La semaine dernière, je lisais le dernier poste de Sam Bean sur son blog où, entre deux tirades mémorables sur la connardise de Jeff Walker, il se plaignait que toutes les interviews se ressemblent peu ou prou, sans originalité ni grand intérêt pour lui ni pour les lecteurs. Et, comme j'ai beaucoup de temps libre et une ligne directe avec lui, je me suis dit qu je pourrais faire une interview de Sam hors de toute promotion. Musicien de talent et qui a joué à des vitesses supersoniques dans des groupes aussi renommés que The Berzerker ou Mithras avant de fonder son projet, The Senseless - vous vous devez d'acheter The Floating World si vous aimez le metal extrême - Sam est aussi un type ultra cool et à la plume acérée, le prototype du bon client pour tout interviewer. Si j'ai passé deux jours à écrire les questions, il n'aura mis qu'une demie journée pour m'envoyer les réponses, qui sont pourtant loin d'être courtes, et indubitablement les meilleures parmi toutes celles qu'on a pu me faire, quel que soit l'interviewé. Quand je vous dis que cet homme est rapide.Hey Sam, first question that came through my mind while I read your blog: why did you use to be such a cunt? Should I use the present tense instead? Although you seem to be a very friendly guy (the first hint being you're actually answering this question), there are numerous occasions where you totally look like a dick, especially when you want to start an interview by “Why are you such a cunt?” Or when you're surfing.
I kind of started replying and then realized I was trying to justify myself, and then I totally remembered that I actually want to OWN some of the horrible things I’ve done. That’s the aim of the blog really, to have complete ownership and expression of all my thoughts, good or bad.
I AM a complete cunt sometimes. When I wrote that article “The World’s Worst Roadie”, when we put posters up around town of that Japanese woman having an enema, when I outed a journalist by name in the last article for being useless, when we were pushing girls from moving vehicles in America, those were all terrible things to do. When people meet me or chat with me, they find it hard to believe that I could have anything to do with heavy metal, or that I could be nasty ever. Most of the time, I’m terribly nice.
But everyone does shitty things no matter how nice they are, and I wanted to write up stories and articles that were more honest than anything else out there, and portraying my bad deeds and thoughts out there with everything else I’ve done helps create the impression that I’m not holding anything back. Most of the bad stuff, I did either because my horrible sense of humor kicks in and says “DO IT”, or you’re on the road exploring boundaries and behaviours that you can’t get away with in normal life.
You often said you think of the early black metal scene and its behavior (the infamous Inner Circle and its share of crime) as a circus. Although you love playing extreme music, when do you think the "extreme way of life" that allegedly comes with the musicianship (I feel bad trying to think like that) becomes childish or way out of line ?
Oh man, this is such a good question….and such a difficult one.
However much I rip on the black metal guys from that era, I get it. I totally get it. I absolutely understand where they’re coming from, why the church burnings and murders happened, all of it. I understand how it feels to see bands like Avenged Sevenfold and Attack Attack prancing around what was once sacred taboo turf, and just wanting to draw the harshest line between yourself and them. I understand the hunger for authenticity. Just because I understand it though, doesn’t mean I sympathize with them.
I’ve never been a big fan of the ‘metal lifestyle’ or the so-called ‘extreme way of life’. It’s shit. Everyone’s broke and depressed. Ever been to a metal party? 4 times out of 5, it’s a sausagefest and no-one’s getting laid. I’ll take the house-music lifestyle, and when I party I’ll go to a psytrance rave. Those people know how to have fun. I hate metal shirts, band names, and band logos. Almost all of it is childish. I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t really believe in the extreme metal “extreme way of life”, any bit of it. For anyone to aspire to it, I’m like just grow up. It’s a fabrication, a myth. I understand the feelings that lead people to violence, overt displays of evil, all that shit, but making that your entire identity is out of line…even before you get to the stabbing people part! I can’t comprehend how people can’t aspire to something better.
