Interview mit Farron von Deth Crux

DETH CRUX seems to me to be a very fitting name for a death-rock band. What was your thought behind it?
We picked the name DETH CRUX because it was simple and had to our surprise not been used. I think we had also grown very tired of trying to think of something, we had been going around and around. When DETH CRUX was tossed out, I believe it was Brandon, our handsome drummer who said it, I guess it stuck or the conversation had just exhausted us.

You already played in Buried At Sea and Lightning Swords Of Death before. What made you decide to start this non-metal project?
Brian, DETH CRUX’s guitarist and chief songwriter plays in Buried At Sea and I was the vocalist and co-founder of Lightning Swords Of Death. We love the metal, all of us do. Everyone in this band are in metal bands or have been in the past. However, metal represents only one portion of our musical interests. I think we all wanted to do something considerably different than what we had done before… It’s also a case of looking for a thing, coming up dry and deciding to make it yourselves. I know that I was looking around for mid-tempo, primitive black metal with goth vocals and funeral organ. I found a few songs here and there, but not what I had in my head. This became the rough sketch of something I wanted to do, but DETH CRUX is not at all that thing, it’s actually a mutation, a happy accident, if you like.

As far as I know you got your inspiration for DETH CRUX from bands like Bauhaus, Fields Of The Nephilim and Christian Death, ist that right? What exactly inspires you about this special kind of music?
Those are amazing bands that we have been in love with for a long time. There are probably a dozen other names you could attach to that list. That music is bleak, beautiful, sexy and monstrous, yet not afraid to show a little vulnerability and that inspires us a great deal.

For some time now there seems to be sort of a post-punk revival. Why do you think are more bands playing this style again?
Are there? Well, I can only speak for DETH CRUX and with us, we wanted to do something different and that means wandering away from the metal section of our music loves and when we do that, we find ourselves looking at a lot of post-punk, right? So maybe some of these other bands have a similar story, I don’t know, but I should look into all these bands. I mean, we are still figuring out who to book shows with, important stuff!

In the press they often throw around terms like death-rock, post-punk or gothic rock. What actually makes your music death-rock in contrast to the other genres mentioned – or don’t you care about the classification anyway?
The feedback we generally receive is that we are a little difficult to classify, which I believe in DETH CRUX’s case to be very beneficial. When multiple styles and sub-genre classifications get used to describe a band your music casts a larger net. We are a relatively new band that for a few years nobody has really known about so it’s been nice to see interest from different sources. I mean, sure it’s death-rock , Brian’s use of flanger sets off some death-rock signals for sure, but there are a lot of other things happening on „Mutant Flesh“. Some of our choices will no doubt also alienate some death-rock purists. As for how to describe us, we don’t trip. Classify to your heart’s delight.

A while ago you made it clear in a statement on your Facebook page that you don’t play doom metal. Do you know why some people even believed that to begin with?
(Laughs) Ok, my answer for the last question still stands, but you have to at least listen to the band before you assign a sub-genre! That was an old post. If I recall, someone did not do any research when writing up an event. Needless to say, Brandon was a little triggered. We should probably delete it, but it makes us laugh.

You are right now about to release your full-length debut titled „Mutant Flesh“. Is it still an exciting event for you to release a new record, or is it already just routine for you because of your other projects?
We are all very excited to release „Mutant Flesh“ and perform in support of it.

The album reminds me a bit of Sin City style movies with its sex-and-crime aesthetics. Would you agree with me on that or did you rather take your inspiration from elsewhere?
While everyone in this band has read the work of Frank Miller, (the writer, artist and creator of the Sin City comic books) since their youth, and while I am sure my imagination has been affected by Frank to some degree, the Sin City books and the films inspired by them are not the inspiration for „Mutant Flesh“ at all. The tone of this record, the style of the music and art takes some inspiration from an un-produced film entitled „The Tourist“ based on the 1980 screenplay by Clair Noto. „The Tourist“ was to be an erotic horror science fiction film with a very new wave /goth rock style, like „Alien“ and „The Hunger“’s slime covered love child. HR Giger was the lead designer and had done some preliminary work on it. I have been obsessed with this unrealized film since I was a kid reading about it in Cinemafantastique Magazine. „Mutant Flesh“ is not so much the soundtrack of this film, but the world described on the record is inspired by „The Tourist“ and the music is inspired by the bands that we think would have played on the soundtrack had it been made, though we probably sound like all those bands merged into a single organism.

