Crown & Throne LTD/ Dry Cough/ Seeing Red Artist- Body Void Interview is up
1. This seems to be your 1st proper album I know there was an EP called " Ruins" Before Correct? Anyway you are very new to my readers tell us a bit about Body Void please.
Yes, this is our first record to surpass 40 minutes. We started in 2014 and recorded a couple demos as Devoid before we changed our name in 2016 with the release of Ruins.
2. "I Live inside a Burning House" seems to have several labels behind it Crown And Throne Ltd/Dry Cough Records/Seeing Red Records how did they all come together for release?
After the initial release of Ruins Andy from Dry Cough approached us about doing a vinyl release. We'd been a fan of the label for a while so we were definitely excited to work with him. Garth from Crown and Throne had previously mentioned he might be interested in working with us down the road and the two labels had worked together before so when the Ruins vinyl looked like it was going to happen everything came together and Garth came on board as well. They both expressed interest in doing our next release, so we finished the new album which turned out to be a double LP. Luckily that didn't scare them away haha. Thomas from Seeing Red approached us around the time we were getting ready to press I Live Inside A Burning House. He released Owlcrusher's self-titled last year, which we were huge fans of so we thought it would be a good fit. All three labels are run by great people and we couldn't be happier with how everything's gone.
3. I love the Sludge Crust Doom element you remind me of bands like Cavity, Grief, Unearthly Trance and Noothgrush . What bands inspired Body Void?
Grief and Noothgrush are definitely inspirations. Khanate and Corrupted are also huge influences. Earlier on we were influenced by sludgy crust stuff like Cursed, Early Graves, and early-Full of Hell, which still plays a role but I think we've definitely skewed toward the slower, noisier side of things as time has gone on.
4. There must be a theme or story behind "I Live inside a Burning House" tell us about it and how does the cover play into that?
Yes, the album tries to explore subjects like mental illness, gender dysphoria, and trauma, specifically living with those things day-to-day--emotionally, physically, and structurally. Lyrically I like to tackle personal stuff through metaphor using cosmic imagery and context so that's what influenced the cover. It's meant to be a visual representation of those subjects and how they can feel physically, often formless and overwhelming.
5. San Fran is a hotbed for this kind of Doom and extreme sounds . This there a thriving live scene still for Doom like this there in 2018?
Unfortunately San Francisco proper is slowly losing any sort of grassroots music (or arts in general) scene it feels like, but Oakland is definitely picking up the slack in regard to the overall SF Bay Area music scene. Doom and sludge have a presence and there are several great bands, but death metal and black metal definitely rule the Bay Area scene. There are a lot of amazing bands here in those genres. Luckily a lot of bills mix sub genres and everyone's friends so it's still welcoming and encouraging to bands who play slower music and it's still a big enough scene to have multiple pockets of activity. Though largely it seems less cliquey than some places we've played. We have lots of love for the Bay Area and I don't think we would've achieved whatever success we have anywhere else.
6. How does live and recording differ for Body Void and which do you prefer more?
We definitely try to capture our live sound in the studio, which isn't as simple as just recording what comes out of our amps unfortunately. Capturing the same energy and heaviness we strive for in a live setting takes some doing so we really work at dialing in the sound and doing what we can in the studio context to achieve the sound we have in our heads. On ILIABH this translated into a lot of guitar overdubs and going over everything with a fine-tooth comb. I can't say I prefer live or studio more. Both are fulfilling in different ways.
7. What Bands are impressing Body Void currenly any surprises?
We're really enjoying the new albums from Vile Creature, Leechfeast, Chrch, Foehammer, and Of Feather and Bone. There are some great local bands who just released new material or are about to as well: Vale, Occlith, Mortuous, Deathgrave, and Yarrow
8. Lets say a bigger label like Century media or Relapse came to the band how would you want them to present the band to the world and would you even been interested in working with them or is DIY and smaller the way to go today ?
I think we'd be open to the opportunity if it seemed right. I don't have any experience operating on that level, but I would hope we could continue to present ourselves the same way we do now. The marketing aspect of music has always been the least appealing part of the whole enterprise to me, but it's obviously necessary if you want to play outside of your hometown at least. Working in the DIY space has treated us really well and I would never want to remove myself from it completely. Losing the genuine human connection and community aspects of music is honestly a little terrifying, which is what DIY represents to me. I feel lucky to live in a time where DIY can be a global scene in a lot of ways.
9. How has You Tube, Bandcamp, Amazon music and Spotify change the way music is released and is Vinyl the true last bastion for the collecting music fan?
I'm not entirely sure. I know for myself vinyl is the only format I care about in terms of collection. But I think there's a mountain of pros and cons to wade through when it comes to streaming. Music is much more accessible which is nice, but at the same time, more disposable. As a musician it is nice for your music to be more widely available and, in the case of bandcamp, be able to sell directly to listeners. The barrier to entry is lower. I think from our position as a small DIY band in an inherently niche, tight-nit market streaming only helps and is able to coexist with vinyl, but music and musicians as a whole can't help but feel undervalued in our society which the trend toward streaming only seems to exacerbate so I just don't know haha. That part might be bigger than music.
10. Do the members of Body void have other projects outside this you would like to talk about?
Yes, Parker and I play bass and guitar in another band called Atone with members of Swamp Witch, which is much more of a straight up Grief or Methdrinker style sludge band. We just released our first EP on Transylvanian Tapes.
11. How do longer song as you have several play a role in the kind of fan base a band like Body void receives ?
I'm sure it limits us haha. Fans of doom and sludge seem willing to listen to a twenty minute song, but I think even the larger metal fanbase is less likely to come along for the ride, which I honestly can't begrudge them. "Difficult" and "not for everyone" are things we see even from critics who seem to like our music, so we get it.
12. If you could make a proper video for any song off "I Live inside a Burning House" which would it be and how would you want it to look?
"Trauma Creature" I think has the most cinematic potential since it's named after a horror movie trope and some of the lyrics could easily translate into a video. I'm not big on music videos in general, but I could almost see a little narrative short film coming out of the song. Chariot of Black Moth actually just did a tour trailer using two minutes of the song and the look is pretty much perfect in my mind.
13. 4 Words describe the band to someone that's never heard you ?
Dark, harsh, painful, cathartic
14. How does Image play a role in a band like Body Void?
I've always liked the idea of putting imagery out ahead of the music to give people a context for what they're hearing, which is what we've tried to do with all the artwork we've used for Body Void. But otherwise, we try to just be ourselves and not take anything too seriously. I think trying to keep up an "image" would be pretty exhausting.
15. Thank you for the time any closing thoughts here
Thank you for the questions!
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