One of the most brutal, relentless and vital forces in extreme music, Cattle Decapitation will return to Australia in February! They will be joined by one of Australia’s most successful heavy acts, Psycroptic, to form one of the deadliest tours of the year. we caught up with Cattle Decapitation frontman Travis Ryan to discuss the upcoming tour and what fans can expect.
Steve: Hi Travis how’s things with you guys?
Travis: Good, just glad to be home. It was a long tour we just did but glad to be back, we’ll start getting ready for this next one in Australia.
Steve: Yeah unfortunately your not hitting our city (Perth) but maybe next time?
[Editors note: since this interview was published, Perth had been added to the tour!]
Travis: I know man, the worst part is I think it was on the schedule at first and then for some reason it was taken off and I was just like FUCK!! Because we did the eastern part last time and I really wanted to do Perth and I don’t know…. I don’t know what happened? All of that stuff is out of our hands but it will be nice to do New Zealand, we’ve never been there. It’s kind of hard getting a tour over there, I don’t know if anyone knows that but it’s not the easiest feat. I’m just glad that we were able to make it happen for this record because we are going to start wring a new record. I think it was the some same thing when we came out, we came out way too late after the record had already been out I think but yeah it should be good.
Steve: Awesome man. So you were saying that you are writing a new record, are there any plans on the table or is it still in it’s infancy?
Travis: Oh yeah there are zero songs put together for it so far so we’ve got to start writing. It’s going to take us like a year or so to write one so you know, in order to have a 2019 release we better start getting on it but first we will get this tour out of the way but we will start writing and hopefully have something to record in a year.
Steve: Great! So I know you can’t speak for the rest of the guys but how do you come up with new idea’s for albums, does it just come to you suddenly?
Travis: Well it’s easy, it kind of writes it’s self if you ask me because on my end we are dealing with the lyrics and we are dealing with humanity and it’s always letting us down. There is plenty of stuff to write about and pretty much always will be, I just put the pen to the paper.
Steve: It just spews out? (laughs).
Travis: Yeah exactly.
Steve: So if you could be remembered for one track by Cattle Decapitation, what would it be and why?
Travis: Oh damn that’s such a good question dude, that’s a really good question. We have so many damn songs, I’ll just have to pick one and say yeah we’ll go with that.
Steve: I guess you have a favourite that you love to play day in day out?
Travis: Well I was going to say “Your Disposal” to answer your question because if I was to sit and look at our records and start looking at stuff because I know I’ve made this decision before of like, this is the song – and I can’t remember (laughs). I think it’s off one of the earlier records but we’ll go with “Your Disposal”, it’s also fun to play live!
Steve: So I’m going to take you a little bit back in time for probably the most controversial video I’ve ever seen “Forced Gender Reassignment”. That was really made to kick the proverbial hornets nest to put it into simple terms?
Travis: Well the video was an experiment of sorts, a partial experiment I think. At some point people probably ask themselves why didn’t Cannibal Corpse do a video for “Addicted To Vaginal Skin” or “Broken Hope” or “Felching Vampires”. Why didn’t they take it to that absurdly extreme level like Cannibal Corpse did on the first few records – well all the records but not taken these fucked up ideas. Why didn’t anyone make a video out of it you know? That was one thing I was always kind of wondering and I learned the hard way why (laughs). By doing this video we lost fans over that video, we gained fans over that video. I wanted to see what would happen, I guess if you would put the lyrics on the screen, act them out on the screen without no worry about the label. We were paying for it so it was just like, I know labels, not ours necessarily, they have to be involved somewhat in that stuff because usually they are the one’s paying for it. On this one like back in the day you had to worry about Headbangers Ball and MTV and I think that’s probably why Cannibal Corpse never sunk 5 grand into a fucking horrible, disgusting video.
