THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER Bassist On New CD: 'it's Just As Brutal As Anything We've Done Before'

Way Too Loud! recently conducted an interview with THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER's Trevor Strnad (vocals) and Bart Williams (bass). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Way Too Loud!: I love the cover for "Nocturnal".

Trevor Strnad: Thank you!

Way Too Loud!: It reminds me of a lot of old-school European death metal, or melodic death metal, or black metal bands.

Trevor: "It's him dude, it's Necrolord, known in the real world as Kristian Wåhlin. The same guy that did AT THE GATES 'Slaughter Of The Soul', DARK TRANQUILLITY 'The Gallery', two DISSECTION records, DARK FUNERAL 'Secrets Of The Black Arts', EMPEROR 'In The Nighside Eclipse'. We sprung for it this time. It was a little steep, and the exchange rate made it worse, because he's from Sweden. We really stoked to be represented in a way that we're all happy with."

Way Too Loud!: I heard that "Nocturnal" was supposed to be less focused on melody, and more on brutality'

Bart Williams: "I don't know about that. I think it's just as melodic, and just as brutal as anything we've done before."

Trevor: "It's further in all directions really. It's still us, but there's a couple new tricks up our sleeve. I think it's the most varied album that we've ever had. It's definitely not 10 of the same songs. It's brutal, Shannon stepped in on the kit, and this is Bart's first record with us, and he's a great bass player, and also an engineer, so having that kind of super-experienced dude in the studio is cool. We've been in the studio a lot now, and it gets easier every time."

Bart: "We're more prepared this time too."

Trevor: "Overall, I think we've been making a better record every time, and that's kind of our mission, to be the better band than we were before. I would say there's some seriously brutal shit, more extreme than anything we've ever done. It's definitely us, and it's melodic as fuck."

Way Too Loud!: Can you perhaps put into words those sideways directions your talking about'

Trevor: "There's some new rhythmic kind of stuff, there's lots of cool footwork that's different for us. There's some stuff that's more streamlined too' It's hard to explain dude."

Way Too Loud!: I know bands like to use those old cliches and everything.

Trevor: "Yeah! And I don't know what to say to make it sound like nothing anyone's ever heard before! (Laughs) But, we're fucking super-happy with it. I think it's the next step in our evolution. We consider ourselves a death metal band, but we want to make a record that has a lot of potency, that plays like a METALLICA record os something. You know, something that's super satisfying on a lot of different levels. I think dynamic wise, I don't think 'Miasma' has as much as this one has. There are some songs, that are just so for the throat. Even lyrically, we stepped it up, and there's a lot of violence. Lyrically, it's a complete return to the 'Unhallowed' style, which pretty much all the kids have been begging for us to do. So, it's cool, because the horror themes got us established in the first place. Obviously we're very comfortable in that kind of thing. We figured that since there's been so many extreme records in death metal, and metalcore, and any kind of crossover, that we just need to make a fucking death record! A real, serious-ass, murderous record. We just elated, waiting for it to leak! (Laughs) So we can hear what people think!"

Bart: "I just want to hear people's reaction."

Trevor: "We're proud fathers over here dude."

Way Too Loud!: So it's gotten to the point where people are expecting leaks?

Bart: "We always expect, I guess."

Trevor: "As soon as the promos go out, it's over."

Bart: "Then people have downloaded it, and they know it."

Trevor: "Whatever. It's part of the deal. It's part of how it goes."

Way Too Loud!: Now I heard your first demo…

Trevor: "(Makes farting sounds) (laughs) Make sure that gets transcribed in parentheses as fart sounds!" (Laughs)

Way Too Loud!: I have to say, that in my interpretation, it really captured a modern sound that a lot of bands are doing today. What led to phasing out those elements? And of course we cannot name what it is, because people always have different interpretations, and nobody of course likes to be labeled anything.

Trevor: "Well, it's metalcore as fuck, dude! (Laughs) Stop beating around the bush about it! (Laughs) We were young, and me and Brian are the only people left from that lineup. That was six years ago. We had no expectations of ever leaving Michigan, it was just for fun. Going in a more metal direction came with just playing a lot, and moving at that velocity, and not playing with so many different tempos. And we also had an influence shift. PRAYER FOR CLEANSING was an influence in the early days, that's the sounds that I think it mirrors the most."

Way Too Loud!: That's certainly a band you'd want to be naming, because they were doing it before everybody else.

Trevor: I think they're good records, and cool for what they are. It's a piece of time. We're all into hardcore too. We came up in a hardcore scene, and we were just playing shows with whoever back then, and we kind of do that now! We take whatever opportunity comes our way, and try to branch out to kids, because so many young kids just don't know what the fucks going on. So we try and go out and recruit some kids, because they're stoked about this shit! There's a whole new turnover of kids into extremity, and it seems to be coming to a boil with the whole deathcore explosion with JOB FOR A COWBOY. There's a lot of stuff between metal and hardcore that's been crossing in ways that it never had before. The blast beat is kind of being revered by youngsters as something to grab onto 'Oh, that's crazy!', the same way breakdowns was the hot thing in the last five years or whatever. It's an interesting time, and we're interested to see what happens. We just play what we want to play, and don't really think too much about it. We used to fight to be called a death metal band exclusively, but it's no longer important to us. We don't care what they're calling us!

You can read the rest of the interview at this location.