Why Cult Of Luna?

Question: so what drew earache to cult of luna they arnt exactly typical earache affair to be honest sure the root of their sound is justin k broadrick influenced, but its the other influences that throw me off eg radiohead, iceland\'s sigur ros and denmark\'s mew. From:

Answer: When Cult Of Luna's debut came out on Rage of Achilles records it caused a major stir in our office and we felt 'here is a VERY special band'. The debut was heavy but in an entirely original way- the use of sonically head-caving passages with more atmospheric quieter interludes during the often long songs impressed us a lot.They mixed the heaviness of metal with the intelligence of hardcore, and showcased a different way of thinking-We had to work with the band.There's no Radiohead stuff that we can hear on the debut, but I know what you mean, its now their trademark.
During later albums the band expanded the highs and the lows even more, and the Radiohead-isms came to the fore more, but still never more than say 20% of an album. If you hear their side-band Khoma -1 album released on RoadRunner records- you can hear the styles reversed-ie, 80% Radiohead, 20% crushing heaviness.Its this potent combo which makes them a special band.
We like the style of the band, they dont seem too out of place to us-Ok its not Deicide, but if you hear our Godflesh output from the 90's you can hear a similar type of vibe.Also-Try Callisto from Finland is my recommendation- their stuff is often overlooked - the album we released in 2005 is terrific and if you like COL, theres a fair chance you'll love Callisto too.
heres Callisto doing 'Wormwood' live 2007

80's Government 'Enterprise Allowance Scheme' & labels?

Question: Is it possible that without the young enterprise scheme earache wouldnt have existed? ive read in a number of books that it was one of the key reasons why indie labels started to pop up in the 80s. Alan Mcgee of creation records said that without it his label wouldnt have formed as he would have been in the job centre not doing label stuff! From:

Answer: Yep- you can thank UK prime minister Maggie Thatcher for the existence of McGee's Creation Records and Earache Records then, thats a fact! Because it was her Government which introduced the Enterprise Allowance Scheme- basically a way to reduce the shocking UK jobless figures at the time, by encouraging people off the dole and into running their own a business.The jobless figures were a politically sensitive issue back then, as now, and Governments would try anything to reduce the number claiming benefits.
It enabled people to become self-employed and in control of their own destiny- remarkably, The Govermnent even paid your business 40 pounds a week for the first year to help you along..but you had to stump up 1000 pounds of your own money to show it was a legit enterprise and you were slightly commited to actually running a business. The take up was huge- nearly every label i knew in that era was formed that way, COR records, Rise Above etc. It was really successful because it offered a way for many would-be musicians, comics, designers, arists etc to get the jobless tag off their backs and so have time to concentrate on building a business..it was'nt just for budding record label owners, anyone could join.
I don't know if a similar scheme exists right now in UK to give a leg-up to budding entrepreneurs, maybe the lottery funding is the current way for new budding labels owners to get investment, I dunno?

Sleep & Godflesh vinyl on Kreation records?

Question: What\'s the story with the Kreation Records re-releases of some of the classic Earache releases? WIth Sleep\'s Holy Mountian, and now two of the early Godflesh albums, should we expect more? From: johnwalbridgeiv@yahoo.com

Answer: Well they are new, 100% legitimate limited-run(2000 from memory)Vinyl LP pressings issued by Seattle's Kreation records under license from Earache.It's quite unusual for us to allow anyone to print our records, we keep a tight rein on who is allowed a licence to print our catalog, especially bands as revered as Sleep and Godflesh.
What happened was we noticed a lot of fans asking for vinyl printings of our long out of print back catalog, and since lavish vinyl is quite expensive to make, we do it mainly for our new current bands.A couple of years ago, Earache looked around for reliable partners to have a go at making some of this back catalog on vinyl LP available again, and bringing some vinyl back to life..It was our great vinyl licence give-away prompted by our label manager here in Uk who is a total vinyl NUT and wants our back catalog to be available on LP- err mainly i suspect for his own collection!
So, as well as Kreation, Belgium based Painkiller records also licensed a couple of slabs of wax - doing a lavish Bolt thrower pic LP and lavish Morbid Angel pic LP vinyl under licence.Night of the Vinyl Dead are also slated to do a Cathedral LP from us.
Many new labels it seems are mixing doing new bands with picking off the rights for vinyl for long-lost albums from the bigger labels, so its a thriving scene, driven i suspect by ebay and the hordes of frankly nutty vinyl collectors out there.
Kreation seem to have done the most to promote their Lp's, going as far as contacting the original band members for quotes or extra material for the sleeves, and doing a splurge of different colored waxes for the collectors & ebay market.

Carcass on RoadRunner in the 90s?

Question: Did earache really nearly loose carcass at one point to roadrunner? as jeff mentions it on the necro dvd, how close were you to loosing them? From:

Answer: Yeah as Jeff mentions in the documentary film- and it was complete news to me- Carcass nearly signed with Roadrunner in the early 90s.At that point, Carcass had completed the 2 album deal with us, which covered the debut and 'Symphonies' albums, and as Earache was still a developing label, with a few minor breakthrough extreme acts under its belt, the band looked around for a better home, Roadrunner back then, as now, were THE powerhouse label of metal in the world, I recall they were breaking through with Sepultura and Type O Negative on the USA Billboard charts and scoring gold albums,which was a major acheivement for metal back then, and had even formed a sublabelRoadRacer to cater for the more heavier end of the spectrum. As Jeff mentions in the film, the deal from RR was'nt to their liking -it would'nt be much money and for up to 8 albums in length, which was typical of RR back then I guess.Earache's counter offer would have been for 2 albums on a 50/50 profit share so the band chose to sign to Earache for the 2nd time, and the resulting albums were Necroticism and Heartwork (which Earache licensed to Columbia).After that the band signed direct with Columbia records, a part of SONY, but Carcass had massive disagreements with the label over their sound and direction, so were dropped, and the album shelved.
Now owning the shelved album, The band came back to Earache for a 3rd time,enabling album Swansong to see a release on Earache in 1996, but sadly the band split up before it was even out, and Carcass was dead for the next decade, leaving Earache to keep the records in print and keep the legacy of their great output going.Guitarists Steer and Amott continued in music during this time, former with Firebird and the latter with very successful Arch Enemy.
Seeing the pulling power of reformed bands from the 90s, prompted Carcass to consider a reformation in 2007 - and in summer 2008 the reactivated Carcass toured heavily all over the globe.I personally doubt the band will make a new album, however, even if they were to make a newie, I doubt it will be on Earache, unless they come to us for a 4th time!

The next in line "Classic Re-issues" CD +DVD

Question: what is next in the line of classic re-issues? Are there going to be any scorn or godflesh with extras? From: crytes682@gmail.com

Answer: We get loads of emails asking about this series of Earache titles coming out with FREE bonus DVD attached.The Earache "Classic Re-issues" series titles have so far sold incredibly well, so we are glad they are being appreciated and bought by fans.
We definately want to keep the series going but we are rapidly running out of actual pro-shot live onstage footage from back in the day to make into DVDs to include as the bonuses, so the next titles will be ones were we have arranged to interview the members about the making of the albums,kinda like a documentary where the musicians look back at their seminal albums which have appeared on the label,and explain to fans what it was all about, in their own words. The Carcass documentary film "Pathologist's report Parts I-V" was wildly popular because the band had split in the meantime, so it was the first time the members got to explain what was going on back then.

