Halloween Hysteria is a day-long event at the iconic Jubilee Hotel in Brisbane’s capital of live music, Fortitude Valley, taking place on Saturday 27 October. Featuring 30 bands over three stages representing the cream of Australia’s heavy talent, the big gig features grindcore thrashers King Parrot, as one of featured headliners. The Melbourne metallers just came off a US run with Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals so we caught up with frontman Matt Young to discuss the tour, the upcoming Hysteria show and much more.
Steve: I see the Halloween Hysteria show is coming up and it looks mad and massive.
Matt: Yeah it’s going to be awesome, I’m really looking forward to it. It’s going to be killer, just basically got back and just going to do a couple of the Aussie shows including the Halloween Hysteria [this] weekend to finish off the year and then get back in there and start writing some new stuff.
Steve: Nice!
Matt: Yeah we are looking forward to getting up to Brissy and blasting it out. It’s always a pleasure up there, Brisbane’s become like a second home for us. I mean other than Melbourne, like our drummer Toddy is from up there so he spent a bit of time up there. We sometimes jam up there during winter and times like that, it’s always nice to get out of Melbourne and get up to Queensland.
Steve: Yeah going to keep yourself a bit warm (laughs).
Matt: Yeah that’s it mate, thaw out a little bit.
Steve: Yeah get the old bones moving
Matt: That’s it mate/
Steve: So yeah 42 bands over 3 stages that’s a mighty, mighty effort.
Matt: Yeah that’s a big effort. We are honored to be on it and headlining as well, been a while since we played at the Jubilee Hotel Brisbane. It’s been since 2014 since we’ve played there at the Dead of Winter Festival. The way that they have set up the menu was really great, we are actually playing on the same stage we played on 4 years ago. It’ll be great, it’s going to be really cool.
Steve: Awesome so I see you guys got an ARIA nomination for Bad Produce. It’s a huge deal given that it’s a well known fact that they don’t particularly like us metal heads.
Matt: Yeah especially the ones who play Grindcore.
Steve: You got it in one.
Matt: I don’t know what’s going on there. I mean we’ve had a lot of people saying congratulations and all that and we also hear the metal heads carrying on about it so it’s like, what if it was their band getting a nomination, they’d be happy. At the end of the day we play what we play, the music that we love. It’s very extreme metal and it’s in your face and it’s full on but we’ve been working on our band a number of years now, we’ve got 3 albums and we’ve got countless shows under our belt, we’ve toured all over the world. What we have achieved in our band has exceeded all of our expectations that we initially had to the fact that we’re acknowledged by the Australian recording industry association as a band. We work hard at what we do and I think they recognize that and we’re not cool and we’re not hip and we’re not trendy and we’re not any of those things. We’re just us and we’re just King Parrot. We don’t fit in to any of those scenes or bullshit, we just do our thing and we’re just no frills, no flashy shit.
It’s just hard work and hard music and we’ll take on the nomination obviously so we don’t expect to win it or anything like that but we’re just happy to be there and be nominated and be amongst other bands that are more popular than us and have a lot of mainstream appeal than us. For us to be mentioned in the same breath as those bands they obviously work extremely hard just like us. They do what they do and that’s cool and we respect that and we respect the kind of work that goes into playing in any kind of band, it is serious though especially on the scale that we do and any of the bands that have been nominated we’re well aware of that other stuff. It’s nice for a bunch of bogans from Melbourne to be able to have the opportunity to be a part of that.
Steve: Yeah absolutely it must have come as a surprise to you guys given the nature of your music, given how extreme it is, to be given that honor just to be mentioned, it’s awesome. You guys definitely put in the hard yards throughout the year. I’ve followed you guys extensively so yeah, it’s awesome to see it come to fruition for a lack of a better analogy.
