Hi, Riley! Opened up your beer already?) Tell us a little about every member of G.O.D. please.
First off we all live in different cities, which means jams/recording sessions have to be carefully planned. I live in the city of Peterborough, ON. The area is a shared territory of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee nations, called Nogojiwanong. It is a nearly 2 hour drive north of Toronto. Leezus lives 15 mins away from me in a tiny hamlet called Indian River and we jam in his basement. Danargh lives in Oshawa about an hour towards Toronto so he has to do a lot of driving in order to jam. I work at a performing arts centre, Leezus works at a grocery store and is a freelance farrier (horse hoof care and trimming), Danargh finished teacher`s college over a year ago and believe it or not he is now working as an elementary school teacher!
The production on the album is a bit different because we put a lot more work into it than usual. We always wanted to do an album at some point but it was Roby who actually gave us the kick in the ass to do it when he offered to release a G.O.D. album on Blastasfuk! We wanted to do our best to produce something that would sound appropriate for a label like Blastasfuk.
2 main differences with our process for the ‘Body Horror’ album:
1.The mastering job by Jack Moose. It`s the first time anything by G.O.D. has been mastered by somebody who actually knows how to do it properly and we could not have anticipated what a difference it would make!
2.We don’t like to record in studios and prefer to do all recording and mixing ourselves. This way we don’t have to explain to somebody else what we want and we can learn new skills at the same time. For the album recording we put more time than ever before into the recording and mixing processes making sure to not rush anything or cut any corners!
I don’t know when this interview will be published but the album release is a bit delayed right now because Roby is coordinating the release of our album with the new Captain Cleanoff and will be putting out both albums on the same day. Body Horror has a wide variety of our material, from brand new stuff, to some old relics of the past and everything in between. The album features covers of Carnage, FATO, Repulsion and CSSO!!
Alright let’s give a shout out to Pierre! I found Pierre as you might expect, by looking for goregrind things on the internet and discovering Braindead Zine. It reminded me a bit of the old Teufel’s Tomb website but way more up my alley! I first contacted Pierre in 2010 to tell him about Grotesque Organ Defilement. He is a fantastic artist. He has done 2 covers and a logo for us and they all turned out amazing.
I guess I can’t do without generic boring questions) And this question is about band title. Who came up with such sick name “Grotesque Organ Defilement”?)
I came up with this name back in 2004. Two and a half years before I decided to make it into a real project. I just thought it would be funny to have an acronym that spells the word ‘god’ yet stands for something gorey. That’s all there is to it; no ‘deeper meaning’ behind the name.
Another question, boring as the previous one) What do you plan to do next? Tour? Splits with some cool bands? Maybe you plan to grow your hairs?)
We’ve never been much of a touring band and that probably will never change. We didn’t play many shows last year because we had so much work to do to complete the album. Now we are getting back into shows and have a few things booked for the summer. Someday we will need to at least get out west and play in British Columbia/Manitoba. Also playing a few shows in the USA would be cool! Of course we will have our full length cd Body Horror out soon but some other 2015 releases will be: 12” release of our split with Ahna, split 7” with Mesrine, split cassette with The Vanishing Act and a 5” lathe cut ep for Twisted Truth Records.
I’m glad you enjoy our style! It’s true we are equally influenced by both old school grind/mincecore and goregrind. To an extent we are also influenced by crust/d-beat and old death metal. With G.O.D. we are just trying to make the kind of music we like to listen to, incorporating some of our favourite stylistic elements into the band. I don’t think it’s anything all that original but I hope we can at least present these different elements in our own little way. These days I’m noticing a lot of bands who are blurring the lines between goregrind and grindcore and I think this is great!
Last 4 years we can see active underground scene growth. New bands come out here and there. Why is there such huge growth of underground bands in your country?
