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| Interview with HORROR STORY Pt. I |
Interview with Craig from HORROR STORY www.myspace.com/HORRORSTORY http://nprocknroll.muzic.net.nz/horrorstory HORROR STORY: Fire away.. Pretty Vacant: Okay. So, first question. Pretty standard. Biggest musical influences for Horror Story? HORROR STORY: Rock n roll, right from the 50's, rockabilly, punk rock, psychobilly, blues, and of course the kings of Horrorpunk, The Misfits. Pretty Vacant: Of course, definitely a great band. HORROR STORY: We like all sorts of rock n roll, really. Pretty Vacant: Yeah. So how did Horror Story become a band? HORROR STORY: In 2000, Nigel Toxic from Nefarious teamed up with Dr. Hell from Valhalla Crossroads, and over the years the lineup has changed to become the rock n roll monster that Horror Story is today. Von Toxic has been playing in bands for 18 years now. Semps been playing in bands for 12. Pretty Vacant: Very cool. And how long have you been playing? HORROR STORY: Myself? I first started jamming with other people in '97 when i was 13, but didn't really get serious about writing songs with people until I was about 17. Then when I moved back to New Plymouth I started jamming with von Toxic in other bands, Fusion Inc. (which has beocme Evil Dead Crew now), GoatFucking Nunrapers (my first tour), Phantomzone, Nekrotika and a new band of ours, The Dead City Rockers. I joined Horror Story at the end of 2003. Before that I was a roadie and helped with making CDs and stuff. Pretty Vacant: Ah, that would be awesome to do. So how does Horror Story compare to your other bands? HORROR STORY: Yeah, it was a buzz. Horror Story are one of my fave bands. Um, it's definitely our "main" project, even though we tour and record with our other bands, Horror Story is the priority, musical style. It's the more 50's styled rock n roll songs that get made Horror Story songs, Death Metal songs for Nekrotika, Punk/Rap/Hardcore for Evil Dead Crew, and I guess the best way to describe the Dead City Rockers is "Streetpunk Rock n Roll" even though its been mentioned in other peoples music, haha. Pretty Vacant: Haha, that's wicked. Who writes Horror Story's songs? Is it just who ever has a kick-ass idea for a song? HORROR STORY: Pretty much who ever has a kick arse song, Toxic will give me a guitar riff and I'll come up with the drums for it, Semp will jump in on bass and Dr. Hell will find some words. Some of the real early H.S. stuff on Monsterpiece were Dr. Hell's songs form Valhalla Crossroads, and some were Toxic's new songs he was writing after Nefarious. Sometimes at band practice Semp will be playing his bass to see if it's loud enough, and we will get a song out of that, so there's really no strict formula for writing songs. They come when they come. Pretty Vacant: Yeah, that's how it should be. Too much pressure for just one person to write them all. HORROR STORY: I don't know about that, but we all certainly chip in our bit. Toxic and myself have written the next 2 H.S. albums just jamming together on spare nights, with us playing in 4/5 bands together we've gotten really good at writing songs together, we've found tapes of me and toxic jamming new songs, but cant remember writing the songs! Haha. The tape will say "Toxic/Gunn new songs demos and stuff". But we can't remember writing the songs. Pretty Vacant: Haha. So what's it like putting songs together? Any musical rushes? HORROR STORY: No point in stifling creativity. If we got an idea for a song or some lyrics we write it down, or play it for someone else in the band to get ideas for making it a song, we don't sit down and say 'Let's write a song." More often than not, Toxic will come over to mine and Semps house (we flat together) and say "I've got a cool riff" and he will play it, and I'll tap out a beat on our coffee table (which is an old speaker bin we turned upside down) or he will record a rough demo of it on the 4-track, or at jam, just whenever. Our music consumes our lives, so its pretty much our lifestyle, in saying that I don't mean we wake up and write 6 songs before breakfast or anything, haha. |
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