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Interviews
The Rotted - Tim Carley
08/12/09 || Lord K Philipson
The Rotted’s a fucken excellent band from the Land Of Mongoloids – England. English dudes and dudettes can’t play sports and generally suck at everything, but they do know how to create some fine music at times. Acid Reign, Bolt Thrower and now The Rotted. We thought it was about time we gave guitarist Tim and his band some exposure here at GD, that’s how good we believe they are. So, never mind the bollocks – here’s The Rotted.
Global Domination: Hey, bitch. First things first. I hereby nominate “Nothin’ but a nosebleed” the best fucken death/grind tune in a long fucken time. I am completely floored. Who’s to blame for this insane track and did you guys feel you had something special going on while writing it?
Tim: Cool you like it! That work of genius was by myself and ex bass player Wilson. I took some really rough ideas he had and turned them into that song adding my own shit and making it faster and more aggressive!! When we were in the studio trying to work out the running order of the album there were only two things for sure, this track would open the album and ’28 Days Later’ would close it, everything else was undecided until the last minute!
Also, I was surprised to see 2 members of Screamin’ Daemon in the band now. How the fuck did that happen?
Well Screamin’ Daemon died about the same time Gorerotted died, so we teamed up to form The Rotted. We are long time friends, we live near each other and Gorerotted and Screamin’ Daemon did a lot of shows together in 2007 and 2008. So it made sense to work together on the new band!
And seriously, when the fuck did Nate Gould become such a fucken great drummer? That kid’s sure developed over the years, huh?
Hes always had that in him, Screamin’ Daemon was more about black metal Marduk style constant blasting, double bass and speed. With The Rotted he gets to show off some of his chops, his grooves and ideas. I think he is turning out to be one of the best UK drummers!
And
having Rob Halford’s twin brother Rev. Trud on bass is a wise move,
that is a fantastic dude with a larger than life persona. But isn’t he a
guitarist originally?
Rev. Trudgill came at the right time and really lifted this band out of some shit times. He is so much fun to tour with, the guy is insane! Yeah, he played guitar in Screamin’ Daemon but moved to the bass for The Rotted. He had just got into bass playing when he joined us, he had the idea of doing a Danko Jones style rock band with him on vocals and bass but we offered him the job in The Rotted and he took it no questions asked!
You are formerly known as Gorerotted. I think you guys blew. Then you change moniker to The Rotted and all of a sudden start to play some quite fucken fantastic death/grind. How come? Is it the new guys’ fault you could actually turn into UK’s finest?
Lots of reasons I guess. When we split up Gorerotted we felt free of everything that came with that band, the old members, that scene, that style and expectations of what we should play! The Rotted is a totally new thing for us. Me and Ben got new guys in and we just blasted out an album in 3 months, 2 months writing and 1 month in the studio, job fucking done! It’s the extreme metal album I’ve wanted to make all my career!
When you were managing that tour I was on with Vomitory and Screamin’ Daemon you must have been thru some fun times, huh? I mean, the traveling sucked, people didn’t come to the shows and so forth… Tell me now who stole my Aeon hat, coz you prolly knows this shit. I want it back.
No idea about your fucking shit Aeon hat, stop asking me! Yeah some tours don’t go as well as planned but others go better than you expect! I stopped doing my label, distro and tour managing stuff a few years ago, just wanted to work on my own music with all my energy, I prefer it this way!
What are the former members (of Gorerotted) doing nowadays? Building dance clubs in your dreadlocks? Not that I care, but hey, I’m sure there are some Gorerotted fans here at GD. Then again, prolly not… Why were some not invited over to The Rotted? Feel free to speak as much crap as you want about them. I think they all fucken suck, yet I have no idea who were in the band…
Too many to list mate, some of the other Gorerotted guys still do bands, best thing is for people to check the MySpace or add the Official Gorerotted 1997-2008 Facebook page. There is fuck loads of information, old photos and shit like that on those sites!
I want a XXL The Rotted shirt or hoodie. Send me one. For free. What do you want in return? I’m not giving it to you but it’s nice to ask, no?
I would like another Aeon hat, the one I stole from you in a few years ago is worn out.
Bastard. Do you remember this extremely gay DJ at one of the clubs we were playing? It was the same place where some of the Screamin’ Daemons members almost started o fight among themselves becoz there as an idiot in the band (no names mentioned). This DJ thing had leather pants and a Burzum shirt on, doing the gayest dance moves known to man while playing records. The question is – should people wearing Burzum shirts while doing gay dance moves be shot?
Did you hear all the stuff he has been saying since hes got out of prison??? Funny stuff! I watched that ‘Made In Norway’ DVD last week, loads of old school people from the scene talking about Mayhem and Burzum, all nutcases! Interesting stuff.
You organize tours and whatnot, play in a band and still you are piss-poor and look like a bum. Why do you do this? What do you work with in the real world? When you do tours like the one with Vomitory – do you ever think “fuck man, this death metal bullshit is not happening – I better find something else to do”? Then you book another shit tour and go thru it once again. And again. And again. Why?
