Doom to Grind Interview - Spewtilator
1.Can you give us an update on what has been going on with the band since the recording of the new ep?
Ryan: We recorded all the tracks for the Goathrower EP about two years ago so we’ve all been real busy between then and now. We did a tour with Death of Kings going along with a split cassette we put out with them, Boris Records put out the Inhale Awaits EP which was recorded at the same time as the tracks for the Goathrower EP, and Headsplit Rekords did a split cassette for us with our buds in Coffin Dust for their east coast tour with Organ Donor last year. Aside from all that… Rafay and Amos both put in time with their other bands, Mangled and Death of Kings respectively, and have both put out records within the last couple years on Boris Records. I do logos and artwork for bands under the moniker Ryanimator which I’ve been focusing on lately… and writing more riffs!
2.You have a new ep coming out early this year, can you tell us a little bit more about the musical direction it has taken and also how does it differ from your previous recordings?
Ryan: It still sounds like Spewtilator and fits in with all the other stuff we’ve done but we’ve worked some new influences in too. There’s a couple black metal parts in there, some d beat stuff, grindcore, and still a bunch of thrashing death metal… but it’s all done pretty tastefully, everything flows really well and I think even though there’s some pretty stark contrasts stylistically in the songs it doesn’t miss a beat as a full cohesive EP. It’s not like “oh here’s a black/death metal song and here’s a d beat song, and here’s a grindcore song and here’s a thrash song and then a punk cover” we just blaze through everything headlong like we always have. We spent a lot more time mixing these songs and Rafay spent a lot more time on his guitar tone which I think really shows in the final product. Josh Freemon at Dead Sound Studio is the dude of dudes and spent a TON of time with us on all of it and probably gave more of a shit about the final product than we did haha but he did a great job and I couldn’t be happier. Jack Control at Enormous Door did a great job on the mastering too. Our best sounding shit without a doubt!
3.Can you tell us a little bit more about the lyrical topics and subjects the new release explores?
Ryan: Well, all the songs are still about smoking weed haha… but aside from the typical Spewtilator themes we explore a post-apocalyptic wasteland where technology is waging war against mankind and reanimating corpses in a legion of cyborg death squads programmed to wipe out what’s left of the irradiated resistance. A Native American curse that plunges the victim into terrifying psychedelic visions culminating in self-disembowelment upon a cryptic swamp altar. Poser immolation and ceremonial conjuring of denizens from the lower planes through sorcerous vitriolic castings… and Tony Iommi.
4.The band was broken up for awhile, what was the cause of the split and also the decision to reform?
Ryan: Haha we’ve had like… six ‘last shows’ over the years. Mostly they were just us fucking with everyone or not really knowing if we’d play another show… like when Chris got busy working on big tours and we eventually had Jake start playing with us… it was just like “Fuck it, last show” and just wait and see what happened later. The first time was for real, though. I was in a bit of trouble with the law and thought I was going to have to move out of state for a while. Things ended up working themselves out and I stayed so we just kinda picked up where we left off.
5.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Spewtilator'?
Ryan: I came up with the name after we’d already written some songs so it was kinda indicative of what I thought we sounded like… but the inspiration was from partying with one of my best friends years before. He got obliterated at this house party we were at, in the fashion that only Bigmatt could. Someone had already spilled shit all over the couch cushions so they were leaning outside in a corner of the carport and Bigmatt comes stumbling out there and just leans up on the wall and barfs all over them. I’ve never ever seen anyone puke that much since, it was nuts, like, inhuman amounts of barf, and Bigmatt was a big motherfucker so this shit is just coming out in fucking ocean waves… he just absolutely destroyed those cushions with vomit. It was amazing. Bigmatt is the spewtilator.
RIP brother.
6.What are some of the best shows that the band has played over the years and also how would you describe your stage performance?
