Mistress
 

by Chris Barnes
October 27, 2003

Total fucking antisocial doom/grind/sludge played at filthy levels of volume, sporting members of Frost, Anaal Nathrakh, Sally and Benediction among others. When we talk about "Extreme Metal", in it's truest sense, we talk about the kinda stuff Mistress are creating. The true sons of Birmingham are hot on the release of a brilliant new record, The Chronovisor , and vocalist Dave Cunt was nice enough to share his thoughts with Hellride.


Hellride Music: I'll be honest, after listening to the first Mistress album, I felt like I needed a shower. And probably would have had not "Mistress" induced such a state of depression I couldn't get up off the couch. For those of us not familiar with your brand of sick doom/grind, can you give a bit of history on the band?

Dave Cunt: Sounds like it had the effect we intended, then! Brief history - me and Paul were in a nascent version of the band, then Mick came in and it started to take proper shape. Dunc was a mate who filled in on bass at a couple of gigs. Got him in on 2nd guitar, original bass player Earl left and we got Daz. Sometime amongst this, 2 demos and a deal with Rage of Achilles. Older music was Eyehategod, Iron Monkey style stuff and was a bit more influenced by doom - Goatsnake, Electric Wizard, that sort of thing. Still had a few really fast bits though. New stuff is more aggressive and still has the sludge idea, but mixed more with grind and Dis-core sounds.

Hellride Music: Dave Cunt, you sing. And you sing in a way that makes most voice boxes into meatloaf. Honestly, how do you keep that up? Have you ever had a Otolarynologist take a look down there? Anything special you do to take care of the throat?

Dave: Not really. Drink a lot of beer, mainly. Never had anyone look down there and don't intend to! I'm just blessed with a horrible voice and an endless supply of pointless things to scream my head off about.

Hellride Music: Sounds a little like my wife. Mistress is from the birthplace of misery-induced heaviness - Birmingham, England. During the early Sabb's day, we kept hearing about what a shit hole that town is. Have things changed at all there, or is it still the industrial arse hole of the U.K.? How much influence does where you live have on the Mistress sound?

Dave: I think the industrial wasteland card has been over played. I happen to be proud of where I come from, the other guys are too. It's changed in some ways over the years, of course, but I think the people are still the same. Maybe there's less of an emphasis on industrial manufacturing than a few years back, but I still work on an industrial site covered in concrete so there hasn't been all that dramatic a change. I think where you live influences your attitude to life, and that probably affects the music in some ways. Birmingham isn't the most fashionable place in the world, but that breeds defiance in the face of opposition and an ethic of just getting on with things.

Hellride Music: I like that... "that breeds defiance in the face of opposition and an ethic of just getting on with things." Very well put. You have a new album out, simply called "II" on Rage of Achilles. From your perspective, how would you compare "II" with the first album?

Dave: Actually it's called The Chronovisor. The 'II' part is just so we don't forget which album it is when we're too drunk to read the title properly. It's leagues ahead of the first album. The writing's much better, it's produced much better, and it feels more coherent as a whole. It fits with itself, if you know what I mean. The songs are great to play live, and I'm pleased with the lyrics and the fact that they're actually printed this time. It's just better than the first one, full stop.

Hellride Music: How'd your relationship start with Rage of Achilles, anyway? And what's this about you singing under a table half-comatose for one of the Mistress shows?

Dave: We recorded a demo that was reviewed in Rocksound magazine over here. They liked it and Duncan from Rage of Achilles happened to read the review and asked for a CD. He liked it too and offered us a deal. We liked his style of label and accepted. Simple really. He's a good guy who's not into bullshitting people and he's behind the band, couldn't ask for better. The under the table thing, yeah, that happened at a gig a while back. I tend to get drunk and do stupid stuff at gigs. Don't know why really, it's just the music we play puts you into a pretty nasty mindset sometimes. Went through a really stupid phase of trying to get people to hit me at one point. Ended up with stitches in my jaw, but at least we finished the gig before going to hospital, haha. No big deal. That's my idea of a good gig, a horrible atmosphere and blood etc, but a grin on your face afterwards. Suplexing our guitarist Duncan off the stage while he was playing was a recent one that was a good laugh.

