Interview - with Brisbane Thrashers IDLE RUIN [18.04.22]
With the advent of, well... being able to actually go outside once more, there is a sense of both trepidation and excitement mutually hanging in the air for musicians and punters alike.
The capacity to outreach past one's own room, then out into the streets and now interstate, means that we are able to cautiously approach diverse bills of Australian talent as we enjoyed pre-pandemic - that is, a mix of interstate and local acts riffing shoulder-to-shoulder.
An upcoming example of such a conglomerate of musical minds is the infamous Adelaide metal-mecca known as the New Dead Festival, now in it's 11th iteration.
Particularly keen to make the jaunt to South Australia next weekend is the respective members of Brisbane's Idle Ruin, who will be making an appearance on the day alongside other fellow Queenslander comrades-in-arms Minus Life, Descent, etc.
Formed recently during, well, all these goings-on lately, members Liam Anthony (lead vocals/drums), Kaleb Doherty (guitars/vocals) and Tim Maastricht (bass), boast a collective CV ranging from thrash (Malakyte, Kaustic Attack) to extreme metal (Bone Marrow, Decapitated Mum, Feculent, etc) and others, on both studio and live fronts.
Unsurprisingly then, the hyper-speed riff-fest of their blackened take on thrash metal seamlessly incorporates this wide range of influences, manifesting in a fierce sound on both disc and stage.
Recent single 'Valley Inferno' , released in February of this year, has garnered much acclaim and attention. I'll let the riffs do the talking, and I'd be lying if I wasn't vibing some serious Mille Petrozza/Ventor influence in those vocals.
Now, back to talking... I recently contacted the band to conduct an interview via correspondence Q and A format.
INTERVIEW:
BRADY - For your upcoming interstate tour in New Dead Festival, and in general, how are things in the Idle Ruin camp at the moment? Excited to be playing on the bill?
LIAM - Definitely. We've had a lot of Adelaide fans hassle us to come down there already, and we're pretty excited to be making our Adelaide debut with something as awesome as New Dead festival!
TIM - Things are solid and we're stoked to be playing a new state and showing the rest of Aus what we can do!
KALEB - For myself, I've never been to Adelaide so going somewhere new and playing an absolute killer festival, I'm honestly honored to play New Dead Fest!
BRADY - Let's get the requisite question out of the way. With the prospect of touring locally, interstate etc now back on the horizon, does the background continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic present any difficulties or trepidation with playing shows elsewhere?
TIM - It's always scary heading to an interstate show as you don't want to get sick the week of. It's moreso personal difficulties like you don't want to leave your house for the two weeks leading up hahaha
LIAM - We were set to begin 2022 with a tour of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne which got canned, due to two members suffering from COVID. Not to forget there were also the floods we had in Brisbane in March that cancelled another one of our shows. Plagues and floods... ominous.
BRADY - With a fairly tight-knit scene up there, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but outside the obvious impacts of the pandemic elsewhere, I feel like the localising of shows to Brisbane/SEQ/QLD must have had flow-on effects for lineups, the general vibe of the scene etc. Have there been any notable changes you guys noticed on bills you played during that time?
KALEB - I was a bit cautious at first to see if shows would even go ahead, but we were lucky that most of our shows went ahead and it's great to be on the stage again. And now that things have sort of settled down a bit, there seems to be more gigs on nowadays.
LIAM - I guess in Brisbane we were lucky to have a lot of our local shows continue last year, to varying degrees of success. A lot of interstate visits would get cancelled, which obviously sucked, but sometimes the gig would get bumped up to a bigger local show at the last minute. The localisation has given bands opportunities to tour Queensland more as well.
TIM - For me the most notable things is that shows get outright cancelled THAT week or bands come and go constantly from the bill.
BRADY - Speaking of locations - being a Brisbane band, and considering the lyric video, I'm assuming this latest song is pointed towards a certain notorious section of town?
LIAM - "Valley Inferno" is about a true crime event that occurred in Brisbane during the seventies. Fortitude Valley was considered a notorious part of town during that time (it's mostly gentrified now), which peaked with the firebombing of one of the well-known clubs "Whiskey Au Go Go". It was considered one of the worst acts of Australian domestic terrorism until Port Arthur in 1996.
BRADY - The new single has some pretty thick tones and crosses the realm of classic thrash, with some blackened/death metal influences. What are the bands' current musical influences? Any particular gear or software that contributed to the overall sound?
TIM - I think I speak for the thrash as each of us have our own elements, Kebab being the death metal side, Liam being the black metal side. I'm very influenced by 80's thrash but I like to hear it with modern production. Exodus is a great example.
