Official Facebook Page - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Alcoholator/117198961634876
Jonathan - What makes a good Thrash Metal band?
Matt - Speed, precision, attitude and of course good songwriting! There's more to it but those are some important points to me.
Jonathan - What's your opinion of the DIY movement?
Matt - Beautiful, fantastic! It separates the true from the fakes. No one in their right minds would spend all their time and money on trying to sell a couple hundred copies of a demo or an album around the world, But we all do it, and we love doing it. It's called passion. Without the DIY movement, we wouldn't have as much good music. Actually it would probably just be some fucking boring ass pop music, and music industry-created cash cows. I'm gonna stop thinking about this before I start puking.
Jonathan - I really believe the only passionate way to do music is with your heart. But sometimes hard times and trouble can get in the way. Why is it so important for you to be in a band and do you have any funny stories to tell?
Matt - Well, I've wanted to be in a band for as long as I can remember, I've never wanted to do anything else more than that. Of course it's tough sometimes, it's expensive, you get into shitty situation, you're broke, but in the end... It's fucking worth it. I think the worst thing that happened with this band, was on our last summer tour, with our swedish friends Screamer. We didn't find a place to crash, our car broke down, we had to stay in the streets for the whole night without any sleep. The next day, we were finally gonna get some sleep, instead we get arrested by the cops for being drunk in a car. Soooo NO SLEEP AGAIN! You kind of feel like going back home and just say "FUCK IT" when that happens, but in the end, I'm so glad we didn't and kept going 'cause the rest of the tour was amazing.
Jonathan - What's the origin of the band name, Alcoholator?
Matt - I don't know, Oli already had the name when I joined the band. But I see it as an alcohol carburator!
Jonathan - Have you changed the band's name before?
Matt - Nope.
Jonathan - Who are your major influences? Or do you just write what you like and that is the result?
Matt - I write what I like and this is the result, but of course we're influenced from everything we hear! My biggest influences would have to be Razor, Destruction, Exodus, Anthrax/S.O.D., Sacrifice and old Megadeth to name a few.
Jonathan - How long have you all known each other?
Matt - 3 years, except our bass player, he's new. We have a hard time keeping bass players for some reason!
Jonathan - How did you meet?
Matt - Oli's ex-girlfriend lived on the top floor from my house, so when we were drunk we would scream at each other for fun and one day I told Oli to come see my old band, we were doing a show with Cauldron, so he did, and then proceeded to harrass me for the next 2 months to join his band. He had pretty solid arguments such as "come to my place, I'll show you the songs and buy you beers"
Jonathan - What's your opinion of the DIY movement?
Matt - Beautiful, fantastic! It separates the true from the fakes. No one in their right minds would spend all their time and money on trying to sell a couple hundred copies of a demo or an album around the world, But we all do it, and we love doing it. It's called passion. Without the DIY movement, we wouldn't have as much good music. Actually it would probably just be some fucking boring ass pop music, and music industry-created cash cows. I'm gonna stop thinking about this before I start puking.
Jonathan - I really believe the only passionate way to do music is with your heart. But sometimes hard times and trouble can get in the way. Why is it so important for you to be in a band and do you have any funny stories to tell?
Matt - Well, I've wanted to be in a band for as long as I can remember, I've never wanted to do anything else more than that. Of course it's tough sometimes, it's expensive, you get into shitty situation, you're broke, but in the end... It's fucking worth it. I think the worst thing that happened with this band, was on our last summer tour, with our swedish friends Screamer. We didn't find a place to crash, our car broke down, we had to stay in the streets for the whole night without any sleep. The next day, we were finally gonna get some sleep, instead we get arrested by the cops for being drunk in a car. Soooo NO SLEEP AGAIN! You kind of feel like going back home and just say "FUCK IT" when that happens, but in the end, I'm so glad we didn't and kept going 'cause the rest of the tour was amazing.
Jonathan - What's the origin of the band name, Alcoholator?
Matt - I don't know, Oli already had the name when I joined the band. But I see it as an alcohol carburator!
Jonathan - Have you changed the band's name before?
Matt - Nope.
Jonathan - Who are your major influences? Or do you just write what you like and that is the result?
Matt - I write what I like and this is the result, but of course we're influenced from everything we hear! My biggest influences would have to be Razor, Destruction, Exodus, Anthrax/S.O.D., Sacrifice and old Megadeth to name a few.
Jonathan - How long have you all known each other?
Matt - 3 years, except our bass player, he's new. We have a hard time keeping bass players for some reason!
Jonathan - How did you meet?
Matt - Oli's ex-girlfriend lived on the top floor from my house, so when we were drunk we would scream at each other for fun and one day I told Oli to come see my old band, we were doing a show with Cauldron, so he did, and then proceeded to harrass me for the next 2 months to join his band. He had pretty solid arguments such as "come to my place, I'll show you the songs and buy you beers"
Jonathan - When did you form your band?
Matt - The band came to form in January 2010.
Jonathan - What inspired you to make music together?
Matt - We all like thrash, and we all like partying, it just worked. We didn't really think any further than that!
Jonathan - Im sure some countries or crowds are more enthusiastic than others, do you have any particular anecdotes to tell us? Any funny moments? Disappointments?