I mean, if you want an extreme way of life that goes with a music taste, hip hop has metal beat hands down. Way more money, more sex, and infinitely more violence and murder. The life those people lead would scare the shit out of almost any metalhead, no matter how frostbitten and grim they are. Kind of puts it in perspective, doesn’t it?
I remember, back when the first The Berzerker album came out, I read an interview where you (or Luke) looked like arrogant brats, claiming you were the most extreme band of the era and no one could match you. Which, looking back now, you most certainly were, but that's quite a bold statement for a newcomer. Was it only for fun?
No. Everything we did with Berzerker was EXTREMELY deliberate. We knew there’s no place for modesty in extreme music, or trying to hide your strengths. We weren’t artists trying to bare our souls. We were trying to make the most extreme music out there which would crush everyone else, and nothing was going to get in our way. The arrogance was part of that. We were running our flag up the mast, and people could either love us or hate us, but they wouldn’t be able to ignore us. By saying what we did, anyone who was into extreme music was going to check us out.
It’s an old industry tactic, really. Bands still do it today. You say something about how much better than everyone else you are, and people will check you out even if it’s to say that they hate you. It is being overdone a bit much these days though, I haven’t heard anyone who can back up their statements. This is the difference between us and them – we told everyone we were the heaviest band in the world, and we could actually back that up.
In your latest blog you complained about boring, unoriginal interviews that you had to answer through your career. As I try myself to go beyond that, I can tell you that media training is the thing to blame in this case, since no matter how good or unusual your questions are, some bands will give you either meaningless answers or (worse) won't even bother answering the question and use the prototype generic answer they have in their back pocket. When you were signed on Earache Records, did you have directives to soften your communication ?
Oh god no. Earache Records loved being provocative, it was one of their strengths. You gotta remember, they had been raided by the police for the Carcass CD covers, they had Morbid Angel talking about their ridiculous spiritual beliefs, dear Christ they even released AxCx. They loved taking a chance and they encouraged their bands to get into everyone’s face by any means. They never censored us. They didn’t have a problem with anyone courting controversy, and they gave absolutely no direction to us when it came to interviews. I’m not sure if that’s the case with all their bands, or if they swiftly realized that in our case no direction was needed.
I know what you mean about bands who bore people to death in interviews. Musicians are usually doing what they do because at a deep level, they want attention, that’s why they make music. And then you give them an interview where you ask them about themselves, and they’re like “finally, someone’s listening to ME!” it’s easy for them to forget that they’re still on public show in an interview, and that they still have to be entertaining.
I’ve never heard about a metal band getting media training though. That would indicate the possibility that someone somewhere is spending money on making these bands professional, something I find hard to believe.
Do you realize people hate surfers ? Maybe it's only a thing outside of Australia, but basically whoever the guy on the cover of In The Realm Of The Senseless is, pretty much everybody wants him dead. From a slow and painful death, if possible.
How about a fast and painful death? Ha, I do remember my grandma tutting disapprovingly about ‘surfies’. I didn’t realize the rest of the world hated them. It’s the good thing about surfing, it’s so enjoyable to do that you couldn’t give a toss what anyone else thinks while you’re doing it!
I still love that album cover. It was perfect. Some people thought it was me on that wave. No way was that me. That guy is getting a relentless pounding at Waimea Shorebreak, and I would not even get in the water there let alone take off on a monster like that. If you hate surfers and like seeing them get smashed to bits, head to YouTube and check out Billabong XXL Wipeouts. There are some clips from a place in Western Australia called The Right. They make the cover of the CD look like someone splashing around in a kid’s pool.
How nice is it to be freed from labels with The Senseless? Now you're autoproducing your music, can you tell us the pros and cons of both? Don't you think it would be much easier for promotion if you had signed with a label?
Yeah, there’s good and bad sides to both options. Promotion is much, much easier when you’re with a label. I miss their muscle. When you’re by yourself, lots of the media just flat-out ignores you. That doesn’t happen if you’re with a label.