Our current wish-list is Lee Dorrian on camera talking in depth about early Cathedral albums "Forest Of Equilibrium" & "The Ethereal Mirror", and also Morbid Angel including David Vincent discussing on camera "Blessed Are The Sick"- both of which are agreed in principle to take place.We are finding that fans are craving to see and hear the artists of these groundbreaking, genre-defining albums actually talk about the process and the feelings and motivations behind the recordings, in their own words, because its something that wikipedia or scanned-in old interviews can't communicate.

A latter period Napalm Death DVD should really take place, Shane Embury has a story to tell like non other, a story thats quite crucial to the history of Grindcore, also a Godflesh Streetcleaner re-issue should take place also,Justin has a massive story to tell-- maybe also something by Cult Of Luna and Akercocke.Scorn is quite a long-shot, I personally would'nt mind seeing the Evanescence line up of Mick and Nick discussing why and how they made such groundbreaking music, back in 1994.

Earache is rapidly turning out a production line of excellent metal documentaries, and having seen the Get Thrashed film,which is an excellent overview of the 80s Thrash scene, we are making some plans to do a totally in-depth film about the explosion of the 90s Death Metal/Grindcore scene ourselves.Also we are aware of our responsibility to archive and save for posterity the ideas and thoughts of the main players in the scene, as sadly quite a few have passed away now,like Jesse Pintado (Napalm Death) Johnny Morrow (Iron Monkey) & Vitek (Decapitated)so their thoughts are lost forever.

TLAM tour backstage pass in new Metal Hammer?

Question: strange i know! but i brought a metal hammer magazine today and in it was a purple plip which says its a access all areas and venues pass for the euro tour of thrashing like a maniac! i was wondering is this a valid ticket? i know silly question!! From: jizmbunnies@hotmail.co.uk


Answer: It wont allow you into the club for free, but if you come along to any of the Thrashing Like A Maniac dates and headed for the backstage area, wearing the purple backstage pass, I doubt if anyone will stop you- and the bands will be chuffed to meet you- so see you there!

Japanese Ultragore CLAYMATION?? WTF!!?

Wallace & Gromit was never like this...

How to get work doing bands' album covers?

Question: I\'m a graphic designer, and am interested in knowing how your label, or generally any label (preferably metal) looks for designers to do album artwork or promo stuff for bands. Is it that you have to possess a exceptional portfolio with years of experience or is it sort of if you can do it and have the style, then go for it sort of thing?

Also, within the indie lables like Earache, does the band choose who does the art or does the label decide that? I\'ve read many times in design resource books that in major lables, the lables typically deal with the designer whereas indie labels has the band/artist deal with the designer which usually results in better artwork for the band.

Thanks a bunch in advance. From:

Answer: Earache has released over 400 albums, and for every single one of them the band has had the freedom to design & choose the art for the album.I have heard some horror stories about other labels, even Indie metal ones, who have foisted album covers on bands they they plainly did'nt like.We just don't do that- neither do most Indie labels to be fair.
Generally,the label's role is to take the band's creative vision for an album cover and then its us who gets to work and finds a suitable artist who can execute that vision- Earache's design team will then work with the artist to make sure its up to standard, the artwork copyrights are secured, and also delivered on time and on budget (which is harder than you think) involving the band along the way, to get their approval.
We deal with many debut bands who are pretty naive when it comes to artwork- often they insist a 'best mate' does the album cover whereas we are used to hiring world class artists on a weekly basis. A common fault is also- their sole suggestion can be a quite literal interpretation of the album title - a dead body falling thru a grave for Enter the Grave by Evile springs to mind.
Equally often, bands go to the other end of the scale and want say HR GIGER (Carcass' Heartwork LP above was designed by GIGER) or some Star Wars character in the art, which is not really on, for an unknown band.
Creative artwork ideas and concepts are not a bands strong point usually (we sign them for the music) so we sometimes struggle to get them to tell us what they want, mostly they like the guy who did the cover of another band that caught their eye recently ( Colin Marks is benefiting from this effect right now).
This dilemma is where unknown artists can get their foot in the door, because our fave thing is when we get random artists who supply us by email 4-5-6 complete, ready made album covers, with space cunningly left for logo & title, with price tag attached for use.We love these, because we can pass these ready-made covers to our bands, and you'd be surprised how many bands say they love one of the images and it becomes their album cover.
Another way to catch our attention is on Deviant Art website- many bands scour the site looking for suitable art styles and then let us know who to contact.Good luck with your art!

Dub war = Dud War?

Question: So what actually went wrong with dub war surely they should have been one of the biggest bands in the uk? I was going through my ticket collection and i found a dub war ticket from when they played newport tjs support was from a second rate grunge band by the name of feeder, im sure they only got on the bill because like dub war they were from newport, over a decade later its feeder that are headlining festivals and are part of the uk rock hirachy surely it should been dub war who achived this? From:


Answer: Well this sort of thing happens all the time in the music biz- loads of bands dont get the breaks and the success their talent deserves while many others get big on little more than marketing and financial prowess of the well-financed, often Major label.Dub War always come up as a classic 'band who should have been big', but to be fair they did have a small slice of fame, charting 5 times in official Uk chart, but were not massive, far from it.In many ways the recent success of Skindred (Benjis new band, uncannily like Dub War, but now on major-backed US label Beiler Brothers) is the success Dub War didnt acheive, so things finally came good for Benji ten years after DW's demise.Drummer Ginge and Guitarist Jeff are ace producers now aswell, recording the bonus tracks for Bullet For My Valentine's new album.
It should be noted that Dub war's style and sound was incredibly radical for the time, playing a mash-up of ragga and metal whereas Feeder were grunge-lite and Skunk Anansie were female pop-rock, both highly mainstream in their outlook.the word mash up wasnt even coined until a few years ago, so you could say they were ahead of the time.
The main difference is finances- Feeder were on Echo - a powerful label backed with serious major- label-type money, Dub War were on Earache, backed by me, and we are as Indie as they come.
here's a look at Dub war playing Dutch festival DYNAMO from 1995:

Earache's best and worst all-time sellers?

Question: Hello, I am starting a project at College about Metal labels, what are Earache\'s biggest selling and lowest selling albums of all time. thank You,
from Neil. From:

Answer: Earache has been lucky that for over 20 years our fans have been pretty loyal to the labels output...nearly everything we release has sold a respectable steady amount but the biggest sellers are legendary albums like:
Blessed Are The Sick by Morbid Angel
Scum by Napalm Death
Heartwork by Carcass
Slaughter Of The Soul by At The Gates.

