Melbourne thrashers Desecrator are back with a new album “Summoning” which will be released on August 27th. The second full-length studio release sees the band expand on their sound even further which continues where their debut album “To The Gallows” left off. While their thrash roots are much retained, there’s definitely some real growth in part influenced by their own experiences on the road. In our latest interview with frontman Riley Strong, we talk about the new songs and what fans can expect plus share personal influences growing up including some great stories on Ugly Kid Joe and more.
Andrew: It’s been very tough for a lot of bands obviously for the last year and a half, it’s been quite a bit of a struggle I guess. How have you guys been dealing with it on and off with the lockdowns and stuff?
Riley: It was an intense period obviously to start with, who would have ever thought that our freedom to tour the world and our ability to play shows and get music across the line was ever going to be challenging in this type of way. There was no coping mechanism in place for anyone in any type of artistic form so we, like a lot of bands did what we could. We’ve adapted in a live sense, we’ve played seated shows, we’ve played reduced capacity shows. We’re biding our time and we waited what we thought was a much better time to release our next record. It’s been ready to and was about to be released when the first covid lockdowns hit Australia so we kinda had to put on ice for a while which was a really strange thing to do but I feel like now everyone is in such a positive frame to push forward whereas for a long time there was a lot of fear in bands and the industry in general of not knowing and I think everyone is over the not knowing and they are ready to just push forward with the, ‘Ah we’ve got to do something so let’s go’. So it feels like the time that bands have got to put something in and rebuild.
Andrew: So it sounds like you’ve been sitting with these songs for quite some time then.
Riley: Yeah the writing process had probably taken us a year before covid and then to sit on them for another year during covid was such an unexpected thing to do. We’re such an active and fast moving band, our last record was written and recorded between tours so to have this happen was foreign to us. It was the first time we’ had allowed ourselves to write a record at our own pace and write a record that we put no cattle gates on timing wise, they banned me from booking any more tours and any more shows until we’ve written the record. So we took quite a long time by our standards to do that and then who would of thought at the end of that we were going to be limited in being able to move and do anything. So yeah, quite a long period of being with the songs so it feels really nice to actually get them out and to show people what we did, to let people in on what we’ve been doing.
Andrew: I remember the last time we talked was about 4 years ago I think and we were talking about the fact that “To The Gallows” was surprisingly the first album for you guys. Because you guys have been around for quite some time and that was only your first album out, now with the second album coming out do you feel less pressure? How do you about the second album now?
Riley: It’s a very different record for us I’m gonna say because we took those cattle gates off. “To The Gallows” was recorded I think between two tours to kind of suit a time frame. We landed a really good overseas tour and we knew we needed the album out and released in the German or European market before we went back over there so we had most of the material written but we had to really work to a deadline to get it done and get it out and serve that purpose and not miss that opportunity whereas this time we didn’t have that. So whilst we took a lot longer to do it, the song writing process and the collaboration was so different because we had the option to walk away for a week to reasess to produce in a way that we hadn’t before and I think looking back on at the time, ten-odd years of the band, we were able to reflect on what Desecrator meant to us as musicians and what all that we achieved and the opportunities that we’ve been able to take advantage of, had given us. So when we sat down to write this record “Summoning”, we brought a lot more to the table that than an angry, touring thrash band. We brought a lot more of our life experience to it and I think it’s really welcome. I think it sounds like a Desecrator record to me, it sounds like a really nice progression, the Desecrator maturity wise but to me I think we shook off the blinkers a little bit and we embraced the wider genre of heavy metal with it. We’ve launched two singles so far and the reception seems to be pretty good, people seem to be digging it, people seem to be pre-ordering it and playing it so hopefully that trend continues. It kind of validates the process and kind of validates what we did.
Andrew: Well the album is coming out August 27th but I’ve had a chance to listen to the album thanks to your publicist.
Riley: Haha thanks Dysie!
Andrew: Yeah thank you very much Dysie! I’ve been a fan of yours for quite a while but this really does capture you guys really well, it’s really intense, it’s got a lot of melody in there as well as all the thrashy stuff. It does seem like you took what you did on the first album and kind of stepped it up a few notches so to speak.
Riley: I think we’ve learned a lot with the touring Desecrator’s done nationally and internationally, we’re such a live band and we take such pride in our live existence but we spend a lot of time reviewing what we think works and doesn’t work in a live setting – what people reaction to, what people don’t react to, what is kind of written indulgently to make us feel good and what’s written purely for the audience. I think as a musician there’s a balance between making yourself feel great when you’re playing songs and making other people feel great and there’s a connection between that, that you have to balance so you feel like you’ve fulfilled what you want to say but you’ve also translated what you want to say and I think that this album is really a surmise of what we think we have to offer that we believe people want to hear, what works about Desecrator, what people have come to us and said, ‘That’s the bit we dig’ or ‘That’s great tonight’.
