Greetings mark how are things going with Amputated these days..
Hi,
things are very busy with Amputated at the moment, we have had a little bit of
turbulence recently with the departure of guitarist Daryl, but have come
through it fine and have played some killer shows this summer. We are currently
booking tour dates across the UK and Europe for the remainder of this year
including confirmed appearances at Gothenburg Deathfest, Berlin Deathfest and
Dark City Deathfest in Poland which are really looking forward to, also we have
some big festival announcements coming up as well as a very exciting tour
prospect for early next but sadly I can't go into details on those until it is
all set in stone.
You joined the band recently tell us
how has been your journey been with Amputated?
Yeah
I must have been in a couple of years now if I remember correctly, which is
still a very short time in comparison to the bands history. It has been an
incredible and life changing experience for me, It has allowed me to travel to many
new places playing the style of music I love and meet many like minded people
all over the world which is an opportunity that I am still grateful for every
day. It was very uncertain at the start of my time with Amputated as my vocal
style is very different from what the fans were used to and people were
understandably apprehensive of the change, but from the various live shows we
did the fans warmed to me and my debut album as the bands vocalist has been
incredibly well received, both critically and by fans both old and new which
has been an incredible experience. I very much feel settled in to the band
these days and look forward to being a part of the band for many years to come.
For sure mark had seen it in videos
and from that we can understand that. By the way grabbed the recent release
through a friend it sure is a killer album.
Thanks
man really appreciate it, we are pretty proud of how the album came out and
feel it has laid a solid foundation for us in terms of where we want to take
the sound of the band.
If i am not wrong you guys will be
sharing stage with bands like NECROSIS in Gothenburg Death fest how excited are
you guys about the tour?
Yeah man glad to see them added to
the bill, they are local guys to us and a great up and coming band. We
personally are very excited about the tour, getting out on the road and playing
to new people in new places is what its all about for us, we love the
experience of it and cant wait to hit the road and start making noise.
Even we are pretty excited that we
are able to work with Amputated in our 2015's release.
Awesome
man, it’s an honor to be asked and have one of our songs included on a
compilation with many other great bands.
Coming back to amputated Mark i was supposed to ask you this question before. Tell us how you landed in serving duty on amputated?
I
used to be in a band called Caiaphas doing vocals and gained a lot of
experience from that and had played a lot in the Bristol
Coming bit beyond Amputated, Mark
tell us how your journey in music begin?
For
me personally it’s been a long road as I started very young. Before I could
even walk I grew up being subjected to Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, The doors
etc etc on a daily basis, so always been into rock and metal in one form or
another for my entire life. At the age of 10 I got Vulgar Display of Power by
Pantera on cd for my birthday after seeing them on Beavis and Butthead earlier
that year (courtesy of my older brother who was a proper 90's grunge kid at the
time) and never looked back, I remember sticking that cd on and I knew that
moment that I had to be a part of this sound in some way when I grew up. As far
as making music myself I originally started out as a guitarist/bassist (and was
crap at both haha), after doing guest vocals on a live sepultura cover, my old
guitar teacher Ross (who just this week actually joined as the new member of
Amputated) gave me a call and said he was doing a metal project and had heard I
was a good vocalist, so I went down and jammed with him for a while and
developed my style as a vocalist. At the time his vision was just to do a metal
band, but I was heavily into death metal at that point and slowly corrupted him
making the band heavier all the time, after cementing a lineup that project
became Caiaphas, I recorded my first ever release with this project and really
cut my teeth as a vocalist on and off stage working on that project and laid
the foundations for my current musical career, still very proud of what we
achieved together to this day. After that project disbanded I later found
myself joining Amputated, and the rest as they say is history.
Haha the same PANTERA album was
gifted to me by my old man on my 13th birthday. So mark if i am not wrong you
are still active in one project No More Room in Hell tell us about this project
as well?
