Rozhovory

Graveyard nightshift with Silvester (Fondlecorpse)

Hello, Silvester, I guess it’s a silly question to ask the scene veterans like you, but there are still many people who might not encounter your band before, therefore, a legit question – can you introduce Fondlecorpse to the readers of the Rubber Axe webzine? What can you tell us about the beginning of the band? As you were active in bands before, did you want to do something similar to the material of those previous bands, or try a new direction?

Hey man, not at all. We are a bunch of weirdos so i am sure tons of people have no clue about us or know of our existence hahaha. What is Fondlecorpse?… i would say we are a bunch of oldschool deathmetal creating, horror / b-movie worshipping, old ass geek mutant gorehounds and 80s fiends!

I was messing about in multiple bands before Fondlecorpse. I started messing around with deathmetal in the 90’s and was in a few “bands” and i use the term loosely that just jammed but didn’t even have a name. I used to go hang and drink at some local youth center / venue round the corner and jam but beyond one or two rehearsal tapes nothing happened. My first legit band was in high school when i got asked by some buddies to join their band which was called Moronic. We rehearsed in the drummers garage about every weekend i think. It had a couch and other shit so we could hang out after rehearsals and chill. It was an awesome time, just kids jamming deathmetal and partying. The band did some DIY style stuff release wise with a demo tape and cd and an unfinished second full lenght that i only have a cdr off somewhere with the last rehearsals. But before we could record that the band fell apart when the drummer left. But we did gigs and lasted several years. Good times for sure.

By then i was going to College and i had a good friend Rogier with whom i hung out a lot and we were part of a RPG group that played and hung out every weekend and played stuff like Dungeons and Dragons, Cyberpunk 2020, Mutant Chronicles, things like that while stuffing our faces with junk food, drinking and laughing our asses off. And the tons of horror marathons at my house where we would check out my collection and see what new sleazy gory shit i had dug up on VHS and tape traded to watch. Rogier and me thought it was cool to start a band and talked it over. He was a guitarist and we put a band together that released a MCD and did a handful of gigs but the drummer left while we were working on an EP with Distrust and new album and shit kinda fell apart. We were already messing about with the idea for Fondlecorpse though since we saw it coming. Rogier actually designed the orginal logo that is on the old stuff. We did a 2 song demo that never got fully released really and only a few exist as a demotape. But did get released years later on Escaravelho Records as the “Chronicles of Pain” 7” EP. When he married he also moved away so nothing more got done.

Pretty soon after i got into contact with two brothers who were solid guys and we talked about horror and stuff and restarted the band and started putting out releases and lasted for quite a few years and did 2 seven inches and then did 2 cds on Razorback records. After our last German mini tour, they both got offered to join a big touring band that played all over the globe which they did and they were very successful and did brutal stuff. So i pretty much pulled the plug for a bit and put the band on ice. I was also in a bad place so i needed some time for myself. I kept writing and creating stuff and when talking to my good friend Rogga he was like let’s get you back in action for real and we put shit together.

Embalming Theatre / Fondlecorpse split

We first recorded a split EP with Embalming Theatre. That one came out pretty bad ass i think. And then started working on a full length that got released not much later called “Dark Contagion”. We have been collaborating since and he keeps me motivated for which i am very grateful.

As far as the material it has always been death metal pretty much at it’s core. And topics have always been centered about my love of Horror movies and b-movies, comics and whatever else weird crap. Even my first real band Moronic had shit about Tromaville movies, Evil Dead, Braindead & Zombies shit like that. I mean it wasn’t all exactly the same but it never strayed too much from the DM core that drives all i do. It is what i do and always have done and enjoy, i try and improve myself but other then that i like what i like.

As for the band line-up, according to Encyclopaedia Metallum you don’t have a guitar player?!! Did you lock up the unfortunate guy somewhere in the basement? OK, I am back to serious me now :), but still, is there any information missing? And, as I assume Fondlecorpse is an international project/band now, how do you view the long-distance songwriting from your perspective…apparently you are content with it, but don’t you miss the weekly rehearsals and stuff like bands usually do?

Well while EM is a cool resource to find basic information and bands, but i wouldn’t trust all the information on that site as fact. Our page has some weird stuff on it that isn’t right. Label info usually is wrong on there and also some releases are written up wrong. Our guitar player has been Rogga Johansson for a while now and we have some people come in to jam some solo’s here and there on material. And we had some different bassists come in and help out and our friend Will Greenwood did drums on the last few albums.

