PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
Ant May from Planetmosh spoke to Ryan Waste, guitarist from Municipal Waste, in London recently to discuss their upcoming album.
Planetmosh: Your new album, The Fatal Feast is due out in April. Can you tell us a bit about the album?
Ryan: It takes place in space, which is a basic song title. The fatal feast is a concept about a crew that goes into space and their captain gets eaten by the crew, and they become cannibals after drinking space beer and getting hungry for flesh and stuff. We did a video based round that where we’re the crew and it’s kind of a sci-fi horror theme. That’s the basic cover art scheme that we created around the song title, The fatal feast.
Planetmosh: Is that concept used throughout the entire album?
Ryan: There’s touches of it. It’s pretty funny, people will probably think the whole thing is a full on concept record, but that might be the only song about space. We just thought it would look great for the cover.
Planetmosh: I’ve seen a video for the song with star wars style writing scrolling.
Ryan: That’s just a lyric video. We have a full gore, special effects video coming out that we filmed in LA, which is pretty exciting. It looks like the set of Alien, or Galaxy of terror, or something.
Planetmosh: It must have been fun to make the video.
Ryan: Yeah we got to act and tear guts out and chew on intestines and stuff so it was cool.
Planetmosh: The album is coming out via Nuclear Blast. What made you decide to switch from Earache?
Ryan: Well we fulfilled our contract with Earache, which was three records. Nuclear Blast – they’ve been kinda hitting on us for a while, and it was just time to make a move. It just made more sense for us, they let the band be more creative, and we wanted to reach out and reach a larger spectrum of people, and they’re even open to us doing releases on other smaller labels like doing vinyl releases here and there. We’ve got a record coming out with Tankcrimes, split with Toxic Holocaust, they’re letting us do stuff that Earache frowned upon whereas Nuclear Blast have welcomed us with open arms. It’s a no brainer for me, if they’re willing to do that then I’m all for it.
Planetmosh: You’re touring the US in March and April. Are there any European and UK tour dates or festival appearances being planned for later in the year?
Ryan: The festivals, probably in July and August. We’re working it out right now. We’re actually going to be over here a lot this summer doing some makeup dates with festivals that we had to cancel in the past, and I’m sure we’ll be over here yeah.
Planetmosh: Any gigs planned for later in the year?
Ryan: Our year’s being put together, we’re going to be out on the road all year so you might see us again. Definitely over the summer, but yeah it’s all starting right now, we’re going to be very busy.
Planetmosh: Your live shows are very energetic, it must be a tiring schedule when you’re playing gigs night after night.
Ryan: Yeah it’s on the crowd too, they’re the ones that make it so energetic, so as long as they’re moving around, we’re moving around. I feel like adrenaline takes over – you can be hung over but as soon as you hit the stage you just feel it again.
Planetmosh: Last time I saw one of your shows you’d barely got on stage before the first crowd surfer came over
Ryan: On the first note probably. People know what to do. If you’ve seen us before you know its going to be wild, a lot of action right off the bat.
Planetmosh: Do you ever have problems with venue security over-reacting to the fans behaviour?
Ryan: Yeah especially if they don’t know what we’re about. I mean we welcome people up on stage, it doesn’t bother us but sometimes we’ll have to stop and tell security to ease up on some of the kids because it might look like they’re messing with our show, but its all part of the show really.
Planetmosh: Over the last ten years you must have had some great experiences. Do any stand out particularly?
Ryan: Coming to Europe for the first time was pretty incredible. I’m over here now kind of hanging out, so it’s become almost second nature but I remember the first time we came over here, we were all bright eyed, we never thought our band would travel overseas much less be able to tour consistently over here. Just being able to travel, we went to Japan last year and to South America. It’s really the travelling, going to these different countries and people know your music and know your name, that’s just the biggest thing for me, I think its pretty incredible.
Planetmosh: The South American fans tend to go really crazy don’t they?
Ryan: They’re some of the most passionate metalheads anywhere. People from South America, like Brazil, it gets pretty intense down there, they love their heavy metal.
Planetmosh: When you played your first show at Richmond New Year’s Eve Keg party in 2000/2001, did you ever think that MW would still be going after over 10 years?
Ryan: I never even thought about it. We were just laughing, having fun, writing sloppy metal punk stuff and would never have thought we’d take it this far. If you don’t think too hard about it, maybe good things will happen, thats the philosphy we’ve had.
Planetmosh: What are you guys like on the road? Heavy drinkers?
Ryan: I am yes. What I’ve been telling people is that’s what makes it so hard. If I played sober, it would be the easiest job in the world, the drinking is what makes it difficult.
Planetmosh: What is your favourite type of live show and why – festival, large venue or small venue?
Ryan: As far as playing, I like the more intimate smaller ones, just because the connection’s there with the crowd, there’s no separation, but I like festivals because I get to see bands I actually want to see. We got to play with Judas Priest and The Scorpions last year at Hellfest. That right there for me was like a dream come true. So I’d say the festivals for hanging out as a fan, but for us playing then its the small clubs.
Planetmosh: Do you get much time at the festivals to watch other bands?
Ryan: Oh yeah, once we’re done, we’re done. We’re getting our day drunk on and walking around and I get to see some of my heroes play from the side of the stage, it’s pretty incredible
Planetmosh: What bands do you think have influenced your music?
Ryan: For me initially I grew up listening to like Black Sabbath and Judas Priest – they’re my earliest influences getting into music, but I guess when I found Slayer and DRI and stuff like that, that was the main Municipal Waste influence. Obviously stuff like Nuclear assault, we actually had John Connelly from Nuclear Assault sing on the new album which is pretty cool, so it’s all wrapping round.
Planetmosh: Which do you prefer and why – CD or legal mp3 downloads ?
Ryan: LP. Neither mp3 or CD. I hate CD’s man. I’m a vinyl enthusiast to say the least, and we make sure we put all our music on vinyl.
Planetmosh: Vinyl never really died completly but does seem to be making a comeback with more bands releasing stuff on vinyl.
Ryan: I do a lot of used record store shopping, most of the stuff I buy is used, like old second hand stuff. It’s starting to come back as people realise that everyones stealing music, which I don’t even have a problem with, people downloading stuff, downloading our stuff, but I think if you really care and love the band, you want to have it on record, thats the way I look at it.
Planetmosh: What was the last album you bought?
Ryan: It was a British band, Wildfire – Brute force and ignorance. I found it on vinyl and was really excited – I’ve been looking for that one for a while.
Planetmosh: Ok thank you very much for your time.
