by Morgan Y. Evans
LINKS:
Since forming in the mid-'90s, releasing the hardcore classic Hearts Once Nourished With Hope And Compassion in 1997, Shai Hulud have truly lived as a hardcore band. Founder and guitarist Matt Fox has lived and breathed his group through countless tours, line-ups, and ups and downs, slugging it out in the trenches and earning his stripes in spades, keeping this beast, named after the magnificent giant worms of Arakis from Frank Herbert’s Dune epic, going no matter what. At times it seemed they might fall apart, but the band are finally back with a new album and singer, Matt Mazzali, releasing one of the greatest metal records of the year, Misanthropy Pure. Released on Metal Blade Records, whose president Brian Slagel gave Fox’s heroes Metallica one of their earliest breaks, Misanthropy Pure is what fans of this band have hoped for, and yet also adds to an already impressive catalogue that features some of the best, winding and labyrinthine heavy riffs in all of music.
Parts of the new song “To Bear The Brunt Of Many Blades” defy logic, settling into a familiar Hulud-esque hypnotic shifting landscape of brooding contemplation and frustrated release. The intro of “Chorus of the Dissimilar” just might be the best head nod inducing drone of the year. I’ll go on the record and say that. The band’s well-respected message, as mainly straightedge and positive yet unafraid to examine the dark sides of life, remains intact, with lyrics that compel and defy easy categorizations and expectations, such as the line that touts the band as “a human affront to inhuman beings”. The words in Shai Hulud songs, whoever is singing over the years, stick with you and can’t be easily shaken. When they nail it, Hulud can be the apotheosis of metalcore, a real melding of the genres, not just an awkward welding on of limbs in a derivative way, but more of an honest fusion—like something D.R.I.’s classic and great Crossover album could only dream of existing in the future, a true encapsulation of worlds forged out of respect for the art, it's past, present, and again...future.
With Misanthropy Pure, the nowadays Poughkeepsie, New York-based (having relocated from Florida years ago) Shai Hulud have achieved a notch in their belts, that for a band of their aesthetics is the highest honor, (whether they realize it of themselves and their talent or not!), namely, that you can’t at this point leave them out of the history of heavy music or a glaring omission would have taken place. They are a crucial link band in the history of heavy music and hopefully are going to keep at it a bit to come yet.
I talked to Matt Fox via phone after the band sadly had to cancel some remaining tour dates with Full Blown Chaos.
MORGAN Y. EVANS: So, you’re back home unexpectedly. You were touring with Full Blown Chaos and among other things there was a death in the family of someone from that band and the tour was cancelled.
MATT FOX: Back home, unfortunately. We have some stuff tentatively planned for October. I don’t wanna say what it is yet because it might not happen. We plan on going back out then, so...
MYE: Well, good luck with that and everything else in between, but on to the new record and cheerier news. First off, your last record before this, That Within Blood Ill-Tempered, was a great album and it opened with your previous vocalist Geert Van Der Velde screaming “Let this be my writ of misanthropy”. The new Shai Hulud record, Misanthropy Pure, is cool. It feels like a bridge to your past with connectors to the other records, and you even did an older song “Set Your Body Ablaze” over for this LP. It also strikes forward. How’d you come up with the album name and the musical direction? It’s a big record for you guys.
MF: What do I answer first?
MYE: Whatever you want, Matt.
MF: I’ll tell you the musical direction was, we’d decided what we wanted to do with this record right after we finished That Within Blood Ill-Tempered.
MYE: Really?
MF: Mm-hmmm. That Within Blood Ill-Tempered was really intended to be a harsh, intense, very pissed off album. Because of the nature of the music , which is exceptionally intricate and melodic, and the production, it toned down the intense anger the album was supposed to have, so when we heard the completed version, I’m still very proud of that record... I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard structuring songs in my life.
MYE: Yeah, I mean, some of the arrangements are amazing on that LP.
