musically. I guess it comes down to what brings us the most joy to play live, and what could never get old, and that song has to be awarded to Means to an End. It’s got everything and the crowds love to hear it.

Given some of the topics covered on Proliferation would you consider Harlott to be

a political thrash band?

We don’t really intentionally do that, it just happens. Australia is a very easy place to live, and we definitely don’t suffer anywhere near as badly as other countries would from political agendas. But at the end of the day, you need angry words for angry music, and you don’t have to look far in this day and age to find something to be angry about. We tend to stick with international news though, because writing songs about increased student fees for tertiary education and questionable travel expenses for political fundraisers just doesn’t quite have the same ‘edginess’ as War, Disease, Religion, etc.

Given the success of Origin, did you feel any pressure to top that?

Success? We could only afford one measly yacht from that so called Success!

We honestly didn’t realise that anyone would care about some thrash metal from a bunch of kids in Australia so we were a little surprised that ‘Origin’ received the praise that it did.

We got a few reviews giving it 9.5/10 and 10/10 so obviously there is the mentality that you can only really go down from there, but we tried not to let that get to us. We wrote a follow up album to our debut. We had some things we wanted to bring to album 2 and we managed to do so. It’s a cliché, but it the album came our as we wanted it, some people will like it more than the first album, some people will like it less, but as long as people buy it, we can keep getting more yachts.

What drew you towards the thrash side of metal specifically?

Anger and aggression! We are not aggressive people by nature, and that might be because we let it all out on stage. There’s something pure and accessible about thrash metal that we can never truly explain, it’s got everything about metal that you can love. It has the speed, the groove, the melody, the grit, the power, it just has everything. We are not closed minded when it comes to metal, as most metal heads tend to be. We have dabbled in death, and power, and black, and doom, but thrash metal is an addiction.

How was it playing with the likes of Accept and Dave Ellefson?

Megadeth are a huge influence of ours, and it was pretty amazing to get to meet that man who could deal with Dave Mustaine’s shit for as long as he has. It was even more amazing to have him complement our band the way he did, comparing us to Pantera for our raw energy. It was a crazy night. And the show with Accept was

awesome, and very inspiring. They know exactly what they are doing with that band, and their live show is second to none. Every aspect was punishing.

What are your top five metal records and which five records do you think are criminally overlooked?

Top Five: Kreator – Extreme Aggression Slayer – World Painted Blood Overkill – Years of Decay Megadeth – Rust in Peace Testament – The Legacy Hard to get it down to 5! Obviously there are some absolute classics in there, but the Slayer choice might seem strange to some? Well it’s a killer album, we will make no apologies.

Overlooked: Kreator – Cause for Conflict Guillotine – Blood Money Slayer – Hell Awaits Mortal Sin – Psychology of Death Homicide Hagridden - Us Some of these bands may be huge, but it’s crazy how many people don’t realise just how good some of these records are. People overlook those 4 experimental albums Kreator did, but cause for conflict is an absolute gem! And as for Guillotine? If you haven’t heard that album, do yourself a favour and get it. It is non-stop thrash.

You’ll be coming to the UK with Annihilator in October.

Thoughts on touring with Jeff Waters… Is there something we should know…?

Looking forward to meeting the guy! We’re just excited to get over to Europe and show some new people what we do. We have heard that we had some pretty good sales figures in the UK so looking forward to meeting some fans hopefully!

Aside from yourselves any metal bands in Australia that you would recommend to our readers?

If you’re into thrash metal you should check out Desecrator, In Malice’s Wake and Malakyte. If not you should see King Parrot, Orpheus Omega, Damnations Day, Bane of Winterstorm and Troldhaugen. We have a bit of everything in Australia, and some of it is pretty good!

As two parts of Mercyful Fate Michael Denner and Hank Shermann were responsible along with the mighty King Diamond, Timi Hansen and Kim Ruzz for two of the strongest metal albums of all time: 1983’s Melissa and 1984’s Don’t Break The Oath.

Now over thirty years later the duo team up with the likes of Snowy Shaw (Therion and a member of Mercyful Fate in 1993-1994), Sean Peck (Death Dealer) and Marc Grabowski (Demonica) for an EP. Hank let us know how the project came to be, the plans in regards to a full album and why Ghost intrigue him.

What led to you two deciding to collaborate once again?

It started with the idea to record parts of every song on the Melissa Album, in order to celebrate the Albums 30 year anniversary, in 2013. Out of these recordings for the video, we ended up discussing the idea to form a band. And after recording the video shoot for "Don't Break The Oath’s 30 Years anniversary in 2014, we started to focus on the new band! We announced Denner / Shermann in September 2014 and we've been on a roll ever since!

First EP is out in early October 2015!

Thoughts on the legacy of your work with Mercyful Fate?

Looking back now and thinking of the early days is always good memories.

We were in our early twenties and continuously composing, rehearsing and playing shows.

Having been a part of that time, the beginning of Heavy Metal, is a highlight itself, and the albums we did has become hugely respected for its original and new directions within the metal genre.

Many musicians and fans really worship these Albums. I think we all are very honoured and grateful for that.

How was it working with Sean, Snowy and Marc on this EP? It was absolute awesome to work with Sean as we clicked really well during the songwriting process, I sent him songs, parts and riffs and he would usually send something back the next day, so we really had a good flow throughout the making of these 4 tracks.

Snowy we consider one of the best drummers around, and we had been working with him in Mercyful Fate, both in studio and live shows, so we asked him, he was into it and did a phenomenal performance on these tracks. Marc is a natural, and cover all aspects of the bass and is a very tasteful musicians showed throughout the EP. Marc is also the singer/bassist in "Shermann Tank" a solo project that is on hold for now, as we both are heavily into Denner / Shermann.

What are the plans in regards to a full album?

We are deep into the songwriting and have 6 songs completed by now. We expect to complete all songs by end of November, then start recordings for our first full-length Album to be released sometimes in May or early June 2016!

The new songs are really shaping up to be blistering metal songs, can't wait to get started with the recordings.

Which bands have caught your eye over the past twelve months?

Quite honestly I don't listen to that many bands nowadays as I did back in my twenties, but I really like the new band One Machine also Ghost has some nice intriguing riffs.

New band Act Of Defiance seems pretty smoking.

Which metal albums would you say are the five most overlooked?

A difficult question, but here is my list of cool Albums that could have gone further: Crimson Glory : Transcendence Judas Priest : Jugulator Savatage : Hall of The Mountain King Memento Mori : Rhymes of Lunacy Savage : Loose N Lethal

With their new album Static getting ready to be released to the world, we catch up with Jill Janus once more; our chat covers topics like crowdfunding and the recent Amon Amarth tour, but also Jill’s battle with mental health over the years after she opened up about it in a recent interview.

