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Interviews : “I know a lot of people throw us in the tech death category…” – An interview with Dave Haley (Psycroptic)

By on November 4, 2014

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Dave Haley – Psycroptic

Psycroptic are one of Australia’s heaviest, most brutal death metal bands – definitely our pride and joy. Their brand of metal is extreme yet versatile, each album featuring different elements of various metal styles. With their last record ‘The Inherited Repression’ being released in 2012, the band has been mercilessly teasing fans on Facebook with a horde of pictures hinting that their new album is just around the corner.I managed to get a hold of Dave Haley, the drumming machine of the band and get some updates on the new album, as well as have a chat about all things Psycroptic! “Hey! Things are pretty good. Actually quite busy at the moment as we’re just getting ready to make a few announcements with the new album and our touring plans. So preparing for those things but besides that everything’s cool!”

I got straight to it wasting not a second, to ask about the new album, with Dave giving me just enough information but very diplomatically. “ It will be released early next year and we should be making an announcement soon in relation to some new music that people can hear this year. We’re keeping everything tight-lipped for now because we’re still in the mastering/mixing phase, but as soon as we hear the final product it’ll be very shortly after that. Because we run our own studio, we do everything as much as we can ourselves and things can take a little bit longer. It’s a good and a bad thing at the same time.”

Dave was also keen to share a little bit more about what direction the new album has taken and what it sounds like. “Its got a lot of the grooves of the last album, maybe it’s a bit darker with more atmospheric riffs. The vocals are definitely different again and I think all of us have taken a different approach. It’s catchy, most refined in terms of song writing, and what I think is our best work yet, so we’re pretty keen to see what people think! We’ve always been of the opinion that if you like our older stuff  then you should listen to our older albums – we’re still going to play that stuff live but for our musical creativity we need to move on and do different stuff. If we didn’t change and evolve we wouldn’t be a band because it would be boring. We appreciate fans both old and new and we always try to look after everyone live when it comes to our setlists but as I said, for our own musical sanity we need to keep doing different stuff.”

The new single Echoes To Come was released today (Tuesday, 4th November) via Psycroptic’s Official Facebook. Check it out below.

That made me ask him whether working independently was much easier.“I don’t know, we don’t really know any other way. We’ve done a lot by ourselves and we’ve never had a big management. We try to keep as much stuff as we can in house – we work a lot harder and it also means we don’t get forced into doing anything that we don’t want to do. It’s not about making money or anything like that, it’s always been about the music for us and being able to sustain doing what we do.”

With some of my favourite albums to their credit, like ‘The Scepter of the Ancients’, ‘The Isle of Disenchantment, ‘The Inherited Repression’ etc, each of which have subtle differences from the next, I asked Dave what the general writing process was like for Psycroptic. “It’s always very different. We’ve been doing this for ages, but we still don’t have any idea of what we’re doing. Every album is different in the writing and how we put it together but we get more efficient and streamlined; doing things in a certain way. When that gets boring, we change it up a bit. Everything is always new and different for us – the last album was the first time we had ever really pre-produced everything right down to all the little drum fills before we had actually done the final recording so to speak. Previously we’d just go in record all our songs and come out with an album. This time we did a lot of demoing, a lot more planning. Its been a cool and exciting process, a little bit too long for me, I’m just impatient to hear it!”

Psycroptic are also known for their electrifying live performances and I asked whether they keep their live shows in mind when writing and composing music. “It does come into consideration a lot – mainly we like to write riffs that we want to hear and we think are cool, especially when we’re jamming and we think ‘hey, this will actually sound pretty cool live!’. So we do have some thoughts about that but then when we’re doing a bit more of the atmospheric stuff , that’s just Joe messing around in his studio at 2am in the morning so there’s not much consideration there.”

How would Dave describe his band’s music to someone who has never heard of Psycroptic? “I know a lot of people throw us in the tech death category but we’ve never really seen ourselves as that we just like really cool riffs.I guess we play a very thrash-inspired, old school version of new school death metal. [laughs] We just chuck everything in and if it sounds good, we go with it!’

Psycroptic were also announced as part of the upcoming Thy Art Is Murder tour which features a mad line-up and Dave is pretty stoked about it! “Its a crazy line-up, we’re very excited. Quite a few years ago we did a show with Thy Art and when we saw them play, we thought ‘these guys are gonna be huge’. They’re just exceptionally good at what they do; insanely brutal its very cool for them to take us out. Its going to be a bit of a different fan base, probably a lot of people that haven’t seen us before – that’ll kick us in the arse and make sure we put on a good performance. We love to tour and play live so it’s going to be a good time and we may play some of the new stuff.. All the band members live apart so when we get together we’ll figure out our setlist.”

Given that I started drumming last year I was keen to find out what Dave’s practice routine is like and what he does to keep up his badass drumming skills. “To be honest it changes and evolves all the time – at the moment I’m going through a phase of inspiration which is very cool.I put the timer on for two hours, and get to practicing different sorts of stuff. I still get lessons from teachers every now and again just to expand what I can do. So a lot of the time I’m working on that and maybe going over and doing a bit of maintenance work, stuff I might be having problems with. It does change all the time and I’m always looking for new and different ways to keep me in the rehearsal room.”

The band also adopted their very own Tassie Devil and named him Psycro and it really increased my respect for them. “I’d say we’re all environmentally conscious. Tasmania is for the most part a very pristine place and it makes sense that we all want to look after it and all the joy that the nature and wildlife brings. We’re not any sort of political band, we had an idea and everyone agreed on it. The organisation we donated to is Devil’s Ark – they’re actually based in New South Wales and the reason we supported them is because they’ve got a colony away from the Devils that are actually sick, like a lot of the ones in Tasmania. We wanted to put money into something where they were taking action now rather than into something we’re they’re doing research and it might be too late. This way even if all the Devils in Tasmania are wiped out because of the disease, these guys are free from disease.”

Before wrapping up the interview I told Dave he’s always been my inspiration for running – this man can do 10 kms in under 50 mins! “I put my runners on, smoke a joint and run! I guess running is my meditation. Its like an hour, fifty minutes where I’m essentially meditating but working out at the same time. I guess I got into it because of my Dad. When I was a kid he’d always run and then later on in my 20s when I was really unfit because of lots of touring. Same approach to drumming really, set a goal for myself and then just work towards it.”

Dave had one last message to all the Psycroptic fans! “Thank you so much for the support , our new album will be out very soon . Keep checking Facebook because we’ll have something cool for people in the next few weeks I think. We can’t wait to hear what you all think! Cheers!”

Catch Psycroptic on tour with Thy Art Is Murder, Revocation and Disentomb in December. Tickets available from Oztix.com.au

Dec 12 – Fowler’s Live, Adelaide. Lic/AA.
Dec 13 – The Hifi, Melbourne. 18+.
Dec 14 – Ringwood OLP, Melbourne. AA.
Dec 17 – YMCA HQ, Perth. AA.
Dec 18 – Capitol, Perth. 18+.
Dec 19 – Manning Bar, Sydney. 18+.
Dec 20 – Crowbar, Brisbane. 18+
Dec 21 – Crowbar, Brisbane. AA.

Thy Art Is Murder 2014 Tour

About

Prarthana is a vegan, Indo-Aussie, heavy music addict, fluent in sarcasm and metal. Traveling is an obsession as she enjoys taking in the history of various countries and following her favorite bands. She's either eating, teaching grammar or learning an instrument, when not occupied with windmilling in the faces of other humans.