Recently, over four days in the arid heat of Arizona, bands from all walks of the underground descended on Tuscon for the Second Annual Southwest Terror Fest! During this completely D.I.Y. booked and run festival dubbed “The Year Of The Snake”, bands crushed stages and beers, while fans crushed each other (and more beers). Metal was played and eardrums were brought to ruin, as expected. Ghost Cult is proud to have partnered up with Ryan and David, occasional contributors to the Axe of Contrition Blog to cover the festival on our behalf, and interview some of the bands you ought to know better. First up is the axe-killing Jake Brazleton of Godhunter (Full disclosure Ryan helped book the festival and manages bands, and David is a member of Godhunter). Look out for the rest of the interviews from that weekend, and a series of show reviews for each day, next week on our website.
What are your thoughts on the heavy music scene in Arizona? If you could change one thing about it for the better, what would that be?
There are a lot of good bands with incredible talent here, but sometimes it becomes so fractured that it becomes outrageous. Not enough people are going to shows and the bands are not supporting each other and working to get more people into the scene and keeping it positive. The solution is obviously to have more people attend shows and watch the bands. There is sometimes an air of indifference about people when they are at shows, not really there for the music, but to hang out and drink in the other room.
How would you describe your bands’ sound and what are your future plans?
Southern style sludge with a touch of hardcore, the old school kind, not that Whitechapel spin kick shit. We’ve got a new album, City of Dust, coming out soon and we plan to tour as much as possible to support it and get the word out.
Do you think events like Southwest Terror Fest are great opportunities to expose new people to the underground scene?
Yes, this year’s Southwest Terror Fest lineup is amazing, but with the fractured scene in Tucson, exposure is not as good as it could be. A lot of people from others states and even other countries can’t make it out to this particular event, but would very much like to go to one just like it if they could. With a lineup like this, who wouldn’t?
How important do you view live performance to be in relation to your art? Do you think it outweighs a recording or falls somewhere in the middle?
Well, records capture your sound as you want it to be heard, but live shows have a visceral energy that is very hard to duplicate on a recording. Playing live gives you the ability to flourish. No one gives a fuck if you aren’t tight and able to capture the crowd’s attention. However you want to look at it, you are in the entertainment business as a musician, so therefore you have to entertain.
Godhunter on Facebook
Southwest Terror Fest on Facebook
Ryan Clark