In 1998, around the time details of Bill Clinton's cigar escapades were coming out, I found myself promoting a New Zealand tour for Brutal Truth. It was the first time I'd ever done anything like that, so although the tour went pretty well, I didn't really know what I was doing and there were a few minor fuck ups along the way. One said fuck up involved not properly organising accommodation in Palmerston North, resulting in us all having to sleep on the floor of the venue (The Stomach). The next morning I recall looking over to see drummer, Rich Hoak waking up from under a bed he'd made from tour shirts he'd got out of the merch. Then becoming uncomfortably aware that, as some perverse form of punishment, Kevin Sharp's bare ass and balls were squatted, hovering less than two inches above my head from where I was lying!
This morning I checked facebook to see his over night birth announcement (see above).
Being once so horribly close to the origin of the offending giblet, I pulled no punches in asking the hard questions in the post comments.
Subcide Webzine: Congratulations. Did that come out through the eye of your dick?
Kevin Sharp: It sure did... wonderful feeling
Subcide: How big? (The stone)
Kevin Sharp: 3/8"
Subcide: What does it smell like?
Kevin Sharp: to be honest - you've asked some pretty fucked up questions... but sort of that new stone smell
Subcide: Was there blood when you pissed it out?
Kevin Sharp: no.. when these things bang around on the inside... you bleed a little bit every time... I was half asleep when it launched... barely noticed... just heard it bounce in the bowl... stuck to the side... didn't even have to dig it out... got any more questions asshat?
Subcide: why yes I do, scrotum face. When it stuck to the side of the bowl, did you have to put your hand in with all your piss or did it stick above the waterline?
Kevin Sharp: above waterline
Subcide: what do you think it stuck to? How heavy is it?
Kevin Sharp: fuk my life you're annoying... no idea.. not heavy... sorta like coral
Subcide: Thank you. That will be all.
Kevin Sharp: you sure... I'm here all night wise guy
Subcide: Can I publish this as an interview on my blog?
Kevin Sharp: Chris Rigby, you really don't give up - tenacious twat
Subcide: I take that as a yes?
Kevin Sharp: of course... now fuck off...
Subcide: Good night and Thank you.
Kevin is currently lead vocalist for 'Lock Up', who will be touring Australia and New Zealand with Napalm Death and Brujeria this October. You can find details for the Auckland show, Listen to the new Lock Up album 'Demonization' and see a close up of Quasimodo, all below.
I haven't felt much like writing over the past year or so. Something I promised myself when I started this blog in 2010, was that I wouldn't allow it to become a burden like the old print version of 'Subcide Zine' did. As it happens, right now I'm feeling quite creative and motivated. There are a number of releases that have inspired me in the last while that I'd like to tell you all about. They may not be new as such, so if you have already heard them I encourage you to take another listen. I've particularly enjoyed listening to and writing about this one.
Chris Rigby
Malevolence - Relentless Entropy (Self released)
Not so long ago I was checking out an old album by ‘Groinchurn’ called ‘Sixtimesnine'. ‘Groinchurn’ were a kick ass grindcore band from South Africa in the late 90s. When listening to it I thought "Man that was a great era for grindcore. Bands had started to develop musically. They were incorporating new diverse, intricate, interesting and engaging concepts into their music. The results being really enjoyable listening experiences." Brutal Truth were pioneers of this concept. Napalm Death had started to go down the same path and Nasum had just appeared on the scene. But where was this sound these days? Sure Napalm Death are still here and kicking ass. But Brutal Truth are over, as are Nasum, but why is there no one new doing this or developing it further?