Ryan: Our first ‘last show’ was pretty wild. We hadn’t been around all that long and had kinda started catching on around town so everyone came out of the woodwork for that one. I have a vhs tape of it somewhere that I need to do something with one of these days. Bigmatt’s memorial show is probably my personal favorite. He was seriously the best dude ever… probably the most genuine person I’ve ever met and one of my best friends. So we played a memorial show for him when he passed with a bunch of other bands and we played last and man, it was tough. Matt was the reason Spewtilator even came to be. I’d always wanted to do a band with him and so we had this idea to do something called Heavy Metal Vomit Party and so when I started writing riffs it was with the intent of him fronting the band. I can’t even imagine how awesome that would have been. Matt traveled a lot, hopped trains n shit, so him actually being in the band just kinda didn’t happen but he was always at the shows, heckling me from the crowd, running the pit, and just being the most enthusiastic and wild motherfucker in the room. It was infectious. So the memorial set was appropriately bonkers, constant stage-dives, wild pit, shit being thrown at us, whiskey bottles being passed around like water, people everywhere… a fitting tribute to the raddest dude ever.
The stage performance has always been 100% high energy balls to the wall. If it’s been in our control we’ve always played in almost total darkness with just a couple green flood lights pointed at our cabs. I hate when bands just stand there and don’t thrash or anything, that sucks to watch. I think if the band is going ape shit it just encourages the crowd to do the same which in turn gets the band even more stoked… that’s when shit gets out of control and magic starts to happen.
7.Do you have any touring or show plans for the future?
Ryan: Not currently, Rafay and Amos stay pretty busy with their other projects who both play shows frequently and have touring plans this year. Mangled is heading out to Kentucky in February for Blood of the Wolf Fest along with a bunch of other sick bands and I think Death of Kings is doing the east coast in March. Spew did the whole ‘play twice a month, every month’ thing for years and it’s just not what I’m into these days. I think we may try and pull things together for something in the summer but we’ll see how that shakes out.
8.On the new ep you have a Zeke cover, what was the decision behind doing your own version of one of their songs?
Ryan: Zeke rules! Rafay and I are huge fans so we thought including a cover song of theirs would be appropriate. Plus, they’re criminally unknown, totally fucking rip, and the subject matter of the song is pretty appropriate so it was a no-brainer. We actually did a Zeke/Slayer cover set a couple years ago for Halloween so we know almost a full set of their songs anyway haha. One of my favorite bands ever. They don’t get nearly enough credit for how radical they are and how long they’ve been cranking out top notch hi-octane rock and roll madness. We got to open for them a while back and decided that there would be no point in continuing the band after that since all our hopes and dreams would be coming true so that one was another of our “last” shows.
9.A year ago you put out a split with Coffin Dust, what are your thoughts on the other band that participated on the album?
Ryan: They are total dickheads and we hate them intensely for both how good they are at their instruments and for how radical they are at being really radically radical dudes. I did a house show for Matt and John’s old band when they were touring through, which was coincidentally Spewtilator’s first show, and we’ve been in touch ever since. Matt does art under the moniker Slime and has done a bunch of stuff for us over the years and we’ve tried to play as many shows together as bands 800 miles apart can muster. Totally killer and criminally unknown band… but the latter should be changing as Unholy Anarchy Records is putting out their full length in February and it fuckin’ SMOKES!
10.On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of underground metal?
Ryan: Good? I dunno man, haha. Some dude in England did a video review of our first cassette that’s pretty funny. I don’t think he liked it haha or maybe he just thought all the “bungs” and weed stuff was stupid? I don’t remember now, it’s on youtube I think. Aside from him I think all the reviews I’ve seen have been pretty positive.
11.According to the Metal Archives page, a couple of the band members also participate in other musical projects, can you tell us a little bit more about them?
Ryan: Yeah, Rafay and Amos both do time in other projects.
