Hey guys, congratulations on the release of your new EP "180-Degree Murder" through Dark Trail Records and thank you for agreeing to answer a couple of my questions.
I gotta start with this one right off the bat and it’s probably not the first time you’ve been asked this but what’s the story behind the band name "Weston Super Maim" if there is one?
Tom : There is indeed, and like many of my stories, it’s not very interesting.
When I was younger, me and my friends would spend hours trying to think of funny band names.
‘Weston Super Maim’ was probably the all-time funniest to me (I didn’t even think of it), and as soon as we thought of the name, we knew it would have to be a ridiculously heavy band.
It wasn’t until probably 10 years later that I started making the music for it.
Another question I have regarding the identity of the band would be about the visuals surrounding this release.
Is there a symbolic meaning behind the choice of using a parrot as a kind of mascot for the band or was that purely an aesthetic choice?
Tom : It’s purely aesthetic, but it also feels right for some reason.
JoyPolloi suggested it pretty much as a joke, but we immediately knew it was right.
Could you perhaps tell us more about how your collaboration with artist JoyPolloi came to be?
Tom : I randomly know Joy through the design world, and have always loved her work.
When I was trying to think of who could design the EP artwork, she suddenly sprung to mind as someone who would approach it from a totally leftfield perspective, which is exactly what I wanted. The two pieces turned out better than I was expecting and fit the music perfectly.
Continuing on the topic of collaboration : The two of you have been working together on this project from two opposite sides of the Atlantic.
How did this collaboration see the light of day in the first place?
Was it through some of your respective previous musical endeavours?
Seth : I had done a vocal cover of Meshuggah’s “Straws Pulled at Random” and it was shared to a forum on Facebook.
I kind of did it my own way, not trying to replicate, and Tom enjoyed it enough to reach out to me to see if I would be interested in doing vocals for a 15 minute song we wrote.
I was like, “yayaya, send it my way,” thinking it was going to be total shit.
Threw on my good headphones and was blown away, even brought tears to my eyes.
I instantly jumped on board and had a concept in mind for the lyrics after the first listen.
I also fell in love with Tom a couple minutes into the song.
He’s one of my favourite musicians now.
I brought up Frontierer in my write-up concerning your EP since I find that you both share a stylistic affinity, but you also share having members located in different continents.
With that in mind, would you consider taking Weston Super Maim on the road for live shows and how would you make it happen?
Seth : This would be very difficult as we both have full-time careers.
We’d have to find some other musicians, as well.
I would fucking looooooove to tour, but I think it’s more reasonable if it were to be a festival.
I miss being in a van with a bunch of smelly dudes pissing in water bottles and puttin’ down some “road sodas.” Tom : It’s funny, I’ve loved Chad’s work since his first band (When Knives Go Skyward) way back in the day, and we’ve often spoken about him doing vocals on a Super Maim track.
We were actually talking about him doing the vocals for the EP at one point, but it didn’t pan out – and fortunately I stumbled across the dream machine Seth anyway.
Like Seth says, it would be amazing to do some one-off shows, but we’d need to recruit some other musicians – and I’d need to relearn most of the riffs, which I tend to memory-dump as soon as I’ve recorded.
In a scenario where you would be hitting the road with Weston, would you rather tour in the E.U or U.S first and why?
Seth : Definitely, Europe. I’m not afraid to say that the US doesn’t even come close to the level of organization, promotion and hospitality that EU has.
I’ve never toured there but I’ve heard numerous stories from people who have toured there extensively. The US is kind of a shit show for smaller/up and coming bands as ourselves.
I did a 31-day tour a while ago and I think it cost me about $1800 USD out of my own pocket.
I drink a lot of beer and whiskey, though, so that’s not a very accurate comparison.
Tom : I’ll go wherever Seth wants.
Like I said in my commentary of the EP, there’s some very palpable influences in the music you’ve written, such as Meshuggah and Car Bomb.
How do you find balance between paying homage to those influences but also writing something fresh and that sounds like your own?
Tom : For me, making music is about a fundamental need to create, and if what we’re doing isn’t genuinely original, it wouldn’t satisfy that requirement.
If I ever write something and then think ‘oh, it sounds like X’, it goes immediately into the bin.
The influence of those bands you mention (plus hundreds more of course) is primarily in the way they have shaped my taste in music, which in turn informs what I think sounds good when I write – it’s not that I aspire to actually sound like them or pay explicit homage.
Having said that, it’s always a compliment to be mentioned in the same breath as those bands. Wow, I got quite serious there hahaha.
Finally, my last question is about the upcoming full-length that you’ve hinted at.
Can we expect it to also be written as one big piece of music that flows from track to track or will there be a departure from that style of writing and perhaps even stylistically?
Tom : The plan is for it to be more ‘normal’ in the sense of shorter individual tracks.
Partly there’s a logistical element in terms of working on things across the Atlantic, but also I think we did what we wanted with the EP, so the drive is different this time.
Stylistically, I think we’re both planning to push things even further...
I just need to learn how to play the guitar properly now.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer these and I’m really excited to hear more from you guys in the future.
All the best!
Tom and Seth: Thanks for having us man!
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