As synchronicity would have it, after their 20+ years of existence 'Malevolence' come along with 'Relentless Entropy' to fill that gap. From start to finish it’s a consistent piece of modern grind art. It kicks off with 'Approaching Monster', an instrumental climbing intro which is later complimented by the album outro 'Retreating Monster', assumedly sequels to 'Passing Monster' from the 2007 EP ‘Eyes to See, Ears to Hear, Wrists to Slit’. ‘Approaching Monster’ leads directly into 'Digitize', a 1 min 49 second grinder focusing on our unavoidable existence of having our entire lives documented and tracked on line. Opening and closing with “Welcome unit, to the machine”, within Digitize we are issued with our serial number “3-4-4-4-8-4-9-3” which I’m pretty sure is also a clever reference to the guitar fret numbers of the riff beneath it. Then in the same tone we have 'Legalize', which talks about a dystopian future where food no longer grows and in order to survive, humanity must turn to cannibalism. Feeding on the vegetarians first, before farming thy neighbour. “The Adversary’ breaks the 3 minute mark for the first of only 2 times on ‘Relentless Entropy’. It also introduces the first section that could possibly be described as slower. The Adversary appears to be a character who is the “Anti-theist”, neither Christ nor Anti-Christ, they have come to free earth from the shackles of religion and to encourage humanity to “Think God out of existence”. ‘Transparent’, with its animosity toward the shallow nature of mainstream society, is the only song on the album where the music isn’t written by main man Daryl Tapsell, but by former second guitarist Nich Cunningham. Despite the different composer it still sits perfectly along with what sounds like a subtle nod to brutal truth played in reverse. The next 2 are short sub 1 minute grinders. The first is “Property of Satan” inspired by Daryl's tattoo.
Then we have the 23 second 'Butchered', which if I hadn’t read they lyric sheet I wouldn’t know was a personal tribute to the late Matt Hall, former vocalist of ‘Backyard Burial’, who in 2011 was “Butchered by a cunt!”
“Home brew Memories
BBQ smoking weed
Long nights of philosophy
Techniques of the scream
Mushroom recipes
Pros and cons of LSD
Some of what you were to me
Metal brother rest in piece”
'Bleed' tackles class warfare and highlights the fact that tory scum still bleed the same as you and I when you take their heads off. ‘Nothing and Nowhere’ reminds us that we’re all insignificant in the grand scheme of everything and explores the experimental grind style to a deeper level with its discordant chords riffs, before fading out slowly with various samples of scientific facts. 'Chased through the woods (with a rhyming dictionary)’ takes the piss out of immature gore themed death metal lyrics. All of which are of course rhymed. Track 11 '99942 Apophis' hits with a super heavy chaotic barrage, not unlike its namesake asteroid which is due to collide with earth on April 13, 2029. Apophis 99942 also is closest comparison to the war metal chaos that's currently coming out of New Zealand, and it comes nicely garnished with a sprig of vintage Morbid Angel. 'Human Suit’ has the most coherent lyrics/vocal and memorable chorus of the album, also the most catchy musically. It follows the life of a protagonist who becomes so disgusted with the human race they decide to murder it, finishing with themselves. ‘Idle hands' begins with a voice sample from the 1990/1 Ice T album ‘OG’ where Ice is introducing us to his new metal band ‘Body Count’. The song itself, the most straight forward metal tune, is a misanthropic view of someone who has sold their soul to their corporate job at the expense of everything else important. 'Life Machines’ is the album’s slowest and at 3:46min, longest tune. It begins with a creeping not-quite-doom riff, before ramping up the grind and death combo and Dives into slowness again briefly before finishing on an increasingly speed up War Pigs meets grindcore ending. ‘Life Machines’ spells out most directly the theme that’s been running right through ‘Relentless Entropy’ i.e. nothing we do in our lives will ever amount to anything of significance, we’re all getting older and we’re all going to die one day before eventually being forgotten. …Then the monster finally retreats wrapping up ‘Relentless Entropy’.
Malevolence have been around for over 20 years now, and constantly get better every time I hear them. ‘Relentless Entropy’ is testament to that. It has a simple Black and white cover - Just like the best grindcore albums. It’s held together with trade off vocals from rock solid ass player Julian (I’ve known this guy since 1998 and I still have no idea what his last name is), intense drumming from Ben (also skin pounder for Vassafor) and of course the stellar guitar work of Daryl.
‘Relentless Entropy’ is modern technical grindcore at its best. It survives and grows upon multiple listens. It will be a treat to hear what level Malevolence elevate themselves to next!
It’s a grind album you should invest in! You can do that by going to www.malevolencenz.com and purchasing it in CD, Vinyl or digital form.
Malevolence have been a part of the Auckland and New Zealand underground Metal scene for over 20 years now. Playing a style which incorporates Death Metal, Grindcore and crusty punk, they have remained a strong and consistent throughout their existence. This interview is with Daryl Tapsell, the man who has been around since the beginning.
1) Apart from yourself, what things have remained consistent in Malevolence since it's formation in 1992? What has changed since then that you didn't expect or intend for it to?
