Next week, Magic Bullet Records will force-feed us new bone-scraping sludge from Wormwood, a project dredged from the minds of Doomriders vets Chris Pupecki and Chris Bevilacqua. Born out of a need for yet-unexplored heaviness, Wormwood have retched out 20 minutes of crusty crush that are sure to nod some heads.
Check out third track “I’d Rather Die” here and find out what Pupecki has to say about Wormwood and the new music.
What motivated you to start playing as Wormwood?
Bev and I needed a reason to hang out again after years apart and figured a band would be a solution to that. He’s also a great motivator/pain in the ass, so he definitely helped to get this ball rolling. Also, I wanted to do something darker, heavier and different from Doomriders and stretch out a bit creatively. Pretty much every band I’ve ever been in I wanted it to be heavier than it was. I love what we do in Doomriders but I also wanted to scratch that “heavy as fuck” itch that I’ve always had.
How different does Wormwood feel from your other musical activities?
Right now my only other band is Doomriders. It’s tuned down a bit lower, it’s noisier and has a much more dark, negative vibe than Doomriders. Also, I use fuzz pedals on my guitar and effects on my vocals in Wormwood, where in Doomriders we only use small amounts of that stuff on recordings.
How specific were you about the sound you captured when you recorded these songs? Was it fast and messy, or did you work with certain equipment to achieve an exact sound that you wanted?
It wasn’t a fast process. We recorded all analog at Alex Garcia-Rivera’s Mystic Valley Studio and that tends to be a bit more tedious generally than recording all digital, but also we didn’t spend a ton of time on tones and getting sounds or “the perfect take” so it went a bit quicker that way. We knew pretty much how we wanted it to sound and it was just a matter of a pedal or two and a different approach to musical style and song writing than we were used to.
How comfortable with vocals were you before working on this recording?
Not comfortable at all actually. I only started doing backing vocals for Doomriders in the last couple years. Also, we only recently got a PA in our rehearsal space so I never had a chance to even practice once before recording the Wormwood stuff. So the vocals you hear on the Wormwood recording is pretty much the first time I ever attempted any sort of “lead vocals” in studio or rehearsal space. I think it’s safe to say that we will only improve from here on out as a band.
Wormwood will see worldwide release through Magic Bullet digitally on October 14th, 2014, and on LP – the first pressing on smoke, black and red variations – on October 28th. Additionally, a CD run including a limited woven patch will be released by Patac Records, and a super limited run of cassettes will be released on Negative Fun Records.