Yeah
the No More Room In Hell album has been recorded and is being mixed as we
speak. It's me and Anil Carrier form Towers of Flesh/Binah (and about a million
other projects haha) as well as some guest appearances from some heavy hitters
on the underground death metal scene, Anil approached me saying he had started
writing an old school death metal record that he wanted to base on horror movies,
he knew of me from Amputated and had seen my horror page The Coroner's Report
where I was writing horror movie reviews, I love old school death metal and
horror movies so I jumped on it like a tramp on chips. Its sounding like a
great record, every track is based on a particular horror movie with samples
included from the subject movie, its very much straight up death metal, no real
surprises on it, just lots of heavy groove and shouting about zombies and such
haha, but has been great fun writing and recording it and can't wait for people
to hear it when it's finished.
Regarding the review i didn’t know
about you writing column for horror movies got to know a new thing about you
brother.
haha
yeah man is good fun, I started the page writing horror reviews as a bit of fun
as I love horror, but as time goes by music is keeping me too busy to keep it
updated as much as I would like. Have also been doing some album reviews for a
couple of metal websites on the side but only when I find the spare time to do
so.
So coming back to Amputated Mark can
you tell us about the recent new lineup of the band?
Sure,
obviously Daryl departed earlier this year, my old friend Ross stepped in at
the last minute to learn the live set as when Daryl left us we only had a few
weeks until we were due to play several shows in Italy, Ireland and London,
Ross stepped in and learnt the set and came out on the road with us with very
little notice and pretty much saved the day, after those shows we finally had
time to regroup and let the dust settle, and when we looked back we found that
they were some of the best performances the band has given and Ross did a
brilliant job and gelled well both with the band and with the fans so it just
felt natural to welcome him as a full time member. Other than the new second
guitarist in Ross the rest of us are the same lineup that made the new album,
we now feel we have a very strong unit and look forward to taking the band up
to the next level both in terms of writing and performing.
Well you had played with Ross in
CAIAPHAS and now in Amputated we are pretty sure that it was easy for him to
synchronize in Amputated music. Along with that he was a kind of your mentor we
can easily anticipate it wasn't that hard for him as well as you guys to sync
in the same tune.
Exactly
man, also Kai and Harry had both played in Caiaphas when it was active so
everyone knows each other pretty much, was just seeing if he and gary the
drummer worked well together and they clicked instantly, the transition has
gone incredibly smoothly and hasn't slowed us down in terms of progress at all
which we are all very happy about.
Talking about the tours as per my
survey you guys are on tour in Berlin death fest on 3rd of Oct in Germany,
Gothenburg Death fest on 4th of Oct in Sweden,5th-7th Oct in Italy, 11th Oct at
Dark city Deathfest (Poland) 31st Oct, 3rd Nov in Swansea , 21st-23 Nov in Uk
and even you guys are booked for RAPE THE ESCAPE 2015 to be held in Vienna
Austria in 2015 seems like the band is going to be on the road for quite a long
time starting from October?
Yeah
man, we do get some downtime between dates to catch some breath but not much
haha, but yeah we have a lot coming up for the rest of this year, the new
lineup is a lot more flexible with touring etc so we can now spend more time on
the road than the band has ever done before. We also have another show that we
are playing in among these dates but sadly I cannot elaborate on that just yet as its all still being confirmed officially, also have a lot of very big
plans for next year and are very much looking forward to taking the band to new
audiences in countries we have never been before.
Well we would like to convey best
wishes for the tour and we also hope to see you guys touring in this part of
the world as well.
Thanks
man. Would love to one day for sure, never say never.
Yeah for sure by the way mark i was
doing a bit research about Amputated and i found out that in 2007 Amputated
appeared on the BBC Three reality show Singing with the Enemy and were challenged
to write a song with the all female pop group Fallen Angelz. Tell us about it?
Hahahaha
yeah that question always comes up sooner or later, sadly that was way before
my time with the band, the only member with us now who participated in the tv
show is Gary our drummer, he is the only one of us that could properly answer
that question, but if you or anybody reading wants to check it out the whole
thing is on Youtube so you can see just how badly it went for yourselves hahaha.
