Dopethrone have been steadily on the rise over the last ten years, their brand of scuzzy doom and dark humor leading them toward the front of the pack. Their latest effort is album number five, Transcanadian Anger, and it’s the best Dopethrone album to date.
Take a listen to “Killdozer,” the latest offering from Transcanadian Anger, and watch the accompanying video. Fair warning: in between the riffs, pack-a-day vocals, drug references and cars on fire, you may see a few bare butts.
After listening, keep scrolling for an interview with the band about Transcanadian Anger, goats and snorting daggers. The new record is out on May 25 via longtime label Totem Cat Records.
Your new album is called Transcanadian Anger. What are you angry about this time around?
Shawn (drums): Apathy fucking apathy either we’re all dormant or we all rise it’s the in between that’s annoying as fuck. Everyone’s got a piece of fence up their butt. So we’re here to fuck with ya! Wake up!
Vincent (vocals): I personally try not getting angry about things I can’t change, there is no point, getting angry requires energy and I’m a lazy piece of shit, so count me out. I just usually get slightly annoyed, especially if I’m about to sober up.
We’re a bunch of party animals that don’t seem to understand the concept of gravity and we keep breaking bones at the worst times possible. For example: we had to cancel 35 shows including Maryland Deathfest and Hellfest two years ago because I broke my stupid leg trying to climb all the way up to my ego and fell all the way down to my I.Q., so we lost a bunch of money and opportunities after that, Carl quit the band so we were even more fucked but we kept going because FTW. We got Shawn as a drummer. I was happy he decided to join this shit-show because I initially asked him before I asked Carl eight years ago. Shawn gots the grooves, he’s a killer drummer. We also had to cancel a couple shows because Vyk broke his wrist a couple months ago; he was also testing gravity and failed. We were broke as fuck and broken physically and without a drummer when we started writing this new album. We might have been a bit angry, yeah.
Dopethrone’s music is generally dark and abrasive, but there’s always a sort of funny, sarcastic undertone to everything, such as “Wrong Sabbath,” which has a sample of a guy talking about hitting a goat with his motorcycle. Why do you incorporate that humor/sarcasm, and where does a quote like that even come from?
Vincent: It’s my buddy Tim, he’s this badass biker I know. I also would like to point out that he’s a ginger and has a mullet (LOL). We were hanging out and he started telling this story about him killing a goat (by accident) on his bike, so I grabbed my phone and started recording him. This is a true story.
What did you write about on Transcanadian Anger?
Vincent: Anger… Drugs… Misery… Toxic people… Demons… Bad decisions in general.
Dopethrone is also the name of an Electric Wizard album, arguably one of the most famous doom albums ever recorded. You’ve been around for nearly a decade and your music shows up before Dopethrone in a Google search. Do you still get a lot of comparisons to Electric Wizard, and if so, does that get old?
Vincent: Our band started as a joke, so did our band’s name. We called it Dopethrone because me and Vyk were in high school together and we used to listen to a shit-ton of black metal and were smoking a lot of pot, so we decided to call the band “Dopethrone” because we are massive Darkthrone fans. We also really like Electric Wizard but I don’t think we sound anything like them. We never ever thought Dopethrone would play a gig outside Montréal, so the name did not really matter at the time.
The song you released previously is called “Snort Dagger.” Are you snorting daggers, or is it about snorting a substance off of daggers?
DUUHHH. Are you serious dude? We totally snort daggers. Don’t do this at home. It’s dangerous.
On your Facebook page, your genre is self-described as “slutch.” Where does this come from and how does it represent what Dopethrone sounds like?
It’s a foul mix of Canadian snow, crackhead diarrhea, blood, tears, broken dreams dirty needles and something that died, then you have “slutch.” It’s like a colder and more disgusting sludge.