For Static you decided to team up with Pledgemusic. What was it about using Pledge that appealed to the band? What are your thoughts towards the crowdfunding model?

I wanted to do something special for our fans, like an interactive platform where the band is accessible. And where fans can be part of this crazy journey leading up to the release of STATIC. I was really impressed with Pledge Music's platform, also with their smart, modern business approach. As an artist, you want your vision to stay true. You want to trust your team to keep things working as a business, so we "artists" can continue to be eccentric fuck ups. We had incredible success with an IndieGoGo campaign in 2013, we raised over $15,000 to tour with Mayhem Festival. Metal is not profitable at our level, it’s expensive to tour and we couldn’t afford to travel without the help of our fans.

When last we talked back in January at the Amon Amarth tour the run was in full swing – what are your thoughts on how that tour went?

The Amon Amarth tour was really cool, I love the Swedish Vikings! I stepped in for Johan Hegg in Plymouth, England when he blew out his voice and I helped his band mates to keep the show going. They played mostly instrumental versions of their songs, I sang “Guardians of Asgaard” and brought up a couple fans to perform as well. It was a really unique night, the crowd loved it. Huntress also had a terrible incident in Stoke-On-Trent when our guitarist Eli Santana was attacked by drunk, racist blokes, then wrongfully imprisoned for a day. He was released after video footage appeared that revealed his innocence. It was weird, but makes a good story!

Aside from Harsh Times On Planet Stoked which many heard throughout the tour what else can we expect on Static – I hear there’s a music video coming up…

You can expect 10 more songs. And yes, videos on the way. It’s part of our legacy. We’re releasing a lyric video for “Flesh” in July (which you can view on Youtube right now), followed by a mini-film directed by Phil Mucci for “Sorrow” in September. Phil directed our awardwinning video “Zenith” so you can expect something stunning once again.

With Pledge one of the options has been to pick a song for Huntress to cover. What’s been the weirdest request so far?

I’m unable to reveal the cover songs for Pledge Music. However, I can say we offered the same perk with IndieGoGo and we had a blast recording two covers. “See You In Hell” by Grim Reaper and “Inquisitor” by Raven.

Now very recently there was an interview released in which you revealed publicly your battle with mental illness – what was the reason for doing so and how has the feedback been since?

I revealed my lifelong struggle with mental illness because so much of the new album was inspired by it. Like the songs “Mania” and “I Want To Wanna Wake Up.” I also wanted to connect with others who share the struggle, to help remove the stigma and shame. I’m Bipolar and Schizophrenic, obviously this has contributed to my creativity and ambition as an artist. I’ve caused so much pain for those close to me, but sharing my story has liberated myself and my band mates. Where there was once darkness, now there is light.

There are US dates coming up with Avatar and Gemini Syndrome – thoughts on touring with them and are there plans to bring a similar tour in the UK in 2016?

I was interested in touring with Avatar because they have a very theatrical vibe, so does Huntress. We’ll be exposed to a new fan base as well. Huntress always tours the UK, at least once a year. I’m certain 2016 will bring many new opportunities for UK touring.

[Following this chat Huntress have had to drop out of the tour while Jill recovers from recent surgery] Now the trilogy is complete – any hints no matter how small on where Huntress goes next?

There is only one way to go: forward.

With the success of Ritual and Everblack, The Black Dahlia Murder’s Trevor Strnad wondered how the group were going to follow it up – what came after led to a time when Trevor wasn’t sure about himself.

It is something that in this conversation he’s quite open about: a personal hell that sits alongside the arc of Abysmal itself – the various interpretations of Hell, from Daemorph’s cover art to the fear of going to hell itself.

Along with his recommendations for new death metal to check out and an analysis into death metal lyrics itself – get ready to not only celebrate a genre but learn why Abysmal is one of the latest albums you will enjoy…

First of all congratulations on the new album and I love that there’s a string section right at the beginning…

Me too man, it sets up the horror movie to come.

I’m a sucker for that kind of thing in metal now and again so that’s fine for me.

Awesome dude, that’s the powdered wig man, the more powdered wig stuff the better as far as I’m concerned! [laughs] Well when you guys started work on Abysmal did you feel any particular pressure given the success of Ritual and Everblack?

Yeah man, there was plenty of pressure, it’s always intimidating for me at first personally when I get handed a couple of the songs and I have to like dive into the first lyrics of the album, I had something of a freakout for a while: I’m totally out of lyrics, I can’t write anything, there’s nothing

terrible left to say! [laughs] That always happens to me I guess, it’s just the pressure of having fans waiting for you and like you said having two hit albums in a row they seemed to like a lot just added more onto it but the other thing is that from those two albums I think we learned a lot and I think that Abysmal is further down that same path, we started to incorporate other instruments like you were talking about: some acoustic stuff, some keys during Ritual and that’s when we started using a sampler live and we were able to re-create anything like that we were doing so that was a big turning point for us.

It was kind of realising that the album before that Deflorate was a little too technical and we needed to give the listener something more to chew on, some kind of build ups and dynamics, just more straight forward kind of stuff, we’re just evolving I think , there’s definitely that pressure but it’s a good thing, it’s an awesome thing to have people waiting for what you’re doing and having expectations.

With Black Dahlia Murder forming in 2001 next year’s a big milestone…

Yeah that’s crazy, I didn’t stop to think about that! Ten years was cool too but there’s something to be said about the very early years of the band because we weren’t really out there touring, we were just tooling around here in Michigan so really 2003 was when stuff really came together: we got signed and the first album came out, that’s when shit really started to happen. It’s gone by so fast, I can’t believe it! I remember in the early days them selling us as a ‘young band’ like look how young these guys are playing this stuff, now we’ve got kids coming to our shows looking at me like a grandpa and I’m twice their age literally! I’m glad we’re still here and that was the goal – to be able to stay around and that continues to be the objective, to hopefully survive the coming and going of metal’s popularity and the changing of the guard. So far, so good!

There’s a band that are twelve years old and signed – reminds me of Unlocking The Truth a little bit.

When I was twelve I know I couldn’t play any instruments, still can’t, I’m pretty impressed and honestly man so many young kids can play now that it’s incredible, a lot of bands that we tour with nowadays – the kids are like eighteen years old! It’s impressive.

What was the first song you were sent the rough mix for regarding this record and the first you decided to write lyrics for?

I can’t remember the first few but I know Receipt was one of them and that was the icebreaker, the lyrics are kind of a personal, cathartic song, I was at a low point and was freaking out, it was definitely a cathartic song for me. I think that’s there somebody out there that’s going to relate to it, that gets something from the song hopefully.

