1. Can you give us an update on what is going on with the band these days?
Hi, this is Jay from SCHIZOID from Canada, an extreme metal/noise band.
An album "The Next Extreme" has just been released. It contains 16 songs, and is an hour of decimating crazy intense furious blastbeat music. It is my 3rd album and first real "SCHIZOID" album in quite a long time. It has just been released either on iTunes, schizoid.bandcamp.com and also the CD digipacks are ready and for sale through www.schizoid.ca, soon through our distributors.
The music could be compared to RED HARVEST, AGORAPHOBIC NOSEBLEED, ANAAL NAKTHRATH, ATARI TEENAGE RIOT, PITCHSHIFTER, ABORYM.
As for what's going on past that? Many releases including singles and remix EPs are being put together to support this new album.
You can see the newest videos already out on YouTube for "The Next Extreme" and "Epitaph" songs 1 and 10 from the disc.
I have recruited a live noisician TalixZen/PAINGUISH and bassist Frank CONTAMINATION. They are helping live performances get crazier than thought possible before.
2. How would you describe the musical sound of the new album and how it differs from previous releases?
I have been using the phrase "blackened industrial digital hardcore noise metal". Which is a mouthful, but the music spans many genres. Mostly rooted in extreme metal like black/grind, digital hardcore and industrial elements.
The material on this is a lot more thought out, structured, absolutely every second sounds the way it does for a reason. With those first two albums I was promoting Schizoid while kind of still learning my craft. The last album "All Things Are Connected" I thought was great and untoppable for years, tho I knew the mission was not complete and that SCHIZOID would have to undergo a darker transformation.
I always liked digital hardcore music but thought it should be less DJ-culture/boring/inert and more like rock music or specifically black metal. I was in a black metal band for 8 years and picked up some guitar proficiency of sorts, which showed somewhat on my inbetween "covers album" release "Covered In Metal", but is fully realized here.
"Enough Is Enough" I think at its heart was a speedcore album, very gabber-centric, tho containing the vocals and some guitar parts. "All Things Are Connected" was a tried and true 100% digital hardcore album in every way, with a lot of menace and jagged parts. "The Next Extreme" is kind of the resolve to the earlier discs, and definitely where I wanted to go with the project. It is the same SCHIZOID, but so much more focused and chaotic in a very channeled and proficient this way, this time around.
3. What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the music?
A lot of the lyrics are about my cynical impression of this culture and how poisonous and diseased it is. It's a take on so called "Extremes" like "Extreme Housing" and "Extreme Painting". It's about the worse hellish thoughts you could possibly think of. Like nuclear bombs going off exponentially tearing the earth apart. There is a lot of absurd and very over analytical frustration, apathy, desperation and impatience in these lyrics. With the last album I was intent on while making criticisms to support it with an ultimately positive viewpoint. This new lyrics is negativity taken to the furthest and most draining plateaus (it's more similar to "Enough Is Enough"s introspective lyrics), nothing is sacred, everything is at fault. Even myself, and the idea of trying to write and finish and album, and how ridiculous it all was, started to creep into the lyrics. It's a tantrum, not everyone likes that and wants a feelgood rock on type vibe, but I cannot nor will I provide that kind of music for myself or my audience.
4. What is the meaning and inspiration behind the bands name?
I was reading the book "Love and Will" and it talked about the 'schizoid'/schizotypical personality. Some of the characteristics I identified with then and still to this day. I felt perhaps? that explained many past difficulties. It seemed like a neat handle name, although I want to remain ever aware of any self fulfilling fallacy I may walk into personally, under that moniker. I was more opting to make music myself and not so much involve others when it came to this particular project and it seemed very individualized and the perfect name for my own solo project. It was a very big personal accomplishment to me, to perform all elements of the album except the backup vocals, especially as someone who used to be more of a tit when it came to guitars. I still feel the name has meaning to me and will always be Jay Schizoid at this point regardless of SCHIZOID's future.
5. What are some of the best shows that the band has played so far and how would you describe your stage performance?
I think the most recent gig was honestly the best gig as the 3-piece. It was with local bands like VODNIK and 4WARDENS, all the same I believe its the type of set that will springboard us onto good bills. I've played SCHIZOID live in the past alongside a bunch of great acts, like MERZBOW, FAXED HEAD, BELLADONNAKILLZ (RIP), NO BRIGADE, THE FIRST SEED, C64, NWODTLEM, a lot of classic shows that have went down. Besides that I think my 2nd gig as SCHIZOID back in 2001 where me and a live guitarist Miq NOCORE opened for EC8OR, was a personal favorite.
As for stage performance, I try to treat every SCHIZOID gig like it's some audience's first. I like to play hard and scream as loud as my body and experience will let me. I don't get up there pretending I'm anybody special, and joke when the moment's right. But when the music's played it's angry and intense. I think about dying and the most negative possible things to keep me on my toes and in the right frame of mind, and the less instrumentation I work with the more I can as moreso a vocalist in the past, fiddling and moshing with the mic stand and mic cord and end up rolling around like a epileptic victim.