I think it has all changed since then. I started writing for Malevolence straight after Blackmass imploded (becoming Spine), and after 3 years of death metal, I wanted to do something with clean vox - kind of the heavy riffing and "tremming" of grind/death but with lyrics you could understand. Initially, (being young :)
I had this concept of extremely challenging and offensive lyrics that people would hear, rather than read on a lyric sheet. Unfortunately (being young :) I drifted off into other areas of lyrical content (naive metal style story-ish lyrics) so that concept never really saw the light of day. The band kind of fell apart in early 94 after a few gigs as the lead guitarist started getting into jazz and the bass player wanted to be more like Sepultura (as was the fashion at the time).
Julian joined in 1994 (answering a misprint ad in the Trade & Exchange for "Ass Player wanted") and brought the crusty punk side in to our sound, and I started reverting to my roots vocally - death growls and screams. It was an odd time in the Auckland scene (1994-98) as there were few (if any) active death metal bands - just a lot of Sepultura/Pantera style death/thrash. I joined a crust/grind band - Diswomble - which Julian was forming with some others guys, at the same time as he joined Malevolence, and the most active extreme scene was the punk scene at the time, so we ended up playing heaps of punk shows. There was a lot of cross over as heaps of the crust punks got were into grind (called "hardcore" back then before basketball shirt wearing straight edge breakdown fools took over the term :) and early death/black`metal (in fact the people I knew with the best collections of metal vinyl were punks!) This was the "Fuck The Lord" era for us - many ciders ago now :)
Members came and went, but I think everyone added to the evolution of the band. The core of Julian and myself is the constant throughout. When a guitarist left we became a 3 piece until a guitarist came along that we thought would add something, and when a drummer left we usually had a replacement within weeks, so the constant for me has been Malevolence in my life instead of the other way around. We have seldom had any downtime in the last 18 years :)
The lineup at the moment is the strongest by far with Ben joining in mid-late 2005. His approach to drumming is very complementary to the songs - relentless - and it drives us forward. I mentioned evolution earlier and I think that really typifies Malevolence. It has been a process of evolution - some mutations and evolutionary dead ends, but natural selection has pared it down to what it is now and we are stronger for it. We're about to release a new album and I think it captures that perfectly.
Daryl - guitar and vocals
2) Which conveniently leads to the next question: Tell us about this new Album. What should people expect? What will it be called? How will people be able to get hold of it? Could you please name and describe a few of it's key tracks?
Well the new album has been in production since late 2010. It would have been out earlier but we recorded the first 8 tracks and it turned out to be 15 minutes long (first world grind problems). We had released 2 EPs prior to this so I wanted to do something that broke the 30 minute barrier. That meant writing new material and, due to our process, road-testing new material. I think its important to get the songs thoroughly "broken in" before recording - we are predominantly a live band after all, and to capture that sound we need to have played and developed those songs on stage. So it was all recorded in 3 sessions over late 2010 - Early 2012 and has ended up being 15 tracks and hitting the 30 min target. Mixing took more time to gel the 3 different sessions together sound-wise - it was recorded live to analogue tape so the basic rhythm tracks were slightly different for each session, depending on what mics I wanted to use on the day, but it has been completed for a while now and (at time of writing) we're just waiting on Grindhead in Sydney to release it. I've been a bit picky about the sound as I don't want a plastic "modern" sound to it, and I want dynamics in the recording (remember those albums that you could play on 10 and it didn't sound flat and crushed)
People should expect a recorded experience that captures our live sound - relentless, crushing and bleak. As one punter put it ..."like being attacked by a jaguar while someone throws drums at you" Key tracks eh... There are a range of songs on here mostly written since 2008. All first recordings except for "Bleed" which was originally on our Fuck the Lord re-release demo CD in 1999. It weirdly fits in well today though, being about global economic tyranny. The album opens with Digitize - our live opener after the intro "Approaching Monster" fades up. I guess I like the newer tracks on the album (don't you always though). "The Adversary" I am pretty happy with as it contains one of my favourite lines to sing "an anti-theist the antithesis of everything that you believe" - as you might guess it is a call to atheists to be more proactive and intolerant instead of reasonable. "Butchered" is a remembrance to Matt from Backyard Burial. I wrote it on the plane to his funeral. Chased Through The Woods (By a Rhyming Dictionary) is a piss-take of paint-by -numbers, juvenile Gore/Grind, which contains another favourite lyric "...Taped a glock, to my cock, nine millimetres in her box".
