interview with Internal Rot
Have any of you played in other bands? We've all played in heaps of bands over the years, the most notable are probably Super Fun Happy Slide, Roskopp, Agents of Abhorrence.
How is it that you started playing music? Internal Rot began in 2010 shortly after Roskopp had broken up and Christoph was looking to jam some fast grindcore to keep up his stamina behind the kit. Christoph and I had a few jams, wrote a bunch of songs that sounded pretty cool and then roped our friend Max into singing for us. We released a 7" EP on 625 Thrash/Crucificados within that first 12 month period and even managed to play a handful of shows in the US too, surprisingly productive for a band that has me in it.
What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you? Christoph - Drums Brad - Guitars Max - Vocals
Have you had other previous members? Nope.
Did you make music even when you were young? I've been playing drums and guitar since I was 9, Max and Christoph both started drumming around the same age or in their teens.
Where are you from? Melbourne, Australia
What year did the band form? 2010
What's your style of genre? Grindcore
What inspires you? Mad riffage, mosh power, unbridled wildness.
How often and where do you reherse? At a rehearsal room anywhere between once a week to once a month usually.
How have you developed since you started with the music? Riffs have become slightly stupider, as have our brains.
Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that? We do all that stuff ourselves, we play grindcore, not teeny bopper eyeliner 'hardcore'.
Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that? We've been lucky that great labels we've listened to for years have been willing to release our records. 625 Thrash, Crucificados, Blastasfuk, Lethal Dose and Psychocontrol have all wasted their $$$'s on our noises.
What made you decide to make this music? We just love making noise and trying to write songs that are exactly what we want to listen to.
What are your songs about? Nothing in particular, just a general resentment towards humans and society and other ugly subject matter. There's definitely no 'message' with our lyrics.
Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? Max
Do you start with the music or the lyrics? Music. Usually songs are made up during jams and slowly improved upon over the next few rehearsals. Lyrics are added much further down the track.
Do you compose in a certain inviroment? Hot, sweaty and most of all SMELLY jam rooms.
Have you done any covers live? Parlamentarisk Sodomi - Stilltiendehetens Bordell Phobia - Sickening Discretion Benumb - Nothing Personal Nailbomb - Wasting Away
What language do you sing in? English
What are the least and most people to attend one of your gigs? Internal Rot has been lucky and not had a real terrible gig as far as turnout goes, most people would be 200 or so. We're definitely not a stadium rock band as much as we'd like to be. Personally I have played a gig in another band to 2 people, at least it wasn't 0.
What ages are most of your concert attendants? 15-50
Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? We vary out setlist each gig, but there's songs we tend to play most of the time and only a couple that we refuse to play because they're too hard.
Do you have a regular place you play live often? Bendigo Hotel is a pub that puts on lots of gigs, we play in warehouses/squats/houses a fair bit as well as pubs.
What was your first gig like? Fun. I remember my guitar sounded like shit, Max jumped around a lot and we played a cool Parlamentarisk Sodomi cover. The show was with Ross and Garbage Guts, the greatest goregrind band to have done bugger all.
What was your latest gig? We played at a squat house, it was wild as always. Young drunk punks know how to party.
Have you had to cancel a gig? A couple of times, mostly due to scheduling. The problem with playing in so many bloody bands.
Where have you played live this year? We toured the East Coast of Australia early in the year with MANHUNT and have played plenty of gigs in our hometown Melbourne also.
Where do you plan to gig the comming year? We're playing in Sydney for East West Deathgrind Fest in December and hopefully Total Attack Fest in Brisbane next May. We toured the USA in 2014 then I had a kid, so it might be a while before we make it overseas again.
When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? - S/T EP 7" - Mental Hygiene LP/CD - Internal Rot/Manhunt split 7" - Live & Rehearsal TAPE - US Tour Tape We have had a few shirt designs also but they are all long sold out.
Where can people buy your merchandise? We don't have any to sell direct from the band, but you can purchase these releases and more from the labels that released them. 625 Thrash, Crucificados, Blastasfuk, Noise Not War, Lethal Dose, Psychocontrol.
What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? People still buy the physical product, just not as many as back in the day perhaps. International Postage cost is probably more of an issue and to the detriment of underground music.
How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? People just get their music directly from the bands more than labels now. Not the end of the world, just a shift in the way we go about getting our music out to people.
Do you have any role models or idols? No real role models, but there are definitely musicians we've taken great influence from I suppose. Maybe even more so just our fellow bandmates and friends, everyone is human at the end of the day and more often than not idolizing people when you're an adult is pretty lame.
Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? It's the older bands that we take the biggest influence from, but there are always elements of everything we listen to that manage to seep into the noise we make. It's hard not to subconsciously rip off or imitate something fresh and wild you might have heard recently. At the end of the day we just want to play songs we think kick arse and we'd love to listen to if we weren't playing it.
What have been your biggest obstacles? Procrastination, terrible equipment.
What advice would you give other bands or artists? Release stuff, tour and don't play shit songs or be a dickhead.
Do you have any new material? There is a split 7" with Mellow Harsher (USA) coming out hopefully before the end of the year.
What are your web sites? facebook.com/internalrottersinternalrotters.bandcamp.com
How can people reach you? [email protected]
What are your plans for the future? Write and record for a bunch of split releases we have in the works and hopefully play some shows around Australia, and eventually overseas again.
Do you have something to add? Cheers for the interview, all the best with the site and thanks to anyone who gives half a shit about our band.
