Behold that which is Brutal Truth -- whirlwind guitar played at subhuman pitch, tempo shifts so dizzying that each album should come with its own supply of Dramamine, the train-wreck at the intersection of grind, death, jazz, industrial, avant, and a dozen other subgenres all crammed into a phone booth and heaved off a cliff. Brutal Truth are to grindcore what Sun Ra was to jazz (which explains them covering the man on their latest album, SOUNDS OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM). They are currently on tour (off and on), but just before that i was able to discuss all things Brutal with their drummer, the esteemed Rich Hoak, who's also appeared on SMOKING SONGS with Exit-13. Here's the man, then....
DA: What's the connection between the new album and the Desmond Morris book THE NAKED APE?
RH: Kevin's song lyrics are attuned to the emotion and mood inherent in our music, based on the world he sees around him. After SOUNDS... was recorded, we had to go back and listen to our own music and discuss the lyrics and motives behind the music in order to get the concept for the title and cover. Many of the songs on SOTAK discuss the effects of the clash between the animal in man and man's rapidly advancing technology; much of the music has a primitive basis but is recorded with technical playing and advanced recording technology. The cover illustrates how these two ideas join together as a whole. Also the cover expresses sudden and intense emotion, similar to the sudden and intense emotion of the music on the cd. I spent a couple of weeks at the library trying to brainstorm a cover and came across THE NAKED APE, which I had read years ago in school. I realized Desmond Morris had a similar message to BT's and we decided to quote his book on our lyric sheet to give people some more information about what we're trying to express. Desmond Morris is a great writer and can express in words what we can only do in music.
Check out THE NAKED APE, THE HUMAN ZOO (Morris's comparison of an overcrowded city with a overcrowded animal cage in a zoo) and any of Desmond Morris' books really. They are pretty easy to find; I think most libraries have these books or can get them easily. Also, THE NAKED APE was made into a six-part BBC tv series with Morris' narration.
DA: I see that the lyrics this time around often focus on the dangers of commerce and its contribution to the process of deevolution -- would you like to elaborate on that message?
RH: Since the beginning, BT's lyrics have always stressed responsible individualism; on our new CD we elaborate a little: we see many problems in today's society resulting from humans (both as individuals and as a society) not coming to terms with the technology that their brains have created. We have allowed our technology to run rampant over the human animal and the results are dehumanization of the individual and the corruption of the natural and social environments.
DA: Given the lyrical thrust of the album, i'm curious as to what you make of the recent epileptic seizures of the stock market on Wall Street....
RH: We don't give a fuck about the stock market or Wall Street. If it crashes we will go on making music just the same. If the electricity stops, we will go out and make our music with sticks and stones.
DA: Is the track "4:20" from the new album inspired by John Cage's "4:33"?
RH: In the USA at the moment 4:20 is slang for "let's smoke pot!" We say "looks like the time is 4:20!" No one knows how this slang got started. We left this song as an empty space on the CD so the listeners could relax and prepare for the final brutal ending of the CD. [tmu: A wise idea, for the ending is indeed most gruesome in its brutality.]
DA: The opening collage bit that introduces "blue world" is amazing. How did that come about?
RH: Whenever I have some free time I go to visit my mom at her farm in the middle of Pennsylvania. We go to junk sales, flea markets, second-hand shops, etc., and I like to look for crazy record albums from the 50's 60's and 70's. The collage is built up from samples from some of these records: the ocean sound is from a 60's environmental sounds records, there is a Molly Hatchet sample, a Telly Savalas (Kojak) sample, a sample from the musical "Oliver" and a few others. Originally this bit was put together as a opening tape for the live show, but it worked so well, we decided to recreate it in the studio.
DA: I'm really impressed by the album's sound-- what sounds like controlled psychosis, for lack of a better term. How do you manage to harness that sound without having it melt into pure unbridled chaos?
RH: Well, Billy Anderson is a studio genius and technical wizard. Since we had already worked with him on KILL TREND SUICIDE (where the recording session was very rushed), we all knew what we wanted: to capture the live intensity of BT, raw power and totally in your face, and combine it with quality production with all frequencies and sounds at their ultimate. Billy is the kind of producer whom you can say to: "we want that kick drum to sound more 'uummphh'" and he can turn the correct knobs to make that happen. With sounds we had plenty of studio time to get the best instrument sounds and pay attention to the details.