Mostly it is about futility in many forms. It's called Relentless Entropy which is a lyric from the penultimate song - "Life Machines".
It's out through Grindhead at some stage so I'm guessing it will be available through the online store www.grindheadrecords.com. Obviously at our shows as well on CD and I'm guessing other media as well. We'll probably hit the road on this one too depending on when it is released
3) You mentioned the late Matt "Blaps Warmonger" Hall and his band Backyard Burial, of whom Malevolence released a split album with. What would you like to tell us about Matt, your involvement with him and Backyard Burial?
We had a pretty long involvement - Malevolence started doing the annual Punkfest in Wellington around 1996 so we became regular visitors to the Wellington scene. Ryan (from Backyard) was in a few punk bands as well, so I knew him through that scene (got to know him better when he hitched around the entire country for the Brutal Truth tour in 1998 - so did you I guess :). I have video footage of the first Backyard show I saw (in 1999 I think) at Thistle Hall on Cuba St in Wellington. I talked to Matt after the show and we kept in touch ever since. Obviously Backyard and Malevolence played a heap of shows together over the years. Matt and I also shared similar interests such as home brewing, recreational substance abuse and screaming, - he was generally a GC. He had a depth of character often missing in the metal scene. Just before his untimely demise he was coming up to Auckland regularly for work training so we'd always have catch up. You mentioned the Split CD which was pretty much his idea - 3 original songs + a live track + a cover each, and he thought of the image too - a grinder chewing into Aotearoa. The other members of Backyard are doing various projects at the moment too - well worth looking out for from what I've seen so far...
4) On your website (www.malevolencenz.com) you’ve made the entire Malevolence back catalogue available for download. If someone reading this who had never heard you before where to go there, what would you recommend they download first and why?
I recommend they download it all and decide what they like - I like it all but hear the parts that aren't quite where we wanted to be (if that makes sense). As i said earlier it has been evolving slowly over time, so if you want to hear us now, I'd recommend the new album (there are rough mixes of about half of it available on the site). We do resurrect the odd song from other albums live every now and then but we're not quite ready for the greatest hits tour :) We're still writing (in fact working on another EP right now) so we play the current stuff more than the back catalogue. I put the catalogue up after finding pirated copies of our stuff out there - I figure you might as well get it from us. Immediately after I did it I saw 3-4 blogs linking directly to it rather than going to some tedious download site.
We have always had a DIY attitude, probably fromour connection with the punk scene. I'm an audio engineer so the recording part just takes my time, Julz is a printer, and taught me to screen print back in the day so even before piracy we were giving away our product. To this day at shows/online our merch and cds are cheap - we don't have the same overheads as other bands so we generally have older CDs for $5 & T's for $25. We often play for expenses only and any profit simply goes back into the band - I read Fenriz explaining why they he still works at the Post Office in Oslo and he said he didn't want to live off music because he felt it would make him start writing for popularity and money rather than just doing what the fuck he wanted. I've always thought that was very cool.
Besides which it's almost impossible to live off original music in any genre in New Zealand - too small a population base. I've probably ranted way outside the bounds of where you were going with that question eh :)
Ben - Drums
5) Lets talk about your role as an Audio Engineer. You have your own “Back Door Studios” where you have recorded the like of Witchrist and Diocletian. You are also a tutor at an Audio engineering school and have been abused by Glen Benton from that shitty fuckin band Deicide. Tell us a bit about these things and any others worth speaking of.
Well it is "Blackdoor Studio" - not quite ready for that name change yet :)
It harks back to the DIY ethic really - can't afford to go to a studio? I'll just do it myself and that's how it started. Blackdoor is my project studio (where all my money goes to die). I do tracking, mixing and mastering for various projects. The nice thing about having a project studio is I can pick and choose projects I want to work on rather than running a commercial operation. I do stuff outside the metal/punk genre but the majority of the projects I work on are in that vein. As an added bonus Malevolence use it for our practice space. I do work at a polytechnic running an audio engineering course by day and while I haven't personally been abused by Glen Benton (apart from having his awful bass playing inflicted on me:) I was abused along with every other sound tech on Deicide's tour through Australia and NZ. Apparently it's part of his act - like hating Christians - He doesn't really mean any of it :) It’s probably a metaphor...
6) When I first met you when Malevolence played support on the 98 NZ Brutal truth Tour, you were wearing Nuns habits and womens underwear on stage. What happened there? What are you stand out memories from that tour?