It was a dark time in my life and I felt like I just had lost it, I couldn’t do what I was supposed to do and I was having a freakout. Receipt is a dark song and it definitely felt good to get it out, after that it was like the cork and the rest came rushing to me and everything was fine but I was pulling teeth for a minute there that’s for sure.

There’s also Vlad, Son Of The Dragon which was a good choice to announce Abysmal with, what are your thoughts on the feedback from the tracks released so far? Especially given Threat Level No. 3 is also now out there.

We really tried to consider what songs we were going to release and what order and pay extra attention to that. We wanted to start out with a strong song but then I knew that Receipt was one of my favourites so I wanted to save that to build up more anticipation and then Threat Level is so high energy and I knew they were going to love that right off the bat. The excitement level is just huge, they like the cover art, the raw production that we went for this time and it’s a really

It was a dark time in my life and I felt like I just had lost it, I couldn’t do what I was supposed to do and I was having a freakout. Receipt is a dark song and it definitely felt good to get it out, after that it was like the cork and the rest came rushing to me and everything was fine but I was pulling teeth for a minute there that’s for sure.

exciting time for us, not too long now, just waiting with bated breath to see what happens that first week.

Threat Level No. 3 is interesting given the subject matter…

That’s definitely a weird one, I always try to go one song per album at least that’s something disturbing to get people’s flesh crawling, it’s the tale of a man who’s been chemically castrated for being a molester/rapist and his internal dialogue of dealing with his life and all the things that he’s done so it’s definitely a hairy song subject wise for sure but I have a reputation for being disturbing so I have to see it through now! [laughs] I love that song, I love how it came out, it’s death metal for sure.

One of the strengths of death metal is the gory, disturbing lyrics, look at Carcass and Cannibal Corpse for example.

That’s what drew me into it first of all, it was so gory and bloody and at the time it was just too much for me – I’d read the lyrics and be like ugh! I’m going to lose my lunch but there was something attractive about it where I couldn’t turn away, something like a car crash, you just can’t help but look.

It’s where gallows humour really kicks in people’s minds.

That’s really the whole thing, it’s the same joke a horror movie is, you’re on the side of the killer looking over his shoulder in a slasher movie, it’s kind of that same appeal I think, the dark side of life, a tongue in cheek affair I must say.

On this record there has to be praise for Ryan Knight’s work – the solo work is very good.

You’ve even described it as Rust in Peace level.

Rust In Peace is the holy grail as far as I’m concerned of metal soloing at its highest form of art and I think Ryan is approaching that, he’s really putting himself out there, he works a lot of guitar man, the dude plays guitar three hours every single day even on tour you can’t get that thing off of him. He’s dedicated so hard to it, he has an endless thirst for knowledge, this is his finest statement yet I think. He’s just shredded it up, it’s a pleasure to have that in the band. I’m just lucky to be the singer for these guys as far as I’m concerned!

How was it working with Mark again for this one?

It was cool, typically we work with Mark and Jason Suecof and we were actually considering going somewhere else just to mix it up then we heard the Cannibal Corpse album that Mark did and it just sounded so huge and raw, that’s what we had been talking about going for – something more natural – and kind of turning away from the production clichés that have been so prominent in extreme metal like sampling the drums for example, we just wanted to get away from that and we were thinking about all the great records that influenced us and one thing that came coming up was they were all before the Pro Tools era of quantizing the shit out of everything, going backwards was going forwards.

You see a few bands moving that way: I mention Cannibal Corpse but the last Behemoth was definitely raw, it was just a trapping of the time I think everybody fell into it for a while and it was easier to do, we did have to take more time to get a good drum sound but it was worth it just to have the album sound like its own entity.

The Satanist was one of my favourite records of last year.

It’s done great things for them, they’re the biggest extreme band in the States right now, I mean they edged out Cannibal Corpse which is no small feat so right now they’re the absolute kings and they deserve it!

Now on Stygiophobic where did the sample at the start come from?

That was from this special about Amityville, someone recounting going into the house with a psychic and they were overwhelmed by the powers of the house. It seemed to fit really nicely into the subject matter about people that are not only afraid of going to hell, they’re phobic of it. They’re so afraid it’s crippling their entire existence, they’re so worried about sinning they won’t leave their house, they basically can’t achieve anything and all they do is sit around worrying about their family and friends’ fates, every night they have nightmares of fire and brimstone and hell. That

sounds like a rough existence, there’s a little hellish tie-ins with the album, the cover art and that’s one of them – the irrational fear of hell that turns your life into a personal hell.

Speaking of the cover art – Daemorph. Where did you find him because that artwork: wow!

I’m a big brutal death fan and there’s always a lot of cutting edge art that seems to get their footing there first and Daemorph’s one of those guys, he’s been churning out cover art for the likes of Delusional Parasitosis, Sickening and all these other records I’ve been getting the last couple of years and I just admired him, he also hasn’t done much outside of that brutal death spectrum so I thought it would be like a fresh thing, Vince really seemed to respond to the artwork and I’ve realised how important it is to get people excited about the record, the kind of synergy you need to have to make it work. Striking artwork like that goes a long way and from a fan’s standpoint I love when an album is both good and well decorated so it’s something you could stare at while listening to it and get into the vibe and before all the downloading and stuff that’s just how things were.

You had a physical copy and you cherished it, nowadays you can download an entire genre in one day if you put the man hours into it, I think things are just more disposable, just you can have that kind of appeal and hopefully make people want to get the physical and sit in their room and stare at it like I do! I really try to embody what I like about death metal in the choices that we make in regards of thematics and artwork, I still like death metal for the same reasons, gory artwork that’s over the top or the classic evil landscape type of artwork like a cavern or someplace you don’t want to be at, it always makes me smile!

The artwork for Abysmal really gives a striking image of Hell.

Hell is here! [laughs] That’s exactly what I told him – I want HELL, not Hell on Earth, the real deal.

I’m just happy we have the budget for this kind of thing, I’m like a kid in a candy store, it’s a hell of a lot of fun on my end.

I presume there’s touring plans for the UK/Europe but any in the USA/Canada you want to mention?

We have a North American/Canada tour in October with Iron Reagan, Maruta and Harms Way that should be pretty fun then we’re gearing up for the UK in the winter, looking forward to coming over there.

What are your current recommendations for metal?

If you’re a slam guy there’s Gravitational Distortion, Amputory that are on Extreme Music – their album Ode to Gore is killer, some solid ass riffs. Another one is Morbid Vomit that a definite old school Swedish sound like Entombed, in that Bloodbath/Entrails vein.

