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Ahead
of their slot opening for Devil Driver at Rio’s in Leeds, I had a
chance to sit down for a quick chat with Malefice singer Dale Butler.
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MM
- So how’s the tour been going and what have you got planned
for when it’s finished?
DB -
The tour’s been going great. This is our third show in about
ten nights, it’s been going wicked, and everyone’s getting
on really well. We’ve been out with Devil Driver before but
we’ve never been out with any of the other guys before but
they’ve been really fucking cool, everyone’s been drinking
loads, partying loads – the way it should be.
After this,
we’ve got a few one-offs at the end of this year and some cool
shit happening at the beginning of next year that I
unfortunately can’t tell you about yet, but we should be
announcing it soon and it’ll be pretty good.
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MM
- What’s it like being on such a diverse bill of bands?
DB - It’s
erm...good, ha-ha! (Quick glance over to members of Suicide Silence who
are currently sat on the other side of the room). Everyone brings
something else to the table, everyone’s different in their respective
ways so it makes for quite a diverse bill. It’s good fun,
you’ve got something here for everyone on this tour no matter what
kind of metal you listen to.
MM
- Quite good value for money too...
DB - Yeah
totally, you get fucking five bands! I mean who tours with five bands
nowadays? Except for the Americans...(another glance over to the Suicide
Silence table) ha-ha!
MM
- With you guys being first on, is it hard to try and decide which songs
to put into the set?
DB - Yeah,
especially when you’re on your second album and they only give you
twenty minutes. But we know what songs we enjoy playing more and what
songs come across better live so we tend to just throw them in but we do
try and mash it up a bit every night like, we won’t stick to the same
set just because it gets a bit boring after a while. Just trial and
error, really.
MM
- When you’ve only got that short amount of time, do you feel like
once you’ve just got going it’s finished just as quickly?
DB - You
feel like that if you do half an hour or 45 minutes. The only time you
ever feel like you’ve done a proper set is when you’ve played for
like an hour and a half and you actually want to die by the time you get
to the end! If you come off stage and you’re still full of energy then
you haven’t done enough.
MM
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You often get billed with a
lot of extreme metal bands, how’s the reaction been from
‘underground’ fans given that you guys actually have some melody and
choruses and a groove that sets you apart from some bands that you often
get billed with?
DB
- There’s always going to be the elitist pricks that stand there
at gigs with their arms crossed looking ‘metal’ wearing
t-shirts where you can’t even fucking read the band name. You know
what I mean? You’re always going to get them who go (adopts moronic
tone of voice) “eurgh, you’re singing, it ain’t metal”. But they
can get fucked because they don’t like anything for longer than a week
and I don’t really want them listening to my band to be honest.
MM
- The kind of people that think once a band sells more than 10 records,
they’re automatically shit ...
DB - Yeah,
it’s like the old, proper underground black metal vibe – if you’re
band is successful or records music, then you’re not black metal, if
your band plays gigs, you’re not black metal. Like you’ve literally
just got to sit in a room looking angry and grim, doing your make-up! We
don’t want nothing to do with that, man. At the end of the day, we
love extreme music, we love making extreme music and we love writing
songs as well so we’re always going to inject melody into the stuff we
do because that’s who we are. We don’t go out to be an ‘extreme’
band, we’ve always wanted to be a metal band. We do kind of fall into
the more heavy side of the genre but that’s not on purpose, we don’t
go out making out like we’re the heaviest thing around.
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MM
- What bands got you into metal when you were younger and made
you want to do this yourself?
DB - Two
bands for me were Pantera and Metallica. Pantera
inspired me mainly for what they achieved. They did a lot
of cool shit, playing the music they wanted to play and they
never compromised their sound at all and they made themselves
popular by doing that. And the second band is Metallica.
I don’t know any band that isn’t out on the road at the
moment that hasn’t been inspired by them in some way or
another.
What
they can do to a crowd is fucking unbelievable, it doesn’t
matter how many times I see them – every time I see them
it’s just amazing.
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MM
- What’s the overall response been to the new album since it was
released?
DB - It’s
been good man. It’s been really good in the US and the UK. The
Europeans haven’t got into it as much as they got into ‘Entities’
but you can’t win everything, I’d rather have the UK and the US
behind us. It’s been well received both in the press and with fans.