We’ve really focused on refining who and what we want to be in a song which is a cool thing. I think this album song writing wise was a lot more collaborative between the members as well, traditionally Desecrator is very much something that I would take control of the song writing , I would take a song to drums and broke out that classic Lars & James kind of format and I found we’d reached the roof of what we could do with that and I’m blessed to have such great song writers in my band that it seems absurd to not take advantage of that. So there was a lot more collaboration from the other members and a lot more input from the conception of songs, things were written very much involving everybody and I think that really starts to push it’s way through. You can hear in the instrumentation it’s a little more larger than previous Desecrator records, it’s not just guitar and drums focused, there’s a lot more happening. Vocally it was a lot more adventurous for me, I really wanted to kind of push what we had done historically and kind of get out of that thrash frontman moniker and get further into a larger heavy metal song writing experience.
Andrew: Is that something you all learned from the last album, that sort of recording and writing process or was it something you wanted to try and do anyway?
Riley: I think it’s just what we all enjoy about music anyway. This band was started when I was in my mid-20’s, I’m now in my mid-30’s , it’s 10 years later. It’s a journey, what you enjoy about music when you’re in that point in your life as opposed to this point changes and I think you’re song writing changes with it because it’s the music you’re surrounded by and that’s the same for every member of the band. So what we all connect on, the kind of stuff we sit and talk about abd listen to in the quiet moments when we’re not playing shows but we’re driving 8 hours between the next show. All those little things that you kind of come together on as a group equals the song writing that it is, I mean if I look back on the first record, the live album from 2012 or whenever it was “Live Til Death”, that album is militantly straight ahead angry, right hand thrash metal. It is just fierce anger and I can hear it in the music because that’s where we were. We had something to prove, we were a new band. We really wanted to smack everyone in the face and that was why it was a live album, we just wanted to play live, we wanted to get on the road and we wanted to do that. But now that we’ve conquered those goals, who are we now? And that was what “To The Gallows” touched on but I think it’s what “Summoning” really has cemented for us, who are we, what is this band.
Andrew: Yeah I agree and touching on the live aspect as well, you’re taking this album out on the road and doing a lot of tour dates including all the way to W.A, good to see you back over here again.
Riley: Yeah W.A. has been a part of Desecrator’s history since day one. I was remembering just recently, I’m pretty sure it was our first national tour, the first time that we’ve played Perth. Perth has got such a good scene that we’re one of the few east coast bands that try and get to Perth over and over again because it’s just a sick scene over in W.A. So many east coast bands don’t understand that, there should be way more bands from our side jumping over.
Andrew: I can understand though, it’s obviously very costly and scheduling and things like that and especially now with the covid stuff it’s I guess a handful to handle.
Riley: Of course you never know, of the tour dates we’ve got we’ll see how many we play and we’ll see if they’re on the same dates that they’re advertised on. But we looked at this tour and usually we play our dates in a very succinct bracket but it made a lot more sense to spread them out over a few good months and put singles shows on a single weekends because then we’ve got room to deal with covid restrictions if they pop up. It’s just the old format of, ‘Ok we’re touring so that’s two weeks away from home and we’re just going to intensely do it’ seems to not be relevent right now. I think you’ve got to diversify and that way there’s less chance that we’ll have to cancel shows and people will miss out, we can just hopefully push and shove if we have to. Hopefully we don’t have to do any of that but looking realistically at the way the country is, what are you gonna do.
Andrew: Just gotta do what you gotta do I suppose, but it is good to see you back in W.A. again. I do want to ask because we were sort of talking about influences and incorporating some of that in your stuff, I had a look at your website and it says in your top 5 albums I noticed you got an Ugly Kid Joe album there, “America’s Least Wanted”. It was the one album out of the 5 that stood out, I don’t know too many Ugly Kid Joe fans to be honest!
Riley: Man I’m not only an Ugly Kid Joe fan, I’m a mega Ugly Kid Joe fan. They were my band, Grade 3 “America’s Least Wanted” on cassette tape. That’s where it all began, that and “Ride The Lightning” were the two albums that made me who I am. But Ugly Kid Joe, Whitfield Crane’s voice I tried to emulate for years. Heaps of my singing style rips him off, terribly but rips him off. One of the greatest moments of my life…actually two if you indulge me – one was the first time they came back to Australia since reforming so not the last time but the time before, we were supporting D.R.I., it was my birthday and they were playing in Melbourne. I looked out about 2 songs into the set and no shit, Whitfield Crane was standing in the middle of the crowd watching us play and it was one of the most intense moments of my life staring at this dude who I had emulated my voice on for years and years. I mean I’ve been lucky enough to meet and tour with a bunch of my idols but that dude was just on another level and I shit you not, I put in a vocal performance that night that I could never repeat in my life, there was so much pressure. But then we got to hang out after the show and he was a really cool guy and it was an awesome birthday. Then if you look it up, the first single that he released off his solo stuff that he started doing a couple of years ago, the film clip he’s wearing a Desecrator shirt. There’s another grouse moment.
