INTERVIEW FROM SOMEWHERE It was kind of hard for me to do this interview. From since a couple months before this show, I've been hearing from all sorts of people that Bloodlet are complete rock star assholes, and that they do heroin and they sleep with each other and that the singer had an affair with Princess Di and that the drummer is really an alien. So it was pretty hard, walking into an interview being positive that they're going to be total jerks. Well, I was happy to find out, a few minutes before the interview, that they were actually a bunch of totally nice guys. So here goes: Mani - Lets start off with some band history. Matt - It started in '92 ... the singer and i started the band, because we were in this one band and it just wasnt going where we wanted it to go, so we started this band (bloodlet). Kinda, the beggining thought behind it was just to annoy people. Mani - How's that? Matt - I don't know, we just wanted to piss people off. It's fun, I guess. But since then, I mean, where we're going is with our music, that's what speaks for us, you know. We don't have any political affiliations. Everyone (in the band) has their own beliefs, and it's just about music and emotion. Andy - Is it still about pissing people off, like musically? Matt - Yeah, maybe to an extent. But I mean it's more just about the music, just about trying to make our music different than everyone else's ... I mean remain heavy but not remain metal or hardcore or punk or anything, just going in all directions. Mani - How did you guys hook up with Neurosis for the tour? Matt - Relapse. We knew people at Relapse, and they put our name in for it, and they (Neurosis) chose us. Mani - So has the tour been good so far? Matt - Best one yet. Mani - Really? How's that? Matt - Bigger places, bigger PA's ... don't have to fight to get money from our promoters ... Mani - You guys have had problems in the past? Matt - Yes. Mani - So I take it you guys don't like to consider yourselves a hardcore band. Matt - We dont like to follow any kind of label whatsoever. If somebody that likes hardcore likes us, then in a sense we're a hardcore band ... but I mean, to me personally, hardcore is a kind of music, you know, and it gets more metal and it starts to cross over ... hardcore is like '88 ... when I think of hardcore I think of like '88 style ... do you understand what I mean ? Mani - Yeah, like Agnostic Front ? Matt - Yeah, that kind of thing, and that's definately not us. I would say there are elements of hardcore in our music, most definately. I mean, that's the scene Scott and I came from, so that would never be erased, but not everyone in our band was into the hardcore scene until they got into Bloodlet. Andy - What were they into prior to Bloodlet? Matt - All kinds of stuff. Crazy stuff. Andy - What other bands, or what other genres? Matt - I dont know, it's hard to say, it was all just music, you know. I mean, they didn't know about hardcore. They were just into music. That's what it's all about: music ... to us. Mani - Were you into jazz or classical types of music? Matt - Everything. I got a scholarship in college playing jazz. We've all got different musical backgrounds and directions. It comes together, and it's good, I think. Andy - Do you think that listening to other genres of music is a prominent influence in what you're trying to do, like when you're playing music does it just come out that way or are you ... Matt - It comes out that way. I don't sit and think about a part, like a jazzy kind of feel or something ... it just comes out, it's just emotion. What we'll try to do is write a riff and we'll get a certain emotional feel off that and we'll try to base a song off that emotional feel. We'll try to use that feel to come out with other riffs, to have that similar feel ... so the song is a little bit more thought out, not just parts thrown together. Andy - So when you're writing you're thinking how you can affect the listener or how can you instill or invoke this emotion in the listener? Matt - Usually the vocals come after the music, in most cases. Usually we just try to instill emotion, and emotion in the music, play like a certain grouping of riffs together and throw in changes and bridges and such things, and the emotion we get from that then we'll work the lyrics from there. Scott will write the lyrics. Mani - When listening to Bloodlet, I find it more enjoyable when listening to the music and reading the lyrics at the same time. I find that- Matt - You know better what it's talking about? Mani - Yeah, like it paints a better picture inside my head. Anyways, how's the scene in Florida right now? Matt - Don't know. We did 6 weeks with Deadguy, went home for 2 months, and then we left August 3rd for this tour and we wont be home till ... our last show is October 13th. So it's been a while since I've been in Florida, it's kinda hard to answer that. Mani - I heard something about you guys playing a church called The Refuge or something, with Deadguy. Matt - Yeah, I believe, I'm not sure, I dont remember the name. Where was it ? Mani - I dont know, you got lectured by a preacher or something. Matt - That was in New Jersey. It wasn't a church, it was like a christian coffee house. And a biker preach, preacher guy, like a Harley decked out guy ... and he's passin out God pamphlets and he didnt like what was goin on, I think especially with the Deadguy shirts. There was no serious grief, he just said what he thought and people said what they thought ... Mani - A lot of people say that Bloodlet are a satanic band, but I don't personally think so ... my interpretation is that the lyrics are just really personal with some religious references. Matt - Religion is one of the oldest things in the world, and you can get the most vibrant metaphors and metaphors that almost anyone can relate to, especially in the western world, from Christian references. They paint a very good picture and everyone understands what they mean. Bloodlet's not a satanic band. Nobody is a satanist. It's just the way we look at the world and what we see, and we put it into our music- at this point we were politely interrupted by Scott, who