Hello lads! How did you guys get together?
Sammy Duet: It probably started around '93/'94 and originated when me and the original drummer were doing recordings and messing around. I was in another band that was doing stuff in the US and he had a four-track, and we'd get together and record demos and stuff for fun. We did a couple of those things, maybe three demos, and it spread very little. It wasn't something that we really put out and tried to spread. It kinda started out like grindcore, but we bought a Beherit album, and that's when it all changed. The lyrical content - the whole satanic thing - was always there, but we were a lot nosier and not really focused on what we wanted to do until then.
So we did that for a while, and the band I was in at the time broke up, so I was like "Why don't we take this seriously?" So we got a couple of more members and started playing gigs, and I was singing as the lead singer and was playing guitar, but then I got in a bar fight and I got my jaw broken in a couple of places, and we had gigs booked already that we didn't wanna cancel. We were really good friends with [Ben], and he said if we needed another guy then he could come in and help us out, cause my jaw was wired shut and I couldn't sing! He came in and helped us out, and then I got my jaw unwired and stuff, and we were like "Well things are going well, if you want to stick around youre more than welcome to", and we just kept it like that.
Then we put out a demo which initially got around a little bit in the States, which led up to us getting signed to Rotten Records, who released our first two records. Then we got signed to Metal Blade for two records, and here we are! For our first record we were on tour with GWAR in the US, and the [Metal Blade] head guys saw us play and they approached us back stage. We kept in contact with them, and that's how it came about.
What was touring with GWAR like?
SD: Interesting!
Ben Falgoust: They're all great. They're all great guys, but equally as crazy as the show they put on stage. A couple of them are seriously mad men, because they come up with the ideas to go on stage, so on a daily basis their heads are coming up with all this crazy stuff.
Was it difficult living up to their shows?
BF: You don't live up to it. If you're going to see GWAR, you're going to see GWAR, we were just along for the ride. I think we did pretty well, we still have people come up to us and say that the first time they ever saw us was with GWAR back in so-and-so, so it was definitely something we built on. But if you go out with GWAR, GWAR are the thing people are coming to see.
Isn't this the first time you've come to England?
BF: Yes it is. For the first record we did with Metal Blade, 'A Haunting Curse', we toured Europe, but we didn't get to come to England sorry, the UK! But that tour was with Immolation, and we went to places like Scandinavia and Poland, I think it was just the way the tour was routed. We were about to go out on tour with Marduk and Enslaved, but two days before the tour even started, the whole damn thing got nixed. But the tour with Immolation was nearly two years after ' Haunting Curse', whereas our newest record, 'Carving Out The Eyes Of God', only came out three months back, so it's fresh. Hopefully this will lead to another tour out here, maybe some festival offers, who knows! We tour a lot in the US, so it's awesome to be able to get out of there and come over here and do some touring.
How does touring Europe compare to touring the US?
BF: Well the drives are shorter, that's for sure. In the US, some tours are difficult to get food, beer, water, all your basics. Sometimes you're at a show wrestling just to get some water, whereas out here you have sandwiches, fruits, chocolate, beer, there's everything there! They definitely show an interest out here in taking care of the bands. When we were on tour with GWAR, we did get a lot of things because of the scale of the tour, but if this tour that we're on with Skeletonwitch and Toxic Holocaust was in the US, it'd be hard to get a lot of things. It's the level of the tour that makes a difference.
How's this current tour been going for you?
BF: All of the UK shows have been really good for us. We started in Plymouth and then we went to Glasgow, Sheffield, Birmingham and then here. All the shows were really good, the one in Birmingham wasnt attended as well as the other ones, but the crowd was really good and they were really into it. After this we go back into Europe until December 20th.
'Carving Out The Eyes Of God' is out now on Metal Blade
article by: Merlin Alderslade
published: 11/12/2009 13:18
FUTURE GIGS
sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.