With:	Cap, Gills
Conducted by:	Doc G. (in person)
Published:	06.09.2011

Despite this particular reviewers mixed reactions to the debut album of The Myconid, "Myconid Madness", I could not deny the innovative ideas behind the entire project as a whole. Grimy punked-out metal drenched in electronica? Sounds interesting no matter which way you slice it. After all, the evolution of music is entirely dependant upon new ideas. So lets get a little insight into this forward-thinking slab of nasty music, shall we?

Doc: So to start us off, tell me about the new music you guys have made?

Cap: Basically, The Myconid is a band that combines many different genres together. Punk, metal & electronica are the basic premise of the band.

Doc: Before you guys formed The Myconid, you played together in Lithica, which was a black metal band, was it hard to switch your focus from black metal to something like this?

Gills: Nope.

Cap: No, it was actually quite rejuvenating. It was a different direction because we found too many roadblocks with Lithica, too many boundaries. That was what made The Myconid stand out in our minds; put down the boundaries, try something new.

Doc: So how did the final decision come that you wanted to go off and do this, rather than keep going with black metal?

Gills: We just weren't really listening to black metal anymore.

Cap: It just wasn't something we wanted to hear at this point.




Doc: As you stated before, there is 3 main aspects to The Myconid; the punk, the metal, and the electronica. Let's start with the punk side, what were the main influences in that?

Gills: The Casualties, for sure.

Cap: Purgen, The Distillers...Lots of bands, a few mainstream ones as well.

Gills: Even Aquabats...with the keyboards mostly.

Doc: The electronica side?

Gills: Happy hardcore is what we've been listening to a lot. Lots. Lots of happy hardcore

Cap: Quite a bit of happy hardcore, and a little bit of dubstep influence - not really fans of that genre, but you can take a little bit of everything from any genre.

Doc: Any specific artists?

Gills: There was a few DJs. There was Squad-E and Re-Con. Also DJ Naggy. Lots of smaller guys.

Doc: There's also obviously the metal side...

Cap: Diablo Swing Orchestra, absolutely. To be honest we weren't listening to a lot of metal during the time we were writing this, but we still wanted to give the whole presentation a metal perspective. Can't really think of much we were listening to at the time.

Gills: It started out as a doom metal, originally. We quickly switched from that, but doom is a big influence for me.

Doc: Are going to through some doom into the mix in the future?

Gills: Definitely, but I think it always has that mean sound to it that doom has.

Doc: Is there any other genre-crossing bands that had an influence on this at all? For example, I hear what could be Atari Teenage Riot...

Cap: Atari Teenage Riot I guess you could consider an influence...

Gills: I think it was mostly just pure influences though.

Cap: We started finding bands later that were doing similar things to us, this was more after the fact, though. After we finished writing we started making all these connections to other artists doing something similar.

Doc: One thing that sticks out in the album is the electronic drums, sometimes it adds to the whole "electro" feel of it, other times it sounds less natural. Was the idea of electronic drums intentional or do you guys intend to find a real drummer in the future?

Cap: Initially we had plans of bringing in a real drummer. However, because it's a two-man band and we were writing all the instruments, it got to the point where finding a drummer was an issue. Once we realized that that was not going to happen, we decided to utilize the drum machine to the fullest potential. We really tried to give it that electronic feel. We made sure to program drum beats that were not humanly possible, that was the whole point. Can't find a drummer? Utilize a drum machine to it's fullest potential.

Doc: Another thing that's pronounced is the lack of guitar solos; something that's a real staple in most metal. It seems more based off the interplay between the wall-of-sound riffing and the synths. Was the "no solos" thing also intentional?

Gills: We didn't intentionally leave out guitar solos, we just didn't want to put any in.

Cap: Let's just put it this way; it's not something we really took into consideration. We had other ideas for the guitar parts. As opposed to having some big build-up for a guitar solo, we'd have more of an interplay between all the instruments. Every part would have its time to shine. The guitar, although it's primarily rhythmic, it still had it's own unique lines that were different from the bass & the keyboards. It was more about the overall presentation, which resulted in not having big sections for guitar solos.