DA: Even in a genre noted for extremity, you guys are pretty far out on a limb -- do you run into listeners who just don't get what you're about?
RH: Sometimes, though people who give our CD a good listen (maybe 2 or 3 times) usually catch on to what we are trying to do and say with our music. People who don't know about grind or any kind of extreme underground music can even catch on if they open their minds and listen carefully. I say to the uninitiated that our music is like some forms of jazz or classical: you need to listen to the music in context, study it and its form and you will understand that it isn't just noise or people playing as fast as they can.
DA: I would gather that Brutal Truth has some unusual influences for a death band -- which ones do you think people would find the most surprising?
RH: I think the most surprise for people is that we don't sit around and listen to only grind and death. Each member of Brutal Truth has various influences: Danny likes classical music, black metal, thrash, gothic, Kevin likes noise and underground hardcore punk and grind, Gurn likes metal and Stevie Ray Vaughn, I listen to underground hardcore punk, free form jazz, and old records that i buy at junk sales and flea markets. And these are not the only kinds of music that we listen to either! We have a short attention spans and are always searching out newer and more intense music to listen to.
DA: Do you agree with my contention that bands with influences and interests well outside their chosen genre generally produce more interesting work?
RH: Absolutely. By definition a band cannot be extreme if they play the exact same kind of music as 100 other bands. What is extreme if played by a few bands is generic if played by everyone. Even though a band may be basically grind or death or black or what ever, if they can add to that, they become more interesting, they are a little different.
DA: How did you end up covering Sun Ra's "it's after the end of the world"?
RH: Before we go to the studio to record, each member of BT picks a cover they'd like to do. Usually the covers don't end up on the CD; last time was when the Germs song was on NEED TO CONTROL (Kevin picked that one), usually covers end up as bonus tracks or on comps somewhere. I picked the Sun Ra cover, but it wasn't until after everything was recorded, we went back and listened and decided what would go where and the Sun Ra tune made both musical and thematic sense to be on the CD. Sun Ra did for jazz music what I can only hope BT might do for grind.
DA: One for Kevin -- tell me about your noise show at Bar Noisein Osaka a while back ago; i'm sure that was an interesting experience.
RH: Sorry, Kevin's job is to answer the snail mail and I just don't know the answer to this one.
DA: And one for Danny -- seeing as how i'm a huge fan of (sadly defunct) 13, can you tell me about playing with them and what that was like?
RH: I'll give this one a shot, since I played on the Exit-13 SMOKING SONGS CD: Exit-13 consists of Bill on vocals and Steve on guitar. Over the years they have borrowed musicians from many other bands (including Danny and myself from Brutal Truth) for various projects under the Exit-13 name from grind to jazz. Exit-13 was never a band that rehearsed, toured, etc., etc., but mostly a sort of series of studio projects; though there were some live shows they were all four-five years ago. It always rules playing with Exit- 13: Bill calls up, we go to the studio, smoke pot, record tunes. [tmu: I actually meant 13, the slow-as-fuck black-metal band from NYC led by Alicia Morgan, but hey, any band swank enough to invite Bliss Blood to sing on their disc is more than okay by me.]
DA: I would assume the band is still active in pursuing the legalization of a certain recreational pastime...?
RH: Of course!!! On SOUNDS there are two songs that address the hypocrisy of the marijuana laws: "postulate then liberate" and "promise." We find it ironic that in the USA one can buy a six-pack of beer and go driving into walls with little legal repercussions while having a joint will put you in jail.
DA: For that matter, what other political activism are you involved in?
RH: Brutal Truth is the main focus of our lives and our lives are our political activism. We refused long ago to accept the status quo of work, watch tv, sleep, buy cheap consumer goods because we want to fit in and then die. We try to spread our message and hopefully shake up a few people and maybe in the end it will do the globe some good. I guess we could do more, but playing music is what we do best and it's cool that we can spread some meaningful messages thru words and music.
DA: Any parting shots on life, death, music, politics, the state of the nation, or anything like that?
RH: No, we just want to say mega-thanks to all those fans of underground music who have supported BT over the years because it's those people who helped us to be able to do our thing. We are totally psyched about our new CD and will tour for most of 1998 in support of it. If you see that bt is playing come out and party with us!!!