Gorenoise. The Rubber Axe webzine is still dedicated also to that subgenre – or niche genre, if you will – of extreme underground music, and with new projects and recordings popping up left and right, I am obliged to see what’s new in the scene, right?
Therefore, to bring some new(ish) artist to our attention, I’ve had an opportunity to speak to Max from Massive Gore Bulge, based in a wonderful US state of Ilinois.
Hey, Max, thanks for your time in doing this intie! How is it going nowadays in the corona-infested US of A?
Hey, Rudolf! it has been quite the experience!! Haha. Actually no changes on my end besides working from home. I keep in my room most of the time but not completely shut away from the outside world. So I haven’t lost my mind yet! Glad to be interviewed!
Gorenoise, thankfully, is not aimed at politics, so unless we’re gonna speak of songs about dissecting politicians, lol, we can leave that shit out from our conversation. So,to kickstart this one properly, what can you tell our readers about yourself? How did you get into the gorenoise scene and what has made (or forced) you to start making your own noise?
Well about myself, I am 22 years of age and been living in Chicago majority of my life. I currently work a job that is truck dispatch around O’Hare airport which I have held up since I was 17 (funding my future noise endeavors hehe). I had not really given any grindcore or noise a chance for my listening until about 2016. I was into death metal and brutal death metal. Pretty much some bands would have the signature ping snare drum and I loved the ringing from it when bands would do blast beats. Blast beats really became my favorite thing to hear in all heavy music at this point. 2016 rolls around and this is where I found myself watching a YouTube video of Fiend – Derailed EP. I was so intrigued by how intense and how it was much faster than what I had always been listening to. Right here was a big break for death metal and I had my immediate interest to find more and create this fast paced blasting shit. This would go on to boost my liking for gorenoise as I really like the fuzzyness from distorted bass and guitar and nicely put together programmed drums or consistent blast beats from real drums. Embedded Flesh and Ocular Leech Infestation we’re formed same year in 2016(my first gorenoise attempts). There’s a lot of oddities of gorenoise where some people carelessly place noise all over and it’s blown out to death but there’s also great sounding stuff. Favorites now are Cop Stench, Hydrocele and Vomitoma.
Do you have any specific/recurring theme in your songwriting/graphics? Like, some specific diseases you’re using as an unified theme? Or it’s just good ole “pick the pathology book, find some nasty stuff” approach?
For me personally I love a good real life photo of death but some drawn artwork of a disgusting creature or dismembered body is a pick too. Themes kind of go along the basic gore/crazy medical terminology for album/song titles. And trying not to pick overused samples when I do use them. Honestly I almost never used samples in my music.
For those in gorenoise circles and fans of the genre, can you tell us what equipment do you use in your recording? Do you stick to the tried and tested instruments, or you like to experiment with new additions in every new material?
For my goregrind/gorenoise projects I always have the BOSS metal zone for bass and guitar tracks. This pedal gets a lot of shit but I personally love it and think it is the best for this music. It can really bring out fuzziness and harsh wall noise. The BOSS HM-2 is only good if I want to actually write riffs for my projects. As for drums I love small sized snaredrums and toms for the crazy ping sound, preferably 10inch head. I do however have other snaredrums of bigger sizes I use too. I like to switch out different models every recording to have diversity in my projects/albums.
Your first demo was released on October 1st, 2018. I think with passing time we can take a look back at it, what do you think…so, going back, how satisfied are you with this first official MxGxBx material? And while we’re discussing it, what was the response from the gorenoise scene for it, if any?
The demo 2018 is actually with another member on guitar and myself doing drums. This was recorded in my bedroom when I had drums in here haha. It’s really blown out as everything was recorded with 1 microphone directly from a laptop. Not the best sounding stuff but you can definitely make out some rhythm and intensity. There was some slight notice on Facebook gore pages when it was shared at the time but other than that no real attention.
So far I see 6 different releases, 2 stand alone records (demo and 2019 “Trapped In the Harsh Reality of Pain”) and 4 splits. Seeing quite a long time between a demo recording and the next release (over a year), what took it so long? Also, I have noticed these two don’t have any song titles…why the change for proper song titles in the splits?
It is not really known but Massive Gore Bulge was a 2 piece band originally here in Chicago under the name Crack Cocaine & Opiates. We had also used the same logo in our older 2018 recordings which I have lost. Unfortunately some incidents broke up the band and it was 2 years later before I picked it back up as a solo project as MxGxBx. Once the band finished at first in late 2018 I had already been busy with my main band Born Backwards with my guitarist Sean Scott playing shows and writing music. Next year and half I was just focused on that and didn’t do much solo acts. As for the new material coming out this year the band will be a mix of more rhythmic goregrind and sloppy noise-y ignorant blasting for the gorenoise style. The song titles finally having names was just random. More sessions are likely to be untitled still. I like to mix and match.
I’ve mentioned splits, these are with artists like Leucodistrofia, Septic Convulsion, Cop Stench and Subhuman Scum…what can you tell us about these and for people not having the slightest idea about how the underground works, can you throw some light on how these splits came to be? Which one do you prefer as your best work to-date?
Leucodistrofia is a project by Javert Nihil from Argentina. I found him online searching for gorenoise music. He makes really nice distorted blasts and noise with his style of programming which I like a lot so I hit him up for a split on Instagram.
Septic Convulsion is a project by Devin and Russ from New York, USA. I found Devin in instagram from listening to his other band Abscesspool on YouTube. SxCx is super deep distorted gorenoise with ping’d out blasts and grooves. I got in contact with him on Instagram as well for the split.
Cop Stench is Stefen from Germany. He has been doing noise for many many years before with other projects. I love how he programs his drums because at times he can make it sound REAL which is a plus in gorenoise. I had actually tried to find out who he was for a long time of 2019 after I first found Cop Stench and then I saw he posted on Facebook on a page recently so that’s when I messaged him.
Subhuman Scum is a project by my good friend Angelo from Dayton OH. I met Angelo from playing shows with him over the years from his touring with Putrid Liquid and also when Born Backwards traveled to Dayton for Daytonian Deathfest which we also played together in. Angelo hit me up when I had posted online that my project was making new music so we talked out a split that will release physically soon. Out of all the material out now, Septic Convulsion and Cop Stench is my top tier material as it is super recently recorded showing my current skills in playing fast.
While we’ve been discussing the long period between recording the demo and the “Trapped…” release, these 4 splits have been released in a span of one month, roughly. Does it mean you are fully commited to producting your stuff now? When can we expect anything new and, if you can tell us, what will it be? Another split?
As the current events of the virus still strive and lockdowns are active here, I have a lot more time to record for unused drum sessions I made in the last year. So that means lots of splits, EPs, maybe even a full album for Massive Gore Bulge! You can say I’m actively recording for the project now hehe.
Gorenoise could be considered the epitome of DIY ethics, lot of labels and artists produce their own discs in totally “in your face!” homemade way, do you consider to bring your noise out also through physical releases? And as for the merchandise – anything planned? T-shirts, mousepads, cups…?
I plan to make a short run of MxGxBx shirts to sell online in the future. I am actively searching around to make CDs or tapes of all my releases. Even the demo 2018 and 2019 “trapped in a harsh reality”
As for your local scene…any other gorenoise acts we should know about?
I am unaware of any other gorenoise acts locally around here to be honest. But I will shout out Wiz by Aaron Monti (Mutant Noise Records)
Now, as we are almost done…do you have any final message for our readers?
Keep DIY alive. Support artists. Support your scene. Support your friends!!
Bandcamp: http://massivegorebulge.bandcamp.com/
