*[Questions written by the legendary Ivo of RADIATION VOMIT & MORGUE BREATH fame!]*
*Cheers, Dan! How's everything, dude? Keeping busy with Skunk?!
Not too busy but yes! Actually I made a point of slowing down with Archagathus recordings and stuff to focus on other bands of mine for a while. Skunk is plugging away at a handful of new and old recordings that need to be finished. Our next course of action is to record vocals for our LP!
*You recently added Andy (Nak'ay) to the Archagathus line up! Any chance he'll appear on any recordings soon?
Yup, once he sends me some drum tracks! I guess rather than write songs and send them to him he will just sort of put some drum tracks together and I'll write riffs over them. His first recording with Archagathus will probably end up as a split 7" with Whoresnation from France.
*How did you meet Andy? How did he come to a member of Archagagagathus?
We met him in Fort Wayne I think when we were on tour or something. Actually I think it was when I was on tour with a different band I was in and we played at his brother Eric's house. Anyway, he plays drums in Nakay (among others) and we have the split 10" with them and of course became good buddies. We decided we needed a different drummer but felt like, while there are some really good drummers in Winnipeg, nobody really seemed 'right' to join our band. As such we started thinking of drummers who live in other cities that would join our band, and be able to meet up with us for tours. Andy was an obvious choice! He's fast, friendly, and undeniably sexy.
*You've mentioned to me that you've recorded drums to write guitar to afterward. Does Joe ever write to your completed drum tracks?
Usually not, but recently he did do a couple songs that way. To be honest Joe writes so many god damned grindcore songs for Cannibalism, Meatus, Fleshmeat, and others that it just sort of makes sense for me to write all the Archagathus songs (with the odd exception). I've been slowing down on writing Archagathus songs the last year or two but it's time to pick it up again!
*Regurgitated Guts in so CRUSHINGGGGLY heavy and morbid!!! When can we expect some new stuff?
Working on writing for a full length, hopefully we make lots of progress this winter. Our demo 7" isn't out yet but hopefully will be in early 2017 sometime!
*As I understand, Regurgitated Guts is closely associated with Sabbatory. What's going on with Sabbatory? Did you guys disband? It was awesome to hear one of your tracks on Radio Fenriz a while ago!
Sabbatory didn't disband but is on a bit of a hiatus. I guess our vocalist and guitarist Kier needed a bit of time to focus on other things and as a result the rest of us continued with Regurgitated Guts. Hopefully in 2017 both bands will be playing shows and jamming regularly!
*Recently, you played your first show with EXTREMELY BRUTAL. How did this project come to be? Can we expect a release soon?
Haha, yeah. I guess I just messaged Hagamoto and offered to send drum tracks for Patisserie to use (years ago Patisserie had a brief period with a human drummer) cause I like the band and thought it would be cool. Hagamoto said sure why not but instead of it being Patisserie let's just do a new band. Then I said "okay!" and we named it Extremely Brutal. We have 10 songs together that are great but haven't been released yet. This will happen in 2017! We played a show in Minneapolis and it was very fun, hopefully we can do that again someday.
*You're one of the most hard hitting drummers I've ever seen! I understand you're having some wrist issues?! Arrrgh!!!! Any tips for other blasters out there to prevent injury? How long have you been playing extreme music?
Yeah I have tendonitis in both of my wrists. While I feel that I have good technique as a drummer, I use huge drum sticks (Vic Firth Thomas Lang) and as you said try to hit hard and be loud all the time so it's pretty straining on the wrists. But, it's not too bad if I stretch often and give my wrists a break in between hard blasting songs. I actually just bought a couple pairs of slightly smaller drum sticks to start using and I'm pretty happy with the feel of them. Hopefully that will lead to faster blasts and happier wrists!
*Which instrument do you enjoy more? You seem to be equally sick at both guitar and drums!
Well I'm flattered that I somehow tricked you, but actually I'm not a very good guitar player. I've been playing drums for about 20 years, and I think it's the thing I'm best at in life. Playing guitar is also super fun and obviously different. Depends on the situation. If I'm completely wasted then I would definitely handle the guitar better than the drums!
*What's next for Archagathus? Can we expect a new LP soon?
We have a bunch of splits that need to be recorded for first, but yes I would like to record another LP in 2017. I'm thinking this time I would like to do all the instruments and vocals 100% by myself, as I've never done that for one of our LPs before. I wanna do something really gory and death metal sounding.
*What other projects are you involved in?
Skunk, Skeleton, Regurgitated Guts, Sabbatory, Extremely Brutal, Loutish, Indignari, Genex, Fleshmeat, and Electro Quarterstaff. I think that's more or less all that I'm currently working on.
*Alright, dude! Thank you for your time!!!!! Any last words?!!
I'd just like to say that the world is a terrifying shithole but grindcore is great. Thanks to everyone that makes it that way!
CONTACT: archagathus.grind@gmail.com