BRUTAL TRUTH – Legendary grindcore innovators

Peter Loftus met up with god of grind Danny Lilker to get the story behind ‘End Time’ and find out the latest news from Brutal Truth.

What news from the Brutal Truth camp?

Just waiting for End Time to come out, talking to cool humans like yourself, and preparing for the few shows we have this year like a festival in Calgary, Alberta (Canada) on October 1^st, and shows in Japan with Lock Up at the end of October/beginning of November.

The original mission statement of the band was to create the most brutal and intense music on the planet. How important is this ideal to Brutal Truth in 2011?

Still fucking important! In a way, we don’t really have a choice, we have a reputation to uphold. We have to remain as intense as possible or people will think we’re too old to do it anymore, haha.

What musical and personal goals remain for you and the band?

I would just like to hit some places we’ve never been to, like parts of Eastern Europe and South America, as well as some other places in Asia. We have no specific musical goals, never really did, we just like to play crazy shit.

What compels you to play such extreme and intense music?

I couldn’t possibly tell you, for me, the writing and performing of our music is a very natural process, I’ve never really thought of what compels us to do it, I understand that people might think there’s some rhyme or reason behind our approach, like we’re very angry or something, but it’s just what we do, man.

Tell us about the new album? Are you happy with the way it turned out?

Hell yeah! Grind apocalypse! I think it’s a perfect representation of what the band is about right now, I’m quite happy with all aspects of this album from the songwriting, performance and production right through to the lyrics and artwork. Full speed ahead motherfucker.

I’ve seen quite a few ‘very good’ rather than ‘excellent’ reviews for ‘End Time’. Is this something you notice or care about?

I’ll take ‘very good’, haha. Our music can be quite complex, and it can take a few listens to be able to ingest the whole thing on all levels. Hell, we didn’t become ‘legendary grindcore innovators’ til after we broke up! I think it took people YEARS to understand our later releases in the 90s, so I think that in time, maybe the ‘very good’s will change to ‘excellent’s. Maybe not! And no, I don’t care. I appreciate opinions, but it will never change what we do anyway.

How does the song writing process work in Brutal Truth?

Weed- Volume- Crude Recording for Kevin.

Would you say that the grind scene has changed in recent years? If so, in what ways and for better or worse? Do you feel that you are a part of the scene or do you stand alone?

I’m not crazy about "PornGrind’ as I find it tasteless and offensive, but then again I see this genre as more of an outgrowth of gore metal that is considered grind ‘cos of it’s speed. Besides that, I think there are great bands like Rotten Sound, Feast’em, Birdflesh, Nashgul, Magrudergrind and lots of other cool bands. So all in all, I think it’s mostly the same and strong as ever.

We still count ourselves as part of the grindcore scene, I think it would be a little elitist to say ‘we stand alone’, if others think so, I suppose I would take it as a compliment.

You’ve had the opportunity to travel, work with excellent musicians, tour with top acts and meet fans from all over the world – what would you say has been the greatest thing for you personally in your career to date?

Oh Christ man, I’ve done a lot! I guess when Nuclear Assault got to tour the UK with Slayer on the South Of Heaven tour, that was fucking killer dude.

It seems to me Brutal Truth have reached a stage where long intensive touring is out and select appearances are in. Is that so?

That would be correct. For one thing, most of us have kids now, and/or jobs we need to work at ‘cos unfortunately playing void-speed grindcore doesn’t pay the bills, so we can’t just take off for a month anymore to go tour. Also, we seem to have gotten a lot more popular, or appreciated, or whatever you want to call it, but what this means is we can be more choosy about what we want to do, which I’ll admit is nice.

Who would you count as your top three musical influences and why?

We haven’t had musical influences for ages, we just write from our collective unconscious, so we have been ‘self powered’ this way for forever. When we first started, we were influenced by grind like Napalm, thrash/death stuff like Dark Angel and hardcore like S.O.B. Hope that helps…

What are you listening to at the moment?

The "Iconoclast" album by Nazxul

What next for you and Brutal Truth?

Doing whatever shows we can get away with to support ‘End Time’, and thinking soon about starting the writing process again.

http://www.myspace.com/brutalfuckingtruth