I don’t know what it is but there really does seem to be more appreciation for good grind and related genres in Canada then there was 10 years ago. A lot of this is occurring on the west coast where the scene seems to be really strong but across Canada more grind/pv/crust bands are emerging as well. I think having some great annual underground music festivals has helped because it exposes people to a lot of music and brings a lot of touring bands through. Fastcore Fest, Arsonfest, Foul Copse Fest, Grind Your Mind Fest, A Varning From Montreal Fest, Rrroooaaarrr Fest, Not Dead Yet Fest, and Finish What You Started Fest are a few examples of these. I think it’s not just in Canada that we are seeing more good grindcore bands but in the USA as well!
I first heard about the documentary after playing a show with Sete Star Sept and Ahna in Toronto last August. Doug Brown was at the show filming for his documentary. I don’t know if much footage of G.O.D. will be used in the film but in one of his recent trailers you can see a couple of second of Leezus drumming! I can tell he is passionate and putting a lot of work into the film and I’m excited to finally watch it whenever it’s completed.
What 3 CD did you listen to recently? Do you support your favorite bands by buying their stuff?)
Of course we buy music! The last 3 cds I bought were xBrainiax - Deprogrammed, The Kill - Kill Them All and Cretin - Stranger. Other stuff I bought recently is Deathreat self titled 7”, Masskontroll / Heartline split 7”, Sete Star Sept / Carcass Grinder 7”, Cloud Rat / Orgullo Primitivo split 7”, Triage Demo 2014 cassette. We’ve also been getting some stuff from trading our records. Need to get a copy of that Active Stenosis album!
How often do you hear from your family/friends/neighbors: “just quit this grindcore already, find a normal job and throw away all these holey clothes!”?)
Haha I don’t think we ever hear this. As I mentioned in the first question, we all have “normal jobs” but I have nothing but the utmost respect for any bands who get by just on touring for most of the year. I guess we are lucky to have families who don’t judge us for liking obnoxious music. Some of my friends and family have only the vaguest idea what grindcore is.
Peterborough is a very small scene and we normally get small-medium turns outs for metal and punk shows unless it is for a very big name. We normally do shows in small bars so we don’t need a lot of people to fill them up! I book shows locally and I can usually get enough gas money for bands at the door without problem. Most of the bands I work with don’t ask for a guarantee and I just do my best to get them as much as I can! In Toronto there is of course bigger turn outs, more bands and more people.
How much maple syrup digests an average Canadian lumberjack?)
Maple syrup is expensive even for us in Canada and for that reason you can never seem to get enough of the stuff!!!!
Now’s the question about your activity. What do you drink/smoke/eat that you record such amount of releases? Another few years and you’ll be Canadian Agathocles))
That title goes to Archagathus of course! The reason we’ve been releasing so much stuff lately is that we had a lot of stuff recorded in 2011-2012 that was still unreleased. At the time it was harder for us to find label support for releases than it is now. So we planned releases for all the recordings and now finally almost everything is out. The last of these releases is the split 7” with Mesrine which will go to press very soon. After that there will be no more old recordings on new releases (unless it’s a discography compilation)! I don’t expect we will continue to be so prolific going forward but we will always have new releases in the works. Out of our last 4 releases, only the split tape with Pancreatectomie features brand new recordings we did in 2014, every else is older recordings. We did that recording a month before starting to record our album.
There is a lot of fucked up shit going on in the world, but who am I to say what is the worst of it all? Capitalism, colonialism, white supremacy and patriarchy are some of the systems that are enabling oppression in the world today. On the other hand if I take your question literally, then the most sinister thing is what is most evil in appearance! So from my vantage point it’s probably Stephen Harper’s haircut...
And I definitely should mention here that famous Obscene Extreme Festival is going to be in Canada! How do you feel about it? I’m sure you will attend this festival!
It’s awesome that Curby has decided to bring OEF to Montreal this year and that the mighty Agathocles will be playing and touring around Canada as well. Of course I will be attending! Also we are hoping to play at OEF Montreal but at this point we are still waiting to see if our application is approved.
Aaaand that’s all, folks! Thank you so much for your time here with us and your answers!)
Thanks Alexander for this interview and all your support!
For more info & contacts:
G.O.D. fb
G.O.D. bandcamp