The nun's habit started as a drunken tour joke (that potentially went too far :)
On tour at Punkfest around 1996, a couple of us ended up drunk in a toy shop (as you do) on a Saturday afternoon (if I remember rightly there was a nephew's birthday or some such excuse). Weirdly we found two lycra costumes - a nun and a french maid. There was no other choice for us - we wore them out of the store and played in them for the rest of the tour - it just kind of escalated from there :) I liked the confusing imagery of a nun playing grind, and a guy playing extreme metal in drag :) and the softness of women's underwear :)
Actually I took the nun's habit out of the cupboard for Antichristchurch's Satanfest in 2003. In my defense - Birdflesh :) Speaking of which, if anyone has a copy of "Demo of Hell" I'd be keen for a copy - Had one courtesy of Kra'zine in the early 90's and someone nicked it - awesome demo…
Ahh the Brutal Truth tour - so many good memories. Good guys. They stayed at our house when we returned to Auckland and hung out having BBQ/booze times. I remember playing Palmerston North (at Stomach) and this crazy motherfucker in a wheelchair who spent the night rolling at full speed at the stage and diving at us while we played ,then launching himself back on to his chair in the pit amongst everyone else going crazy - I remember worrying at the time that he would get trampled to death - but he was invincible. I think we gave him a t-shirt after the show.
I got the whole band to autograph odd things. I still have a copy of the book "deliverance" that is signed by Rich Hoak - I found out he was from Georgia so it seemed appropriate - he wrote "nice panties dude" - I was hoping for "squeal like a pig :) Dan lilker signed a poster I had of him just wearing cut offs on stage with Nuclear Assault (from "Power Metal" magazine) - everyone was giving him shit for it. I got Gurn to sign a toy plastic guitar that made really annoying sounds - but I ended up giving it to him to take home to his kids - I suspect he played it too much on the plane because the band split after that :) Speaking of autographs - Half of them couldn't be bothered doing signings so we all too turns pretending to be in Brutal Truth and signing shit randomly. Kevin was signing everything with "I (heart) cock - Bob Dylan" so that's a genuine Kevin Sharp. The funniest time was at Real Groovy where I was signing albums with Kevin (I think the rest of the band was in a van getting stoned as shit) and he signed someone's album and the guy said "What the fuck - you're not in Brutal Truth" to him. We just cracked up.
There are a few photos on their" last" release "Goodbye Cruel World" - of course they have reformed now (no Gurn - might have been that plastic guitar)
That was a great tour...
7) There were a few other international tours where you played support after Brutal Truth. Care to mention a few low and highlights from those?
Well… Straight after Brutal Truth we toured the country again for the release of the first full length, "Almost Like Something Completely Sinister". Soon after that we toured with Impaled Nazarene. Again we wound up the tour at my house and several hours of brutal drinking occurred. Not too many memories of that tour worth sharing as it was very quick, - 2 shows really if I recollect correctly. I remember Mika, was involved in a car accident which soured his experience somewhat. After that we toured with Atomizer - (PS Caught up with Saundies in Melbourne last time we played there) which was a barrel of laughs through the country. We toured with Pungent Stench in 2003 as well, which was amazing for me - being a fan for so long and then getting to see them for a heap of shows. I think around that time we decided that other bands needed a chance to play shows :), and to be honest as much as I love touring and catching up with people on the road, there are only so many times you can tour NZ on the bones of your arse and see it as a good idea. So we scaled back the frequency of shows and tours. When Ben joined at the end of 2005, it gave us the chance to hold back and write some new material - we had gotten to the point where we were playing all the time, and maybe learning a new song every 3 months or so which gets very boring for us - I have quite a short attention span :). So not really answering your question - that is a lot of ground to cover. The "low-lights" are mostly forgotten (and as the old Tremeloes song says "even the bad times are good") and the highlights of touring is the process itself and the people you meet along the way - In fact the highlights would definitely be the people - We've made some good friends on the road.
What most people don't realize about touring is it has long periods of boredom - the show is 45 mins out of each 24 hour period. You just get up early, wait to get to the next venue, wait for soundcheck, wait to play, pack down, sleep, repeat.
Julian - Ass player
8) You’ve played in a few other projects including Masters Of Metal, Black Metal Sabbath, and Diswomble. Can you please tell us about those. Are there any others to tell about?
