Interviewing your own band is a strange position to put yourself in. I wasn't really sure how to approach the questions without just having to pretend I wasn't in the band. I went with trying to find out with what Matt and Dave feel about things we haven't ever really spoke about. I think it works, it was certainly interesting reading for me. Normally in this opening paragraph I'd talk about how I came across the band or what I thought of their music. Neither is really appropriate here so what I will say is that over the last 6 years we have created music that I am incredibly proud of. Being in a heavy band can sometimes feel like screaming at a wall but we all love it so we keep on screaming at that wall. 'Fevers' in particular is an album that I feel really took massive steps forward for the band, we worked hard at making those songs as good as they possibly could be. In doing so bringing our brand of heavy pop to the people, loud heavy songs that still have hooks and melodies albeit screamed over distortion and fuzz and crashing drums. Heavy pop will forever be in my heart.
Enjoy!
Can you tell me what first inspired you to make music, what made you pick up a guitar, write songs and join a band?
Dave: My da had always played guitar and naturally as a kid, you want to make the thing that makes noise, make that noise. So he insisted that if I was going to be playing with his guitar I learned how to actually play the thing. After years of enduring him showing me how to play the Simon and Garfunkel hits, I had started to form my own musical tastes. After hearing 'Appetite for Destruction' in '89 or '90.... I knew I wanted to be Slash. I knew thats what I wanted to do. As with everyone else my musical listening habits widened... not much... but a bit, then sometime in the early 90's I heard Nirvana for the first time. And that was it. Armed with the incredibly cheap Strat copy I'd managed to get for some birthday or other, I set about learning how to play the music I wanted to play. Of course it didn't quite pan out until much much later and after I'd switched over to bass, but essentially you can blame Slash and Nirvana for me making music.
Matt: I kind of just fell into it as a guy I hung around with in school was starting a band and needed a drummer. I said I'd do it, but I didn't have a clue how to play drums at that stage. I suppose I just thought I'd wing it. The guys in that band couldn't really play either at that point so we were all musically handicapped to an extent.
Anyway, before this gets too ‘ex-drummer’, in and around the same time I had got really into Therapy? and fell in love with Fyfe Ewing's drum sound and just the way he played and the sound of that snare. It was like the drums were the leading part of that band back in the day. Really the engine room driving the band forward. I knew from there that I wanted to play drums in a band that played similar noisy punk rock music like Therapy? It just went from there. I also loved the heaviness, dark humour and catchiness of their music so that ushered me down the route of really wanting to do that kind of music. I think Therapy? might well be originators of the ‘heavy pop’ sound if you trace the lineage back.
Jump forward a lot of years and I heard a band called Theory of Ruin on the late-night rock show on radio one. This was Alex Newport's new band at the time (he of Fudge Tunnel and Nailbomb fame – check them out if you don’t know them – Nailbomb was Alex and Max from Sepultura and a drum machine - brutal). The guitar sound just blew my mind. It was so corrosive and piercing that I bought a guitar off the back of that but quickly realised drums were where I was most comfortable i.e. I couldn’t play guitar well at all and still can’t.
That said, a few years later I really got into Hey Colossus and they had a tendency at that time to hammer one chord or a variation of it and be able to churn out song after song after song that were complete bangers. They are great players but hey proved to me you could be basic to extreme effect.
All these parts, love of music, love of drums, love of a great drum sound, love of great guitar sounds, catchy hooks, great riffs, heavy noise and the willingness to just go for it even if you aren't that technically proficient just added up to make me want to make noise with other like-minded people.
What bands posters did you have upon your bedroom wall and what was the first the album you ever bought and why?
Dave: There were a lot of Pantera and Metallica posters on my wall. And a White Zombie one that my ma hated. She never explained why. There was a Machine Head poster at one point, but something about Robert Conrad Flynn looking over me while I slept didn't sit too well, so that came down. I didn't buy an album until a few years into my musical obsession. It was the early 90's and if you had a friend with a double cassette deck, music passed around. I'm sure aul Lars Ulrich would have been ragin at my hand drawn cover for Kill 'Em All. I'm pretty sure the first one I actually bought was 'Use Your Illusion I' by Guns 'n Roses on cassette. I'm certain the first album I bought on CD was 'Incesticide' by Nirvana. I still have that CD.
