Fat land of picturesque Portland gave birth to another underground doom act. Indeed duet of Inebrion and Drunkus Crom play a bizarre and raw mix of stoner doom with pushy thrash elements, their sound and vocals are strongly marked with heavy booze stench, and they tunes are full of ugly alcoholic energy! Comrade Inebrion is awakening from his slumber, he is here to shed a light onto uneasy life of Booze Lords!
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I’m thinking that it’s a kind of sad mistake but not all of our readers even heard about Booze Lords. Where are you from comrades? What are your main goals in that dirty mortal world?
A sad mistake indeed, but with so many bands out there, and with us only arriving on the scene, it will be a long time until we are known. But then again, we didn’t create Booze Lords for attention of fame, we are realists, this kind of music is not for the masses. Can you imagine if drunken doom punk was the standard to which all people based their music tastes? Our society just wouldn’t function, it is better this way. We are from the metropolis of Portland, Oregon, where Pabst flows like water and the clouds never part; basically, we’re a bunch of pasty inebriates. As far as goals…we don’t really have any, we just want to record a lot of albums, drink thousands of beers, grow infirm, feeble and then die. Can you picture a more glorious life than that?
True to say, I can! But don’t you think that drinking thousands of beers may stop you from recording a lot of albums?
We’ll, once you’ve worked up a tolerance…
Man, how much did you drink before you understand that you can play heavy rock? What was a main drink which did lead you to the state of Booze Lords?
Well, it’s an interesting story actually. Earlier this year, I had never played an instrument in my life. I was at a party, the stereo was blasting Black Flag, Saint Vitus, Dark Throne and Motorhead then I drank a bunch of Pabst and passed out. I had a vision that night. A man, who looked suspiciously like Lemmy Kilmister and Dave Chandler combined into one human, visited me in this dream, and let me tell you, he was an ugly son of a bitch. Anyway, he told me to create a band called Drunk Lords but I thought that named sounded like garbage, so after a brief argument in which I yanked on this guys frizzy grey hair, he relented. Thus Booze Lords was created. And…uuuh…suddenly, I could play all these instruments….
It looks like a sort of divine intervention!
It must have been! You know, some guys sell their soul to the devil for their talent, others people practice their asses off. Me, I got wasted and had a calling. I prefer my way, it’s a lot quicker and I get to keep my soul.
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Well, I see that you move pretty fast: you just did gather a year ago and already have full-length. It has both strong and weak sides, I would like to ask you tell about them, is it ok for you?
Well, we are only a couple guys and we don’t play live. So it’s a lot easier to just hang out, get plastered and write a bunch of songs. In fact, we have two more albums worth of material, just waiting to be released. Without the whole live aspect, we can just focus on recording, which I like better anyway. This way, we can spare any audience we might have from the drunken spectacle that a Booze Lords show would be. As for the albums quality, we record everything in my home studio, its far from a professional set up. There are things that annoy me about the records quality, some timing issues in the drums, and what not. But I don’t really care much; my favorite bands are the type that record raw albums anyway. I like hearing mistakes; in this age of auto tuning and over produced garbage, it tells me that someone is actually behind the instruments.
But I read that you even visited a studio to record your first full-length, what did drive you to such compromise act then it seems pretty easy to hang in garage and combine drinking with record-sessions?
Like I said above, we recorded in my own studio aptly named: Morose Studios. Most of the time I was guzzling beers and laying down tracks by myself, but when I was finished, Drunkus Crom came into the studio and laid down all the vocals. When we did the gang vocals, we had a few other guys from some local bands come in and it became more of a party. After all, you’ve gotta have a few when doing gang vocals.
Yes… Now I see my mistake - you did mastering at Sage Audio. Are you ambitious person? I’m meaning are you ready to do the best you can to gain recognition on world doom scene? What are you ready to do for that prize?
Yes, we had our album mastered at Sage Audio, and honestly they do a great job. Before this project I would just master projects myself. But for Legion of the Tankard, I wanted to have it professionally done. In fact the mastering on this project cost us the most money overall, but it was totally worth it. As for ambition, I’m not really pushing for fame or glory; I just want to produce good music and my philosophy for that is to create honest music. I think there is a bit of a deficit in that these days. One of the bands that fit the bill is Ice Dragon, and perhaps I aspire to have the respect they have.
In Booze Lords you combine both stoner and thrash elements, what does attract you to such rough and strange mix? Does it reflect your state when you’re drunken?
We were really going for a band that’s fun to listen to, that you can crank up at a party, which has a variety of tempos. I think we were successful in that. As for the attraction of genre mixing, I guess as an avid listener of the 80’s doom bands like Pentagram, Saint Vitus and Candlemass I loved the sound of the doomy riffs, but wanted the speed and punkyness of Motorhead. When I get drunk, I become a sophisticated gentleman and listen to classical music, have philosophical conversations and read passages from heavy, leather bound tomes….
Do you have a perfect vision of Booze Lords sound?