If you’re with a label who actually do their job properly, then that’s the ideal situation. You could just get on with making the best music possible and making your live show even more incredible. The problem I always had was that I was never on a label who’d do their job properly. Earache were unreliable with money, so anything to do with that was an exhausting shit-fight that would drag on for months. They’d also sneak around your back and pull stunts, like when they replaced all the CD artwork for our debut release in the US to pictures of our masks, despite our instructions and contractual stipulations otherwise. They’d keep breaking various parts of the contract and if we complained then their response was “plenty of other bands would be happy to be on this label, maybe we should give the money to them”.
As for Anticulture, we had a good long chat about what we both wanted from each other in our contract. I gave them an album, artwork, filmclips, and everything they asked for – for free - and they completely fucked up their end of things. I feel I caught them just as the label manager was entering a difficult period in life, and he could no longer put his focus and energy into the label. If things worked out as we had agreed then I would have been very happy with them.
Being free from labels is good in that I get the transparency that I want…in other words, I know how much printing CDs costs. I know how much promotion costs, how much the website and hosting costs, the music production itself. I know exactly how much music I’ve sold and whether I’ve made money or lost money. You can see if the effort you’re putting in creates sales. To me, that’s the most important thing. I’m an artist right up until I get in a contract, and then it’s business time, and most labels treat you like a drunk hippy (which most musicians are) and obfuscate the numbers. If I enter into a business relationship with a label, then I want them to fucking well act like a business partner not like some shady prick trying to keep secrets.
The other added bonus of being independent is that I can work on my own timeline. I make music when I’m inspired, not when the industry tells me. I can spend years making an album without worrying about being shelved as a label priority. I sell much lower numbers than when I was on a label, but I make a lot more money, and the music I make is much better. I’m not making music for the current trends, or for a magazine’s year-best list, or for a production schedule. I’m making stuff that will still amaze people decades from now.
How did The Floating World sell? You said you'd make a video clip if you sold enough of them and it hasn't happened yet, although you said you never made more money with any other band (which I guess isn't hard at all).
It sold poorly. I think I’ve moved around 100 CDs, and a couple of hundred downloads. This broke even and I made a bit of money, but I stuck that back into promotion. I paid a guy to promote the album and part of what he did was to make digital downloads freely available as part of a press pack. I was selling really well, but when that press pack went out then album torrents sprung up everywhere and sales stopped almost immediately. I learned a lesson, that sometimes it’s not better to try and get huge media coverage.
The poor sales are also a reflection on how I went about releasing the album. I had just moved back to Australia after six years of living in England. I was burned out from work, and failed relationships. I could barely get out of bed in the morning. I released the album without any promotion, in the most haphazard way. I just wanted it out there and I didn’t care if it was successful.
Although I make better money from music sales with The Senseless, I made the most money with Berzerker. That was doing tours though. If we went back touring four months out of the year, we’d make quite a good living out of it. We’d be either insane or dead though.
Did you give up on the idea of making any good money with music (the answer is quite obvious when you play death metal, but I'll ask anyway, that's my interview)? Are you actually losing money because of music (it happens a lot)?
I don’t lose money making music, it’s a paid hobby that gives me the kind of fulfillment and purpose I’ll never get working in an office. The money I make is negligible though.
I have given up on the idea of making good money. I know the kind of energy and luck you need to break through to an income doing this noisy shit, and I don’t have that energy anymore. I also don’t have the willingness to jump through the various industry hoops that you need to jump through in order to be successful. I saw the most successful extreme metal bands and how they live, and I wanted something more than that.
Don't you miss live shows, touring, traveling around the world with your band and being poor? Will The Senseless play live, eventually?