Amos plays in a thrashy traditional heavy metal band called Death of Kings. Boris Records just put out a record for them last year which is a total ripper and Sam actually has the last few copies of the Spewtilator / Death of Kings tour split too so check them shits out. Totally awesome and triumphant jams. They’re gonna be hitting the road in March for a short tour if I remember correctly.
Rafay plays in a sewer stomping death metal band called Mangled. Boris Records put an EP out for them in 2012 and will be putting out another record for them this year, if I’m not mistaken. Dudes worship at the altar of Exhumed etc. and play rad thrashing death metal about being sewer dwelling maniacs. It rules. They’re heading out to Blood of the Wolf fest in Lexington, Kentucky this month to play with some of the sickest death metal bands on the east coast so if you’re in the area then shirk your poserly ways and go to that shit.
12.What direction do you see your music heading into on future releases?
Ryan: Faster, weirder, more influences, who knows?! Rafay had a new song that had some weird futuristic thrashing vibes and heavy Turbonegro influence and I’ve got one that kinda bridges the styles of the newer thrash stuff like Burn in Hell with the stuff on the Get Conjured cassette where we had a really heavy death metal influence… so it’s gonna be weird, that’s for sure. I really liked kinda branching the sound out a little bit on the last batch of stuff we recorded and I thought we were able to expand on what Spewtilator “sounds like” pretty effectively without moving away from the sound we’ve established.
13.What are some bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
Ryan: Well… obviously we like Slayer. We’ve ripped off their song titles, album titles, album art, and logo! As far as other direct influences; lots of old thrash metal, death metal, punk, and grindcore… it’d get ridiculous to try and list everything out. We never really set out to be a specific type of band or play a certain genre, it was just a mash up of all the fast shit we love. If you look at the four songs on the first cassette you’ve got an homage to Slayer, early Death / Possessed worship, death metal, and thrashy grindcore with a black metal-ish/death n roll outro… all in under 8 minutes. Likewise the new EP runs the gamut of death metal, thrash, grindcore, black metal, d beat and punk… but I think we’ve always done a good job of incorporating elements that we like from our influences and still always sounding like Spewtilator.
I’ve been listening to Blood Money’s “Red, Raw, and Bleeding” a bunch lately. Totally killer 80’s speed metal from the UK. Yet another band that deserves way more attention than they get. Mob Rules has been in heavy rotation as well. I used to be partial to the Ozzy albums, and Sabotage is still my favorite Sabbath album, but the albums with Dio are just so fucking good and I love all the up tempo stuff, you just can’t fuck with Turn Up the Night and the bass work on those albums is top notch. As for newer stuff… I’ve been jamming a bunch of noisy goregrind stuff like Couple Skate, Hyperemesis, and Meatal Ulcer. Gowl put out two ripper EP’s last year that I’ve been jamming non-stop. That new Ranger album is rad as is the new Iron Dogs record from last year. Disfigurement’s latest EP “Soul Rot” that Brois Records put it is totally crushing. I could go on and on forever…
14.Do you have any non musical interests?
Ryan: I do logos and artwork for bands under the moniker Ryanimator in my free time which is a lot of fun. Rafay and I both nerd out really hard on the Legend of Drizz’t series by R.A. Salvatore. I hadn’t read any fantasy / D&D type stuff in years and he got me hooked back in. That series is like 20 books long at this point, and was almost literally the only thing I read for like 2 years. Some of the best books I’ve ever read… and the newest one might be the best of the whole fucking series which is just nuts because the quality of every book in the series up to this point has been superb.
15.Before we wrap up this interview do you have any final words or thoughts?
Thanks for the interview! For anyone who wants to abuse their ears with our horrible racket and keep up with our general stupidity they can do so here http://facebook.com/spewtilator and here http://spewtilator.bandcamp.com Check out Boris Records here http://boris-records.com and here http://borisrecords.bandcamp.com and pick up all the awesome shit Sam has put out! Goathrower drops on Feb 14th! Listen to radical heavy metal and grindcore every day!