Matt - Halifax, in Nova Scotia has to be our favourite city! There's some real maniacs out there! A funny story that happened the first time we played there, the doorman wouldn't let our underage bass player in to play at all, so after alot of arguing, we had the bright idea to have him play in the parking lot, pass a cable through the back door, and plug him on stage while leaving the backdoor open so that he could hear himself. Keep in mind that was in January. So he did the whole show outside like that and people were going outside to rock out with him and give him change like a bum! The show must go on, right?
Jonathan - Which songs do you perform most frequently?
Matt - Almost all of our first album plus some covers. My personal favourite is The Chamber!
Jonathan - Do you ever play any covers?
Matt - Yeah, so far we've covered some Razor, Holocaust, Exciter, Exodus, Tankard and Kreator! We're working on some more now. I think it's fun to play covers live and the fans like it.
Jonathan - Who writes your songs?
Matt - Me and Oli write all the riffs. Phil helps out with the lyrics sometimes!
Jonathan - What are the main themes or topics for most of your songs?
Matt - Drinking. hahaha. But we try to diversify the subjects a little bit with some more serious songs, about killings, and torture, and all that good stuff! Like The Chamber is about these crazy torture chambers they had in the USSR, and Abduction is about a serial killer, there's even a snippet from a Jeffrey Dahmer interview in the middle of the song!
Jonathan - Do you think these topics will change over time?
Matt - Who knows? Probably! I usually write about what I experience or what I read and see on TV or on the internet. But there'll always be some drinking songs, we kind of have to with a name like this!
Jonathan - Could you briefly describe the music-making process?
Matt - The way it works, for me, is I improvise a bunch of riffs on my guitar and pick the best one, then I keep working around that idea and elaborate the song. Then I show the completed product to the guys and we jam it together. I usually have a pretty good idea of the basic drum beat and everything so it's a quick process. Then we add lyrics and solos on top and that's it. Sometimes one or the other has an idea to add a riff, and if it sounds good we add it and it can make the song so much better!
Jonathan - What are your rehearsals generally like? Do you have a set time each week in which you practice or are rehearsals more spontaneous?
Matt - We rehearse twice a week on the same days. We've been having that schedule for a few years now, it keeps us in shape and ready to kill! It can become kind of boring when we don't have any new songs to practice, but we still do it, and sometimes, there's a very good spontaneous song that can come out of a jam like that!
Jonathan - How has your music evolved since you first began playing music together?
Matt - It has definitely evolved! The songs we have for our next album I feel are much more evolved and thought out, while retaining their energy. I think it's important for us to evolve a little bit so that we have something more to offer than just the same old fucking album year after year. We like to challenge ourselves with extremeley speedy riffs too! The fact that we know each other's playing so well really helps too!
Jonathan - What has been your biggest challenge as a band? Have you been able to overcome that challenge? If so, how?
Matt - Our Alcoholism? hahahah. You can probably figure out that we haven't overcome it and don't plan to!
More seriously, the biggest challenge was probably losing our bass player Mamano. It was really weird to lose him because it was working so well, but there's really nothing else that could be done, so we moved on!
Jonathan - What advice do you have for people who want to form their own bands?
Matt - I know it sounds cheesy but it couldn't be more true: Never give up, follow your dreams, and persevere. Things will happen! I've been wanting to do this since I was 5 years old, and I made it happen. I had some other bands before that broke up, but I never gave up and here we are now, so, it's worth the hard work.
Jonathan - For those who don’t know you, How can fans-to-be gain access to your music? Do you have a website with sample songs or a demo CD?
Matt - You can hear some samples from our first album on our official website www.alcoholator.net
You can also buy the CD in the merch section of our website. The album is also available on iTunes and on vinyl through our label High Roller Records or at one of our shows.
Jonathan - And the last question is all yours, you decide what to say here!
Matt - Drink warm bitter beer, smoke hash, eat pussy, worship bacon and bang your fucking head off! Thanks for the interview, I hope to see y'all somewhere around the world soon!
Matt - It has definitely evolved! The songs we have for our next album I feel are much more evolved and thought out, while retaining their energy. I think it's important for us to evolve a little bit so that we have something more to offer than just the same old fucking album year after year. We like to challenge ourselves with extremeley speedy riffs too! The fact that we know each other's playing so well really helps too!
Jonathan - What has been your biggest challenge as a band? Have you been able to overcome that challenge? If so, how?
Matt - Our Alcoholism? hahahah. You can probably figure out that we haven't overcome it and don't plan to!
More seriously, the biggest challenge was probably losing our bass player Mamano. It was really weird to lose him because it was working so well, but there's really nothing else that could be done, so we moved on!
Jonathan - What advice do you have for people who want to form their own bands?
Matt - I know it sounds cheesy but it couldn't be more true: Never give up, follow your dreams, and persevere. Things will happen! I've been wanting to do this since I was 5 years old, and I made it happen. I had some other bands before that broke up, but I never gave up and here we are now, so, it's worth the hard work.
Jonathan - For those who don’t know you, How can fans-to-be gain access to your music? Do you have a website with sample songs or a demo CD?
Matt - You can hear some samples from our first album on our official website www.alcoholator.net
You can also buy the CD in the merch section of our website. The album is also available on iTunes and on vinyl through our label High Roller Records or at one of our shows.
Jonathan - And the last question is all yours, you decide what to say here!
Matt - Drink warm bitter beer, smoke hash, eat pussy, worship bacon and bang your fucking head off! Thanks for the interview, I hope to see y'all somewhere around the world soon!
If any of you are fans of Thrash Metal and really want to support the Canadian underground scene, check out these guys and show them some respect!
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