Earache's early 90's catalog is pretty much a whos-who of Extreme music hall-of-famers, and anyone getting into the heavier end of metal naturally needs to pick up a fair few of our Classic releases.
On the flipside we also have had a some extremely poor sellers, luckily very few though! This mostly occurs when we diversify too much from the core Death Metal/Grind/Thrash/HC sounds we have a reputation for delivering, sometimes the bands never toured which is always fatal, or in some cases the bands music just never 'caught on' and the breaks never went their way.
Some of the worst sellers of the early period were:
OLD- Lo Flux Tube
Mighty Force - Dive - see rare clip below from 1989:

more recently;
Rakoth- Tiny Deaths (you can listen to a Track from Rakoth's Planeshift debut below)

Shortie - Without A Promise (see song from album "Truth" below)

Ewigkeit - Conspiritus (see song It's Not Reality below)

HM Titans Cauldron & Crystal Castles connection? WTF?!

Question: Is there really a link between new earache signees cauldron and electro band crystal castles? From:

Answer: What- apart from both being from Toronto?
As it happens Jason Decay from our new Traditional HM signings CAULDRON (pic above) used to be in a metal band with the dude Ethan who is half of massively popular electro-punkers, and this weeks NME cover stars, CRYSTAL CASTLES (pic below). Mad eh?.


The prior band was called KILL CHEERLEADER which played punky-stooges/G'n'R metal and made an album on Spinerazor records in 2004.

Jason was most recently in GOAT HORN playing stoner-y doom metal.

CAULDRON is a newly formed 3 piece, a Traditional HM band influenced by NWOBHM,and the debut album will be unleashed on Earache in 2009.
See Goat Horn video below.

Earache & new Morbid Angel w/ David Vincent back

Question: Dig, on a drunken night in Boston (lincs) you told me that you had tried eveyrthing to get David Vincent to rejoin Morbid Angel to no avail. Now that the miracle has happened and they are playing new tracks will you be interested in signing them again? Have you caught them live? What do you think - reformed nostalgic rehash or essential cutting edge Death Metal?

Anther thing: with all the Swedish bands worshipping Autopsy, did you ever think about signing them? Was there ever a potential clash of the titans between you and Hammy over their signatures? Did this happen with any other bands, Paradise Lost for example?

Cheers,

Gav From: crushthenazarene@hotmail.com

Answer: Ahhh great memories.. that Muni Waste & The Process gig at Indian Queen pub in Boston (lincs) (not Boston (Mass)!) has gotta be one of my all time faves, as it was the first time since signing them that I witnessed the thrashing speed-metal-punk power of Tha Waste, and also after the show was the first time we'd witnessed the awesome drinking power of The Waste aswell...jeezus, can them boys drink- the entire Earache staff left there annihilated, and we still talk about that show in revered tones in the office to this day.Y'know, there is footage of this infamous early Muni gig on our PS2 Game as bonus level footage, so if you were in the moshpit during the set, you're in a computer game now, Gav!
Anyways, back to the question: Earache has released every note Morbid Angel have ever recorded since their debut in 1989 til 2004, a period spanning the A-B-A-C-D-E-F-G-H 9 albums, 3 seperate record deals and 2 singers.To be honest its mainly the classic game-changing A & B albums which everyone worships, and by the time of the Steve Tucker era albums F-G-H, tho he was an admirable singer, the band were creatively treading water, and also sales were significantly down on the early 90's heyday.
Meanwhile original singer David Vincent (pictured above in Gentitorturers) who sang on the classic early albums A-B-C-D had unexpectedly quit the band in mid-90's to join up with his wife Gen's Industrial-Fetish-Metal troupe Genitorturers who had a sound and look which was quite in vogue with the Rob Zombie/Marilyn Manson mainstream metal crowd which dominated the metal scene during second half of that decade.From that point on, it seemed quite a stretch to imagine David would ever return to the MA fold, especially as industrial metal was on the up-tick and Floridian DM was in the doldrums, so whenever we enquired about a David Vincent comeback through the management that Morbid and Genitorturers shared (all communication had to be directed through manager) the answer was always the same- hell will freeze over first!
Then around about summer 2004 things began to seriously unravel in the Morbid Angel camp- singer Steve Tucker quit after a triumphant Roskilde festival performance- we heard he wanted to relocate from Florida to be with his new girlfriend in Ireland.From the labels point of view, when a replacement singer was not quickly recruited we feared the worst, and guessed the band was at the point of folding.I had to make a snap decision wether to pay significant advances for the next "I" album, so even tho David Vincent was unveiled as the new singer one day before,I didn't fancy paying big money for album number 10 so we parted ways.
Hell did then freeze over!!
Management pulled the band back from the brink i believe by actually persuading David and Trey to work together again.Now free agents, the newly reunited Morbid Angel could seek a lucrative new Major record deal, but 4 years on, the band still remain without a label for its "I" album.
Morbid hit the festival circuit ina big way this year, I did not catch the new shows, but Earache staffers watched em at Hellfest, and declared MA the best band of the entire weekend, so they are in devastating form onstage, which is to be expected, as they are seasoned pro's.As for the new recordings, my opinion is clouded by remembering the heyday of the band so well- I seriously doubt wether they can write a new album to top the first 2 albums, which are bona-fide death metal classics.The fan in me wouldnn't mind doing the new album, but from a business perspective,Earache is not in the market for album number 10 when we have 9 already in the catalog, 2 of which cannot be topped anyway.They have to go somewhere else to get a fresh momentum and different marketing approach.


Regarding Peaceville back in the day, we both started our labels as extreme HC punk/grind/ crossover labels.Sure, we knew each other from gigs,and respected what the other was doing from afar, but Earache was undoutedly leading the way, and as usual we went out on a limb first by signing an extreme USA death metal band in Morbid Angel- this was a major sell-out to the scene police in the Uk HC scene at the time.Peaceville quickly followed us, and snapped up Autopsy.Earache never approached Autopsy.In hindsight,I think we got the better band.
You are right about Paradise Lost-we missed out big time on them. Earache made them an offer for the debut album but for some reason they preferred Hammy's deal.Tho a much smaller operation, I put it down to Peaceville being locally based to them.It really hit home when Gothic came out and sold incredibly well in Germany, it put Peaceville on the map and sealed the success of the label.Hammy recently sold off the Peaceville label to Snapper Music, a re-issues & catalog specialist,and he retired to sunny Spain.

Napalm Death & Scott Burns

Question: I was reading choosing death and it told how close scott burns was to pulling the plug on napalm in florida, I was wondering how close was he to actually doing it? being as the book only really tells micks side of the story. also what would have happened if he had would the whole album have been aborted or would you have tried another producer in florida?
also why did earache never sign benediction so all the birmingham bands of that time they seemed to be the one of the ones that earache would have picked up however its very bizzare that you didnt. From:

Answer: I was with Napalm Death when they recorded 1990's Harmony Corruption album with Scott in Morrisound studios- at that time,he was the up and coming producer of the moment and ND wanted a more Death Metal sound so they decamped from Birmingham to Tampa for a few weeks.It might be the only time Napalm have recorded outside UK, thinking about it.Mick and Scott explain how that particular session was pretty fraught in the excellent book choosing death.As you say, SCott nearly threw in the towel because of the tension, but ever the professional, his suggestion for mick to leave for a few days and chill out was the best.
You have to understand the pressure was on the band to make the best album of their career, they had to try to top the 2 previous albums, both of which became legendary grindcore albums, all with a new line up, including 2 brand new American guitarists and a new vocalist who had barely recorded before- yes, it was make or break time, and Mick is a highly strung person at the best of times, so he snapped under the tension.USA producers generally prefer a cleaner sound than British ones- in hindsight, the grit and intensity and vibe was missing from that album, which was obvious as they were recording it, and Mick felt bad about it, as he had persuaded me that flying to Morrisoundand recording with Scott was the best idea. heres a clip of the band listening to a mix in Scott's truck:


and Mick discussing Drum sounds during the 1990 recording itself:


As for Benediction, at the time i considered them distinctly second-rate,apart from singer Barney - who quickly moved up the ranks and joined Napalm Death.A bit like fellow Brummies Cerebral Fix, they had members who joined Napalm for a while, LIke Frank Healey, but both acts lacked the intensity of the bands we already had, so Earache took no interest in them.Nuclear Blast still do Benediction albums to this day.

where's the free albums like other blogs?

