Chris Noir: Book Burner hit the streets a few weeks ago and as far as I can see the perception is really really good. Are you still 100% satisfied with the record? Or are there already things about it you’d change if you could?

JR: I’m a nit picker by nature, so of course there are things I would like to fuck with, but once the record’s released I think you have to let it go and try to get focused on the next project. I think as a band, we’re extremely happy with how it turned out.

Where do you see Book Burner relating to your previous albums? Is it a step forward from Phantom Limb or more like a step back to Terrifyer? Where would you locate the album’s strengths?

I think there’s a bit of both of those albums, maybe even a hint of Prowler too, but it’s also different in a number of ways. For one, our new drummer Adam, who’s fucking amazing and really lays down some intense blasts. Also, we went for a very natural sounding production, especially with the vocals, which is a lot different from past albums where we would layer a lot of stuff and run it through distortion, etc. We sacrificed a little chaos to try to make it feel more real and raw. Some people seem to dig it, some people not so much.

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CVLT Nation is proud to present Seven Stories with talented LA photographer Adam Murray. Adam tells us about his 7 favorite photos from his catalog over the years from the rooftop of The Handbag Factory in downtown LA. Tune in to CVLT Nation Television below!

Directed by Tim Hicks

VOMITOR
The Escalation (CD, LP)
Hells Headbangers/Invictus
Release: 22 January 2013

Hey Rob —- I guess by the time you see these questions the vinyl copies of the LP have just arrived, so the first question is are you happy with the finished result?

Very happy, they turned out great, iron bonehead did everything they promised, hail satan!

The new record seems like a pretty solid step up from The Devil’s Poison in terms of the sheer insanity of the songs (and the leads!) —- when you started writing did you feel like you were trying to top the last album or was it just a case of writing whatever came naturally this time around?

Some of the songs I had floating around on tapes for a while – we played one of these trax at our first ever gig actually, it just didn’t suit the other albums. We had a second guitarist for this album, so things needed to be a little different, specially from the last album, so we ran a completely different guitar sound on this album, a lot dirtier, hahahha!

So for the past couple of years now, you’ve been living in Ireland —- has it been hard to keep the band going since the move? Were you ever tempted to try and get a line up of the band together here in Dublin for convenience sake or anything like that?

The only thing that’s difficult is playing shows, we used to play quite a bit before I moved to the opposite side of the planet. I write all the music and lyrics, so that part hasn’t changed and slackness still prevails haha.

With the distance between members, how did the actual writing/recording process for The Escalation take place?

I went back to Australia for 7 weeks to jam with the other guys, and we also roped in a new guitarist, Horror Illogium (PORTAL) to help us out with the madness. We jammed for 4 weeks straight, putting riffs I had on tapes together, the usual drinking sessions and showing off till it all came together. “Prayer to hell” was actually only finalized in the studio while we were recording – we record all of our albums LIVE in studio, so the recording process is very quick, this album only took 4 hours to record, ie, a 5 minute song takes 5 minutes to record. Then we spent 2 weeks on and off mixing and mastering the fucker, Mick at Vibrafeel Studios has been working with us for over 18 years now, so he knows what we want, which helps a lot.

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Eddie from It’s Casual Interviews Fatso Jetson

Larry, everyone knows you’re a maniac when it comes to cooking…what are your favorite dishes to prepare within Mexican and Italian cuisine?

Larry: For Italian …Braciole is a fave, pizzas, aglio di olio; for Mexican, I love Carnitas, Ceviche, Pozole, Albondigas….the soups are the best

Tony, you’re from the desert – have you skated the nude bowl?