Any thoughts to your records of 2015?

I’ve been starting to but it seems there was more last year, there’s a lot on the horizon: the new Defeated Sanity I’m looking forward to, Putridity from Italy is going to be another amazing one.

Stuff I would put on now is Iniquitous Deeds from California, Pale Chalice from San Francisco, the new Dodheimsgard.

There is a Venom, there is a Venom Inc. … Confused? Well, tonight we get the chance to put the questions to Venom Inc. drummer Abaddon about all things past, present and future.

The last time we spoke to Mantas was at the tail end of 2013; at the time it seemed that “M:pire of Evil” had a laid out schedule for the next few years. Next thing we hear, is that the band are now to be known as Venom Inc, and that you were returning behind the kit, in effect reforming the Venom line up from the nineties…How did we get here?

The guys were playing at a gig in Newcastle called Brofest; I was just there just as a punter, standing at the bar. Mantas went up and he started playing the riff off Die Hard and the crowd goes crazy! There’s these two guys with huge black metal patches on with their back to me, as Mantas starts playing, they turn round and looked at me like ‘Why aren’t you doing this?’.

One of them, Oliver, has a festival called Keep It True, a big festival in Germany, and he had M:Pire booked for the following year. He rang me up and asked if I wanted to get up on stage and do four/five songs. ‘OK’ - I said - ‘what do the other guys think?’. He said they were going to do half of a set of M:Pire and then we’ll introduce you and you’ll do five Venom songs. I asked if we’d get together and rehearse, he said nope. ‘Do we get to chat over old

arguments?’ - ‘Nope’. ‘So the first time we get together is when I walk on stage in front of five thousand people?’ - ‘Yep that’s it!’. [laughs] I like a challenge!

We kind of agreed eventually on which songs to play, got this mini setlist, jumped up and rattled through the songs; the place went fuckin’ insane and that was a great response. We were thinking shake hands, have a beer together, get on a flight and go home and that’s that done.

They asked us to sign some records and meet and greet people – LOADS of people want these things signed and when we were in the middle of it Tony (Dolan) turned round in the middle of a phone conversation saying there was a list of dates all over the Far East and Europe that have just come in the last twenty minutes. ‘For M:Pire?’ I asked. ‘No, this is for us to do what we’ve just done, they’ve filmed it and put it straight online and everybody went yep, we’ll have that!’. This promoter said ‘you’ve got to do it as a three piece, everybody loves it!’

Hadn’t it occurred to you to do this years ago?

It hadn’t occurred to me but it had to other people; other people had asked if I would go to Athens, do one song, go to festivals and do one song and I was like yeah, why not? It’s good fun. They all said ‘why don’t you do this thing with Tony?’ Every time they saw M:Pire they said ‘this isn’t M:Pire, it’s Prime Evil Venom’. For me it was because it was very much the same as when Venom first started: we started doing something not realising what we were doing was important, just having a good time and that created its own strength, atmosphere, heart, guts and soul.

This happened again at Keep It True and I was kind of alright, but are we going to polish it too much? Are we going to over empathise this or are we going to keep it as a metal band kicking the living shit out of some stuff and letting the crowd join in? Tony was like ‘Yeah, that! Totally that – 100%.’ I was ‘If it’s that then yeah, I totally wanna do that, who wouldn’t?’

It’s what every kid gets into a band for and I’ve never really stopped being a kid so you don’t lose that, you just need to feel that everybody else is in it at the same time, you’re part of a band for fuck’s sake, you’re not just in a group. I haven’t joined the band to just sell a couple of records/t-shirts and retire, I’m in this band ‘til we fall of the end of a cliff, that’s it.

It looks like you’re doing it for all the right reasons as well, while a lot of them get back together because it’s easy dough.

It’s not easy, this isn’t easy!

We’ve only done four days in a row and it’s already more than Venom ever did in any of its lineups; even when we were touring America, if there was four days on that was a hard week, we then had the rest of the week off then there’d be three days, rest of the week off then two days, rest of the week off. This has started off with four days and it’s not going to stop. It’s going to go on and

on and on. You get to that point of the night where the intro tape starts and the crowd just kick off, the adrenaline kicks in and you just feel fresh as fuck, fresh as a fuckin’ daisy!

Does it ever feel daunting though?

Yeah.

The itinerary seems to be growing by the day– have you kept up with your playing over the years?

No. I never played enough, I never rehearsed enough. Some people thought I should rehearse more: it’s something I don’t enjoy doing. I don’t enjoy playing drums, I enjoy being part of a band! [All three laugh!]. You get with other guys on the bus going ‘how do you set your pedals up, what sort do you use?’ I don’t know, I don’t know and I don’t care, have a drink, talk about movies, football, anything not fuckin’ drums! I get it – people are very passionate about their instruments and different things in technology and technology’s come on so much it is a little bit easier, you’re not using mismatched pedals anymore or different drum heads because it’s all you can afford, at least you’ve got a little bit of control.

Takes the charm out though… I mean the early Venom records - I actually prefer them to what’s gone on in the thrash world in recent years, it all got so precise!

Yeah, it’s the trigger stuff isn’t it?

What you were doing was closer to the punk influence.

Yeah, big style. I added the clicky thing because I worked in a factory and I had these huge bass drums that I’ve still got, the twenty-six inch and if you hit them they just go boom and it goes on forever. You can’t make it click in the studio, all you can do is make it muddy and

bottom end so I cut out some steel plates, had them hardened, had them shaved, put them on the heads and sort of gaffered them on then the beaters hit them. That’s where you got the front end of the sound that Pantera copied after that.

Black Metal was the first record that I heard that sounded like that.

It was only to make those bass drums work, I’ve still got ‘em.

I always wondered! I could never fucking tell whether it was a complete accident!

No, we had to work it out because the studio we were in was a very old 1970s studio and it was built to have people go in that were playing acoustic guitars and vocals so it was very dead; a big bass drum being struck very hard in a room that was dead just sounded really muddy and you would turn it up under the sound, it was just turning up a whole load of muck from the bottom end. We needed all that drive and the bottom end but we also need that to click through somewhere near the top registers.

We were learning about equipment at the time, we were learning about recording techniques because we didn’t have any money, the recording studios didn’t have a lot of money, the engineers had ideas but if the room had been a big, bright room and the click it might have been too much but the only way to find that out was to do it; people didn’t have bright rooms so we created a room within that room and that’s how we did ‘At War With Satan’. The whole drum sound there is bright and that’s because of the room we created – nothing to do with technology, nothing to do with how I did the heads, anything like that.

It was simply building a big room.

The first two albums have that charm though.

