UNCLE ACID AND THE DEADBEATS INTERVIEW

NAME: Uncle Acid And The Deadbeats

THEY ARE: Occult Creepy Doomrock

FROM: Cambridgeshire, England

FOR FANS OF: early Black Sabbath, Blood Ceremony, Hour Of 13

LATEST RELEASE: 'Blood Lust" (self releases/ Rise Above Records)

 SONGS TO CHECK OUT: 'Death's Door', 'I'll Cut You Down', 'Over And Over Again"

Back in late 2011 I made Uncle Acid And The Deadbeats  the feature of one of my Terrorizer Magazine website blogs, that feature contained an edited version of the interview I did, I have finally got around to posting up the full unedited interview online, so here it is enjoy!

I first came across this rather mysterious band via a doom orientated forum I post on quite regularly a few months or so ago after someone started a thread about their latest album "Blood Lust" and posted up some videos from said album, I clicked on the song "Deaths Door" and found myself instantly hooked by the bloodied musical claw of the bands very catchy brand of occult horror influenced Doomrock. This band have much in the same way as Ghost did towards the end of 2010 created quite a buzz for themselves online after initially starting out going fairly unnoticed by the wider scene, with forum hype and ebay prices soaring through the roof in recent months, the bands self releases CDs and limited edition releases have been going for hundreds of dollars, are they worth the hype? Well that is up to the individual listener to decide but they are VERY good to my ears at least that much I can vouch for the quality of this bands musical offerings and they know how to write a song which will sink its musical claws into you so deep they won't let go for the duration of each song, this is some seriously addictive music and I personally find myself continously replaying songs over and over, the aforementioned "Death's Door" being one such standout song which gets a lot of repeated plays on my stereo.

  The bands second album was initially self released by the band in small quantities and then the keen musical nose of  a certain Lee Dorrian and Rise Above picked up on the scent of this bands witchy creepy brand of retro sounding 70's Doomrock and got involved by releasing a vinyl version of the album, "Blood Lust" is like a musical equivalent to an old witchfinder film and suits their local surroundings of darkest ancient Cambridgeshire and is darkly and powerfully evocative conjuring up images of candlelit rituals and sinister witch hunts happening in the darkest shadows of the rural English countryside circa the 1600's. 

It feels VERY fitting that my find myself writing the intro to the blog piece in the middle of the night with the album as musical company in the background.

I contacted the band in more recent times to find out abit more about this much talked about but still quite mysterious musical entity and Uncle Acid was the subject of my interrogation :-

Hails please give me a quick background history on the band and who currently does what?

We formed by chance on the 40th anniversary of August 9th 1969. Our first record was released on the 40th anniversary of February 13th 1970. We have a Kat on a bass and Red on drums. Names may change subject to availability!

Your debut album "Vol 1" was released last year, is this recording still available/ please tell the readers abit about this album.

No, it's no longer available. We only put it out because we had a massive fan base of five people asking for a CD of our stuff. There wasn't much more interest than that so we just got the lowest amount of booklets printed up that we could get and released what we had. It took us about six months to sell 30 copies. Overall it's not a bad album, I just wish we spent more time on it. For example some of the arrangements could have been better and it was all recorded in standard tuning so the vocals are just ridiculous in some places. We tune down to C# now which makes things slightly easier vocal wise, but I sill end up choosing the worse possible keys to sing in! The vocal melody is the most important part of our music so I don't really have much choice, I just take whatever works best.

Your latest album "Bloodlust" seems to be creating quite a buzz for itself from what I have seen online, you initially self released it and then Rise Above wanted to get in on the action and do a vinyl release, how did they approach you? Will you be signing a full contract with the label to do a full length album soley through them? 

Mr. Dorrian liked what he heard and wanted to help us out. At the time there was no buzz going on which was fine by us, so we just went with as many copies as we thought we could sell. Rise Above were the first label to help us out when no one else wanted anything to do with us. It was kinda like when Neil Young gave Charles Manson a motorcycle. I appreciate someone reaching out to us like that.

How do you feel about the hype surrounding the album? I guess you must be very happy with the overall reaction to it so far?

Well, I don't like hype so I try to just completely ignore it. Of course, in terms of the overall reaction, it's very nice that people like the music and I hope it continues, but it doesn't really matter either way. I get the feeling some people may have the completely wrong idea about us so we may lose a few people with the next album or we may gain a few, I don't know. You can never please everybody anyway.

I don't know much about the band I must admit, I am not even sure which country you are from as I so far only got your latest album via a friend so Uncle Acid remains abit of mysterious entity to me! Care to reveal your whereabouts?!

Cambridgeshire. The middle of nowhere. The lawless flat lands of inbreeding and witchery. People are very suspicious and fearful of things round here. You can fully understand how Matthew Hopkins managed to terrorize so much of this and surrounding counties. In some dark areas of East Anglia I'm convinced it's still actually the year 1644. Terry Reid and Pink Floyd came from round here though, but those days are long gone. Just don't ever come here...

