A wise woman once said, “Make-up won’t make the ugly go away”. That wise woman is also known as my step-sister, Celinsky, who leaned over my shoulder as I was trying to patch-up my face from a night of sitting-around-a-camp-fire and singing Kumbaya.
As it turns out, moving won’t make the crazy go away either. And in my case, the coming-of-age “I am getting out!” wasn’t aimed at moving to the city of my city. Instead, I decided to move to the other side of the world to really stick it to the man and put an ocean between everything that I loved and hated; sometimes simultaneously.
“Precisely” 16040.4 kilometres (according to some sources) later, I ended up in Aarhus. I was obviously too excited by the prospect of eating Danishes in Denmark, that I forgot to look at the size of this fair city. The Danes – or whoever does the marketing up in here! – like to describe Aarhus as “the largest small city in the world”. However I think this may be an allegory.
I gave up the company of my loves and my friends, to seemingly stay the same in another world. Thankfully, I still keep the company of my old friends, like Hamsun, Carr, Bronte and Nietzsche.
A great man once said, “Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art”. I’m sure Andy said this whilst mass-producing his art and discussing free-thinking with his free-thinkers, but digression aside, that was and is the only point: to create.
A change in geography won’t fix disassociation, but twenty days later it did wake me up. Now, as crazy as always, I am finally inspired to write.
Six years in the making, it was kept under a self-imposed embargo throughout. SikTh and Iron Maiden are monikers that seldom appear collectively, but 2011 was the first year to bring the news of collaboration between Mikee Goodman and Adrian Smith, and the first year to finally sate the appetites of fanatics that have missed Goodman’s eccentric voice since SikTh’s totally and completely demoralizing hiatus.
This is a tale of two artists in unremitting admiration for their past and present work, who met in serendipitous circumstances that created one of the most peculiar collaborative projects in recent years.
“We met through mutual friends… We [SikTh] got asked to play a party for his [Adrian Smith] son’s [Dylan Smith] birthday and he called me up the next day and asked to jam with him.” Simple and perfect, as recalled by Goodman, who is currently working in Japan on a completely unrelated musical endeavor – which I probed about to some avail.
Conceptualized as a studio project without tangible plans for releasing their work, Primal Rock Rebellion is now aptly seen as the latest British super group. Six years on, the duo’s debut record, ‘Awoken Broken’, comes as a work that pushed both Mikee and Adrian out of their creative comfort zones, taking them into experimental places that they’ve rarely touched, and culminating with an album that will allegorically blow your mind.
“We were very experimental musically and we went into a lot of different places,” Mikee expressed. “Really, we both just channeled ideas. We inspired each other into different places. I actually listened to Adrian and he helped me and I also helped him in certain ways, because I come from a very experimental place.
“And from there it just naturally evolved. It was all natural, really. Adrian might have pushed me in a certain place… it was just a very easy, calm and inspiring process the whole way through it. It’s my most enjoyable experience in the studio for sure.
“I think he is my friend before anything, that’s what I consider him.”
With the diversity of their musical backgrounds, it was easily presumed that ‘Awoken Broken’ would be an eclectic record in itself. But this assortment most blatantly comes from the lyrical content written by Mikee, with songs inspired by and revealing love, mourning, societal aggression and psychological illness – with the latter, much like the various subjects Goodman chooses to speak about, motivated by people within his life.
“I’ve been writing this [album] for six years, it’s over six years of experiences, and it’s very meaningful to me because I’ve got to go and look at the lyrics and really hone them…” Divulging his process, Mikee continued. “So I’ve got to really think about what I’m doing a lot more, I got to go a lot further with lyrics on this album.”
“There are love songs and there are sorrowful songs,” he said. “There are songs about how in certain places in society, people are medicated for illnesses and they get into a place where they can’t get out of it and just rely on it – that’s one thing I covered on the album, which is quite a deep subject: ‘White Sheet Robes’. And I write a lot about people I know, people who I’ve known, or myself.”
With such a unique musical collaboration, the wait for backlash is inevitable – and as SikTh and Iron Maiden fans are notoriously territorial, the internet warriors have come and failed to conquer, with hackneyed arguments solidified in “This is OUR musician!” caps lock chants.
“Iron Maiden fans and SikTh fans are very similar in the sense that they just want to hear Iron Maiden or they just want to hear SikTh,” Mikee explained. “So it’s a hard one, but there are some people who are open to it.”
“They’re really territorial,” he continued in a frank tone. “I read one comment on Facebook actually, and someone said “this voice belongs to SikTh!” on a SikTh board. It does not actually belong to SikTh!” through a comical exclamation of exasperation he laughed.
“It’s quite hard work for anyone trying to break out and try to do something else… And I think that that’s another thing, when someone really loves a band and if you [join] another band they see it as a threat to the band they love. But this is a studio project, people shouldn’t be like that. So people shouldn’t be so defensive, I think it’s more defensive than anything, it’s crazy.”
Admittedly maturing as a musician and a person, including his openness to other people’s musical input and ideas, Mikee commented on the recent announcement of a SikTh reunion, which, although discussed and announced earlier this year, he does not see occurring for at least two years.
“I’ve already said that I will be a part of it, but I personally don’t think it will happen for another two years. To be honest, it isn’t my place to say why it won’t happen, but I’ve already come out and said yeah, I’m up for it.”
In conclusion of the dialogue, and without any name dropping, Mikee did reveal that his as-yet-untitled new project involves working with a Japanese writer, a female Japanese singer, and unmentioned third entity.
“It’s really exciting right now,” Mikee exclaimed. “I haven’t been this excited in a long while.”
2004, The Used release their seminal, sophomore record, ‘In Love and Death’. They monumentally break through the Australian emo-scene: a walk-of-life we all remember, as you were either one of them, or you made fun of them.
Ensuing sold out shows; mass devotion from fans and front-man, Bert McCracken, is extolled as a sex symbol, fashion icon and role model for countless adolescent girls, and boys. For these fanatics, The Used became the epitome and the beacon of a scene made popular by an emancipated facade of apathy and pensiveness, no matter how authentic, harmonized or specious it really was.
2012, 8 years and three albums on, The Used and Bert have moved far from a record that came as the spawn of a demoralizing, personal tragedy: the well publicized death of his ex-girlfriend and unborn child.
With five records and over ten years, the changes are as expected as they are palpable. Today, their career progresses in ‘Vulnerable’, the latest and appropriately titled studio offering, and an album that encompasses the fall and the growth, pushing through as a commix of layers built from intimate experience, and yet a concept that all can find a relevance in.
“It’s about learning from our mistakes and picking up the pieces as we go along,” expressed Bert McCracken, as we began to discuss The Used’s new album, the aforementioned ‘Vulnarable’, through a fuzzy telephone line.
He continued. “It’s knowing that life is never going to be easy or perfect, and trying to become a more powerful person when you get shut down sometimes. I think everyone in life has felt picked on, or felt like they don’t belong and that is this record, allowing yourself to be vulnerable.
“This record kind of encompasses the uprising of the spirit,” he said. “It’s a really positive record, which is good. I think everyone needs a little positivity nowadays.”
Somehow, this positivity, or his personal happiness, was seldom heard through our conversation, until it became candidly real with each laugh. And as he spoke of the band’s want for complete control of their music, and finally reaching this point through the creation of their own label, an imprint of Hopeless Records, the Anger Music Group, it grew more overt: after a decade The Used has become liberated.
“We’ve been doing this for ten years; we want to have complete control, over everything.” Bert explained, before digressing toward their relationship with Warner Music Group and Reprise Records.
“… Major labels like that, it’s a dying industry,” he continued. “And you can just look at the numbers. Everyone’s gone, everyone’s fired. Everyone we used to work with at Warner has been fired since. So we just had to hire them out freelance so they still worked for us.”
Putting to rest any assumptions of bemusement on the band’s behalf, Bert explained that The Used’s public split from Respire Records could not have come at a better time, whilst humorously portraying this break-up to that of any other personal relationship with a girl that you no longer want, need nor love.
“Well we had it pretty good in the beginning,” he began. “They promised us one-hundred-percent creative integrity throughout our career, and that just kind of started slipping away towards the end.
“For some reason, they opted to pick up our fifth record and then dropped us like two months later, so it worked out best for everyone. We kind of talk about it like being in a really shit relationship, for a long time, with a girl that you don’t like, and you’ve been trying to break up with her for years, and then she dumps you!” He exclaimed through laughter.
“But it was perfect timing,” Bert continued, “because we planned on starting our own label anyway.”
Since the January release of the band’s inaugural single, ‘I Come Alive’, from the new record, McCracken noted some of the backlash already received from fans regarding the musical direction that the band has taken. Once again, the commentary has leaned toward the true niche of The Used, a trite stab, and something which the quartet has experienced throughout their career.
“People are talking about dubstep, and this and that. But, to tell you the truth, we’ve been called everything since we came out: we’ve been called emo, we’ve been called screamo, we’ve been called whatever you want to call us, but we’re just The Used and we write songs that we love to write.”
The eclectic new album does come as a departure from the basic guitar, drum and bass sound of The Used, but these are not changes of an excessive nature, as Bert illustrated, underlining that the unique tones of Quinn Allman’s guitars, and his own vocal lines, still hold to the inimitable sound of the band.
“This record was written more with electronic samples; written a lot more on the keyboard – and kind of piecing together drum loops and things like that. So it’s a departure in that way, but I think that with the sound of Quinn’s guitar and my voice, it definitely sounds like The Used, just modern and exciting.
“There are so many different types of songs on this record,” Bert continued. “You go from a super slow, beautiful love song, to a heavy, fast, brutal, disgusting song and then back-and-forth and all around. It’s really nice.”
Elaborating on his writing style, McCracken highlighted the notion of having the listener involved with his personal stories, which, like ‘Vulnerable’ in whole, allows for the audience to connect with the conceptual idea of the album. And unlike its predecessors, in particular the still pertinent ‘In Love and Death’, the fifth studio release doesn’t come as a metaphorical work, a technique which at times translated as an object of self preservation.
“I think that I get pretty direct and to the point, without having to exclude other people and their feelings, because I feel like these are the things I’m going through and writing about for me personally,” he said.
“Other people have experienced similar things, so it’s not about me hiding the truth; it’s more about me just wanting everyone to be able to feel involved.”
Whilst taking absolute control of the new album, including their work with long-time producer John Feldmann – who, as Bert laughingly explained, did not give the outfit any direction on the record, leaving them with a strong hold on their own creativity – The Used have been fortunate not to feel any pressure in releasing this album, despite some of the assumed vulnerably that may come even with the slightest changes in sound, which have been entirely under the wings of the band.
“It’s what I do for a living and it’s also where my passion is,” Bert expressed in a tone of fervor. “My life is to write and to create music, so for me it’s not a lot of pressure at all; it’s just something that I truly enjoy doing: it’s fun and therapeutic. I feel like if I love it, then I should feed it.
“I think that we have a lot of hardcore fans and a lot of people know about The Used, [as] we’ve been around for quite a while,” he continued. “And the people who are lucky enough to discover and love this band will understand that we love it because we love music, that’s why we do what we do.”
From ‘The Taste of Ink’ and ‘Bulimic’, to ‘I’m a Fake’ and ‘Cut Up Angels’, this was the tumultuous trail that led to the negativity of the 2009 released album, ‘Artwork’, and a path that now sees Bert taking himself away from chaotic beginnings and his own self destruction. The new record serves as a representation of the pain, its development, and his personal becoming of a content being, which is an authoritative step away from his private, albeit excessively publicized, history of drug addiction.
“I think life is about successes and failures and it’s what we do from the failures that really make us successful, especially as an artist and being in a band,” McCracken commented.
“So it’s about falling down and getting back up and being able to brush yourself off and becoming a more powerful person from it – just like the idea of being vulnerable.”
Following the band’s recent Australian tour as part of the annual Soundwave Festival, Bert McCracken asserted that their arrival for a headlining run is imminent, with plans to return in support of their fifth studio album, ‘Vulnerable’, now tentatively slated for a later date this year.
2012; Psycroptic’s career is officially a seventh-grader. Thirteen years, five albums and countless tours have ascended this unit into one of the most recognizable metal outfits spawned from Australia, and now admired globally.
With time, comes an awaited, tacit change. But by the protective nature of fans, despite their professed open minds and ears, a change is not always wanted, welcomed, or understood. An adjustment becomes uncomfortable, unusual, and if the music is more – god forbid – digestible, then this change is absolutely unacceptable. Furthermore, if this change comes from tech. death wizards, namely Psycroptic, well, be ready for an internet flame-war concentrated on diversity in opposition to ‘weaksauce’!
The above is a trite matter which has affected any band or artist that has taken to changing, no matter how slightly, their musical output. This February, nonetheless, it was Psycroptic’s turn with the release of their fifth studio album, The Inherited Repression.
Psycroptic has shaped technicality with groove, and palatable, melodic and diverse have become just a few subtle descriptions for their fantastic new record. But this change was not one of providence, as described by vocalist Jason Peppiatt, it was one prepared willfully.
“We have done the really fast and the really technical thing for years now, and we were getting to a point where we really wanted to change the formula,” began Jason. “We wanted to add a bit of something different and liven it up a little bit. So it was a very much conscious decision… we really wanted to focus on song writing as well, not so much having blast beats the whole way, but make something different of it.”
He continued, “We always knew that with changing style a bit and going for a bit of a different sound, that obviously we weren’t going to please everybody, but we are all really happy with how it [The Inherited Repression] came out. So, we thought “well, if some people don’t like it, then so be it”, because we’re not going to be a band that releases the same album time-after-time. So we thought it was time for a little bit of a change, and we’re not really nervous at all about it.”
The Inherited Repression has already been described as a “make-or-break” record for Psycroptic, and has additionally brought on commentary regarding the somewhat conflicting timing of the release along with another, high profile extreme metal troupe. But the internet blogosphere, and its myriad views, seldom affect or even penetrate the minds of Psycroptic, with Jason asserting their determination as musicians.
“No matter what happens of it, I think it would take more than one album to break us,” he explained. “We’re a pretty determined bunch of blokes; we’re pretty keen of sticking this out for the long run. I don’t think that we will have any issue with it really bringing us down.”
With a plethora of new technical death metal bands, and the currently thriving djent micro-genre trend, it is easy to view some tech. metal as having become not only repetitive, but redundant. However, despite seeing some bands walk the fine line between creativity, and “a bunch of dudes trying to cram as much notes in as they can”, Peppiatt’s views are optimistic.
“It’s still a thriving style of music,” Jason commented. “And people are always going to get into it: people always like to see people pushing themselves.”
With an absence from both Jason and bass guitarist, Cameron Grant, the Haley brothers [Joe and Dave - guitars and drums, respectively] recently completed their latest Psycroptic circuit of Europe, joining Origin and Leng Tch’e under the jolly banner of ‘Occupy Europe’.
The curious absence from Jason and Cameron brought a simple answer of bad timing, as “it was a bit of a last minute thing… so then we just had to bite the bullet and send a couple of session members.” Nevertheless, Jason’s two young children brought forth the speculation that this may indeed have a strong impact on his touring life, despite the sacrifices already made through such a life style.
“That has had some sort of impact on it, but a lot of it was to do with my day job as well.”
Jason continued, “With touring, it does take so much time: you’re away from home for months at a time so it’s always going to have an impact on your personal life and your work life. But we haven’t had to make too many sacrifices, but obviously time with loved ones… I think the biggest sacrifice is time with family.”
Currently planning their Australian tour, which is timidly scheduled for this August and September, an official announcement can be expected within the next two months, with Jason comically adding that he will definitely be present on the Australian run.
“Yeah, yeah definitely!” he laughed. “It’s just this European tour was [during] too much of a hectic time with work, so, with everything else, me and Cam will be back on board!”
With an imminent and highly anticipated tour, an additional change can be projected from Psycroptic. Currently, the talk is of using backing tracks to evade the use of a second live guitarist, all in the effort to take Psycroptic’s music to its complete capacity.
“We want to bring something new to our live show with this new album,” Jason said, “so there will definitely be a lot of changes.”
“We’re the equivalent to watching a musical version of a horror movie,” is an ambitious description that is sure to raise eyebrows. Hearing that this band is the spawn from members of L.U.S.T, The Licks, Ink, Caligula and Neon Heart, raises that anticipation even higher. And in 2012, the spawn has come out to play in the form of the aptly titled Graveyard Rockstars.
Crawling out of Sydney’s woodwork is the brainchild of front-man Ash Rothschild, for whom the idea of a horror-rock troupe clad in an almost identical aesthetic loomed for a long time, before serendipity took hold, like it does with all attractive ideas.
“I, the drummer [Steve Woodward] and both guitarists [Ronnie Simmons, Brendan Synnz] were sitting at my place one night, and I was telling them about this idea,” began Ash. “It wasn’t until one of them pointed out that we actually all looked quite similar [that] we realized we had what I was looking for right there… lucky enough they were all great musicians.”
Fake blood, spider webs, and myriad horror decorations round-off the stage presence from a band whose lyrical content covers the horror-rock staple of vampires, serial killers, zombies and demons. Albeit do not assume to hear an overt comical undertone as has become expected from this niche, for Ash’s lyrics are written “with a dark sense of humour,” an authentically “strong interest in the occult, vampires and spirits,” and perhaps a good dose of tongue-in-cheek rhetoric.
With a vast mix of glam rockers, the speculation of creative clashes was swiftly diluted by Ash, who underlined the diplomacy within the band, adding a humorous allusion to a need of healthy conflict.
“We all have a healthy respect for one another, and we all still have our other bands, so this band was a real chance to go into the unknown with song-writing,” he expressed.
“There haven’t been any clashes yet… but I think that’s something that’s very necessary in band, it usually means people actually give a shit.”
“We’re talking massive balls! The biggest balls!” laughed drummer Lee Vincent, as he spoke of his band’s forthcoming – and clearly sizeable – sophomore album ‘Tough Love’.
“It’s a heavier album – not in a metal sense – juts in the presence of it I think,” he continued on the new record, which has come through as a plethoric mix of the band’s classic rock, post-hardcore and 90’s grunge influences, brilliantly making Pulled Apart by Horses a difficult outfit to push into a definitive niche.
For front man Tom Hudson, guitarist James Brown, and with Robert John Lee rounding off the outfit on bass, Lee described that their work on the new record with Gil Norton was a dream-come-true, commenting that “he really brought the best out of our band.”
Admittedly huge fans of the producer, Lee detailed that Norton’s name came up following the band’s viewing of a Foo Fighters’ documentary whilst on tour: “Yeah! That’s a great album [‘The Colour and the Shape’]! Put Gil on the list!” you know, just kind of joking really,” exclaiming that the troupe was ultimately “gobsmacked that it actually happened!”
As a moderately young outfit – having formed in the latter part of 2007 – the Leeds, England-based rockers have speedily made a big impression on the music world. But quicker than the aforesaid, the troupe has additionally gained a reputation for chaos and bodily harm during their live sets.
“It’s kind of a happy violence; we’re not aggressive when we play,” explained Lee, for whom – unlike his band-mates – the stage is a quite safe space, whilst he is hidden behind his drum kit.
“It’s all stuff off stage – that’s the bad stuff that happens to me,” he began to elaborate, climaxing with a story of his being hit by a car whilst having post-show, celebratory drinks with friends Future of the Left. “I went flying through the air,” he continued comically, “…my band just sort of stood there and didn’t know what to do, and then The Future of the Left guys… they turned into the instant dads!”
Currently a first-grader within their careers, Lee expressed that for him, the high and quick rise of the four-piece – and the clear, musical impression that they have already made – is still a peculiar experience, and one during which he continues to keep grounded.
“It’s just weird; I try not to think about it really,” he began.
“You know, when these things happen and you find out that – like when we found out that Gil Norton had ever heard of our band, let alone liked us – things like that, that stuff just doesn’t happen to normal people, and I’m still a normal person.
“You just take everything with a total pinch of salt, and you just keep doing what you’re doing, and that way you keep your feet on the ground…. We’re incredibly lucky to play music for a living, so that’s enough for us.”
“I don’t think that we felt like we needed to make a certain record, or that we would let down our fans, [or] our label. This is a record we made for us,” commented Silverstein front man, Shane Told, as he discussed the work behind the band’s forthcoming, new album, ‘Short Songs’.
Twelve years into the outfit’s career, Canada’s Silverstein is now set to release its sixth post-hardcore effort. ‘Short Songs’ is an album which pays homage to the bands that influenced the quintet, and features eleven brand new compositions that have not only taken on an old-school vibe in their length, but are also intimate representations of Shane during a rapidly changing – and an overtly tumultuous – period within his life.
“There have been a lot of changes in my life, my personal life,” stated Shane.
“There are times when you wake up in the morning and you’re not always confident – you don’t wake up and look in the mirror and always love yourself. There were days I didn’t love myself; there were days when I kind of hated myself.
“I think there is a lot of that reflected in this record,” he continued, delving into the lyrics. “There’s a lot of, I don’t want to say negativity, because ultimately it’s about positivity, [but] there are a lot of times I wrote these songs when I wasn’t in my best state of mind.”
The balance of personal negatives and self discovery with the band’s musical influences, found Silverstein going into the writing process of this record without any precise or preconceived approach in hand, and through this, the Canadian punks found that serendipity played part in the eleven original songs written for the album.
“The very first song we wrote [was] ‘Brookfield’; that was exactly ninety-seconds,” explained Shane.
“We felt like that gave us enough time to work with; not just having all the songs be so short, but we were able to get out what we wanted to say without it being too extraneous.”
The short length of each song is not a new model, albeit a rarely used one today, and indeed one that comes hand-in-hand with the bands that Silverstein decided to cover: further underlining this ideal by dubbing the record after a Dead Kennedys’ track.
“This is something that we wanted to do for ourselves, to have fun with,” Shane continued. “I think a lot of our fans are going to take something from this… it’s a special record,” he exclaimed.
The inception of Silverstein is now firmly placed within a different world due to the rapidly changing industry and their niche. Yet, for a band to keep to its original members for over a decade throughout the continuous transformations around them – whilst constantly being ahead of the technological curve – Shane described that this accomplishment is simply put down to their respect of one-another, and the absolute lack of indulgence in screaming matches back-stage.
“I think we’re very laid back with each other about things that people do in the band,” he began, “we try to respect each other.”
“If someone leaves their dirty plate on the [tour] bus, I’m not going to lose my mind and freak out… It’s just all about being laid back and being chill, and understanding that everyone makes mistakes.”
Silverstein has yet to announce a run of Australian tour dates in support of their new record; however Shane expressed that it is something they are currently working on, with the middle of 2012 currently slated as an unconfirmed possibility.
“No matter if it’s an Australian interview or an American, or Japanese; I always say Australia is my favourite country to be [in], so I can’t wait to come back!” Shane asserted.