MF: I’m really proud of that record. The only thing I can say as a slant against it is that what we intended is not what was released. We really wanted it to be this intensely angry album. I remember telling the guy who worked on the art that I wanted people to pick it up and be like, “Fuuuckk!” I wanted them to feel this really intense, angry energy coming from the album. The artwork should be so pissed off ‘cause that’s what we wanted to do. Because of the production and melodic nature of the songs and also, lyrically there’s a lot of hope on that record, which I didn’t intend or realize until it was released, but...it wasn’t what we’d planned. We knew it was intricate but we thought it would be this heavy, melodic fucking epic, but it didn’t have the heaviness, probably partly because of the songs, even though some are really heavy on that album. Also, Geert’s voice, for lack of a better term, has more of an emotional approach than a harsh , pissed approach. Shai Hulud, since its inception has always wanted to be a harsh, pissed off band. We’ve never wanted to be remotely emo, ever. With That Within Blood Ill-Tempered, a lot of people said, “Oh, these guys are going kind of emo.” That was a big blow to us. It’s not what we’re about at all.
MYE: That’s weird, I didn’t hear that at all.
MF: When we finished with that album we thought, let’s take this really interesting melodic whatever of That Within Blood Ill-Tempered , which is really the core of our band...I mean, if we were to put out an album that sounded like Madball, who we all love, people wouldn’t be receptive, as much as I love Madball, ‘cause that’s just not what we play.
MYE: Right.
MF: We took the intricate melody of that album and gave it a swift kick in the ass. So we knew the next album, which ended up being a few years later, was going to be more intricate, melodic but more of a punch, more so than anything we’d ever released. So, even before Misanthropy Pure had a title that was the approach. I think we’ve really accomplished that.
MYE: It’s compact. It has really good aspects of all your records and new stuff, too. “Venom Spreader” is one of the fastest Hulud songs I’ve ever heard.
MF: Yeah, it combines all our elements and, I’m not gonna say it pushes the boundaries of music, because that goes far beyond anything we can do, but it pushes the boundaries of what we’ve done musically. So Misanthropy Pure is another album we’re fairly proud of. As far as the title, if you wanna know, we really wanted something that was intensely pissed off. As much as I hate to say it, it’s the comeback album. I always tell everybody, “Please, don’t say comeback.”
MYE: [singing LL Cool J] “Don’t call it a comeback. I’ve been here for years.”
MF: Exactly. We didn’t want to have gone away. We were just forced to with different things we were tending to: different members, finding a new label, all that stuff. For it to be called a comeback seems a bit unfair, but I understand. It is a comeback album. Understanding that, we wanted to sum up Shai Hulud and what we wanna say as intensely as possible in as few words as possible, because there’s all these assholes out there, you know, who say Shai Hulud, all we do is look up Shakespeare quotes.
MYE: [laughing]
MF: Take fifteen words and make a song title! It’s never been the case. We like song titles and album titles that are effective and sometimes we feel that longer titles are effective, but intentionally for this album, we said, “Let’s make it as intense and as few words as we can.” We wracked our brains, and we had a shirt once that said “Misanthropy Pure” so I suggested that. And everybody agreed and said, “Fuck Yeah. That’s exactly what we wanna say. That’s Shai Hulud. Misanthropy Pure.”
MYE: It’s great. It’s funny because as dark as some themes are, I’ve always thought of your band as being a very positive force. Your records have some of the most heavy stuff out there but Misanthropy Pure, it’s not only about hatred. It’s more focused, and you talk about the wordiness...I’ve always loved that about your band. It makes you special in that it seems like it means something, not just pissed off for no reason and undirected anger even when talking about feeling misanthropic. It’s literate and smart and not just pointless nihilism. I also love in, especially the new video for the new album’s title track, how you show the words of the song flashing behind the band in the video. The words are so integral. It reminds me of old school bands when it mattered more.
