Voice Of The Underground
PRESENTS
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BLOOD AUDIO |
by Paul Autry
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I was sitting at home one night when I got a phone call from former Overkill guitar player Merritt Gant. A local club owner that I know passed my information on to him and suggested he get in touch with me in order to get an article in a city newspaper that I write for to promote an upcoming show. So, we talked for a few minutes and, since I knew nothing of the band, I mentioned that I would need a press kit in order to put something together and, once it arrived, we can set up a phone interview so I could gather some information, which would be used to form the basis of my article. A package arrived in a matter of days and I found myself, once again, on the phone with Merritt Gant. I decided to present this interview to the Ballbuster readers for two reasons. The first being that Blood Audio is a band that a lot of you have yet to hear about. I'm sure you'll hear about them more in the future, but, I thought it would be cool to let you read about them here first. It's now my pleasure to introduce you to Blood Audio. Paul Autry: Were you involved in anything prior to joining Overkill? Merritt Gant: Yeah, I played in a band called Faith Or Fear who had a brief stint on Combat Records. I played with them for about a year and a half. Then I had found out about the Overkill audition. Paul Autry: What kind of music was Faith Or Fear? Merritt Gant: It was speed...speed, thrash. Paul Autry: Overkill's pretty much considered the same. Merritt Gant: Yeah, they're pretty much speed, thrash, power metal. Paul Autry: So, when did you come into the Overkill picture? - Merritt Gant: I joined the band in 1990. They had an audition, which I heard about through management, of Faith Or Fear. They had about 150 guitar player and I was up there around the high numbers. That's how it came about. I auditioned for a few weeks, learned their tunes, went up to New York and played with them a few times and got into the band from there.
Paul Autry: After Overkill, I assume that's when Blood Audio came into
existence?
Merritt Gant: Yeah. Actually, after Overkill, I took two years to
pretty
much gather my resources and to figure out exactly what I really wanted
to do. I wasn't sure if I was gonna be playing metal anymore or what I
was gonna be doing. At that point, I did a lot of listening, a lot of
watching, a lot of laying low. I bought all these records, man, and
everything I went to buy was just twenty dollars wasted as far as I was
concerned. Everything's supposed to be great. This band's supposed to
be
great, so, I'd go buy it and I'd listen to it and it was a let down.
So,
I pretty much decided, well, I know what I wanna hear. I know the kind
of music that I wanna buy in a record store. I know what I want, so,
I'm
just gonna make it myself. That's when I started Blood Audio.
Paul Autry: So, what does the name Blood Audio mean...does it mean
anything?
Merritt Gant: Yeah. Blood is just a standard thing. There's a lot of
things that go along with it.
Paul Autry: Vampires?
Merritt Gant: Not really. I mean, I'm not into that.
Paul Autry: Hard work?
Merritt Gant: Yeah, basically, the hard work kind of thing. Blood is a
very important thing. It's vital. How did Audio get attached to it?
Well, I was looking for a domain name and Blood.com was taken.
Paul Autry: Yeah, that's a very cool video game.
Merritt Gant: Exactly. That was taken. So, I started thinking, well,
what else could go with Blood and I thought, well, we do Audio. So,
it's
pretty clear what's going on there. It's just heavy music.
Paul Autry: How about the album title?
Merritt Gant: "Bludgeoning Timbre?" Well, we know that timbre is tonal.
It's the name for tonal sounds, the timbre of an instrument.
Paul Autry: Oh, is that what it means? I thought it had something to do with trees.
Merritt Gant: Yeah, a lot of people think that. As for bludgeoning,
well, we all know what that means. It's pretty much bashing the hell
out
of something or beating something to death.
Paul Autry: What style of music would you consider Blood Audio?
Merritt Gant: You know, I like to stay with metal because, I could put
a
few tags in front of it. New techo, power, I could put all these things
in front of it. But, I like to consider us metal. There's a little bit
of dance orientated stuff in our music. We try to favor dance grooves
and putting really heavy guitar rhythms with really heavy vocals on top
of it and stick with a dance/groove kind of beat with some electronic
things thrown into it. I guess kind of a technological kind of a metal
band, a futuristic metal band.