Well, one day it will be accompanied by a 100 piece orchestra, and we’ll be playing in big concert halls and record lame albums with overlong songs and have a melodramatic documentary made about our personnel problems…wait, Metallica already did that. In that case, our perfect vision would be heavier guitars, doomier passages, a better production and more puns for song titles. Basically what we’re doing now, just better.
Do you plan to continue working over new songs or is this project only a chance to relax and glorify Green Snake from the Bottle? Well, is it project or is it real active band?
I do a lot of work in a lot of different bands. All my bands are basically side projects. I’ve been working with a few other guys with the Space God Ritual debut, and another record for Krack Sabbat, and Apostles of Grief… and, well I’ll stop name dropping. But the point is, all these bands are active, we just don’t do the live thing because it’s less productive. Legion of the Tankard is Booze Lords first record, and as I mentioned earlier, there are two more to come. I just need the time, and the beer money to complete them.
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I see that some of your other bands play doom stuff too, it’s a right time and space to share few words about them!
I guess I can’t really focus on one thing at a time. I’m a recording junky, it’s my favorite thing to do, I can spend hours laying down tracks. For some people, they hate recording and prefer the live thing, I’m the complete opposite. So all these aforementioned bands are just more outlets for me I guess. But all you readers out there, check ‘em out if you have the time.
Time to time I could say that your full-length is a good soundtrack for my awakening… What do you usually do waking up at most terrible mornings? How do you endure hangover? Hah, well, and what do you do if you awake still drunken and need to go to work?
Well it is good to hear that our album is good for something. Well, when I have a hangover, I listen to Dying Inside off the Born to Late album, drink a few brews on the toilette and hate myself. A greasy breakfast always helps too. I’m an Australian, our kind have this whole hangover thing down to a science. As for work, I live within walking distance and have very few responsibilities. So I get by with a hangover just fine.
Hah, it’s funny to hear because just a week ago I saw a crew of Australian battle ship at shore. Well, I need to say they look like tough guys yet lasses of that crew were deadly brutal as well… Do you have any “drinking” traditions in Portland? You’re from Portland, right?
Yea, they can be real ball breakers…anyway. Not too many drinking traditions over here, just the occasional bonfire and guzzling of PBR. Though yearly we have the Ceremony of Sludge festival, which is always a good time and in which many cans are crushed.
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What were most insane things which you did during your sessions?
Recording is mostly just business and most of the time it’s just me sitting in a chair getting a computer screen tan (not very glamorous). But during our release parties, there’s the usual vomiting, pants soiling and passing out. I guess the worse thing I’ve done whilst drunk, was punch a guy in the face (he was literally asking for it), he fell, twisted his ankle and was on crutches during his next show.
Ha-ha, okay, man, that was enough fun and promising so let us finish this interview on that point. Thanks for your time – have a nice weekend with hot women and cold beer.
Thanks for the interview! Have vodka for me.
Interview By Aleks E
Booze Lords| Facebook
Booze Lords | Bandcamp
A sad mistake indeed, but with so many bands out there, and with us only arriving on the scene, it will be a long time until we are known. But then again, we didn’t create Booze Lords for attention of fame, we are realists, this kind of music is not for the masses. Can you imagine if drunken doom punk was the standard to which all people based their music tastes? Our society just wouldn’t function, it is better this way. We are from the metropolis of Portland, Oregon, where Pabst flows like water and the clouds never part; basically, we’re a bunch of pasty inebriates. As far as goals…we don’t really have any, we just want to record a lot of albums, drink thousands of beers, grow infirm, feeble and then die. Can you picture a more glorious life than that?
True to say, I can! But don’t you think that drinking thousands of beers may stop you from recording a lot of albums?
We’ll, once you’ve worked up a tolerance…
Man, how much did you drink before you understand that you can play heavy rock? What was a main drink which did lead you to the state of Booze Lords?
Well, it’s an interesting story actually. Earlier this year, I had never played an instrument in my life. I was at a party, the stereo was blasting Black Flag, Saint Vitus, Dark Throne and Motorhead then I drank a bunch of Pabst and passed out. I had a vision that night. A man, who looked suspiciously like Lemmy Kilmister and Dave Chandler combined into one human, visited me in this dream, and let me tell you, he was an ugly son of a bitch. Anyway, he told me to create a band called Drunk Lords but I thought that named sounded like garbage, so after a brief argument in which I yanked on this guys frizzy grey hair, he relented. Thus Booze Lords was created. And…uuuh…suddenly, I could play all these instruments….
It looks like a sort of divine intervention!
It must have been! You know, some guys sell their soul to the devil for their talent, others people practice their asses off. Me, I got wasted and had a calling. I prefer my way, it’s a lot quicker and I get to keep my soul.
