1 – You’ve set yourselves the task of releasing 10 albums in 10 years – why?
Sam: We are asking ourselves that very question right now. Look, it seemed like a funny idea at the time. We’re definitely not laughing anymore.
2 – When you put Werewolves together did you have a stockpile of music or do you write something new for each release?
Sam: It’s all new stuff, each and every release. Custom hand-crafted idiocy. It’d probably make it a lot easier if we had a big pile of riffs we could dip into, but then I reckon it would lose a bit of its spontaneous magic.
3 – How quickly do the albums come together?
Sam: Matt says “right, here I go” and starts raining riffs, and usually within a week or two writes an entire album’s worth of material. Within a couple of months Dave blasts all over it, then I spend a few months learning the bass and trying to work out something horrible to screech over the top. All up from go to woah, usually less than six albums. There have been times in the past when we smash it out in under a month, and we’re usually recording the next album while the current one is being released.
4 – You’ve all played in different bands for a long time – how does being in Werewolves differ?
Sam: It’s really easy. Most other bands take a while to get albums done, there’s a degree of compromise ever present, a dollop of angst about the material, usually one guy doing all the non-music work. Obviously, recording is NOT a problem for us. We’re all committed hooligans, no-one’s trying to turn this band into their art project. And we all put in work.
5 – ‘The Ugliest Of All’ puts you at album six – will the Werewolves sound get uglier from here?
Sam: Of course. I don’t know how, we’re already profoundly hideous. I think since the fourth album we’ve been going “bloody hell, I don’t know how we’re going to top this”. We always manage to find a way though.
6 – Which track from ‘The Ugliest Of All’ would you recommend a new listener to Werewolves start with?
Sam: I reckon “I Want To Be Offended” is a pretty good starting point. It has all our best ingredients, it’s catchy, and the tone of the lyrics let you know what we’re all about. It storms out the gate and kicks you right in the teeth. Honestly, if you listen to it and you don’t like it then I can guarantee we’re not for you, move on.
7 – Which bands have influenced your “increasingly unlistenable barrage of truly hideous music” the most?
Sam: I reckon Marduk’s “Panzer Division Marduk” is our north star. It’s not enough for us to blast, or to have primitive knuckle-dragging riffs, but there has to be a smelly denim snottiness to it all, and they captured it perfectly. It’s the one album we’d all agree on. Past that, Matt digs Hate Eternal, Dave listens to everything but has a bit of love for the old black metal scene. I’m a child of 90s death metal, vocals like Dave Vincent, rhythms like Glen Benton, the wry lyrical wit of Jeff Walker. I fall profoundly short of all three.
8 – What are Werewolves live shows like?
Sam: If it’s somewhere we haven’t played before, people stop and stare. It’s a tsunami of aggression coming off the stage. There’ll be some lunatic in the crowd who knows our stuff howling away in appreciation but everyone’s kinda just getting their hair blown back. If it’s somewhere we’ve played before, then it’s on, moshpits and injuries. We’re a very stripped back show. After Berzerker and all the masks, samples, triggers and shit, Matt and I agreed that if we did another band live it had to be as simple as walking up to an amp, plugging in, and playing. Anything else would be too much effort.
9 – In the track ‘Fools of The Trade’ there is the line, “In ten years time, what will they say?” – what do you think will be your legacy after album 10 is done?
Sam: My legacy will probably be nonstop visits to the physio. Ha, I don’t know man. You throw stuff out into the universe and you’ve got no control over what happens to it. Werewolves will have one of the largest back catalogues of any death metal band, fuck knows if that will mean anything to anyone. We just do this because we want to.
10 – Finally, what 10 songs have influenced you the most?
Sam: From other bands? I can only speak for myself here:
BOLT THROWER, Where Next to Conquer: let me know that there was a place in metal for happy riffs
MORBID ANGEL, Thy Kingdom Come: blew my head off first time I heard it. Nothing about it made sense. All I knew was it was catchy and incredibly evil.
NOX, Satan Ex Machina: the perfect death metal track. I try and match this kind of energy
M.A.R.R.S, Anitina: my first introduction to noise
BRUTAL TRUTH, Walking Corpse: their hyperblasts were at least a decade ahead of everyone else
PORTISHEAD, Strangers: perfect lounge/bar music
DAMAGED, Passive Backseat Demon Engines: broke new ground that no-one has trod since
EMPEROR, Thus Spake the Nightspirit: did things in metal I didn’t know were possible
MAZZY STAR, Rhymes of an Hour: immediately timewarps you into another place and life, something to keep in mind when surrounded by chromatic scales and blasting
DEICIDE, Carnage in the Temple of the Damned: hooked me onto devil worship in music
