ROT GUT LIKKER Interview

WHAT DO WHISKEY, EXTREME MUSIC & SATAN ALL HAVE IN COMMON?

ROT GUT LIKKER

Intro and interview by mr. wolf

North Carolina's ROT GUT LIKKER are not satisfied with your typical Extreme Music Genre terms. What they do is best charactorized as "Shreditizations for Satan". I found that term on their website describing one of their live photos. The Scumfeast Metal staff was in Fayetteville, NC one night weeks ago to see our friends ANTISEEN. But our biggest surprise of the night was seeing ROT GUT LIKKER who were one of two opening bands. For the first time ever all three zine staff members came to a unanimous agreement, "Holy Fuckin Shit They're Fuckin Great".

Next up came a review of their Uncle Satan's Straight Whiskey CD which also received a resounding "Hell Fuckin Yeah" from the three of us. One thing you've gotta understand about us here at Scumfeast Metal. We've seen and heard almost everything and anything. We're not jaded since we see and here alot of great bands. But every once in a while we see or hear a band that literally jumps out at ya. In ROT GUT LIKKER's case, it's like a crazed drunken metal dude wielding a broken Jack Daniels' bottle and screaming "Hail Fuckin Satan"! I believe we'll take this one seriously.

So I sent the band a few questions trying to be as serious as possible. They answered all of them and added a note that "they had a little fun with the interview". A little? But what I realized is that this interview is exactly the same as seeing them live or listening to their CD. It's an unpretencious in your face type of attitude which to me is refreshing. ROT GUT LIKKER will play your club, drink all of your whiskey and then have their way with your female bar staff. ROT GUT LIKKER will peel your face off and replace it with a Jack Daniels' label. ROT GUT LIKKER will blow your local town heroes off the fuckin stage and you will like it. The three most important things in ROT GUT LIKKER's lives are Whiskey, Satan and ROT GUT LIKKER. After reading this interview you will head right over to their website (provided at the end of the interview). When they play your town you will buy them drinks, purchase their merch, and eventually worship Satan.

SFMZ - You call Fayetteville, NC aka: Fayette-Fuckin-Nam home. Is that where everyone in the band is from?

Chris: From the hills of Centertown KY, got here in 93.
Joe: From Collegeville Penn, got stranded at a Cafe Risque exit 70 off 95 in 2004 and liked it so much he stayed.
Derek: Military brat, born in Nebraska, grew up in England and got stuck here in 96.
Andy: Born in Womack hospital Ft Bragg, spent 5 years in Boone, came back in 2005.

SFMZ - Many years ago I once called Fort Bragg, which even today I lovingly refer to as "Fort Dragg", home. I didn't spend much time in Fayetteville since I was too busy defending all of you from the communist menace. But do you have much contact with the troops at clubs during shows?

RGL - You can't be in a club in Fayettenam without seeing GIs. Support the troops and hail Satan.

SFMZ - I think it was last year I read an article in a UK Metal mag about the U.S. Southern Rock/Metal Resurgence/Revival. If you blinked you might of missed it. But there is a Thrash Revival going on. Are you part of it by design or coincidence?

RGL - What the fuck do brits know about Southern Metal? We worship Satan by design and kick ass by coincidence. We have a hard time seeing ourselves as part of a thrash resurgence because we really don't end up playing with that many thrash bands. Also, Motley Crue kicks ass. Satan.

SFMZ - Getting back to that Southern Rock/Metal Resurgence article. To me it was more like a media generated story in order to mask their suckfest with ex-PANTERA related bands like DOWN, HELL YEAH, CROWBAR, etc. I doubt their love of the South and believe they all celebrate Lincoln's birthday in Febuary. From listening to your CD and seeing you perform you're not wrapping yourselves in the Confederate Flag as if there was anything wrong with that. But through your music, especially the instrumentals and lyrics, your heritage shows in an uncompromising manner. What do you have to say about that?

RGL - From Andy: Not speaking for any other member of Rot Gut, I actually love the shit of the New Orleans metal scene and consider it one of the most genuine. DOWN is my favorite band and I would say that DOWN, CROWBAR, EYEHATEGOD, SOILENT GREEN and ACID BATH are all more near and dear to me than PANTERA, and that I consider them more southern.