I told you man, I don’t book any more tours for other bands. I can’t be asked with it and want to spend my time doing positive things for The Rotted instead!! I live in my world, which I consider the real world! I’ve got a lot of punk tendencies I guess, I don’t have regular job in some shitty office. I play music or I work for friends record company or I go busking in the street, playing in pub and bars. Always playing music, not selling my soul at some horrible shit hole 9-5 everyday. I don’t like the establishment and I don’t like the regular world and I live outside of it as much as possible!
When is The Rotted coming to Sweden? I believe you guys deserve some fucken attention considering the insanely groovy death/grind you play. Then when I think about it, Sweden might not be the right place for that. Have you guys been out playing much? Do people care to come and see you? I mean, you seriously can’t have anything special to offer but headbanging and great metal – unfortunately that is never enough it seems. I fucken hate people.
Make it happen? Pull some strings with some friends and get us over to Sweden! Right now we’ve been doing fuck loads of shows in the UK. We’ve done a lot of big festivals like Bloodstock, Hammerfest and Hellfire Fest, playing with bands like Saxon, Anvil, Opeth, Skindred, Sepultura, Anathema, basically the bigger heavy metal bands! Its been great, we could never do these shows as Gorerotted, we only got offered some club festivals with death/grind bands, these days in the UK we play in the regular metal scene with the big names. We’ve done lots of UK headline shows, some shit and some great! Europe has been slow for us, we’ve done Wacken, a few club shows in Germany and some Dutch festivals. Out in Holland next week for a festival with Nile and Grave which should be a good one!
The title “Get dead or die trying” is obviously a play on that 50 Cent fucko’s album… I blame you for everything so I bet it was your idea to entitle it just that. Did you have to fight for it? I mean, there is a chance people might look over you guys becoz comedy doesn’t belong in death metal, and having a title like that might be too much for the narrow-minded death metal fan. You know what? I say fuck them fuckers. They wouldn’t know good death metal if it moved into their pants. Fags. Fuck’em.
Yeah, fuck em. Its not even a rip-off of the 50 Cent fucking idiot’s album. It’s a really common saying in the UK, ‘get something or die trying’. You know, get rich, get somewhere, get that new guitar or die trying etc etc blah blah! Our album title is a reflection on what a lot of people do to get themselves through life, they take drugs, drink and smoke, basically killing themselves. So ‘Get dead or die trying’ is saying I’m gonna fuck myself up just to be able to live, like Black Sabbath’s ‘Killing Yourself To Live’ or Type O Negative’s ‘Life will be the death of me’. 6
Is
Vomitory one of your fave bands? If not – fuck you. What kind of bands
inspire what you do with The Rotted? I mean, Vomitory must be an
influence considering you guys have a lot of similarities sound-wise.
But you guys throw in some more groovy non-death metal parts here and
there – where do these fucken things come from? 50 Cent?
I can honestly say without any disrespect that Vomitory has never been an influence on us! I started playing extreme metal about 1996 or 1997. I first met Vomitory when they played in London with Deranged in 1998 or something. I exchanged some copies of Gorerotted’s first MCD/Demo with them for copies of their first album. So we kind of started around the same time I guess, probably influenced by all the same bands back in those days, so that would explain any similarities. In terms of our influences, these days its all about the old school for us, we listen to a lot of Sabbath, Motörhead, Entombed, Brutal Truth, Discharge, Slayer, GBH, Madball, Sick Of It All and stuff like that. You will hear that in the new album we are writing!
Is Bolt Thrower the best band ever out of England?
No, Black Sabbath is the best band out of England, followed by Iron Maiden and Motörhead!! Bolt Thrower would be very high on the list of death metal bands I would say! The world of death metal would be a very different place without Bolt Thrower, Carcass, Napalm Death and Benediction.
Rate these UK bands on a scale from 1-10. 10 is the “Nothin but a nosebleed” song and 1 is Ektomorf. Also, add one descriptive word to each band.
Bolt Thrower: 8, oldschool!!!!!!!!!
Carcass: 9, eeeughghhghgh!!!!!!!
Acid Reign: don’t know, before my time!
Leif Edling: not UK, not answering.
Screamin’ Daemon: 8, dickheads.
Iron Maiden: 10, gods…
Judas Priest: 10, of…
Motörhead: 10, metal…
Accept: not UK not answering!
Slayer: 11 influenced by UK punk so we allow this token foreign band a few points!
Nina Hagen: looks good for 50+.
Alphaville: no idea who these are.
Your momma: 1 she is not very metal.
What’s the absolute worst band out of the UK that you know about? A band you would wanna punch in the throats repeatedly?
I hate most of these new deathcore bands with shit hair cuts and stupid slam shit stolen from Devourment and other US bands. Fuck them all, death metal and extreme metal belongs to people like us, so fuck off!!
And while we are at the subject of battery and abuse, what band, when you have been tour managing, have been the biggest fucken idiots?
Never really had much of a problem with anyone, some idiots in bands I guess, Screamin’ Daemon for example, they were pretty stupid. That band was a black hole of intelligence, the more time you spent around those guys the more stupid you would become, they could suck the brains out of any situation.
And the nicest one?
Most bands were cool, Vomitory, Macabre, Pungent Stench were all really nice guys to work with, I enjoyed those tours!