MF: The words matter to us. I’m not saying we’re prolific or have anything important to say. All I know is we have things that weigh on our hearts and that cross our minds quite a bit. If we didn’t play in a band we’d bore all our friends complaining all the time about what bothers us. For us, we have a band, so we can air out the thoughts that cross our minds and hearts in our music. We’re just as average as anybody else, uh...If not below.
MYE: [laughing]
MF: We’re just a bunch of guys that observe and process and feel and think. That’s what comes out. If it’s important or not? I don’t know, but at the very least, lyrically, with Shai Hulud you’re always getting honest and very pure thoughts and feelings.
MYE: As someone who has been a fan and also known you a little while here and there, I know you tend to be humble and self deprecating in general, but it’s also awesome how much work goes into the lyrics and arrangements—crazy switches and classical, progressive elements.
MF: Well, thanks. We really, genuinely try very hard. We take writing music very seriously. If we’re gonna put something out we want it to be the best we can come up with. None of us are brilliant, but we’ve got a lot of heart and try to write really cool and interesting stuff.
MYE: Right on. So you didn’t just sit around Poughkeepsie and shoot a bunch of smack?
MF: Of course we did, but we incorporated the smack...
MYE: [impersonating Wrestling announcer’s voice] Here comes the Smackdown!
MF: ...into the music.
MYE: Good. No, dude...just kidding of course. I really loved “The Creation Ruin” on this new disc. The song really stood out to me. The end riff is almost like some monster Pantera breakdown from Far Beyond Driven.
MF: Yeah? Cool.
MYE: That repetitive, gears turning slowly feel. The song talks about people ruining creation and the beauty in the world and it almost to me seemed a flipside of the coin in some ways thematically to one of my favorite Hulud songs “Let Us at Last Praise the Colonizers of Dreams” from That Within Blood Ill-Tempered. Especially, when that older song came out, a lot of things were bad in the world and still are, but it was about inspiring examples of humanity. It talked about people whose creations “live forever” and y’know, to me at least the songs felt related, written at different times but such a stark example of the opposite sides of the coin.
MF: Yeah. That’s interesting! It wasn’t intended at all, but...I mean, damn, you really tie the two together like the yin and yang. It certainly applies!
MYE: Well, maybe it happened ‘cause that’s the kind of stuff that’s on your brain, but as a listener I thought it was cool.
MF: It’s an interesting point. I definitely wouldn’t have thought of that! [Laughing]
MYE: [laughing]
MF: I wish I had.
MYE: I sit around and read lyrics and liner notes a lot, bro. But, I guess, the lyrics of those two songs made me think that even if there’s only, not necesarilly savagery in nature, because animals don’t know better and are more or less programmed by instinct, but if people believe in a benign God or not, we still have a choice as to what we choose to do, whether we’re satisfied with our lots in life or not.
MF: I agree.
MYE: I dunno...So, well, Matt Mazzali, the newest vocalist, fits in well and sounds terrific but the band is very Matt heavy these days. Is there a Shai Hulud “Matt” conspiracy? You have three! Do the non-Matts feel threatened?
MF: [laughing] I think at one point non-Matts felt threatened. There was a point where, technically, there were four Matts in the band.
MYE: [laughing]
MF: Before Matt Mazzali there was myself, Matt Fletcher, a fill-in guitar player named Matt Canning and a guy we almost worked with as a singer named Matt Johnson!
MYE: It’s almost worth doing at this point, bro.
MF: If that line-up would’ve stuck, whoever was the fifth member would’ve been in fear.
MYE: That’s like ZZ Top all have big beards and the only one who doesn’t is the drummer but his last name is Beard!
MF: That’s true. Or They Might Be Giants where a few years ago you’ve got John and John and a band of Dans. The two main guys are named John and the other three that played bass, guitar and drums were all Dans.
MYE: [laughing]
MF: I always thought it was funny when it said, “They Might Be Giants: 2 Johns and a band of Dans”.
MYE: I was just bustin’ your chops anyway, but...I think the first time I read about Hulud was in an old issue of Terrorizer, the great European magazine. It was around the same time I learned about Hatebreed, I think…a number of years ago, and you guys were still in Florida. I think it was really cool when you relocated to Poughkeepsie ‘cause when you came to town a lot of people got inspired in our local scene and it helped inject more life into it. There’s ups and downs, it waxes and wanes, like any place, but it’s cool you inspired some bands to try harder in the community. People say, “These guys are doing some things. Maybe we should try.”
MF: It usually just takes one, whether music or anything, to spark a whole bunch of other people. If we’ve ever done that for someone, I’m really happy. People do it for me all the time. Least I can do is be a part of something that will help inspire somebody else.
MYE: I like that you haven’t given up and kept the band going no matter what. I heard recently about how you weren’t announcing line up changes as much anymore, instead of saying so and so is gone or whatever, you’re just telling people when things are ready, around a body of work, for instance.
MF: I think it’s silly. Anyone reading this, we all look at Lambgoat.com and I love Lambgoat. I love the news and the guy that runs it has always been really cool to Hulud and stuff, but one thing I never understood is on the message board, the people that comment on member changes, and sometimes in the news section it’ll always note when someone joins or parts a band. Even if you look at Wikipedia, someone showed me we had a page and it has a list of almost everyone who has ever filled in for our band. That kind of stuff seems a little silly to me. Unless you are Metallica or Slayer or the Rolling Stones or one of these bands clearly making a living from the band, that’s incentive for people to stay in. If you’re in a band on our level, which is a very, very small level, you know, it’s difficult to keep members. Aside from typical things and creative and personality conflicts and pride and arrogance...difficulties humans have...
MYE: Life happens. Anyone who has been in bands, we all know that.
MF: Yeah, life happening. Outside of interactions, now you’ve got vans breaking down or no air conditioning in the van or your tires exploding or showing up to a show and only five kids show up. All of these factors play into the tension that adds to individual members. Coupled with this, this is not the type of band that provides financially for its members. No one in the band is living off the band. Of course people jump in and jump the hell out! We’ve had people that’ll go on tour and find out it’s a lot harder work than they expected and that they aren’t prepared to do. They’d rather work their real job.
MYE: There’s no Hulud 401K plan.
MF: Certainly not. What are the websites gonna do? What are we gonna do? Am I gonna go on our MySpace and say that Joe Schmoe-face left the band and now we have Joe Schmoe-face 2?
MYE: [laughing]
MF: Oh, I hate to inform you guys, but Joe Schmoe-face 2 has left the band and now we have Joe Schmoe-face 3,4 + 5! Know what I mean? It’s so constant with a band like this that it’s just not necessary to mention. If it’s notable then you do, but otherwise, regardless of the importance it feels like airing dirty laundry every time someone mentions switching a line up, so we keep it light and humorous.
MYE: I can understand if it’s some aspects, like diehard fans keeping a record of it, but if it’s judgmental then that’s stupid. You guys are out there doing this. I can get it if it’s like, people wanting to know the time that the singer of Coalesce filled in for The Dillinger Escape Plan, for example.
MF: Fair enough. On our end, the high turnover is embarrassing sometimes, especially when you’ve been in the band for the long haul and when it is not your fault. You get a flaky guy who comes in and gets kicked out or leaves and then goes and talks a bunch of shit, but we stay polite and amicable, but at the end of the day, THAT guy’s the motherfucker! He was the asshole. We shake hands and part ways but that gets frustrating, so we don’t announce unless it’s relevant.
MYE: Dude, well...on a positive note, how did it feel having the Metal Blade Records deal solidify and how was the process, from your point of view, realizing you were gonna do this with them?