Hahaha, no to all of the above! Playing Berzerker shows was always painful. We weren’t a band of brothers who’d grown up together, we were a band of musical mercenaries who were playing together just to go as far as we could in this genre. So there wasn’t really a feeling of all-for-one-and-one-for-all when we got on the road. There was very little camaraderie.
And touring is a child’s game. Everyone acts like schoolkids. It’s fun for a bit, but I find it gets old quickly. The people who stick at it, I don’t think they have much else going on in their lives. When you travel the world with a band, you don’t really get to see places. You drive past everything exhausted, usually on your way to the worst ghetto part of town which is where the venue will be.
There’s a thing in touring called “hurry up and wait”. You’ll speed over to the venue to be on time, and the place won’t be open. Or the guy who sets up the PA will be late. Or you’re not allowed to park your bus nearby until an hour before the show. So you’ll be in a foreign city somewhere, forced to sit and wait for everyone to get their shit together. Touring isn’t a good way to see the world.
I don’t think The Senseless will play live. I think if we did do live shows then they would be the best in metal, I think the songs would be incredible live. It would be a completely different energy from the sterile metal bands around today. But for me, I don’t see what the point is. I don’t see it making money, or being particularly fun, or becoming popular. Not many people get The Senseless and I’m not in a hurry to convert the world. Never say never, though.
What's next for The Senseless? Same line-up, same style, same speed, still autoproducing, or will you change a few things?
Nope. Next album will be all me. Although I’ve got a possible drummer, I’ll probably go with a programmed kit like the debut, just because I don’t think I can get someone to put in the kind of work that Leon Macey did on ‘The Floating World’. I’ve got a producer lined up, there won’t be any surprises when I announce that. I know exactly how I want it to sound. I may be using someone else for vocals, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it all ends up being me again.
The next album is sadder. There’s still joy in there, but there is quite a big dose of melancholy and regret as well. A lot of this music was written leaving England and during some life changes, and that comes through. The style is still the same, the combination of extreme music and catchiness. I always want The Senseless to give the charge of extreme music but without the negativity or immaturity. I don’t see there being any humour on this album like there was on the previous two. A lot of the music is like ‘Magnificent’ off ‘The Floating World’. There’s the kind of leap on this next album like there was between the Carcass albums “Symphonies of Sickness” and “Necroticism”. The music is just much more powerful, more rich. Speed isn’t so much a focus on this album even though there are plenty of fast tracks. I don’t have a ridiculously fast song on this one like I did on the previous two.
By the way, the next album will be called “
The Buried Life”.
How good were your days with Mithras? Besides amazing drumming, how much of a help has Leon Macey been for you and The Senseless?
My time in Mithras had some of the best times I’ve had in a band. That was my ideal band situation: we’d rehearse once a month, and go and play a festival somewhere every now and then, so it always felt special when we played. They were awesome musicians so I never had to worry about people forgetting how to play songs, and there was such a strong vibe. And I got along well with Leon in normal life and on the road. It was really like playing in a band with a brother. I was really disappointed when it was all over.
There wouldn’t have been a second Senseless album without Leon. I was busy having my mid-life crisis right in the middle of recording, and he kept things moving forward. I think most people would have got tired of waiting for me to get my shit together and he almost single-handedly saw recording through to completion. I think the biggest inspiration I got from Leon wasn’t so much musically, amazingly enough. It was seeing his methodical mature approach to working in the music industry and how he has managed to carve a living out of it. I don’t think many people realize how sharp the guy is.
The Berzerker, Mithras and The Senseless all share the same love for super high tempo. Why do you like super fast stuff so much? Could you make a whole album without a blast beat?
I could make a whole album without a blastbeat, for sure! Would I though? Who knows. I’ve written five songs for the next album which don’t have any blastbeats in them, and two are genuinely slow. I guess I’ve worked with speed for so long that it’s no longer an issue? I just judge which tempo carries a song or the riffs best, and for some reason it usually comes up as uptempo.