Matt: This is the second time we have been nominated now so it’s certainly not a coincidence. You know that many countries that you know that have major music awards – we have the ARIA’s – Grammys and stuff in the US that most people know of, there’s obviously a lot of other awards around the world where there is not too many other countries that I can think of, maybe like Norway or Sweden or something like that, where extreme metals bands get put on the same pedestal as the more mainstream hard rock kind of bands. It think it is a really great thing for extreme metal in Australia. There is us and Thy Art is Murder, they are a little bit different to what we do but you know, they are playing some pretty extreme stuff too. They have been getting a lot of support and popularity around the country and overseas as well. It’s great that we can get into that sort of world so it’s not an easy feat.
Steve: Sure, yeah and CJ and the boys are an epic bunch of dudes, they give their time to the fans as well. It’s awesome to see the Australian scene as a whole kind of flourish.
Matt: Yeah it’s great man, it’s really good. We are friends with those guys, we owe them a little bit. They took us out on a 3rd or 4th proper tour. They really helped us when we were first getting established in Australia, it’s really great to see what they are doing overseas and here in Australia too, they’re killing it and it is really cool.
Steve: Yeah for sure. So tell me about your friendship with the one and only Mr Philip H Anselmo? How did that come about? I know it extends a fair way back so the fans are keen to know how that came about.
Matt: Yeah Philip has been a good friend of mine and a really strong supporter of the band for many years now and pretty much since we started. He caught onto our band and I guess he thought what many other people thought, like what the fuck is this shit (laughs). We met him and the guys from down at Soundwave in 2014 and not long after we were doing our first US tour and he came to one of our shows and hung out. We went and stayed at his place for a day and we just sort of hit it off. Not long after that we were out on tour with Down in the States and Canada later that same year. At that time we signed with Housecore Records and recorded an album at his studio and since then we have been on tour with Superjoint a couple of times and most recently we just toured with the Illegals and that was amazing man, it was one the best tours in the States.
Phil is a great guy, he’s a genuine dude. He’s lived a crazy life, I can’t imagine what it would of been like for him constantly touring, tour after tour after tour and recording and playing in a million different bands and he knows so many people. He’s definitely been no stranger to controversy and all that shit as well, from what I know of Phil is that he’s a genuine guy and has a heart of gold. He loves music, he loves supporting up and coming bands. A lot of the shit that are thrown around by other people about him, I don’t believe it to be true. I think that most people that follow him or know him as a great person who has a good heart and is very generous person and giving person of his time and I mean like everyone, he’s made his mistakes but he’s under the microscope more than most.
Steve: Yeah because he’s one of the figureheads of our generation I suppose.
Matt: He is man and what I can say is that he’s in probably the best shape he’s been in 20 years, his voice sounds amazing. The Illegals are in great form and playing tight as hell. They are smashing out some classic Pantera songs and I was lucky enough to get up and do “I’m Broken” with Phil 4 or 5 of the last shows that we played on the tour. That was just a different experience being a young Pantera fan as a kid and growing up with all that stuff so he’s been a big influence in so many ways.
Steve: On the subject of working with epic people, I see that you managed to snag a position with Max Cavalera on Arch Angel, was that a similar situation or did you get a magical phone call?
Matt: Let me think, I can’t quite remember actually. He invited us to come and see him, I think he was playing Killer Be Killed a few years ago at Soundwave or something. I went and met Max before the show and we had a really good chat. We stayed in contact and he spoke about potentially doing some guest vocals on the last Soulfly album. I think we were over there not long after Soundwave and we went through Phoenix, Arizona where they lived and I think we were on tour with Weedeater and Max came with the tribe to the show. We all hang out and had a really good time, Max pulled me aside, showed me the song he wanted me to record, had some of the lyrics written and he wanted me to write some of them as well so we sat in the car and he sang the song for me while I was sitting in the car. It was pretty surreal but really cool, Max is a great guy.
