Ryan Waste is also of MUNICIPAL WASTE who are touring in JULY.
Latest Album: Under the Crooked Claw
Label: Nuclear Blast
The horror genre and thrash metal subculture have always gone hand in hand. Any aficionado of 80’s splatter is likely to recall the hard rock and metal soundtracks associated with the more extreme claret spilling variety of the horror prosthetic gore effects craze that found an afterlife with a rabid fanbase familiar with VHS formats, midnight screenings at cult film cinemas of yesteryear, and more often than not, was of the dubbed variety of films from Italian Gallio films. American thrash metal stalwarts Municipal Waste’s guitarist Ryan Waste, who also serves as bassist and frontman for metal-punk trio, BAT, has a solid appreciation of the horror genre.
In that light, if notable Italian horror movie directors such as Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava, and Umberto Lenzi ring a thudding bell of horror doom, then the name Lucio Fulci defines the late papacy of horror from which BAT draws a lot of influence. To then snare horror soundtrack maestro Fabio Frizzi as a contributor to BAT’s latest album, Under the Crooked Claw, should provide a fairly direct summation of what to expect, in case the album artwork hasn’t already dropped a hint. Given Municipal Waste are about to return to Australia to, pardon the pun, lay waste to venues, a pre-tour opportunity to chat to Waste about his BAT band, which he insists is not a side project, was too delicious a prospect to pass up, and unlike Ozzy’s interactions with the nocturnal mammal, no rabies virus shots were required following this discussion.
Ryan Waste: Hey, Paul, how’s it going?
Hot Metal: Good, mate. The latest album, Under the Crooked Claw is pretty heavy.
RW: I wouldn’t expect any less, though, would you?
HM: True. How did you get [Italian soundtrack composer] Fabio Frizzi involved [for “Una Torcia Illumina Il Cielo”]?
RW: Man, I reached out to him. I saw him play in Maryland Deathfest [American extreme metal music festival], and I really enjoyed the show. Obviously, I am a longtime fan of all the cinema stuff, and he couldn’t have been a nicer guy. He wrote back to me and was happy to do it. I sent him the first song [“Vampyre Lore”] of what I thought it would flow into, and I basically asked him to make it sound like a vampire had walked in the room. And I think he nailed it with that.
HM: Yeah, his resume is pretty amazing, with films such as The Beyond and City of the Living Dead; legendary horror films like that.
RW: The Beyond is one of the best soundtracks. Yeah, and of course, Zombie [aka Zombie Flesh Eaters in UK and Zombi 2 in Italy, unofficially following George Romero’s classic Dawn of the Dead]. He’s just the coolest guy, and an energetic guy on top of it, and very humble for all the great stuff that he’s done.
HM: The album’s artwork is very horror inspired, perhaps with a touch of Gwar?
RW: Well, I wanted it more like an Italian pulp comic kind of like, okay. You know that kind of eerie look. So, I got an Italian horror maestro to add to that. But yeah, man, it’s this idea I’ve had in my head for a long time with the bat being more straight on. I wanted him in action. I actually have the physical mask right here of the bat. I’ve been pulling it out for the interviews [shows the prosthetic mask]. This is the head that I set. I send the artist the head profile Margaret Rolicki [Gwar costume designer] who painted it, designed the head, too. She is in Gwar as well. So, there’s a Richmond [Virginia, United States] connection. But, yeah, Brandon Holt did the [inking] illustration, first and foremost, then she painted it. Yeah, the bat just made an appearance today in the unboxing of the record. We just got the record, too. So, the record’s out here.
HM: It lends itself to being the vinyl format experience.
RW: Oh, big time. Yeah. I mean, my room is full of records. I wouldn’t play music if I couldn’t put it on a record.
HM: Yeah, and many people today are not consuming music, necessarily, via vinyl. Perhaps maybe metalheads and more prog people are doing so, but sadly most people today are listening via streaming.
RW: Well, we’re trying to change that. You know, turn them onto it. I mean, it’s still selling, so, maybe they’re just putting it on their wall or something, but, you know, kids are buying records. I had a kid pick up a record and ask, ‘What is this, a calendar? I thought it was like a calendar.’ Someone also thought a cassette was a deck of cards.
HM: BAT started out around ten years ago, and there’s been only one personnel change. But how did it cement to the current line-up?
