Australia’s best grindcore band?
The Kill

What first got you excited about grindcore?
I suppose I gotta go back to when I first got into music, which was around 93. I didn’t just get turned onto metal alone, I heard a lot of different styles that I knew straight away from the feelings an imagery that it was creating, that I would indulge myself in it all with no end in site. Bands like, Sepultura, Metallica, Nirvana, Bad Religion, Slayer and Alice In Chains where what initially got me hooked. But as my ears began to become more in-tune over those first few years of listening to music, the more I became addicted and had to feed my appetite by finding new, varied and more intense forms of music. In 95 Napalm Death’s Diatribes was released, and at first it was the catchy mid-paced tracks like the opener “Greed Killing” that drew me in. I admit, the first few years of searching for new styles, bands like Cannibal Corpse and Napalm just seemed like noise and well…shit to me. But by the time Diatribes had come out my naive ears no longer heard noise, instead the intensity, dissonance and sheer brutality had become ever present, and the few tracks on the album that had blast beats became my fav’s and I was opened up to a whole new world.

Was it a viable financial decision to start up Grindhead?
No, i never looked at the label as being financially viable. I say that because I was pretty realistic with my goals and where i stood when setting up the label. I started it in 2002 mainly to give the band I was in, Ebolie, an avenue in which to be able to promote us to the world and help move it to the next level. I knew that I would in the beginning, and for quite a few years, be investing a lot more money than what would be coming back in. Eventually once ifact was established, then the aim was to break even so I could re-invest the money into new releases, promoting the already existing bands on the roster and so on. Although grindcore is gaining a bigger following around the world, it is still the most harsh and inaccessible style. It makes for a small market and majority of labels an distro’s work in a D.I.Y fashion, most of us work full time jobs and do all this is our spare time purely for the love of it. I won’t lie and say if for some odd reason I released a band that miraculously became a sensation that I would look a gift horse in the mouth, because that would be stupid to do so. But that is not what we are trying to do. We just wanna release bands that we enjoy and help promote and establish a solid scene here and abroad.

Gore and gore themes, what is its role in grind music?
I think they play a pivotal role in grindcore. If Napalm Death are the forefathers of politically charged grindcore, then Carcass are the forefathers of goregrind. You’ll have a lot of people say that “it’s not pro-active, and isn’t addressing important, serious social issue’s”, so it can’t be relevant”. I don’t agree, i think it is definitely as important for the one fact that if we only had the one ideal, or constant train of thought, then that would just be boring, one dimensional, predictable and would eventually become stale, losing it’s relevance and impact. Exploring new themes and ideas enabled grindcore to move on from just 60 second songs full of political themes regurgitated over and over again. I ask all the too serious and their preconceptions of how a band should act or be percieved, is your mindset actually stoping you from being able to enjoy yourself when you write or play live? Do you quickly adjust your persona if you accidentally show some enjoyment on stage? Then the irony and the jokes on you because you meant to enjoy it and there is nothing wrong with that. Just remember, no grindcore song or and band for that matter has ever cured cancer. Your lyrics are not gonna bring about a revolution…If you’re so passionate about it then get off your arse and actually go out and do something about it. Cause just having a whinge over some guitars and drums isn’t gonna do shit. So yeah, gore themes definitely have their place in grind.

When is the next slaughterfest? That day was freaking epic
Not doing one this year. Around mid 2011 we’ll put on Slaughterfest 4. This year i am putting on East West Deathgrind Fest 2 on Saturday the 20th of November.

What release are you most proud of?
I’d have to say Ebolie’s “Elevation Into Disintegration”. It was my first really professional release and all the artwork and inlay concept was my idea. A lot of time and effort went into putting that together and it was great feeling when it was finally pressed.

How many Carcass CD’s do you own?
17