For sure fans will see the video we
will be posting it below. So mark each bands has to go through a way lot of
hardship the perfect example is the above question. We would like to know how
hard it is for new bands there in UK
Well
I think starting out for bands is hard anywhere, but yeah the UK has it's
issues, I think getting noticed and getting exposure is the hardest step
really, nowadays with the internet it's easier to get yourself heard but that
creates the new problem that there are just so many bands now, and so many
great ones too, I like to think there is room for everyone in the scene but
obviously people only have time to check out so many bands and some will
undoubtedly go unnoticed. The UK has a great scene though with a lot of really
good young bands out there on the road playing great music, although I would
say at times the UK scene seems to be lacking a little bit of that sense of
brotherhood you seem to find amongst bands in other countries, but then I
suppose the grass is always greener on the other side and all that.
Mark you have gone through a way lot
of hardship to reach this point can you share your experience cause it can be a
source of inspiration to bands from this part of the world.
Well
I would say anyone who wants’ to get anywhere in music weather it be a band or
an individual should expect some form of hardship and be prepared to make
sacrifices, it's not all fun and games all the time, there is a lot of hard
work, a lot of travelling and sleepless nights, a lot of strain on
relationships both inside and outside of musical projects, plus a lot of time
practicing /writing etc etc, so really I think you have to love what you do in
order to make that sort of commitment on a long term basis and stick at it, and
if you want to work with like minded people on a project then learning to
compromise is important to ensure a healthy team spirit in a band. But I think
as long as you have the passion, keep working hard and give it all you can then
anyone has the capacity to make it to where they want to be, it may not turn
out exactly how you planned it or happen exactly when you thought it would, but
I believe that hard work and perseverance always pays off in the end, and when
it does it will bring you some of the best experiences of your life , which are
all the more satisfying knowing that you earned them.
Any
incident during the tour or rehearsal that you would like to share with us.
Well
there are quite a few I don't want to share hahahaha. We have had many up's and
downs on the road since I joined the band, but for some reason you always tend
to look back on the hard times more fondly when they are behind you. Some
recent incidents that stick in my mind include dragging our equipment for miles
through the Italian countryside, on foot in the baking sunshine with no real
certainty weather we were going the right way, only to be picked up in the
middle of the road by some awesome guys from a local band who spoke little to
no English but welcomed us on to their bus with beer and food all the same.
That same day there was a crazy Polish guy who made me laugh so much before a
show that I invited him on stage with us and he spent an entire song doing a
Gangnam style dance around the stage and generally causing chaos by moshing
into us all whilst we were playing, and of course the epic quest that was our
appearance in Dublin Ireland during which some of us went nearly four days with
no sleep at all, and our support act was a lovely young lady putting on a
burlesque show.
Haha interesting man. We are almost
at the end now any message to the entire metal universe?
Firstly
I would like to thank all the Amputated fans old and new, and all the bands I
have met also out on the road for making me feel very welcome in the scene ,
and to everyone out there doing their bit for metal, weather it be making
music, writing about it and promoting, putting on shows, or just buying albums,
going to gigs and supporting the bands, all of them are equally important to
the scene and just want to say a huge thank you to them all for making metal
the glorious and enduring genre that it is. Stay Brutal \m/
So Mark, tell us some of the
underdogs (not the well known bands) from U.K that is a must to hear?
So
many great ones on the scene at the moment, its hard to list bands for fear of
forgetting someone, but I will give it a go. unfathomable ruination, Foetal
Juice, Cancerous Womb, Basement Torture Killings, Neuroma, Abhorrent
Decimation, Mortishead, Necrosis, Spawned from Hate, Kataleptic, Ascaris, Atonement,
Guttwrench, Zombified, SCORDATURA, Black Skies Burn, Aghast. I could go on all
day but those are all bands I would like to see get more attention outside of
the UK
For sure i have been following
Necrosis, SCORDATURA from some time and they are killer. Mark i don’t want to
end it but it must come to an end now. Lastly, a space for you to ask if we
SNRMB team has forgotten to ask you can ask us here. Fully your space..
No
I think you got it all covered man, I have probably said far too much already
hahaha. Just want to say thanks for the interview its been great talking, and
thanks to all your readers who check us out, stay brutal guys and will
hopefully see you out on the road one day in the not too distant future \m/
Thank you mark for your time
\m/
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