I don’t know why I like super-fast stuff so much. I think there’s a bit of a physiological reaction I get from it, I notice that my eye movements and general moving is quicker when listening to extreme metal. It probably helps create an anchoring effect where I feel like I’m on a strong coffee or a hit of speed. It makes you feel indestructible.
No one is getting any younger, aren't you afraid you won't be able to play fast in a not-so-distant future, like those death metal legends who have to slow down because of back problems?
Not really. I’ve got seven albums out there of me playing fast on them, and countless youtube clips. If one day I can’t play fast, then I can always refer to those. There’s always something new to do, to replace anything you lose the ability to do. I started playing piano this year, if I can’t blast then I can always have fun doing that instead.
Additionally, I’m taking a variety of steps to ensure that I can play pretty insanely fast for a long, long time. I’m a big fan of the life extension technologies coming through and adapting that so I can keep the abilities I have.
The Berzerker was one of the first death metal bands to play at extremely high tempos, nearly half a decade before the gravity blasting American scene made it cool. Don't you think The Berzerker has been a huge influence on the 2000's death metal scene?
I really don’t know the extent of any influence we had. I know that we had a large impact around 2002 when ‘Dissimulate’ came out, because we made such a big issue out of the BPM we were playing at. We kind of started the ‘BPM wars’ where bands were boasting about the speeds they were playing at, and what constituted ‘proper 300 BPM’ and so on. I remember seeing a magazine where both Cradle of Filth were going on about the BPM they were playing at, and I suspected the attention we’d got may have something to do with it. We knew that we could get the jump on everyone by quantifying, or measuring, how heavy we were. I don’t think it worked for the benefit as death metal as a whole though, even though it pushed forward the brutality of the music by a huge leap. People didn’t get that we weren’t just playing fast: we were playing SONGS fast.
The only band who sounds like they have taken what we were doing and run with it properly is Anaal Nathrakh, but I get the feeling they’d be doing what they do even if we never existed.
If I tell you that, back when I discovered The Berzerker, I loved it thanks to the (amazing) guitar riffs but really disliked the drums sound, would you start insulting me all over the internet or can you manage the hate better than in your early days? Actually, don't you miss the real haters of The Berzerker glory days? Did you have any with your other bands?
YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE. HOW DARE YOU?!
Just kidding. You’re not saying anything that Gene Hoglan didn’t already tell me to my face! You’re right about the drums, by the way. We only ever used those for sonic impact in a live scenario and so we’d have another unique feature to differentiate us from everyone else. The Berzerker was never meant to be a metal band, it wasn’t ever supposed to be doing metal tours for metal fans. It was always supposed to be a noisy, electronic, industrial, underground experience. We came along just at the dawn of the metal-nerd era, when everyone is an autistic equipment savant all engorged over attaining audio clarity. I think if there was another Berzerker album, we’d have to re-release a lot of the old songs with ‘normal’ drums as a bonus.
I sometimes miss the haters, they’re the best indicator that your band is successful. I don’t miss people making up shit about me though. When I was working two jobs as well as playing Berzerker, and people were going online saying that we were only getting tours because we had rich parents paying for it all, I don’t miss that one bit. I handle it a lot better these days, in that I’m much better at smashing smartasses. It’s now a bit of a hobby and I have to search hard and long to find wankers to smash.
I had some haters with Mithras. Some people hated me because they wanted to show support for Rayner, the guy I replaced (who then replaced me right back). Others said I was a ‘sellout faggot core vocalist’ because I wore a black v-neck t-shirt when performing and have short hair, despite sounding like Dave Vincent. I don’t even know what a ‘core vocalist’ sounds like. It was easy to ignore them, cause so many other people were appreciative of what we were doing.
The Senseless isn’t popular enough to have haters. The only reaction I get that pisses me off is when people call me Sean Bean, or assume that my guest soloists played all the guitars on the album, or that the real drum performance is a drum machine. Shit, even Earache launched a publishing claim against my music because they thought that a guest soloist from their label wrote and performed each song on the last album! Just lazy, stupid people inadvertently diluting the tiny amount of recognition I get for doing this stuff, because they’re too fucking stupid.
