Today I spoke with Nathan from Crypt, Aussie Death Metal legends – for those who don’t know they were a big name down under who were active from 1990, splitting in 2000 only to reform in 2016. here’s my interview with guitarist Nathan
Why the break for so long? Were you guys all doing the family thing or?
At the time we stopped in 2000 the band had run out of gas. There was no plan to any of it, we just went our separate ways. I kept playing in bands and Cliff was doing Audio stuff, Allan was drumming in the Hymies for a long time too. Resurrecting the band happened naturally, Chris from Infernal Devastation asked Cliff about reissuing the 90s stuff which got us back in touch with each other. Initially it was just going to be about making the music available again but eventually the idea of us playing became a big deal to us all so we booked some shows that went really well and before long I was writing new songs.
The scene has a renewed energy with so many younger people being into it, there’s some exciting new bands and labels around- its great!
How has the DM scene changed since you have returned?
The scene has a renewed energy with so many younger people being into it, there’s some exciting new bands and labels around- its great! There’s also a lot more scope in metal now, it used to be metal and nothing else, now people into extreme metal listen to all kinds of stuff, its really helped to broaden the sound of extreme music, from stuff like SUNN O)))) to some of the newer synth stuff like Pertubator and S U R V I V E, even extreme noise shit like Russell Haswell or Fushitsusha is likely to be found in record collections that contain a lot of metal. Look at a band like Faceless Burial, all 3 of them are in other projects, Max and Alex play ALL kinds of music.
How was it to play with Nocturnus? Were you in contact with them in the early days?
It was great to see Nocturnus, although I would have loved it if Mike Davis was on guitar, that guy was out of control. I wasn’t in touch with them back in the day but those first 3 Nocturnus releases (up to the 7″) are killer, The Key is obviously a classic.
Both Death Metal and to a slightly lesser extent Black metal have thrived in Australia – do you see much similarities between the Queensland DM scene and say the Tampa one of the late 80s early 90s?
Not much other than both places being humid.
Brisbane has a very rich history of interesting bands. It’s a strange place.
Can you tell our readers what the scene in Queensland is like these days?
I moved to Melbourne in 2004 so didn’t have much to do with the current scene there until recently. It kind of feels much the same these days, there’s a lot of metal and punk bands around and only a couple of venues so not much has changed there. I’ve always found the scene in Brisbane a little claustrophobic being a smaller town there’s the same faces at every gig when it’s a local band, and a whole other crowd that appears for internationals. That said, Brisbane has a very rich history of interesting bands. It’s a strange place.
What are your thoughts on the new cannibal corpse album?
Haven’t heard it, I stopped listening to them when Chris Barnes departed.
How did the deal with EVP come about?
I work at the label, we were originally going to self-release but Mike who runs the label was keen to do it on EVP so of course we said yes!
Bandcamp exists now, not just an awesome place to discover music but a great tool for bands/musicians/labels.
Is there anything you miss from the old days of the scene? Eg: writing letters instead of emails? The thrill of discovering new bands and hunting down rare import copies of their vinyl etc?
Not really, it’s much easier now to get your music heard – there was no internet when we started out hahaha. It was exciting discovering new stuff back then but a lot of that had to do with our ages at the time I think. The 90s were a bad time for vinyl, it got to the point where new albums didn’t even come out on wax, whereas now everything comes out on vinyl. And venues are much better now, they usually have good PAs! I’m not all that sentimental for the ‘good old days’, things are just as good now, you just need to work a bit harder to cut through all the crap that’s out there. also Bandcamp exists now, not just an awesome place to discover music but a great tool for bands/musicians/labels.
Has your guitar set up changed much over the years? What would you tell your younger self if you could send one message back in time as far as guitar playing or gear?
Yeah it’s much better now I can afford real good shit haha! But the basic idea has stayed the same -using a tube head with built in gain, and a flanger pedal. I’ve never found a distortion pedal I’ve been totally happy with. Back in the 90s I was using a Peavey Ultra Plus head, now I have a 50W Soldano head in tandem with a Fender Prosonic head, the gain in the Soldano is the best I’ve ever heard. If there was one ‘gear’ related thing I could tell my younger self it would be to buy as much 70s Fender stuff as I could, it was real cheap in the early 90s and is worth a fortune now!
We’re definitely wanting to play in the USA next year
What goals would you love to achieve this time around?
Yeah playing MDF would be amazing. We’re definitely wanting to play in the USA next year, we have tentative plans to do so in the 2nd half of 2018. There’s almost an albums worth of music written for a new Crypt album so hopefully we can get that out next year too. We’re spread out across Brisbane/Sydney/Melbourne so we need to plan when we’re going to get together and get the most out of it, we only tour once a year so generally recording is done at the same time while were all together.
Any final words?
Thanks for the interview! Anyone interested in what we’re up to head to our facebook page – facebook.com/cryptdeathmetal/