Whilst attempting to find support for Cemetery Rapist and Anal Penetration in London (October 10 at The Unicorn!) it sort of set in that slam and goregrind are in relatively short supply down south. You can’t go up north without running into (or over) some filth-mongering spazz band on the streets but down here everyone’s punk as fuck. Can we get some more smut-peddling brain-blenders please? And on a related note, why exactly does Scotland have a monopoly on good slam? Some good did come out of it as it made me appreciate the sewage that is London’s favourite functioning alcoholics Gout even more. (Highly functioning, I might add. Just as an interesting little factoid, though they’re down to only one now, if their drummer hadn’t left the country to go work for the World Health Organization they’d have two actual doctors in the band. No joke.) These previously three, now four unruly, uncouth, far-from-gentlemen have been gigging for a while now, releasing their seminal EP (and with it, plenty of seminal fluid), ‘Segways To Annihilation’ last year. Though basically comprised of the same members as old-school death metal enthusiasts Living With Disfigurement, Gout is a distinctly different shit beast, bringing the kind of party facilitation and mind gnarling Rompeprop would be proud of.
Just to give you some context about this absolutely riveting piece of investigative journalism you’re about to read: we had just returned from two weeks of pickling our livers around Europe and at Obscene Extreme, only to come home and get (not) drunk (enough) at Pizza Hi-Five and The Afternoon Gents two days later. Live fast, die pretty, ‘cos it’s always time to grind, bitchez… and drink, if you’re Gout, who coincidentally start off straight away complaining they’re not drunk enough to do an interview. My kind of lads.
Tony (guitar/bass): [Referencing Obscene] You missed our full-potential!
ZT: What was the full potential then?
Tony: Being wankered and awake! To the max. Unleashing the brain if not shutting it down. We’re at the soup of the meal. The appetizer. The drunkeness of this meal, at this level, is just the appetizer. The main course is still to come.
Tom (guitar): I have a hankering for the main course.
Tony: Maybe we should continue this at… well, ingest some liquor or something and do this properly.
ZT: I won’t be able to speak when you think you’re ‘drunk enough’ so what’s the biggest inspiration for Gout then?
Tony: Party vibes!
Tom: Animals, we’re all big animal lovers. We love big animals.
ZT: Like your mom?
Tom: Glen Danzig.
Tony: Dark seedy places, lots of sleaze.
ZT: Are you trying to be serious right now? You’re not allowed to be serious.
Tony: You’re confusing me! It’s your fault as a journalist for doing this while we’re sober! My brain isn’t loose enough for this. I could say our general motto I suppose, which Eddie (vocals) came up with, which is ‘standing on the shoulders of dick heads’. But if you think about it that’s serious.
ZT: How?
Tony: ‘Cos the people that are fans of this music are mainly douches.
ZT: But is anyone who makes or listens to this even remotely serious?
Tony: No, I wouldn’t listen to it if they did… Let’s just get drunk. I haven’t had enough juice.
Tom: I’m not performing under pressure!
ZT: No, you’re really not. What was the best part about Obscene Extreme then?
Tom: The cocks.
Tony: Yeah, the cocks. I’ve never seen so many rotating cocks in my life. Well, there were two things I’ve never seen so many of: cocks and crusties. In the air. Coming out like worms after the rain.
Tom: Leaning and facing the Faxe.
Tony: Leaning while watching bands. I’m not sure which bands but I had a pretty good lean on a lot of the time. Sideways, a bunch of different ways really.
ZT: Can you explain the meaning of leaning?
Tony: It’s an entire philosophy. One could write books about it. It’s not just a physical act.
Tom: It’s a way of life really.
Tony: It’s not just a 3D position you attain, it’s a state of mind as well. You can see it physically, but also mentally. It’s something they don’t teach in the textbooks.
(Brief break to discuss how the lean can be maximized while standing outside the Grosvenor.)
Tom: When are we going to get to the serious questions about our awesome music?
ZT: You have awesome music? Are we talking about ‘Bum Hole Wack A Mole’? ‘Crack To Crack For Crack’?
Tony: We haven’t written those yet.
ZT: But ‘Segways To Annihilation’ is just old news.
Tony: Yeah, if you haven’t heard that song you’ve been on the moon or something.
ZT: Well what about the recording then? If you’re getting drunk all the time how are you pulling that off?
Tom: Let’s put it this way. The whole EP is out of time ‘cos our drummer couldn’t use a metronome. He didn’t understand the concept of a metronome. Basically, our drummer had an existential crisis and he only believes in spatial dimensions not the temporal one.
Tony: He could move his arms in 3D but it didn’t matter when.
Tom: He wasn’t constrained by time.
Tony: He lifted himself from the shackles of time. This guy though has eliminated himself from the shackles of space!
Tom: I had to record all my guitar parts over a drum backing that is not in any human time format.
Tony: I think it makes it sound more human. We’re not a techno band!
ZT: And this whole time I thought you were going to be the next Aphex Twin. Well how do you make it work then?
Tony: Generally we practice hungover.
Tom: And it means I’ve got beer farts and everyone just gets high on my beer farts.
Tony: We only ever practised and played once sober and we’re never doing that again.
ZT: Why would you play sober in the first place? What’s your mandate as a band then? Why did you start it?
Tom: We were all in other bands and we basically just wanted to be able to get drunk and still play. We don’t really play well but we don’t feel bad about it!
Tony: Drugs inspire music and this particular sort of music is inspired by the liquor. We are the liquor!
ZT: Well if you were to play the genre game what would you call yourselves?
Tony: Drunk edge.
Tom: Party gore.
Tony: Drunk edge party gore!
ZT: Where do you see this going then?
Tony: Everywhere. I don’t see why people wouldn’t like it. I liked it. At first I was only a fan.
Tom: Tony got into the band ‘cos our bassist is mainly a guitarist and one day we played with two guitars and it sounded really good, so we thought ‘who can play guitar?. Tony. Where’s Tony? Next door in the pub’. We dragged Tony away from his mates gave him a guitar and said ‘play guitar’. That’s how that happened.
ZT: What’s happening with the banjo?
Tony: I’ll get there one day.
Tom: If Tony will pull his finger out of his ass we can have some banjo one day.
Tony: We’ll definitely do a banjo version of ‘Segways’. We’ll release it on gold vinyl picture disc. Like twelve copies. Made by Ecuadorian children.
Tom: Or on wax cylinder… you know it’s a shame we’re not drunk enough.
You can listen to Gout grind to douche HERE.
Or you can listen to Living With Disfigurement saluting those unable to rock HERE.
And buy your tickets for the glory that is BLASTONBURY 2012 at The Well in Leeds, October 6-7 HERE.