So a couple of days later I was in LA just went around to the producer’s house and we smashed it out. I had sent in what I had written for approval, he was all for it and just said go for it bro and it was really cool to collaborate with him. Since then we did a massive European tour with Soulfly, it’s probably 2 years ago now and that was a great experience too man, getting to spend a lot of time with Max. No one works harder in the metal world than Max, he’s constantly on tour, constantly playing, working his ass off. It was very inspirational to see.
Steve: For yourself it must feel surreal to step on stage and record with these guys given their extensive back catalog in history. And I guess influenced on yours and my life growing up.
Matt: Yeah it is bizarre but those were my goals. Doing the the things I always wanted to achieve, these are the things I’ve always wanted to do since I was a kid. For a long time for me drugs and alcohol got in the way of that and I suffered with a lot of issues because of that all through my 20’s and by the time I got to 30 I was so sick of not being able to achieve what I wanted to achieve. I put all that shit down and focused on music and focused on writing and getting with musicians that were as committed to touring as I am. Playing and taking on the business side a bit and trying to make the most of it, making the most of my opportunities and as a result of the work we’ve done with King Parrot we’ve been rewarded with amazing opportunities and some amazing experiences that have been a payoff for the work we have put in.
Steve: Absolutely couldn’t agree more. It’s a case where you guys have worked hard as well, this is kind of like the cherry on top of the cake.
Matt: Pretty much man, I mean we’re not showing signs of slowing down too much. We love what we do, we love our band and we put a lot of work into it. I could tell you some crazy shit that happened to our band behind the scenes and lots of challenges as bands and businesses do but it has made us more resilient and determined. We’re committed to making this music, we love doing it so we’ll just keep pounding away at it.
Steve: So in terms of new material are you guys the sort of band that likes to go into the studio environment and then bash it out or do you take inspiration from something and write it down while on the road for future reference and go in and record? How does it work for you guys?
Matt: Usually we come into the studio with a few ideas and jam it out. I sit there and listen and sometimes the vocal ideas don’t come to me straight away so I like to listen. Sometimes I sit in the control room in the studio while the guys are jamming, just jot my ideas down and don’t interject too much with the vocal arrangements because there is already a lot of chopping and changing going on with parts and all that kinds of stuff. I will sit there and try and get my vocal ideas down separate and if there’s a bit that needs to go a bit longer or a bit shorter, I’ve got an idea here or there then we might change something a little bit to cater to the vocal ideas. But it’s always different, there is no real set formula. We do it the old school way, we get in and jam it out.
Steve: Do you find that you shy away from music in terms of listening to it while writing new material or are you the kind of artist that likes to immerse yourself in other music to get ideas?
Matt: Oh yeah I’m constantly listening to music, probably listening to all kinds of music all the time 24/7 pretty much. If I’m at home or in the car there’s always music going unless there’s a game of football on, I’d be listening to that (laughs). On the radio or watching it on TV but for the most part of it I’m either listening to it or playing it.
Steve: And do you find given the style of music that you guys play that you tend to shy away from heavier stuff while you are not obviously playing it or do you still go through the old grincore bands and stuff like that?
Matt: Oh yeah man I listen to absolutely everything. I listen to all sorts lost of rock stuff, I love going back rediscovering old bands and things like that and newer stuff that’s coming out. Some of that doesn’t resonate with me as much just like the older stuff does. If there’s bands that I may have skipped or something when I was growing up that I hadn’t heard of like old metals bands, old hardcore bands, punk bands, I love rediscovering that. That’s one the things I love to do. That being said, Ido love supporting new stuff that’s coming out and there is some great stuff that’s out there at the moment. I just got the new Palm record from Japan and it is absolutely killer man, it’ so good. We played with them last year in Japan and did bunch of shows up there with them, great guys, really killer dudes. Their new album is just amazing, I’m really really happy for them.
Steve: On that note I’m going to go check them out.
Matt: Yeah you said it man, what a fucking band.
Steve: And live I bet they rip in half as well.
