TRAVIS RYAN of CATTLE DECAPITATION: Opinions & Personal Taste
An interview by Sarah Kidd.
Cattle Decapitation have been there and done that. Having been active since 1996, the now three piece (Belisario Dimuziotheir is their touring guitarist) have certainly seen their fair share of how the music world and more specifically the metal scene has changed over time.
Often referred to as Deathgrind (even though Ryan always considered the roots of their first albums to be embedded in Death Metal rather than any of the grind family) it is not unusual to also hear the term EpicGrind associated with them. One thing is for sure however, with their last two albums absolutely blazing a trail, Cattle Decapitation have become one of Metal Blade’s biggest artists. And now for the first time, New Zealand gets to see them in all their glory over a three date tour of the country.
I recently spoke to lead vocalist of the band, Travis Ryan in regards to his views on everything from vegetarianism through to cover art and of course their latest albums and upcoming tour…
On the track ‘Prophets of Loss’ you got Phil Anselmo (Pantera) to do a guest spot, how did that all come about?
[laughs] “One of our friends asked if we wanted to hit him up and see if he wanted to do it and we said sure and he did it. I mean we had played the Housecore Horror Festival, so you know we hung out with him, so that’s how we got to know him, but then we recorded the album after that. Phil’s cool.”
Would you say that Pantera was an influence of yours back in the day?
“For me absolutely not [laughs] for our drummer, yes. I was never a Pantera fan, I will be honest, I never, ever liked that band. When they really broke out in 1990, 91 all my friends were into them and all the girls thought Phil was so cute and stuff it was kinda like … I don’t know, it just turned me off. I was already into death metal and shit like that; I was really heavily into Coroner and Nuclear Assault, Death and Slayer and shit. I didn’t really have time for shit like Pantera.
Sounds weird but I guess back then I was just looking for the next more intense thing or whatever, and to me it was like why would I listen to Pantera when I was into really heavy, fast stuff. I never cared about grooves and I think that’s what it was, I personally never really cared about grooves really as far as music goes, I was more into speed and intensity I guess.”
[laughs] I had to ask as I just never really pictured you as a Pantera fan…
“Yeah I’m not [laughs] The thing about Pantera is and I have felt this way since day one; they were fucking amazing players! Everybody in that band was fucking flawless and Phil had an amazing voice, he’s got this really amazing naturally deep fucking voice. So I thought it would be cool to have him do a spoken thing instead of just regular vocals and that’s how that happened.
I thought Dime was an amazing guitar player, he like really brought tone to the forefront of metal you know showing how tone can work for you in your writing and I always thought that was cool. But their stuff didn’t really float my boat or whatever, like I said I was already into heavier shit that’s all. I’ve always been attracted to the darker aspects of stuff, back then I was really heavily into Coroner, so I’ve always been into darker shit, their [Pantera] stuff seemed too like happy for me, that’s not my style.”
With Monolith of Humanity you worked with Dave Otero, and you worked with him again on The Anthropocene Extinction stating that he was an integral part of the process. Will you continue to work with him in the future?
“Yeah. We developed a pretty good relationship with him and I’m sure we will probably stick with that. We have just started writing the new album and there is a lot of stuff to switch up and take care of after this Australian tour but yeah I would say we will go back to him again.”
So you are working on a new album, probably too early to say but do you have a timeframe for release yet?
“Oh not at all, we barely have one song done [laughs] we haven’t done any recordings yet, but I would assume it’s starting to look now more like 2019 or something, sometime next year. It’s just, it’s hard to schedule. It will probably take a year to write and you don’t want it to come out at the same time as the new something else you know, so who knows. There’s a lot of things to consider; we don’t want to put it out in the dead of winter or in the dead of summer; I’m partial to springtime. I think the last couple of records were like May and August so fall or spring is probably when it is. It’s probably next year though; we’re shooting for next year.”
Now you yourself have been performing vocals for Cattle Decapitation since 96’- 97’; how do you look back on the last twenty years, as it’s a pretty lengthy time to be doing anything in someone’s life.
“I think about that a lot. It’s a good question, as I think about that a lot! We’ve had a weird phenomenon happen, where most bands their best stuff is the first three or four records that they have done and I feel like we have done the opposite! Our best stuff isn’t behind us it’s in the future, so that’s a weird thing to do when you are forty-three years old. Most guys my age would be kinda like starting to tone it down in regards to how much touring they do, I think about Glen Benton and people like that and they go out like once a year now. It’s a huge creative outlet and it’s what I’ve always wanted to do so … am I going to be doing it at age fifty? Fuck I don’t know. I don’t want to say ‘The writing’s on the wall man’ but you know how long can somebody really do this crazy fucking shit?”
Would you say that the touring is the hardest thing – is that what really takes its toll?
“Yeah touring is a big emotional and a physical rollercoaster. It got to the point where I was like ‘You know what I don’t even want to this anymore unless we are in a bus or some sort of thing where we can stretch out!’ Because sometimes tours can begin to get too much and then that takes a toll on you mentally and then emotionally and then you have those ‘What the fuck am I doing with my life’ moments usually right around 5pm when you are having your first joint of the day.