Currently we are indeed an international band. Rogga is in Sweden, i am in The Netherlands and the bassist and drummer are from the USA. The writing and collaborating is surprisingly very smooth and fun to be honest no real problems. Coming from a place where i rehearsed every weekend for years on end i would say at times it is even easier then the old days in rehearsal rooms. But yeah sometimes you miss the old days where with former line-ups we would rehearse every weekend and just blast in a rehearsal room for hours. But there are also things i do not miss also. Like the travel there, planning and the cost of rehearsal rooms. It all has it’s pros and cons. But i am very content where i am these days.

Fondlecorpse – Creaturegore debut album

You’re about to release a brand new album soon, can you tell us more about it? What can fans of Fondlecorpse expect from it? Why I ask….I was surprised when between your full-lengths “Creaturegore” and “Dark Contagion”, with the former bringing blasting death metal and the latter putting a fucking brilliant melodic old school death metal, you’ve recorded material (EP s “Chronicles of Pain” and “Set the Drill to Kill”) with the more simplistic approach, more of the death/grind variety (but I will admit, I love those). So obviously, the question begs to be asked – any new musical influences you want to discover, or you prefer to stay with the tried grounds?

The new album is in the works, musically it is done and artwork is being worked on. I just have to finish the lyrics and record the vocals, mix it and put it out. And as far as the sound it will be a continuation of what we always do. Chronicles of Pain is the very first try out demo that was ever done that got re-released on vinyl by Escaravelho Records because he loved the songs. So that material is ancient and was written by the co-creator of Fondlecorpse who only played on that demo. And the other Ep “Set the Drill to Kill” was a demo to try stuff out for Dark Contagion and was used on a split with Embalming Theatre and released as stand alone cd single by my good friend Jill who ran Dead Beat Records and help from Slaughterhouse Records. And actually this EP will be featured on a split cd later this year on the label of Meat 5000 records from France. On that release me and Rogga were trying to dial in the DM sound we wanted to go for to crawl from the grave! And Dark Contagion is a continuation of that release. As far as infuences, i am sure stuff will always find it’s way in but i just look at what music pops up and give it the Fondlecorpse spin and it will become it’s own thing. But don’t expect it ever to stray too far from Deathmetal. That is just what i do.

As a lover of sci-fi/horror movies (and B-movies/exploitation genre in general) I really love the lyrics and I don’t think you’re gonna change those lyrical themes anytime soon, haha. But, are the lyrics on the new album somewhat conceptual, or just incidental, as you’ve penned them down? I think “Dark Contagion” was – in the way – conceptual a bit, or is it just my (flawed) perception?

Thanks man, and Fondlecorpse has always been a vehicle for showing my love for horror movies and B-movies and whatever else i love, 80s weird mutant/creature action figures, comics and old horror comics, uncle creepy Warren Publishing stuff, Skywald, old RPG’s you name it. Growing up in the 80s was great because of all the weird ass shit companies could get away with and warped my brain. Even all the kids tv shit was full on metal, creatures, mutants and all kinds of awesome oddball characters. It is like what is in my brain and all my passions splattered over deathmetal. FC is a musical representation of whats in my head and in my room. I am surrounded by all the stuff i write about. So the songs will always be horror / b-movie / Mutant / Creature weird shit worship.

You are not mistaken that it might feel like a conceptual album. But that is simple to explain. I try and figure out a genre with every album, for this one i mainly grabbed space horror and sci fi b-movies. So that was the framework for this “Dark Contagion” album and then Adam does the art that ties it all together. It has a song about a cool RPG i collected and played called Mutant Chronicles, one with influences from the PC game Dead Space, Horror movies like Dark Side of the Moon, Leviathan (1989), Terrorvision, Aliens, Predator and Split Second a great movie with Rutger Hauer. I do tend to hide shit in some lyrics and where possible maybe inject some FC lore haha.

The next album will be different again. I think it has Halloween vibes and Classic Monsters that will pop up on that one. We will see what entity the next album will be. It evolves until it is recorded and locked down. We also have a Post Apocalyptic vibe album idea laying around. I have a song about Salute of the Jugger and Mad Max and some other stuff. Maybe some Cyberpunk influences too like Cyborg and Nemesis and Cyberpunk 2020. I want every new album to have like it’s own identity but it all ties together around some loose theme of whatever passion i grab this time round and what movies i’ve been revisiting and what b-movie stuff has been seeping in my brain.

I’ve read you were working on two more albums, what can you tell us about them? When can we expect the album release? Any final date set for that?

One is the new Fondlecorpse full length that pretty much is musically done and ready to go. And another one is a project we have been slowly working on that got a remix recently and i will finish that one up after i finish the new Fondlecorpse album. I want to keep the details under wraps for now since things are still fluid and changing about what that band will be but should have information soon for that album also. I already have the cover art on my laptop too so maybe that will be unveiled in the near future.

I gave up writing down release dates ages ago though, it is done when it is done. I saved up the funds to release it. So when the lyrics are done and vocals are recorded then it will go directly to the pressing plant and will be released. But life has been shitty so hopefully sooner rather then later. If i don’t get blindsided by bullshit again that life throws at me haha. Fingers crossed

Blood And Popcorn released by Razorback Records

Up to “Dark Contagion” you’ve released your stuff through various labels (big shout to Billy Nocera and Jill Girardi and Razorback Records for “Blood and Popcorn” and “Creaturegore”!), and with aforementioned “Dark Contagion” you’ve taken the reins and released the album by yourself. The idea behind it is clear, but what I am curious to know – as we are almost 3 years from the release date of that album – what did you learn from DIY approach? Obviously, the artistic freedom is the most important aspect, maybe even a monetary one, but from the reach to/from fans…what would you consider the most positive aspect of it (beside the above mentioned) and what was your most unpleasant, or most negative, experience? Although judging from the fact you’re releasing a new album by yourself meant there are more positives than negatives, hm?

I was always a big DIY person before Fondlecorpse. And even with Fondlecorpse i self released two vinyl eps and a cd before the first cd on Razorback even came out. I have had my hand in almost everything that ever got released by any band i was in. I turned down some bigger labels in the past because they came with contracts and ownership. They would pay your studio and release. But in return they own the rights to what you make and control it and can make decisions for you and can do whatever they want, or at least back then it worked like that. Oh yeah and “royalties”..… i know enough people who were in big bands touring for years and never got a dime to this day. So no thank you. I make my own stuff, i own my own stuff. Smart? probably not…. Those big labels could have put us in the market and expand your reach faster… but what can i say. I rather keep my creations in my own hands. As oddball and as weird Fondlecorpse is, it is mine and has a special meaning to me. I don’t want someone else telling me what can and cannot be done with it. Or worse keep it away from me. If i want weird shit on my cover or in the booklet ill put it in even if it will “lose sales”. And nobody tells me what i can and can’t do. There is a price you pay but i don’t care. We are the weirdo mutants in the underground that run around in the shadows and regarded as oddities and i am fine with that.

Razorback was a different deal because it was us working with friends. I wouldn’t even call it that we got signed. They wanted to release it and i could do what i wanted. Just friends doing something fun together. At the time of Dark Contagion it could have been on Razorback too i guess, and i had offers of some other labels. But i really wanted to return and do something 100% myself again for me. I am not afraid of the work, i know what it all entails. I ran a distro for years, worked on paper mags, and come from the old underground where snail mail was king and you traded and shipped things around the world all the time. Trading, sending stuff to magazines to review, promo, making and spreading flyers, doing e-mails. It was and is all familiar to me. And i enjoy it so yeah it was cool for sure.

The positive thing is you get one on one contact with the people who dig your weird shit. I can hook them up with extra stuff. Have contact with bands i trade with and support them and make new friends. Kinda be in the trenches and hang out with my fellow underground freaks and have fun and know who is insane enough to buy our shit. So almost every sale goes through my hands and gets at the least a note or something to show my appreciation for supporting this weird shit we do. And negatives i don’t dwell on those things really since it is a waste of time. Things always happen: parcels get stolen, labels rip you off or talk shit, artists rip you off, zine’s beg for promo and are never heard off again after they receive the cd’s, shit like that. It is what it is and it is on them. If someone screws me i block and delete them from my life and move on. Time you lose you never get back, and i am not putting any precious time into pieces of shit in any way or form. To me they just cease to exist entirely.

Fondlecorpse and live gigs…that might be hard, but not impossible, are you playing any live performances to support the new album release?

I doubt it man, i was never much of a live person. I have a small stack of recordings of live shows we did and i never was able to watch them haha. I can’t look at myself or listen to myself on those things. I hear every mistake i make and shit. I love jamming in rehearsal rooms. But playing live always gave me stress. And if i did play live i tended to prefer the small venues. Fests were already becoming too big and unwieldy for me. And the pressure of having to arrange shit,hoping it all works out, there is enough money for the petrol and food, that the car makes it, hoping to get paid and not ripped off. I never learned to truly enjoy playing live i guess. I always stressed the details. Will i ever play live again like the old days? who knows. Not totally against it but not actively looking for it either. It has been discussed once or twice but i dunno. Don’t hold your breath for now. But if i do end up on a stage again someday. It will be a special event like spotting bigfoot hahaha.

