Piercing through the dark winter clouds, innovative leaders of the modern death metal scene, PSYCROPTIC, have decided that the time has arrived to lunge out of the darkness and back onto the stage! Since their formation in 1999, the band have constantly evolved and broken through boundaries to write intense sonic creations that are heavy, catchy and worship the riff. Coupled with their incredibly tight and dynamic live performances, Psycroptic have persistently dominated Australian metal and are determined to keep it that way. New album “As The Kingdom Drowns” is on it’s way along with tour dates, we catch up with Dave Haley to chat about it all.
M-R: Psycroptic have been an unstoppable force in the Australian heavy scene for almost two decades, touring nationally and across the globe, constantly challenging fans with your brand of extreme music. You guys are now gearing up for the release of album number 7 ‘As The Kingdom Drowns’ and go on an Australian tour. The album officially dropped on 7 November after so many releases, what type of energy is in the Psycroptic camp during this time? Nervous? Excited?
D.H: It’s, I guess, a mixture of both. We’re always quite excited and there are always some nerves when a new album comes out, cause that’s when you get instant feedback from media and fans. So far the media have been very supportive of the album. They’re the only ones who have heard it in it’s entirety, and the reviews so far have been by far and away the best we’ve seen for any of our releases and the reaction from the punters and fans in general from the four tracks we’ve released has been very enthusiastic. So, I guess some of the nerves have already gone so to speak, we’re more excited and nervous about how they’re going to go down live and making sure we pick the right setlist. That’s the process we’re going through at the moment we’re in the nervous stage about whether we can play the right songs live!
M-R: Is there an overarching concept behind the album?
D.H: It’s more a song by song thing. Jason wrote all the lyrics… he’s been writing the lyrics for the last couple of albums his general themes tend to centre around more darker elements of society and our treatment of the environment and things like that. He doesn’t say these things directly, he’s just a heavy metal head…haha
He gets a lot of inspiration from how we’re basically f****** up the world. One of his active agendas is to write in such a way that people can give the songs their own meaning. The more he does it the better he gets at it so there’s no there’s no overarching theme but the listeners themselves can attach a theme to it if they like, which is highly encouraged! Go for it!
M-R: How has the writing for Psycroptic evolved over the years, if at all? Was anything different for As Kingdom Drowns?
D.H: Totally, yeah, every album is completely different to the way we write and put it together. The first couple of albums we’re out in the rehearsal room getting them note perfect and then recording it. These days it’s more of a fluid creative process. We change things right up till when we actually submit the album for mixing and mastering. So, the songs going to the studio a lot different to the way they come out. Joe Engineers and he’s basically the overall producer who owns the studio so we have a lot of freedom to play around with it and try things out and if something doesn’t work you delete it. In the past, whenever we recorded in other studios it was like ‘we paid money for this so this is just how it’s going to be’ and it’s not cheap. So, it’s giving us a lot of a lot of freedom, a lot of room to move like we head to the studio now when things are 50% written as opposed 100% in the past.
M-R: While working on the songs in studio, does anything stand out, where something just flowed really easily?
D.H: No, no…haha, the actual recording process for me was a horrendous time!
Being the drummer it’s a hard one. I mean I was well aware that it that was going to be the case going into it because a lot of my ideas weren’t fully formed and I enjoy the process. But at the end it’s always horrendous cause you’re always under the microscope and if things don’t come out exactly how it’s planned you might have to change ideas on the spot. It’s not so much for a playing point of view, it’s more you get your creative soul smashed into the dirt and stomped on during the process…hahaha so coming back and listening to it now it’s cool because as soon as I’m done finished with my tracking I usually try and forget about the project for a while and then come back into it later once I finished wiping my tears up…hahaha So, nothing really stood out because the whole time it was such a creative challenge. I’ve recorded individual bars or riffs numerous times just to get the right fill or feel. I guess the recording is all about for this album has been creative development and recording at the same time where is in the past it’s more performance-based this time it’s more creative performance based. It’s got to be the right part for the right riff.
M-R: Do you allow yourself to have set expectations for the album’s success? Or is it like a release and see what happens?
D.H: I would say that the only reason to do another album. I guess is “to be better than the last one” if you create a perfect album that you’re happy with then there’s no real point I don’t think so. It’s always the best we can do at that point in time and as soon as it comes out it’s like well, we put all the work into it but the flaws I going to make the way to the surface eventually. That’s what’s going to spur you want to create new music and see if you can write that perfect song and that perfect album that never exists.
