As per the tradition of any Devils Night, today will be loaded with surprises! I present to you a double whammy of interviews, this time with David McAnally of Derision Cult! We talk about his hotly anticipated new EP, the influences that fuel his music, and what the future holds for Derision Cult. As the kids are so fond of saying nowadays, let's go!
NotTheAmp: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today, and congratulations on the upcoming EP, “Mercenary Notes Pt.1” Can you talk us through the inspiration behind the title of your upcoming release? Thematically, how is it different from your other two albums, “Charlatans Inc.” and “Man Alive Vol.14”?
David McAnally: We sampled a lot of ad execs and technology futurists through the tracks and creates this narrative about what people who are basically the mercenaries who manipulate the collective consciousness and narratives in society do. It might sound pretty thick when I put it like that, but there’s some really disturbing stuff going on behind the scenes. So Mercenary Notes sort of became a term we used to describe what all that is. It’s like the magician’s notes for how to perform the tricks. That in and of itself is a big difference between the last two. Especially Charlatans where we sort of took to task companies who present themselves as these paragons of virtue when they’re anything but. This time, it’s more like “yeah– the world is a dishonest and manipulative place….everyone knows that. Here’s what you can do to survive it with your sanity in tact”
NTA: If I were to describe your music to somebody who has never heard your music before, I would definitely say it blends elements of sludge metal (along the lines of High On Fire) with the best of 90’s era industrial, namely Gravity Kills, and even My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult. What are some of your biggest influences from both sides of rock/metal and industrial? Which artists really inspire you to do what you do?
DM: That’s a cool description! I would agree with that. I’m a huge fan of the late 80’s early 90’s Wax Trax era so things like Sister Machine Gun and KMFDM are big influences. But I started life as a thrasher metal guy so things like Megadeth, Anthrax, Metallica and Overkill loom large for me. For the gateway drug from thrash metal in the early 90’s into full on industrial was really guitar players like Reeves Gabrels and Adrian Belew. The way guys like that were making these crazy noises with guitar but doing it in a way that still had some thought and technique vs. just being noise for the sake of noise was like a huge revelation to me. What Reeves was doing on those Tin Machine records really drew me in and then obviously the work Adrian did with NIN was a big gateway drug. Then obviously around that time in the early 90’s Ministry came into my orbit. It’s pretty amazing that all these years later, Reeves is playing on these tracks with us and he’s playing with that exact spirit that got me into industrial in the first place! I’m a fan of the work Sean Payne does with Cyanotic and when we started talking about doing Derision Cult, he kind of took on the role of making sure sonically, everything we did had that sort of patented Glitch Mode sound echoing through it. Lyrically, I’m actually drawn a lot more to Americana, Outlaw country and guys like Tom Waits and Nick Cave. People who really can craft vivid pictures and get a point across using more blue collar language. I mean that in a good way. Like- guys like James McMurtry write in a way that fits a meter, but through the words, you almost get to know the character in the song on another level. I’m nowhere near the level he lives on, but that kind of lyrical approach really inspires me. So there’s an outlaw country element in there as well. A track on this one called Slaves Rebuild is probably the closest to the surface in that regard.
NTA: The first single off of “Mercenary Notes Pt.1” has officially been released upon the world. I currently cannot get that opening riff out of my head! Let’s talk about the song. What is the message you are wanting to convey through “Bastards of the World”?
DM: Thanks! Bastards of the World was inspired by a true story. For the past couple decades I’ve been in the advertising industry. I love a great ad campaign as much as anybody and I love working with data to understand what people care about. What I suspect a lot of people may not be aware of is that a lot of campaigns are designed to manipulate public perceptions and narratives to sell more products. Sometimes that’s good innocent fun (the ‘ol “If you wear this cologne the beautiful woman at the bar will start flirting with you” type of ads). But in one case, I was approached by a gun manufacturer to help them sell a gun that could be used to teach kids how to shoot. It had a patented trigger that really did make it safer and on the face of it- has a place in the world for families who hunt or whatever. After the issue with Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, they approached me about helping them run a campaign for it. Instead of marketing the gun to gun safety clubs or whoever– they wanted to position it outright as an AR-15 for kids and they wanted me to target ads straight at the MSNBC, Daily Show, Stephen Colbert writers so they’d see these things and start writing outrage pieces about the audacity of this gun manufacturer. This is because they knew - from what the data said– anytime these people got angry about something a gun maker does, ammo and gun sales go up significantly. It’s basically using social outcry as a marketing ploy. It happens more than I think people realize. That’s where that line “You will not save yourself with good intentions” comes from. We’re hard wired to think if we argue about things we help the problem. The marketing data folks know this and they know when to push buttons to illicit certain reactions. Its important to beware of this when you’re reacting to pieces of news because it MIGHT be designed specifically to get you mad. Anyhow- I didn’t take the project and to my knowledge, that manufacturer never did bring that gun to market. But it was a pretty poignant moment for me. Once advertising and branding started wading into political issues, it’s not just about making you feel more European to use a certain dishwasher detergent anymore.
