On the first day of Hammerfest, a light drizzle has been flirting in the air. However, after Dyscarnate play one of the most intense sets at Hammerfest, the rain begins to pour down, and so the trio brave it so we can talk about touring, progression and the dreaded ‘third album’…
I’m here with Dyscarnate. Would you guys like to introduce yourselves and what you do in the band?
TOM: My name’s Tom, I play guitar and also vocals.
HENRY: Henry, bass and vocals.
MATT: I’m Matt and I play the drums.
First of all, how are you guys today?
MATT: Good, yeah! Bit tired, we had a long drive up – five or so hours – but good now we’ve played. Feeling good, having a few beers.
How did you feel about the reception you had for the set then?
TOM: Yeah, really good actually! We were a bit dubious before we started playing, we were looking out at the crowd and it wasn’t that busy, and we weren’t really sure if there were too many death metal heads in the crowd, but once we started playing it just filled out, people getting into it, pits and people headbanging… so yeah, it was good.
The reaction seemed really good, a mini-moshpit going on.
HENRY: Yeah, smurf moshpit! [Edit: There was a group of Smurfs in the crowd]
For anyone new to you, how would you describe yourselves? Maybe a little bit of history, musically to begin with if you want.
TOM: Style, I suppose, obviously death metal. Our influences are sorta taken from stuff like Dying Fetus, Misery Index, Cannibal Corpse – those sort of bands – and some of the newer stuff like, y’know, maybe elements of Whitechapel. People might not see that so much but they are a bit of an influence on us.
HENRY: Anything catch really.
TOM: Yeah, if you can bang your head to it…
HENRY: Just the catchy heavy shit really, that’s what we like, that’s what we do.
MATT: Hatebreed are playing this weekend, they’re a big influence on us, as well as Napalm Death. It’s halfway between Hatebreed and Napalm Death – all the grindcore blastbeaty bits with groovy bits as well.
That’s a pretty good description!
MATT: It works. Those are the two bands we’re really looking forward to seeing this weekend.
Anybody else you’re looking forward to?
TOM: I can’t think of anyone else who’s playing.
MATT: Our mates Bloodshot Dawn are playing, Flayed Disciple are playing too. Our friends in OAF as well, just sorta bass, drums and vocals, which is pretty cool. Yeah, we’ve got a few friends playing, and I think for us, Napalm and Hatebreed.
TOM: We’ve probably ruined one of your questions now, haven’t we?
Yeah, kind of, I was saving that for later! That’s one down.
HENRY: Fuck it, move on!
MATT: Next! [Laughs]
Well, how long have you guys been together then with all the touring…
TOM: Overall, me and Henry have been playing music together since 2002, something like that, but we hadn’t been a serious band, with the line-up we are now, until since 2007-08.
MATT: In 2008 we brought out our first EP, if you can call it that…
HENRY: Pile of shit.
MATT: Don’t say that!
I liked it – I bought it!
MATT: It’s a good CD! [Laughs]
HENRY: Oh!
MATT: It’s a bit under-produced compared to our later stuff, so you know, I think it’s pretty cool to have that just to show growth as a band; someone can listen to us chronologically and sort of…
HENRY: Progressively gets better, in my opinion… although a lot of people will prefer “Enduring The Massacre”.
MATT: I’d hate to blow our best CD on the first one and it will be downhill from there. Our plan is to always get better and better with every release.
Improve and change.
MATT: Definitely, yeah.
Last time I spoke to you was the Aeon gig [Cardiff] in January, how have things progressed in that short time? Have you had any exciting stories on tour?
HENRY: Aeon, we had a snowball fight with ‘em, that was quite fun.
How did that go, who won?
TOM: Errr… mixed bag [Laughs].
MATT: [Laughs] The Aeon singer was getting very into it.
TOM: There was snow winner in that one, I tell ya.
MATT: Oh… come on!
No blood then?
HENRY: No blood. Just every man for himself.
MATT: We put them onto the wonders of Sainsbury’s hot food deli as well, and they were in awe of that, so… they were loving it.
TOM: Chicken wings…
MATT: Couldn’t get enough of that.
TOM: Yeah, it was a good tour, we had a good laugh.
HENRY: Dublin was the best night – we were all just completely battered and just pissed around all night.
Was the crowd insane?
HENRY: The crowd was the best as well I reckon.
TOM: Really?
MATT: Dublin?
HENRY: Don’t slag them off!
TOM: Cardiff was good.
Aw, you don’t have to say that.
TOM: It was good!
MATT: London, Dublin, Cardiff.
HENRY: Capitals.
MATT: Exactly, yeah. Everyone’s brilliant, but London, Cardiff and Dublin… Dublin we love: the nights out we have in Dublin are always the best.
