Interview with BUTCHERY (Vietnam)
BUTCHERY is, and this should be obvious, not a peaceful style of music. Brutal to death in the name itself, you have to know that you are in for some very hard sonic and mayhem conducive, with their first effort called "Ferocious Rampage". Indeed, the title alone is enough how your skull will shatter upon hearing every bit of its beats.
They are among the fragments of several brutal brigades that appear in the metal music scene in Vietnam, featuring : Cường GS (Bass), Ân Khùng (Drums), Trung Loki (Guitars) and Vũ Hoàng (Vocals).
https://www.facebook.com/Butcheryvn
I am very excited to have a good chat with his very responsive guitarist 'Trung'... let's see....
MD : Can you tell us a little bit about how the band BUTCHERY started?
It happened after 2022 Tet's holiday in Vietnam. When I met my old friend, An, a crazy drummer who played with me in some bands before. The passion is still burning in us. We used to go out drinking together, talking about metal music and then start jamming at my house after a few beers every day. And some ideas just came out so we built the new songs. We went to see a local show in Saigon and hooked up with Cuong, a very talented guy, and in the after-party he agreed to join us as a bassist. Having the great musician working together, we quickly composed 7 songs and auditioned a few vocalists until I remembered about my old brother, Hoang, a brutal voice who just quit his band and is now free. So I asked him if he was interested in our music and he said yes. We completed the line-up and performed lots of local metal gigs. After we finished 11 songs, we decided to record our first full-length "Ferocious Rampage".
MD - Why does a brutal death metal genre interest you guys? And how did you initially get into brutal death metal, and who were those early inspirations?
Me and An played death metal a lot before together. I myself loved brutal death and listening to it since I was a kid, the fast blastbeat and crunchy guitar tone obsessed me through the years, i like fast and heavy sound but also catchy bands like early ABORTED, BROKEN HOPE, AVULSED ,..... Cuong was more into technical stuff, but also brutal with bands like GORGASM, DISAVOWED, DEFEATED SANITY,.... Hoang and An love the old school death brutal like CANNIBAL CORPSE and DEICIDE. We combined all those things and included our specific riffs into our music. As we are all the same age (Trung is the youngest and An is the oldest), we grew up together in the scene at the same time, we have a lot in common and it's easy for us to understand each other in music taste, playing style and we have the best relationships. The band always becomes one whenever we're together.
MD - Your album "Ferocious Rampage" just came out. Congratulations! The sound is really brutal. How do you get such a brutal sound? I mean do you have any special gear or effects for the instruments to achieve that sound?
Me, Trung, the guitarist, produced this album. With more than 17 years of experience in making metal music, I know exactly what to do with BUTCHERY's sound. First, we have the best instrument we can get and be friends with it. I use a BC Rich Exotic Warlock with RandyLoki.DEATH pickup, a custom pickup made for me only. Cuong plays a 5 string Music Man Sterling bass. An plays a Mapex Mars drum set with Tama pedal. And Hoang stayed loyal with his Shure SM58 microphone. We used what we use to practice for the recording session. For the best sounding guitar tone in this album, I choose Engl Fireball amp setting with a tube overdrive TS-808 to boost the signal. To me the guitar sound a bit modern but with heavy low bottom body and still rusty as I wanted it to be. The bass tone is the most special thing I did, cause in the final mix I added another distortion with low gain to go parallel with the Gallien Krueger amp track to create the "pumping" bass sound and very evil hi-mid end to the songs. The drums I triggered them into DAW and made plenty of pitching and EQ-ing for the mix sound a bit centered and made in become a special link to other 2 equipments, I dont use any reverb on it because I hate it. With the vocal track, Hoang is a beast, I didn't use any pre-amp for him to record, with 20 years of growling he did all the notes sounded perfectly, so I just compress it a little. After all, I just did the master compress and some simple equalizer, I dont even used any limiter so it sounded a bit "clipping" but that's what I like about this album, it's wild in control. I hate digital producers nowaday since they always want to make the album sound "nice and clean, clear, decent.... blah blah". To me, the best album is the one which captured the spirit and the actual sounds of the real band.
MD - What did you learn making that first album?