MM
- How do you think ‘Dawn of Reprisal’ differs from ‘Entities’?
DB - I
think it’s a little more melodic in a weird kind of way. We wrote
‘Entities’ when we were 19 and we weren’t anywhere near as capable
musicians as we are now so things have changed a lot more technically
and a lot more with how we see the band and where we want to take it.
It’s just stepped up in maturity really in the sound and the way we
went about writing our record.
MM
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This is your first release
for Metal Blade, how have things changed for you as a band since signing
with them?
DB
- We’re part of a family now. Once you get a big label behind you,
it doesn’t necessarily get easier, if anything it gets harder, but
you’ve got a safety net and you’ve always got someone
fighting your corner which we’ve never, ever had before. It’s not
changed an awful lot, it’s still fucking hard work coming out and
doing this but Metal Blade are always there to help us, there’s always
someone on the other end of the phone – whatever we need, they’re
there and it’s brilliant.
MM
- Cool, well I wanted to ask what your take was on the whole illegal
downloading thing and do you guys feel affected by it?
DB - Of
course man. Everyone here’s fucking affected by it but there’s not a
lot we can do. I can sit here and piss and moan about it but it’s not
going to change the fact that it fucking happens. As long as people come
to shows, buy shirts and rock out, that’s all we can do. You don’t
make any money from CD sales anymore, it’s all changed. All your money
is (made from) playing live and t-shirts, there’s nothing to be made
from selling CD’s anymore. It’s a shame but it’s just one of those
things. I mean, Metallica tried, Lars tried standing up for it and look
where it got him. And if Metallica can’t make a fucking difference,
what the hell are we going to be able to do, you know what I mean?
MM
- Do you think it helps when bands bring out albums in fancy, special
packaging and things like that?
DB - The
Tool album last year with the big fold-out packaging last year was
awesome, but unfortunately nobody buys CD’s anymore. We were talking
about this earlier – our album art was on some designer’s forum, a
really big deal and it won best album art for 2009 and we thought that
was absolutely wicked and we’re really proud of the geezer that did it
but what was the fucking point? You can put all this effort and time
into designing this package for people to buy and they don’t buy it. I
don’t think you’ll be able to get CD’s for much longer, anyway.
MM
- Well, on a happier note, you’ve had a really successful couple of
years, going from Download last year to Bloodstock this year. What’s
it been like playing the two biggest metal festivals in the UK in such a
short space of time?
DB - We
still don’t feel we’ve done enough, though. We always want more, all
the time. It’s like, you’ve got Download but we want Hellfest (in
France) and Wacken (in Germany) as well. I mean we’re fucking honoured
to do it, man. We’re literally living our dreams right now, we can’t
knock what’s happened but if we had it our way, we’d be on tour 365
days a year and play absolutely fucking everywhere. We’ve just got to
keep our feet on the ground and we’re slowly building up momentum,
2010 is going to be a massive year for us.
MM
- So where’s next for Malefice to conquer?
DB - Every
territory is just as important as the next so whatever we get offered,
we’re going to go. Whether it’s Europe, the UK or the US, whatever
comes up, we’ll do. There’s no point just sitting and thinking
“we’re going to focus on Europe for two years” because you might
not get any tours so whatever we get offered we’re just going to do.
MM
- Cool. You mentioned
wanting to be on tour 365 days a year but obviously there’s downsides.
Do you always manage to stay positive and look on the bright side of it?
DB
- There are downsides of course but at the end of the day, if I’m
not on tour, I’m not happy. I mean, I get pissed off when I’m on
tour as well but if I’m not here, I’d be sitting at home looking at
my feet, just doing nothing, you know? And we’re all really good
friends, we’ve all grown up with each other in the band so even if we
don’t get on with the bands we’re on tour with, we get on with each
other but luckily every tour we’ve been on, everyone’s been awesome.
Everyone has bad days of course but there’s always someone there to
pick you up.
MM
- Well, I know you’ve got
a tight schedule today with so many bands so congratulations on the two
albums and thank you for taking the time out to talk to us.
DB
- No problem, man. Thanks very much.
Interview: Adam G. |