Matt: Dude yeah live it’s kind of scary watching these Japanese dudes fucking tear it apart. About what they do, there’s obviously a lot of bands in Japan, the scene is pretty strong and these guys when we were playing with them over there, they just brought this intensity to a new level and it was like, ‘Holy fuck man, we’ve gotta bring our A game if we’re going to play with these guys’. These guys are fucking serious, an amazing band man, definitely check it out. It has been released in Australia through EVP recordings.
Steve: Speaking of Japanese bands I have one for you. A grindcore band called Gorevent, they are really, really super heavy, sort of in the vein of The Day Everything Became Nothing.
Matt: Oh yeah I know them very well.
Steve: It’s a little hard to track down but there you go.
Matt: It’s alright I have some good contacts in Japan who know all the grindcore stuff so I’m sure they’ll hook me up, they will point me in the right direction. I know the guys from Butcher ABC and the girls from Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in the Dilapidation.
Steve: I can’t say I do.
Matt: Oh well you have to check it out dude, it’s fucking great! All female grindcore band from Japan. It’s just a really fucking stupid band name. We met them a few years ago in Indonesia, we played at the Obscene Extreme Festival with them and yeah, really fucking cool.
Steve: So i guess finally as a fan and someone who interviews a lot of bands, I love the fact that you guys obviously take your craft seriously but you don’t take the whole business side of it too seriously. I’ll give you a prime example, the box set that came out with Ugly Produce was a box of shit I believe it’s called (laughs). I tip my hate to you guys! Is that kind of intentional to throw the cat amongst the pigeons for lack of a better analogy.
Matt: Absolutely man. We know what our audience is, we know where our audience is at with King Parrot and we just try and create new things that will entertain us and appeal to others who like that sort of stuff. The sort of stuff that we do and put out like the videos and merchandise and all that sort of stuff, we just put out stuff that we would want.
Steve: Because you guys are fans as well.
Matt: Absolutely man, we’re bigger fans of music than most of our fans so it’s like we draw influence from many different places and I try and create something of our own which is what we’ve been able to do quite successfully. You can’t say King Parrot’s not original, it comes from it’s own space and place. I don’t think there is anyone doing what we do, I don’t think there is anyone that sounds how we sound. So it is what it is, I’m glad that we’ve been able to create that and carve out our own little niche there.
Steve: Absolutely! So is there any words for the fans here in the west? Whether you’ll be trotting back over here or is that still up in the air?
Matt: Keep your eyes and ears peeled, we’ll be coming over there soon. We’ll be back soon enough I got a big surprise for ya so keep your eyes and ear peeled. We should have an announcement before the end of the year, we can’t wait to tell you what’s going on. It won’t be too long that’s for sure.
Steve: Well thank you so much for your time!
Matt: Absolutely, thanks for your support.
Steve: Not at all, you’ve got it 110 percent and we look forward to the surprise announcement. Good luck with everything and have fun at the Halloween Hysteria festival, it should be a blast.
Matt: It’s a killer lineup so we’re going to have a ball like we always do.
oung Henrys and Hysteria Mag Present
HALLOWEEN HYSTERIA 2018
A celebration of all things loud.
THE BENNIES and KING PARROT
with
VOID OF VISION • HARD-ONS • ALPHA WOLF • VOIID • PRESS CLUB • WHORETOPSY
BARE BONES • STEPSON • BAD JUJU • HANNY J • AFTER TOUCH
DROWN THIS CITY • OUTRIGHT • FIREBALLS • AVIVA • BLACK RHENO
EXHIBITORS (SG) • FALCIFER • DRIVEN FEAR • ARTERIES • VALHALORE
BAKERS EDDY • THE WRATH • KILL THE APPRENTICE • BETH LUCAS
BLIND MAN DEATH STARE • BENCH PRESS • FROM CRISIS TO COLLAPSE
SATURDAY 27 OCTOBER • JUBILEE HOTEL • 18+