RW: Yeah, it was just an idea, you know, over ten years ago between me and Felix, our former drummer, Felix Griffin [former D.R.I. drummer]. It wasn’t until Nick [Poulos – Volture guitarist, ex-Cannabis Corpse] and I got together to actually make songs and make it BAT. So, it wouldn’t be BAT without me and Nick. Felix left amicably in 2017 or early in 2018, and Chris [Marshall – drummer from No Tomorrow] was already jamming with us in Richmond. Felix lived in Texas, the rest of us are in Virginia, and if you live in the states, you know, that’s nowhere near each other. So, it made things really difficult for practice, first and foremost, or for just to get up and play a show. So, you know, Felix had some tough shit happened in life, and we’re still good friends, but he stepped out of the band around then. But having Chris live in Richmond, and being in one room to write music together just made the world a difference. It’s what made this record what it is, you know, having drums there to write. I’m sure Felix would have loved to have been around to write more as a three piece, but it was just what we had to work with before, being long distance. So just being a Richmond band, like, all in one city now, and it is has been six years since we’ve had Chris in the band; it’s just been just such an asset, and I just look forward to going to band practice and making more tunes with these guys.
HM: How far can you take this band alongside Municipal Waste? Is it also a touring entity?
RW: As far as I want. I take everything 100%, man. Like, I hate when people say, ‘Oh, this is a side project you’re doing,’ because that doesn’t exist to me. It’s a band, just, like Municipal Waste is a band. Is there enough time in the day and a year to do it? No, but I still try to make it work. Yeah, I’m on tour, now that BAT is being more active, you know, which I always wanted to be. Yeah, it’s just going to take more of my time, but that’s how I like to spend my time.
HM: BAT has been able to support bands like Napalm Death. That is pretty good.
RW: Yeah, we did that. I mean, we got over to you the UK and Europe, and played at five in the afternoon, then people showed up after we played, ha-ha. Hopefully we’ll get a better slot next time. But, yeah, we just did South America with Exciter, and just got back from that. That was incredible. And, yeah, starting to, you know, hit the road more with BAT, which is what I always wanted to do. So, we got a tour in the US with Necrot, so after our record comes out, then we go on tour; that’s the way you’re supposed to do it.
HM: As a three-piece, are there any challenges for you with singing and playing bass at the same time, or is it something that you’re quite comfortable with nowadays?
RW: I’m comfortable with it now. I just kind of dove in headfirst with it. I never really planned to be a singer and always played bass. I played bass longer than I played guitar, actually. I played bass since I was a little kid, so it was my first instrument, so I’m very comfortable with that. And it’s just cool being a three-piece, man. It’s like there’s something different. It’s a different beast; I’ve got to be the rhythm guitar player, you know, that’s why I play distorted [tones]. Nick goes into his leads, and it’s got to stay underneath and have the body still, but it’s just cool. Everyone’s on their game, and Chris throws down behind the drum kit. Nick’s a fucking phenomenal riff writer and lead player, and it’s just that we have fun together. I mean, it’s just three of us and we all get along well. It’s easy to tour and travel. It’s just like old times, man. We’re about to get in a van and do it the old way, you know?
HM: I was going to say that songs like “Revenge of the Wolf” have prominent bass parts, but it almost behaves as a rhythm guitar track.
RW: Exactly, and that’s how it has to be, you know. People always said I played bass like a guitar player, and I think I play guitar like a bass player, so might as well just let it be what it is and do it. Ha-ha.
HM: I heard a tiny little bit of backing vocals in “Just Buried”.
RW: Yeah, I had my friend Jack Bauer, who used to be in Volture with me and Nick; Jack a heavy metal singer. He’s singing on the backups, and Chris and Nick are both singing too. And we all did some ohs, just like some old Misfits’ whoahs in that one. It’s funny that that song was actually written by me and my friend Ian Chains [Kilpatrick] from Cauldron [Canadian heavy metal band]. I haven’t really talked about this yet in an interview, so it’s kind of funny story. We did a project up in Toronto called Wedlock and it was, like, marriage inducing heavy metal. And we had all these marriage themed songs, and I would write the lyrics. I wrote the lyrics for “Just Buried”, and Ian had that kind of melodic riff going on. So, we actually used the song for BAT because nothing ever happened to Wedlock. We kind of BAT-ified the song since I had written the lyrics and some of the rhythm riffs, and Ian wrote the other melodies. Ian played the guitar solo on that one so there’s some Canadian flavour on that song. And, yeah, we made it a BAT tune because I would never see the light of day as Wedlock. So, R.I.P Wedlock.
