Interview with guitarist Scott Walker
Churn is an extreme metal meets hardcore band rising from the killer U.K. scene.
Twelve Easy Steps to Endsville is their debut offering and gives potential fans
an insight into their madness. Their debut features grindcore and the abrasive vocal
attack of Robert Kennedy. Here are some interview questions to guitarist Scott Walker.
Tell about the origins of Churn.
Churn oringanlly formed about ten years ago, only original member left is
the vocalist, Rab. The version of Churn now sounds completely different.
This line up with the exception of the bass player got together around May
1999.
Do you feel satisfied with Twelve Easy Steps to Endsville?
Endsville sounds good for the amount of money we spent recording it. There
are obviously things which I feel we could have done better, and the fact
that the studio we recorded in were havin some problems with their gear
meant that we lost some tracks and had to redo them which was shit, but the
albums a good representation of where we were at when we recorded it. It's
a little too polished sounding for what I think our sound is but we're
workin on that for the next c.d.
What would you do differently the next time you enter the studio?
We're recording the next album now, so already we're tryin out different
things. We're in a different studio that has different equipment, the last
c.d. was recorded on a 16 track hard disk, this time we've got twenty four
tracks onto 2" analogue tape which I prefer the sound of.
Your sound is really extreme and fast- do you feel Churn is more affiliated
with the grindcore crowd than any other? Is early Napalm Death an
influence?
We don't feel a part of any particular genre within the metal tag, we play
with such a diverse amount of bands from, hardcore to death metal to
straight up rock. People don't seem to be able to pin our sound down to
one style of metal, which is a good thing 'cause then we stand out a little
more. Napalm Death certinly influenced our sound in the initial stages of
the 1999 version of Churn, but it was Napalm's more recent output rather
than their early stuff from say, Diatribes onwards, but we've always tried
to do our own thing and not just copy what everyone else is doing, that's
probably our one rule.
Do you feel the U.K. should support America with the Iraq war?
It's tough, because Sadam's regime is obviously not good for the people
living in Iraq or for their neghbouring countries, and he has shown that
he's a liar and is willing to use whatever weapons he does have. But you
need to wonder if now is the right time to do something about him with a
lot of countries refusing to support the U.S. and U.K. and questioning the
real reasons for this invasion. Bottom line is, war only ever really
benefits the people at the top.
Are there many protests in your country?
There were a lot of protests in the days running up to the initial stages
to the conflict, and there have been some since but it seems to be dying
down a bit now that the war is on.
The underground music scene in the U.K. is very strong with some great
bands, why do you think these bands have not received more attention from
bigger labels?
Bigger labels are only interested in high returns in a short period of
time, they understand that the shelf life of a lot of artists is relatively
short, the public get bored and move on to the next big thing being rammed
in their face. It's also got to be the right time to sign a band, lots of
bands in the U.K. are ahead of the trends and so get overlooked because
their too different and by the time people pick up on them there are
already a lot of other bands out there doing the same thing. But the recent
success of bands such as Slipknot and System Of A Down and especially
Dillinger Escape Plan if you like it a bit more extreme, have meant that
intrest in the underground metal community over here has risen and so bands
that would have played a 300 cap venue are now playing eight hundred plus
cap such as the Lost Prophets (bad example but they did come out of the U.K.
underground), better example is maybe Hundred Reasons, not really extreme
but still would have been playing tiny venues now if metal wasn't so
popular again. Scotlands also doing not too badly, you've got us Madman Is
Absolute, Co-Exist, Godplayer and Broken Oath all coming out of the
Glasgow area and gettin some really positive attention from crowds
promoters and labels, there's also Zillah, errata, In Decades Decline and
Kaddish on the east coast who are all makin names for themselves. So
although mega stardom ain't on the cards things are lookin up.
What are the twelve easy steps to endsville?
The twelve tracks on the c.d., listen to them and your on your way to the
End. Actually theres only two steps, no sleep and lots of beer.
What plans do you have for the next recording?
As I said earlier we've already started, we're also workin with Richie
Dempsy who is the guy that recorded and produced the Madman Is Absolute c.d.,
he's got a good idea of what we're after and loves his real dirty sounding
metal like Converge, so I'm sure we'll get on fine.
Final comments?
Yeah, check out the website www.endsville.150m.com you can also download
demo versions of the new material www.mp3.com/churn_ and also
www.goatfucker.co.uk will give you info on the Scottish underground.
Discography:
2001... Twelve Easy Steps To Endsville
Current line-up:
Robert Kennedy... vocals
Scott Walker... guitars
Graham Lapper... bass
Gerry McGrath... drums
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 | 2003 - 'Twelve Easy Steps to Endsville' |
