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WITCHGRINDER Thou Art Worthy

 

WitchgrinderMelbourne industrial metallers Witchgrinder will be heading to Perth for the first time this week as part of Incursion’s massive Halloween soiree this Saturday, November 1, at Gilkisons Dance Studio. JESSICA WILLOUGHBY chats to guitarist, Travis Everett.

The period of reflection a band undergoes after their debut offering is often the most important in their career.

Lessons are learnt and all members reaffirm their drive towards the sound that brought them together in the first place. This experience also fleshes out when changes need to be made to get an outfit on their chosen path, as was the case for Witchgrinder.

Although the band were satisfied with their 2013 release, The Demon Calling, they realised they didn’t quite hit the mark they wanted to musically. “We found with our first album, as much as we liked the sound – it didn’t come out exactly how we wanted it to sound,” guitarist, Travis Everett, tells X-Press. “We wanted it to be raw. It was a bit too polished from what you get from our live shows. It wasn’t as angry as what we would have liked.

“It was one of those things where we’d put out an EP the year before and we weren’t sure how long to spend on an album. There were also a few band member changes. As soon as we got the line-up together, we just quickly put out that album. I mean, it wasn’t so quick in the actual writing process. But by the time we got into the studio, put the album out and toured – it was really fast. It went that quick that we never had time for it to really soak in. We are pretty happy about how we went about it – releasing it by ourselves. But we wanted to make a few changes.”

With the band now working on their yet-to-be-named sophomore full-length, slated for release early next year, they’ve decided to take a more old school approach to recording. “We’ve pretty much finished all pre-production,” Everett explains. “We’re just sending that around now for people to listen to. As soon as we get back from Perth, it’s going to be full on finishing that off and recording. We only have one more show on this year, so that will be all you’ll see from us until the album release. We’re doing it all ourselves again, just at a friend’s home studio. We’ll do the drums there and we can track all the guitars at our own places.

“We’re not just going into a studio and pushing it out, like we did last time. We’ll get someone to mix and master it though – looking at some overseas and Australian people for that at the moment. We think the way we’ll be able to get that stronger sound is if we sit on it ourselves. Even the demos we’ve done now for this new album as worthy enough to release. We’ve also got a lot more backing with this one. We’ve got a manager now and labels looking at us. So we’re hoping to have the album out by March next year.”

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