6. Do you have any touring plans for the new release?
I really hope so. I've played many Ontario, Canada towns but nothing outside of the province since our country is so huge and there was never any even breaking even tour opportunities that came up. I'd particularly like to play the UK, I know that not only SCHIZOID but D-TRASH Records has got a lot of positive feedback and supporters there, sometimes it feels like moreso than in our own country. Even just a 2 week day after day after day after day tour getting the musick out there is high up on my list of priorities relating to "The Next Extreme" era of things.
7. On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your new album by fans of extreme music?
It's still too early to tell necessarily. On my www.schizoid.ca webpage I kept a list of quotes by friends, comrades and associates about the disc, that all seem to be rather good opinions of the disc. But that's people I know. I want to get a host of bad reviews as much as I'd like to see good press for the sake of the disc and its visibility and hopefully sales, since this is a DIY thing and not something corporate. We'll see. I think so far people like what they hear. Check out the disc at schizoid.bandcamp.com and see what you think.
8. The new album came out on D-Trash Records, can you tell us more about this label?
I run the record label D-TRASH Records. It is very cyberpunk/digital hardcore/industrial/noise/experimental style. It is basically electronic music that metalheads could appreciate to put it well to your audience. Well not every release. But I think that differentiates us from other 'electronic producers'. We are not out to make lame music to dance to. We've learned enough from the metal back catalogue to know how to take that and toughen it up a bit more, yknow? Quick story, I submitted my material to the label in 1998. I helped and it was a very collective-based. Around 2000 the others got tired of "running a label" and I volunteered and have run every since. The label has had many prominent releases from artists such as SCHIZOID, ACID ENEMA, THE SHIZIT, 64REVOLT, CUTTINGPINKWITHKNIVES, PUNISH YOURSELF, tho how "prominent" they are could be questioned. We are a fringe/cult label who cater to a pretty particular style, with every intention of as we go along, changing that envelope so we don't miss out on some real unique and interested artists. We sell CDs in a retail sense, and we also give out full length MP3 albums with full color art and have been doing so since our inception (Why is band's one song for download such a big deal? When others give the entire disc.). You can check out more at www.dtrashrecords.com.
9. What direction do you see your music heading into on future releases?
I don't really have an idea because I've spent so long trying to fulfill this musical promise to myself in completing, releasing and promoting this album. The music I produce usually always is pretty aggressive or at the very least unique. To be honest I feel a lot more at home with my BC Rich Beast guitar than I have lately mucking about on old but classic Acid 2.0 software for remix completion. There's plans a'foot that I can't discuss now related to that.
10. What are some bands or musical styles that have influenced your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
On this album black metal played a big role in how I wanted to incorporate more guitars into the digital hardcore sound. For a lot of years that I composed this I was obsessed with LEVIATHAN, XASTHUR, DARKTHRONE, MAYHEM, BURZUM, BLUT AUS NORD, NIVEN DIV 187.
What kicked me into making SCHIZOID was of course the Digital Hardcore movement, whether bands straight from DHR (ATARI TEENAGE RIOT, ALEC EMPIRE, EC8OR) or the bands that I ended up signing onto D-TRASH Records who continue to inspire me.
Before that I had also always liked the mechanized industrial grinding metal of the 1990s from RELAPSE and EARACHE (MALFORMED EARTHBORN, CANDIRU, DEAD WORLD, EXIT 13), or any of the underground hardcore Rotterdam tapes that I did not know too much about but loved any that I heard. As well I think hats off should be given more in retrospect to the 1990s Toronto industrial metal scene like MONSTER VOODOO MACHINE, MALHAVOC, MUNDANE, SOULSTORM, not enough people give those bands props for what they did.
Lately? A pretty steady diet of GUNS N ROSES and AGNOSTIC FRONT. And whatever's been recently released on D-TRASH, stuff like CHIC GALA, FFT ERROR, HYPERDRIVER, THE FIRST SEED.
11. How would you describe your views on Satanism and Occultism?
My views on Satanism are that it is the most practical of the religions out there. I believe that anyone who has read the Satanic Bible and truly understands it would not even call themselves Satanists per say. I'd call myself an antitheist. It's not about whether "gods" exist or not and the lengthy tired debates as such, it's about how that conversation is irrelevant in the first place. As for Occultism, I mean it's got its place in the heavy metal folklore and album covers and other cool stuff that Bill and Ted would air guitar or what not to, otherwise I think it's kind of just as flakey as any other supernatural belief. That's been one common theme in the SCHIZOID canon, is the abject despisal of all religous thought and activity... just despicable and unacceptable for man's progress.
12. Outside of music what are some of your interests?
I like long walks on the park. Making love in the sand. Bicycling!
Nah man, I don't have any interests outside of music except things that are sinful in nature. And music is a kind of sin in it'self, no?
13. Any final words or thoughts before we wrap up this interview?
I think if you are still reading this, you are at least mildly interested. Here is the debut single from the first track of the new CD, the title track "The Next Extreme". This is the music video (very NSFW) and should demonstrate what SCHIZOID sounds like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz_TFP4oSuU
There is another video recently that hit, "Epitaph", more DIY look, but very grim and eerie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQyuFLTEvKM
Your review for your site you wrote was positive and it appeared you like the disc. Thank you, I'm happy that you dug it and glad to have done this interview.
If anyone wants to check SCHIZOID further, go to www.schizoid.ca online to find out about the new CD and other goings-ons.
Cheers.
https://schizoid.bandcamp.com/
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