It’s hard but we’re doing it, I love touring but I think that it’s like the thing that will really grind a person down is the touring. I hate to use this expression but it sorts the men from the boys; that’s why so many bands when they come out and start touring they have so many members fall off after a year or so; they’re like ‘This isn’t how I thought it was gonna be, this is a bunch of hard work and shit, I thought it would be a vacation!’. Luckily we make enough money that it makes sense to us to do this for about a year and all that, and we are able to not have to eat shit anymore and that’s cool otherwise I wouldn’t do it, or be able to do it at forty-three years old. But yeah it’s hard but it’s not that bad, you have forty-five minutes to an hour every night that you have to freak the fuck out on stage.”
The evolution over your last few albums has been incredible, it’s you and not you all at the same time; what in your mind prompted the progression and change in your sound?
“Definitely the members, we have had a few line-up changes. I feel like we know what we want and we feel we know who’s going to work and who’s not, we have been around the block a million times now, and that is obviously going to make things better as long as we are hiring the right people. The key is really to have somebody who is hungry to do it and then can hang in there, getting no-one is kinda tough, financially and stuff like that. We’ve been lucky I guess you could say!”
The cover art and concepts for your albums are often very clever and obviously gruesome; do you use the same artist and what influences you in regards to directing the art?
“Yeah you know when we started out with Metal Blade, it was like ‘Who do you want for your art’ and I was just like ‘Cool here we are, finally get to play ball with the big dogs and see who Metal Blade can get for us’ and that ended up not being the case, except for coming to an artist and saying ‘Hey we’re on Metal Blade’ and it’s like ok cool you know it’s a big label, it’s going to be everywhere – it gave us a little bit more credibility. So with that in mind we made the obvious choice of Wes Benscoter and we had him do a cover. I told him I really liked – back in the day – I really liked the photo realistic approach that he took with the Regurgitate album cover and the way he seamlessly mixed photo’s together, I knew it was the thing I wanted.
Our first two records Human Jerky and Homovore were both art pieces made of real animal parts and the guy made art out of them so it was a photograph installation or an art piece rather than like a painting or something like that. So I wanted to continue with that, with that photo realism, as realistic as possible and so that’s been a thought we have kinda worked in over the years and it actually makes it kinda challenging. I think that’s why the covers have a weird kinda vibe to them, it’s hard to explain but they have a real uneasy kind of vibe to them that I feel became us. I’m playing with the idea of changing it up with the next record and maybe doing a painting next time or something. With vocals I started doin weird clean-ish kinda stuff and when I started doing that things became a lot more fun and a lot more interesting to me, and I would like for the band to continue being interesting to not just everybody else but to us as well.”
I think if you are going to survive in any of the creative fields, whether it is art or music etc. evolution is a key component of the equation…
“Yeah for sure especially if you are planning on … I mean I never really thought I would make a band called Cattle Decapitation, but to actually have to consider ‘Hey, we have got to stay relevant and stuff’ It’s a dance that you do between staying relevant and not losing your integrity and doing what you want all at the same time. It’s a fucking nightmare you know and I think it’s one of the things that professional artists, professional musicians or any kind of art form struggle with.”
Now Cattle Decapitation has often themed their work around animal rights and it’s something that you guys feel strongly about – have you seen that the latest stats on meat eating across the western world is actually starting to drop dramatically?
“Well I think it’s becoming easier; one thing people don’t want to give up is convenience I feel and that’s why fast food restaurants are so successful. It’s also why some fast food restaurants are starting to give in and offer … they are starting to pay a little more attention to people’s dietary restrictions and focusing on say like gluten free or vegetarian and vegan. I think it’s just becoming a lot easier and also there are a lot of … people are trend focused I guess and there has been a huge trend in buying organic and thinking green and all that stuff, not saying that’s a bad thing of course; just it is somewhat of a trend and I think that’s something to do with its morality. Social media is also helping perpetuate that. Then again it also does the opposite, there’s also ‘bacon hipsters’ they call em [laughs] and people that just love to tell everybody how much they love to eat bacon and whatever.”
One thing I have noticed at many music festivals now there is more choice; it’s not just the usual burgers and hot dogs, there are vegan options such as donuts, ice blocks and chocolate which is nice to see.
“They’ve also been coming up with decent cheese alternatives. Although finding it is the thing [laughs] it’s one thing to see it on Facebook and be like ‘Oh fuck where is this place’ and it’s in like … Uzbekistan [mutual laughter] or someplace like that. If it’s faraway and unobtainable, then ‘Oh well, nevermind’. Actually some of the best Thai food that I have ever had was in Australia, they have Lord of The Fries over there and that shit.”
We have Lord of the Fries too now!
“Oh cool, we’ll be hitting that a couple of times!”
Being an American how do you consider the state of the world today in light of your recent elections and so on?
“Honestly it’s something we don’t talk about; we just want to stay out of the politics. People are being really fucking ridiculous right now and I feel for good reason certain sides are just starting to get what they have been waiting for and it’s just … I don’t know what the fuck to make of all of it. It’s scary and it sucks and I am fucking tired of it, I’m tired of hearing about it. I have never seen so many people give a shit about politics before and I am not saying that that’s a bad thing at all; I’m just saying it’s weird. That’s kind of as far as I want to go on that subject to be honest.”
Fair enough, back to the music then. I read in a recent interview with you about your opinions on music genres and scene hierarchy’s (i.e. your band sucks etc.) and I liked the fact that you seemed to be quite open to different styles of music…
“Hey, I’m going to tell you right now though, that I am very guilty of being that guy though. That’s for sure, but it’s just because I am very opinionated. I fucking hate deathcore. I. Fucking. Hate. Deathcore! I hate metalcore, all that shit sucks. I feel bad, I feel sorry for kids a bit and their addiction to certain bands.
You know that’s just how it is and that’s just my personal opinion and nobody should give a fuck what I think! But yeah I just really hate certain bands, but hold it against a certain person? It depends, it depends.
I saw this video of this girl, I don’t know if it was a trolling video or whatever, but this girl was wearing a Blood on the Dance Floor shirt and she’s talking about what real metal is and she’s extremely, brutally, insanely, obviously clueless and that’s why I was almost like ‘Is this just a troll video?’”
It’s hard to tell sometimes …
“But those are the kind of people I’d be making fun of, you know and the bands that they like, that kind of shit, I think it’s fuckin stupid, it’s disingenuous. A lot of it is not even fuckin art and they hide behind the guise that it is. You know because you can safely say ‘Ok, this is art’, its somebodies idea of this. You can say the same fuckin thing about Cattle Decapitation, if you’re in that mindset, if you think that this kinda shit sucks, you can say that too.
What I see with bands I would talk shit about or the scenes or whatever that I would talk shit about, it’s probably not so much about that band, or how they look or whatever, it’s that incestuous … like bands that were coming out, right after The Black Dahlia Murder blew up trying to sound exactly like Black Dahlia, and I was like ‘Dude this thing has been around for a handful of fucking years man!’
I don’t care about scenes, metal is so fragmented, which scene am I popular in, I don’t fucking know! I worked at a record store for years, so I am one of those assholes, I’ve been overexposed to music and all sorts of genres so I can’t adhere myself to one genre, there’s a whole pile of stuff that I am listening to. I play this stuff, because it is in my heart and it’s what I always want to do, it’s just in my blood. Does that mean I have to put on a patched vest and fucking listen to fucking metal 24/7? Abso-fucking-lutely not! Fuck no, just you know be yourself, that’s how shit like IGOR came out or all sorts of fucking bands people love now. I kinda tend to question and wonder – in my head; not really out loud – but kinda wonder ‘What is this band doing this for? For themselves? Do they really like this? Really? Heh, Ok whatever…’”
I hear you on that, I hear you on that.
One thing I have noticed that is popular at the moment are these nostalgia tours, you know the 10 year Anniversary or 20 year Anniversary of a certain album. Do you see Cattle Decapitation ever doing something like that in the future?
“We can’t do that. I don’t think we can do that. I am not on good terms at all with our first drummer and stuff like that, so there won’t be any ten year reunions. And also we go to play our old music, our old stuff and we end up switching it out for our newer stuff, because it’s just more fun to play. People that are complaining are vastly dwarfed by the people who are happy about it I think. People like our newer stuff better than our older stuff and it sucks, I would like to do something but to be honest with you it probably won’t happen … if it was it would probably be the Monolith of Inhumanity album twenty years from now … I’ll be dead though, I’ll be gone heh.”
With this upcoming tour to New Zealand then, what can fans expect?
[laughs] “Our worst fucken … [laughs] I’m not going to be like ‘Well guys you know…’ or calling it like a ritual like we’re fucking warriors or some shit. We’re really looking forward to playing there and as long as the crowd goes off, we will fucking go off as much as possible, we’re reactionary off the crowd is the thing usually. So as long as everything is cool and the vibe’s right we’ll fucken … either way we’re going to do our very best, at least I do. Maybe I shouldn’t say ‘we’ [laughs], I know I do personally.
I know little to nothing about the entire country, anything about it. I know our guitar player has not shut up about the black metal that you guys have been putting out for like the last ten fucking years. I really don’t know much about New Zealand other than what I have seen in the movies and shit like that, so I’m personally really fucking looking forward to it.
I still trip out that we can go anywhere else in the world outside of San Diego, California and people know who we are let alone our names and songs; that’s never gonna tire to me, it’s still freaks me out that we can fly all the way across the Pacific Ocean and there’s somebody waiting for us, it freaks me out. I’m stoked, and I’m really looking forward to it. We were really bummed that we couldn’t do it on the last Australian tour that we did, it was The Black Dahlia Murders tour so we had to do what they were doing. But I think we are a bigger band now so it makes more sense to everybody else involved, but really fucking stoked to be coming!”
Cattle Decapitation are hitting New Zealand for what promise to be three pretty brutal shows in Auckland (8th February 2018), Christchurch (9th February 2018) and Wellington (11th February 2018). Tickets to all shows are still available, but get in quick as they are sure to sell out!