Matt: I think it was mainly whatever pull out posters came in Kerrang! magazine that week. I think I had a Robb Flynn Kerrang centrefold at one point circa The More Things Change when he looked like a meth-head trucker and a Trent Reznor poster where he looked like a cross between Zappa and Rasputin with the long hair, goatee and moustache. Absolute badass. Reznor. Not Flynn. Some of those Kerrang posters are now in the THVS practice room but that’s a story for another day.
Aside from the Kerrang! freebies, it was album artwork posters. One poster I did have up which took up most of a wall was the artwork from Terrorvision's Regular Urban Survivors album. It was a piss take of the old James Bond movie posters (the album was loosely spy themed from what I remember) and had the band members in various scenes of daring, danger and mild peril. It was cool and I loved the album at the time. It was the one with Bad Actress on it if you remember that song.
I think it was one of the first albums I bought with my saved-up pocket money. Quite the decision whether to go for the cassette or save up for another couple of weeks and go in deep on the CD. I manged to bide my time showing some restraint for a young teen and went in deep. Some horrendous songs on that album when you listen back but also some great songs. The drums on the intro to Superchronic are HUGE!!!!!!!! Severe use of reverb. The main Riff is snotty as fuck as well which is great. Hide The Dead Girl and Conspiracy were also complete bangers.
The band has been around for 6 years now, can you talk about how the band has changed and evolved over that period of time, musically, aesthetically and personally.
Dave: Matt and Mike started the band before I joined and had already written a bunch of stuff. When I heard the tracks for the first time it did remind me a lot of their previous bands work. Up to that point I'd mostly been playing in stoner rock bands, which y'know... is cool and all but I was ready for something a little more fast paced and angry. And some of our early work is REALLY angry. I wouldn't say we've mellowed out or anything, I know I like to err on the side of heavy when I write. But I think the songs have taken on a more structured form. There are hooks there, parts you could find yourself singing along to in the car. Or at least screaming along to. I think we managed to find a decent balance of catchiness whilst still holding onto that brutality that really makes heavy music what it is for me. Did we ever have an aesthetic? We're just three guys with instruments making a racket really. I did respray one of my basses a nice Neon Pink if that counts. Maybe going forward we can choose a theme and run with it. Cocktail dresses or something. Or we can all dress up as 80's wrestlers. I'd be into that actually.
Matt: I think when it started it was a means of doing something different from what each of us had done before. Musically it was lot heavier and noisier at the beginning and as we've moved on I think it has still kept the weight and heaviness but the old 'pop' element has crept in which I think was just a natural progression as we always messed around with poppier stuff in the practice room from time to time. The balance to that is we also have heavier stuff that never made it out of the practice room but maybe some day.
I think because we all came from heavy bands before maybe we were a bit reluctant at the start to embrace the pop until later down the road. Musically it's an evolution since we started but a very natural and organic one. The songs are definitely better now but that view might depend on who you talk to. We're still rooted in the ground where we started but the vines have spread.
Aesthetically we are still all ugly as sin and 6 years older therefore probably more aesthetically displeasing than ever? Dave has a better moustache 6years on which is a major plus point for all concerned including those who come to see us.
Personally, the band still provides a form of release, but I don't think I'm as angry as I was 6 years ago therefore it's probably a different type of release for me. We probably know each other as individuals better now, or you would hope we do. I’ve played in bands with Michael for over ten years at this point which is probably far too long by any means. Id say Everyone puts up with each other’s bullshit less now than we did at the start but that’s probably a good thing. Other than that, me and Dave still hate Dave Grohl. Michael still loves him. The more things change the more they stay the same as they say.
‘Fevers’ came out last year, can you talk about the album, the song writing process for that record, the recording process, your particular approach to those songs, did you have a specific idea of what you wanted to achieve with the album and did it meet your expectations?