1.Can you give us an update on what has been going on with the band since the recording of the new ep?
Ryan: We recorded all the tracks for the Goathrower EP about two years ago so we’ve all been real busy between then and now. We did a tour with Death of Kings going along with a split cassette we put out with them, Boris Records put out the Inhale Awaits EP which was recorded at the same time as the tracks for the Goathrower EP, and Headsplit Rekords did a split cassette for us with our buds in Coffin Dust for their east coast tour with Organ Donor last year. Aside from all that… Rafay and Amos both put in time with their other bands, Mangled and Death of Kings respectively, and have both put out records within the last couple years on Boris Records. I do logos and artwork for bands under the moniker Ryanimator which I’ve been focusing on lately… and writing more riffs!
2.You have a new ep coming out early this year, can you tell us a little bit more about the musical direction it has taken and also how does it differ from your previous recordings?
Ryan: It still sounds like Spewtilator and fits in with all the other stuff we’ve done but we’ve worked some new influences in too. There’s a couple black metal parts in there, some d beat stuff, grindcore, and still a bunch of thrashing death metal… but it’s all done pretty tastefully, everything flows really well and I think even though there’s some pretty stark contrasts stylistically in the songs it doesn’t miss a beat as a full cohesive EP. It’s not like “oh here’s a black/death metal song and here’s a d beat song, and here’s a grindcore song and here’s a thrash song and then a punk cover” we just blaze through everything headlong like we always have. We spent a lot more time mixing these songs and Rafay spent a lot more time on his guitar tone which I think really shows in the final product. Josh Freemon at Dead Sound Studio is the dude of dudes and spent a TON of time with us on all of it and probably gave more of a shit about the final product than we did haha but he did a great job and I couldn’t be happier. Jack Control at Enormous Door did a great job on the mastering too. Our best sounding shit without a doubt!
3.Can you tell us a little bit more about the lyrical topics and subjects the new release explores?
Ryan: Well, all the songs are still about smoking weed haha… but aside from the typical Spewtilator themes we explore a post-apocalyptic wasteland where technology is waging war against mankind and reanimating corpses in a legion of cyborg death squads programmed to wipe out what’s left of the irradiated resistance. A Native American curse that plunges the victim into terrifying psychedelic visions culminating in self-disembowelment upon a cryptic swamp altar. Poser immolation and ceremonial conjuring of denizens from the lower planes through sorcerous vitriolic castings… and Tony Iommi.
4.The band was broken up for awhile, what was the cause of the split and also the decision to reform?
Ryan: Haha we’ve had like… six ‘last shows’ over the years. Mostly they were just us fucking with everyone or not really knowing if we’d play another show… like when Chris got busy working on big tours and we eventually had Jake start playing with us… it was just like “Fuck it, last show” and just wait and see what happened later. The first time was for real, though. I was in a bit of trouble with the law and thought I was going to have to move out of state for a while. Things ended up working themselves out and I stayed so we just kinda picked up where we left off.
5.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Spewtilator'?
Ryan: I came up with the name after we’d already written some songs so it was kinda indicative of what I thought we sounded like… but the inspiration was from partying with one of my best friends years before. He got obliterated at this house party we were at, in the fashion that only Bigmatt could. Someone had already spilled shit all over the couch cushions so they were leaning outside in a corner of the carport and Bigmatt comes stumbling out there and just leans up on the wall and barfs all over them. I’ve never ever seen anyone puke that much since, it was nuts, like, inhuman amounts of barf, and Bigmatt was a big motherfucker so this shit is just coming out in fucking ocean waves… he just absolutely destroyed those cushions with vomit. It was amazing. Bigmatt is the spewtilator.
RIP brother.
6.What are some of the best shows that the band has played over the years and also how would you describe your stage performance?