Tony: Oddly enough, A friend of mine and I hiked up to the bowl today to check it out!
Yes, I grew up skating that pool, it was soooooooo Goddamn good!!!! The first time I went up there was in the early/mid eighties, there was still a roof on the building back then. That place was pretty magical, when they bulldozed it it was like losing a good friend. It was sad seeing it all filled in and fucked up today…

Nude Bowl, Desert Hot Springs, California

Tomorrow night at The Troubador in LA, you will have the pleasure of witnessing It’s Casual do their thing for their record release show, supported by Fatso Jetson, Generators, Chuck Dukowski Sextet and Buffalo Eye! To celebrate what will no doubt be an epic show, Eddie Solis from It’s Casual interviewed his fellow musicians in two special editions of our Artist to Artist Interview series. First up, the infamous Chuck Dukowski talks about his past and present love for music…stay tuned for It’s Casual Vs. Fatso Jetson coming up next!

How long have you been playing bass and why did you choose it?

I was over at a friend’s house and picked up his bass back in 11th grade and started playing it. I loved it. I went over to jam on it every chance I could, and a month later I ordered one from the Montgomery Ward catalog. I played drums before that, but didn’t have a set. I’d tried guitar but found it less satisfying. Bass resolved my desire for a rhythmic focus and allowed me melodic harmonic expression as well.

How different is it playing in a band with family members as opposed to non-family members? Explain the dynamics.

Being in a band with family members allows me to do music with the people I love, instead of taking me away from the people I love to play music.

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CVLT Nation interviews Scott Kelly of Neurosis.
Questions by Sean Reveron and Jonathan Keane.

Did growing up in the city of Oakland influence they way you compose music? How?

Yeah, I think it did. I didn’t really grow up in Oakland. I grew up in a whole bunch of different places. I was born in Chicago, and I lived in Philly, Dallas, San Diego, a little bit of time in Detroit where my dad’s from, and I ended up in Oakland when I was about 15. It’s really the place where I became a man, and a place where I really kind of settled in for the first time in my life and grew some roots. I think the environment, the way that city was, particularly in the 80s and 90s, definitely had an effect on me – the lack of connection to nature, the general dehumanized concrete experience. I had pretty much grown up in the suburbs for most of my life, and Oakland is far from that. Oakland is a pretty heavy city. Having now traveled around the world and seen a bunch of cities, I can definitely say that Oakland is a heavy place. It’s got a lot of shit going on in the street, it’s not an up-and-coming place and it never really has been; but on the other hand, it’s also been the home of a lot of really creative musicians and artists and writers, as well as a lot of extremists of one form or another. The Black Panthers were formed there, the Hell’s Angels – I mean, these are all big parts of what Oakland is. A place like that has a huge influence on you.

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Lisa Fancher
Label: Frontier Records
Interview Source: Strange Reactions

I originally contacted Lisa Fancher in April of 2007, and asked if I could do a short 20 question interview with her, she quickly agreed, so we shot emails back and forth for a while, and then six months past and nothing, then this past week I get a big shock, all twenty questions filled out and sent back to me. Turns out Ms. Fancher had completed this for me some time ago, but my email had somehow been filed in her draft folder instead of being sent. It’s a good interview, so it was worth the wait.

I was trying to come up with an all-encompassing introduction for the owner, and founder of one of the greatest punk record labels of all time, but as I was clicking around on the web I found the official bio that was written, and posted on the Frontier Records site. It’s pretty much everything I would’ve written myself, read on:

“Frontier Records was founded in 1980 by Lisa Fancher. It was one of the first independent labels to document the nascent hard-core punk rock scene of Los Angeles before branching out into other scenes and sounds such as the so-called “Paisley Underground” and (always) guitar-based bands such as Thin White Rope, The Young Fresh Fellows and Heatmiser.

After learning the indie label ropes from her mentors Greg and Suzy Shaw at Bomp! Records, Fancher first hit the jackpot with the release of Group Sex by the Circle Jerks (it should be noted that very first Frontier release was the self-titled EP by the Flyboys). The success of Group Sex set the label up for iconic punk releases by the Adolescents, T.S.O.L., China White and Suicidal Tendencies (whose defining anthem “Institutionalized” made its appearance here). Also of note from this era was the discovery of the ultimate Goth band, Christian Death, and the release of its masterpiece, Only Theatre of Pain. The importance of these albums cannot be overstated. It’s hard to imagine the future worldwide success of the Offspring, Green Day or Blink 182 without them!”

