At this years' Summer Slaughter I talked to Goatwhore's lead singer for almost two hours so , our epic conversation was broken in two more digestible portions, here's the second part of that...
Wil- What do you think it is about the sounth that makes such good metal ?
Louis - I really don't know if you look at New Orleans , there's a lot of variation in it from bands like Down, Crowbar, to Eyehategod, to what we do, we don't share in similarities at all , there is a lot of variation. You are brought up in a town or state , where blues and jazz are big that maybe be a more subconscious influence. You grew up in it , it's instilled in your mind. I don't know if it's something in the water.
Wil - or cultural
Louis- yea, cultural, its one of those things , like we were saying before, when you look back in the day at the whole death metal thing coming out of Tampa Or the thrash metal scene in the Bay area in the 80's. It was the culmination of what was going on there. How everything was working, New Orleans , has that element now. It's chemistry all the gears a re working. it's one of those things like when you get with somebody in a relationship and you know it works well. When you get with four or five individuals in a band and every thing falls into place. Of course it's chaos when you get on the road. You find out ...well when it's five dudes trapped in a little van, for two months , it becomes a point of compromise just like in a relationship.The compromise is bigger in a band because you have five individuals..
Wil - What would you say about the influences and chemistry on the new album.
Louis- We did the new album on two inch analog, which is becoming a very obscure thing for sure. Lucky enough Eric Rutan , the guy we have been recording with has a two inch analog machine, that tape machine has a lot of history to it he bought it from Morrisound, where all the classic death metal albums were recorded.they used to put two of the machine together. The machine is twenty four tracks. They old Morbid Angel records there, Obituary, Suffocation. It's got a lot of nostalgia to it. I told Rutan he needed to make a video about the history. There is one company that makes tape but they don't have the process right, so we used old tape. It can also be a crap shoot as well, we stressed three weeks recording hoping tape didn't break and then we dropped it into pro-tools. So yes, we dropped it into pro-tools , but when you put it on tape that sound doesn't change at all.Digital media hasn't really caught up to the sound, that was recorded on tape. Just like vinyl, a lot of vinyl sounds better than cd. A lot of people are all about vinyl now and eve cassettes , so why not record it on tape. t goes hand in hand. the thing about it is money it's more expensive. Digital is cheaper. Bands budgets are small these days. We went out of our own pocket. We really want to do the next album on tape . Rutan has got knowledge of it , we already have this old school feel to going to tape would be more natural. People say I like Goatwhore live, on album it sounds different. But you know we can never capture that , all we can do is record it and present it and then come to the live show and experience.
Wil- There's that energy exchange...
Louis- Like old black Sabbath, they got ton's of bad reviews, and then look what happened. I like things with longevity. You get a lot of bands that peak and then you are like who was that . Then there are bands whose riffs just stick in your mind, like Judas Priest, some times in the van one of those riffs will pop into my mind and i'll just start humming it.
Wil- What was the songwriting process for the new album ?
Louis- The Goatwhore writing process, we have tons of riff on tape that go all the way back to the first record. We use to have them on a jam box from where Sammi would just sit and hit record. Tons of riffs on tape , the 21st century rolled around and we started thinking maybe we should throw it on computer. We never throw anything away, just cause a riff doesn't fit in a song it doesn't mean it's bad. We could have a song from the new record that has a riff going all the way back to the first album. it's Unique because it keeps the element of Goatwhore in that cycle. We don't' change our style that much, because we have these old riffs we are pulling out a hat. Lyrics are the same way, sometimes I'll write something fresh, other times it will be picked together pieces. Sometimes we will write a song , the go back the next practice and listen and say nope and tear it apart . Some times those riffs split off into three songs. We recycle riffs I guess. I don't know if riffs are piling up some where destroying the environment. Then we will put some kind drums on , it then every one will come in and start adding there parts til it falls into place
On "Blood for the Master", the song "Deathless Tradition" we wrote that song in two days, but then another song took two weeks. When we play it live we want to be like alright lets rock and roll this shit rather than here we go another day at the factory. This what we came for. Some times we are like where did that riff come from, shit like seven years ago. The only thing that had changed is the technology. It's like go fishing , now on a computer you can piece them together quicker. overall a a band we have matured as musician on how we perceived things and lay things out.
No comments:
Post a Comment