What inspired the name of the band? What are your influences and are they the same as when you started out?
Our founding member, Bertrum, is indeed a 10,000 gorilla who is also a wizard! Bertrum was a little hazy on the whole “naming a band” thing and just kind of went with what he was instead of some deep metaphor. As dumb as that is, our influences are more smarter. Anything from Entombed to Bongripper, from Dio to Coffins, from Motorhead to Obituary, from Alice in Chains to Fear Factory inspire us to concoct our tunes. The magic, of course, is in the pursuit of the seamless combination of all these disparate sounds into one bubbling cauldron of heaviness!
How do you approach songwriting?
Bertrum is usually the wielder of riffs, laying a veritable feast of options at our feet. Mikal selects the choicest bits and slaps rhythm on even the most warp-addled of passages. Then I, Gaben, slice and dice until only the most succulent bits remain (sometimes to Mikal and Bertrum’s dismay). Finally Ry swoops in glazes it all with his magical low-end gravy (or sometimes fleet-fingered fuckery) to finish it off. Then we all argue about the mix.
We try to explore all things heavy and shoot them through an absurdist, storytelling lens. Themes can range from fast, fire-breathing motor beasts to taking a psychedelic shit because you ate cereal not meant for mortal consumption.
Why do you write the sort of music that you do?
Because Bertrum traps us in a pocket dimension and forces us to make only the gnarliest of metals to momentarily ease his cosmic boredom. Luckily, we all love a good, slamming, grooving riff and want nothing more to slam our listeners with said grooviness. Or is it to groove our listeners with said slammingness?
How do you decide what to perform live?
Whatever songs hit hardest make it into the live set, mainly because Bertrum is monumentally impatient and once he is fired up to riff out, we have to make sure he gets only the most nourishing, meaty tunes to satisfy his ravenous appetite. Or at least the ones that remind him of bananas. Either way, there is copious flatulence.
What plans do you have for the future?
To make more smash! We are about to release our latest collection of ripping sonic destruction in the form of a new EP, “WHITE KNUCKLE/BLACK MAGIC”, out this fall! A fantastic music video for the ultra-catchy “Trashmaster” single off of said EP will accompany it upon release. Sometime in the near future, we will share the documentation of our split encounter with the mighty Titanosaur, before looking deep into Bertrum’s past and uncovering his adventures in Medieval Scandinavia when he was locked in battle with the sinister Simian Sorcerer!
Median Man. Median MAN. MEDIAN. MAN. With your glances my way, taking no chances on the new day, Median Man….THANKS!