Now, let’s focus a little (a lot!) on you…bring me the spotlight! Well, when meeting a fellow culture enthusiast (I like that all-encompassing term), I am not passing over the change to talk the lingo. I think it’s safe to say you are a musician, graphic artist and collector. Plus, of course, a movie fan! Let’s explore the musician’s side first, what do you say? So, if one wants to track Silvester’s descent into the deep recesses of music underground, where has the journey started, when and what culprit (band/album) was responsible? Am I right (or wrong) to see influences of bands like Impetigo, Machetazo, Necrophagia, Mortician and others?

I think my descent started in high school. I already liked the more harder stuff the rock and punk side of things but until that point its what you find in your parents collection or family collections as a kid. Shit like Blue Oyster Cult, Uriah Heep, Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix. But it really started as with many i guess when i had some older buddies in my highschool that had me listen to tapes with some metal bands on them and i was like is there more. And i dug that sound very much and started looking for more and more nasty heavy shit. You start to get into tape trading. Mailing distro’s for their xeroxed catalogs with cds they had for sale and it spiraled from there. So i had a few tapes with dubbed stuff like Motorhead, Mettalica,Venom, Iron Maiden the usual stuff and whatever else.

Extreme Noise compilation

One of my first cd’s i owned was as far as i can remember a compilation called Extreme Noise i think. It that came with a magazine and with a coupon it was only 10 bucks so i could afford it. It had bands like Kreator, Tankard, Celtic Frost and Messiah with a song called “Weeping Willow” i still remember the drums of that one and the vocals. And that was already nastier and heavier and i was like alright this is bad ass haha. I wondered if there was music even heavier. So I believe the first full cd i bought with my own money, (and remember cds were expensive as shit back then) was Carcass. I found it at this giant retail chain store where the person buying stock must have been big into metal or it would never ever have been there. Man i dubbed that shit on a tape for my walkman and blasted it hard on my daily bicycle rides to school. Then i found Pungent Stench in some bin in the back of another store “For god your soul, for me your flesh”. Then you start hitting second hand music shops for deals and found Bolt Thrower “Realm of chaos” for ten bucks which melted my brain more. Through tape trading i found more and more sick bands, one of them was Impetigo and a buddy of mine in school gave me their tape and the collection kept growing. Paper xeroxed zines had reviews and address lists with labels and you slowly figured out where you could get your stuff.

I forgot who but someone took me to the Baroeg which was a small venue in Rotterdam and sometimes the Blokhut another smaller venue. At that time they had a ton of concerts and for extreme punk there was a small venue where I used to go to a lot also. Mainly i hung out at the Baroeg which had tons of metal bands come round in the 90s. Back then almost every touring band made a stop at the Baroeg and i saw a shitload of bands when they were starting out in the 90s that are huge now. I think i was there for whole weekends checking out bands or a tours that popped round. And getting older with more $$ those merch tables were where i got fuckloads of new cds and other merch.

As far as influences, i would say a local dutch band called Dissect i was obsessed by their album “Swallow Swouming Mass” and demo which i got at this local punk/metal shop that sold tons of demos under the counter. Bolt Thrower, Autopsy/Abscess, Cannibal Corpse because well, those Vince Locke covers of Eaten back to life, Butchered at Birth and Tomb of the Mutilated how could a teenager not love that shit haha. That and i loved the deadworld comic, Impetigo of course with “Horror of the Zombies” being another cd that blew my mind. And because of being cool guys and their way of always being nice and approachable was what inspired me with my bands. And to later be friends and work on their re-issues and see them live for their reunion concert and get a shout out…. Just Epic, Hypocrisy “Osculum Obscenum” Oooh so nasty those vocals, Slayer, Carcass and the Misfits because of horror reasons. And probably more i am forgetting right now. Mortician i was a fan me and my old guitarist blasted their albums going to rehearsals all the time and seeing peoples faces with the samples played haha. Machetazo would be more our peers, but that Carne de Cementerio album… it will rip you a second asshole so good that whole album is, so filthy in the best way. Necrophagia i got some of their stuff in trade but was never an influence to me personally. But they did cool shit and are horror related so I do own their first albums and those 2 DVD’s are in the collection somewhere.

