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Interview with Reverend
Trudgill of Screamin' Daemon
April 24th 2009 by Chris Davison - Photo by Strawb |
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As a huge fan of Screamin' Daemon, I couldn't
resist the opportunity to interrogate Reverend Trudgill of the
seemingly dead outfit, when I saw him lurking in the bar at
Hammerfest. I asked him about Genocide Gods, Norwich and the mystery
of playing at Pontins...
I'm here with the Rev. Trudgill of Screamin
Daemon. As a big fan, what's going on with Screamin' Daemon, if
anything?
Screamin' Daemon these days is...well, it ground to a halt...well,
basically because without going into it, someone in the band accused
me of doing something serious, which didn't particularly make for
good band mates. We went off to Germany and recorded drums for the
second album, "Genocide Gods", and when we came back to England I
was hoping to finish the recording myself. It's presently about
three quarters finished, and that was about two years ago. For those
two years, nothing has been done. It's debateable whether or not we
will ever be a live act again. It's more likely that we will be just
a purely recording project, that way we can have more guests and
cameo appearances and things like that. I'm now in the Rotted with
Nate (Gould, drums) and Gian (Piras, ex-Solstic, Cradle of Filth).
Gian came in towards the end of Screamin' Daemon as lead guitarist
and Nate was the drummer. We were actually talking about recording
earlier, when we were talking in one of the bungalows there. It is
something that I want to get finished, because it has been hanging
over my head! On the recent The Rotted tour, a lot of people having
coming up to me and asking "what's going on with the second album?",
and I really don't want to let people down, so it is going to get
finished. The other day I got an email from our webmaster asking
"should I renew the domain name?", and I said, "yes", so things are
going to get picked up again.
In the meantime, I have had a life-threatening illness, I had a
really messy divorce going on as well, and it just took its toll on
the band. There wasn't enough strength in the band, so that when the
arguments started between the band mates, it just wasn't right.
So how did it come to pass that you ended up
playing with The Rotted ?
Well, I was mates with them when they were Gorerotted. I've
been mates with them for the last seven or eight years, something
like that. Wilson had left, which had left them a gap, and I had
just bought a bass, because I wanted to do a three-piece rock act
something like Danko Jones or something. I bought a Rickenbacker and
wanted to pretend to be Lemmy, and they were like, "Oh, Trudge just
bought a bass" so I joined in from when Wilson left, really. We play
very different bass. He played five string bass, and I play a four
string bass with a pick, and I have a rockier style with a dirtier
sound. The way Wilson played was more suited to Gorerotted, the way
I play is much more suited to The Rotted. |
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The
Rotted have a more rock / punk vibe to them...
Yeah, and a kind of crossover vibe to it too. Wilson was a great
bass player, and I'm certainly not attempting to fill his shoes in a
technical department, but what The Rotted needed was not a technical
bass noodler, but someone to bash fuck out of the strings basically!
Someone to make a really awful clanking sound!
How do you enjoy being in The Rotted?
It's really fun. It's like being away with a group of mates. Most of
us live in Norwich, so we see each other all the time and go out
drinking with each other. We've got separate lives, but they all
meet. I'm very busy because I work in Sids tattoo study in Norwich
as a tattoo artist as well, so that keeps me busy during the week,
and then coming away with The Rotted is just like coming away with
my mates, for a holiday almost, know what I mean?
How is the Norwich scene?
The Norwich scene is....well, I wish I had better things to say
about it. I find it quite apathetic. There's a lot of people in
Norwich who complain that no decent bands ever come to town, but
when a band does come to play, they're like "Oh, it's a Tuesday
night and I've got work tomorrow", |
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but then the
bands say that the reason that they don't play Norwich more is that
when they play nobody turns up to watch them. A lot of the venues
there are shit-fests, or closing. The Queen Charlotte closed the
other day, a lot of venues there aren't dedicated venues, they're
pubs that get a music licence, and then all the neighbours complain,
and then they get shut down. We tried to put a Norwich show on as a
warm up for our most recent two-week British tour, but the venue
there didn't respond to us, didn't get back to our emails - there
aren't many promoters there that are doing a good job. There's a
general feeling of apathy. Having said that, I went to see the
Deathstars the other day at the Waterfront, that was good. In our
band, Tim's girlfriend Jo puts on gigs, she tries to put things on
and things like that.
And so....Pontins...how is that?
A: It's...funny! It's funny as fuck man, the Sat Nav didn't take us
all the way here! We ended up on the wrong side of the fucking fence
and had to find our way round! The festival has a really nice vibe
to it, and when I think of a British music festival, particularly a
metal festival, I think of something like Download. I think of
massive queues, lots of stupid fucking gates, you can't get from one
band to another in time to watch them, all the food and drinks are
stupidly priced, but instead here, you've got much more the
atmosphere of a Dutch festival. It's nice and relaxed, everything is
decently priced. Did you catch 13th Sign by the way, I produced
their album for them.
Yeah, they were great. (See interviews for a
chat with the band)
The festival's great though, especially for Britain. Usually, when
you play here you get shit backstage conditions, you get rammed in a
room that's falling apart, you turn up and get a ham sandwich and a
mouldy apple to eat, but here you get treated really well and
everyone is really friendly. I wish there were more festivals like
this, to be honest!
www.myspace.com/screamindaemon |
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