RGL - From Rot Gut: What we have to say about that is good, and hail Satan. Chris is down for glorifying the South in any way and actually often wears Confederate flag suspenders at shows. We also like the SQUIDBILLIES. We think it is gay that we live in a world where cool people have to consider it strange that someone would love the South. It is a testament to intense faggotry and hail Satan. People should take shots of whiskey and learn some appreciation for the fuckin South.

SFMZ - While reviewing your CD I couldn't help but take a shot at bands and musicians from the South who worship at the altar of Metalcore. I've seen way to many Southern bands with talented musicians who follow into that genre like a family religion. ROT GUT LIKKER walks a different road which I call Thrash with plenty of Southern swagger and Hardcore Punk grit. How did it all come about?

RGL - Satan spoke unto us in a bourbon-filled haze and said do not engage in faggotry. The sound came from listening to good music and staying away from crap. Also, we hate fucking floor punchers. If it is hardcore to look like you are in fucking river dance while some fag oinks like a pig to drop W tuning, then you are probably 16, and a faggot.

SFMZ - According to your booking info and I quote, "We don't ask for much at all but we won't play a bar that doesn't serve whiskey." You've never played a beer joint or a keg party?

RGL - We have played at Kill the Pig, which had just kegs, and we brought our own whiskey. Non Alcoholic gigs never have happened and never will. Rot Gut Likker is in the name. If you don't have liquor we won't show and you probably have a shitty establishment. You can have a shitty bar with whiskey but at least then you can drink away the shit. So yeah, fuck that, and the faggots who invented nonalcoholism.

SFMZ - Since I'm on the subject of shows and liquor the question needs to be asked. Do you get liquored up before a set?

RGL - Every time.

SFMZ - Getting back to the CD review, I described an image I got from one of your songs. It was "I Don't Give A Shit" and I had this thought about bottles and bodies flying around in a club setting. You guys would be playing on through the chaos that your music had created. Has something like that ever happened?

RGL - Actually, we played a show at the Gaslight here in Fayettenam and the guy who booked the show was an asshole and a drunk, but somehow made being drunk seem not good. We spent the whole set dodging beer bottles and mixed drinks that this piece of shit was throwing at us. He was also spitting PBR in our faces. He was pretty much a perfect 10 douchebag. He tried to steal a drink from some dude who had to be in his sixties and the geezer beat the ever loving shit out of that guy. It was the only good part of the evening, as the girl passing the tip bucket around also stole almost all of the tips, and the door guy took the door money home with him.

SFMZ - Who's responsible for all the lyrics and is it all from personal experience? I mean you take a song like "Grudgefuck" and lyrically it's about a failed relationship.

RGL - Satan is personally responsible for all of the lyrics. Grudgefuck is not only about a failed relationship, it's about fuckin someone you're pissed off at.

SFMZ - When I read the lyrics of "Kidney Killer" I can't help but think what if Charles Bukowski was into Hardcore Thrash? Wouldn't he write a song like that? Is that more personal experience or demons being exercised through your music?

RGL - If he was cool he would. "Kidney killer" is about drunk driving for years and years. Bukowski may have hated more people than we do and definitely hated his kidney. PS when we learn to read we will check out Bukowski.

SFMZ - I forgot to mention in the review I did for your CD, Uncle Satan's Straight Whiskey, is the sound quality and production. First of all it sounds great as if it was a recorded live in the studio type production. That's why in the review I pointed out that what I was hearing through my stereo speakers was what I witnessed at the club. How close am I as far as describing the recording process?

RGL - Honestly, Uncle Satan was recorded on a ten year old computer, as in like a Pentium III with 128 MB of RAM. All of the recording was done with an effects footpedal straight into the stock soundcard into the program Acid 4.0 in Windows 98. The drums are all samples lined up one by one and the vocals were also run through the foot pedal. As was the bass. No shit. It just shows what you can get out of a bunch of old shit if you really take your time to worship satan. Hail Satan. Drink Whiskey.

SFMZ - One thing about Hardcore Thrash which people have stated for years is that only the really good bands can keep their live and in studio sounds relatively close. These days with some of the new Thrash acts that idea has been tossed under the bus. Studio technology can turn a pile of shit on a paper plate into roast beef on a silver platter but when the band plays live it's disappointing. What are you doing to keep your sound relatively equal?

RGL - We drink whiskey, worship Satan, and we all don't suck at our instruments. Not sucking at playing your instrument makes you a better live musician. If you do suck playing live you probably shouldn't be a musician. Also if you fuck up playing live and the audience is sober enough to notice then that's pretty gay. The footpedal used to record all the guitars is also used live, run straight into the Power amp section of Chris's Marshall.