Travis: I’m not trying to single them out but you name any band that sings horribly disgusting stuff, the label need to be able to use it, they need to be able to do something with it especially if they are paying for it but this I was just like fuck it! Do something mean and cruel and make it fair, so many songs and bands [like] gore metal bands or whatever focus on the woman getting beaten or killed. Why? Because that’s a horrible act, it’s a very depraved disgusting thing that people do and they do worse. That’s why these people make these songs, it’s an auditory horror movie. I don’t think anyone is rallying for violence against women, I think it’s just a stupid thing that they talk about because it’s horrible and grotesque and that is what they are trying to convey with the music with this woman that gets beaten and the man gets pretty much raped. It’s horrible and it’s a very unfortunate set of circumstances and it was kind of like let’s see what happens, we weren’t saying let’s put out the most gory disturbing blah! It happened as a result of putting the lyrics on the screen. Of course it’s not the most gory disgusting song that’s ever been written, there are a million that just destroy it but those people never went and made video’s for it plus the thing that sticks out about this video is it’s well done. I mean some bands try to rival it but they’ve lost out on the quality because they are using some shitty camera phone and their buddy is editing it on I Movie. I feel what separates ours is the quality and how well it was made and I don’t think anybody was expecting that, verything that takes place in that video we’ve seen in a million other places in horror movies and I don’t think the directors get as much shit as we did for that video.
There’s something about putting music behind something to make it seem like you’re glorifying this which in the video we take these evangelical Christians and we take them into a situation or body that you didn’t want that you feel in your soul that it wasn’t suppose to be you and who the fuck are you to tell these people that they can’t do that or feel that way. So we are going to take you and show you instead, we are going to force it on you. So yeah it’s just a horrible unfortunate thing all the way around, it served it’s purpose and when we started doing video’s after that it was like, ‘Oh so how are you going to top that?’ Well that’s not what we do this for, that’s not how we create anything. If anything we want each record to be better than the last but who doesn’t.
Steve: Every band on the planet.
Travis: Exactly and what that tells me is the people missed the point of the video. These people that say that we probably won’t do another horribly gory video again, it’s just not my mode of thinking. For me this is my part of the band, they write all the music and I come up with this bullshit. That’s just how it is, good question though.
Steve: So I know your bass player Derek Engemann has been dabbling with Scour which is also brutal, have you considered a sideline project for lack of a better word?
Travis: Yeah I’ve been doing all sorts, even while in Cattle we’re doing this band Murder Construct with Leon who’s now in Nails and the drummer was Danny Walker who has been in Phobia, Intronaut and Exhumed. But we’re kind of not doing that anymore and right now I guess I’m joining a band, they are one of my favorites. I’ve been a huge fan of them for years called Void Of Silence. We are working out how we’re going to do it but they don’t really tour or anything so don’t feel bad if you haven’t heard of them (laughs). They are an extremely underground band, they are fucking gorgeous. The music is phenomenal, super beautiful, I can’t wait to do something with it. We are sort of in the elongated try out phase, it’s not the kind of lyrics or vocals that anyone has heard me do so I hope that works out. We are just too busy to be doing side projects, I know for me personally there is all sorts of shit I’ve wanted to do but this band Cattle keeps us pretty damn busy so it is what it is.
Steve: Yeah sure and as long as your enjoying what you doing then that is half the battle.
Travis: Exactly and that should be the number one reason for doing music. Not money, not girls, not fame or whatever, it should be the love of creating art. That’s how I feel, not to be to cheesy or anything like that but it really truly is art even if we are talking about extreme death metal music that has songs about poop and farts! I take it seriously.
Steve: Well it’s been really great speaking with you today, I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much and Australia is definitely looking forward to catching you.
Travis: Yeah hopefully it wont be another 5 fucking years to make it down under.
TOUR DATES
Thursday, February 8: Kings Arms, Auckland NZ*
Friday, February 9: Club Tavern, Christchurch NZ*
Saturday, February 10: Valhalla, Wellington NZ*
Wednesday, February 14: Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Thursday, February 15: The Basement, Canberra
Friday, February 16: Bald Faced Stag, Sydney
Saturday, February 17: Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle
Sunday, February 18: Woolly Mammoth, Brisbane
Monday, February 19: Tetsuo, Perth [NEW SHOW]
*Cattle Decapitation only
Tickets: Destroy All Lines