On with the interview:

1. When did you start Frontier and what gave you the idea to start a punk label?

Though I took the Flyboys in the studio in 1979, I set the official start date of Frontier as March 1980 as that’s when the record came out. I was very “into” the LA punk scene from the beginning but didn’t have any funds to even consider releasing Screamers or Weirdos 45s. I was working at Bomp at the time so I knew all the steps to releasing a record so I just decided to try it out for myself. I wish I could say it was kind of a business plan but it was just something I decided to do for yucks. I never intended it to be a punk label exclusively; it just worked out that way since those were the best bands at the time. There was nothing else going on here except shit like Van Halen, believe me!
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The year was 1984, and all of the young westside punks terrorized our hood on skate decks. Hardcore bands started to realize this, so they made boards. Some of the first groups to do it were Suicidal Tendecies and The Big Boys. It made total sense, because many of these bands had members who skated. When I heard Black Flag was coming out with a deck, I was super stoked. Now here is your chance to the story behind the creation of this hardcore deck that is now a collector’s item. Jordan Schwartz of We Got Power & Jim McDowell of Rip City Skates get down to the nitty gritty and talk about this piece of skate history. Check out this entertaining and informative interview after the jump!

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With the latest collection from CVLT Nation releasing in time for winter, I thought it would be a good idea to sit down and talk with husband and wife team Sean Reveron and Meghan MacRae. Based in Los Angeles, the pair have been able to inject their passion in music with their own unique vision and eye for clothing.

James Oliver / Please describe yourself,,,

Meghan MacRae / We are a husband and wife team, Sean Reveron and Meghan MacRae, based in Santa Monica, CA. CVLT Nation is our part-web magazine, part-clothing brand Internet baby. We have spent the last year and a half blogging about everything underground metal and punk, and have become one of the best spots to find new dark and disturbing music and art. We have contributors from all over the world who let us in on what is happening in their countries and cities, and have really helped the blog have an international feel. CVLT Nation clothing is all hand-illustrated by rad artists from around the world, and we wholesale it as well as sell it in our own webstore. We also recently launched a record store on the site, specializing in collectable vinyl and cassettes. We have helped connect communities of like-minded individuals all over the globe to support and share each others’ creations. Our life is awesome.

JO / Can you tell me a bit about your journey to this point of your life?

Sean Reveron / It’s been a long one. We have basically worked together since we met, and have focused on clothing for the most part. I was with RockersNYC for years and brought Meghan on board in 2006. In 2009, we started God’s Prey, a kind of weirdo/dark/psychedelic fashion brand. In 2010, we found out Meghan was pregnant with our daughter Sinead, so we decided to start a project that would allow us to work from home with our baby, and CVLT Nation was born. We were kind of uninspired by the direction streetwear took after the economic collapse, and not really feeling the fashion scene, but whenever we found ourselves at a metal show or festival, we had an amazing time, and realized that we had to make our brand an extension of something we were already passionate about – metal and punk rock. I blogged for Rockers for years, so I knew I wanted to have a blog aspect to the brand, and I have a long history in underground music. It turned out there was a niche to be filled.

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CVLT Nation is proud to present CVLT Nation TV, and our debut episode is an interview with the acclaimed musician and artist, Scott “Wino” Weinrich, frontman of St Vitus, The Obsessed and his solo project, WINO. Wino sat down with Tim Hicks and Martin De Pedro to talk about his career past and present, his influences, and to drop some jewels of knowledge on the CVLT Nation readers. We hope you enjoy this glimpse into Wino’s world below, and stay tuned for more CVLT Nation TV in the near future…