Impetigo – inspiration, friends and cool guys

When did you start to feel the urge to be not just a music listener and a fan, but also to become creative as a musician? Was a position of doing “vokills” your first choice of an instrument? I assume, as we all probably did, you had to play a lot of air guitar and air drums first, right?

Honestly a vocalist was the last thing i wanted to be because i kinda do not enjoy being up front and visible? I wanted to do drums first so i could hide all the way in the back but i got hit by a car when bicycling back from school and that fucked a knee up and it fucks with me to this day i am all kinds of crooked skeleton wise haha. I could never do a solid double bass so fuck that. Messed with guitar and messed with bass but didn’t have the patience and my fingers were shit so nope. My old guitar is collecting dust in the attic. So i guess vocalist was what was left and i got asked for some bands in highschool to do vocals and did it and i guess that just was what i ended up doing and stuck with i guess hahaha. I still to this day am not too comfortable being on a stage front and center. At least when i had hair i could hide behind my long hair haha. Now as a bald old fuck it’s hard to hide.

During the songwriting process, do you start with the lyrics, or they come after they guys bring you finished songs? Do you, as a vokillist, have any say/veto in the music writing?

When i was younger i would write tons of songs in notebooks and then in the rehearsal room would figure out what would fit on what song or made it fit and only adjust minor stuff. So the lyrics came first. These days though i get a song and then still have basic concepts and ideas written down but write the lyric on the specific song and the riffs and the hooks. Which makes it harder on myself i guess. Because now i can take weeks to find that one word that fits on that one end of a riff. I generally do not mess too much with the instrumental side or veto things. I trust the people i jam with and we will discuss if so and so sounds cool and fits and discuss things here and there and trade ideas. We are all on the same page pretty much so it is all pretty easygoing. I get a song and i am like goddamn this jams and see what it wants to be topic wise and write a lyric on it haha. It is in the end a group effort so we just combine what everybody does and sofar shit has been coming out ace.

You are a part of the underground for years, and to call you a “veteran” is no exaggeration. Is there any scene aspect you think it’s missing from today’s underground as compared to the 1990s when you started?

Maybe the comradery and unity and it was more the wild west of music and less structured haha. In the old days if you were into extreme music you were part of this band of freaks and it was us against the world that thought we were all garbage and wanted to ban our shit. Didn’t matter if you were into metal, grind, punk, hardcore. I’d go to all these kinds of shows and always had fun and nobody gave a shit, everybody was happy to go to a show and hang and listen to heavy ass cool shit. But these days things seem to be more segmented and if you don’t fit in the box you are not allowed in and seem to battle each other. It has all fragmented which makes the underground weaker in my opinion, instead off coming together as a group. I think labels had a lot to do with that also when they started tagging bands and genres with labels to sell shit easier and easier to market stuff and create a division. This is better then that etc. Now there seems to be more “rules” and people trying to police the scene telling you where you belong and what to do. That said I see groups of kids not giving a shit and organizing their own stuff and going against everything and i salute them. Fuck the rules and raise hell on your own terms and don’t let anybody tell you what to do! To me personally metal was and always will be, doing your own thing and not giving a fuck.

With the previous question goes another one – the availability of media streaming has allowed bands to spread their material left and right and sometimes I feel flooded by the digital promos bands and labels sending to me. Do you think this actually make much harder for bands being noticed? Do you, as an old and experienced metalguy, still try to discover new bands, or prefer to stick to your favourites?

I do think there maybe is too much shit going round now at times and that makes it very hard to get noticed if you are a new band in the sea of releases. And with the fragmented nature of today’s scene it can be hard to get your band into the viewfinder of your potential audience.

And i am always willing to try out a new band. But there is a lot of crap out there to dig through to find the gold. But with trading and such you bump into people doing their own thing and you pick up new cool bands here and there that are interesting to add to the collection. But yeah i do have a shelf with classics that i can always go to and that get steady play. I would say bandcamp is a good place to do deep dives sometimes and discover new interesting bands. Usually if there is someone who has the same kinda taste i just look at their bandcamp list and see if they have any crap there that might interest me also.