You may not have realized it back then, but The Berzerker was successful extremely fast: major label deal for the first album, quick world touring... that was impressive, many well established death metal bands never achieved that. Looking back, what do you think is the main reason for this success? My guess: Slipknot masks and Tatu cover.
Oh we totally realized how quickly success came to us. And there was quite a large element of luck, how Earache approached Luke based off the work he was doing with Industrial Strength records. Although he was proactively out there doing remixes and DJ’ing live in Europe, yeah, there was fortune involved.
But once we got that lucky break, there was also a lot of hard work involved that almost every band neglects to do. We WANTED things to happen quickly and we weren’t sitting on our arses waiting for it to happen. We had our goals and we wanted to achieve them immediately, not some distant time down the track.
Take the quick world touring, for instance. We put together a band as fast as possible, played the barest minimum gigs to ensure that we could make it to the end of a set, and by the end of our first show were already up Earache’s ass telling them to get us onto a tour. Gigs were filmed and sent to the label as proof we had a band. We didn’t take “no”, we didn’t take “we’ll get back to you”, we didn’t take “maybe next year”. It was fucking “NOW” or nothing, and just constant harassment. Luke was scouring tours and booking agent listings and calling Earache nonstop: “How about that one? How about that one?” All the bands back home were like hey, they’ve only played a few gigs, they don’t deserve to tour overseas. Deserve has nothing to do with it. It never has. The only reason other bands don’t get big quick is because they’re afraid of the work that has to be done and the risks you have to take.
The masks did help, in that they were just one of the many things that we were doing differently. It’s another thing that bands don’t realize. Who do you think Earache is going to sign? The four long-haired twenty-something males who play death metal just like Morbid Angel? Or the freaks wearing scary masks from Australia who play faster than everyone else with weird samples and drum sounds? They’ve already signed Morbid Angel, why sign some imitators? You make things so much easier for yourself if you’re different.
Haha, that Tatu cover. I was against that. I wasn’t in the band at that point. I think Luke already had his eye on ending the band and he just wanted to make sure he’d tried everything he could. I was against it because it was like saying to everyone who identified with the band image and lyrics “just kidding”.
What's your opinion about today's death metal? In “Death To Metal” you say “Two hundred riffs do not a song make, Watching these stoners live the cliché, I’m praying you dickholes ignore my band, We still blow you pricks away”. It's quite ironic because your music has always been quite complex. Who is that targeted to? I want names and addresses.
I’m not a big fan of today’s death metal. Those lyrics are aimed at every single one of these modern death metal bands. I think Nile fucked it up for everyone. They’re a great band and mint performers, and when they came out with ‘….Catacombs of Nephren-Ka’ that was awesome, no-one else was doing that….the complex, stop-start songs with heaps of bullshit-intricate riffs. But the problem is that now every young death metal band thinks that’s what death metal is, and that they have to be needlessly complex. Sorry guys, not every band has a Karl and Dallas. So now, nobody really makes songs anymore, they make these mish-mash jumbles of random riffs and breakdowns that say nothing and mean nothing. They need to go back a couple of years and realize that it’s about songs. ‘Liege of Inveracity’ is a song. ‘Incarnated Solvent Abuse’ is a song. ‘Mass Appeal Madness’ is a song. ‘The Glorious Dead’ is a fucking song. They all say something. They all feel different. I’m not going to confuse one song with another.
For the record, I don’t think my music is particularly complex. It may have tricky moments but it’s largely verse/chorus/verse kinda stuff. The only band at the moment who I think really gets it is Anaal Nathrakh. Yeah, I know…twice in one interview.
What does the Australian metal scene look like nowadays? I'm amazed by the huge amount of killer bands out there, especially considering its modest population of 23.5 million. Any bands we should check out?