Do you plan to always shroud the band with a certain amount of mystery? Or maybes you might reveal Uncle Acid's real name at some point in the future?!

Well...maybe, but I don't think anyone really cares too much. Mystery is good for people. It makes them think and use their imaginations. Some people have forgotten how to do that. Everyone's too busy updating bullshit on twitter and filling the internet with garbage.

Why the band name Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats? Where did you get inspiration for this name from?

It's taken from Rusty Day the singer of Cactus who later had a band called Uncle Acid And The Permanent Damage Band. I hope he doesn't mind. He's dead now, but I think he'd appreciate it. It's our tribute to him.


Describe the band in 5 words

Creepy lowlife trash. We'll save the other two words for later.

which bands and influences fuel and shape the sound of Uncle Acid? Was there any particular musical direction you intentionally set out upon when forming the band? Have things progressed and ended up sounding as you had planned overall?

I think everything we listen to probably influences the sound but there wasn't really a musical direction that we set out to follow. It's just whatever comes naturally. Obviously, Black Sabbath and The Beatles are massive influences because they're the greatest two bands of all time in my book and you can't help but be influenced by them. But I hear all kinds of different influences in our music that maybe others might not pick up on. Sometimes I'll hear a certain part and think "That bit sounds like something W.A.S.P. would do" or "That melody sounds like Stevie Nicks". It's unintentional, it just seeps in. A weird mix of melody and darkness.

What about live shows? Do you have many under your belt so far? Any plans for an extensive touring to support them ost recent album?

Not many. They all ended in disaster. I can't operate in a three piece within a live setting because my brain switches off. We're trying to find more band members but as I said, we live in the middle of nowhere and its nearly impossible to get here if you don't own one of those new automobile cars. We'll be ready for next year though.

The Occult Doom/Rock thing seems to have gained momentum and popularity in recent years, with bands such as The Devils Blood, Ghost and yourselves all making quite a buzz for yourselves/ Why do you think this is? Do you feel any affinity with the bands I mentioned or any other occult doom rock acts?

I wish The Devils Blood were the biggest band on earth. They're very melodic and accessible but theres more to it. It's the old light and shade thing that draws you in. I've heard people complaining that they're not heavy enough and all this kind of shit, but then some people just miss the point with absolutely everything.
I don't really feel any affinity with anyone in that scene or in any other. I'd rather us just do whatever we want and not be dragged down by scenes or genres.

 Any new bands in a similar style you would like to recommend? What is your opinion on the Doom scene Anno 2011 in general? fave bands?

Ice Dragon are a newer band I really like. More people should listen to them. Purson are another new one I just discovered. They have a great classic sound going on. I'm really excited to hear more from them.
I think overall the doom scene is very strong, theres some really great bands out there, but I think it's always been like that. It's kinda hard to know what's classed as doom anymore, but I hate labeling music anyway. Some other favourites would be Hour Of 13, Blood Ceremony, Bongripper...and then not really doom, but Danava and Sabbath Assembly are excellent bands too.

your songtitles are very dark with plenty of occult references...where do you draw inspiration from lyrically?!

I just come up with a long story in my mind for the whole album and then I look at writing the lyrics as being like adapting the screenplay or something. Vol. 1 was more of a collection of shorts, like Hammer House of Horror, whereas Blood Lust is supposed to be like a weird, unfinished 60s witchfinder film. The next album will have some other theme and it will just go on like that. It just keeps it interesting for me to write that way.


  Please tell us abit about the artwork for the latest album, who designed it..its very striking.

I put that together. Its like an old a horror poster which ties into the overall theme again. The first run of the album came in a card wallet. I wanted to give the feel of like an old VHS box. Almost as if someone had taped this Blood Lust movie off the telly years ago and then made a cover for it. Of course, I'm well aware that now people have taped it off the internet machine and made their own cd covers and all that. Even the packaging for the second pressing was supposed to feel like one of those plastic VHS boxes. Also, the back of the booklet had a sort of LWT or BASF VHS design going on with the thick red, yellow and orange lines across it. Theres even a picture of a TV there! I did look into somehow packaging the cd in an actual VHS box, but I could never get it to work right. Plus I knew people would end up bitching about it, which always happens when you try something different.
Everything about the album was done for a specific reason, from the way it was recorded and mixed right down to the artwork and presentation. Weather people get it or not doesn't really matter but I think it's probably important that they at least know about the reasons behind certain decisions.
  
Where do you hope to take the band into 2012? immediate future plans? Where can people get ahold of your merch  and music from?

Hopefully a new album. We have some great songs written for it. We'll also get out and start playing live again seeing as the apocalypse is coming. Our CD's are getting distributed round the world now, so it should be easier for our supporters to get hold of our music. For the time being, Blood Lust is available to pre order from here: http://www.svartrecords.com/shoppe/725-uncle-acid-and-the-deadbeats-blood-lust-cd.html

the last words are yours, many thanks for answering this short interview.

Thanks!