Since we last spoke just over 12 months ago, you have managed to release an EP “Death Metal” & are about to release your 3rd album in 3 years in “From The Cave To The Grave”. You guys don’t mess about. Is this album just as barbaric as the previous ones? I highly doubt this, but have you perhaps matured or progressed into other realms?
‘Matured’? ‘Progressed’? What the fuck, I thought we were mates. What’s next, you gonna ask if this is our ‘technical death metal’ album? That’s it, bass is going down to two strings, guitar to four strings, and Dave gets to play with one drumstick. Have that.
Our new album is heavy. It’s just so fucking heavy. Too heavy.
From the new album you have a song / lyric video called ‘We Are Better Than You’. How are you better?
Our superior work ethic, for starters. Our BPM. Our many bands. Our sperm count. Oh, just watch the vid and read the lyrics, we spell it out for everyone. It’s not that we’re so wonderful, it’s just that everyone else is so shit.
Look at our farkin filmclip.
LOOK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWCckOEdYpE
What’s your favourite Werewolf movie?
There are heaps, but it’s hard to go past ‘An American Werewolf in London’. Nothing beats it, it’s such an amazing movie. The best thing is, it’s forty years old now. Its humour was fairly niche at the time, but people have been getting dumber and dumber and dumber, and now almost no-one gets it. I showed it at a party a couple of years ago, and when it gets to the end credits and that doo-wop song kicks in, I was the only one laughing hysterically. Fucking people.
I see you have your first shows coming up in June/July. After being caged up for the past couple of years you must be chomping at the bit to get out there playing?
Nah, I fucken hate people and have loved having an excuse to avoid them like the proverbial plague. Matt and Dave are keen though…Matt is just finishing a national tour with his rock band Shotgun Mistress and Psycroptic are booking a US tour, so they’re obviously gagging to play live any way they can. They’ve also been rehearsing the Werewolves material hard so we’re all set to throw down.
We did say we wouldn’t play a show until we’d done three albums, and our very first show is the day after ‘From The Cave To The Grave’ gets released so we don’t fuck around. Sydney is up first on June 25th, then Melbourne 8th July, and Adelaide has just been announced for November 19th at the Froth and Fury Fest. It’s going to be interesting, seeing how our stuff goes down live. We’re definitely not one of these “give each other a hug my metal brethren” kind of bands. You’re going to see hateful old men who hate everything play hate anthems pissing hate everywhere like a firehose.
Any plans for other touring, or given band members play in multiple acts, will the live scenario for Werewolves be a show by show case when members are available?
Show by show at the moment. Everything we do in this band is one thing at a time, there’s no grand global masterplan. We want to see if it’s worth it. If we play and it’s fun, and we enjoy it, and want to do it again, then it’ll happen. We’re pretty active and I imagine that whenever one of our other bands is getting booked for a show or fest, there’s a promoter going “hey, what’s the chance of you guys doing a Werewolves set?” And being the can-do motherfuckers we are, the answer is usually going to be YES.
Personally, I’m more about small runs and getting onto festivals instead of doing month-long club dates overseas. I’m 47 years old and living in a van for a month sucked even when I was in my twenties and doing it for the first time. Never say never though.
Over the years, apart from yourselves, who do you think has been the most savage & ridiculously heavy band Australia has ever produced & why?
Might be biased here, but The Berzerker around the Dissimulate album was that band. Back in 2002 when it was me, Matt, Gary, and Luke. Anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves. It was a clear 100 bpm faster than everyone else, verging on total noise, and we were violent as fuck back then. It wasn’t to everyone’s taste but that’s the fact.
Sadistik Exekution would have to be in the mix. And Damaged in the first half of the 90s would probably be my personal choice. Total bunch of mental cases who loathed each other and lived to blast.
Have you thought about doing a Wolfmother cover song?
Heh, here’s a bit of trivia for you: I used to live with Andrew Stockdale back in Melbourne in 1995, we shared a flat in Prahran. Excellent flamenco guitarist and as far as artists go, he’s the real deal.
But in answer to your question, no. Anyone who wants to hear us play covers, go get the DEATHMETAL EP where we blast out some Deicide and totally rape Marduk’s ‘Christ Raping Black Metal’.
What formats will your album be available on?
It will be chiselled onto stone tablets and hurled at your empty troglodyte heads.
A lot of bands in the current climate are adapting & coming up with some interesting & out there ideas for merch. Anything you plan on doing differently? Or if not, what do you have on offer at the moment?
No Dysie, we are NOT doing hot sauce.
But coffee? Coffee, we WOULD do. Or bath salts.
We have so much fucking shit on offer it’s unfathomable. You gotta remember, the first album came out just as Dave got Direct Merch happening and become the merchandise king so I’m pretty sure we have the biggest merch range of any death metal band on the planet by now. We have shirts, t’s, beanies, CDs, LPs, pins, flags, patches, face masks so people don’t have to look at your cunt-face, everything. Just get on over to Direct Merch and get drunk with your credit card: https://direct-merch.com/collections/werewolves
KISS vs IMMORTAL – what’s your preference here?
Does a maniac with a battleaxe shit in the woods? Immortal of course. Although we are inspired by Kiss’s merchandise skills.
Hypothetically, your next album is out, you’ve booked a massive national tour. What would be your ultimate Australian heavy music line-up that you would take with you to support you on it?
It’d be us playing a 45 minute set by ourselves, no supports or any of that shit. Just capital cities and no regional RSLs. Come and see us play, sink one drink, crack one skull in the pit, then fuck off and go about your day. The other fantasy gig would be us and Portal playing an equally long show, having a competition to see who could do the most unenjoyable set.
I guess realistically, it’d be fun to tour with King Parrot. Apart from it being a good opportunity to catch up with Todd and murder some pho, they seem to have the kind of live vibe we approve of: total mayhem. I don’t want no tech death package with all these clammy incels watching motionlessly and with puckered assholes.
And lastly, finish off this sentence if you would.
Manowar would have to be….
…the biggest bogan supermagnet ever. Matt went to one of their shows in England and to make it clear, Matt is the biggest camo-wearing whiskey-swilling bogan I know. Watches Rambo all the time. Spent his twenties on Centrelink playing for bands and living in the outer suburbs.
He said he was by far the least bogan person at the show.
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