Question: Why don't you link to the albums you review or describe like other blogs? from: A.Einstein@cern.lhc.ch

Answer: Solve this to get one, then buddy. Try buying a CD sometime, instead of being a fucking leech.

DEICIDE IS BACK & DENOUNCING CHRIST NEAR YOU!

Question: What is the status of deicide at the moment, it appears to be up in the air? glenn gave that interview in terroizer where he said he was through with touring, following which steve\'s new band pops up. so have deicide split, gone on hiatus or are they doing other things as aparently vital remains are writing at the moment so its understandable that steve would do his own project whilst glenn is working with them. From:

Answer: Deicide is back and touring again, after Glen's enforced 18-month layoff from touring due to matrimonial/legal matters prevented his gigging.Now such matters are finished, Deicide are back on the road,and ready to slay audiences worldwide. First stop is Italian shows plus Australia and Japan also in the works.
Steve Asheim took the enforced downtime to create a new band ORDER OF ENNEAD, which has its debut on EARACHE on Oct 13.The new touring line up of Deicide includes Kevin Quirion from Ennead as guitarist, replacing Ralph Santolla, who has been ousted, and is in Obituary anyway.See DEICIDE on the following dates:

09/13/08 FT. LAUDERDALE, FL CULTURE ROOM (w/ ORDER OF ENNEAD, ADRIFT)
09/18/08 ROME, ITALY CIRCOLO DEGLI ARTISTI
09/19/08 BOLOGNA, ITALY KINDER GARTEN
09/20/08 BARI, ITALY DEMODE CLUB
09/21/08 TURIN, ITALY FABRICK
11/28/08 YOKOHAMA, JAPAN FAD
11/30/08 HATSUDAI, JAPAN DOORS
12/04/08 KOENJI, JAPAN HIGH
12/05/08 OSAKA, JAPAN SUN HALL
12/06/08 OSAKA, JAPAN SUN HALL

RE-issues & upcoming Carcass Symphonies packaging

Question: Hi Dig, firstly I\'d like to say I love the fact Earache re-releases it\'s catalogue, not only does it keep some bloody classic albums in circulation(which would be very hard to find otherwise) but also keeps alot of the older bands on the label relevant, by remarketing/promoting out of print albums, so well done for that.

Secondly I\'d like to ask what special packaging you\'ll be using for the CARCASS SYMPHONIES OF SICKNESS REISSUE? Its such a monumental album you have to do something special. As a collector and fan I can\'t wait to get my hands on Reek, even though its a bit of an overlooked classic I know the real grinders out there consider Symphonies one of the finest(if not THE) grindcore albums ever recorded and seeing how its such a monumental release then there should be something special on the reissue, in terms of packaging, something special with maybe a blood pack or something like the Seasons in the Abyss single. From: intestinaldischarge@live.co.uk

Answer: Thanks for the kind words and thanks for buying our Cds! Its appreciated i can tell ya!!Y'know, your opinion is somewhat contrary to the online message-board warriors, who mostly slag all re-issues off as blatant label cash-ins, whichever the label, or however lavish the packaging/extras, forgetting that fans who were'nt around at the time would like to purchase the CD, especially if its been out of print for years.Most of them are downloaders who get their music from megauploadnazi and radipsharenazi, with an average of approx 15 Cds & 50,000 FREE mp3s in their collection, anyways, so fuck them, I say!!
Yes we are planning somthing extra lavish for the final Cd in the Pathologist's Report series, to be honest its not decided yet, tho the disc will include demos for symphonies album, but front-runner idea is a code in the package for a bookshelf box which will house the whole set of 5 discs.You email in and get the box sent to your house by us.If you have any other ideas please feel free to comment below, we seriously haven't decided yet on the packaging but it will be mega deluxe.

What about the Southern Sludge Metal scene?

Question: Has earache taken any interest in the atlanta, athens, savannah georgia scene at all being as it appears next to the new wave of thrash this appears to be the other metal scene of the last few years mastodon, baroness, kylsea , harvey milk etc strangely the entire scene reminds me of grunge not so much sonically but the same \"throw all the influenes into the pot make it sound dirty, fuck what we look like\" attitude. it also appears that this is another scene that although not being involved directly at the moment earache appears to have influenced as those bands have been quoting the likes of sleep and heresy ( big hardcore/uk crust punk influence on that scene) as influences. From:

Answer: You are right- there sure has been something sludgy and metal brewing in them southern swamplands for quite a while, we have watched it grow from afar but had no official contact with any of the bands you mention.I dunno if "the scene" was even bestowed with a name as such, but your use of the word Grunge is kinda appropriate I reckon.You should work at a label dude or be a writer, because I think you sum them up perfectly.Mastodon are undoubtedly the daddies of that sound and style, we love them here at the Earache office, and their Remission CD was a staff fave album of the year for 2002.Some staffers love Baroness aswell, and Harvey Milk- all great bands.Black Tusk are cool too.
As for Earache's interest as far as signing goes- thats where we go cold..also we were pretty late to this particular Sludge metal party, Relapse and Prosthetic got their years ahead of us, but our lack of interest also stems from the fact the music is partly reminiscent of our past 90's glories, so it is not exactly mega exciting.they are nothing like SLEEP I feel, apart from maybe influenced as you say, but I must admit never having spoken much to any of those bands.Its cool as hell they are into HERESY or any of the old punk/Hc bands though, thats pretty great in my book.Fair play to em.

No quirky new thrash bands?

Question: Is it possible that the new wave of thrash is a bit too retro looking for its own good? I mean there doesnt appear to be a modern equivilent of the weirder more progressive thrash bands that made the original scene more interesting eg voivod, celtic frost, sabbat(uk) or sadus it seems as if most players are into playing a kirk hammett or a gary holt riff over a lombardo esque drumbeat. From:

Answer: Well yeah, that seems to be the case- as anyone who was around in the 80's will tell ya-Voivod made their name playing quirky, cerebral, off-kilter metal (pic above with jason newstead in 2003) same for Celtic Frost etc but by the same token the big 4 were more straight down the line thrash, with few quirks, and they are the ones who succeeded in the long run.Through the lens of hindsight, it was undoubtedly EXODUS, (early) METALLICA, ANTHRAX, MEGADETH & SLAYER who defined original 80's Thrash, not Coroner or Voivod.

