Exclusive Interview: Drowning In Blood talk “Crush The Weak”!

Who doesn’t like a Thrashing in the snow? Montreal Canadian trio Drowning In Blood gave it their finest when shooting a music video for “Death Of Democracy” from their brand new shinny EP “Crush The Weak” and made it look easy. The band were gracious enough to talk to us after we reviewed the record, giving us another creature double feature to share with y’all. The second part will be right here in 7 days!

How have you found the reaction to debut EP “Crush The Weak” so far? “It was pretty outstanding actually. We had a lot more positive reactions than we thought. We just started writing songs for fun while the other guys from our other band False Gods were away. It started out with one song, and then we wrote another one and then another one at which point we were like “fuck it, let’s record an EP and see where it goes” and it really took off more than we expected in just under a month”

What was it like recording the music video for single “Death Of Democracy” in the snow? Did all the gear survive? “(Noah Muller, Drums): We were really surprised. We saw all the snow and we thought it would fuck up Noah’s drum but in the end it was okay. We were mostly cold really, couldn’t feel our feet for a week (hahaha). In the end, all the gear survived and it was well worth it. We had a lot of fun and we really planned it last minute, but the final result was surprising considering the very low budget (50$ lol)”

How did the cover of “Sunday Morning Coming Down” by Johnny Cash come about? “(Chris Michaud, vocals and guitars): I’m a huge fan of Social Distortion and their punk covers of country songs, especially their take on Folsom Prison Blues and Ring of Fire. We really wanted to put a cover on the EP but we didn’t know which one. We didn’t wanna do a cover of a metal songs because when a metal band covers a metal song, it usually ends up sounding exactly like the Wish version of the original song hahaha. We wanted to have a joke on the record and a fun cover to play live. With Sunday Morning Coming Down, we had both!”

What made you go with the perhaps more Death Metal inspired cover artwork for the EP? “(Chris Michaud, vocals and guitars): Well first of all, the drawings were already bought. My dad bought it for my birthday and he told me like “hey, maybe you could make a t-shirt out of this or something for your new project, I bought the rights too”. At first, it was supposed to become a piece of merch but the t-shirt spike was amazing, I was like “fuck, we gotta make an album cover with this.” It really had that “Conjure and Command” Toxic Holocaust vibe that I loved. We didn’t want a classic “New Wave of Thrash” because they all look the same. I mean, a guy with the molten face and the nuclear waste with a beer and a battle jacket with a thrasher hat, it’s really cool but we didn’t want the same artwork as other bands in our genre because if we tried to do one, it would’ve just ended up looking exactly the same”

The Montreal scene is absolutely buzzing at this moment in time with lots of bands coming out of the woodwork; how has that helped you get your name out there, what has the scene done for you? “Well, unfortunately due to COVID-19, we haven’t had a chance to be part of the scene yet. We really love our local artists, some really great bands in Montreal, especially Thrash and Black. We just cancelled our first show yesterday but we can’t wait to share the stage with our local inspiration”

What’s next for Drowning In Blood? “We’re currently working on new material right now, it’s going pretty well. We were talking about making a Crush The Weak – EP Volume 2 or maybe an LP, depending on the situation. We are trying to seize every gig opportunity we can, but there are no gigs in Montreal at the moment so, in the mean time, we’re practicing and getting better at what we do everyday”

“Crush The Weak” by Drowning In Blood is out now and available over at bandcamp.