MF: Well. When it all went down we were thrilled ‘cause that was our first choice once we were off Revelation. Having talked to a publicist at Metal Blade, her name is Kelli Malella, [ed. note: Kelli fuckin’ rocks!] and she’d been pushing for us to write a new demo to send to the label and we talked to our friends Into the Moat, The Black Dalhia Murder, Unearth, As I Lay Dying, and The Red Chord and all these bands kept saying, “You’ve gotta get on Metal Blade. We’ll all help you.” So everybody really did. They all wrote the higher ups at Metal Blade, so because of Kelli and all the bands, the current crop of heavy hitter Metal Blade bands, that’s why we got on the label.
MYE: It’s fucking awesome they did it because they were inspired by you guys. Very commendable.
MF: They really came to bat for us, which was...Geez, they didn’t have to do that. So we were really thankful.
MYE: So NOW we know who to blame. [laughing]
MF: Exactly. They put their reputations on the line. But that was cool. Our approach to this, the only thing we did differently knowing it was going to be on Metal Blade, was not slack off as much ‘cause typically I’d say we’re lazy—at least, myself. It’s easy to lose track of a few days at home watching Happy Days DVDs and what have you. With Metal Blade, they gave us a strict deadline. A very reasonable deadline, but we couldn’t be fucking around. So, being on Metal Blade, it’s a different animal. It’s a bigger animal. A very efficient animal, kinda like a shark. So we needed to up our game a little bit, and as awesome as it is, it is also very, very intimidating ‘cause it’s a real label that has done so much for heavy metal and hardcore and has so much to do with my upbringing as far as the music I’m into. Brian Slagel [ed. note: Brian rocks so hard he should be up there with Ozzy and Lemmy...] being the president, that’s a name that any self-respecting Metalhead has known about since they first got into heavy music. So, with him as the head, Geez, man...I gotta put out an album that sounds even greater, that’s gonna sell for them and make Brian Slagel and company proud to have Shai Hulud on Metal Blade, otherwise I’d just feel like a chump. That’s the pressure for us.
MYE: Well, the record’s awesome. You lived up to that. The song “We Who Finish Last” on there, I really like that one also. The theme of sovereignty in that song, when I heard it , I was reminded of the Ayn Rand book “Atlas Shrugged” where people disgusted with society build their own substantial community apart from a world that failed them irrevocably, kind of, in real life, like Dischord Records did hacking it out in the wilderness as a tried and true indie label, in a way. Art is commodity and a lot of times, crap, these days, but is still so subjective, even when it should be obvious to people what is real and what’s bad, I think, but everyone is created differently and has their own experiences as a lens. “We Who Finish Last” seems to engage the idea of suffering to create those magical moments where you bring your dreams to life in little pockets of resistance here and there, and hopefully for your band it’ll grow even bigger, but I love the message of that song.
MF: Well, thank you. There were a lot of different ideas that went into writing that one. A lot of real, sheer frustration. It even says in the song “indignant anger”. We put a lot of time into that song ‘cause it was something we felt pretty strongly about.
MYE: You’re not finishing last, it’s more of doing something you believe in even if it’s an uphill battle. You guys use the phrase almost as a badge.
MF: Finishing last, what we intended it to refer to is the old metaphor of...[laughing] to quote Dio, being “the last in line” or NOFX, “the very last of the longest line” ‘cause that’s how we always felt. As corny as it sounds, we felt within the HC scene that we were always left behind because all the bands from New England were really tight and there was no way for us to get in there. Anything we’ve ever accomplished we had to do on our own merit, at least back in the day.
MYE: It’s hard when that happens to a band, for whatever reason, when peers should support.
MF: Even still today, outside of what I mentioned before with all the Metal Blade bands really coming through for us, but outside of a few instances, it doesn’t seem like we’re ever invited anywhere or ever welcome anywhere. That’s where the song generated from, the idea that finishing last could be from everyone building this ultra-cool, elite circle that five sincere guys that just like to listen to Thin Lizzy and watch Star Trek could never be a part of. We don’t fit in but we’re just as relevant so we have to follow our own course. I’m glad it struck you ‘cause I really like that one. It touches on some other ideas, too.
