EMQ’s With MOTHFLESH
EMQ’s With MOTHFLESH
Hi Everyone. Welcome to another EMQs interview, this time with Malaysian Melodic Death/ Groove Metal band, Mothflesh. Huge thanks to their bass player, Eze, for taking part.
What is your name, what do you play, and can you tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
Colloquially I go as Eze and I play bass for Mothflesh. Mothflesh was formed around late 2018. It all started when Imran, was looking for a band to perform with and stumbled upon a 5-year-old ad that listed an opening for a vocalist slot in an online forum. The ad that referenced bands like DevilDriver, Chimaira, Machine Head and other NWOAHM bands that were at the height of their popularity at the time was posted up by Eze who had trouble finding a consistent metal vocalist and at the time completely ruled out any future pursuing bass in a metal outfit in Malaysia. A little taken aback at the inquiry of the ad which included a vocal cover of an Overkill song, Eze and Imran met up and agreed to give forming a band a shot after discovering a kinship for mutual bands.
Soon after the band formed with a loose line-up of rotating lead guitarists and drummers with past guitarist Giri Ganesan, who co-wrote the debut album “Nocturnal Armour”. The band’s early sound can be best described as Groove-influenced Thrash Metal, think if Slayer’s “Disciple” had a baby with The Haunted’s “Exit Wounds”. After extensive regional touring around South-East Asia, which included 30 dates in 4 different countries, the band experienced tumultuous line-up change with drums and guitars until the introduction of Ranveer “Maddog” Singh which the band met at his album launch for his Death Metal project. As Ranveer resonated with the Groove-oriented music behind Nocturnal Armour and was friends with members of the band, it didn’t take much convincing for Maddog to fill up the missing guitar spots and inject his Death Metal technical virtuosity in the catalogue. This is evident in the single Skyfather and the band’s latest album “Machine Eater”.
How did you come up with your band name?
We were drawn to the imagery and the nature of the moth. Moths are creatures of the night and signify a form of nocturnal or nightly rebirth and renewal. The flesh is the embodiment of this renewal. Also, it looked cool on paper.
What Country/Region are you from and what is the Metal/Rock scene like there?
We’re from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a small South-East Asian country sandwiched between Thailand and Indonesia. The Malaysian scene is inherently divided into 4 group: the Metalcore/Post-Hardcore/Synthcore/core scene; the punk scene; the Old School Death Metal scene, and Black Metal scene. Each group holds their musical preference and cultural taste in such high regard that they exist in their own little box, often oblivious and unknown to what’s going outside of it. This reinforced elitism deters younger members of their respective scenes to reach out, explore or diversify their musical palette. For bands that are influenced by genres drawn from two different scenes, like a Deathcore band, they’re going to have a lot of trouble finding a place to regularly play because they exist in two or more differential musical “realms”. The division is never good in our opinion, but we understand that it’s hard to go against the grain of culture.
What is your latest release? (Album, EP, Single, Video)
Our Latest release is our 2nd album, “Machine Eater” which was released on the 12th of December of 2021. What puts this album apart from what’s available in the Metal scene?
I guess, a short answer to this would be that, as a band we felt that there was something missing with the state of modern Metal today. The trajectory Metal has taken is fantastic, there’s never been a more creatively liberating time especially in regards to the technicality, the groove and the sheer desire to push the physical human limits of instrumental virtuosity. However, the industry standards on production and sound quality, arrangements and even the type of synth lead you use for the ambient atmosphere have made the state of pretty sterile and almost… generic. As a result, Machine Eater takes the swing from early Groove-Metal bands like Fear Factory, Chimaira or even Decapitated and added modern elements from bands like Meshuggah, Whitecapel or Jinjer. The mix is intended to sound as gritty as we could keep it but polished enough for newer listeners not to be unperturbed by it. It’s our love letter to the two decades of Metal we consumed growing up.
Who have been your greatest influences?
We formulate our groove-oriented riffs from bands that are similar in nature with Fear Factory or Decapitated with technicality drawn from the classic Tech-Death monsters like Necrophagist and Dying Fetus. As of late, we’ve been influenced by Whammy-Driven bands like Car-Bomb and Twelve Foot-Ninja and incorporated elements of that in Machine Eater. As for the melody, resident 7 stringer Maddog, finds his roots in virtuosic Metal guitarists such as Jeff Loomis and Keith Merrow and his solos in songs like Cyberpsycho or Myriagon are pretty reflective of that. Our vocalist, Imran draws his vocal roots in early Bay-Area Thrash Metal like Exodus and Overkill. Over the years, he’s built upon his style by borrowing some vocal elements from Phil Bozeman of Whitechapel and the ubiquitous Corey Taylor. Bassist Eze draws his compositional influences from 90’s groove-oriented bands, especially Deftones who strike the right mix of melancholy and intensity. Stylistically, he’s greatly influenced by contemporary progressive metal bassists like Nick Schendzielos, Even Brewer and the recently deceased Sean Malone.
What first got you into music?