Diswomble was the first side project, which happened soon after Julian joined the band, so round 1994. It was Julian's crust-grind band really, but at the time we were just thrashing around writing punk and drinking to much :) - Good times! At the time I was also in a band called Lagerwerfer, which was me and Spencer from "The Warners" doing some drunken drum machine stuff. Malevolence, Diswomble, Pig Benis and Lagerwerfer (or a combination of them) would often play shows together and we all knew each other and hung out so it was a cool little scene. There were other side projects like "2 Days Old" and "Jesus Fucked & The Latter Day Sluts" that lasted only a few shows.
Prior to Masters of Metal, Spencer, Zakk and I were in a little holiday project band called "The Lucky Book Club" which was an idea that Devon from "All You Can Eat" came up with. Basically he was on holiday, and wanted to form a band and record a 7" in every country he was in. We wrote and recorded 4 songs but I don't know if they ever saw the light of day - I have a copy on cassette somewhere. After that the Book Club went back to our normal bands for a few years until 2003 when Spencer got in touch with me about drumming in Masters Of Metal - As it turned out Zakk was in it too so it was a bit like a reunion. Masters of Metal is really just a bunch of us playing 70's and 80's rock and metal - It's part comedy - as we dress up and act like we are playing arena shows, but we are quite serious about performing the music well and making sure people have a good time. We have pretty much limited it to a single show per year around Xmas.
Around 2003 Nich asked me to sing in his band, Prisondethfux, which at the time was him and Nathan (then of Backyard Burial), and programmed drums on a laptop. We only played a few sporadic shows, and put out an album "Drink It Down" as well as a few compilation appearances. Nich joined Malevolence on second guitar around then too.
Black Metal Sabbath is an idea that Heath (Skuldom) had been talking about for a few years as a concept: Black Sabbath songs in the style of Norwegian Black Metal. Originally it consisted of me, Heath & Will from Skuldom, and Phil from Vassafor and we did one show and one rehearsal demo. Phil buggered off overseas, and we wanted to keep it going so we eventually recruited Kimball from Anno Domini Mortus, to take over on bass. We're thinking of putting together a show at the moment.
I'm also currently in a punk rock "supergroup" called Scumbeat, which is me and Bev from Garagefodder on Guitars, Dave from Missing Teeth/ the murderchord on bass, and Boot from Sticky Filth on drums.
I'm not the only one in side projects though - Ben is also in Vassafor.
Julian may be the only sensible one among us these days - sticking to the one band :)
9) A while ago you talked to me about the idea of re-recording some of your older tunes which are still crowd favorites in your live set. Could you tell us a bit about that and when we might see it? What other ideas or plans you have down the pipeline that we could look forward to?
I have often thought that there are a few songs that developed further after we recorded them and it might be cool to re-record those songs but I am also wary of revisiting the past. We are always working on new material and it is always fun to record something fresh. So I think about it from time to time but I don’t know when or if it will happen. The latest incarnation of this idea is just choosing 2 or 3 songs to round out an EP.
Things in the pipeline? We are self-releasing “Relentless Entropy” on limited edition vinyl (just waiting on the test-pressing now) which is a nice way to end 2013. We are playing a festival in Wellington (Beyond The Black) for New Years, and opening for Primate at the end of January 2014. So more of the same really - more recording - more shows...
10) Any last comments?
Thanks for the interview and supporting the underground scene. See you on the road!
Thanks heaps to Ami of The Mighty Scoop for hooking up this interview and also to Jesper and Anders of NASUM for taking the time to answer these questions. NASUM will be playing in Auckland later this month (See below poster for details), so if you live in New Zealand and are thinking of going, don't waste this one time opportunity to catch this awesome band got get your tickets ASAP!!!
1) You are playing in New Zealand for the first time this year (21 August 2012), what are your expectations of that show and your visit? What can the audience expect from your Live performance?
Jesper: Well, uh, a bunch of really fast music very loud? You know, what we do isn’t anything that hasn’t been done before – it’s five guys who scream and make a hell of a lot of noise whilst engaging in on-stage frenzy. I guess as with all live brutal music, it’s about being there in the moment and being sucked into the energy that comes out of the performance, for band as well as audience. Nothing I verbally try to describe will do the shows any justice, you just have to be there. Nasum has a big bank of songs, and on these shows we’re playing our best stuff and pushing the envelope a bit further, making everything harder, faster and more frantic than we thought we could. As this is a farewell tour, we have this last chance to prove that Nasum is and always was non-compromising, oppositional and deadly serious about grindcore. Also, going to NZ is obviously special for us – it’s close to Antarctica for fuck’s sake! Antartica is definitely a grindcore continent. Also, Ulcerate will open for us. Gotta love Ulcerate. Hopefully there will be a local grind band on the bill too.