Australia has a pretty lively scene. I think the one strength we have here is that we’re far away from everyone, and that there’s a feeling that your band will never go anywhere. As a result, we have this romanticized idea of what bands should be like that we try and live up to, and music tends to be done for music’s sake and not because anyone’s trying to get famous. It’s why you get these black metal bands down here that come across even more kvlt than the European ones, for instance.
I’m enjoying Dead Kelly ‘Sons of the Southern Cross’ at the moment. You’ll probably know about Disentomb ‘Misery’, which is about the only deathcore album I can stand. I can handle a mishmash of random riffs when every single one of them is solid gold. I love the grind band The Kill, their album ‘soundtrack to your violence’ is one of the great grind albums. And if you haven’t heard Damaged before, then go check out their ‘Passive Backseat Demon Engines’ EP and ‘Token Remedies Research’. I’d also say that King Parrot are making waves at the moment. If you haven’t already heard of them, you soon will.
You've been living and playing music in Australia and the UK. As far as metal is concerned, what are the differences between the two countries? How come so many Australian musicians relocate to England? Not for the food, I guess.
Hmmm. In the UK, there seems to be really ordinary local bands then really super-amazing bands, and not many bands inbetween. And despite it being infinitely easier in the UK to launch a metal band into success, bands in the UK tend to be extremely unadventurous both musically and in terms of touring. Europe’s on their doorstep but they all act like playing there is like travelling to the moon. I think the real possibility of success – metal is big in the UK – psyches a lot of them out. I’m sure some pissed-off people will come forth with great big lists of bands to prove me wrong. I’m generalizing, so whatever.
Australians in general tend to relocate to England, first off because we’re part of the Commonwealth so it’s easier for us to go there to live. It’s also easier to get work experience there instead of Australia. Everyone here has half a dozen degrees, decades of volunteer work, and friends in high places, and they’re all competing for the same jobs. In the UK, you’re only competing against the English.
How much did the internet change the life of the musician you are? Would you have kept playing music and complete The Floating World when you relocated to Australia if the internet had not existed?
I’ll always play, write, and record music, right up until the electricity goes off. The internet did help me complete and release the album. I mean, there’d be no option without the internet for self-releasing, really. And in the end, it was only messages of encouragement from random fans that got me to finally put the album out there.
Once upon a time, when my album contracts ended then that would have been it. Now it just means that your career has shifted gears.
Matt Wilcock, David Gray, Sam Loynes and you, ok that's quite a killer line-up. Now tell me more about The Antichrist Imperium, because I can't wait for it. Are the lyrics about loving thy neighbor and help the widow and orphan?
Hahahaha, oh god….I’m familiar with all Akercocke’s work and the previous Antichrist Imperium recordings, and I remember approaching recording with them thinking “I wonder what the lyrics will be, are they still all about Satan and headjobs?” And one of the first lyrics I saw was “Anointing the face, the eyes and the face”. And I was like yup, seems so.
It was so cool to catch up with everyone and record with them. I was in London for a holiday, they needed deep vocals, everything worked out great. And the recording was done in the Goat of Mendes studio where we used to rehearse for Berzerker tours. I never thought I’d see that place again, or catch up with Dave or Sam. The place was just how I remember it, except it didn’t have the Belladonna posters anymore.
If you’re an Akercocke fan, you’ll love The Antichrist Imperium. It’s faster, more satanic, and still very, very weird.
What's the best place/country where you've toured in your life? It's ok if you say France because of the food, we all know food matters more than anything else.
Heh, I’m not sure if I’ve ever played in France before? I’m sure it would have been my favourite. Touring is different from holidaying as well…I’d say playing in Christiania in Copenhagen, Denmark was pretty special, more for the place than the actual gig itself. It was in a big hippy area with its own laws and has markets around the corner from the show. Brutal Assault festival in the Czech Republic was my favourite festival. If they could all be like that, I’d happily tour again. Amazing place, amazing people, and the festival really looked after us.