As a graphic designer, you were responsible for doing illustrations and LAYOUTS not only for Fondlecorpse releases, but for many other labels and bands and their records and related materials and it’s no secret you’ve worked a lot with Billy and Jill (when she was still with the label) of Razorback Records. Can you tell me more about that co-operation? I guess the overall direction of the horror-themed old school gory metal in the label has helped a lot…

At this point in my life i must have worked on hundreds of releases be it CDs, LPs or Tapes for tons of labels and bands and any other merch item you can imagine, shirts, zines, catalogs, advertisements, websites, stickers you name it i probably worked on some of that shit. It also is a problem because i should have said no more so i could actually put more of my own shit out over the years because there is only so much time in the day. You help everybody else get their shit out and have no time left to work on your own stuff hahaha. Still to this day every weekend ill be working on something metal related for someone. Right at this moment i am working on 3 cd layouts, 1 LP layout, a Book layout and some other random crap.

Razorback it was pretty simple we were all horror fans to begin with. I mean the way i got in touch with Razorback was i think talking about the first Engorged album that i got in a local shop and asking if Razorback the name was based on that obscure Aussie giant boar flick. And it spiraled into long rants about old horror movies from there and we all became friends and i started helping out with everything. I started helping on art and layouts when their regular guy left and i might have already been doing small stuff like stickers and shirts at that point maybe, they knew i was going to school for Graphic Design, so it kinda just happened. I started taking over doing cd lay-outs when needed and a band didn’t have their own guy then i came in.

Back then as today i will ask a band, label, what vibe they wanna go for and give me some leads or stuff they enjoy and get the cover art which usually was done and finished before i got involved and whatever else they had and then i would go into lockdown in my room and start building and sending out proofs, draw up weird little crap, figure out the visuals, build shit in illustrator like the Birdflesh party van. Or i got tossed a folder with art and get told make it cool and hopefully i did. Usually Jill and Billy Brainstormed and threw ideas around and i would visualize them for them and the bands till an endresult rolled out, usually we would go to our collections of vhs tapes, horror magazines, creepy, eerie, that kinda stuff and go wild and get inspired.

It also depends on what release, some i just put it together, some i had to assemble almost from scratch and some i just filled in the empty spots with shit i made. One i remember having a lot of fun on was the Horror Hive Compilation. That inside collage is just one big easter egg fest. But yeah pretty much everything had one thing in common it was all worship of horror and b-movies pretty much in every aspect of it all. It was called the horror hive after all.

Usually the over the top horror worship ones were the funnest to do and work on. I liked putting shit together and help give it a coherent theme. Sometimes it worked better then other times and depends on time. Some were put together in like a weekend or evening when they were on a rushed schedule so i had like a weekend to build something to go out the door to the plant on monday. That Acid Witch one i think me and Dave made that one ready for press in one evening i think because it had to go out to the plant for a release party i think.

Sometimes i was too enthusiastic like with Coffins i had made this creepy forest temple photoshop with tombstones, cool statues and cool creepy ghostly shit i was pretty proud off how it looked but they wanted to have something simple and not related to their country i think? So it became what was released which was basically a riff off an Autopsy layout to which they wanted to pay homage.

I actually just finished a new album layout for Razorback for a cd that should come out somewhere in the future.

These days i am also part of the Nightmare Force which is a collective of oldschool fx guys and mask makers and my role is that of graphic designer for the collective. I have built the catalogs for them and help out where i can. If you are into oldschool horror and masks. Check those fuckers out. Total oldschool fx and horror worship going on and it is awesome to work with all these creative minds and my buddy Josh. I am always working on something metal or horror related.

Are you still pursuing drawing? I’ve read in one interview with you that a new album should have the artwork by Adam Geyer again.

I drew here and there but i barely have the free time to do much of it to be honest and i never think shit i draw is good enough these days when you have access to art maestro’s like Adam. Adam has been a solid part of the band for many years and his art is what makes our albums a Fondlecorpse album. It is always the last touch that ties an album together. His style is amazing and he can always read my mind and make my ideas better when we brainstorm. And the art is legit fully painted. It gives all the covers an old VHS cover aesthetic also. I am surprised he isn’t working on art for moviecompanies and doing posters and shit 24-7. I am grateful to have him as a friend and someone that helps out making Fondlecorpse look bad ass. He makes us look cool. Sometimes i draw something when a band needs a spot illustration to fill up some space, sometimes ill draw shit for a magazine, used to do a magazine cover here or there but that is rare these days too.

And now we’re getting to the part I am – hopefully – gonna enjoy the most! As I know, you are a fellow collector of stuff, although I am quite new to the game, so to speak…as Fondlecorpse uses a lot of intros in their songs (and I love those!), and the songs are inspired by movies etc….it’s only logical (as Sherlock would say) we’re gonna talk about movie influences a little. I guess we all remember that first horror movie we’ve seen (especially in our young, tender age)…which one do you still clearly remember as your first one? I have to say, the older I am the less inclined I am towards more gory stuff, prefering more of a supernatural horror or a good horror story instead. What’s your preference? Pieces of flesh falling from the ceiling or the heart-attack inducing jumpscares?