Anders: The question is: what can we expect from the audience? If I don’t see one Orch stagediving, I will be very disappointed!
2) Your website has a gallery of peoples Nasum Tattoos and mentions that you have seen a lot more since you’ve been on the Farewell tour. What other unique things have you experienced on the tour? Please describe a few highlights.
Jesper: Well, it’s a bit like coming home from the war I guess. The band has been away for a long time, and just like coming home after a long time you don’t really know how things have changed. We knew there was some anticipation, but that it would be like this was overwhelming. How much Nasum has meant to people kinda took us off guard, and the lengths at which people go to see this is humbling. In LA, there was an entire family – mom, dad, two sons and a daughter - who had all travelled from Peru to see us. In a Czech fest we played there were a bunch of grind dudes from Saudi Arabia who knew everything about the band and had travelled there to see us. Stuff like that. Also, the sheer energy in the crowd at some of these gigs is pretty massive too. Can you imagine looking out over a hall at the Maryland Deathfest filled with of 3000+ people and every single person is moshing like mad. Or standing at Hellfest in France playing grindcore – this underground thing – in front of 10000 people? Insane. I am baffled every time. We never experienced shows like this before.
Anders: Although the huge stages and massive crowds are good for the ego, it’s the little things that stays in my memory. Like when we played a bar in Ventura, California. When we got there I was almost angry at the size of the venue. I thought: “Why have we been booked to a place where you have to set up your stuff on the sidewalk OUTSIDE of the club as there is virtually no space inside?” But after wolfing down a few pizza slices in the kitchen and seeing some of support bands go mental, our show turned out to be one of the most intimate and crazy things I’ve done. It was one hundredth the size of the crowd at Hellfest but very fun.
3) How did you make the choice to have Keijo Niinimaa from Rotten Sound on vocals for the Farewell tour? How is he working out? What was the main reason for a farewell tour?
Jesper: We fumbled around with a bunch of suggestions that felt so-so for a while, but noone really felt perfect. When we finally actually thought of Keijo it was like ”aw, hell, he is the obvious choice, how did we not think of this immediately?” We wanted the person to fill this role to have a great voice and be an awesome performer of course, but also, importantly, that he would have a closer connection to the band. We’ve all known Keijo for years, his own band Rotten Sound has opened for Nasum on a few tours, and they also recorded in Mieszko’s studio when he was alive. So he was a friend of the band, of Mieszko, he has a great voice and vocal range, and loves Nasum on top of it all. We are obviously happy that he wanted to do it.
Anders: One important thing to notice is that Keijo doesn’t do just Mieszko’s vocals, he does mine as well. On the first two albums I sung a lot, but live it was all covered by Mieszko – so the fact is that Keijo is actually doing something closer to the albums than what Mieszko did back in the day!
Nasum 2012
4) Shane Embury and Barney Greenaway of Napalm Death both cited hearing Nasum, and Inhale/Exhale in particular, as a definite turning point which helped them to rediscover grindcore and thus led to the recording of 2000's acclaimed Enemy of the Music Business.(Terrorizer #140, Spring 2005). I imagine this would be an honour to be referred to in that way by these people, but what do you think Nasum did differently that refreshed the Grindcore sound?
Anders: I believe the history with Napalm Death started with Barney wearing an “Inhale/Exhale” t-shirt in a video. That was unreal! And then we heard the stories and as some point I even heard something about the grindcore-unfriendly Mick Harris though “the band on N was quite good” after receiving a bunch of albums from Relapse, but in all honesty that can very much be a creative memory. Honour isn’t strong enough, it was baffling to realize that the band that inspired us to 90% when the band was formed a) knew about us and b) liked us so much that they claim WE inspired them. It still is quite sick, although we have a friendly relationship today. Anyway: I think there are a few reasons to Nasum’s success: 1) We have always been very serious about our grindcore, from the very beginning. Although some of the early – and late lyrics – perhaps didn’t have that political edge that is so closely connected with the band, we never fooled around too much and especially not with the music! 2) Once we started to add our own touch to the sound, leaving the quite strict form based on our sources of inspiration, we got a clear identity quite fast. We brought groove to grindcore and kept the doors open to other genres solely to pick inspiration, not to turn into some kind of mixtape circus act switching styles within the songs. 3) We put a lot of effort into the vocals and especially the vocal patterns, and thus creating real and memorable songs.
