Interview: Equalizing Distort Oct. 2003

MALEFACTION are a four piece from Winnipeg that have been playing since 1995. They have a vast repertoire of material out including their most recent full length entitled Òwhere there is power there is always resistanceÓ, which just came out on G7 Welcoming Committee. We had a chance to speak with the singer Travis Tomchuk on Sunday August 10th and this is the conversation that ensued. Interview by Stephe Perry.

The last album that MALEFACTION released was the "Man Grows Cold" LP in 1998. It was out on a label called Out of Enslavement. Was that on your own label?

Out of Enslavement was my own label, but the last record was "Crush the Dream" and that came out on G-7.

Oh okay, so this G-7 thing isn't a recent thing?

No we have been working with them since 2001.

Okay how did that come about?

Basically they called me up in the early winter of 2000. Derek from G-7 called me up one Sunday afternoon and I thought that it was really strange that he would be calling me and he asked if we would be interested in doing an album because he really liked what we had been doing so far. I got weak in the knees so I sat down and I was like "Yeah, absolutely. We'll work with you guys." That was basically how that came about. Really out of the blue.

Your new material has grown out... your earlier stuff had sort of more emo-violence style... you had melodic layered parts with metal and crossover parts in it. Now you sound more like you have become a complicated grind band. Would that be accurate to say?

Yeah I guess I could agree with that.

Okay what accounts for the change in sound?

I really have no idea. Basically Mike and Clint write all the music and I think on "Crush the Dream" because that is more of a straight ahead grind record in a lot of ways, I think they just wanted to out do each other by writing the fastest riffs or the craziest riffs they could. And then, I guess when the song writing for this next album came around it was just kind of a more of them jamming more as a band - the three of them (Cory, Mike, and Clint) - working out songs and I think that's what attributed to the progression from the last record.

What are you guys listening to now that would sort of draw out this stuff ?

Myself, personally, I don't listen to too much metal or grind at all anymore. I am more of a PET SHOP BOYS, DEPECHE MODE kind of guy.

That's weird.

Yeah. I think Mike was listening to RHUNE today. Corey is listening to anything from BACHMAN TURNER OVERDRIVE and VAN HALEN to CANNIBAL and SUFFOCATION. And Clint, he's listening to some new SATYRICON something or other so he is pretty stoked on that. But yeah those three guys are almost always listening to extreme metal. You know CANNIBAL. Stuff like that.

You are the lyricist in the band. What is your favourite song from a lyrical standpoint off the new CD and why is it your favourite song?

Well me and Mike actually split the lyric writing pretty much 50-50 on this record, but I think I really like "People = Hope", but I also like "Another World is Possible". Both of those songs I think are my favourite lyrics. And the reason I think is because there are just more hopeful than usual. They both have this... I know that "Another World is Possible" is kind of this "Come on, I dare you to be Pro-Active to make a change" and "People = Hope" is kind of like... There is this song by SLIPKNOT called "People = Shit" and I just kind of thought that was a silly way of looking at things. Yeah some people suck it, but all we really have is each other so I thought it would be cool to twist what they were saying and do the exact opposite.

What is the scene like in Winnipeg?

Oh it's amazing.

It sounds like it. Who do you wind up playing with?

We almost always seem to be playing with KEN MODE who are on Escape Artist and they are on tour of the States currently. Who else do we play with? HEAD HITS CONCRETE. The last show we played with was called DEAD STOCK CRUSHER. They are like a fastcore band. They have some interest with Sound Pollution but I am not sure what is going on with that. So those are basically the bands we play with. There is also another band called HE BROKE that are kind of doing like a... I don't know how to explain their sound. Maybe a bit of ISIS maybe a bit of SYSTRAL. Something like that. Yeah, so those are pretty much the bands off the top of my head that we seem to be playing with the most.

I want to ask you about... sort of the political nature of the Winnipeg scene. It seems to have been able to resist the new right cultural campaigns that have prolonged an attack based on political correctness. What is it about Winnipeg that enables your city to remain a progressive bastion in the face of the shift to the new right. You know there are bands like yourselves and HEAD HITS CONCRETE and PROPAGHANDHI that exist there and G-7 and all this stuff. How is it that Winnipeg has remained a critical voice?

I don't know. That is a good question.

I mean it has been the location of the "General Strike" and other things like that historically, but I don't know if that has really had an impact on the hardcore scene. I am trying to figure out what it is about Winnipeg that makes it so.

I don't know. I would say that stuff all plays a part. Winnipeg has a crazy radical history. A lot of cities in Canada do. I kind of think that plays a part in the politics coming out of the city because I think a lot of people are left of centre. I don't know. That is a really amazing question. That's something we could spend hours trying to figure out why that is. I think also too is that you can maybe because of the political culture of Winnipeg one feels more comfortable in saying in what you believe. There is more of an acceptance about speaking about issues that are non-right issues or being critical of the right in your lyrics or in your practices or whatever. I would say the historical aspect of WinnipegÕs political scene probably contributes to it.

When I was talking to HEAD HITS CONCRETE, I think I was talking to Mike Alexander. He was mentioning resources. He said there is a space here that we have that is in the same building as the G-7.

Right. The Autonomous Zone with Mondragone and there is a library in there and a bunch of artists. Darcy from HEAD HITS CONRETE is the scene guitar tech. He works out of there. But yeah there is that space. I guess that is pretty unique in a lot of ways. I can't really think of too many other cities in Canada that have something like that.

Yeah, I haven't heard of that. It sounds pretty amazing.

Yeah, it's totally cool.

I guess I am trying to get you to talk about that a bit more so that we find out about it.

I guess the guy... oh I'm not sure if it was his idea to run Mondragone. Anyway he owns the building and he kind of started Mondragone or got it rolling and that's a vegan restaurant and political bookstore and above that there is artistÕs spaces. I think even HEAD HITS CONCRETE were jamming on the second floor of that building for a while. And then above that is the G-7 office and there's a whole bunch of stuff going on in that building. And they do... like Mondragone will bring in speakers coming through talking about different issues. I once saw this guy - I think his name was Manuega Nosacari (sp?) and I think he lives in Regina now but he was a member of the Black Panthers because he lived down in California when he was 14. He was delivering the Black Panther's paper and he came up and spoke. And they always have Ward Churchill is there a couple of years ago. They also have leftist professors speaking about stuff like this professor David Churchill, who is a professor at University of Manitoba. He spoke about Paul Goodman who was this anarchist that was super into urban development. They have stuff like that. Book launches like when Arbiter Ring does a book launch, which is like this book publisher in the city, you can do all these things more underground. I guess it is a centre of this political active scene.

It probably rubs off on the kids going to these things.

It's a really important thing to have there because there is all these different speakers, there is all different groups meeting there, so yeah it is important. It does play a role for sure.