Well, we are only a couple guys and we don’t play live. So it’s a lot easier to just hang out, get plastered and write a bunch of songs. In fact, we have two more albums worth of material, just waiting to be released. Without the whole live aspect, we can just focus on recording, which I like better anyway. This way, we can spare any audience we might have from the drunken spectacle that a Booze Lords show would be. As for the albums quality, we record everything in my home studio, its far from a professional set up. There are things that annoy me about the records quality, some timing issues in the drums, and what not. But I don’t really care much; my favorite bands are the type that record raw albums anyway. I like hearing mistakes; in this age of auto tuning and over produced garbage, it tells me that someone is actually behind the instruments.
But I read that you even visited a studio to record your first full-length, what did drive you to such compromise act then it seems pretty easy to hang in garage and combine drinking with record-sessions?
Like I said above, we recorded in my own studio aptly named: Morose Studios. Most of the time I was guzzling beers and laying down tracks by myself, but when I was finished, Drunkus Crom came into the studio and laid down all the vocals. When we did the gang vocals, we had a few other guys from some local bands come in and it became more of a party. After all, you’ve gotta have a few when doing gang vocals.
Yes… Now I see my mistake - you did mastering at Sage Audio. Are you ambitious person? I’m meaning are you ready to do the best you can to gain recognition on world doom scene? What are you ready to do for that prize?
Yes, we had our album mastered at Sage Audio, and honestly they do a great job. Before this project I would just master projects myself. But for Legion of the Tankard, I wanted to have it professionally done. In fact the mastering on this project cost us the most money overall, but it was totally worth it. As for ambition, I’m not really pushing for fame or glory; I just want to produce good music and my philosophy for that is to create honest music. I think there is a bit of a deficit in that these days. One of the bands that fit the bill is Ice Dragon, and perhaps I aspire to have the respect they have.
In Booze Lords you combine both stoner and thrash elements, what does attract you to such rough and strange mix? Does it reflect your state when you’re drunken?
We were really going for a band that’s fun to listen to, that you can crank up at a party, which has a variety of tempos. I think we were successful in that. As for the attraction of genre mixing, I guess as an avid listener of the 80’s doom bands like Pentagram, Saint Vitus and Candlemass I loved the sound of the doomy riffs, but wanted the speed and punkyness of Motorhead. When I get drunk, I become a sophisticated gentleman and listen to classical music, have philosophical conversations and read passages from heavy, leather bound tomes….
Do you have a perfect vision of Booze Lords sound?
Well, one day it will be accompanied by a 100 piece orchestra, and we’ll be playing in big concert halls and record lame albums with overlong songs and have a melodramatic documentary made about our personnel problems…wait, Metallica already did that. In that case, our perfect vision would be heavier guitars, doomier passages, a better production and more puns for song titles. Basically what we’re doing now, just better.
Do you plan to continue working over new songs or is this project only a chance to relax and glorify Green Snake from the Bottle? Well, is it project or is it real active band?
I do a lot of work in a lot of different bands. All my bands are basically side projects. I’ve been working with a few other guys with the Space God Ritual debut, and another record for Krack Sabbat, and Apostles of Grief… and, well I’ll stop name dropping. But the point is, all these bands are active, we just don’t do the live thing because it’s less productive. Legion of the Tankard is Booze Lords first record, and as I mentioned earlier, there are two more to come. I just need the time, and the beer money to complete them.
I guess I can’t really focus on one thing at a time. I’m a recording junky, it’s my favorite thing to do, I can spend hours laying down tracks. For some people, they hate recording and prefer the live thing, I’m the complete opposite. So all these aforementioned bands are just more outlets for me I guess. But all you readers out there, check ‘em out if you have the time.
Time to time I could say that your full-length is a good soundtrack for my awakening… What do you usually do waking up at most terrible mornings? How do you endure hangover? Hah, well, and what do you do if you awake still drunken and need to go to work?
Well it is good to hear that our album is good for something. Well, when I have a hangover, I listen to Dying Inside off the Born to Late album, drink a few brews on the toilette and hate myself. A greasy breakfast always helps too. I’m an Australian, our kind have this whole hangover thing down to a science. As for work, I live within walking distance and have very few responsibilities. So I get by with a hangover just fine.
Hah, it’s funny to hear because just a week ago I saw a crew of Australian battle ship at shore. Well, I need to say they look like tough guys yet lasses of that crew were deadly brutal as well… Do you have any “drinking” traditions in Portland? You’re from Portland, right?
Yea, they can be real ball breakers…anyway. Not too many drinking traditions over here, just the occasional bonfire and guzzling of PBR. Though yearly we have the Ceremony of Sludge festival, which is always a good time and in which many cans are crushed.
Recording is mostly just business and most of the time it’s just me sitting in a chair getting a computer screen tan (not very glamorous). But during our release parties, there’s the usual vomiting, pants soiling and passing out. I guess the worse thing I’ve done whilst drunk, was punch a guy in the face (he was literally asking for it), he fell, twisted his ankle and was on crutches during his next show.
Ha-ha, okay, man, that was enough fun and promising so let us finish this interview on that point. Thanks for your time – have a nice weekend with hot women and cold beer.
Thanks for the interview! Have vodka for me.
Interview By Aleks E
Booze Lords| Facebook
Booze Lords | Bandcamp