Satanarchist
First Against the Wall
Self-released.
drummer/lyricist, Mark Nunziata; guitarist/vocalist, John
Edwards
Is the duo thing out of necessity or choice? What does
Satanarchist bring as a duo that differs from if you added a bass?
Mark: We
started playing together in 4-piece black metal band Spectral Tombs almost 7
years ago, and Satanarchist was simply born from all the times that we were the
only two available to practice. If the other dudes couldn’t make it, the two of
us would still get together and mess around. That’s how most of the first
record was written, as a casual side project. When the other members of
Spectral Tombs both stepped out of the band, coincidentally at the same time but
for unrelated reasons and on good terms, we just decided to keep going and
focus on this. We considered finding other members for a while but settled on
remaining a two-piece for a number of reasons. I’d been in a few duos before
and always appreciated how easy it was to make decisions, schedule shows and
practices and all that, one line of communication and no dead weight.
John: As
far as what being a two-piece brings, we get a lot of feedback after our live
shows that we make a shit ton of noise for two people. People are like “holy
shit I can’t believe how full your sound is,” or “I had no idea there were only
two of you until I got a view of the stage.” Sometimes people say we need a
bass player, but those people are usually bass players.
Mark: The
only drawback to being in a two-piece is that we always have to load and unload
the like five people’s worth of gear we use.
How is atheism/Satanism important in 2017’s society?
Mark: As
the institution of religion gains traction in politics and society, it becomes
increasingly important to resist it and support systems of belief based in
radical ideas such as ‘facts.’ People can believe whatever they want but not if
those beliefs start creeping into policy or affecting other people’s rights. With
so many people and politicians using religious arguments to push oppressive
attitudes and defend oppressive actions, we have a responsibility to stand up
and call bullshit. I am disgusted by the injection of religious ideals into
politics and our personal lives, things like health care, science, education
and equal rights for people who aren’t straight cis white men.
What strengths do you derive from these beliefs?
Mark: We
don’t reference satanic imagery or atheism because it’s the metal thing to do;
we do it as a means to communicate our revulsion toward the influence of
religion in society. There’s a very real overlap between radical left politics
and freedom from religion, and the relationship between them runs far deeper
than just our name.
John:
Hail Satan.
Mark: And
fuck homophobia, fuck transphobia, fuck “pro-life” Christian assholes who cut
food and healthcare for the poor.
In the promo – specific amps are listed, Is gear, or are specific
brands, important to Satanarchist’s sound?
John: I
don’t particularly care about brands and, like, boutique or vintage gear, but
Engl makes the best sounding amps for the kind of metal we play… so I use two.
The Ampeg SVT is pretty much industry standard and fills out the low end.
Mark: What’s
almost more important than what we list is what we don’t list. We wanted to
just write fun, fast, heavy shit that doesn’t rely on effect pedals or bells or
whistles to make it sound good, just amps and riffs. When we started writing
for Satanarchist we set a couple ground rules. 1: No doom. 2: No Pedals.
Is it a tough decision to not shop this around to labels and
just release independently?
Mark: It
was mostly a matter of circumstance. We wanted to have this album ready to go
before our Canada tour, and we knew that if we took the time to shop it out to
labels then the timeline probably wouldn’t work out. We reached out to a couple
Canadian labels early on but never heard back so just decided to slam it out
ourselves.
John:
We’d be open to working with labels for our LP release of First Against The
Wall though.
In 2017, what are the pros and cons of releasing a record
yourselves?
Mark: We
did our first CD and LP independently as well, gives us a lot of control and
flexibility over timelines and whatnot but it is pretty expensive. Of course it would be cool to have the distro
and promotions power of a solid label behind us but we’ve just kept everything
as DIY as possible from booking tours to finding floors to crash on to putting
our music out. I’ve never worked with a label before so I can’t really speak to
the comparisons.
John:
From the get go, one of our main goals was to tour as much as possible and
releasing our own stuff is just easy. We just make it happen. No one’s going to
do it for us so we do it ourselves.
How did recording go?
Mark: By
the time this prints I will have recorded drums at Haywire studios with Fester
five times between four bands so I pretty much knew what I was getting in
to. The dude’s a wizard, he has a way of
hearing your music better than you do, he’s a skilled engineer but always ends
up lending invaluable input as a producer as well. We also booked more studio
time than we usually do for this record so I didn’t feel as much pressure to
nail everything on the first take.
John:
Fester is pretty much the shit for recording metal in Portland. There are other
people to go to… but why?
With production or mastering, ever a worry it would be too
clean or polished? How much dialogue was there between you and Fester/Boatright
along the way?
Mark: Brad
at Audiosiege does amazing work so we pretty much just let him do his magic.
Our only specifications we gave for this were a) make sure you can hear
everything and b) make sure it has balls. We wanted it to sound good without
compromising weight, and be heavy without compromising clarity. We feel like he
came through pretty solid on both points. With Fester we spent far more time
mixing it than I ever had on anything before so I’m pretty fucking stoked on
how you can hear every little goddamn snare roll. We worked on the mix over a half dozen
sessions over a few weeks.
How do things look for your Canada tour?
Mark: We’re
psyched to reunite with our brothers in Hard Charger. We met those guys last
summer when we played four shows together on the east coast of the US and have
kept in touch. They did all the legwork to book the shows and we’re grateful
for the opportunity to play metal with them north of the wall. I think we’re
covering like five provinces and playing in some really cool towns. I grew up
in Vermont and loved Montreal when I was a kid so it’ll be rad to get to play
there.
John: Hard
Charger borrowed my backline for a west coast tour last fall and all I got was
a bottle of whiskey so basically they owed me one. Best buds tour 2017.
What is it about the TVZ cover that stirs you enough to
cover it?
John:
We’d been talking about it for years. Have you heard Silver Ships of Andilar? The
form and content, It’s basically asking to be a metal song. It’s a story about
going to war on a boat, getting lost at sea and everyone starving and killing
each other. Plus I’ve been listening to Townes Van Zandt my whole life, I was
raised on it. My mom introduced me to his music as long ago as I can remember.
When I told her we were covering one of his songs she was like “You’re going to
ruin Townes.” But he’s been one of my
musical idols since I was young, so we did our best to do it justice.
First Against The Wall or "First against
the wall when the revolution comes" is an echo of radical left sentiment
toward members of the elite who will face firing squad after being deposed by
popular uprising. References to the phrase or variants of it can be found
scattered throughout radical and popular culture back to the 60's and 70's. We
use it as an imagining of retributive violence against police, heads of state,
businessmen and agents of the church who've committed injustices and atrocities
against the people. It also invokes images of violence by the police which we
find appalling and stand firmly against. In today's political environment, it
is also intended as a a reference to Trump's border wall. Imagine Trump,
Sessions, Ryan, Bannon, Spencer, McConnell et. al. facing a firing squad with
their backs to a wall on the southern border. A band can dream.
Hutch would like to thank John and Mark for their time. Also Lisa Root at New Noise. Dave and Liz Brenner at Earsplit PR
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