I should point out that as far as i can tell the new modern thrash bands mostly didn't set out to create a carbon copy of the 80's scene, in all its diverse glory.Contrary to the musings of know-it-alls in forums etc, NON of the Earache thrashers are doing it ironically or are manufactured to be trendy, they genuinely worship the old style, because its new to them.
Mostly, being still teenagers or early 20's dudes, they just wanted to PLAY THRASH because its music they have downloaded, and because to them its fresher and more relevant than the modern styles which dominate todays scene-like say, death metal or metalcore etc. Also a heavy punk/crossover influence is evident aswell..who knew that bands like DISCHARGE or EXPLOITED or SACRILEGE or ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT would be cited as major influences by upcoming metal bands in 2008? It's amazing that a genuine crossover is going on.

To answer your question,a UK band like HERETIC are pretty quirky and non-generic,and are the band you are seeking, but its debatable whether they are so far removed from the scenes style, to be part of it.
Totally unrelated- but I actually think the new thrash bands are responsible for Death Magnetic sounding like the return to form it does.

Carcass- Reek special edition Sept 22

Question: Hey, I got the two Carcass Dual Discs so far, and was just wondering when the (I assume) three others will be up for sale? From: rf@kohn.dk

Answer: Glad you are collecting them all- there is a extra suprise if you complete the set, and buy all 5.Right now we have re-issued 3 so far, Swansong came out recently with bonus track (featuring Colin Richardson on vocals) and colour sticker pack inside.
The next installment is their debut album, Reek of Putrefaction, the beyond brutal downtuned gore-fest that started it all.The re-issue comes with the bands first demo, and extra fold out page after page of real-life gore scenes, its actual images made for the album in 1987 that were unused at the time of the debut- honestly, its so sick it comes in a sealed Specimen bag.There have been many bands since Carcass who have banned artwork or sick and brutal cover art- you can be confident that this raises the bar for what is acceptable, and deletes all imposters.This release is hands down THE MOST ridiculously over the top that Earache has ever put its name to, we are expecting trouble.

Earache & KLF & Extreme Noise Terror

Question: Was earache skeptical when ent started to get involved with the klf? surely it doesnt do a scene who at that point trying to prove that they were proper musicans to asociate with two self described non musicans. I remember reading and essay written by jim from the klf titled \"how to fuck the music industry\" where he describes how ent had an issue with their plan to throw sheeps blood into the audience because of their vegan beliefs. isn\'t there another link between earache and the klf because of james fogarty and his inolvment in klf spin off blacksmoke? looking at the way that james has formed and anti label since leaving earache it seems as if he has followed the klf\'s members essays closely. From:

Answer: Yes that was a mad and tumultuous time, dont forget that the KLF had been number 1 in the UK charts and had a string of early rave/techno hits -they were a pop act- but being essentially serial pranksters- decided to 'leave the industry' with a bang by teaming up with Extreme Noise Terror to terrorize the public with a grindcore rendition of their rave hit 3am Eternal.Its mindboggling to watch now-yes this actually happened-don't forget that this is the UK's most prestigious Music awards ceremony "Brit awards" (comparable to the Grammys) live on TV in 1992:


I remember at the time ENT thought long and hard about being being invited to collaborate with the KLF, being good honest punks, their immediate instinct was to tell the preening pop pranksters to fuck off! But having had a few meetings with Bill Drummond, they gradually became seduced by the prospect of having a lucrative collaboration.The album they recorded, KLF vs ENT The Black Room never saw a release because the KLF had left the industry by then and shelved it, and I remember Dean (singer) telling me they were totally gutted about it, because they honestly thought they would become millionaires from it, this was-finally- their chance to hit pay-dirt and Bill Drummond just shelved it as a situationist prank.They felt deflated and somewhat used as a parting-shot gimmick by KLF.I don't think the band ever recovered from it.

As for James Fogarty & Ewigkeit- yeah when we started working with him, I had no idea he was already working off-and-on with Jim Cauty (ex- KLF) on the loose collective Blacksmoke project, they live near each other in Brighton I think, and from what James said, he did most of the day-to-day musical production work on the single and some remixes- tho Jim oversaw the overall direction of the project.
Ewigkeit made 2 incredible albums for Earache- Radio Ixtlan & Conspiritus- but even tho both were my albums of the year, they inexplicably failed to sell hardly anything.We put it down to Ewigkeits music was quite removed from the prevailing music scene trend and James failed to tour the band.At one point we did discuss Ewigkeit playing shows in Iraq to 'entertain' the troops, imagine that- Ewigkeit live in Baghdad would have been a blast!!!- it could have been the ultimate KLF-style prank to end em all, but it never got off the ground.
After we severed ties with him, James ended up 'doing a Radiohead' and symbolically severed his ties with the music industry by burning all his old record contracts (Earaches was merely the latest,he'd been in a loads of deals before aswell with lots of former bands, its quite a bonfire!)If you want KLF comparisons, thats it right there- KLF burned a million quid when they left the industry, Ewigkeit couldn't get their hands on those kinda readies- so burnt contracts instead. James is now releasing amazing politico Drum n Bass stuff on the internet under Bombs Of Enduring Freedom,the dude simply cannot write a bad song, its surely only a matter of time before the wider public catches up with his talents - then we might finally get to sell some Ewigkeit CDs!
Heres a mega-rare gig by Ewigkeit, including unreleased song Guantanamo Bay International, and on bass is up-n-coming Uk actor.

Morbid Angel box set 7inch

Question: Hello. A couple of years ago a former friend of mine (Per Thunell, Filthy christians, MOSH 17) sold me some raritys of the greatest band in the history of deathmetal, Morbid angel, that he got from them on tour back in the days. That includes: a signed vinyl copy of the classic line-up of \"Altars of madness\", The picturedisc of \"Altars...\" as well, the 666ex limited vinyl single (7\") edition \"thy kingdom come\", the 1000ex limited vinyl edition of \"Abomination of desolation\" + the picturedisc as well. I also have a 6 vinyl singles (7\") box in leather that i have heard contains the \"Blessed are the sick\" album. So my question to you is this... since my is sealed and will not be opened for a long time.: Did you released or distributed that leather box of \"Blessed are the sick\"??

I hope that you could answer my question :)
best regards, Daemon//Sweden From: masen023@hotmail.com

Answer: yes its an official Earache release of the Blessed Are The Sick album, on 5 x 7inches in a leather box. see the description here, its incredibly rare. The thy kingdom come 7inch you mention tho is a bootleg (a rare early one as it happens)

Steve Albini & Fudge Tunnel/Godflesh

Question: Has earache ever considered signing a full blown noise rock/no wave band? the influence of steve albini on fudge tunnel and godflesh cannot be denied, speaking of albini wasnt he meant to have produced a godflesh album at one point? From:

Answer: Earache hasn't really been very interested in that scene, even at its height in early 90's- it wasn't to my taste, so didnt approach any of those bands.Its inflence was undeniabe tho- both Fudge Tunnel and Godflesh I know did have a slight soft spot for Jesus Lizard and AmRep acts like early Helmet,and Albini's 80s band Big Black was undoubtedly an influence on the early Earache bands,(but not Sonic Youth).Both bands also yearned for an altogether more HEAVY production- the aim was a totally crushing metallic production, Albini (pictured) had no metal credentials.It probably came up in conversation with those bands, that Albini might have been cool producer, but he was linked with another scene, and anyways Alex from FT decided to take more control of the recording of his band from Creep Diets onwards (he studied Colin Richardson's methodology on the recording of their debut).Nowadays Alex is a respected producer in his own right.Likewise Godflesh bought their own studio equipment and installed it in their house, so again, had intentions of doing their own productions, for better or worse.This meant that outside producers were never discussed anymore.

