Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Interview: Ken Geiger Sits Down Again with Full Of Hell's Spencer Hazard


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Photo: Nick Lacuna
21st Birthday Celebration

By Ken Geiger

How does one celebrate their 21st birthday? I feel like the stories I have heard involve drinking lethal amounts of alcohol at the bars. Did I end up doing the same thing? Unsurprisingly, I did not. Instead, I went to go catch the wild behemoth that is Full of Hell live at the Highline Ballroom, playing alongside Cattle Decapitation, Revocation, and Artificial Brain. While I enjoy some of those bands a great deal, none of them could quite match the live intensity that the Ocean City, Maryland grindcore outfit brings every single time they step on a stage.

I cannot say that I instantly was head over heels for this band either when I first heard them. It took some intense listening sessions to realize that they were not just your average grind or powerviolence band that is setting out to write nothing but a minute and a half of riffs and call it a song. Full of Hell are setting trends that I feel many new underground bands aspire to incorporate into their own aesthetic: great merchandise, frequent collaborations with other artists, and an embrace for noise music that not everyone is brave enough to accept. It is truly something else that excites me to no end.

I managed to catch up with the band's guitarist, Spencer Hazard, on this night in the city to figure out more about Full of Hell than I already knew. What makes this band work their asses off so much? Can anyone define their sound? Is Buffalo Wild Wings still worth eating at? The man himself answers it all below.

K: Ken S: Spencer

K: How has the tour been so far?

S: It's been great so far. I think each band has collectively said this is one of the biggest tours they've been on, especially us. The turnout is good, reception to our music is great, and I feel like we're playing to new crowds.

K: What made you pick the songs you've been playing?

S: So it's mostly just Trumpeting Ecstasy stuff. Last time we toured with the Cavalera Brothers, the record wasn't released yet. So we definitely wanted to give people more of the newer songs.



K: How did you get Limbs Bin to play noise with you guys for this tour? What do you think he adds to your live sound?

S: He did merch for us on our tour with Entombed A.D. earlier this year, and on the way back from that tour, he did opening sets for us. So, when it came time to do this tour, we kind of thought "why don't we try to just do a collab set this time?" It's progressed slowly over the course of the tour. We're adding drum machine at some points in the set, some trash percussion here and there.

K: Do you think any recorded stuff can come out of this collaboration?

S: Oh, definitely. We wanted him to be on Trumpeting, but it never panned out. We felt that maybe the record would have been a little bloated if we added some of his elements to what was already there. When we write this next one, though, we will keep in mind some ideas that he has and put them in there.

K: Moving onto the new record, it sounds like all the songs flow so well into each other. Were those songs recorded individually, or done in one long marathon run?

S: With this record, every song was written individually. Some songs were written like forever ago, while others were written right up to the day we began recording. We wanted the record to feel natural, but it wasn't written or recorded to serve as one big piece. There were just some noise interludes to kind of make some songs flow better together.

K: How did it feel to work with so many big names in metal? You got to work with Aaron Turner, Kurt Ballou, Nate Newton to name a few. Are those guys fans?

S: It's a surreal feeling. I mean with Aaron Turner, we all grew up being huge fans of Hydra Head Records (the label that Turner runs). That was the label of the generation Dylan and I come from. But since both us and Sumac (Turner's latest band) were on Profound Lore at the time, we just decided to call and ask him if he wanted to do it. It turned out he was a huge fan.

As for Nate, we had played with Converge in Europe; so the connection was there already. Overall, though, I feel like we have become peers with these groups we looked up to when we were younger. It's no longer just little kids being like "oh, can you guys please be on our record?" It's a friendly collaboration thing.

K: Speaking in the vein of collaboration, how did it feel to feud with Santos from Old Man Gloom on Facebook?

S: Well isn't that top honor if you want to be an internet troll?

K: (laughs) That is true.  Anyways, are there leftover songs from the Trumpeting recording sessions?

S: There might be riffs, but I can't exactly remember. I do remember, though, that when we were writing for the record, there were songs meant for the split we did with Nails that originally going to be on Trumpeting, and vice versa. I think, if those songs were on the album though, instead of the split, it would have given it a whole different feel.

K: In general, I feel like Full of Hell is one of the bands that never stops working. I see clips online. You went back to the studio before this tour. A second collaboration with The Body is being sold at the merch table now. Where does this drive to keep working at such an insane pace come from?

S: I mean, I feel as though if you're a musician, why wouldn't you want to keep writing new music and trying new things? That's kind of the end goal of being a musician. We love to be interactive with our art. Even with t-shirt designs, we like to help design them or choose the artists who make our designs. Being hands-on with our band is integral to me. If I'm not writing or touring, I go crazy.

K: Compared to some of your other outputs recently, Trumpeting Ecstasy is not overly experimental. Rather, it's more death metal and straightforward. Was it a conscious decision to write more in that vein? The way I see it, Full of Hell kind of feels like it has become a world where you guys suck in other musicians to work with you. Do you think that the band has a defined sound anymore, and is it what we got on Trumpeting?

S: As with Trumpeting, we wanted to go with more straightforward. The last few releases with The Body and [legendary Japanese noise artist] Merzbow were so experimental, so we just said, "We haven't done something that has defined our own sound in a while." We have been working with other people to try and get a sound. So we wanted to write the record to show more of our own personal characteristics.

I feel as though with our music, it isn't really a collective. We just like to work with other people in a way that pushes our own boundaries, but not let the collaborations define us. I don't like to pigeon-hole our sound. We are massively influenced by bands like Swans, Bastard Noise, and Godflesh. All of whom try and push themselves sonically. That's my biggest thing as a musician. I want to push our music and be as creative as possible.

K: I see the Swans influence, although you have yet to push the 30-minute song threshold yet.  Maybe one day.

S: (laughs) Yeah, one can dream.

K: Moving onto your band's future, though… Full of Hell and The Body are set to release Ascending a Mountain of Heavy. Last time we spoke, you said your previous collaboration, One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache, was not written before entering the studio. Did that writing style change this time around? Did you try anything new in the studio, or are you just comfortable with what you guys do together by now?

S: We tried new stuff. Definitely nothing was written before the studio. We just wanted to try different things with different sounds and drum beats. You can tell that on the record, which is sonically diverse. The record is so different from the other one though, that we want to see how the public reacts to it. There are a lot more harsh elements and experimentation. We feel like One Day is just so sonically crushing, but felt that Ascending could push that sound even further.



K: Now with just Full of Hell itself, is there any other new music coming out? Possibly a new collaboration you could hint at?

S: We have one split written and recorded that's due out next year, but beyond that, we are probably going to just take a little break.

K: You guys deserve it. But before we end this, I need to ask: Why did you betray Buffalo Wild Wings?

S: The last few times I've gone, the food has been subpar in comparison to when I used to go, when it would be a completely magical experience. Now it's become a mundane, boring, every day restaurant experience. Until they gain my trust, I will not be going back.

K: And do you think Family Guy sold out?

S: They jumped the shark when Brian died.

Full of Hell's new record, Trumpeting Ecstasy, is now out on Profound Lore Records.

Additionally, they will be releasing a new collaboration with The Body, entitled Ascending a Mountain of Heavy Light, on November 17th through Thrill Jockey Records.

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