Paul Autry: What about your audience, who do you find that you're
appealing more towards?
Merritt Gant: As far as age groups go, we're attracting a lot of
different age groups. Obviously, the kids. We're looking at an audience
of, say, between 14 years old and 21 years old as our main audience. We
do see 21 to 32 year old people. Usually, anybody after like 35, you
know, a lot of times they'll say, hey, what's your album sound like and
I'll tell 'em not to even worry about it, it's not for you. It's
written
for a younger audience.
Paul Autry: This was an album that people weren't even supposed to
hear.
Merritt Gant: That's right. The band actually started out as me and a
writing partner. We sat down for two years in my studio doing nothing
but writing these songs and recording these songs all ourselves. The
whole idea was not to even put it out, not to release it, not for
anybody to hear it. The whole idea was to pretty much just write music
that we wanted to hear so we could get into it. After we did that, some
people started asking what we were doing and I'd give a copy to
somebody
and this person would want a copy and that person would want a copy and
it just snowballed into this thing where people wanted to hear it. So,
with that, came the website, which we lived on for about a year of just
putting our music on a website and letting people download it. From
there, naturally, it was time to release something. So, me and Scott
Gallagher pretty much put the album together ourselves, financed it
ourselves, released it ourselves and selling it ourselves, at shows,
through the internet, things like that. With that, we never intended to
play any of this music live. It was never written to be played live,
there was no way that we were ever gonna play it live. Then people
started saying, well, why don't you do some shows, we have some shows
for you. We have this for you, we have that for you. It was a natural
progression like, well, now it's time for us to do this live. So, we
had
to go back and re-think all the songs and try, as a three piece band, a
drummer, a guitar player who sings and a bass player who sings, to
represent this music. With that comes something very interesting. When
we play live, our drummer, Giles Ryan, plays to a click track from
begining to end, it never stops. What goes on is, he'll hear a click
track, then we have sequences and other things that we've made on the
computer, different sounds and things, different patterns, drum fills,
some voices, that actually run through the PA. as we're playing. It's a
different live thing. It's not just a heavy band that will go out there
and just beat out some heavy chords. We mix it up a little bit,
something a little different. I believe, it's a heavy world out there
and the heavy metal scene needs something like this, something a little
different and diverse. We don't have anybody scratching on a record
player, you know, or anybody rapping or doing the kind of things that
you would expect to see popular metal bands doing these days.
Paul Autry: What about your other band members, have they done anything
prior to this?
Merritt Gant: Scott, my writing partner and the other singer/bass
player
in the group has done nothing but pretty much been a good friend of
mine
for about 15 years now. We used to have some bands when we were
younger.
But, he never really played with anybody notable, he's more of a jack
of
all trades. He plays guitar, he plays bass, has an excellent voice, has
a great ear for melody. So, that's where he lends his hand. Our
drummer,
Giles Ryan, has played with a lot of different bands, nobody notable,
he
just fell into our lap. Everything that goes on with this band,
nothing's hard, man. It's crazy...everything that happens to this band
just comes to us. It's natural, it's like a machine that just takes
care
of itself. It's bizzare, I've never been involved with anything like
this.
Paul Autry: What's Ant Farm Productions? -
Merritt Gant: That's the recording studio that I built when I left
Overkill. It's a digital recording studio where we do our own
production
at. We handle all the recording ourself, we do everything ourself here.
We do other bands here.
Paul Autry: Final comments?
Merritt Gant: Well, the music is very simple, it's not complex, it's
easy to listen to, especially if you're into heavy music. It's out to
attract a heavy audience. But, it's not the kind of music where you
hear
it and you have to listen to it five times just to get into it. It's
pretty simple, in your face. So, I don't think people will have a hard
time grasping it and it comes off better live than I ever thought it
would. I never thought we could top the CD live, but, it's coming off
better live. So, check it out.
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