To old metalheads like us, this is not our first album. It's BUTCHERY's debut but we're all 40 yrs old guys and we're strong enough to stand the critical narrow-minded people and still kind enough to give a big hug to our great supporters. We know there's still many lonely brutal heads in our country who need this music. I think the most important thing we got after this is when we realize we can walk on this road together for a very long time from now on. We're all in stable mode and we promised together for at least 10 albums before we may stop.... (because of dying, not because of quitting).
MD - Do you make any rehearsal recordings or demos before the "Ferocious Rampage'' album comes out ?
Trung put a lot of demo songs and guitar playthrough on his facebook and received many positive comments about the upcoming album before it was released. An also filmed many of our rehearsals but we dont release any demo tapes. We want the audiences to get the best products from us.
MD - Tell us about Bloody Chunks Records? How do you get an offer...
Bloody Chunks Records founded by Trung, the guitarist in 2003. So BUTCHERY surely belongs to our record label. Bloody Chunks always take good care of local extreme bands.
MD - Is this record label the only one that exists locally? And a few comments about the band BRUTORE?
Yes, Bloody Chunks is the only records label for extreme metal in Vietnam since the beginning of the scene, now we have some young men running House Of Ygra in Hanoi. There're few records just founded this year but they only do recording for band demo on request, I think they're recording studios, they don't do everything for band like us in Bloody Chunks.
BRUTORE formed in 2003 and now Trung, Cuong is in it, the band sound more and more brutal, no mercy, and more technical in every release. We just finished re-release our debut album, re-recorded our second full-length and mastering the tracks for the third album. I think it's the heaviest band in Vietnam. And the amazing line-up now will soon conquer.
MD - What’s your lyrics writing process like then, are you more influential into horrors or gore movies?
We don't talk much about gore stuff. We focus on inner-self world, misanthropic and anti-society themes, also the hatred for what we dont like, such as bad friends, liars, stupid young generation, lame art, cheap whores and mass media.
MD - Do you get any good messages behind the brutal themes of your lyrical scenes? So, what do you want listeners to take away from the overall album experience?
The album sounds good and if you're a metalhead and you don't like the music, it's a lie. Surely our songs such as 'Seed Of Impurity' or 'Right To Hate' will make young listeners feel uncomfortable if they're posers and not serious with metal spirit. 'Remedy Of Putrefaction' is about struggles with drug addiction. 'Punish After Pleasure' is about bitches who just wanna suck big foreigner's dicks without shame, 'Savage Lust' is about sex-affair and rapist, 'The Prophet Is Right' is about war premonition. 'Absolute Deranged', 'Misanthropian' and 'Silent Is Golden' are songs about us.....We're mostly low-key guys with maniac minds, we listen and play heavy music everyday like it's our food. To the local scene, we hope the listeners can bang the fuck off the head to the whole album and realize how great is death metal, it's something alive underground for decades and deserve to be respected. To oversea people, we wanna present the best elements we have in our style to the extreme community.
MD - Have you ever felt excluded from certain groups or communities in your country because of the music you play? And what was the metal scene like up there in your area?
Yes, before 2005, we have group of extremists named VnrockWorld.com where all the crazy fuckers can meet and trade brutal stuffs. Since then, the growth of rap, fake metal and the taking advantage of rock music by business people has made us feel sick. We are only active in X-Metal Group and Bloody Chunks Records gangs. "The local metal scene is dying" is what everyone talks about for nearly 20 years in our country. I myself don't care, I keep practicing and composing and playing metal as long as I live. Only about 10 extreme metal bands in our country. The rest play trendy stuff like pop punk and indie/alternative rock. So it's not a big scene, but it's okay because we also have no choice. And beside that I love this place.
MD - Some legendary bands you'd like to bring to your dream country to tour with?
Cannibal Corpse, Gorgasm, Broken Hope, Kreator, Avulsed, Inveracity, Harmony Dies, Fleshgrind, Deadborn, Blood Red Throne, Vital Remains, Deicide and Krisiun.
MD - Lastly, thanks for your answers. Before we wrap up, What’s next for BUTCHERY? And what are your goals for the future of the band?
We finished 8 new songs and will enter the studio for our second album in May, next year. And after that we'll make some videos then go touring a few countries. Thanks !
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