My personal introduction to music was from playing the violin for a few years, but I knew early on that it wasn’t for me nor was I particularly interested in listening to music at the time. Things changed in high school where I had to do a class project on music, but because I didn’t consume anything at the time, a close friend introduced me to Linkin Park and System of A Down. I was pretty much hooked and the rest was history. I believe Imran and Ranveer were both heavily influenced by classic rock before the entrance and foray into the more extreme edges of metal.
If you could collaborate with a current band or musician who would it be?
As a band, we’re big fans of where Jinjer or Twelve Foot Ninja is taking music today, We’d love to have a song featuring any of their members!
If you could play any festival in the world, which would you choose and why?
Bloodstock Open Air or Hellfest In Europe simply because they’re so diverse and forward-thinking with the bands on their list. As for Asia, Knotfest Japan is a milestone we’d like to achieve.
What’s the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?
Probably custom-made home t-shirts; it wasn’t necessarily weird, but differently odd enough for it to stick in our minds.
If you had one message for your fans, what would it be?
Machine Eater is out and available in both Physical and Digital Formats. Tell us what you think about the new direction we took! We’re going heavier with 8 strings and exploring the technical depths as we go along.
If you could bring one rock star back from the dead, who would it be?
Peter Steele.
What do you enjoy the most about being a musician? And what do you hate?
I suppose the internet had evolved the landscape and the associated challenges and rewards that go together with them. The internet has made music more accessible and, in some sense, has democratised the market. Blogs, Webzines, Pages, Channels, and algorithmic driven playlists have made music easier to discover but simultaneously has made it harder to choose with the artist or band a listener must choose. With finite time to listen to music but an almost infinite amount of music to listen to, the listener today is often met with the classic case of option paralysis.
For us, the internet has made it easier for our music to get international reach, but at the same time, it’s much more competitive. We’ve also got to be more connected because that’s the zeitgeist of today, being connected with your fans and being engaged. That also means that we’ve got to produce more content and at times it feels like it’s less about being an artist making music and more about content creation. The challenge or hindrance that’s framed in the question has simply evolved and technology has increased the rate of that evolution. Considering the challenges, platforms like YouTube and Spotify are great tools; artists such as ourselves would just need to be better skilled and need to be ahead of the game to better utilise streaming platforms.
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
Education: we need to focus on diversifying the form of artistic and musical exposure. When equipped with a better education on music and art, the fans get to maximise the consumption of art by consciously consuming it, whether it is the form of art, quality, or method of delivery. This in turn would force a bottom-up wave of change to occur which includes everyone from concert organisers, retail stores, A&R reps, websites, streaming services and so on.
Name one of your all-time favourite albums?
Eze: Rammstein – “Reise Reise”
Imran: Slipknot – “Iowa”
Ranveer: Nevermore – “This Godless Endeavour”
What’s best? Vinyl, Cassettes, CDs, or Downloads?
Vinyl for the ceremonial experience. CD for lossless quality. Downloads for convenience.
What’s the best gig that you have played to date?
We’ve experienced everything from being extorted by foreign authorities to arriving late to an international festival because someone decided to set a forest on fire and subsequently delayed our train. But a memory that we look back to fondly is when we played in Cambodia which has a pretty blossoming, but nascent Metal scene. We opened for an international festival which was organized to be somewhat like an Asian South by Southwest, but they booked the venue at a fine dining restaurant at a relatively posh part of town. As we took the stage, the diners had a few confused looks on their faces, especially since we were dressed in our staple Metal stage attire – there was even a family celebrating their son’s birthday who assumed we were performing for him. After 20 minutes of confused looks from the diners, the electricity in the whole venue (which is the restaurant) got cut by some residents nearby who were complaining about the noise we were drawing to the venue. It was probably the most ostentatious place we played, but it never phased us – we’ll play anywhere to anyone.
If you weren’t a musician, what else would you be doing?
Something else within the artistic spectrum, maybe cooking.
Which five people would you invite to a dinner party?
All the guys from Car Bomb
What’s next for the band?
Maddog just purchased an 8-string guitar so that means one thing. We’re going heavier. An EP is probably going to be in the works, we like to keep our releases consistent with a release of a single or EP every year. It’s a great way to highlight our creative headspace as a unit and engage our fans. Music is constantly evolving and presently quicker ever than before – in some sense, releasing music at an annual rate keeps our finger on the pulse with the state of music and technology. Beyond our musical goals, we’d like to explore the possibility of being one of the few Malaysian Metal bands to be able to tour Europe comprehensively and share music from our little corner of the world.
What Social Media/Website links do you use to get your music out to people?
We’re active on Instagram and Facebook. Our music is available on all major streaming platforms. Catch us on Bandcamp if you’d like to purchase merch from us directly though.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mothfleshband
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mothfleshband/?hl=en
Bandcamp: https://mothflesh.bandcamp.com/
Jaffa Cakes! Are they a cake or a biscuit?
Cakes!
Thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
We’re good, thanks very much!
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