Hellride Music: HAHA!! You guys NEED to play that states with a show like that. You and Mick Kenney are in both in Mistress and Anaal Nathrakh... how does that work? Are both bands a priority for you guys, or one over the other? I know that Anaal Nathrakh is pretty much a studio band, so does that leave Mistress the priority? Or am I totally off?

Dave: We're both in those bands and others besides - Benediction, Fukpig, Frost, Sally, Katastrophe Wife etc, there's a fair number of bands that Mistress members are involved with. Everything's a priority when it needs to be. Like recently we were recording the new Mistress album and so the Anaal Nathrakh stuff that had been starting to coalesce got put on hold, just for a little while. Once the album was done, Mick started finishing off the new Frost album and I started trying to get Benediction's asses in gear. In November we're doing a Nathrakh thing for Radio One over here, so we'll go back and concentrate on that for the next couple of weeks. It might sound all mixed up, but each thing is totally separate the way we see it, so nothing really interferes with anything else, even though it might sound to other people like it would do.

Hellride Music: Both Mistress albums were recorded at Mick's Necrodeath studios. It must be a cool thing to know that you don't have to worry about studio time or outside pressure using an in-house studio. Or am I totally off again? Is the recording more relaxed because it is Mick's studio or is it the same kind of grind?

Dave: No no, it's comlpetely relaxed, it's a great way of working. We might not have millions spent on equipment or anything, but we've got what we need, and we can take our time. The Chronovisor was recorded in about a week, and then about another week mixing and mastering and shit. We actually mastered it about 5 times, correcting little bits here, little bits there. You just can't do that in most studios unless you've got money to burn.

Hellride Music: ...Or a lot of coke for the owner. It's always interesting to get the perceptions of the current metal environment from people who are actually knee deep in it. What are you thoughts about heavy music at the moment? Where do you see it going?

Dave: Is this nu metal rubbish officially dead yet? It's infiltrated the mainstream and then self destructed a bit, but the stink will be hanging around for years. Evanescence? Bollocks! Shame is, Korn was actually pretty fresh when it came out. When was that, 9 years ago or so? To be honest, I ignore most of it. My tastes as far as metal goes are generally too extreme to be involved in the wider world. The reason I mention nu metal is because on one level it represents the assimilation of the outsiders into the un-discerning mainstream. That's always going on because people are unsophisticated herd animals for the most part. That's where I see heavy music going - continued and increasing lowest common denominator acceptance. Look at Grunge - one minute you've got Nirvana playing Devo covers and singing about genuine obsessive mental illness, and a few years later you end up with fucking Puddle of Mud. Whatever you think of the music, that's a trend that happens all the time. That's why I mostly concentrate on the completely antisocial end of the spectrum, because that's where the life is. Certainly hope it stays relatively removed from the big budget side of things.

Hellride Music: Any idea where your tour plans will take you to support The Chronovisor? And when? Any state-side gigs planned?

Dave: We'll go everywhere we possibly can. Getting over to the US would be fucking brilliant. We just don't know how! Seriously, we'd absolutely love to, but how do you go about getting yourself the support slot on a decent tour or whatever? Buggered if I know. That's the kind of stuff managers take care of, and we haven't got one! You don't know any good ones, do you?

Hellride Music: No, 'fraid not. What's spinning in Dave Cunt's home right now?

Dave: Right now - the song "Virgin of Nuremberg" by Brodequin. Their new EP's great if you're into head caving brutal Death Metal, and you can get it free from their label. Really oppressive. So far today, Radiohead's "Hail to the Thief", a tiny bit of Nirvana, Tom Waits, Acheron, Cumchrist, the Tools of the Trade EP by Carcass (Hepatic Tissue Fermentation II - the fade out riff with that little lead over the top is just fucking complete brilliance!), Circle of Dead Children's new album, all sorts of stuff. Plus The Chronovisor. Maybe it's a bit shit for someone in a band to sing the praises of their own album, but I really do like it.

Hellride Music: Thanks for the interview, Dave. Anything else you'd like to say/plug/pontificate?

Dave: Thanks for the support. Cheers to anyone who likes our stuff, hope you find it horribly violent and occasionally depressing... It certainly was for us making it. Hope to see you in America someday. Now fuck off and read something else.


Purchase I and II: The Chronovisor at the Hellride Music Superstore

Visit the Mistress website at www.geocities.com/stomp666