A mixture of everything – good songs, the playing was getting better as we went on so it was a little more exciting, we got more confident with everything, we had a little bit more time to

do the second album than we did the first, we were twenty year old kids riding on a wave!

You didn’t know at the time that you were creating something really different.

We were like a load of seventeen year olds going to a pub: you might end up in jail, end up in hospital or might get back home, hope for the best! That’s all it was, we used to say heads down, see you at the end boys!

How did you feel when all the others came about?

We were doing this in a tiny little doorway in Wallsend called Neat, you went up a load of stairs and Impulse the recording studio - was at the top.

We went for a coffee and there’s these guys in the car park getting dressed in our stage gear, we were like ‘What the fuck?!’; they were from Italy. That used to happen all the time, you get people turn up from Holland, Germany, Italy, Spain and they’d all be influenced by us. We’d do like press interviews and that sort of thing, Thomas Gabriel (Tom G.Warrior/Fischer) would turn up and be sitting in the crowd, it was just so insane!

You speak about things feeling very natural for the three of you. When we interviewed the Cronos led Venom, it seemed to me that the newer members were still finding their feet in the band. Do you think the fact that you, Jeff and Tony were Venom for most of the nineties gave this whole “iron and steel” thing an instant feel of normality to it?

Yes, those two guys are excellent, an excellent guitarist and an excellent drummer, but their background isn’t anything to do with Venom, they’re not even thrash metal fans. I think the guitarist claims he’s got a Slayer album somewhere but that’s it, they’re not steeped in the history of the band that and even if they were they’d be steeped in a different interpretation of it because they’re younger guys obviously. It’s like a vaudeville act, Cronos wants it to be him on stage and he’s doing an alright version of that, take it or leave it, but he wants to be backed up by this precise backing band. We’ve been offered to get back together as an original line up for an American tour and, I’m sure, stuff would lead from that, but he’d have to take that chance of getting back in the ring again with me and him, Tony (Dolan) didn’t give it a thought, he was like [clicks fingers] ‘Yep! Let’s do it!’. I didn’t give a shit, like we were saying before, are you able to last this thing out? Conrad wouldn’t have done it. He can’t live the type of lifestyle he does, go on the way he does and do thirty odd dates in a row. He goes

and headlines this and that festival then goes home, pays the guys £500 each, that’s it. Doesn’t take backline, very often doesn’t take guitars, all apparel’s already there.

Have you spoken to him in regards of using the Venom name? I mean you two [Abaddon and Mantas] originally started it, but I think most people regard the band as beginning with the three of you.

Me and Jeff [Mantas] started the band and we were in the band when it was called Venom. I was the one that designed the logo, everybody knows that. I never stopped Conrad using the logo, never stopped him selling t-shirts and he’s done that for year. I’ve never made a penny out of it, never said a word about it. As soon as we called it Venom Inc, we got a lawyers letter which said ‘OK, you’re creating confusion People don’t know which band’s which’. I’m like ‘they do, these people are intelligent, they know the difference’.They said ‘you agree Conrad owns the name and that he drew the logo?’.

So we sent a nice, polite letter back that said ‘we think you need to respect the fans a lot more. They do know who’s who.We do not agree Conrad owns the name and that he owns the logo’. We got a letter back basically saying the same, so we sent another back saying the same.We’re like we can do this all day; he’s paying £600 just sending a letter on a bit of paper, we don’t give a shit, he can carry on all he likes.

Jeff was the one going ‘let’s just call it Iron and Steel’, I was like ‘listen, call it anything you like, I just want to play’. the promoters were saying we need to put Venom Inc on it if we can.

Everybody along the way has been saying ‘this is just Venom and as soon as that tape starts tonight people won’t be shouting Venom Inc, they’ll be shoutin’ Venom, Venom!’ . It’s what people perceive at the end of the day – if we put up a backdrop and it says Venom on it great, if there’s no backdrop up and it’s just a brick wall – people still know who we are! We’re not disguising anything.

One thing Conrad was happy about was the re-mastered version of Black Metal that came out. Did you have any input on that at all? We signed an agreement with Sanctuary at the time that all three of us would be involved in subsequent releases AND RE RELEASES. Then they dismissed any of that by having Conrad do the boxset. I thought I could either sit here and cry, get a lawyer and follow that up by wasting money or I can just forget it, then this box set comes out and the re-mastered Black Metal comes out. I just

thought no point being bitter about it, just let it go.

Where does it go following this tour – do you foresee a time where you make new music together? I know Jeff’s in Portugal now…

Yeah, I’m still in the North East. So we would have to work on the logistics… but I can see it happening…We would want to do it the same way we have always done things, none of this file sharing nonsense…Live drums, live guitars, live vocals, a big room with a big sound…It’s the only way to go for us.

Was it hard to agree on the setlist?

Quite difficult! There’s so much stuff, it’s a bit obvious to play these songs and we wanted to keep it from the first two albums and the first few singles. But now that we’re on the bus and a few dates in, I’ve said to Tony ‘we’ll get upstairs, plug the guitars in, and give such and such a go’, or ‘lets give this one a bash and lets just see how it sounds… If it’s fitting in, then we’ll chuck it in the set, if we fuck it up…we’ll still chuck it in! [laughs]. I think our fans know what to expect from us; the raw ‘skin of your teeth’ attitude will always be a part of this band.

We did the Heavy Montreal festival and there was maybe 10,000 people. The sound wasn’t very good. We cracked into Black Metal; Tony couldn’t hear, so he stopped it, got some more vocals, drums etc , started again, did the song and the crowd were much more receptive of that. That was a big thing with the press afterwards, about how confident we were as a band to be able to do that, most bands would have just sweated like merry hell and carried on, he had the confidence to be the front guy, thats a special thing about what we have. We back each other 100% in everything we do.

You were a big influence on a lot of punk bands back in the day. I was always curious

about that because I read you were into Deep Purple and stuff like that.

I kind of was influenced by that wave of stuff that punk was kicking against. Deep Purple, Sabbath and Free were a nice thing, it was never an angry thing, the punks were all fuck you against the hippies, I just thought I listen to them as well, there’s still good music coming out of them: The Clash, The Damned, The Stranglers and all this kind of thing, they weren’t as violent or angry to me as they were making out – even the Pistols. When Deep Purple kick off Hybrid Star live there’s a lot more kicking off than The Stranglers ever had so I just saw the punks as a new slightly heavier pop music.

The next generation was massively influenced by you – Discharge and GBH. There’s a little band called The Exploited…

Oh yes!