Dave: That album is really THVS 2.0. The EPs we put out prior to that collect most of the old songs and the album is pretty much the birth of 'Heavy Pop'. Its where we really started leaning into that. Thats not to say all the songs were written with that in mind. Or even at the same time. Some of those songs are old, a couple were finished up not long before recording. Some of them were written by Matt and Mike while I was out of the country for 6 months. Some of them were written by me alone in an apartment in Toronto as a way of keeping old of my sanity. So it was in some ways an odd writing process. Recording itself was easy. We're total pros. Turn up, plug in, hit record. I'm sure almost every song was done in a single take. Maybe one or two needed a second go. But for the most part we are one take wonders. Passing judgement on your own work is always hard. Do I personally think it's good? I think it's badass. Certainly one of the best things I've ever been involved with musically. Has it had the attention it deserves? Probably not. You should listen to it though. Go do that. I can wait.
Matt: We had been working on the majority of the songs on Fevers for a while but with one thing and another their recording didn’t happen to later than we probably would have liked. That said, there were a few songs that came into their own and a few that came about in the run up to the recording which we wouldn’t have had if we had of recorded sooner so there was a benefit there.
We recorded with Jonny Munro at Bearcat Studios in Belfast over a long weekend. Not sure if Jonny’s still doing it but he had recorded our Plague ‘Windows’ EP back in 2017 and we were comfortable with him, so we got him involved for Fevers.
As with all THVS recordings, once we get up and running and ‘get sounds’ as I believe the term is, it’s pretty much all live from there on in, best of a few takes with minimal overdubs and vocals afterwards. We like to try and keep it sounding live and dangerous, like its maybe just about to come off the rails, so we have always opted to record live, everyone in a room and run with the best take. We found that recording that way helps us capture a live feel and the intensity and energy associated with that. I think we all wanted a really solid set of songs which was representative of the band at that time and I think we achieved that with Fevers. It was good to finally get them down and kind of close the lid on that process. There’s still some of those track s that haven’t been played out as much as they should so I envisage a lot of the lesser played stuff should feature heavily in any future live outings alongside new stuff.
What inspires you and what drives you to make music now, is there still that spark that there was when you first picked up your instrument, as were all older how has your relationship with music changed over time?
Dave: Same as ever. Get out and play shows with your friends. I'm starting to move into the twilight of my life and thats still what I want to do. Entertain. Create something and then go "Hey... here's this thing I did. Enjoy it. Or dont. I'm not your real ma like". I'm long past the point of thinking I'll ever make a living from this, but the desire to make music and play it live never dies. Don't get me wrong, putting in all that work, getting yourself to venues, all that stuff we all do as bands.... and then playing to 4 people INCLUDING the bar staff is frustrating. And when you need to get up for work the next morning you do start to wonder if you've lost your mind. But it is what it is. When you're into what you're doing, you'll do it.
Matt: Day to day life, release against the shit things in the world, celebration of the good things in the world, gender inequality, 90's noise rock, side scrolling beat ‘em ups and a desire to make as much of an unholy racket as possible. Those things still hold true even in old age although I’ll be honest and say it can be harder with one thing and another to devote the time and energy to it that you once had when you were in your teens. Adult responsibilities can be the ultimate buzz kill.
That said, If I hear a new band or artist that gets me going and the juices flowing that is normally the catalyst to drive me to start creating and playing and gets me excited about doing it. Metz are one of the recent examples of this, I came to the party on that one just before their third album dropped and when I dug in it just became an obsession. I’m still buzzing from seeing them live in Dublin about two years ago. Great great band. Outside of that, the last two Coilguns albums really grabbed me in a way that makes me want to play and create every time I listen to them.
The music THVS play is at its heart heavy aggressive music, is there still a lot to be angry about in 2020, does the band act as a catharsis for these things, what do THVS have to bring to the table in terms of helping make sense of the world around us?
Dave: I'd like to say I'm an angry young man but I'm not. I'm an angry old man. And as long as my knees hold out, I think I've still got some music to make. When this current situation (Thats the COVID-19 pandemic, people reading this in 2045) is over, when we're a band again, if we're a band again, I'd like to see THVS go down that harsher path. We've done the 'Heavy Pop' but I think we can go heavier whilst still maintaining the balancing act. Heavy Heavy Pop if you will.
Matt: Musically THVS is and always will be a cathartic release when we play albeit that release may have altered over the last 6 years. We're a noisy and abrasive thing and there's a definite release of pressure that comes from playing this type of music and sweating and aching it.
I would have said at the end of 2019 that personally I was in a happier place and maybe there were fewer things to get annoyed about but this whole COVID-19 thing and how its being handled by Governments at home and abroad and the overall idiocy of the human race in general really just amplifies that, yes, in 2020 there is more to be angry about than ever. If we ever come out the far side of this id say the next THVS album will be a super heavy pissed off party album. We’ll want to rage but we’ll also want to party when this is said and done. Gotta, get that balance.
THVS heralded themselves as the worlds first and only heavy pop band, where does heavy pop go from here, without ever being nostalgic ‘Fevers’ has a very definite 90’s era feel to it, is that a road the band will continue to go down?
Dave: I guess the 90's feel really stems from us as people and where our own musical tastes flourished from. You write from experience, and my fondest memories of music are all rooted in the early to mid 90's. Are we gonna start mixing in elements of more modern music? Probably not. I don't even know what modern music is. But we can play with our formula. There's plenty of scope in what we do to keep it fresh and exciting. And of course, you can never EVER be too heavy.
Matt: I think we were the first to be overtly heavy pop, probably a few before us that were the forebearers and kept it on the downlow. But yeah, it’s a thing. The 90’s was also a thing, great and awful, like sweet and sour. We’ve had a bit of time away due to one thing and another and that break has been reinforced with this COVID-19 situation. Id like to think if things get back to normal that any road we go down in the future will be a natural and organic direction building on what we’ve done before.
As much as Fevers is a fantastic record, I’ve no real interest in doing Fevers Pt 2, I’m sure no one has. It’s a bit of a cop out when a band turns out a new album and its essentially the same as what came before it. The next one will be the next logical step on from that but likely framed, as I’ve said, as a super heavy pissed off party album that stands as its own thing distinct from Fevers.
The scene both north and south seems to be stronger than ever, is there anyone you’d want to shout out to?
Dave: Is there a scene? I can't really talk about the south, maybe things are different down there. But is there a scene up here? It doesn't feel like it. There are the bands that are friendly with promoters that get put on every bill. Does that count as a scene? There are the bands that go out of their way to tick every single box on the 'current year' social politics list to appeal to as many people as they possibly can. Does that count as a scene? Is that what a scene is? Maybe I'm too old and cynical these days. There are plenty of bands working hard and who obviously love what they do. Those are the people that should be getting nurtured and being pushed. But it doesn't seem to happen. Music is in a strange place. It has been for a long time. People don't listen to or consume music in the same way anymore. If you have the right look, if you tick those boxes, if you're 'marketable' you'll go far. If thats the scene, then yeah. I guess it's thriving.
Matt: Fagash McCann are great. Two guys making a great noise that sounds like an army of ten guys.
And finally in the vein of Rob Gordon. What are your Top 5 favourite records?
Dave:
Clutch - Robot Hive/Exodus
Deftones - Around the Fur
Will Haven - WHVN
Pantera - The Great Southern Trendkill
Alice in Chains - Facelift
Clutch - Robot Hive/Exodus
Deftones - Around the Fur
Will Haven - WHVN
Pantera - The Great Southern Trendkill
Alice in Chains - Facelift
Matt:
For me, in THVS land the following hold weight in the heavy realm but are subject to change daily:
Will Haven - Carpe Diem
Melvins - Bullhead
These Arms Are Snakes – Easter
Helmet - Strap It On
Deftones - Around The Fur
For me, in THVS land the following hold weight in the heavy realm but are subject to change daily:
Will Haven - Carpe Diem
Melvins - Bullhead
These Arms Are Snakes – Easter
Helmet - Strap It On
Deftones - Around The Fur
Find and follow THVS:
Find and follow Old Crows:
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