MYE: Also, Thin Lizzy is the greatest band ever. I reflect on this often.
MF: I like Thin Lizzy, but the reason I mentioned it is Matt Fletcher, our bassist, Thin Lizzy is one of his all-time favorite bands. He is the afficionado. I like them mainly because of him.
MYE: How’d you decide you wanted to re-record “Set Your Body Ablaze” for Misanthropy Pure? It was originally on a split called A Whole New Level Of Sickness with the straightedge Syracuse-based Another Victim.
MF: Let’s see, it was just on that split you mentioned, and a lot of people would say to please play it, but the irony was when we’d play it not many people would react to it, and we guessed it fell through the cracks. We thought it worthy of being on an album. Another reason is we started writing for the new album and songs were heavier but still melodic and such, and somebody said it was too bad we’d already recorded “Set Your Body Ablaze” because it would fit in perfectly. So it seemed like a great idea. A lot of friends said they were thrown for a loop a little bit when That Within Blood Ill-Tempered came out because the Another Victim split had come out right before it, so everybody expected That Within Blood Ill-Tempered to be an album of “Set Your Body Ablaze” type songs. In theory that’s almost what Misanthropy Pure is.
MYE: The song “Four Earths”, it seemed to maybe represent different eras in history. I wasn’t sure.
MF: Everyone calls us nerds, but it’s just a sci-fi story about us inhabiting four Earths and the worlds being really sick of having humans burning into the ground. So, in the song the story is the Earths let us burn up and refuse to regenerate until all traces of humanity completely die off. Then they can grow back and live happily ever after, which we all know without human beings, it would be happily ever after for every other fucking breathing thing on the planet. It was inspired by a quote a friend read to me. I wish I could remember exactly, but it said to the extent that if every country in the world lived like America it would take four Earths worth of resources. She’s reading the thing, and I’m probably missing the point just focusing on the phrase “Four Earths” and how cool a song idea it would be. Mankind inhabiting four Earths, if they were there, it’s reasonable to think we’d be arrogant enough to inhabit and bleed them all dry.
MYE: I thought it meant different ages in time and how we were running out of time or something.
MF: It’s about justified vengeance after being mistreated.
MYE: Also the art, there’s a girl inside the CD spewing flames from her eyes and mouth and intertwined in her hair and the flames stretch past the four Earths and connect to another figure on the cover. What is that and what is the skeletal figure on the cover, as far as what they mean to you? Decay vs. Life?
MF: The front cover is an image of the first song “Venomspreader”. If you read the lyrics of that song closely it ties into that image very closely and showing the spite and resentment and acrimony of man intentionally coming from the mouth and unintentionally coming from the eyes—a deep, unjustified and venomous hatred seeping from him. The art implies that venom spans the Universe, not literally, but travels far and wide and will effect everyone. There has to be someone who is unaffected. That ties the first song to the last song well. The first song says “The truly weak spread venom. The truly strong digest it.” The weak is the front cover and the truly strong is the back cover and the last song “Cold Lord Quietus”, anybody can relate it to a specific member in their family , but I wrote it about watching my Grandmother die, and that was also a little homage to her showing her strength of character. Maybe if she hadn’t passed away, that back cover image wouldn’t have been a woman. Since I’d just watched her pass I thought it would be fitting and since hardcore bands these days , I think, don’t empower women enough...women are often neglected or mistreated. I like the idea that the strong figure on the album is a woman., You’ve got the spiteful, hateful man on the front and the strong, powerful woman on the back countering weakness with her own strength.
MYE: Good luck with everything. I hope you get back on the road soon. This album is what we’ve been waiting for the last few years and it’s great to, not have you back, but, yes...to have you back! Maybe I’ll see you in Poughkeepsie at the Testament show tomorrow night.
MF: I’m
hoping to attend.