They were the next wave and they were an angry bunch of young men, we took all that had gone before and put our stamp on it, they put their stamp on it, the Americans came and put their flavour but it was very humbling to be inspiring music like that. When you break it down - Scandinavian black metal, the stuff from Florida, speed metal - and you bring it all back to us, that’s a huge thing to be responsible for. Bands you wouldn’t even consider to be the same – you wouldn’t put Pantera on the same boat as Mayhem, Metallica, Sodom, Vader, Exodus - but when they cite our band as a major influence on what they do, it is a very humbling thing… Not the sort of praise Weresiders normally experience! Haha…

Here’s a chance for you to sum it all up…

People that come to see us have to be open minded. Maybe have a look at what we were in the past…but basically, just throw on a t-shirt, get yourself down the front and have a good fucking time. Old School Style!

The first time I met Fabio Frizzi I didn’t really know what to expect. I’m used to talking to young hopeful rockers in well worn jeans and t-shirts often sleeping in vans and playing in pubs after all. There I was, about to meet an actual Maestro, the composer who wrote some of the most legendary scores in vintage Italian horror. Soon we were comfortably chatting about all sorts; his fond love of music and cinema was transpiring from every word, underlined by his sincerely enthusiastic smile.

We’ve been friends since and it’s always a pleasure catching up with the amiable Maestro Frizzi. This time our chat is prompted by yet another milestone he’s about to reach: his show Frizzi2Fulci, a majestic homage to horror cinema icon and personal friend Lucio Fulci, will be crossing the pond in October for 5 US dates.

Hoping he won’t forget us Londoners, we give him a call to find out all the details. We find him busy going through his old archives, where he just unearthed something that would make many collectors very happy…

You know, looking through some old stuff today I just found my old personal copy of the Zombi Flesh Eaters screenplay, the one I worked on to write the score! Still immaculate, although of course it shows its age. The title on it was ‘L’isola degli zombi’ (The Island of the Living Dead)!

Now that must be worth a few bucks! [both laugh]

Speaking of Zombies… Last time we spoke ‘officially’ was right before your first London show, Frizzi2Fulci at Union Chapel: not only was that sold out, but you also came back a year later upgrading to the Barbican. Did you expect this kind of success outside Italy at this point of your career?

I believe that, despite the crisis that hit every trade (creative or not), the recession brought some positives, which are starting to emerge with time.

In Italy artists had become used to getting paid fairly well; but it was a bubble, just like real estate.

With the crisis that changed, and we started getting paid for what our work was really worth.

We became conscious of our actual value, we had to consider what we had been building up over the years and how we could use it.

Before the crisis we would focus on regular paid work. When work opportunities became fewer and farther apart, we all had to roll up our sleeves. Projects that we had left gathering dust on the shelves thinking they were impossible - or just too risky - were dug out and reconsidered, and we found that with the new resources at our disposal, they had actually become possible.

At times I feel that Lucio (Fulci) has been looking over me since I started this project. I suddenly realized through the web how popular he was, and that popularity was growing. We were discussing yesterday with Luigi Cozzi (a director Fabio is currently working with) how Lucio, compared to Dario (Argento), has a big advantage which is also a curse: he’s no longer with us, and when that happens artists often become myths. At Union Chapel I paid homage to the man and artist who generously left me this priceless inheritance.

So to answer your question, not only did I not expect it, I had butterflies until I got on stage as I really wasn’t used to playing to an audience; my experience was mostly in the recording studio. London taught me to appreciate the contact with the public. That night was almost a shock. At the end of the show, the cheering from the audience was so emotional, felt like they were taking our hand and pull us into a tsunami of joy. It was something in my long and lucky career I had never ever experienced. That’s where the real adventure started for me.

I hear the feeling and the energy an audience transmit can be addictive…

Totally! And consider until a few years ago I was actually quite shy!

Despite directing the Symphonic Orchestra, doing hundreds of TV shows as an orchestra

director and so on, I’ve always been kind of reserved. Meeting an audience face to face with my music, getting the chance to tell a story is something that makes me feel incredibly privileged. I don’t know if I have to thank God or anyone else for my luck, especially when I get the opportunity to do this in other countries, with people of different cultures, different languages… It’s really like a drug! I think that’s why so many of the artists I like - Crosby Stills & Nash, Springsteen, Paul McCartney - in the end just can’t stay away from the road for too long.

After London you’ve been bringing your show in other parts of Europe, and next is finally - the US! Tell us how this exciting next chapter came about.

Right after Union Chapel - and that was almost 2 years ago - as I came back to Rome things started quickly snowballing on the web. Personal friends and work contacts all started suggesting the US were the natural next step after our success in the UK. However, while the UK nowadays is pretty much around the corner for a European country, the States are a different matter, logistically for a start - they might call it ‘pond’ but that’s an ocean there really…

Not to mention Visas, customs and such…

Yep! Straight to the heart of the matter! Friends suggested to find an agent distributor there and everything would be much easier. However, my music is hard to define. It’s soundtrack music with its own flavour, difficult to classify, therefore it’s not easy finding the right person to work with.

We had offers from Italian distributors, but in the end with Daniele De Gemini (his father Franco De Gemini was one of my old days’ editors and Morricone’s harmonica) we decided to do it ourselves from Rome, using the contacts we both built up over the years, with some help from Spencer Hickman from Death Waltz Records who was responsible for Union Chapel and has recently joined forces with US label Mondo Tees.

Spencer proposed some cities, plus we found other great links like in Toronto, through some friends in the press who introduced us to good local promoters. We basically started working on it a year ago, right after the Barbican show.

It’s been really difficult but also a great achievement managing to work around the strict US administration. It’s hard to believe that, while nowadays you can find out everything about everyone on the web in under 15 minutes, their bureaucracy still requires everything on paper; on the bright side, when we needed references we were pleasantly surprised at the positive response from all important people in Italy, from record label heads to production companies at the highest level. My first editors even dug out contracts from scores I wrote 40 years ago!

We ended up re-living the steps of our professional career like in a movie, and sometimes is nice looking back and realizing how much you’ve done and how far you got… So thanks to the US administration for this trip down Memory Lane!

We will be visiting 5 cities on this tour, all of which we love very much: we’ll start from Austin TX, the music capital; next Los Angeles where we’ll play Beyond Fest, (like Lucio’s most loved movie!); then San Francisco, a city I’ve never been and I’m really curious about; Toronto, where I have many dear friends including Maurizio Guarini who I worked with in the early days and will be on stage with me - we worked together so often in the studio but this is the first time in our life we’ll be together on stage, will be emotional; and finally, despite we didn’t manage to organize anything in New York, we’ll be playing Philadelphia, another city I love and where some of our New York fans and friends will gather.