SFMZ - I wanna discuss the three instrumentals on the end of the CD. THe total time elapsed I believe is around twenty-four or twenty-five minutes. What was the reason behind it?

RGL - Some of our favorite albums from bands we like are the band's most diverse album. Take Great Southern Trendkill. There is lots of different pockets of different shit going on there. Sometimes the space between notes is as important as the actual notes.

SFMZ - The three cuts "Lunis", "Dying Inside" and "Kronos" to me sounds like ambient Black Metal. Atmospheric with Southern Gothic touches in the guitar notes/tones to emphasis where you're from. What else do you have to say about those songs?

RGL - "Lunis" is kinda like inspired by Pink Floyd, David Gilmour type shit. "Dying Inside" is about having a miserable fuckin life. "Kronos" is about Chris's hometown in Kentucky being strip-mined.

SFMZ - The first time I played your CD and heard those cuts it suprised the fuck out of me. The first one "Lunis" didn't because you had a few instrumentals which appear throughout the CD. They break up the momentum but this time it's followed by another then another much longer one and I wasn't expecting that. So I looked at your website hoping to find some mention or name dropping of a Black Metal band. I didnt find any so where did these ideas/influences come from? Do you like Black Metal?

RGL - When Chris wrote those songs he really wasn't thinking about black metal at all and he doesn't really listen to it. It is really more related. While the actual amount of black metal influence is pretty small, there is definately some musical kinship in those songs with the styles of BURZUM or MORTIIS. But with no Lord of the Rings references. It's hard to be frostbitten while being grim in the middle of swampland.

SFMZ - Uncle Satan's Straight Whiskey is your debut CD. Now do you have a follow up in the works and is it really going to be titled Southern Sabbath?

RGL - Yes. Also, we aren't trying to say sabbath as in we're like BLACK SABBATH. We mean sabbath as in something holy to the South, like going to church to worship the fucking Confederate flag. Hail Satan.

SFMZ - Wait a minute Uncle Satan's Straight Whiskey was really recorded at a place called Sacred Heart Studios? Whiskey drenched Satanic tales of woe was all being recorded at a place called Sacred Heart Studios? I think an explanation is in order, care to elaborate? So you're going to record Southern Sabbath there to?

RGL - No it was recorded at Chris's apartment. As to where we will record Southern Sabbath we aren't sure yet.

SFMZ - After we left the club that night when you played with ANTISEEN. We passed by The Rock Shop on our way home and their parking lot had some police cars and an ambulance in it. You know anything of what happened? Because KNOWLEDGE IS FOR FOOLS played there once and we all thought it was a cool place.

RGL - The Rock Shop is a really great place. We're not quite sure what happened that night but if you're curious just ask Shawn.

SFMZ - Does guitarist Andy Lame always crack jokes from the stage at every one of your shows? Has he ever pissed someone off in the crowd who didn't have a sense of humor?

RGL - Yes, we are Rot Gut Likker and we tell jokes, even though some bands do not. People have definitely gotten pissed and left. But for the most part, we feel that the audience is like a woman. If you treat her like shit she will just keep coming back and asking for more.

SFMZ - This is probably the lame-est question of this interview but what should people expect in 2009 from ROT GUT LIKKER?

RGL - Satan, and whiskey, and out of town shows. The foundation being laid for a Satanic Southern Empire. Whiskey shits.

SFMZ - When I was checking out your upcoming show listings on your site. I saw your April 11th gig is KILL THE PIG 2009 in Parkton, North Carolina. Ok I'll bite, what's KILL THE PIG 2009?

RGL - Kill the pig is an outdoor all day whiskey and barbecue live metal event. It is the satanic state fair with elephant ears of bourbon and satanic bear claws.

SFMZ - Last question, you plan to shop your new CD around to labels?

RGL - We're gonna do what we want. We really don't see the point of pursuing a label when we do all the work. You can make 8 cents a CD or you can make a new fan by giving it away free, which is what we've done with Uncle Satan. Why make no money and also get told what to do? We do what we want and don't make money at this point but at least we get to say Satan, faggot, and whiskey. A lot.

CHECK OUT THE BAND'S WEBSITE AT:

http://www.myspace.com/maliciouschris