My first horror movie i can’t be sure which one that was my brain is fogged over most of the time. It might have been Jaws? or some Hammer Horror something like Dracula maybe? I do know the one that stuck with me most and left an impression as freaking me out as a kid was “Return of the Living Dead” and especially the part where the Trioxin cannister springs a leak and the zombie inside wakes up and his face melts off. Almost made me shit my pants. Funny enough Tarman is now one of my favorite zombies hahahaha. It is funny how that works.

Tarmna from Return of the Living Dead

I love the blood and guts as long as it is part of a funny movie or interesting and or cheesy story or campy so it entertains me. Shit like Braindead is hilarious or all those melting/goo movies where people melted like Body Melt. Or movies where people get torn apart by awesome creatures and monsters that is my jam. Give me a nice Fulci movie or some movie where some giant monster screws off someones head with his bare hands. The more over the top the better. I love me my slashers and cool Giallo’s too. Like Impetigo says “All we need is cheese”.

Supernatural horror it depends. Jumpscares i am not too much a fan off, it depends what kind though. In Jaws it was used brilliantly, i remember seeing that head pop out in that hole in the boat and scared the bejeezus out of me haha. But these days a lot of new movies just use cheap jump scares, ive kinda seen enough of that. It is like every new instalment in these series has the exact same jump scare formula. I guess it all depends on the context and how it adds to the story. I do know most really creepy shit in the supernatural genre i saw were most often from Asia. They have that creepy supernatural ghost shit down to a science. Jill from Razorback / Kandishapress used to hook me up with burnt copies of creepy Asian shit. The really fucked up thing is a lot of them also do not have happy endings. These people love their fucked up everybody dies bleak endings.

I would say i am also a sucker also for atmosphere. Old hammer horror movies or shit with Vincent Price or all those Italian movies with Nashy and such. That gothic horror stuff…… Delicious!

You know what I miss the most? The time to watch movies! 🙂 And because I’ve missed the great 80s in the cinemaworld (no thanks to the communist regime in then Czechoslovakia), I have a lot to catch upon! Do you pursue also new stuff, be it independent or mainstream, or rather go back and re-visit the old classics from the heyday of VHS era?

Same here, work keeps me busy so now i need to find the time to sit down and watch something. It kinda sucks. And really? well the only good thing about missing the great 80s flicks is that i guess you have a treasure trove of bad ass movies to watch and catch up on and experience for the first time!! There are a lot of movies i wish i could see for the first time again haha. I do have my shelves full of comfort food movies haha, the ones you can always go back to. As far as new stuff. There was a time i worked in a movie shop and i bought everything horror not nailed to the floor. And the shop had an amazing import section. But sadly it meant i ended up also with shelves full of hundreds of shitty horror movies. And at a certain point you have a wall full of crappy movies you know you will never watch again and honestly it was more shit then hidden gems. So i quit buying a lot of new movies in the blind. Now i will wait till people i trust will recommend me a movie before checking it out. Or research shit and see if it will maybe be decent enough for me to spend money on.

Usually the new stuff that is really enjoyable to me and b-movie related usually comes from an independent source more often then not. They are not scared to take chances and try something different still and come up with something original or a unique twist to the genre. I remember in the last few years grabbing Turbo kid and enjoying it a lot or stuff like Hobo with a shotgun or The Void or foreign stuff like Witching And Bitching from a few years back. Stuff like that is enjoyable to me. And i am very excited for this upcoming movie called PG or Psycho Gorman which seems like it is right up my alley. These guys still tap that b-movie vein that i enjoy a lot. Some friends are telling me to go watch Mandy, Color out of Space, and The Lighthouse so lets see what those bring?

Mainstream it is harder to name anything worth seeing. But once in a while something comes round that i find enjoyable. But it is more rare then the old days. It is with all this big franchises that you desperately want them to make another good installment and one after the other you just get fucked and feel like a turd that again they fooled you into seeing a train wreck of a garbage movie that insults a franchise. I did watch this movie called “Underwater” recently which was a throwback terror under water flick which i didn’t mind.

I used to go for quantity but i have sold off or got rid of all the shit ill never watch again. I now am very picky of what ill add to my shelves. But the really good movies i love…. it is almost all old movies that still hold up better then most the tent pole millions of dollars budget pieces of crap that get fired off these days. It is like even a decent movie is cool for one watch but i would never want it in my collection or have the desire to ever watch it a second time.