Worst memory from your musician life?
Almost too many to mention. When
Gary (Berzerker drummer) broke his foot in the US, that was pretty bad. We couldn’t pull off the tour because we needed the show money to get us down to Florida for the flight to our next tour in Europe. We performed to pre-recorded drums every night, which was unpleasant for a bunch of perfectionists. And we had to find and train up a new drummer in Florida in time for the new tour. It was one of the most stressful times of my life. We were trapped into playing gigs. I turned 28 years old in the middle of all that, and decided that I was never going to be in a position like that again, ever.
Ok, let's talk about your (amazing) blog. How did you come up with the idea of telling those funny stories from your past, and how many of them do you have left? Is your life crazy enough to keep them coming? Ever thought about writing a book?
I have heaps of stories left, and about half a dozen I’m not sure I can ever tell. I was going to write a book in 2003 about my experiences so far, then someone lent me ‘Motley Crue: The Dirt’ and I was like, I’m not in their league, I’m nothing, and I forgot about doing a book. Then I started writing down the stories a few years ago and posting them, just because I was afraid of forgetting them more than anything. People seem pretty into it though, and it also provides a good place for me to air my thoughts on the industry. I think I’ll do a book next year using a lot of the blog material, and if I do that then I’ll include those half-dozen dodgy stories that I refuse to tell now.
My life has settled down a hell of a lot, so there aren’t that many recent stories for me to include. That recent one about Carcass was a bit of an anomaly. For anyone wanting to check it out, head to
http://thesenseless.wordpress.com/
Aren't you the main reason why Devin Townsend shaved his head?
I’m surprised that particular incident didn’t spark hair regrowth. I was a virile young chap. I’m pretty sure he shaved his head cause his wife went “enough”.
How is your reconversion in music journalism going? Did you start writing because “Sam Bean, journalist” sounds much better than “Sam Bean, crazy metalhead”?
I’m just dipping my toes in the metal journalism thing at the moment, it’s a side-effect of writing the blog. I only got involved because I was asked by HEAVY magazine. I find it hard to take myself seriously as a metal journalist because I’m not a scene guy, I’m not up with every single thing that happens anymore. Having said that, I love writing and I think what I have to say is different enough to everyone else in the industry to make it interesting to read. Or at least entertaining. I’ve also got the freedom of not trying to make a career out of it, which allows me to be a lot more edgy.
Do you have any regrets in your musical career, something you'd do differently?
Oh for sure. I should have started The Senseless earlier, and toured it while I was still young. Berzerker should have released an EP or some music straight after the world tour in 2003…making people wait three years with no tours was too long. Maybe not stomped some of the people who worked for us. I should have forced Luke to take on a manager, and kept doing that until we had one that we were happy with. He burned out way too early. And I definitely would have focused more on the money side earlier on.
Any band we should check out that had your attention lately? What music are you into besides metal?
Anaal Nathrakh. There we go, three times. I loved the last album from Altar of Plagues, and checked out that dude’s pop project WIFE which I thought was pretty sweet. I sailed around Turkey listening to it, it did the trick nicely. Some friends of mine in England have a band called aAnd? Yes, it’s actually spelled like that. They’re pretty freaky, they make me laugh. I love trip-hop, I love some house, and I love breakcore stuff….I’ve got a breakcore project called Kiri Kiri Kiri by the way, check it out at kirikirikiri.net for some free shit. Igorrr is fucking awesome. So ridiculously original and talented. I would love to see him and his performers live. I love psytrance, and I play old swing music around the house especially when I’m cooking.
Thanks for your time Sam, and please, do not write a blog post about “the day I had to answer all those stupid questions”.
Never! Check out The Senseless ‘The Floating World’ at
http://thesenseless.bandcamp.com/ and if you want to buy the CD then head to
http://www.thesenseless.com/buy.html 
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