PW: I am sure absolutely everyone will have asked you why you have changed your name and you are sick of answering. It has been well documented and would ruin my opening paragraph, so instead I wanted to ask if you immediately went with ‘The Rotted’ as your new moniker or considered other options?

BM: Yeah it was the first option really. We thought we were going to have to change because we are a new band and things are different. We can just start again really or we can cling on and flog a dead horse. We laid Gorerotted to rest and thought lets change the name you know. The next email, as we were doing this via email, from Wilson said ‘well how about The Rotted’ as that’s what everyone is calling us anyway. We have left a lot behind but there are still some elements there so it’s a nice transition.

PW: With this new level of maturity will you be dropping pseudonyms such as Babysliced, Fluffy and The Wilson and going with the more sensible likes of Benjamin, Timothy and errr The Wilson?

BM: We have done yeah! We are Ben McCrow, Nate Gould and well it’s just not us anymore you know, we have moved on. I was 18 when I joined and I’m 27 now, if my mentality was what it was back then I would be a bit worried now.

PW: You recently set up a Myspace archive page concerning the history of Gorerotted and put all the old shirts up for sale. Have they all gone and are they now collector’s items destined for ebay? Talking of which I saw someone unsuccessfully trying to sell ‘Her Gash I Did Slash’ for £50 a few months ago.

BM: Yeah I saw it go for £65 quid once and I think that became the word on the street. There are still some shirts left, when we said last ones to go, we did mean two massive boxes. We have the ‘Appetite For Consumption’ ones left but the webstore is closed now so we might just fucking set fire to the rest as I don’t ever really want to look at them again. You have to stick up the front, stick up the back, fuck that one design, it makes it so much easier to do merch.

Yes that old Nekromantik design (T-shirt I am wearing like a fanboy) you wont find that anywhere anymore.

PW: Well basically I bought that because of the design, I used to fucking hate the band when they came out haha.

PW: Obviously there have been some changes within the band. I was rather surprised when I heard about the sudden departure of Mr Rushforth, what happened there and was this something that had been brewing for some time?

BM: All I’m really going to say on this are that his idea for playing music are a lot different from our ideas and there were certain issues that were making it impossible for us to continue. Musically we were going in different directions and in terms of time, he’s in about six other bands and was really hard to pin down and with certain other issues it just killed it for everyone really so it was inevitable.

PW: As far as the new members are concerned, Nate is known (or maybe not) for his involvement in Screamin Daemon and has subsequently left the band. Not wanting to highjack your interview but I am sure many are wanting to know about the fate of Rev Trudgill and whether the second album will ever see the light of day?

BM: Without really wanting to talk too much about him, Trudge is now a tattoo artist, Nate recorded the drums two years ago, Trudge hasn’t done the guitars and Nate told him to give him some money for the drums and he could do what he wanted, he was leaving. I think that sort of music is pretty much dead to Trudge as well to be honest. He is sick of turning up at shows and playing with the likes of Infected Vomit Vagina and all that and thinking, this isn’t why I’m playing music.

PW: The other new addition is Gian Pyres who apart from The Daemon has also been in a million different bands. Would you look upon his addition as being permanent?

BM: Yeah, I mean when Matt left we had a few people who asked to do it and he said he was up for it too. He lives near Tim which is pretty handy and doesn’t have a full time job that is going to stop him touring, so perfect, he is our guitarist basically.

PW: What new qualities would you say the new drummer and guitarist have brought to The Rotted?

BM: Variety and a new energy, a new focus, every imaginable quality you want, they’ve brought. We used to have two rhythm guitarists, now we have a lead guitarist as well, we have a drummer who is very diverse, very into his equipment and into playing a decent show, it’s just a fresh start all round.

PW: The new album recording saw you holed up with Russ Russell for quite some time I believe. I’m not even sure if Metal Blade granted you day release. Tell us a bit about the recording process and what did you do to stop yourselves going mad when you were not working?