Doc: The Myconid's music seems to emphasize creating an amalgamation of a lot of different sounds, was there anything you considered putting in but decided against in the end?

Gills: No, all the songs we wrote sounded like that right off the bat. There was nothing we wanted to add but didn't. It came out exactly as planned.

Cap: I think one of the main ideas behind The Myconid right from the get go was that there would be no boundaries. Whatever we were feeling at that time, whatever we were listening to directly influenced the song. We may have started a song sounding punk rock, but half way through we weren't feeling that anymore and decided to turn it into something that sounded like happy hardcore, or electronic or whatever.

Doc: Listening to these lyrics, they seem pretty raunchy. What the hell inspires lyrics like these?

Gills: "The Preachers Daughter" - we watched an episode of Beyond Scared Straight. There was this smokin' hot chick who was a preachers daughter who was just whoopin' ass throughout the prison.

Cap: The lyrics are meant to make people laugh. That's all they're meant to do.

Doc: So it's similar to the music in the sense that it's an eclectic scrapbook of ideas?

Cap: Just whatever is going on in our lives that we think might be funny. That's really it. There's no political message, no religious message, nothing really serious.

Gills: "Fuck Off" is a good example of everyday things - some guy came up to me and touched my hair, and I just can't have that.

Cap: It's like those guys who come up to you and say [insert dumb-guy voice here] "Hey bro, nice t-shirt, listen to Slayer?" You know what? Fuck off.

Doc: There's a lot of interesting word play in here as well. Any lines you're particularly proud of?

Gills: "Popes Passion" is pretty good.

Cap: Which part?

Gills: "Tie him up and cockslap his thighs"

Doc: Anyways, now that the album is out, and your seeing different feedback come in, is there anything you'd want to change that didn't occur to you at the time of recording?

Gills: I don't think so. I'm pretty proud of it.

Cap: I'm happy with the way it is. I don't really have anything to change on it.

Doc: You've also got Black Pestilence, you were doing Lithica as well before. Is this a one-off side-project or should it be considered a permanent musical entity?

Cap: It is the real deal.

Gills: It's a constant thing, yeah. I'd say Lithica is dead, yes?

Cap: Yeah. The Myconid is here to stay, though. Make the most of it and hope it gets received well.

Doc: You've also got Androgynous Lava Queens going on. It seems like there's a lot of similarities between the punk side of The Myconid and ALQ. Are you planning on stopping that as well?

Cap: I haven't heard that name in quite a while. I guess The Myconid has become my new outlet for everything wacky. I don't really have any plans for doing anything ALQ related any time soon. Maybe one day, or it might just be released with The Myconid.

Gills: When we were writing lyrics I kept telling Cap to summon ALQ.




Doc: Do you plan on taking this live?

Cap: We're in the works of getting a show organized very soon.

Doc: This album is really sharp and electronic feeling, what will change about the music once it hits the live atmosphere?

Cap: The wackiness of the music will translate really well on stage.

Doc: Are you guys going to be adding a visual aspect to the show?

Gills: We're going to have the stage presence, obviously. We're not too sure. We know what we need to do, but we need to hammer out some details at this point.

Doc: Time for the obligatory new album question: If you had one song to sell this album, which song would you tell people to go check out?

Gills: I would say "The Preachers Daughter" because it's funny, it's kind of punk, but there's the dub in there, too.

Cap: Yeah, it's got it all.

Doc: So next time you go in to record, what new elements would you want to bring in that you haven't done on this one?

Gills: Definitely gangsta rap. [Laughs]

Cap: There's a whole world of music out there. The Myconid will always be changing, so who knows what the next one will sound like.

Doc: That wraps things up, any last words you'd like to put out there?

Gills: Check out www.fungientertainment.com. You can get our album there, as well as a whole bunch of other stuff, there's a whole distro there.

Album available at Fungi Entertainment.
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