You refer to the dark sides of Los Angeles on the album, but you also sing about all kinds of supernatural monsters. How did you come up with the idea for this concept?
You ever meet Jason, our synth player? Stephan, I am not sure at this point if we have a band member or a haunted synthesizer, do you know what I mean? I love the man, but it get’s a little colder when he sashays into a room. Los Angeles is a creepy city and it’s full of doped up monsters, cults, secret societies, you name it. We may have lifted some aesthetic from an unmade movie, but there are plenty draculas, mutants and wolf persons in our backyards to inform our creativity.

People have always been attracted to the dark and the salachious. Where do you think this fascination comes from?
A base primitive instinct within some of us to leave the warmth of the cave and the comfort of its fire, to walk naked into the night and commune with the horrors that await you there, in the darkness… Also, the dark and salacious is really, really cool.

Will you stick to that lyrical concept in the future or do you intend to also pursue other concepts at some point?
I might be a permanent resident of ghoul town. Can’t be too sure how I will feel in the future and DETH CRUX is really not bound to anything. We will have to just wait and see, won’t we?

„Mutant Flesh“ offers quite some surprises. On „Chrome Lips“ and „Yellow Sky“ there’s even a saxophone to be heard. How did this instrument come to be used in these particular songs?
I think we were standing around and someone said, „Hey, wouldn’t it be a scream if Bruce Lamont came down and lent some of his sweet sweet sax on a couple tracks?” Sanford called him up, and I think it worked out tremendously. „Yellow Sky“, I frankly could not imagine without it. Maybe someday we can do it live with him. That would be killer.

Which one of your songs do you think is the most accomplished so far?
The answer changes every six to seven minutes and it is almost always inncorrect.

The fact that your concept works so well is definitely also due to the optically matching artwork. Who created it and did you already have concrete ideas how it should look like beforehand?
I made the art. Early on I was adamant about hiring someone else to do it. I am an illustrator when I’m not singing and had made all the art for all my past musical projects. I wanted a different look with DETH CRUX and in my head that included someone else doing the cover, but we really lagged on choosing an artist and I had to do it for lack of time. The cover is pretty much my notes to the artist we were too lazy to locate or contact.

The production of the album sounds a bit fuzzy to my ears. Was that your intention?
I’m afraid that when we recorded „Mutant Flesh“ we were considerably ungroomed, not one of us had shaved in days.

What will happen next with DETH CRUX? Are there already plans for new follow-up releases or live shows?
Adam, the bass player has been sitting in the van for days, luggage packed. He comes inside to eat of course, but that’s only because we stopped taking it out to him. I don’t have the heart to tell him we have nothing booked just yet, besides a couple local gigs. One of which is a belated release party here in Los Angeles at Cheetahs, a local strip joint that some friends dance at. I think we might do a split release, maybe? Find a few cool bands with a solid draws to do some dates with, make some sick merch. Basically all the shit we should have done months ago. There are other things, but you know it is best not to talk about at this juncture.

Let’s finish with our traditional Metal1.info brainstorming. What comes to your mind about the following words?
Red-light district: Like 14 years ago I wandered into the red-light with my girlfriend from those days, we were curious, right? Had a layover in Amsterdam, so we took some mushrooms and went to peep it. We get there and to our shock it was nothing like what we expected… All the ladies were in period dress, like maybe turn of the century? Yeah, they were and waving, hanging out of wood shuttered windows, sometimes behind a screen doing the sexy silhouette thing. It was like we had walked on a movie set! So we were like, „Wow, this is almost charming! Who knew?“ We decided to grab a drink and come back, but when we returned we could not find what we had seen before. It was, you know. Sad moms in bikinis standing behind glass in blacklight. We started asking around to get directions on how to get back to the place we were before and they looked at us like we were crazy! We were told there was no such place. We retraced our steps, asked a bunch of different people, but there was just no such thing. Sure, we were on an apparently, very potent psychedelic drug and I had experienced shared hallucinations before, but never so detailed, nor so vivid. I’m not proposing that I travelled through time, but I am not ruling out the possibility that the psilocybin allowed us to peer briefly into the past of that section of town.
Horror movie: “Organ” 1996, directed by Kei Fujiwara
Pop culture: Pop culture is an interesting Hell from which to call forth one’s gods and devils.
Doom metal: This again?
Megadeth: Mega-don’t give a shit.
Current favorite album: „Mutant Flesh“

That’s it, then. Thank you so much for giving us your time. Do you have any last words left?
Thank you, Stephan, for taking interest in DETH CRUX.

Publiziert am 29. Dezember 2018 von Stephan Rajchl