Which is more fun – going around the UK in a small car playing tour manager or actually going around the UK playing shit shows? is the death metal scene in England fucken dead or has it picked up over the years? Why is it that your country never really managed to keep up with the rest of the world when it comes to brutal metal? I think you guys actually started to change that fact with the “Get dead” album. Bot Thrower aside ofcourse. Bolt Thrower are gods. I believe they are from a parallel universe coz usually bands that awesome can’t be of UK origin. You guys talk too funny for that. That’s fact.
Ha ha, you can’t judge the UK from your trip here with Vomitory, you came here when the scene was changing, many promoters and clubs closing, bands splitting up and shit like that. Since then there has been a huge increase in extreme music here. Bands like Carcass are back and playing huge festivals, Bolt Thrower are back on tour soon, Napalm Death are making killer albums still, so many new brutal bands, lots going on. There a lot of opportunities for bands like The Rotted now, we have played something like 40-50 shows in the last year around the UK, everything from tiny pubs to huge open-airs! Lots of extreme bands are now getting onto the huge 80,000 festivals like Download and getting themselves into Kerrang magazine, its really picking up over here! Of course I enjoy playing my own shows rather than tour managing! But I have to say fuck you about the shit shows, no shows for us are shit, if 5 or 5000 people come to the gig we still do the same show and we still enjoy playing our music for people!!
We have a few gear-nerds here at GD. What is your set up when it comes to amps and guitars? If you play Fender this interview ends here.
I use Les Paul guitars, I have a couple, a beaten up old studio and a really nice standard. I use Peavey 5150 and 6505 amps and cabinets as I have an endorsement deals with them. My set-up is really simple, a good guitar plugged into a good amp, just with a wah wah, a tuner and a noise suppressor pedal.
I have watched the “Nosebleed” video a bunch of times but can’t really figure out if there’s a story in it that we are supposed to “get”. I mean, Trud looks ace in his hat and all, but there has to be a deeper story to this – we are, after all, talking a death metal video here, you know. Spill the beans.
Its basically a few different scenes where idiots and drugs can influence you and make you forget your real friends. People being lead astray by dealers, money and shit like that. Each scene Ben is being lead somewhere he doesn’t want to go, then he says FUCK YOU and comes back to the band and his real friends!
I recognize the other guitarist’s name… Hasn’t he been in Cradle Of Filth? If so, tell him I’m sorry about that. If he wasn’t, just tell him sorry anyways. That’ll shut him up.
He’s not in The Rotted anymore. The Rotted is made of 4 guys, myself on guitar, Ben on vocals, Nate on drums and Trudgill on guitar. Anyway else who joins may only be a temporary member till they don’t work out anymore or we don’t need them anymore. Us 4 guys are the core of the band and the ones who will write the material for the next albums. To answer, yeah he was in Cradle on the classic albums “Midian”, “Cradle To Enslave”, “Cruelty and the Beast” etc.
Now, let’s pretend you are Tom Araya. Why does “World painted blood” suck? Isn’t it about time you guys give it up now? Seriously, you haven’t released anything worthwhile since “Seasons” and that was not exactly yesterday.
I haven’t heard ‘World Painted Blood’ yet so can’t comment! I liked ‘Divine Intervention’ and the one from a few years ago!
Now you can be Tim again. Say thank you or I’ll skullfuck you.
Shut up.
When is there a new album coming anyways? Do you think there will be another classic death/grind hit-song such as “Nosebleed” on that one? I don’t think so. I think that is the best song you will ever write. Can you dedicate that one to me on yer next gig? Also make sure to videotape it and put it on YouTube so I can see it, ok?
We are writing right now and we do have some material like ‘Nosebleed’, in fact we have one right now with the working title of ‘not even like a nosebleed’ cause it sounds similar ha ha!. We just spent 3 days locked in a studio working on new material, its sounding wicked. A proper mix of the bands we were into as teenagers, so expect Slayer, Napalm Death and Entombed meets Motörhead with Discharge and GBH d-beats and some Black Sabbath and Sick of It All thrown in! Its old school metal played in a really aggressive way! We love metal and we love hardcore punk so our new material is a mixture of all those old school styles! No shit fringe haircuts, shit tattoos and moronic beatdowns, just metal like it was when I was a kid!
Who’s the chick magnet in The Rotted, by the way? I just got a mail from a girl asking if you guys have girlfriends. I said “no, they like men”.
Ben got to be the best looking I guess but Trud is the women magnet, he has been around the block a few times! Right now everyone is in long term relationships and I’m married!
Anyways, I think it’s time to wrap this shit burrito up. I was aiming for 30 questions but only managed to fire up 27, including this one. I do expect it to be a lengthy read though and if your answers aren’t up to GD’s standards I’m kicking you guys out of the band. And I can see you guys are safe in the band coz you pulled this one off fucken well. Is there anything else you wanna say before we let go off each others hands and walk into the sunset? You fag. Oh, and don’t forget to thank me for this fantastic interview. I just made you guys a better and more well-known band.
Yeah, thanks for this interview and it was so nice to spend some quality time with you once again.