I myself am especially a big fan of creature features and weird monsters but it is almost like a bunch of 80s genres are extinct now. When was there a good goo movie with people melting and exploding and shit? or a movie with funny bad ass creatures. There used to be a flick a week being released with cool creatures in the past but now? It isn’t all bad though. TV series have shown they can do some cool horror based stuff. And once in a while a good movie will pop up that i will enjoy but generally the amount of decent shit in the tons of movies coming out is very small. When will there be a new golden age of cool ass horror movies with all kinds of cool new monsters and new horror icons and iconic monsters. Because if you make good shit, ill fucking watch it and crave it! We need a new bunch of crazy motherfuckers like Golan Globus and the Canon group and shit like that churning out tons of fucked up weird ass insane shit! But until then ill wait and see what people recommend to me and see what comes floating up that surprises me.

Our current era has some advantages and some disadvantages. Obvious advantage is the availability of the information online – webzines, stuff like IMDB, Letterboxd and the like, but hand in hand the disadvantage is the slow disappearance of printed material. The factor, of course, is the postage, which we can’t influence… do you still follow/buy any printed zines, music ones or movie ones?

Paper zines and especially the xeroxed ones with cut and paste collages i always loved and supported and i try and find ones that are worthwhile but it is hard to find good ones still alive. Since ive worked on a bunch myself and helped people with them i know the work that goes into a zine to get it made and released so i loved supporting people making cool shit. One that i have discovered that still is going strong is called Soulgrinder Zine which is pretty cool, that guy does a lot of work for each issue. They have a cool thing going on. I have a box full of paper zines i have collected over the years that i flip through once in a while for inspiration. Sadly many are defunct now.

As far as movie zines the ones i followed all died i think. I do pick up whatever weird movie mags i can find at conventions or second hand shops. Old Fangoria issues are always good to add to the collection, Draculina, Screamqueen mags, Deep red, Gorezone, Rue Morgue, or whatever weird old 70s/80s horor mag that pops up ill grab really guaranteed. I am a sucker for any mags that show off props , creatures, sculpts and concept art and behind the scenes shit. Indeed postage is killing a lot and makes buying stuff shitty because the postage now is more then the items themselves half the time. Postage has gone from already ridiculous to just obscene at this point. But yeah if i bump into any cool zines i usually do try get my hands on an issue but they seem to be a dying thing.

The main issue i have with online stuff is that it can be here today and gone tomorrow. If i have a physical zine i can pull it off a shelf and look at it whenever. But there were tons of sites i loved and followed that just disappeared without a trace from one day to another. And then all the articles and pictures and stuff is lost in the void.

The underground back in the pre-internet days consisted of tape-trading, forming friendships… remember getting flyers in the mail? Nowadays, it’s mostly a memory of the era gone, but instead of lamenting that fact, how do you view the underground today? There is a new blood coming, what would you see as – let’s call it – their advantage? Obviously, it’s hard to explain 20years old metalhead the anxiety of waiting for a letter in the post…

The main advantage i think for the new blood is the access to unlimited information and worldwide reach and speed. It is so much easier to make music and get it out there or look for the tools to help you with the process. If you need help recording you have forums and youtube movies helping you out. You used to have to send cash in an envelope to buy merch but with these online payment systems especially paypal in the beginning it has made things so much easier to buy and sell stuff. And online platforms like Bandcamp are amazing new platforms to sell and spread your music. Sometimes they have no clue how much easier it is these days to do this. I wish we had these resources available to usback then.

I think we’re at the end of our interview for today, brother! Any final message to the readers of the best webzine since the invention of the internet? (loool)

Hahaha first of all, thank you very much for featuring us on your webzine i appreciate it a lot man you rule. Furthermore i think a lot of people will be like goddamn finally, that dude rants like a motherfucker. But hopefully i entertained some of them. If you made it this far, you are a bad ass or a masochist, you decide. Thank you to everybody who supports the weird ass crazy shit we do and cheers to all fellow gorehounds and weirdo’s out there! Stay weird!!! and drop by our facebook, instagram or bandcamp ( https://fondlecorpse.bandcamp.com ) and say hi.

Rudolf Schütz

Kreatívny mozog skrývajúci sa za webmi Indokult.com a RubberAxeZine.com, horlivý connoisseur kultúrnych pokladov, s neochvejnou vášňou pre grindhouse filmografiu, filmové poklady z minulosti a ázijské filmy a hudbu.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button