HM: Yeah, but if you’re a trio, and have any Canadian heritage, you’d have to consider Rush.
RW: I mean, we couldn’t even get into Canada before as a band. We brought it down here instead.
HM: The song, “Bastardized Force” is interesting how you go for into a half time parts from being super-fast.
RW: Yeah, it was the slowest we’ve gone. Nick came up with a lot of that one. Like, the main driving, kind of quarter time riff which was very UK crust [subgenre of punk rock] style stuff. I even gave a ‘charge!’ thinking about Sabbat or old Napalm stuff. But that’s actually the most modern, topical type songs, because we were going through a really rough time in the pandemic, and a lot of the riots were happening in Richmond, and I wanted to speak out against police violence and systematic racism. so that is the most current event, or most serious I’ve gotten lyrically, and I feel like it needed to be said. It was a really shitty time, you know, and shit is still going on. So that’s, like our punk ethics coming through. You know, we’re not just singing about bats flapping around out there. There’s some real shit going down, some real horror going down. So, I wanted to speak out against that.
HM: By comparison, “Rite for Exorcism”, is clearly escapism.
RW: Just right. Yeah and, you know, we’ve got a video for that, and one for “Streetbanger” too.
HM: It is like the reverse version of The Exorcist, in a sense?
RW: Right, yeah, exactly. And that the music video, I don’t want to give away too much with the music video, but that’s exactly what happens in the video. That’s not what you would think.
HM: So how do you think that’ll go down? There’s growing mental health concerns around these days. Or should we just not care and say, ‘Look, it’s entertainment?’
RW: I mean, I’m down to piss people off just as much as I’m down to have fun. So, I mean, what, you take the music as you want or the, you know, the concepts. Yeah. I’ve never worried about what people think when making a record.
HM: Understood. How much pre-production went into doing this latest BAT album?
RW: Well, I mean, we got in a room as three guys and wrote the songs, and we were, you know, we felt we were as tight as we were going to get when we went up to record. We’re pretty cut and dry when it comes to that kind of thing. We put it in the hands of Arthur Rizk, who’s a phenomenal engineer [Philadelphia based], and mix master. I had done the Waste record [2022’s Electrified Brain] with him, and I’d actually asked him to do this BAT record even before that, and we had talked about working together. He knows how to make shit sound real. Like, I don’t like over processed, overproduced sounding modern recordings. Most kick drums piss me off with triggers and stuff like that. So, we wanted none of that. I never want that, and so it was just like a live recording. What you hear is what the band sounds like. You know, we’re in a room playing on loud amps and live drums and, I mean, he captured that. Arthur killed it.
HM: Yeah, it’s a good, good mix, too. When you’re mentioning the drums, it’s single kick drum, as opposed to double kick drums, which is de rigueur in metal.
RW: I prefer single kick. Yeah, I. I think the only double kick I like is Motörhead and Celtic Frost. Just the fucking simple rhythm patterns. But, no, there is none of that in BAT. Felix played single kick, too, and we’re going to keep it that way. I’m a fan of punk drumming with heavy metal riffs.
HM: Well, it works for Iron Maiden’s drummer, Michael Henry ‘Nicko’ McBrain.
RW: Yeah. I mean, he might have two up there, but he’s definitely quick on the one. I feel like some people overdo it. I don’t like it when it’s, like, accented on shit.
HM: Yeah, that seems to be the thing with a lot of metal nowadays when it is very quantised. You’ve got a lot of double bass drums, and all these seven and eight string guitars, where the mix is just turned to mud.
RW: Oh yeah, don’t get me started on that shit.
HM: Well, I guess because you’re a bassist, right. It’s the mix thing where it’s the clarity that you want in there.
RW: Well, yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of reasons. I try not to be too negative, but yeah, definitely no comment on that.
HM: Is there a particular track on this album that you are must happy with at this point in time?
RW: I’m happy with all of them. I’ve got the record right here and I’m trying to go down the list of songs I haven’t talked about “Battered” yet, which opens up the B-side of the record. It was actually the first one we wrote for the record with Chris. And it’s just got like a kind of an English Dogs feel. And I got to do something vocally where I just dropped my voice into a real monotone thing, and I’m happy with how that turned out. That is just like your bare bones kind of metal punk song that I haven’t got to talk too much about. I think we’ll bring that, you know, into the live set pretty soon. The last song, “Final Strike”, was actually the last one we wrote for the record. I was like, we need a final song. We wrote a song to end the record. You know, we have that big, triumphant heavy metal ending at the end. There’s actually a cannon shot that goes out at the end of that. I think that has the most Iron Maiden-esque parts in it too.
