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Agoraphobic Nosebleed: a drumcomputer & a triple vocal grindcore/hardcore attack!

posted by: maurice on 9 June 2009

AsIce.net had a quick chat with James Randall, one of the vocalists that tears your fucking soul apart on their new album 'Agorapocalypse'. A man with a lot of humor and he has some cool stuff to tell.

Katherine Katz recently joined Agoraphobic Nosebleed, why did you feel the need for an extra vocalist after you already got two extreme vocalists?

I agree but she's such a good vocalist we just couldn't pass up the opportunity to work with her. I'm really against the whole schizo vocal style thing, where one guy does all these different style vocals like the fucking spirits are channeling through them. I hate that shit. In ANb we each have our own style vocally and we can keep the vocals varied and fresh with out resorting to that silly shit.

On the new album the music is sometimes half the speed as normally on an ANb release, is it because Bush is finally gone and Obama filled his place? What do you think about this change, do you think he can achieve something in the USA?

Oh yeah it's a black America now so we set out to do a more soulful record hahahahaha. I don't know if he will achieve something in the USA. I guess this guy has done more good in half a year than Bush did in eight but bush aside the US has been in a 20 year tail spin and no one is going to be able to pull us out of it.

With ANb you always pushing the limits of extremity; do you think you can do this again and again? And how will be that in the future?

Well extremity was never really a goal of ours. We change our style up constantly, record to record, release to release depending on where our taste in music is at at the time. I couldn't say for certain what's to come. We have in the past pushed the envolop, pushed some people's buttons. I am pretty certain that trend will continue.

ANb contains extreme lyrical content, has someone felt offended by ANb lyrics? Have you ever received hate mails and if yes can you tell us something about the content of these hate mails?

No hate mails or anything. We have had people make comments in album reviews and shit but nothing confrontational. I heard there where a few people in NYC that wanted to beat the shit out of me over the lyrics for "Absurd Boast" but who knows could be just talk.

(AsIce.net: judge for yourself:

Absurd Boast

I was getting my cock sucked
when the plane collided into the second tower.
She spit my nut up
and wiped her mouth
with the American flag.)

Most of the shit I got was people thinking I was a homophobe because of my loose use of words like fag, homo and queer which is all the same shit Seth Putnum gets with using words like that in Anal Cunt. I guess what people don't understand is Seth and I are both from the Boston area and everybody is a gay homosexual to us- we call everybody fags, homos, queers. I just figured everybody talked like that so no biggie. One things for sure I'm no homophobe, gay people don't scare me at all.

Do you often get criticized for having such a 'digital' sound?

No, in fact it has inspired way more people into acceptance than it's turned off.

Is a drum computer easier to deal with than a drummer?

Yes, god yes, drummers are a pain in the fucking ass and are never exactly into musically what your trying to do ever

I’ve heard somewhere Scott has his daily job in the US Army. What kind of job is it and how can he combine it with his studiowork/bands and touring stuff?

Scott doesn't have a job in the US Army, his farther was career military and Scott is an army brat. That said Scott does have a profile job in Washington that he can not discuss with anybody so he is some sort of evil doer for sure. How he balances being that evil with having a family and two bands the rest of us will never understand.

Does the US Army know he's playing in such extreme bands as ANb and Pig Destroyer? In other words: has it ever brought him in trouble at his job?

Once again Hull's not a army man but I'm sure the people he works for know very fucking well everything he does. I've been trying to get him in trouble with the shit I write for years now but they probably already know that so he's fine and I'm on the way to being on a no fly list.

Pig Destroyer once made the doomy songs “Natasha”, how will a doomy song sound recorded by Agoraphobic Nosebleed?

Check out our upcoming split with Thrones and you'll have your answer.

Recently the ‘Altered State of America’ mini is re-released with a bonus remix CD, will this bonus remix CD become available on vinyl?

I'm working on that and having it be a stand alone itunes item right now.

Will have ‘Agorapocalypse’ also a remix version in the future? And do you have any candidates that you like to do it?

I want this to happen really bad- I want The Berzerker, Drumcorps, DJ Nevermind and Otto Von Schirach to produce on it.

Agoraphobic Nosebleed never played live except for an unscheduled live show in 2003 at the New England Metal and Hardcore festival. Is there any chance ANb will gonna play live because of the release of ‘Agorapocalypse’? If yes, also in Europe?

No way, It's never going to happen.

Can you give us some names of awesome new bands that we need to check out?

For me the new Cokebust record on Sixweeks, Weekend Nachos (everything), Population Reduction is rad and ANS (my favorite band at the moment).

A lot of people will think your band name is funny. Which band names do you think are funny?

All the dumb ones- I love Weekend Nachos but there band name sucks so bad it's actually cool. I think all these faux homo cover bands have some funny names like Black Fag instead of Black Flag and Gay-rilla Biscuits, Youth of to Gay.

So this was it!

Thanks for the interview.

Interview by Maurice.
Pictures taken from the web.