Immolation not on Earache in the 90s?

Question: In choosing death it says that immolation nearly signed with earache is this true? personally im very suprised they didnt being as from what i remember hearing in interviews they had dave vincet booking their southern shows and vice versa was happening when MA played the north east of the US. From:


Answer: In the early 90's the death-metal scene was growing fast, all over the world, mainly because of the success of the early bands I'd signed.Being quite picky, I thought we had the cream of the crop on the label ( err with the exception of DEATH who never became available for Earache to sign at that time).Aside from Florida, Uk and Sweden, the Death metal scene was also exploding all over the North eastern US, with bands like Malevolent Creation, Immolation, Suffocation and Ripping Corpse (Erik Rutan's first band).I checked em all out, but couldn't really see anything in those bands that made them better than the bands we already had.To be honest i always considered the NY DM bands a bit second rate, compared to the innovators of the genre.Although the scenesters and bands helped each other with shows and generally promoting the scene, there was very much a heirarcy of bands at the time, which wikipedia and online lists of Death metal bands 20 years on, fail to highlight.
Of course looking back with 20 years of hindsight, Immolation and the others sound just as brutal and fast and deathy as the others, so i can't recall why i dismissed them back then..it must be a certain spark or innate catchiness that some bands had and some didn't.Same thing in Europe, I ignored Grave, Unleashed, Morgoth etc as they were distinctly second rate compared to the bands we already had.Luckily for them plenty of other labels were springing up to get in on the death metal wave, so they mostly found a label home in Century media or Roadrunner and went on to a decent career anyway.
Immolation had a helpful local friend/manager in Kim August (ultimatum zine, she released a Cathedral 7inch aswell) and were considered strongly but I passed on them.Ripping Corpse was the only band from the North east I considered for the label back in the day.

Iron Monkey Cds- out of stock?

Question: How can I get Iron Monkey album!!! From: victor.daigle@sympatico.ca


Answer:The albums aren't in print, and have not been manufactured for many years, because they were never a big seller, especially in USA where they are quite unknown.Here in the Uk the band had a bit of notoriety during the course of 2 albums in late 90's but again they never broke out of the underground, where, being a trailblazing live act,and one of the heaviest bands to ever walk on a stage, they were quite revered by those-in-the-know.The band split in 1999, and formed various offshoot acts, but tragically the Iron Monkey mainman Johnny Morrow passed away due to a kidney complaint, which he'd had from birth, in 2002.
Iron Monkey are legends to those who saw them -especially in our home town of Nottingham which was their base- and the popularity of Iron Monkey shirts at gigs, is making us consider a re-issue of the 2 classic albums in one package.Its about time the new younger fans who have heard about the legend that was Iron Monkey, were able to pick up the music again.

Swedish Death Metal book

Question: Hey! I\'m reading the fantastic \"Swedish Death Metal\" book, and was intrigued upon reading the chapter which discusses the release of \'Left Hand Path\', to hear that you have the unmsatered version of the album without vocals. Since you spoke highly of that version (according to the quote in the book anyways), I wondered if it would ever see the light of day..perhaps as bonus material on some future reissue of LHP? I know I\'d darn well kill to hear it! From: xheartsonfirex@fsmail.net

Answer: I've not had chance to get this book yet, but no doubt its fantastic, Daniel knows his stuff and was there from the beginning so is the perfect person to write this. He is bassist in INSISION if ya didnt know, making 2 albums on Wicked World for Earache.Now its in English language there is no excuse for any respecting Death heads not to grab this tome.
As for Entombed- from memory I think I was raving about the feeling i had when I first received the Left Hand Path rough mix.I can still remember the chills it sent down my spine, the shock of hearing something so radical and new and ultimately a sound that changed the course of the heavier end of metal.Apart from the band in the studio, i was the first to hear it, and the realisation that this, the 'Sunlight Sound' - even without vocals -was undoubtedly going to be a 'game-changer' is what I meant.That album hit me hard, damn hard. The rough version is heavy on the guitars and no vocals, its not a definative or alternate version or anything,its just a rough mix- beleive me, the final CD is much better.

heres a preview video of the book:

Earache's missing catalog numbers

Question: Why have some of the MOSH catalogue numbers got no releases next to them? From: steveharrisisace@yahoo.co.uk


Answer: I answered this one a while back on this very blog.Use the handy 'search this blog' box at top left of the page- type in missing mosh and the answer is revealed.

Re-locating Earache to Brum/ London..

Question: Did Earache ever consider relocating during the early days? maybe to the anarcho punk hotbed of bristol or to brum considering napalm and alot of the scene were based there, this question came from the fact that i did the nottingham to brum run myself for the supersonic festival and well its not exactly convient, i could imagine it as chaos when your trying to run a business! From:

Answer: Yeah i know what you mean, Earache's early successful bands did spring from Birmingham and the label was founded and still is based in Nottingham, 50 miles away.I became very familiar with the train timetables in the early days when visiting the Mermaid on a weekly basis to watch Napalm Death gigs- the friggin last train back is something like 9pm which means an all-night stopover- y'know, to this day, the sight of New Street station gives me the chills, i have literally spent many grim, freezing nights in that place waiting for the early morning train, its not a pretty situation.If you went to Supersonic festival ( i was gonna see Scotch Egg at that but never went) at Birmingham recently from Nottingham via train you'll know what I mean, but if you drive its really a breeze on M42 to Brum, at night its empty, so you can be back home in 1 hr tops.As the label grew and bands like Napalm, Godflesh, Bolt Thrower became bigger, funnily enough it became a slight blessing being 50 miles away from the bands, as it meant meetings were less ad-hoc and more organized, more formal in a strange way, because a commute was involved.
The idea of re-locating the label to London is one all labels face- you undoubtedly suffer in this industry from being away from London, as its the hub of the music industry in UK, all the important press/TV/ media are there, and most gig agents, managers lawyers-its jam packed with key contacts- but i strongly resisted that pressure to relocate to London as i'm a proud Nottinghamian, and love living where i do- so i did the commute instead. Luckily the train to London is damn fast - 1 and 1/2 hrs - and convenient, you can even catch one back after a gig (just)-it beats the car hands-down, as parking in London is a rip-off nightmare.Again, one of the upsides of being based out of London is you avoid getting caught up in the London mindset and day-to-day whirl, where only things in London matter and everything outside of London is boring, provincial and small-time.
During Earache's explosive years in the early 90's, things really took off in the USA, and i was visiting New York a hell of a lot, if i was going to move the operation it would have been to NYC in the 90's. At one point in late 90's my passport ran out and I decided to count the number of stamps i had for JFK airport in NYC- it was 95 visits-thats in a decade.

