Sound has always been a fickle mistress in the realm of Metal. At once praised for its clean tonalities the more modern production styles are often slightly too clean, too devoid of grit. Understanding the ways of the Old School bands are slowly but surely moving back to the likes of analogue where things were a lot simpler. Not having room for retracting and layering the analogue truly separates the men from the boys. Headlining the Sophie Lancaster Stage this year at Bloodstock 2016 we were lucky enough to speak to Sammy Duet the man behind the wall of chainsaws that is Goatwhore’s sound. Speaking in depth ant the new album, when it can be expected and where it will be recorded we got the full low down all things Goatwhore.
Hows things?
Good man! Great!
Excited to be headlining the Sophie Lancaster stage?
It should be interesting!
Especially after Slayer!
Yeah, its kind of nerveracking. Slayer is a huge band, to play after them I don’t know what’s going to happen hahaha!
I think the booze will be flowing free and people will be enjoying themselves.
Lets hope!
Whats been happening in the world of Goatwhore from the beginning of the year up until now?
We’ve just been working on a new record, we’re writing it right now and we’re going to go in and record it in October so we’re just trying to get as many ideas as possible and just try to make this record just massively heavy you know? Take our time and really focus on the songs, the last time the albums were kind of rushed in a way. This time we actually had some time off. I don’t wanna do anything for six months, I don’t wanna see any of you dudes, I’ll email you guys songs haha! We’ll sort them out when we have enough stuff and we will fix them from there.
Oh wow, so when did you decide to take time off then?
The last tour that we did was in December of last year. After that tour we just did small shows here and there no major tours.
You guys have got a tour coming up with The Black Dahlia Murder, Dying Fetus…
That’s going on right now! Doing the festivals and the off days we’re doing Dying Fetus and The Black Dahlia Murder.
So are you off to somewhere else then?
Yeah tomorrow we catch up with them somewhere! In Brennen tomorrow.
How much of the new record have you written then?
Its pretty much done, we just want to accumulate as many songs as we possibly can. That way you pick the best ones and then you can put them on the record. You can never have too many songs! I think we’re up to twelve or thirteen right now, we’re only going to put ten on the record and we still have a bunc that we’re working on. I want to try and shoot for at least fifteen to seventeen songs ready for the studio and pick the best ten, the ones that come out the best and use them for the album. The ones that don’t make it, you fix ’em and put ’em on the next record!
Thats the right attitude to have! Are there going to be any new “Apocalyptic Havoc”‘s on the new record?
Ah! That song was written in special time. I don’t even know if we tried to write something like that, I don’t think it would come out with the same impact. When we write songs like that it just has to be a spur of the moment thing. I can’t be something that you think about too much because it will ruin the song if you think about it too much. I’ve tried that in the past and it didn’t work! They just pop up out of nowhere too.
Eureka moments in the bath?
Exactly! Its like oh well there it is!
Are you going to try and maybe go in a different direction, have new ideas?
How can I describe it… Its a little bit different, you can definitely tell that its us. I think that there is more, there’s more of Thrashy kind of vibe but then there’s other stuff where its almost like going back to where we started. Almost like a Black Metal vibe to it. We’re hoping to have everything so far on this one.
Because there were a couple of slower songs on the last record…
Yeah I think there are one or two that we are working on right now that we haven’t finished that we’re more worried about than playing fast. The slower ones are harder to write!
What have you got in store after Bloodstock then? You’ve this Black Dahlia thing…
Then we go home, take a little break, fix a little things on the album and on the songs and then we go out for like two weeks in the US with us and a band called The Blood Royale and during that we’re going to do the Ozzfest thing and then we’re going to come home and then basically we have two weeks to prepare for the studio, so its going to be non stop.
What studio are you going to?
Its called Earth Analogue right outside of Chicago.
Is it a new studio that you’ve not been to before?
No, we’ve not been there. We want to record on the analogue tape and its so hard to find a studio that does analogue tape nowadays so that was one of the better ones that we could find and that we could afford. We would record with Dave Grohl but he wasn’t interested hahaha!
Have you always wanted to record on analogue?
Yeah! Well we did the last one on analogue, well no I think the last one was half analogue and half digital. This one we’re going to go completely analogue because we didn’t have enough tracks to do the full album on analogue last time but this time we’ve found a place where we can do everything completely analogue.
Is that what he specialises in?
Yeah!
Do you think it will kind of change the sound of it?
I think it sounds more like us. Its so pristine sounding with the digital stuff but you have the analogue and you’ve got that little bit of dirt on there and we’ve got that kind of dirty vibe.
Are you guys trying to capture, because live it sounds like a wall of chainsaws coming at you.
That’s exactly what we are going for with this one. We thought about it for a long time, we talked to some people that worked at studios and they only way that we would be able to capture that would be on analogue. Its going to be even harder, a lot harder to record on analogue but the end result is always massive you know.
What about you as a guitarist, has there been anyone of recent that you have been listening to that you picked out and thought oh look this guy is doing something cool!
I’m constantly doing that man! For me to pin point one person or a couple of people its just, its hard you know because I’m always listening for guitar players you know? I get weird like that sometimes, its all I think about.
The artwork that you have had before, have you thought of any artwork for the new record?
We have some ideas with the same guy that did the last couple of records for us is going to do it. He does all of our tattoos and stuff, he’s like our best friend. He does awesome shit.
What’s his name?
Jordan Barlowe.
Has he done any other work with any other artists?
I think he did some stuff for High On Fire and maybe a couple of other bands, I can’t think of right now.
So the plan is to record in October and after that are you just going to take a bit of time off when it gets to December…
Yeah probably take the holidays off. I think we might do something small in the US, because we can’t sit still for long. Maybe something like an end of November beginning of December something real short you know?
As you’re headlining the Sophie Lancaster stage today, what do you prefer. Do you prefer the festivals and having a bit of open air or do you like to actually be in the thick of it.
Well this is like a completely different thing for us. We’ve never really done stages this big you know? We’re so used to being in small dirty venues which is loud as fuck and then you get on a big stage, you have to kind of shift yourself.
There’s so much room!
Exactly! The sound is different, its not so compact just tearing peoples faces of its kind of spread out a bit.
Slower melting their faces off.
Exactly haha!
So what has been an album that you have been listening to over the last six months to a year, is there something that has really caught your attention?
I haven’t really been listening to anything to be honest with you. I’ve been listening to a lot of old stuff. Like a lot of Plasmatics a lot of Venom, I’m stuck in my old ways man! I’m trying to think of a new band that I have heard recently that I like. Dulch there’s a band called Dulch, they’re from somewhere out here in Europe. They’re weird. I don’t know how to describe ’em but its real dark, they took it in a very interesting way.
I know that Ben does lyrics and everything like that but you’ve had somewhat of an occult vibe. Is that going to be something that you will continue with?
Oh yeah absolutely. We’ll probably be getting even more deeper on this one to be honest.
Goatwhore will be entering the studio to record their latest new album for release we would imagine next year.