The show you’re taking to the US is again the Frizzi2Fulci, is there anything else we need

to know, anything different from the UK show or details you’d like to share?

Despite we extended the show at Barbican, with this we’re going back to almost exactly the same performance we brought at Union Chapel; we’d like to take our American fans on the same journey right from where it started. There will be only a couple of small additions: first of all, I did a short movie last year, 20 minutes only, with a dear friend from New York called Scooter McCrae, produced by Alex Kuciw. It was supposed to be part of an anthology but in the end it’s going out on its own and will actually be on Sitges Film Festival while I’m in the States. The film is called ‘Saint Frankenstein’ and it’s very strong in every sense. It’s a fantasy horror with a powerful sensual element. My wife has followed my career for the past 20 years and she reckons it’s one of the best jobs I’ve ever done.

We've been given the exclusive on a snippet - about 90 seconds out of the full 18 minutes - which will be part of a musical moment dedicated to young 'Fulcian' directors. The movie titles are ‘Beware of Darkness’ from young French directors Guillaume Beylard and Nima Rafighi, ‘The Weeping Woman’ from Mark Steensland and ‘Saint Frankenstein’ from Scooter McCrae. These are the three more recent movies that I like to share as a ‘tail’ to my Fulci experience.

You’ve been proposing in Italy as well a different show, Rewind, including other material from your repertoire, will we ever see that here?

I came to the conclusion that my projects have to be a bit like me… Rewind started one or two years before Frizzi2Fulci. The subtitle was ‘my myths and my music’, and it meant to be a story of my life through those I liked and my personal achievements. It’s more of a recital, more intimate, a different vibe. For every piece I tell the story, my first encounter with that emotion, that particular artist. It includes many of my heroes from Bach to De Andre, Oasis and Beatles - one of my main influences. I’d like to take this one as well outside Italy because in everyone’s life there are different emotions, and in the life like mine every country - Spain, England, France, the Americas and even the Far East - is particularly linked to some of them. So for example Rewind in Paris could contain a memory of Francis Lai, or Gilbert Bécaud, while in the UK could be Beatles of course and many others… Something we could do in smaller venues, intimate places where to tell a more private story. It’s a small group, usually just four people, not difficult to set up. It’s a matter of finding interested promoters.

Since we’re talking about a tailored version for each place, you mentioned some names for France and the UK for example, who would pay tribute to in the US?

Just yesterday I was out shopping in Rome and I saw two vinyls next to each other, two seminal albums that were so important to me: Genesis ‘Selling England by the Pound’ and King Crimson ‘In The Court of the Crimson King’. As a child born in 1951, a teenager of the 60s with a strong passion for music, I was lucky: you had them coming from every side as there was so much going on in those years. Beatles were my primary passion, I loved a lot of UK music at the time but there was plenty more. In America, my heart belonged to the West Coast music, what we used to call acoustic, polyphonic music, which included different realities, including Crosby Stills Nash and Young who we mentioned earlier and I’ve learned a lot from there even in terms of songwriting. Recently I managed to send David Crosby our record. He’s still way bigger than me of course, but I like to think the distance has shortened a bit… I’d like before we get too old to do something with him and maybe Graham Nash. Some of those ideas came from them and it’s nice going back to the origins sometimes.

Have you ever met them yet?

It was all set up for me to meet them through a common friend next time they were in Italy, but with my typical luck that’s when I’m between Austin and Los Angeles! The amazing thing however, despite all this, is the fact that today this could actually happen.

Other names to mention from my personal US music culture are Simon & Garfunkel - Paul Simon I think is another prolific geniuses of that era - he still is genius of course, but back then he’s put out one great piece after the other. Finally, to mention something different still under the pop umbrella, I loved Mamas and Papas. They were such a unique band, so vocally interesting - I used to play ‘Monday Monday’ with my band. So this is the story I’d like to tell: a romantic side I’ve always been strongly attracted to, maybe because it’s a strong part of my own personality after all.

You mentioned yesterday that you had to replace a member of the band…

The original arrangement of Frizzi2Fulci was born with bass, drums, acoustic guitar/12 chords and electric guitar from the great Alessandro Errichetti, vocals from Giulietta and two keyboardists, and I also occasionally play keyboards and electric guitar.

With such different scores in one show, I wrote as we say ‘at libitum’ parts for the arcs: we would use them or not depending on the situation, but the final result would be good either way. We had them at Barbican and Union Chapel too as four or five piece. This is the reason why the two keyboards were important: with arrangements of such a various

nature, it was important to have one for example to play on the arcs and one on the more electronic parts. Unfortunately one of our keyboardists, Enrico Scopa, had to take a break from touring due to family reasons, but he was really upset about it and eager to join back in asap.

I ended up rewriting all the arrangements rather than replacing him. The remaining keyboardist, Alessio Contorni, is amazing. I’ve been lucky enough to have with me some of the best Italian talents, from rock and pop to classically trained, and they all believe strongly in this project, they’ve been taken by my enthusiasm and they’re happy to follow me in this adventure. Alessio took over some really important parts, others will be played by me and some have been redistributed between the other instruments. We’ve just been listening to the new sonorities and I must say they sound great, at times even more dry in a way I really like.

We said earlier that unfortunately you didn’t manage to arrange a New York date on this tour… Let’s say for the next one New Yorkers realize what they’ve been missing and offer you Madison Square Garden: which show would you take there? Any dream project?

Well, there’s a project that I wouldn't mind bringing as well to the Barbican at some point, and maybe to South America - Brazil in particular - where there’s already a demand for it.

Italian cinema kind of ended in the late 80s, I mean there are still movies of course but the offer just can’t compare. I’ve decided to keep the memory alive with a symphonic concert paying tribute to all the great Italian score composers. It’s been relatively easy so far, I found most

doors open - just a little problem with Morricone - so I got some beautiful orchestral suites from Piovani, two marvelous fragments from Trovaioli, and material from Mannino who wrote a lot of Luchino Visconti’s music.

I met Nino Rota’s heir a few months after he passed, before the Rota Foundation created an archive of all his work; and took me to his house saying ‘everything is in here, take what you need, photocopy it and bring it back’. I chose Romeo & Juliet, some more Visconti, lots of stuff.

Ortolani also gave me some material, and more came from Carlo Rustichelli, who wrote scores for Pietro Germi and Nanni Loi amongst others. Despite being frowned upon by the purists who didn’t consider it proper symphonic music - which it was really as I got the original symphonic partitions for the composers - I managed to complete my project; in 3-4 years I played probably about 150 shows with Italian and regional orchestras and it was a huge success with the public.

I didn’t include any of my work, it was a young Fabio telling the stories of Ennio, Armando and all his friends and colleagues.

