Celebrating the life of an underdog, Carnifex embarked on their triumphant Decade of Despair tour. Performing all over Europe the band devised a special anniversary set spanning their entire career from classic bangers to newer material. Being lucky enough to catch the band on their London date at The Underworld we spoke to the delightful Scott Lewis. Having always sensed that the band were the undisputed kings of Deathcore we delve into just how they have manage to get to where they are now in their ten year career and with the band set to enter the studio in spring this year, Lewis lets us in on what to expect from the brand new album set for a summer release this year.
Yet again going back to the Decade of Despair, you’ve made it for ten years…
Somehow!
What’s changed within the scene from 2005 to 2015? The Deathcore scene in particular…
Deathcore is dead. It’s dead. The only bands left are us,Whitechapel and Suicide Silence.
Do you think it’s evolved into something else?
Look back at Metalcore, which was the wave right before Deathcore. So you had all these Metalcore bands and now look at who is left. Lamb of God, Killswitch Engage, All That Remains? There’s three bands left, you know what I mean? And I think that it’s the same with Deathcore, I think you have all these bands doing it and then the people kind of decided who they cared about. So somehow we made the cut, barely snuck in there and everyone else is jut gone! I don’t know what else to say! It’s like this whole scene just went away and now everyone is doing the progressive thing, doing the Djent thing and it’s going to be the same thing!
It’s like Nu-Metal! There’s Nu-Metal, then there is Metalcore, then Deathcore then there’s Progressive and Djent. All the lower end band’s will go away and there will just be the few that hang on and the next thing will come up and then those few will hang on and so on. It’s just how it goes! Look who hung on from Nu-Metal, Slipknot?
They hung on pretty big though!
Well yes aha! You got Slipknot, Papa Roach maybe…
Korn?
Yeah, Korn and then who else?!
So there you go and how many Nu-Metal bands were there? Thousands you know what I mean?
So is that part of what you want to celebrate with this tour, the fact that you’re still here?
Hahaha celebrate the demise of other bands!
Hahaha
Haha no, all ten years, even now I feel like we are outsiders. Nobody ever wants to tour with us, nobody ever wants to take us out on tours… It’s really hard. We had a really difficult time with management and booking agents, you know we were on a shit label for so long but we’ve sold a hundred thousand records, we’ve toured all over the world… You know what I mean? I feel that we have kind of stayed in spite of ourselves simply because of our own tenacity not so much because we were given much opportunity.
So you were kind of the black sheep is that what you’re saying?
Yeah, that’s what I feel like.
Why?
There’s so much industry stuff that people don’t see. It’s so political it’s so favour trading, it’s so who’s sitting at the cool kids table and when you’re not at that table your just get brushed under the rug. And that’s where we were for a very long time.
But you guys were at the cool kids table?
No. How many times have we played Download? Zero. How many times have we played Bloodstock? Zero. The first UK festival we ever played was Hevy Fest.
This one just gone? No!
What’s the other one?
Impericon?
Yeah, Impericon!
That doesn’t count?
It’s not that it doesn’t count! It’s just not really a UK festival and even so Impericon Manchester was what last year? So what about the other nine years… See what I’m sayin’? It’s been a struggle but we’re still kicking, tonight’s show is almost sold out. It’s kind of a celebration of survival.
The underdog..
That’s it, it’s just survive. If you were to sum up our reality to a single word it’s survive.
Carnifex are set to release their brand new album later this year and head into the studio this spring. Die Without Hope is out now.