BM: Well the first night there was a lock in at the venue round there, which was all good fun and got pretty drunk and debauched. Basically though we just got in there and did our thing. There was a lot of sitting around but we were not there to chill or anything we wanted to get these songs thrown on and I guess that’s why it’s such an intense album. Yes it was about a month, we flitted between Russ and James Dudley’s studio and they were great to work with. I think they got the best out of us.

PW: ‘Get Dead Or Die Trying’ kind of sounds like another way of saying kill yourself. I take it you are not trying to do a Judas Priest on the yoof and trying to get them to commit suicide?

BM: I have actually been asked that as well by someone else! No it’s a metaphor about the whole killing yourself to live. It’s like if I want to have an enjoyable life I am going to have to do things that are going to be detrimental to my mental and physical wellbeing. It’s a play on the old phrases you know. There are a lot of phrases like blah blah or die trying. Well do it or die trying, I’m either going to end up killing myself through my own fault or I’m going to die trying.

PW: I am intrigued as with the evident musical maturity of the album it strikes me as if there could be some sort of concept behind it. I sort of interpret this as being a nihilistic journey contemplating mankind’s debauched demise with a nation of walking mindless zombies being destroyed by modern living. Is this a fair assessment or should I actually try listening to the album sober?

BM: I couldn’t have put it better myself. All my lyrics are about the stupid thing’s I’ve done because I really have the most upmost contempt for general people and I know this has been said a million times before but this is my fucking way of saying it. My songs are all about drink and drugs and watching people, sat back and watching all these pricks running around, celebrity obsessed Big Brother generation; sitting there having a can, having a line and fucking laughing at them. Fuck you when the end of the world comes I’m just going to be sitting there laughing at you. That’s what it’s about!

PW: I think some of the song titles are pure genius, especially when one hears about what the idea behind them is. ‘Nothin But A Nosebleed’ I believe is all about spending the night sniffing dubious substances. Although I would not call it an out and out anti-drugs song it is perhaps a cautionary tale?

BM: It’s all that disgust you feel. You know when you are at a party with your mates and they can fuck off because you’ve met a guy with a load of gear. He’s generally a prick and you are sitting there having a chat with him, he’s the best guy ever and the next day you cant even look him in the eye because he is just some random twat and you think I’ve just fucked all my mates off to talk to this guy. What have I achieved, I wake up and we had all these great plans and all I have to show for it is a nosebleed and a headache.

PW: I have to admit the title that intrigues me the most is ‘Angel Of Meth’, one can imagine a Good Samaritan dishing out liquor to the tramps around town. Is there a story behind this?

BM: There is, this is probably based on the stupidest thing I have ever done in my life. This was to get completely naked and get on the roof of the tour bus while it was going from Glasgow to Manchester. Just sort of fucking around up there, bus surfing. Then the fear kicks in and I end up back in through the skylight, crack on my head almost breaking my neck. If I sleep funny I still get a swollen back. I could have died doing that and the music fits how it works. You have this fast fucking meth induced punk shit and you have this proper fear riff kicking in sort of ‘what the fuck am I doing’? So that’s another autobiographical track.

PW: There is the unexpected moment of clarity on instrumental ‘A Brief Moment Of Regret’. It’s the sort of thing I would have expected in the middle of a Cathedral or Orange Goblin album and really takes the listener by surprise. I also believe it has gone Top Of The Shops, tell us a bit about this?

BM: That song follows ‘Angel Of Meth’ and then I have my brief moment of regret for what I have done, remorse and thinking things have got to change. You can’t really hear it but there are four layers of very subtle just me talking about what to change and everything and a bit of chanting. Then the next song is straight back into ‘The Body Tree’ which is about your head leaving your body and everything becoming clear in your head and you go to another world basically.

Yes Top Shop that’s very fucking weird man. Promos go out and stuff and someone has got it and liked the sound of it. I am guessing one of their pickers enjoys our material and heard that and put it in. You get a lot of metal kids these days that are into their Top Shop so hopefully they will shazam the track and get it bought.

PW: I do somewhat miss the Wilson’s backing vocals, why did you decide to lay off these this time round? I also have to ask knowing of his love of power metal if there is ever going to be an opportunity of him performing a powerised scream on a Rotted song?

BM: No Wilson is a bassist. He has gone from a guy who plays a bass guitar to being a Warwick endorsed musician who is being sent these beautiful hand built basses. He just wants to concentrate on playing them and after working his ass off he just wants to be the best at what he does. So he wants to step away from the mic and concentrate on what he does best.

There are some gang vocals yes! The Bexy Memorial Choir helped us out with that. They are a group of miscreants who you occasionally see at gigs. They are the ones that you see with their sleeves pulled down because of their football thug tattoos. They are just a bunch of thugs that we knew and we were sat down the pub, they are not into metal, they are into house and big raves and E’s and all that shit. We said come into the studio and fucking do some shouting so they did and you hear that in a couple of places, yeah but Gian and Tim do it really!

PW: The album really strikes as a ‘London’ album partly due to the Fear And Loathing and also for the cover of 28 Days Later main theme. Why apart from the fact that this is a haunting number and the film is a classic did you decide to cover this?

BM: Wilson demoed it for my girlfriends porn film ‘Zombie Muff Divers’ when we heard it we were like, we are going to cover this, it’s going to be an epic finish to our album basically. It has a real trippy feel to it and it’s a beautiful piece of music and we made it our own.

PW: Did you have to get permission to do it?

BM: No the way it works is we credit the guy who wrote it on the publishing and he gets his royalties for it.

PW: Whilst we are talking zombies you have already been involved in Rob Rotten’s classic ‘Porn Of The Dead’ how did this Rotten collaboration come about?

BM: Well he just wanted to do a porn film with loads of zombies and he got a lot of Earache bands, in fact I think the only ones that weren’t were us and Impaled.

PW: And it’s your girlfriend that’s involved with ‘Zombie Muff Divers”.

BM: Yeah but there are lots of difficulties doing it. Lost a leading lady and it’s just a case of trying to get it off the ground. I’m sure people realise it’s difficult but trying to shoot a film is an utter nightmare and takes so long. She’s making music now and it’s not been laid to rest and it will happen at some point. A good friend of ours writes for the BBC and that so it’s going to be a more story based than just fucking.

PW: Onto the album launch and gigs, things have not gone fantastically so far with sound problems at Cambridge and Manchester being cancelled so hopefully London will go smoother and you have Wacken and Summer Breeze coming up.

BM: Yeah we had problems in Cambridge as the venue wasn’t properly equipped. Manchester was pulled, twice by two different promoters. In the end Ted Maul found another promoter and what they offered was pretty diabolical and there was no way we could have done the gig as it would have cost us money to do it. Glasgow was cool and last night (Nottingham) again, not the greatest PA but you just have to get up there and do it. We are home today, London. I’ve got the family turning up, which should be interesting.

The thing about these shows is that it’s a new line-up. Nate has only done four so far so these are pretty much warm up shows for the big festivals. We are playing only three old songs and mainly the new stuff. We changed for a reason and there is no way we can do a greatest hits or anything like that. People are enjoying it, you can see when they don’t know the tune and you can tell the ones who have heard it on the Internet perhaps as the album’s only been out since Monday. Obviously there are the downloaders but they are probably trying to keep their distance from us, rightly so.

PW: What are the chances of a more widespread tour in the future taking in more of Europe and perhaps America?

BM: Yeah we are working on that now. There have been a couple of things that we have knocked back as we just don’t think they are suitable for us but there are a few other things in the pipeline so….

It’s at this point that Ben is summoned for a sound-check but that is ideal as this was basically the end of the interview.

It was interesting to see that many turned out tonight who were seeing the band from the start of their career and had been at all those early Red Eye and Walthamstow Standard shows too. No doubt there would have been more through the doors but the gig was competing with Iron Maiden.

So check the album out but don’t download it, you might end up with Ben McCrow and The Bexy Memorial Choir on your doorstep!

For more on the band check out http://www.myspace.com/therotted
http://www.myspace.com/gorerottedmetal
http://www.metalblade.com

Interviewed by Pete Woods

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