Ryan: Our first ‘last show’ was pretty wild. We hadn’t been around all that long and had kinda started catching on around town so everyone came out of the woodwork for that one. I have a vhs tape of it somewhere that I need to do something with one of these days. Bigmatt’s memorial show is probably my personal favorite. He was seriously the best dude ever… probably the most genuine person I’ve ever met and one of my best friends. So we played a memorial show for him when he passed with a bunch of other bands and we played last and man, it was tough. Matt was the reason Spewtilator even came to be. I’d always wanted to do a band with him and so we had this idea to do something called Heavy Metal Vomit Party and so when I started writing riffs it was with the intent of him fronting the band. I can’t even imagine how awesome that would have been. Matt traveled a lot, hopped trains n shit, so him actually being in the band just kinda didn’t happen but he was always at the shows, heckling me from the crowd, running the pit, and just being the most enthusiastic and wild motherfucker in the room. It was infectious. So the memorial set was appropriately bonkers, constant stage-dives, wild pit, shit being thrown at us, whiskey bottles being passed around like water, people everywhere… a fitting tribute to the raddest dude ever.
The stage performance has always been 100% high energy balls to the wall. If it’s been in our control we’ve always played in almost total darkness with just a couple green flood lights pointed at our cabs. I hate when bands just stand there and don’t thrash or anything, that sucks to watch. I think if the band is going ape shit it just encourages the crowd to do the same which in turn gets the band even more stoked… that’s when shit gets out of control and magic starts to happen.
7.Do you have any touring or show plans for the future?
Ryan: Not currently, Rafay and Amos stay pretty busy with their other projects who both play shows frequently and have touring plans this year. Mangled is heading out to Kentucky in February for Blood of the Wolf Fest along with a bunch of other sick bands and I think Death of Kings is doing the east coast in March. Spew did the whole ‘play twice a month, every month’ thing for years and it’s just not what I’m into these days. I think we may try and pull things together for something in the summer but we’ll see how that shakes out.
8.On the new ep you have a Zeke cover, what was the decision behind doing your own version of one of their songs?
Ryan: Zeke rules! Rafay and I are huge fans so we thought including a cover song of theirs would be appropriate. Plus, they’re criminally unknown, totally fucking rip, and the subject matter of the song is pretty appropriate so it was a no-brainer. We actually did a Zeke/Slayer cover set a couple years ago for Halloween so we know almost a full set of their songs anyway haha. One of my favorite bands ever. They don’t get nearly enough credit for how radical they are and how long they’ve been cranking out top notch hi-octane rock and roll madness. We got to open for them a while back and decided that there would be no point in continuing the band after that since all our hopes and dreams would be coming true so that one was another of our “last” shows.
9.A year ago you put out a split with Coffin Dust, what are your thoughts on the other band that participated on the album?
Ryan: They are total dickheads and we hate them intensely for both how good they are at their instruments and for how radical they are at being really radically radical dudes. I did a house show for Matt and John’s old band when they were touring through, which was coincidentally Spewtilator’s first show, and we’ve been in touch ever since. Matt does art under the moniker Slime and has done a bunch of stuff for us over the years and we’ve tried to play as many shows together as bands 800 miles apart can muster. Totally killer and criminally unknown band… but the latter should be changing as Unholy Anarchy Records is putting out their full length in February and it fuckin’ SMOKES!
10.On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of underground metal?
Ryan: Good? I dunno man, haha. Some dude in England did a video review of our first cassette that’s pretty funny. I don’t think he liked it haha or maybe he just thought all the “bungs” and weed stuff was stupid? I don’t remember now, it’s on youtube I think. Aside from him I think all the reviews I’ve seen have been pretty positive.
11.According to the Metal Archives page, a couple of the band members also participate in other musical projects, can you tell us a little bit more about them?
Ryan: Yeah, Rafay and Amos both do time in other projects.