M-R: Seven albums are a massive amount of material. What keeps your fire burning to make such extreme music? Where do you guys find inspiration? Is it to try and make that perfect song/album?
D.H: I guess you could say that’s one lofty ambition! There’s never going to be one answer it’s always going to be a multiple answers and multiple reasons. But I still enjoyed listening, writing and playing this style of music. Of course, in the back of my mind I want to try and create the perfect album that I want to listen to so. That is definitely one of the motivations and you wanna write the perfect parts that you want to play. I’m actually taking that more into consideration in the studio when I’m writing drum parts in the rehearsal room, am I going to enjoy playing this 100 times? and that will also be a part in the creation process where previously it hasn’t it. It also helped me write and play in a different way, you might say “I can’t do this at the moment but in like 200 times I could do it quite well” so that could be another motivation. It’s definitely not financial! Cuz, you know, yeah, you really got to enjoy this music to play it.
M-R: You were able to get your second release The Sceptre of the Ancients to the US through Unique Leader how did that relationship come about and how much do you think that impacted your career?
D.H: I guess it was just one of the labels back in the day that we sent copies of the album too. We’d actually completely finished it, sent it out to a bunch of different labels and we got a couple of offers back. But, at the time, we loved Unique Leaders catalogue of bands, from like 2000 to 2004. As a fan I’d just buy everything they regardless of hearing it, because they were putting out such cool shit and it was cool to be a part of that, we were like “wow, we could be peers with the rest of them?”. It was definitely more of how we viewed the label, it wasn’t in terms of any crazy success that they could sling our way. It was just, we love this label and it would be cool if they released the album, it would be cool to get some fans in the US.
M-R: You have been with Nuclear Blast for almost ten years. What was it like signing to such a legendary label and how did that change things for Psycroptic?
D.H: We’ve actually jumped around a little bit through a career. We’re not actually with Nuclear Blast at the moment, this is a second released with Prosthetic Records. So, we’re through Prosthetic and EVP. We worked with Nuclear Blast for two albums and it was the same type of thing as Unique, they were massive prestigious label and it was great working with them. But in a lot of things we didn’t quite see eye to eye, so both of us thought, “well, I guess it’s best that we go elsewhere”. It was purely a stylistically thing. So, the last couple albums we’ve been with Prosthetic which has given us total creative freedom and that is just what you want from a partner. That’s not saying anything bad about Nuclear Blast, they’ve definitely got some different agendas and different ways that they work. But, at the time, it didn’t just work out for either of us. Whoever we work with, we need to have complete creative freedom and control over the project, which is what we’ve got at the moment.
M-R: Next year marks 20 years since Psycroptic formed. This is a massive achievement for any band, let alone an Australian band of such extreme music… in your opinion how has Psycroptic survived so long?
D.H: We just get along pretty well, honestly. We enjoy touring together, we enjoy writing music together we’re definitely flexible in the way we operate in the band overtime. That has allowed us to not put too much pressure on everyone. We’ve seen a lot of bands burnout because maybe they take on a hectic touring schedule or maybe some members can’t take part in the tour, so they kick them out. We enjoy working together, we enjoy hanging out together if we aren’t playing music. They just go hand in hand, you just spent so long with someone touring that if you don’t get along it’s awful. It’s the worst, everything gets magnified 1000 times, so, if someone annoys you in person, you’ll want to kill him on tour! It’s lucky that we all get along and are such good mates. I guess that’s the only reason for our longevity really.
M-R: Can you describe the feeling of watching your audience grow in your home country compared to overseas? Which is more satisfying (if any)?
D.H: Yeah, it is different for each region of the world. It’s cool in Australia because it’s where we’re from. By default, everyone’s kind of super loyal Australians, you know, you feel patriotic from where you come from. It’s a cool feeling when you’re playing your local pub and everyone’s there because they like your music, that’s a sick feeling. But it’s equally cool going to somewhere on the other side of the world, in a different way. These people that you don’t know at all are coming to watch your band. So, I guess it’s more a feeling of accomplishment overseas, and when you play at home it’s more a feeling of pride. We have definitely seen ebbs and flows every album, you get new fans, fans drop off, fans get older and stop listening. Then we get new fans coming through, it’s a very cool and interesting social analysis, I guess.
Interview Date: 2018-11-07
Interviewer: Jonathan Hurley