informed Matt that they had to go get ready for their set. - after the set, Matt and I go downstairs and chat for a bit, waiting for Andy to come back with the tape recorder. Upon his arrival, we continue the interview. - Mani - Hmm so what were we talking about? Matt - I dont know man, I just dont remember. Andy - Like, taking the essence of hardcore, and refining it ... Matt - Well yeah, taking the power of it, and refining it with more musical influence. That's what I'm into. I never want to lose the power of hardcore or metal or whatever. A lot of people say we're a metal band, because of the music we play, and that's fine too. We dont really care what people call us. There's a certain emotion, the whole concept of Bloodlet was formed on there's a space between emotion and thought, where you dont care if things are right or wrong, and there's this powerful emotion and then reason kicks in. That's the space we like to write music in. Mani - At different shows, do you get different reactions from the crowd? Matt - Totally. Some places people just stand and watch, other places people go crazy ... it just depends. Mani - What kind of response do you expect from a crowd? Matt - No expectations. If you went into it with expectations, and the crowd wasn't into it that night, then you wouldn't be into it either. And to some extent that happens, but it's your music, you gotta feel it. But sure if the crowd goes crazy you can't help but feel that too. I dont like to see people get hurt. The first six shows of this tour, there was like a fight every night. It sucks. So I would rather see people stand there, than see people get hurt. Mani - That's what happens when you guys get really intense, you can't really dance to it, everyone just sort of stands around to absorb it all. Matt - We kinda write our riffs like so that its not ... it has like a skip feel. Mani - So how long does it take for you guys to write songs, like how long does it take to write one Bloodlet song. Matt - It depends ... we wrote three songs in two weeks, right before this tour. We played four new songs, unless you saw us on our last tour, when we played one of those songs but three of those songs we wrote two weeks before we left for the tour. Mani - That's pretty impressive. The songs are pretty complicated, you'd think it would take longer to write them. Matt - We wanted to do this tour. We have been looking for a guitarist, and come three weeks before the tour, we decided no one that we've auditioned would work, so we decided to be a four piece. Mani - What ever happened to the old guitarist? Matt - It just didnt work out, I mean I love him to death, I think we're still friends, but I haven't talked to him in a while, I haven't been home in a while, but uh- Mani - It just didnt work out? Matt - Yeah, it just didnt work out, you know, conflicts. Mani - How did you guys sign to Victory Records? Matt - We were gonna release something on Overkill, but that just didnt work out, it didnt happen. So, we didnt know what we were gonna do. Then Tony called us. Mani - Have they been good so far? Matt - Pretty good. I mean, there's always some kind of conflicts. I dont know, they've been really good actually. Mani - That's great. Matt - But I mean, if you have the Entheogen cassette, there are misspellings on the back of it, with the titles and stuff ... Mani - The art was really nice on that one though. Matt - Yeah, a friend of ours did it. Mckaig did the oil painting on the inside, and another person, this guy (Aaron?Erin?), did the other part. The cover, the demon-angel thing, that's like from that screen to the middle of this sidewalk, its a fuckin beautiful painting. Mani - So are you guys releasing something in the future? Matt - We have to write a few more songs ... Mani - Are you guys going to be doing like a 7 inch or a full length? Matt - We're not going to do any more 7 inches, at least not for a while. Mani - How do you feel you've evolved? Matt - It's all in the same vein, but it's a little more, say, it has a lot more skips, it's a little more skippy, and it's a little more conceptual. Andy - As an album or each individual song? Matt - Each individual song is more conceptual. Before we just had 'This sounds cool. Let's try it with this and see how it works.' Now we think about it. One of the songs we tried to use kind of like a Dr. Seuss theme. The lyrics have a Dr. Seuss feel. There's rhyme but no rhyme scheme. The song is really slidy, it's really heavy but at the same time it's slow and droning. That was intentional. That's the type of effect we wanted. That's what I mean by more conceptual. Mani - So what's the deal with the Entheogen CD, with like the static parts? Matt - We like noise. We just wanted to use some noise. You see, the way we intended that to be mastered was to push the levels on that noise so that if you had it really loud it could blow your speakers, cuz they could do that, but it didn't happen, Victory didn't want it that way. Mani - I was scared cuz on my stereo, when it plays the static part, it like freaks me out because I think it's going to blow my speakers. Matt - It can. But I think it's so cool that you can pump levels that high. We heard this Japanese noise CD that came with this sticker that said 'warning: if you play tracks such and such at such and such a volume you will blow your speakers', and we wanted to put a sticker like that on it. That's why we did it. But I don't think it was mastered so it'll blow your speakers. I mean if you turn it up real loud it might, so don't quote me. I haven't listened to it in a long time. Mani - What do you listen to right now? Matt - Wu-tang, and all kinds of stuff. Mostly Neurosis, I hear 'em every night. Mani - Wu-tang came here a while ago, and I heard they shot their promoter or something. Matt - Oh really? Mani - Yeah like they pulled their guns out and shit. Andy - They shot their promoter so then they couldn't play here. Matt - I dont know if I would believe that. Mani - I heard it's true, at least they pulled their guns out on their promoter. Andy - They killed him. Mani - Are you sure? Andy - Yep. Mani - Ok well it's time to go catch Neurosis. |