LIAM - We tend to flip-flop between death metal and blackened thrash. I've always been fascinated with the very early death and first-wave black metal bands from Europe and South America, stuff like Kreator, Celtic Frost, Sarcofago, and even some of the early Aussie stuff like Slaughter Lord. I'm also a big fan of grind, crust, and lots of other punk/death metal crossover stuff - bands like Noisem, Wormrot, Nails, Unbound, etc.
KALEB - I myself love Death Metal, I pretty much live and breathe it! For this I could squeeze in some of that Death Metal goodness with the mix of Blackened Thrash and I love the mix of it all. I'm a big fan of Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation and Skeletal Remains which is a good mix for what we're doing. I always use my Peavey 6505 which has been part of our sound for a while now though that isn't what I used for the EP but for the "Valley Inferno" single I definitely used it and mixed it in with a classic Marshall to get the mid thickness.
BRADY - As a three-piece thrash band, and one with a drummer handling the majority of vocals, does this change the dynamic in any significant way between songwriting, onstage performance etc? For my own ears, you guys sound a four-piece.
KALEB - For songwriting not so much as when we started Liam did all the writing, and since we went to work on an album Tim and I have written some songs as well, and it's been going really well when it comes to that. Stage-wise is definitely a different dynamic, I'm used to having a vocalist near me - but it's good to have some freedom with Tim running around and destroying our necks! And I can say for all of us, we try to make this band as huge as it can be.
TIM - The sonically big sound that creates a 4-piece comes from Kebab's massive guitar tone. He's honed that over many years and it's just so unique. Otherwise for live performances, it's always funny watching some confusion in the crowd when Liam is bantering and people are wondering where it's coming from...
LIAM - With me handling vocals it does allow Kaleb and Tim to do more windmills out the front! Despite all the "bassist" jokes we throw at Tim, he really is the second guitarist of the band, which in essence is how a bass player *should* be.
BRADY - Who are you most excited to catch at New Dead Festival? Any bands you guys haven't seen that you're especially keen for?
LIAM - We're keen to party with the lads in Descent (guitarist Brendan engineered both our EP and single), and I'm looking forward to seeing In Malice's Wake again after so long. I haven't had an opportunity to see Abramelin yet, so that'll be exciting.
KALEB - As Liam said, keen to see the Descent boys especially since they released a new album! Been a long while since I saw Hadal Maw and keen to see Abramelin and Stargazer. Been really getting into Stargazer over the past year so stoked to finally see them!
TIM - I'm fucking keen for Lo! Their live energy is contagious and the monstrous presence is criminal. I'd hate to follow that band at any show.
And a couple of questions from Aussie Music Facebook group, MusoLegion (who love your stuff)!
Funniest and/or most interesting gig memories ever for the band, and why?
KALEB - Easily will have to be the time we filled in for a gig and we were just having fun and when we were at the outro for 'The Devil's Trade', one of our mates runs up on stage butt naked and surprised everyone except Tim as somehow he didn't see it. It was a struggle to do back up vocals and laughing my ass off.
TIM - It's always a "you had to be there" moment but I remember ubering through Sydney and seeing a shop that just had PIANO above it. Kebab asked "I wonder what they do in there" and I just said "Shhh"...
LIAM - The night after in Sydney we were playing Frankie's Pizza, and Kaleb - who is almost two metres tall - kept bashing his head into the ceiling foldbacks. Throughout our set despite all the noise we could hear him yelling "FUCK" each time he'd hit his noggin.
2. If Idle Ruin could be a dinosaur, what would they be? (Editor's Note: I am assuming in this sense it's an individual question, unless of course you guys would go full Beast Wars or Transformers into some horrific hybrid...)
KALEB - For some reason I can see us being a weird hybrid, I would want to be a Pterodactyl. I giant bird like creature screaming all over the place. Liam would be a T-Rex because imagine a T-Rex trying to play drums. And Tim would be a Dodo because to me that would funny (Love you Tim).
TIM - I reckon we'd be a Triceratops with metal armour plating and black war paint. They have three brutal horns and just charge into combat with reckless abandon.
LIAM - Do Kaiju count? King Ghidora! Though it'd be awkward if one of us needed to take a piss. Otherwise, we'd be three of those dinosaurs in Jurassic Park that spit at Newman from Seinfeld.
Support Idle Ruins' decimation of your ear-drums via the following mediums:
For bookings, etc - contact idleruin@gmail.com.
You can catch Idle Ruin at the upcoming New Dead Festival in Adelaide this weekend at the Lion Arts Factory, along with a star-studded line-up of other Australian acts such as Psycroptic, Lo!, Stargazer and many more.
Note: ISC Podcast is also available on: Our Youtube Podcast Page, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Castbox, GoodPods, iHeartRadio, PocketCasts and RadioPublic.