Empire State Bastard have released their debut full-length Rivers of Heresy.
Originating as a passion project for Biffy Clyro frontman Simon Neil and good friend and frequent co-creator Mike Vennart (Oceansize, Vennart), Rivers of Heresy brings the vision for Empire State Bastard kicking and screaming into reality. Brimming with creativity and powered by a no-holds-barred embrace of unflinching extremity, Rivers of Heresy is a vitriolic attack on the senses.
Birthed out of a collection of Vennart-penned instrumentals inspired by Siege, Slayer, Sleep and The Locust, Neil added equally feral vocals, worlds apart from his work in Scottish giants Biffy Clyro.
Simon’s eclectic death growls and manic shrieks ensure that Blusher is as fierce as Harvest, while Sons And Daughters is a slow-motion doom metal grind, and the stripped-back vocals/drum lunacy of Tired, Aye recalls John Zorn’s Naked City. Its themes are just as confrontational, targeting pig-headed ignorance in Moi?, the erosion of shame in Blusher or imagining a society beyond salvation in Dusty. There are also moments possessed with the jet-black humour of Takashi Miike, such as Palm of Hands, a vignette of a sex party horrorshow.
Empire State Bastard are completed by the ultra-consistent bassist Naomi Macleod (Bitch Falcon) and all-time drumming great Dave Lombardo (ex-Slayer, current Mr Bungle, Fantomas, Suicidal Tendencies).
To celebrate the arrival of Empire State Bastard as a fully realized concept, we caught up with project masterminds Simon Neil and Mike Vennart to dive deep into the Rivers of Heresy.
Diving Into Rivers of Heresy with Simon Neil and Mike Vennart of Empire State Bastard
Rivers of Heresy is one fiery record. What was the initial inspiration that lit the fuse on Empire State Bastard?
Simon Neil: “There's plenty to be fiery about these days. And then just myself and Mike you know, we've talked for years about making a record together, we took our time discovering what it was, and when it needed to be made. And, you know, sadly, it took the kind of peak of Brexit and the pandemic for us to really kind of focus our rage, and then to channel it to this record, and I tell you what, it really was a positive way to spend some really negative emotions, you know, so we're really proud of it.”
Fans of early Biffy Clyro will definitely be delighted to hear you letting rip on some harsher vocals, Simon, was it an enjoyable experience for you to explore that territory again?
SN: “I think that was kind of almost our main outline. Originally we talked about having no melody so that it didn't even cross-pollinate at all with anything Mike and I had done previously, but, you know, I've always had that inside me, and to be honest, the way that I write songs, not every song is conducive to having a vocal that is so intense. As I’m getting older, my songwriting is changing, but as soon as Mike started showing me this work and these riffs, it just clicked in my brain.”
“It felt like a really positive way to get rid of some really negative emotions, some real anger. There's something really liberating about doing something that's so intense and you don't have to ask for permission with this music, just a release of pure emotion. It’s more about how you feel at the end of the song. I wasn’t worried about the arrangements and things so when I was approaching the music, it was a lot more primal and I think for me to approach it, as just the screamer, was liberating. I definitely felt like Mike’s riffs were holding my hand and guiding me back to my screaming roots.”
Mike Vennart: “I've always liked Simon's scream. I find it to be just such a unique and fascinating fucking noise because it doesn't sound like anybody else's. It's not got any sort of machismo or fucking dick-swinging quality to it. It's just a pained and frenetic howl. I’ve always been like ‘How the fuck do you do that?’ And so when it came to do this record, it was like ‘well I’m pretty sure he just wants to do that’. So how do we dress that, you know? It was just finding some monolithic fucking chords to go with that you know?”
Was being in that central position a fun experience for you? When you and Simon work together with Biffy, you’re sort of the ‘out of focus guy’, so was it nice to be the one leading this project with him?
MV: “That’s what I’m going to call my autobiography, ‘Perpetually just out of shot, the Mike Vennart story’.” “So this was like ‘I’m wearing the farting trousers now! The songs go like this.”
SN: You did enjoy that process though didn’t you, coz it had been a while since you’d taken the reigns like that?
MV: “ I took the liberty of making sure that my own band (Vennart) has my own name, so I only have to argue with myself about whether it's any good or not. That has been quite a refreshing experience too. But it has been great to just take care of the musical part of it and hand it off to Simon for editing and curating.”
“That’s what he did, he basically took all these quite disparate and eclectic flavours that I gave to him and curated something reasonably cohesive. I don’t think that you can go ‘Ooh this is a nice one, this reminds me of Linkin Park.’ That’s not going to happen at any point during this record. It’s not an easy record, a comfortable or familiar record to listen to. You’re not supposed to sit and go ‘Oh these riffs remind me of, Bon Jovi’”
SN: “Or Deicide.”
MV: “All the greats, Linkin Park, Bon Jovi and Deicide. It sounds like all or none of those, yet somehow Simon made all of these songs hold together.”
Speaking of greats, Dave Lombardo is an all-time great, what was working with a member of Slayer like?
MV: “We’re still computing it”.
SN: “Exactly, to be honest Brenton, it still blows our minds a little bit. I mean we’ve shared the stage with Dave Lombardo, we’ve spent a lot of time with him, and every time he lives the room, we still go ‘fucking hell, that’s Dave Lombardo’. We started working on this record in earnest during the start of the pandemic because everyone’s time freed up as their lives shut down, so we were able to devote some time to it.”