Today, I think Fabio has grown up and could tell his own story together with those of the others, so the next project I would like to take in the world’s most beautiful venues is this, with the addition of some of my own material probably from country-western scores and of course Fulci, executed with a symphonic orchestra of about 70-80 people. It would be a great achievement.

So now that we’ve talked about the US, any chance to see you back here in the UK in the near future?

Daniele and I are starting to get used to London, we totally love it, we went to Abbey Road Studios as well to record some masters and we will go back for more. Most of all, since we talked earlier of how meeting an audience can be addictive, both Union Chapel and Barbican are places where I feel the need to go back to. We are planning a return to Union Chapel in 2016; London and the UK is fast becoming a second hometown to me and we found a lot of support there not only from the audience but also the press and other fellow artists. We made some great friends. It feels odd already this year not being there for Halloween!

I was thinking the same thing: what am I going to do for Halloween this year?? [laughs] Well, I’m always ready if anyone comes up with a good idea, even last minute! We will be in Wales in November, on the 10th, and that was a last minute thing. It’s a Frizzi 2 Fulci with the same line up we’re taking to the US and will be part of the Abertoir Fest in Ceredigion (at the Aberystwyth arts centre); I went there 2 years ago after the Union Chapel show for a Q&A and a presentation of Zombi Flesh Eaters with Richard Johnson, the actor playing the doctor who sadly is no longer with us. Everyone there has been great to us. Next year is their 10th anniversary and they really wanted to make this happen.

Sounds great! As for Halloween, here’s an idea: why don’t you do a show with Alice Cooper??

My God, if that ever happens I’ll love you for the rest of my life! [both laugh]. I’d go absolutely insane, definitely the most unforgettable night ever! I’d be happy to open for him.

His performance is very theatrical, It’s a side of him that I love and that he has been refining throughout the years. Would be definitely a hell of a show!

Well, if Alice is reading… I’ll come walking, I can leave tomorrow!

Psssstttt.... Alice... Did you hear the Maestro??

For more info please crawl to www.facebook.com/fabio.frizzi or stalk the man himself on Twitter @FabioFrizzi. Frizzi 2 Fulci will be in the US from 2nd October!

For

By Sophia Disgrace

Welcome to your one stop drop for all the news on the best burlesque nights, in the capital and beyond!

I’m Sophia Disgrace, I've performed across the UK as well as internationally, everywhere from festivals to the most exclusive clubs.

I perform in a Neo Burlesque style and incorporate elements such as angle grinding into my routines. You could say I like to shake the audience up a bit and keep 'em on their proverbial toes!

Burlesque - or 'the art of tease' as it's also known - first rose to prominence in the 1950s; in recent years it's enjoyed something of a revival, with stars such as Dita Von Teese helping to popularise the scene once again.

London as ever is at the forefront of this movement which is both alluring and inspirational for men and women alike....

Alas the Summer is gone and Autumn beckons once again - so wrap up warm, in your finest winter clothes and go watch some lovely burly types remove theirs...

Enterteasement @ The Hold, The Admiral Bar - Glasgow Saturday 10th October - 8.00pm-10.30pm This no frills event does exactly what it says on the tin!

Held in sunny old G l a s g o w , Enterteasement's (Like what they did there) itinerary promises stand up, magic and of course some burlesque type happenings!

Ticket prices start at an austerity friendly £10, so dig deep and get your derriere down there‌ For further details please contact the venue on 01412 217 705

LaDeDa Burlesque Cabaret @ Deda in Derby Saturday 24th October - 8.00pm-11.00pm Make like the cool cats and get your burly Halloween fix ahead of the big day!LaDeDa features vintage cabaret from song bird Tricity Vogue, dance moves and more from the exotic Lady Wildflower and also features special guest Havana Hurricane, who will be coming over all the way from the U.S of A for this event.

Dress sharp and enjoy!

Tickets are available from £12, please call the venue for more info on 01332 370 911

YUM! And to close this months edition, check out these beautiful sweet treats, homaging all things vintage and burlesque! Good enough to eat - quite literally - at

http://burlesquebakery.co.uk/ Founder Jen set up the bakery in 2011 after a chance meet and greet with Dita Von Teese in Paris. Based in Oxfordshire,The Burlesque Bakery has since amassed a huge cult following online, with their unique and impassioned take on high tease desserts.

My faves are the Kitty Klaw cookies and the Elvis Rockabilly cupcakes…What’s YOURS?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN GHOULS AND BOYS! XOX

As Banksy’s much talked about ‘bemusement park’ closed his doors for good last Sunday 27th September, its website announced a ‘Dismaland Calais coming soon’… A couple of days later, the controversial street artist has announced that “All the timber and fixtures from Dismaland are being sent to the ‘jungle’ refugee camp near Calais to build shelters”. And no folks, no tickets on sale.

Before the groundbreaking structure was torn apart, our Sophia managed to get her hands on one of those much sought after tickets. Here’s what she saw…

'We're not in Kansas any more Toto....'

Banksy has gained world wide notoriety for his anarchic street art and continued anonymity; his/her true identity, for the majority, still remains a mystery. Dismaland marks Banksy’s most ambitious outing to date.

Described on the event website as a 'Bemusement Park’, Dismaland offers a day out like no other. The show is being held in the unassuming town of Weston-Super Mare, North Somerset, and is expected to boost Weston’s sleepy economy no end as a result. Visitors worldwide are clambering for tickets, as befittingly poker faced staff usher the lucky few through the venues ramshackle doors.

Once inside, you are greeted with a wry homage to the modern day theme park - I’m sure Mr Disney would not approve! And a good thing too, as Dismaland seeks to offer a realist alternative to our saccharine induced society.

Traditional style fairground rides shudder around unceremoniously to the fanfare of a small child’s voice, which chimes out a variety of monotone tannoys on loop. For a small fee, visitors can drive police boats and round up migrants in a small mock up pool. Children sit watching a delightfully un-pc Punch and Judy show, as their parents look on uneasily...

A wide array of artists - including Banksy - set the scene for the remainder of the park, mocking the establishment and its formalities at every turn.

Must see sections of the show include Damian Hirst's side show style tent (Disturbing is an understatement!) and the Cinderella feature - which depicts a recently deceased Cinders lying atop her overturned pumpkin carriage as Paparazzi snap away fervently.

If you're of a cynical disposition, this exhibition is most certainly for you. Expect the unexpected and a whole lot of (un-GM) food for thought.....

Dismaland’s website is still up. The sold out exhibition brought over 150k visitors and a nice £20 million to sleepy Weston-Super-Mare. Worth keeping an eye. http://dismaland.co.uk/