Nowadays Earache has a promotional office in London and a staffed branch office in New York, as well as in central Nottingham (see pic, we are on 1st floor)...and all the action takes place online now anyways so it doesnt even matter where you actually live or work any more.

Oceano Pics banned by Myspace- why?

Question: Do you think the fallout surrounding OCEANO having myspace pics pulled has got a bit OTT? I mean regurgitate, cattle decapitation, General Surgery, Naked City have got away with far worse. Is it because american censor groups have a problem with anything that hints at sexual violence, although the pics dont show this, the coments that the guitar player gave about his conversation with the model do? How frequently does earache normally hit problems with fringe groups and promoters over artistic content? the police raid was over ten years ago havent we moved on! From:

Answer: If anyone missed the news, we arranged a photoshoot for our new Chicago heavyweight ultra-brutal deathcore titans OCEANO, and as usual we gave the band free rein to go as gory and brutal in the shoot as they liked..but the resulting pics- see above and below- were actually removed by Myspace as "innappropriate content" from both the bands Myspace page and their personal profiles.They were removed within 24 hours and i can only assume that Myspace must have a team of workers vetting images constantly, as they are no doubt concerned about the site being overrun with porn.
Earache hasn't known anything like this since Carcass gore covers in the 90's for which we had a Police raid but no charges.It needs to be pointed out that the band don't condone violence against women, the pics are a gore-fueled fantasy inspired by movies like Hostel and SAW..trouble is, on the internet, one mans gore-fueled fantasy is anothers "innappropriate content".

As you say, the heat & fallout is beginning to bite now-Heres what a club owner in KETTERING OH had to say about it:
"Subject:
August 23
Body:
Hey guys,
I just wanted to touch base with you about tomorrow's show at the Attic. I have been trying to get in touch with Devon who booked this show for a week, but I haven't gotten a response back yet. That being said I thought I would message you directly.

It has been brought to our attention in the past week or so that there were some images of the band that were banned from myspace. Because we are an all ages, family friendly venue we pride ourselves on providing a positive atmosphere for the kids that come in to see shows. Unfortunately, because of those images and the lyrics to the songs we have found there is no way you guys will be able to meet those guidelines. Again, I apologize for the late notice, we have been trying to get in touch with Devon but at this time we will not be able to allow you to take the stage tomorrow night"


I think its easy to forget that the internet is really not the anarchic free-for-all, anything goes place many folks would have you think it is..the mainstream internet is mostly run by Microsoft, Google (who own blogger and Youtube) and the News International Media conglomerate (who own Myspace and Sky TV in UK) these are some of the biggest companies on the planet and adverse publicity or complaints will affect their shareprice badly.
On the otherhand it could be argued that the internet is self-censoring, most of the major sites have a handy button nearby to flag innappropriate content or report abuse (which i agree with btw) but also i can imagine that some clean cut folks love nothing better than to flag up everything they dont agree with. Its quite democratic in some ways, but the sites often dont bother to check the content's offensiveness or otherwise, they just remove it, as a knee jerk reaction.Free speech advocates argue that the internet sees any kind of censorship as 'damage' and simply routes around it...hence the images are viewable on this blog or on many other websites now.
Bottom line is,I think we wont be making any more gore-inspired pics for any bands because they are more trouble than its worth.

Getting A Deal with Earache for your band...

Question: Hello Earache, i\'m here to ask you how to get a deal with you? Have i to send my songs to your email? From: catatonic@hotmail.it

Answer: Hi yeah, i've answered this one a few times on this blog- use the search term "getting signed" in the top left of the page, to find the answer you looking for.

Earache's recent Japan-only releases

Question: lately i\'ve seen a few earache cds that have been reissued with a host of bonus tracks...exclusively for the Japanese market. what\'s notable is the limited pressing...what i\'ve seen has come in a print run of about 1000 copies or so. i\'ve come across and own a few, including the SORE THROAT \'Disgrace..\', BRUTAL TRUTH \'Extreme Conditions..\', and TERRORIZER \'World Downfall\'. my first question is, why Japan only? i know Japanese fans are some of the most dedicated/hardcore in the world but why not make them available to the rest of the world as well? what is notable is that there seems to be little or no press circling around these reissues (the only thing i can find on the earache website is a listing under the discography section), and it\'s only as a collector that i know about their existence. my second question is, how many Japan reissues have there been to date, and how many more are you planning? as much info as you can shed would be greatly appreciated. From:

Answer: Earache had a great friend and label partner in Japan during the 90's in Toys Factory records- they were the label who represented us in Japan for a decade and during that time released almost the entire label catalog in Japan, totalling hundreds of CDs,and mostly the Toys printings had an extra bonus track or two as is customary in Japanese releases (To combat the way cheaper US and Euro import editions).However the deal ran out in early 2000's and wasn't renewed, leaving our catalog unrepresented and out-of-print in Japan,except via import, so we looked around for a new distro-partner in the country.



Disk Union is a massive record shop in Tokyo which i have visited many times, its simply a must-see for any music fan, they have a floor for every genre- and stock nearly everything thats worth having, its the best store in Japan.They also sell wholesale,so we arranged with them for certain titles from the back catalog to be available again, exclusively through Disk Union.Being of the completist/collectors mentality, they insisted that many bonus songs were included on their highly limited editions.The choice of the titles is theirs and seems to mostly concentrate on the early HC/Grind releases, which I must admit is not what I was thinking of.

So far Disk Union released INTENSE DEGREE CD (first time ever on CD), SORE THROAT (with long out of print debut Unhindered BY Talent album as bonus), BRUTAL TRUTH & TERRORIZER with unreleased tracks.All limited to 1000 copies, only available from Disk Union, not Earache.
The reason they came without publicity is because we leave the promotion of them to Disk Union themselves, they are mostly meant for the Japanese market, and japanese editons are notoriously expensive to buy in the US or UK.
Keep an eye out on the Disk Union website for more exclusive Earache editions.

Justin Broadrick and err Andy Swan in FINAL?

Question: What is the relationship between napalm death and final as this is quite confusing? was it a pre napalm band or a side project as other than andy swan both justin broadrick and nic bullen have both played in earache bands. im wondering as the dates on some of the final cassettes that i have are marked 86-87 surely that is during the same time that justin and nic were in napalm as well as final so surely earache knew of the project\'s existence, is there any reason why you chose not to pick it up? From:

Answer:First of all- who the hell is Andy Swan? never met him, know nothing about him, so to be mentioned in the same question as bona-fide extreme music legends like Nic & Justin, its quite perplexing to say the least.
I think i know the problem: when folks ask about bands and events on this blog from 20+ years ago, most people who weren't there get their historical information from wikipedia or googling the keywords, which is normal and in many cases the pages the search engine throws up are reasonably accurate but they miss the all important context.Facts without accompanying context is just clues to what happened, not the absolute truth.Its hard to tell the driving forces from the peripheral players when presented with wiki bios.Being mentioned as a member of his teenage industrial noise band with Justin, as in this interview gives him a level of acclaim, that frankly he doesnt deserve.I guess if you could find him, and asked, he might even admit this aswell? I think part of the problem is Justin likes to credit everyone he ever collaborated with aswell, which is nice of him.Its true that Nik and Justin met because of a mutual love of early 80's harsh Industrial tape acts,like Con-Dom etc.

