Hello Punks who love Black Metal!!!
This is the first Interview posted on the NecroCrust blog! It is with Chronocide, the band featured in the last post who pummel us with black as fuck grind punishment.
Who you are and what you do
Neil: Nothus and Eversor, or Mike and Neil to our folks. I'm [Neil] a student at Glasgow University (archaeology, classics and religious studies) and Mike teaches RE in Sheffield.
What sort of musical backgrounds do you have, what kind of bands have you/do you play in other than Chronocide?
Neil: We've been in a smattering of thrash, crust and black metal bands between us. Chronocide is Mike's only band currently, I play in a doom/sludge band called Sunsmasher and have a few other things for fucking about with when I'm bored, Bloodlunch (psychobilly), Grindasaurus Rex (grindcore with its tongue in its cheek) and Ishkerioth (d-beat). The latter two just being me by myself.
Where did the idea for the band come from, why did you chose to mix grind with black metal as opposed to anything else or do a straightforward grind or black metal band?
Neil: I wanted to do something with Mike singing, having known each other via internet forums. We mooted the idea for ages and I never got round to writing anything whilst I moved around the country a bit working. When I eventually did we had various ideas about things we'd like to incorporate which I tried to bear in mind when I was writing but how many of those really come through I'm not sure. I hear the sludge ideas and the psychedelia ones, for instance, but I imagine to the average ear it's mostly the black metal, hardcore and grind that's clear.
Mike: I just wanted to do something with no particular limitations, it came out the way it did because of the influences we have, not because we made a conscious decision to play black metal or grind, I suspect that our future material will sound different again incorporating whatever we want to add at that time.
Chronocide is just the two of you, was this a conscious decision or could you not find members?
Neil: Entirely deliberate. I didn't have any interest in having a full band for it, just wanted to be able to work on everything myself. I get far more done aside from anything else. Plus with us living several hundred miles apart it was never going to be a normal full band anyway.
Do you ever plan to get a band together for live gigs or are you going to keep it darkthrone style and just record albums.
Neil: We've done two shows, one with Anaal Nathrakh and one at the Damnation Festival pre-show last year. We've every intention of doing more, but given the distance between us it needs to be stuff that we think is worthwhile and that we can both actually make it to.
What is the song writing process like if it is just the two of you, and who plays what?
Neil: I have little bursts of activity now and again. Write two and record two or three songs in a day then come back to them and play about with lead or texture parts over the top then send them down to Mike. He'll get some ideas for vocals, get back to me with any changes he thinks need to be made and every so often comes up and records vocals in Glasgow.
What would you say is the purpose Chronocide and what do you hope to achieve with it?
Neil: My auto-response to this question used to be “I just want to make music that sounds like getting punched in the face”. I suppose that's still the case. In concept and lyrical content there's an intention to be thought provoking if people actually pay attention to what's being said. If they don't, so long as it's uncomfortable to listen to I couldn't really give a fuck.
Mike: For me it's just about the freedom to create - as I said before Chronocide has no particular limitations past what myself and Neil are capable of playing. To have that freedom within a musical genre usually quite rigid is quite liberating. In terms of hopes? I just want to make an album I'm 100% proud of, still not there yet.
Judging from the song titles and album name, Chronocide seems to be about have a misanthropic opinion about the injustices in the world, could you to elaborate on what the lyrics and themes of the band are.
Mike: It's not so much the injustices but just the world in general, I haven't been a particular optimistic person for a long time and this is kind of how it's come to manifest itself. There are two entwined sides to Chronocide lyrics (for me), the emotional and the philosophical. The former is the more straightforward and angry of the two since I don't see the point in trying to hide behind fancy words when discussing my contempt for things like war, politics and abuse (the usual suspects). The latter though is a little more complicated and unfortunately too long to explain properly here, suffice to say a huge amount of my lyrics seem to illustrate (not always deliberately) bemusement at how we've (humans) got ourselves into the situations we have, without wiping ourselves out in the process. We're so far beyond fucked it's unimaginable, it's become somewhat of a joke.
Solitude of Man is out on FETO records, the mighty Anaal Nathrakh’s label, how did that come about?
Neil: Pretty simple story really. I messaged Mick asking him to get a listen to a couple early Chronocide tracks and tell me what he thought, more for his opinion on production than anything else. He got back to me, said he really liked it and would put it out when we finished a record. That was that.
What records would you say most influenced you to create Chronocide
Neil: I suppose I'm more interested in what other folks think might have influenced us. Rather than specific records, I think bands like Nathrakh, Napalm Death, Pig Destroyer, Doom, Discharge, Deathspell Omega and similar stuff is what I hear in us. I don't and never have had any “I want to do something reflecting X influence” motivation.
Mike: From a lyrics point of view, there is stuff right across the board. I hear everything from hip-hop and spoken word (Saul Williams) to blues (Tom Waits) through to hardcore (Refused) and metal (Gojira) in my lyrics, although I suspect someone reading them would perhaps see the latter two more than the former.
Is there anything coming up in the future that you would like people to know about?
Neil: There are a few splits in the works for this year, which I don't think I can mention the details of at the moment, but should be able to soon. The music for all of them plus all of the second album is written and recorded, just needs completed vocals then mixing and mastering. We did two gigs and nothing else in 2011 so we intend to be more active in 2012.
What do you want to tell the world as a closing thought?
Mike: Stop putting your faith in anything based on human thought, because we're all capable of error. No divides matter, no rules or laws truly matter, they're all created by man and as such are subject to constant revision and change. Accept only what you know for sure, and question everything you don't. Existence is a ridiculous joke and should be treated as such.
