What's Up everyone how you your good... this week I interview the dude that was in really known bands like Chainsaw To The Face, Callous, Amputee & Durian... well here it's is enjoy the interview!
State your name and what band do you play?
I'm John. Currently, I play bass in Durian, but I've also done guitar in some of the other projects we're talking about. I'll give the line-ups when we get there.
How are you doing?
I've avoided covid up until this point, so I guess I can't complain.
how did you get into punk??
I have an uncle that's only a few years older than me. He was my first exposure to like epitaph records stuff when I was in like 6th grade. He had his door covered in band stickers and I would make mental notes of the band names to try and find music by those bands.
How did Amputee start as band? What was the line up?
Around 2009 CTTF was on a hiatus of sorts. Billy and Ben had started working on some more straightforward grindcore material with our friend Brian on vocals. I was recording their demo for them and offered to play bass on it, and I just sort of stayed part of the line-up through til when we finished that up and went back to doing CTTF.
How did you get the name Amputee?
It's kinda silly, but It was really just a play on how we played out of way too many amplifiers for a grindcore band. We got over that quickly cause it's a pain to lug it around and didn't sound any better. Naming bands is the worst haha.
So after you started Chainsaw to the Face and Callous?
A bit out of order. CTTF was the first. We started in 2004 and played pretty regularly through 2009, and then from like late 2013 -June 2015 when we played what would go on to be our last show. Callous and Amputee both started in 2009 when we stopped doing CTTF for that period.
How did you start Callous and Chainsaw to the Face?
CTTF was started right when I was finishing high school. We were doing a more straightforward punk band but wanted to do something more in the grindcore/powerviolence realm. We had a member change up where I switched to guitar, got another friend Jake on bass, Dave on vocals, and our original drummer Ed. by 05 Ed was replaced by Ben, by 06 Jake was out and we didn't have a bass player for a few years until Bill joined on his 18th birthday so we could take him across state lines haha.
Callous started with Pat from Backslider and myself wanting to do something together again. We had known each other since like 03, and played in a hardcore band called "I Hate This" together a few years earlier.
What were the influences for those 2 Bands?
CTTF was all about playing fast. For the most part, we didn't even dabble in the slow parts of powerviolence. Our influences at the start were mainly Capitalist Casualties, Infest, lack of interest. Doesn't sound too out of the ordinary now, but back then in south Jersey, it was mostly metalcore, so we were not received well at home.
Callous the idea was to incorporate the slow sounds of Grief and the psych sounds of Gasp, along with like Crossed Out style hardcore. If you listen to the Demo I think that's pretty obvious. We kind of shifted that focus over the different eras of the band, but I feel like that was pretty ingrained in the DNA of the project. We generally kept it slow 85%, fast 15%.
What was the line up for Callous?
It shifted around a bit early on, but the sort of "definitive" Callous line-up was Pat from Backslider on Drums, Brian from Amputee on Bass, and myself on Guitar and Vocals.
How did you get the split with Backslider?
Ha, funny story about that one. We had a splits worth of material lined up for a split with Shed Dwellaz that didn't come through. Backslider was going to do a 7", but the longest song had a sample under it that the pressing plant flagged, so their 7" was going to be like 2 minutes long or something without that song. So Pat called me up and asked if we wanted to put that together as a split, and the rest is history.
After those bands, you started Durian?
Yes. So in June 2015, Bill moved away to Canada. Ben and I still wanted to keep playing fast music together, so we talked with Brian from Amputee and his cousin John to start a new grindcore band. We wanted to do something a little less stop/start than CTTF, something a bit closer to pop song structures. We probably failed miserably at that objective, but I think Amputee, CTTF, and Durian all have a distinct flavor despite being mostly the same dudes, playing more or less the same style of music.
By the way, it's a sick band what's the line up?
Thanks! The line-up for Durian was Ben on drums, John (M) on guitar, Brian on vocals, and myself on bass. Brian has had 3 kids since starting the band and really just didn't have time to be in the band anymore, so on the LP we just released, I do most of the vocals with some help from John (M). Ben played drums for the LP. He recorded his parts and then moved away to Arizona the next day, literally haha. We have a new drummer now, Zak, who you may know from the band Ground, and a new singer, Jim.
How did you get the split with Meth Leopard and God's America which are sick bands?
Well, Andres from GA and I have been buds for ages. When the "this comp kills fascists vol 1" came out, I was looking around online to see what people thought, most people fucking HATED the CTTF material because I think a lot of random metal dudes got that because it was on relapse. Andres was actually like, defending our tracks to these dudes, so I wrote to him just kinda to say thanks for digging what we do, I found out he was the mastermind behind the fantastic 1 man project Cogs and Sprockets, and we've been friends ever since.
Ryan and I met via Instagram. I was a fan of the ML demo, and when the Durian demo got released, he wrote to us right away asking to do a split and we jumped at the chance. We did the east coast part of their US tour with them and had a blast.
Any future projects or releases coming out soon?
The Durian LP is hot off the presses so snag one of those, or at least go listen on Bandcamp. We have a split that will be off to the plant soon with the band Sacthu from Spain, who just dropped a split 7" with Syntax about 2 days ago. Our material comes from the same session as the God's America split, so it will have Brian doing vocals and Ben on drums. We're also working on a split tape with Kadarivas from Japan that will be the first recording we are doing with our new line-up, so I'm really excited about that. We'll probably stick to doing splits and 7"s for a while, rather than doing another LP.
Any shout-out you want to give?
As always, everything I do goes out to Bill. Anyone who had the pleasure of meeting him understands what joy he brought to the life of those around him. Tomorrow is the anniversary of his passing and it's good for me to take these strolls down memory lane and recall all we accomplished together in the few short years we got to be brothers.
Thanks for taking an interest in my bands, and reaching out to me. It means a lot!