NTA: The video for the “Bastards of the World” is quite the technicolor trip. It almost feels that there might be some subliminal messages hidden behind the striking visuals that race across the screen at manic pace. Can you tell us about the inspiration behind the video?
DM: We really wanted to make a video that sort of felt like a modern version of the old White Zombie or Ministry Videos. Sean Payne actually drove a lot of that. People don’t know this about him, but he’s extremely knowledgeable about film production. He’s got a movie he’s been shooting for a while now. But we layered a lot of practical shots on top of each other to get that hypnotic effect alongside some B-Roll. So it was more about harkening back to that aesthetic than creating a subliminal theme. The video itself sort of dances between some live footage and kind of a Max Headroom / V for Vendetta shot with me talking the words and getting more and more frantic. We wanted it to feel a bit over-stimulated because that’s kind of how everything is these days. We have a phone tethered to us pushing all sorts of data at us. I don’t think its a coincidence that anxiety levels and depression are at these crazy highs right now. So in order to tell that story, it has to feel like you’re being bombarded.
NTA: “Mercenary Notes Pt.1” was produced by Sean Payne of Cyanotic, Robohop, and Conformco, and will be featuring some pretty high profile guest spots including Chris Connelly (Ministry, Pigface), Reeves Gabrels (David Bowie, The Cure) and Justin Broadrick (Godflesh). What was it like working with such legendary names and talent? What was the creative process like?
DM: Well Sean and I, as well as Brad Huston (Guitar player for Cyanotic) did most of the work on this. It started with a set of demos for this and what will ultimately become Pt 2 of the project. We’re both in Chicago so we did a fair bit of the work at Sean’s studio. We also shot the Bastards video there. But I really signed up to work the way Sean works because I think his projects speak for themselves in terms of quality. Cyanotic in particular is so dense and layered and there’s no shortcut to making music like that I’ve learned! I think one thing Sean really helped me with that I wasn’t very good about is letting things sit for a bit. He’s good at realizing when he needs to give his ears a break– I definitely am not! I sort of have this punk rock brain where I’ll jam on stuff and bang out tracks and be on to the next thing. Sean is really methodical and picks things apart and he knows when to give his ears a rest. So we had periods where we’d leave tracks be for a bit and hear things totally different. Both Year Hope Failed and Slaves Rebuild are good examples of tracks that really went through a metamorphosis over the summer because we let them sit and marinate. I consider it a great success because here I am a year after sending Sean the demos and I listened to the EP on the treadmill this morning. I NEVER was doing that a year later on any prior releases!
NTA: How did you land the opportunity to work with these legends? That lineup certainly seems like a dream come true!
DM: We just asked! In all seriousness- I knew with Mercenary Notes I had some specific ideas of what it should be. Particularly with Deaf Blood- I knew from the start it needed to have another vocalist. Chris has done work with Sean in the past and through The Joy Thieves we had some common connections, so once we got that track to where it felt okay to share with potential collaborators, we just reached out. It clicked with Chris almost right away. He had the vocals nailed within a few days. From there, I mentioned Reeves was a bit of a hero of mine and quite frankly, that was more of a “well let’s reach out and see what he says”. I had a few tracks I thought Reeves’ style would be fantastic for and it just so happened with Omicron earlier this spring he had some downtime between mixing The Cure album so we were able to jam on it. Gabe Wilkinson from Microwaved has been involved a ton behind the scenes with this as well and he’s actually who connected with Justin. We made a list of dream remixers and he was at the top of the list. We showed him the tracks and he jumped on it. I’m thrilled with what he did because we already thought we had a pretty dark/spooky track and he cranked the horror vibe up big time on it! Streetcleaner was a pretty influential album to all of us and to hear that grimey production across that track was awesome. Plus, Justin doesn’t really ever use guitar solos in remixes but he did use what Reeves did in a real textural way which was super cool. We also have a single for Deaf Blood that has some guest remixes by The Joy Thieves and the one and only Martin Atkins. We thought it’d be cool to have drummers of Chris Connelly’s remix the track. Not only did they make insanely catchy interpretations of the tracks but they’re both polar opposites. The Joy Thieves is this sort of ambient spooky vibe and Martin’s is super frenetic. Live drums and everything. I’m really excited to share that with the world. That will be available November 4th and we have a pretty wild animated video to go with it.
NTA: Mercenary Notes Pt.1 will be officially unleashed on the world in December. Can we expect a Mercenary Notes Pt.2 to follow up this highly anticipated release?
DM: Oh definitely! Right now we’ve got 3 tracks I’d say 80% of the way there and we’re planning on doing at least 2 more. We have a bevy of guests for that one too. Given the pace of things it’ll probably be next year at this time we’ll be ready to share that. We’ve got big plans for next year!
NTA: Thank you so much again for taking the time to speak to my humble blog!
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