I’m sure you mentioned before that that was going to be the first Irish date you’d do.
MATT: Dublin? Yeah.
TOM: No, it was Cork, then Dublin and Belfast.
MATT: Yeah… but we’d played Dublin before with Fleshgod Apocalypse. After we’d been there once, we wanted to go back, Ireland is just fucking amazing to play shows in, some of the nicest people we’ve met I think.
TOM: Yeah, along with the Welsh.
The last time I spoke to you, you mentioned you were planning a new album in 2014…
TOM: Yeah, 2014, we’re working on it at the moment.
No new jams?
TOM: Not at the moment, we’re sorta getting the pre-production tracks together, sorta piecing it together, nothing concrete down just yet.
HENRY: It’s fucking hard, y’know?
TOM: 2014 will be…
HENRY: There’s an awful lot of touring life left to pass.
MATT: Yeah, we’re gonna do that an awful lot more and get to a hell of a lot more places.
HENRY: Problem is is that album number one is your life’s work, album two is the progression of that and album three is like “Oh hell, what do we do now!”
MATT: You’re fucked!
HENRY: So we’re just…
MATT: We don’t want to repeat ourselves – we’re trying to find our ‘album three’ sound.
TOM: It’s gonna be a “Black Album”…
It’s gonna be a worldwide seller!
HENRY: Yeah, it will be a “Black Album”.
TOM: Enter Sandman…
HENRY: There’ll be no blastbeats.
TOM: St. Anger…
MATT: We’ll fuck off death metal, there’ll be singing, we’ll have a female vocalist.
Sue Spotify?
MATT: Yep, brilliant.
HENRY: Of course!
I don’t know if you guys know, but not too long ago, Arif of Wormrot posted a video of one of your songs on his Facebook, said he really liked you.
ALL: Oh cool!
Is this the first time you heard that?
MATT: Yeah! We played with them a long time ago, at The Old Blue Last in London.
HENRY: Yeah, at Hackney.
MATT: It’s Islington isn’t it?
HENRY: No, Hackney.
TOM: It’s Shoreditch.
HENRY: Shoreditch, that’s right!
MATT: The Old Blue Last is quite a legendary venue; it’s quite a well-known venue. Yeah, we played with those guys, they were awesome. I remember the chicken impressions were particularly impressive.
HENRY: Yeah, he was barefoot on stage, weren’t he?
MATT: Yeah, it was really cool! Those guys are fucking awesome; we haven’t had any contact with them since then though.
He plugged you about maybe a month and a half ago.
MATT: Wicked!
TOM: Cool.
MATT: Twitter or something?
Nah, Facebook. Well, I was wondering, but you’re obviously quite happy about that then?
MATT: Yeah, cool band!
TOM: What a man.
Well, I was going to ask who else you guys were excited to see, but er…
MATT: Well, Napalm and Hatebreed; I’d say our sound is halfway between the two.
Yeah, I don’t remember you saying that… So what’s in the pipeline for Dyscarnate in the future?
ALL: More of these [Laughs]. [Edit: This is a David Brent (The Office) joke I forgot at the time]
More gigs? More festivals?
HENRY: More of these, yeah.
MATT: Yeah, we got more.
TOM: Nah, we’re going to Russia at the end of the month, we’re doing a headline tour out there, so that’s like ten days in Russia.
MATT: Ukraine as well.
TOM: One day in Ukraine, yeah.
Pretty much an Eastern European tour?
TOM: It’s our first time, we’ve done like the Czech Republic and Slovakia before, but not been as far as Ukraine, so it should be interesting, should be good – we’ve heard good things about Russia so we’re looking forward to it, and er… there’s a festival in Indonesia at the end of April, it’s supposed to be a 35,000 capacity festival.
HENRY: We’ve got stuff planned later in the year too, but I’m not sure if we can talk about it just yet.
MATT: We’re headlining a festival in Israel as well, we’re doing Tel Aviv Deathfest, which will be pretty sweet.
TOM: We’re the secret headliner for Bloodstock… nah, only kidding.
MATT: [Laughs] Yet to be announced!
HENRY: Yeah, we’re gonna headline Download [Laughs].
TOM: They tried to get Machine Head in but said ‘nope’ [Laughs].
That’s pretty much it, is there anything you’d like to say to your fans, in Wales or otherwise?
TOM: Yeah, for anyone who came down to our set in Hammerfest, we appreciate it, hope everyone enjoyed themselves and hopefully we’ll be back before the end of the year. We’ve got some stuff planned and we’ll be back in Wales.
MATT: Yeah, what he said!
It was cool to talk to you!
TOM: Thank you.
MATT: Cheers, yeah.
Dyscarnate‘s latest album, “And So It Came To Pass”, is out now on Siege Of Amida Records.
Interview by RichReviewz.
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