Band Interview: Mothflesh

Games, Brrraaains & A Head-Banging Life are pleased to bring you an interview with groove metal band, Mothflesh.

1. How did you get started as a band?

Mothflesh was formed around late 2018. It all started when Imran, was looking for a band to perform with and stumbled upon a 5-year-old ad that listed an opening for a vocalist slot in an online forum. The ad that referenced bands like DevilDriver, Chimaira, Machine Head and other NWOAHM bands that were at the height of their popularity at the time was posted up by Eze who had trouble finding a consistent metal vocalist and at the time completely ruled out any future pursuing bass in a metal outfit in Malaysia. A little taken aback at the inquiry of the ad which included a vocal cover of an Overkill song, Eze and Imran met up and agreed to give forming a band a shot after discovering a kinship for mutual bands.

Soon after the band formed with a loose line-up of rotating lead guitarists and drummers with past guitarist Giri Ganesan who co-wrote the debut album Nocturnal Armour. The band’s early sound can be best described as groove-influenced thrash metal, think if Slayer’s Disciple had a baby with The Haunted’s Exit Wounds. After extensive regional touring around South-East Asia, which included 30 dates in 4 different countries, the band experienced tumultuous lineup change with drums and guitars until the introduction of Ranveer Maddog Singh which the band met at his album launch for his death metal project. As Ranveer resonated with the groove-oriented music behind Nocturnal Armour and was friends with members of the band, it didn’t take much convincing for Maddog to fill up the missing guitar spots and inject his death metal technical virtuosity in the catalogue. This is evident in the single Skyfather and the band’s latest album Machine Eater.

2. How would you describe your sound?

We call ourselves a Groovecore band. Incorporating groovy tech-death riffs with metallic hardcore rhythms.

3. What bands/artists would you say have influenced your style of music?

We incorporate the groove-oriented riffs from bands like Obituary, Meshuggah and Fear Factory with the breakdowns inspired by metallic hardcore bands like Jinjer or even Converge. As of late, we’ve been influenced by Whammy-Driven Djen’t bands like Car-Bomb and Twelve Foot-Ninja and incorporated elements of that in Machine Eater. As for melody, resident 7 stringer Maddog, finds his roots in virtuoistic metal guitarists such as Jeff Loomis and Keith Merrow and his solo’s in songs like Cyberpsycho or Myriagon are pretty reflective of that. Vocalist Imran finds his roots in thrash metal; with bands such as Exodus and Overkill, but has built upon it with the vocal styles from Phil Bozeman of Whitechapel and the ubiquitous Corey Taylor. Bassist Eze draws his influences from groove-oriented bands, especially Deftones who strike the right mix of melancholy and intensity and progressive metal bassists like Nick Schendzielos and Even Brewer.

4. Has the rise of YouTube & music streaming helped or hindered you as a band?

The internet has made music more accessible and, in some sense, has democratised the market. Blogs, Webzines, Pages, Channels, and algorithmic driven playlists have made music easier to discover but simultaneously has made it harder to choose with the artist or band a listener must choose. With finite time to listen to music but an almost infinite amount of music to listen to, the listener today is often met with the classic case of option paralysis.

For us, the internet has made it easier for our music to get international reach, but at the same time, it’s much more competitive. We’ve also got to be more connected because that’s the zeitgeist of today, being connected with your fans and being engaged. That also means that we’ve got to produce more content and at times it feels like it’s less about being an artist making music and more about content creation. The Challenge or hindrance that’s framed in the question has simply evolved and technology has increased the rate of that evolution. Considering the challenges, platforms like YouTube and Spotify are great tools; artists such as ourselves would just need to be better skilled and need to be more ahead of the game to better utilise streaming platforms.

5. What do you enjoy doing when you’re not making music?

We’ll keep this one brief. Outside of music, Eze keeps his hands busy with winemaking and his restoration of classic cars. Imran spends a great deal with fitness and when the time permits, the endless quest for finding the spiciest dish in world. Maddog is an avid gamer, tech enthusiast and spends a great deal of time self-producing music in Zodiac Studios, his home studio.

6. What are your future plans musically? Tours?

We’ve got an album launch in our home city of Kuala Lumpur coming up in January, if the Omicron virus doesn’t kill us all, hopefully, a domestic tour. And if things look better by the next year 2023, an international tour is something we’ll need to do. Maddog just purchased an 8-string guitar so that means 1 thing. We’re going heavier. An EP is probably going to be in the works, we like to keep our releases consistent with a release of a single or EP every year. It’s a great way to highlight our journey not only as a collective but also as gives us the space to highlight the creative headspace of what we’re consuming and expressing as individuals.

Links

Spotify | Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube