Interview: Caustic Truths #80

by Kevin Stewart-Panko

"You're calling me from where?" I ask Travis, vocalist for Winnipeg's Malefaction, as he phones from the bands' latest tour stop. The Napa Valley in California is a well known wine region, renowned for grapes, vineyards, wine tasting facilities and (probably) a disproportionate amount of drunk driving. The Napa Valley is not known for its contribution to the independent music scene, especially when it comes to music on the extreme end of the music continuum. However, it's provided the grindcore terrors a show as I've been informed that the band will be playing an outdoor backyard show later in the evening. The reports that local grind fans were subjected to other wordly instrumental velocities and a pulverizing musical attack and that local wine tasting facilities suddenly found themselves short of stock this particular weekend are, respectively, entirely accurate and complete hearsay. As (probably) drunk motorized vehicle operators speed by in the background, Travis and I chat about the band he's fronted for nigh-on half a decade now, their hometown, and the pleasant surprise and good fortune of having their new album, 'Crush the Dream,' out on the G7 Welcoming Committee label. Travis is joined by Cory (drums), Clint (guitar) and Mike (bass). Pat recorded full length works include 'Smothered' and 'Man Grows Cold.'

I try to avoid asking the standard band history question, but seeing as this is your first time in this magazine, I guess I should ask how the sound of the band has changed since you started?

Ever since we've started, we've had line-up changes and that's had a definite musical impact. Past members had a certain style they wanted to play, which was more of a straight-up, groovy metal kind of thing. Then, we lost one of our guitarists, Kent, just before our first CD came out. After that, the writing was left up to out guitarist Clint and our old bass player Jahmeel. They both had two totally separate ideas on how to write music. Clint wanted to do full out crazy grind stuff and Jahmeel wanted to play more melodic heavy stuff, so that's basically what our sound was like for a couple of years. Once Jahmeel left, we got our new bass player Mike, who's not so new because he's been in the band for five years now, and from that point on everyone has been into going full on extreme and playing really fast grindcore. That's basically how our sound has evolved.

Have the band's goals changed over the years? Or have there been any goals?

I don't know. I think the goal is to write music that everyone in the band is into. I can't say something like, "we want to get more extreme," or something like that. It's hard to say because we've had a few goals, but mostly we end up going with the flow.

Do you think that having goals takes away from the fun and the serendipity of just playing and touring because you're focused on something in particular?

We've had some goals but they were more things that as a band we'd like to do or accomplish, whether that means putting out our own records or doing these particular tours and we've done that stuff, so I don't know what to say. There are things that we'd like to do. Like, we'd like to go to Europe at some point, but it's hard to say whether stuff like that can happen or not. It's weird, we don't really sit around and plan a lot of things, even getting hooked up with G7 was something that I never expected in a million years.

Has going from releasing records yourself to being on a label that isn't a major label or major player by any means, but is a name that people know and a label that can get you out there, changed your views of the "industry"?

I can't really say that anything has drastically changed. It's more like a relief of us not having to look after that stuff. When we did our own releases, I was in charge of the mailouts and getting distros interested and all that stuff and there's no way I was able to do anywhere near the amount of work that G7 has done. So, I'm totally grateful that they've decided to do a record with us and put all this time, effort and money into the whole thing. Aside from that little bit, our dealings with the "industry" have been next to nil and working with them has been great. We've known three members of the G7 collective since this band started and because we're all on the same page as far as having an independent/underground ethic, it doesn't even feel like we're involved in the industry anymore than we ever have been.

How did the whole G7 thing come about and is it a one-off deal or long term deal?

What happened was that back in February of 2000, I was at home on a Sunday afternoon and Darren from G7 phoned me up out of the blue. I thought it was kind of weird that he was calling me, but he asked if we would be interested in doing a record for them. I was like, "Yeah, of course." Then, I got really weak-kneed and had to sit down (laughter). He said that they liked what we were doing and the fact that we had been around for awhile and were totally into doing it. Our agreement with them isn't a written agreement or anything and we're sticking to the d.i.y. approach, just that they're doing all the business stuff. Like I said, we've known each other for such a long time, so it's all cool.

Flipping through your lyrics, it's clear that globalization and unhingd corporate power seems to be a theme to a certain extent. First, did you attend the FTAA protests?

No I didn't. I had to write a paper for my History of Winnipeg course about these three communists who were elected to various levels of government in the 40s, 50s and 60s. I kinda wish I could've gone, but no I was not there.

Okay, then from the viewpoint of a guy sitting at home in Winnipeg, what are your thoughts on violent protest versus peaceful protest?

That's a hard question. You get all kinds of elements of people attending something like that. I know people who went there not wanting to cause any problems or to undermine the reason they were there and what they were fighting against. However, I also know people who up there pulling the fence down. In a demonstration like that, with so many people, you can't control what some people are going to do and i can't say I'm for or against one way of protest over another. I just like the fact that people gave a shit enough to show up and demonstrate to the various leaders of the Americas that there's a problem and that people are not part of the democratic process.

Are your left wing politics comfortable with the fact that your records are now going to be available in chain stores like HMV and Virgin? Or is complaining about something like that just complaining for the sake of complaining?

It's not a super big issue and I defintely don't have a problem with bands that have something to say using those channels to be heard. Maybe that's a bit hypocritical, but HMV is... whatever. I don't buy from HMV- well, I kinda do (laughter)- but I do try to buy from independent stores whenever I can and all that shit. That kind of stuff doesn't bother us and if it did we wouldn't be going through those channels.

I'm curious now that you mentioned being in a History of Winnipeg course. How does life in Winnipeg impact on the insane grind of Malefaction?

I guess lyrically and politically is where you'll hear the influence. Winnipeg has always been an incredibly divided city between the right and the left. They even have their own neighbourhoods, but that's kind of changing now. There's always been a strong polarization based on what you believe politically. Personally, that's had an effect on me. Musically, I'd say a lot of it has to do with the records we listen to. When we started doing this stuff, there wasn't really anyone doing blast beats and stuff like that. We were one of the first bands there to do that. I think it also came from the realization that we were actually capable of playing that style. Because we discovered we were actually able to play what we wanted to paly and create, we did.

Is the anger and aggression inherent in your music fuelled by the city or is it the same stuff that's probably bothering a kid from Florida or Holland?

I don't know. I know that, personally, when I write lyrics it's usually based on something that's Canada specific or else it's something from the city or the province. Other times it's things that I've heard people around me say. So, I guess that anger comes from not being able to change things or wanting more people to understand or see things the way you do or at least open them up to the different ways a society can work.

In the sense that some lyrics come to you from what people say, do technological advances in communication effect waht goes into your lyrics? Has email, for example, made it not solely life in Winnipeg featured in your lyrics?

It's true. Whatever issues happen in the city of Winnipeg happen in cities all over the place and I have friends from all over. If I have an idea on something, we'll trade emails on a certain topic, and maybe it'll even change the way I view a certain topic. So, yeah, knowing people from other places and having exposure to different viewpoints plays a role as well.

I noticed that views in your lyrics tend to side similarly with what a lot of other bands address and that there's an element of what might be termed "political correctness" in there. Do you associate political correctness with common sense?

I don't see us an uptight politically correct type of band. We have our ideas and they're out there. We don't preach about stuff, we have a sense of humour and we don't get upset about things. The thing that I find is that the people who get most worked up about things or events, either flake out and, after awhile, drop the whole politically correct activist thing altogether or they're just really miserable people. I'm not happy smiley all the time, but life is to be lived. Yes, there are ways that people treat each other that do and don't make sense and there are words in our language that are just derogatory and I don't understand the point of using them. I guess people just want to belittle others and make themselves feel better in the process. There's a lot of common sense in political correctness, but it makes more sense to try and live these ideals as much as possible instead of getting worked up and not doing anything about it.

The record is full force pummelling grindcore without a lot of variation. What are you trying to do, or thinking about, when putting your music together?

Someone comes to practice with a bunch of riffs and you work whatever riffs you can into a song. But, yeah, the point is to be as devastating as possible. You want to have hooks, but you also want to destroy people, or at least get some kind of emotional impact in there. Basically, we just try to write the best that we can and hopefully it translates well and rips people's heads off.

Do you think that there's a time limit in someone's life after which they can't rip people's heads off anymore and have to find something better to do?

(laughter) That could very well be. Shit, our drummer Cory is going to be 32 at the end of the month. All of us guys are late 20s at least. We're not spring chickens by any means. I'm sure someone is going to get too old at some point and won't be able to pull it off and I guess that will be the end of that. I would say that there's a limit physically as to what some people can do. It has taken its toll in this band. I do vocals, so I don't have to worry about tendonitis, but i'm the only guy in the band who hasn't has it. Mike and Clint are both wearing braces for tendonitis at the moment. I'll probably just get throat cancer (laughter)