Amos plays in a thrashy traditional heavy metal band called Death of Kings. Boris Records just put out a record for them last year which is a total ripper and Sam actually has the last few copies of the Spewtilator / Death of Kings tour split too so check them shits out. Totally awesome and triumphant jams. They’re gonna be hitting the road in March for a short tour if I remember correctly.
Rafay plays in a sewer stomping death metal band called Mangled. Boris Records put an EP out for them in 2012 and will be putting out another record for them this year, if I’m not mistaken. Dudes worship at the altar of Exhumed etc. and play rad thrashing death metal about being sewer dwelling maniacs. It rules. They’re heading out to Blood of the Wolf fest in Lexington, Kentucky this month to play with some of the sickest death metal bands on the east coast so if you’re in the area then shirk your poserly ways and go to that shit.
12.What direction do you see your music heading into on future releases?
Ryan: Faster, weirder, more influences, who knows?! Rafay had a new song that had some weird futuristic thrashing vibes and heavy Turbonegro influence and I’ve got one that kinda bridges the styles of the newer thrash stuff like Burn in Hell with the stuff on the Get Conjured cassette where we had a really heavy death metal influence… so it’s gonna be weird, that’s for sure. I really liked kinda branching the sound out a little bit on the last batch of stuff we recorded and I thought we were able to expand on what Spewtilator “sounds like” pretty effectively without moving away from the sound we’ve established.
13.What are some bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
Ryan: Well… obviously we like Slayer. We’ve ripped off their song titles, album titles, album art, and logo! As far as other direct influences; lots of old thrash metal, death metal, punk, and grindcore… it’d get ridiculous to try and list everything out. We never really set out to be a specific type of band or play a certain genre, it was just a mash up of all the fast shit we love. If you look at the four songs on the first cassette you’ve got an homage to Slayer, early Death / Possessed worship, death metal, and thrashy grindcore with a black metal-ish/death n roll outro… all in under 8 minutes. Likewise the new EP runs the gamut of death metal, thrash, grindcore, black metal, d beat and punk… but I think we’ve always done a good job of incorporating elements that we like from our influences and still always sounding like Spewtilator.
I’ve been listening to Blood Money’s “Red, Raw, and Bleeding” a bunch lately. Totally killer 80’s speed metal from the UK. Yet another band that deserves way more attention than they get. Mob Rules has been in heavy rotation as well. I used to be partial to the Ozzy albums, and Sabotage is still my favorite Sabbath album, but the albums with Dio are just so fucking good and I love all the up tempo stuff, you just can’t fuck with Turn Up the Night and the bass work on those albums is top notch. As for newer stuff… I’ve been jamming a bunch of noisy goregrind stuff like Couple Skate, Hyperemesis, and Meatal Ulcer. Gowl put out two ripper EP’s last year that I’ve been jamming non-stop. That new Ranger album is rad as is the new Iron Dogs record from last year. Disfigurement’s latest EP “Soul Rot” that Brois Records put it is totally crushing. I could go on and on forever…
14.Do you have any non musical interests?
Ryan: I do logos and artwork for bands under the moniker Ryanimator in my free time which is a lot of fun. Rafay and I both nerd out really hard on the Legend of Drizz’t series by R.A. Salvatore. I hadn’t read any fantasy / D&D type stuff in years and he got me hooked back in. That series is like 20 books long at this point, and was almost literally the only thing I read for like 2 years. Some of the best books I’ve ever read… and the newest one might be the best of the whole fucking series which is just nuts because the quality of every book in the series up to this point has been superb.
15.Before we wrap up this interview do you have any final words or thoughts?
Thanks for the interview! For anyone who wants to abuse their ears with our horrible racket and keep up with our general stupidity they can do so here http://facebook.com/spewtilator and here http://spewtilator.bandcamp.com Check out Boris Records here http://boris-records.com and here http://borisrecords.bandcamp.com and pick up all the awesome shit Sam has put out! Goathrower drops on Feb 14th! Listen to radical heavy metal and grindcore every day!
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