HM: I was about to say that about “Final Strike”.
RW: That little bass section is definitely like some middle era Iron Maiden going on there. It’s just like a battle song, so why not sound like Maiden if you’re singing about battle, you know?
HM: Yeah, the bass riff at the end is very Maiden sounding.
RW: Yeah, that’s without a doubt influenced by Iron Maiden. If you don’t know that, you’re probably not a metalhead. Ha-ha.
HM: Yeah, exactly.
RW: But then we had to do something on guitar that wasn’t…well, we couldn’t go too far into Iron Maiden styles. So, Nick came in with his idea on top of that, and it worked out, man. It was really fun to write this record. We had a lot of fun. It got us through a really tough time.
HM: So, what were your influences when you started playing bass? I gather there is Motörhead, maybe Ramones – that kind of thing?
RW: More Black Sabbath actually. Geezer Butler was probably my first influence because it was loud. That was a big component. The bass was just as loud as a guitar in these seventies recordings and Geezer’s shit was just stood out so, well, it seemed like effortless and just really tasteful. Like, think about like “Country Girl” or “Slipping Away” [both from Mob Rules] – the Dio era stuff had the coolest bass parts. So probably Geezer first and yeah, then Lemmy [Kilmister – Motörhead] after that. And then it was all, you know, I kind of tried to do my own thing with it. You know, you can’t emulate someone with so much.
HM: The funny thing about Sabbath is I think that the masters got sent around to different countries. So that when you get various vinyl pressings, there’s slightly different mixes.
RW: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s cool. I try to try to collect all if I can.
HM: It’ll take you a while.
RW: Yeah, I know that for Sabbath I wouldn’t be able to, but that’s the cool thing about records, man. It’s like, I’ve definitely Wings of Chains [BAT 2016 album] got a couple different mixes. You know, a couple sound better than others, but, you know, I’ve collected all the mixes of them.
HM: Yeah, do you prefer playing bass with finger style or with a plectrum?
RW: No, I play with a pick, I can play with my fingers, but I don’t think it leads to [the right feel], because I play right with the kick drum, right with it. I feel like I can pick that faster with a pick. If there’s some reggae parts in there then maybe I’ll use my fingers if we do some Scorpions shit. No, but I’m always a pick bass player, for sure.
HM: Is there a realistic possibility for a tour of BAT to Australia?
RW: We’d love to, man. Well, you know, I’m coming over in July with Municipal Waste, but we were just in South America with Exciter, and we just talked about maybe doing Australia together. Those guys have never been. And the two three-piece bands get along great. So, we could. We’re cheap to travel two three-piece bands. So those guys got really excited when I brought the idea up, no pun intended. But we would love to come down.
HM: They were meant to turn up a while ago, but the pandemic stuffed that up.
RW: Yeah, that’s what they said. Yeah, and I can’t wait to come back. It’s been too long for us, man. I mean, it’s been over ten years. We love it down there.
HM: Yeah, certainly. You could bring the rest of your lineup for BAT and do double duty on the tour.
RW: Ah, I mean, you know, I don’t want to be a cheapskate. You know, it’s. I’m staying over and getting tattooed, though. I’m going to stay over for a little bit. But, no, we’ll do it on our own. We’ll do it up. I’d love to come back.
HM: The recording of Under the Crooked Claw sounds like it was pretty fast, meaning you just went straight in, were organised, and got it done quickly.
RW: We tracked everything in two days, I think, for the music, and then we’ll come back, and I’ll do the vocal. I took my time with the vocals in Richmond, and we did the leads in Richmond. We don’t give away all our secrets, but, yeah, it’s definitely ah, what you see is what you get, or what you hear.
HM: Yeah, it’s pretty raw; meat and potatoes. The production process today has changed massively for all sorts of albums. So, I gather yours was pretty straightforward.
RW: Yeah, I mean, we took it back to Arthur to mix and, you know, he bounces back, and then I listened to it on my couple of different stereos. If it sounds like the band live, that’s what I want. I don’t want it polished; you know? And I think we captured that for sure.
HM: Yeah, indeed. All right, look, thanks very much for having a chat.
RW: Yeah, man. It’s great talking with you. Cheers, man.