5) Where might Nasum have been today if it weren’t for the tragic death of Mieszko Talarczyk? What might have happened in the 7 years since the 2004 boxing day Tsunami?
Anders: It’s totally impossible to say. In a best case scenario we would be still alive and have another 4-5 records in the catalogue, but in a worst case scenario we would have disbanded by some other reason and never seen the 20th anniversary. Nobody knows. In 2004 we did our first headlining tour of Europe and felt a “break” coming and we had some slight plans to go into the studio and create something spontaneous on the spot, but that was the only plan we had when things went down the shitter.
The Late Mieszko A. Talarczyk "Mieszko never had the chance to be a hero or a survivor. He most likely died in the first wave. I do know that the last thing he did was to protect his girlfriend so in my eyes he died as a hero." - Anders
6) Tell us about “Coldworker” and “Burst”. What are they and why should we check them out?
Jesper: Burst was a band that me and my friends started as kids, and which gradually grew from a crusty punk band to a hardcore band to end up as a pretty brooding, progressive metal band. Burst was the reason I had to leave Nasum about a year prior to Mieszko’s death – the band started touring a lot more and grew gradually, and I felt I couldn’t handle two touring bands. As much as I love Nasum and always had, I had to make a choice. We made a bunch of albums and put them out through Relapse Records, and I am thoroughly proud of them. It has nothing to with Nasum or grindcore, rather it is more melodic in the melancholy sense, and slightly more experimental and metallic. Check out ”Origo” or ”Lazarus Bird”.
Anders: Coldworker is my (only) band, that was formed in February 2006 and so far has released three albums. I had about a year off from most musical adventures and eventually started to look around in my hometown for new people to play with. I found a few, and then some more and the ball got rolling quite fast. Coldworker is a death metal band. Someone once described us as “if Cannibal Corpse was from Europe” and that’s a good description. We like the American style of riffing but most certainly have an European edge to our sound. Coldworker hasn’t tour that much and up until now never really been judged on it’s own terms. There are ALWAYS comparisons to Nasum in the reviews, which is totally annoying and unfair as the only connection is me. For more info and samples and stuff, visit coldworker.com.
7) Would you ever consider continuing the current line up after the farewell tour, perhaps under a different name? Why?/Why not?
Anders: No. There are many reasons. The biggest one is that we have other bands that more or less waits for the Nasum thing to be over, and we need to get back to “normal life” and continue where we were. Another reasons is that whatever music this new band with same line-up would play, people would scream for Nasum songs and then we’ll just be Nasum under a new name playing Nasum songs and that, if anything, is milking it. So that’s out of the question. I’m not ruling out the possibility that some of us meet again for a project or something, because we play well together, but as of now we will not continue in any shape or form.
8) What is the future of Grind core?
Jesper: Grindcore will probably always exist. I don’t think it could ever be widely popular, but then that isn’t the point. This is a subgenre of a subgenre, and the oppositional nature of grind will probably keep it alive and healthy in the margins of the underground. Three ”new” bands I like are Magrudergrind, Wormrot and Massgrave, and I hope i’ll get new hope for the future when we go to OZ and NZ and see the local supports get jiggy with it.
9) I saw that you played a show (or some shows) with my good friends ‘brutal truth’. How were those guys on stage and in person these days?
Jesper: They’re awesome. Fuzzy and scuzzy, but awesome and sweet. I can’t believe fucking Brutal Truth (and Dropdead!) opened for us in the US.
Anders: To be completely frank, they are not “Extreme Conditions…” Brutal Truth anymore, but on the other hand they haven’t been that for a long time. Brutal Truth today is one big “fuck you” finger up the butt on… well, everything. They are super cool though, and Danny Lilker is quite the entertainer. You hardly have a boring time when he’s around.
10) Anything to add in closing?
Anders: Thanks for the support. Early on in this interview you asked about our expectations, and once the tour and show is done we will share our thoughts and if the expectations were met or not, as we have an ongoing tour blog at nasum.com. Check that out, and thanks again for the support!