“Every drum track that Mike had made on the demos was called ‘Lombardo’s’ because that was the type of drum sound we wanted for it. It is a bit of a good life lesson because we just thought ‘Let’s fucking reach out to Dave Lombardo and see if he’s interested, all he can say is ‘No I’m busy’, you know? We knew he was out with Mr Bungle and the Misfits and Suicidal Tendencies, but we sent him the music and within 24 hours he got back to us and said ‘Right, when do you need this for, I’m fucking in’. That was the biggest compliment we’ve had for this whole project. That was what really solidified this as a band, and made us decide to play more shows.”
“At first when were playing shows, my mind was blown, but we very much felt like a band. Lombardo is such a kind fella, he makes you forget. A lot of these uber legends and icons, the really decent ones make you forget that you’re in the room with an icon until they leave and that’s their magic. When we are making music with Dave, it feels like it's just the four of us, you know?”
“Naomi is an incredible bass player also, it just feels like it's four of us solving problems, making music, rehearsing and playing shows. It's only when he disappears or he’s doing an interview about other things that we’re like ‘fucking hell man, that’s just crazy’ but yeah, if you've liked any metal record from 1987 onwards, or earlier than that probably, then you love Dave Lombardo and I think that's what's blowing our minds more than anything. Every record we've loved has been fucking inspired by this guy who's now in our band.”
MV: “I don’t believe in God, but it does feel like having the seal of approval from Dave Lombardo, is a biblical sign that it is a righteous fucking endeavour”.
SN: “God is dead, long live Dave Lombardo”.
You mentioned being out on the road playing shows, what has the experience of bringing what was essentially a pandemic project out into the world and performing these songs in front of groups of people for the first time?
MV: “The origins of the band go back to around 2010. We had the name and we started talking about it in interviews, so it’s kind of been this mythical band that has lived only in our imaginations and the imaginations of the select few people who were actually reading those interviews. So the weight of expectation and anticipation when we actually came to play, it was really celebratory. People were really willing us to bring this mythical beast to life. So it feels so good. We didn’t know what it was gonna be like, most of us hadn’t met each other, and the band didn’t know each other. So for us to come together with Naomi and Dave and fucking get in a room and pound this shit out, I thought it was gonna be a black hole, it was just absolutely incredible.”
Is it a different experience from when you’re playing in your other projects?
SN: “There is a level of focus required. When we’re going out with Biffy, after doing this for so long, a lot of those songs have become second nature. It’s a continuous flow, it's almost muscle memory. So it's unusual to step out on a stage where every song and every note is brand fucking new. And I think we all need to keep our heads. We're still at that moment where it's pure focus, I'm screaming at the edge of my physical capabilities. I’m a crumpled heap at the end of the show. Mike doesn't have a drink beforehand, because the speed of what your fucking playing, the intensity of the delivery, is something that's hard to describe. We won’t be playing any two-hour shores anytime soon, Brenton, that’s for sure”.
MV: “There's a level of precision that's required. That means that tequila and beer for Mike before the show is just an absolute no, no, I want to be fucking every single note has got to be slamming.”
Has performing these songs given you a greater appreciation for acts that play these more extreme styles on a full-time basis?
SN: “Yes. The other night we played a festival and got to watch Converge, and those guys are in their late ‘40s, early ‘50s now and they’ve been playing these shows for 25-30 years, with that level of intensity and engagement. That music doesn’t exist without full commitment, they can’t just pone in a show. That’s something that we’ve tried to have in Biffy over the years, even though we aren’t as intense as Converge. But to see a band such as that, who give every show, every day, just as much as they probably did in 1997, that’s so fucking inspiring.”
“There’s a reason a lot of those bands, the really good ones, don’t last, and that’s because it is such an explosive way to live your life. The stress it puts on your body, that nobody sees. So when you see these lifers in these bands that have been doing it for decades it’s like ‘Man, I couldn’t have more respect for them’. I obviously love their music as well, but in terms of being a musician, a touring musician, it’s like fucking hell, how do these guys do it?”
Lyrically, when it came time to sit down and lock in the words to go with these compositions, did you find that it was sort of freeing being able to delve into more direct topical territory than you typically do with Biffy Clyro?
SN: “Yes, I mean with Biffy, there’s always a sense of romance. A sense of love and optimism in my writing. With this, it was basically just me taking a view of the country I live in and the way the world was and connecting that with my writing. There are songs about identity, climate change, and taking accountability. It is very much about this modern era that we are in.”
“Especially given we’re had Brexit to deal with which is just ruined an entire generation of British fucking kids and musicians that will never get the chance to fucking go to Europe to play unless someone gets them 10 grand, you know? And then with the pandemic, and then fucking Russia went to war with Ukraine. Because I was stuck at home for the first time in years, I felt like I was engaging with my local community and things in a different way than I had previously. When we’ve been on tour, we’re always dipping in and out, so being home for 18 months to two years, it was hard to ignore the difficulty that our government and a lot of other governments around the world are putting their citizens under. So it was easy to find the frustration and it was nice to be able to channel that frustration into the music. Hopefully, it’s not an oppressive listen, there are moments of levity and a little bit of a sense of humour, but engaging with what’s going on with the world right now. Which is something that I don’t necessarily do with Biffy.
Rivers of Heresy is out today on Roadrunner Records.
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