Please tell us about the history of your band and its members
The “band” if you want to call it that (I’m the sole member) kind of started as a joke in 2015; for the past few years I was obsessed with black metal, particularly a lot of the DIY/one-man bands like Leviathan and Xasthur. I crowd-sourced a tongue-in-cheek name on Facebook and wrote my first song just to see if I could commit to finishing something. Once it was done and I could hear this thing that didn’t exist before and understand it came from me it opened up the floodgates, so to speak. Since then I’ve been steadily writing and recording, trying to get closer to what I want to express through the music.
How would you describe your style? Which bands influenced your music?
Other people have said black metal, death metal, DSBM…to me it’s just metal: it’s the output of everything that I consume media-wise, whether that’s music, television and film, or books. As far as influences Darkthrone is probably the biggest; they’re one of my favorite bands and their constant evolution inspires me to not be so beholden to a specific genre. But really the influences come from everywhere: I grew up listening to a lot of hair metal in the 80s, and that definitely influenced aspects of the songwriting from a structure standpoint. And the DIY thing has always interested me, I’m drawn to bands like Leviathan, Xasthur, and more recently bands like Twilight Fauna and Void Ritual who do (most) everything themselves.
Why should a metalhead buy your demos/albums?
It’s honest. I think that’s in short supply right now. I’m not going to like and say this shit was crafted in candlelight during a full moon, and I could sense a dark presence when I was really in the pocket – that marketing bullshit bores the hell out of me. Here’s what it is: it’s one guy sitting in a small, cramped room playing his guts out and trying to make sense of the shadows in his heart. We’ve all got those shadows, those areas of darkness that plague us; I’m trying my best to examine mine and exorcise them…loud, abrasive music seems to help. Hopefully the new album (Isolated Evolution) does that.
What have you released so far and how were your releases received by the public/media?
I released a “demo” cleverly titled Demo MMXVI in March 2016 (although I really recorded the new album the same way, so…) and a split with another cool one-man project from Canada called Domestikwom last Halloween. I also had a track “Absolution” show up on Blackened Death Records’ Hammer Smashed Faith compilations. The music’s been well received – for an album that was released with no press and was Pay What You Want on Bandcamp it got some cool notice and reviews from sites like Kingdom of Noise and No Clean Singing. A large part of that has been the support of the #metalbandcampgiftclub community on Twitter, who embraced the record and shared it around.
Do you play live as well? How’s your live activity so far?
Non-existent. The upside of being a one-man band is you can pretty do whatever you want. The downside is “whatever you want” doesn’t really include playing live. No plans to change that right now.
What should labels/zines/promotors know about your band? Why should they be interested in it?
Honestly? Because they heard the music and dug it and the honesty within it. Despite the comedic name Necrolytic Goat Converter is first and foremost my personal outlet for the pain and anger I need to express in order to get rid of it. If that music reaches someone and they respond to it, that’s incredible and more than I can ask for. Anything else is cool but not necessary.
What plans do you have for the near future as a band?
In the near future I have the album (Isolated Evolution) coming out 8/18, so a lot of my attention is on that. But I’m already working on the next thing, which is a split with Suicide Wraith which should be coming out in a few months on Blackened Death Records. It’s going to be a slightly different vibe – I’m shooting for something much more lo-fi and traditional, in the vein of early Darkthrone. After that I have a separate collaborative project with some cool folks from Domestikwom and Qoheleth, which is a noise band out of the US, but we’re in the early stages on that one.
Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
Everything I’ve recorded – including a free black metal version of “Happy Birthday” you can use for the suffering human in your life - is available on Bandcamp over at https://necrogoatconverter.bandcamp.com/
July 2017