Andrew: Oh wow!
Riley: Yeah it was a really fucking cool moment for me. But yeah Ugly Kid Joe man, I love them. I cop flak for it all the time but I fucking love them.
Andrew: Oh they are a great band and I actually think some of their later stuff is just as good which I kind of feel they were a little underrated and never got much attention.
Riley: I think unfortunately they hit such popularity so quickly with “Everything I Hate Abut You” and the “Cats In The Cradle” cover, that’s kind of what they’re known for and it downgrades like, “Goddamn Devil” has got [Rob] Halford singing on the chorus of it for fuck sake. They got Judas Priest in the middle of that record for fuck sake, there’s so much awesome stuff in that band that people don’t quite realize because they just remember “Neighbor” but I love it all.
Andrew: Yeah it’s great. So who was the band then that actually made you get into music, what made you pick up the guitar?
Riley: I always had a guitar in my hand but what made me really get into playing that was Ugly Kid Joe and I think I had a cassette tape of the Black album on dubbed tape. I was in grade 3 and that tape ate itself, I remember my mum took me back to Brashs at the time to buy another cassette and I was fully planning on rebuying the Black album because that’s all I thought existed that sounds like that and I got to the shelf and I remember seeing the little cassette cover “And Justice For All” and thinking, ‘Ah there’s a bird on the cover, that’s a bit weird. I don’t understand that’ and then I remember seeing the Ride The Lightning cover and going, ‘It’s a electric chair in lightning and it’s blue and it looks awesome’. I bought that instead and I remember putting it in the car on the way home and the “Fight Fire With Fire” intro came on and I was like, ‘What have I done? What have I bought? “Enter Sandman doesn’t start like this’, and then it kicked and life began, that was it. That was the moment for me, that riff started and I was floored. I can still remember this, it’s setting the hairs on the back of my neck on end at the moment and to this day I still think “Ride The Lightning” is the best composed example of pure unadulterated thrash metal. No outside influence, no bit of ths, no bit of that, no they were starting to do this, they were merging into that. I think, for my money, “Ride The Lightning” is the best pure strain thrash metal album ever released. I’d put it right beside “Reign In Blood” because I’ve argued the same thing for that album but “Ride The Lightning” was just something special in my life and from then I’ve just wanted to play like Hetfield, 3 wrist injuries later I can still downpick pretty ok.
Andrew: Yeah it’s pretty amazing how it takes just that one moment to kind of change everything.
Riley: Oh totally! There’s so many people who have the same story abut their own little moment in time where we all just discover that thing that makes us want to delve deeper.
Andrew: Yeah definitely. Well congratulations on the new album, as I said it’s killer stuff and absolutely love it. Looking forward to seeing you in W.A. again.
Riley: Can’t wait! Can’t wait to get out and play these songs, can’t wait to launch the album and share it with people. Can’t wait to see if anyone listens all the way through to the ballad [laughs], and yeah, it’s a good time. I think all the music fans out there, all the bands, all the crews, all the pubs, all the venues have been through such a rough time, it’s time we all started looking forward and I’m excited. I’m excited to see how we can put our scenes that we give a fuck about back together, I think it’s going to be a good time.
DESECRATOR, THE ASCENDED and HARLOTT TOUR DATES
Sept 4 – Melbourne – Hell On The Bay*
Sept 18 – Adelaide – Enigma+
Sept 24 – Ballarat – Volta
Oct 2 – Mildura – Sharkfest^
Oct 16 – Warrnambool – Wannon Rooms
Oct 22 – Sunshine Coast – Venue TBA
Oct 23 – Brisbane – Halloween Hysteria
Oct 24 – Gold Coast – Mo’s Desert Tavern
Nov 6 – Melbourne – Bendigo Hotel
Nov 13 – Adelaide – New Dead Festival*
Nov 20 – Perth – Murderfest *
Jan 6 – Albury – Beer Deluxe
Jan 7 – Canberra – The Basement
Jan 8 – Newcastle – Hamilton Station
Jan 9 – Sydney – Frankies Pizza
+ more to be announced!
*Desecrator only
^The Ascended only
+Desecrator not performing
For more tour info and ticketing: www.desecrator.net/tour
