All In The Family
Perth metal quintet Let’s Kill Uncle launch their debut EP at Amplifier this Friday, August 15, with support from Bayou, Nightmare Effect and To Hell With Honour. We had a chat with guitarist Will Schorer.
Check out the Facebook event here.
It is, we must admit, an intriguing name.
“Let’s Kill Uncle is a crappy horror movie from the ‘60s,” guitarist Will Schorer explains, referring to Let’s Kill Uncle, Before Uncle Kills Us, the 1966 schlocker directed by the legendary William Castle. “We liked how some of the old metal bands were named after horror movies, like Black Sabbath, so we did the same thing. We just chose Let’s Kill Uncle because it was a weird one and we don’t like to take ourselves too seriously.”
Hailing from the hills, the five piece metal band trace their origins back to 2008 when a few of them started jamming together, with the line up solidifying in 2010. Even so, they gigged intermittently and didn’t get much traction until 2013 when, as Schorer says, “We pulled our fingers out and started recording the EP, which has helped us get a few more shows under our belt.”
Although they staunchly place themselves within the metal genre, Schorer maintains that they draw from a wide range of influences to form their own distinct sound. “We have some pretty diverse tastes outside of the genre. One thing that we all agree on is that the song structure and melody comes first. We’ve been called melodic death metal, but at the heart of it we play honest, rif based heavy metal with a combination of clean vocals and growls. In terms of influences we draw strongly from the ‘80s Bay Area thrash scene along with Pantera, Machine Head Black Sabbath, melodic death metal bands like Dark Tranquillity and Opeth and even some newer bands like Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying and Parkway Drive.”
All that is evident when you listen to their self-titled EP, which Schorer tells us is “A mix of some of the very first songs we wrote together and a couple of newer ones. We think it’s a great representation of our overall sound.” Recording took place at Aidan Barton’s Sovereign Studios, which was the band’s first choice location. “When we finally decided to record we were pretty adamant we wanted to do it at Sovereign Studios. We’re all big Pathogen fans and would like to think that our style isn’t too far away from what they were doing. The recording process was a really great experience and Aidan did a great job with the final mix and master, too.”
Fans of the band’s live performance can rest assured that the fur tracks on the EP aren’t a million miles away from what we’ll be hearting on Friday. “We think our material comes across really well in a live setting. We keep things pretty simple in terms of effects and the like, so what you hear on the recording is what you get when we play live. Plenty of great riffs to get your head nodding, that’s for sure.”
TRAVIS JOHNSON
