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Interviews
Hellride Music: Let's start by talking about Ryan Burgy's vocal cords for a second... I mean, he sounds like he's been gargling glass. In all seriousness, does he have to do certain things to take care of his throat? He's got to have vocal cords that look like calcified leather.... Brad Thorla: Vocal cords are muscles, alcohol relaxes muscles. Ryan Burgy: Never have done anything special to maintain or manipulate my vox. The only explanation I could offer would be that the muscles are just very relaxed from heavy consumption of alcoholic beverages, thereby increasing my ability to effortlessly and painlessly destroy my own throat. Matt Bremkamp: He drinks lots of Irish beer, the darker the better. Chris Chiera: Ryan tends to drink a lot at our shows. Hellride Music: The first thing that's apparent on "Stout-Soaked Songs" is the groove....every song is LOADED with HEAVY, heavy groove. Where does this magic come from and was it something you were planning on doing when it came to song writing, or did it just...happen? Ryan: Talk to the other guys about this one. I have no say in what our songs will end up sounding like. Chris: Every time I make up a riff I always make sure that there is some type of boogie woogie feel to it. Brad: Sometimes we also take a cool riff, I give it that "3/4 shuffle feel", add a few notes here and there and we just play it hard. Matt: Before I was asked to join Ryan, Chris, and Brad were doing more of an Eyehategod/Crowbar sound; very slow and heavy. Once Paul and I joined we brought our sounds into the mix. Paul's influences being the Fu-manchu/Kyuss stoner rock stuff, and I brought my love for southern rock, blues, and country. All of this put together just gave us the sound you here on the album. I guess the answer to your question is it just happened. Hellride Music: Back to Burgy. I don't know what the fuck he is screaming about, but give me a rundown on the songs...what's the motivation behind each one? Will you guys put up the lyrics on the site? Brad: No clue. Matt: I really don't know what he is screaming about myself! What we do with the song writing is me or Chris or Brad will come in with some riffs play around a bit and then turn them into a song. Ryan writes the lyrics later, we don't ask him what the songs are about we just let him do his job and we do ours. We do plan to post them on the web site. Ryan: All lyrics are basically just drunken ramblings about god knows what. Some of them I don't even understand. It's kind of cool to speak your subconscious, I guess. But they are all random thoughts pertaining to specific subject matter. Lyric subject matter includes the following: - beer - women (what they do and how it fucks me up) - "Opiate of the People" (a Marxist theory pertaining to the addiction of religion and government) - the encouragement of conformity throughout public education in contemporary America (I'm obviously opposed to it) - anti-pit bull legislation (I'm an adamant opponent of breed-specific legislation, corny huh?) - Living life to its fullest while you're still young If I told you what each song is about individually, then it wouldn't be any fun. I prefer to leave it up to the listener to determine what the songs are about. That way the songs are more meaningful and personal to the people who matter the most - those people being everyone who supports us and enjoys listening to our music. Chris: I just put all the lyrics on our web site, so if you want to know exactly what is being said check them out here: http://www.envy.nu/skk/lyrics.htm Hellride Music: The three audio clips on Stout-Soaked Songs are great!! I know the first is Pete Townsend...where did the other two come from? They are hilarious! How do you guys relate to them? Does it remind you of the vibe in the band? Matt: If I told you we might get sued.. Brad: The other two clips are from a movie called "American Movie" which is getting a lot of positive reactions from critics and various independent film festivals. The first one is poking fun at the fact that we, along with most other modern metal bands, are simply a regurgitation of Sabbath. The second was just fitting and humorous. Ryan: I didn't pick them out, but I love them. First of all, "cathartic" (the adjective form of "catharsis") has always been one of my favorite words next to gelatinous, of course. I like the other clip (Sabbath) because it just reminds me of us at practice. Someone will think they just made a great riff and it turns out to be a total rip-off. It's not done intentionally, just out of stupidity. Chris: Sabbath rules!! The way I look at it is that its all been done before, we just have to strive for new ways to improvise what we create. Hellride Music: The guitar sound on the album is phenomenal....how'd you get that sound, how would you describe it, and lastly who produced the album? Ryan: Not my dept. Chris: We got the sound by recording the first two guitar tracks live. After that, we messed with the EQ on our amps, I recorded a final rhythm track, and Matt created the sološs separately, on the spot. Matt: The trick to our sound is simple distortion builds on its self. Me and Chris follow the Spinal Tap / The Who rule (turn the amp to 11 and ask questions later) but what we don't do is turn the distortion knob up as well. The biggest misconception for bands like us that we just crank everything up on a processor. Well I don't even own a processor neither does Chris we plug straight in to the amps turn the distortion knob to 3 and crank everything else to 10. That way you get a nice clean distortion that sounds heavy as fuck yet you can still here every note we're playing. Simple as that. Brad: Avoiding production gymnastics and just balls-to-the-walling it. Dyke, from the band Hate Theory, far and away the most intelligent musician to whom I've ever talked. Hellride Music: What's the reaction been to the live gigs? Any tour plans coming up? Ryan: We started off basically just playing for the liquor. Slowly, but surely, we have reached a point where we play for a decent number of loyal followers who now consume that liquor (Thank god). People have a lot of fun at our shows. I was surprised to see such positive crowd reaction whenever we played. No plans for tour so far. I'm a fucking geek, so I'm strapped down at Kent State University for another year. But, after that, who knows. Matt: I think people are starting to get what we're doing. Wešre just spreading a little southern gospel Chris: Our reactions from our fans have always been real kick ass. The people who come out to our shows are cool as hell too. Last time it got a little out of hand. We decided to play the show off the stage, and some people started to mosh. As a result, the band was in the pit and directly in the line of fire. I got knocked around a few times, pushed into Bradšs drum set, and a pretty big bruise on my arm. I ended up screwing up on "So Was Red" because of that. It was a pretty cool experience. As for touring, we definitely want to put something together. We have a few bands in mind that we are pretty good friends with and would be perfect for going on a short tour. Right now the majority of the band attends college, so it might have to wait until summer. As of now, nothings is set in stone. Always check the show dates on our web sight because they are almost always up to date. Brad: Good. Sure. Hellride Music: How far do you guys wanna take this thing? Is everybody serious about SKK becoming a full time project? Ryan: I just go with the flow. I don't really make any decisions about anything, but I would like to keep it going. I have a lot of fun playing with these guys. I think that each one possesses an extraordinary amount of talent and expertise in their field of musical endeavor. We all work really well together, so I have no problem sticking around and taking this thing to the next level (whatever that may be). Matt: I want to go as far as the train will go, I've got nothing else to do. Chris: We want everybody to be able to experience our music in one way or another. Whether its by listening to a recording or experiencing us live. Brad: As far as possible; if I could quit my day job, that'd be amazing. Chris: Hell Yeah Hellride Music: Any last words? Chris: Paul couldn't participate in the interview because he doesn't have access to a computer. Matt: One thing that I've got to say is all the reviews I've read on us so far, compare us to bands like Down, Buzzov*en, Bongzilla and Eyehategod. I've heard all those bands and liked them I just don't think we sound like them that much. However, most of the riffs I write come from ZZ Top , Mountain , Hendrix , The Who , AC/DC and Skynyrd. All my solos are influenced by guys like Mike Bloomfield , Johnny Winter, Billy Gibbons, Roy Buchanan and Angus Young. I was surprised that no one got that. Brad: Nah. Ryan:
Brad hates it when I play grindcore on his drums.
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Sofa
King Killer took me by surprise. Instead of another sludge-core band,
I got a band that owes more to Foghat and ZZ Top then EyeHateGod. And
that's a good thing. Instead of a stagnant pool of sludge, the SKK's groove
all over the place...albiet HEAVY groove. Sludge you can dance to.. almost.
Brad, Ryan, Chris and Matt talk about what the hell Ryan is singing about,
their awesome sound on their split with Leechmilk, and rehashing Sabbath
riffs. 
Purchase
the Sofa King Killer/Leechmilk's split CD Guilty of Sloth at the
the 