In the late 70's a DIY punky-influenced INDUSTRIAL scene began to emerge headed by bands Throbbing Gristle, Whitehouse and SPK.It was quite easy to make your own industrial tape back then- placing a C90 cassette into the oven for 15 minutes made the resulting tape what would be revered as a droning classic nowadays.Try a microwave for modern similar effect.The early teenage Napalmers used to make their own harsh tape loop industrial tapes aswell I believe, while Nic was simultaneously fronting the Anarcho-punk era Napalm Death aswell.
However, by the time I started to hang out with the guys they would often bring up the other industrial tape type bands to me, but i had no interest in them as Earache didnt want to wallow in the past- Industrial was a distinct and popular genre by 1986- so to me it was quite passe- instead the extremely fast metallised HC punk band they developed into was really what interested me the most,because for its time, it was superbly cutting edge and a really futuristically radical form of music, well to my ears anyway, and thats how it turned out.
I guess once Godflesh had run its course, Justin closed the circle and made a FINAL album so he could sell a few copies, which is fair enough.

Heres a rare ND demo song "Abbatoir" :

New Japanese crust-punk bands

Question: I was going through old ask earache blogs and i found one about the japanease scene and how you said that you thought that the new wave of bands from there were too random for your taste. Im wondering has your opinion changed now that bands like ghallhammer and coffins are popping up bands that seem to have alot in common with the crust punk and early death metal roots of earache? From:


Answer: Yes i agree, for what seemed like for ever the only Japanese bands who got coverage in the UK media were the likes of Boredoms and Melt Banana or the harshest of noise outfits like Merzbow, none of which impressed me too much, and certainly not enough for a record deal.If you didnt delve into the underground, it would appear as if nothing much developed in Japan for a decade.
Things have changed slightly lately with Gallhammer primarily and also Coffins getting loads of publicity.Again, i agree that both have a more crust-punky vibe and less art-sy which is appreciated by me.However both still lack something, and i cant put my finger on it.Both seem average as hell to me.
I reckon a lot of the time, japanese bands receive a heck of a lot of goodwill and extra kudos simply because of where they are from, the exotic and far flung reality of Japan makes the bands automatically trendier than say their UK counterparts.If you actually listen to Gallhammer they are really ropey and average really, their press officer has done a remarkable job actually securing them so much coverage.Coffins are better of course, but again nothing special.Its a Japanese trait to be a facsimile of an established genre, they take copying the details and even the fashion of a scene very seriously and to unbeleivable levels of accuracy.Sadly, I cant say there is a current japanese artist who blows me away, cept DJ SCOTCH EGG of course- hes genius.

Typos on Earache releases?

Question: I bought a tape a few years ago by Brutal Truth called Perpetual Conversion.I guess it was when Brutal truth was on earache, anyways, I was looking at the tape and the spelling was wrong ,it reads Brutal tuRth instead of the traditional spelling. I was wondering if this is a rare tape, limited edition or just simply a bootleg(with an earache label mark on the tape and sleeve)...Any information would be appreciated thanks. From: nipplegrinder@hotmail.com

Answer:Over the years Earache has put out over 350+ titles, and quite an alarming number of them have a typo mistake somewhere on the sleeve..so much so that its almost our trademark.In fact some of our friends say as a back-handed compliment:"it wouldn't be an Earache release without a spelling mistake somewhere!" So what you have is most certainly an original, lets face it,even a bootlegger would not dare to get the name of the band wrong.
The reasons for the string of spelling mistakes, typos and general bad layout is because we often are under the gun and rushed for time to make release dates, and many times the artists themselves deliver the artwork, which we fail to check or correct.Decapitated sent us the same song lyrics twice which got printed on Organic hallucinosis CD.Also it seems the layout guys Earache uses are almost universally dsylexic (see what i mean?)
Even this year the Carcass Necroticism re-issue CD/DVD came with not one but 2 different typos..the USA edition had INSALUBIOUS the UK had INSALBRIOUS instead of INSALUBRIOUS.See pic with 2 editions in my hand..These kinds of howlers indentify Earaches original printings and are often corrected in the next print run- so they unwittingly can be used to trace original printings.
So what you have is an original tape from 1992 or so.

What happens when bubble/trends burst?

Question: How crippling to a label can a genre bubble burst be? and what is the one that effected earache the most? I find it interesting that when the nu metal bubble burst earache didnt seem to be affected at all although possibly that was because you had bands that were either seen as proto the genre eg godflesh ( i still think justin looses sleep knowing that he influenced korn *shudder*), pitchshifter, dub war or you signed them post the bubble burst like addiction crew or adema.
also do you think if scorn was a new band now do you think they would have been more succesful due to a better record buying public? london duo vex\'d basically took scorn\'s sound and have become comercially successful with it. From:


Answer: Earache has seen many trends and subtrends of metal- thrash metal, death metal,industrial metal, black metal, nu metal, emo/screamo and lately Thrash's resurgence - come and go during 20 years spent releasing records.Depends where in the timeline of the creation of the bubble the label/band is..If a label is the one starting the bubble, and expanding as the trend continues to grow,and decides to ride the trend, then what happens mostly is those bands have been able to generate enough fans, gain momentum and basically had enough success to be able to ride out the wave and continue after the bubble crashes.Its the bands/labels who are 6th, 7th, 8th to the party that lose everything when the bubble bursts.By the same token, often the trailblazers of a scene, the originators and true innovators can get left behind as a bubble expands- they disown the scene too quickly, fail to ride the wave, and more often than not, its the 3rd, 4th 5th band along the timeline who reaps the rewards and by being more commercially savvy, claim the scene as their own.A great example is the Sex Pistols- the inventors of punk, no question about it, but they imploded and only made one proper album, so missed out on the subsequent punk rock shockwave that changed the music landscape, even tho they started it! Sales-wise, Never Mind The Bollocks is still not a platinum album in the UK, and only recently went gold, after 25 years, which is shocking.
This scenario applies to all trends, wether it be stocks/shares/music trends/fashion trends etc..its a universal of human nature, and to do with the psychology of crowd behaviour- there is a whole field of research in this area, and because the phenomenon is mathematically provable, many financial institutions on wall st or in the city use powerful and sophisticated programs to predict the trends in the rise or fall in share prices.Some computer expert has probably tried to apply science to the prediction of music trends i expect, in a lab somewhere...but without much success, so far, but its bound to happen soon. Someday a program that can monitor myspace friend adding trends or myspace playcount trends will be able to see in advance the coming music trend.We do it the old fashioned way by visiting actual clubs and festivals and seeing what style of metal is new and original and exciting.
Regarding Nu metal i really dont think Godflesh had anything to do with it, nu metal came from a whole different ballpark, and regarding vex'd, i think they are just a more watered-down version of Scorn- its arguable that they are any bigger though.judge for yourself here: