Interviewing the Underground Issue 01: The Ahfganhound Project: Bloodfetish

I was chatting with a friend the other day, and he asked me whether I could make an article about him and his project. I agreed, since he is a very talented unsigned musician. He is Ben Gray, and his project 'Bloodfetish'. BloodFetish is an Electro Industrial act from Chorely, England with influences from 'Heavy metal', 'Agrrotech', and the Electronic body music styles itself.




Since he is the sole member of the group, he works on the vocals and the music itself. He uses intruments such as the Synthesizer, Drum machine, programming, Sampler, and the Electric Guitar. He also does the vocals, altough he himself does not consider it singing. He uses the programs 'Reason 4 software' and the free sample editor 'Wavosaur'. He also does the mixing, which he considers the hardest part of creating music.

His influences include musicians such as 'Gary Numan', 'Nine Inch Nails', 'Foetus', 'Fear Factory', 'Assemblage 23', 'VNV Nation', 'Marylin Manson', 'Blutengel', 'Cabaret Voltaire' and others. One of his heroes is Tom Shears of Assemblage 23.

You can view his music on his Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Ahfganhound; and a Myspace page is on the works. I've also managed to interview him, and thus, here is the result:

1) Day After Day: For what reason exactly did you start this project? Do you have any inspirations?


Ben Gray: I begin this project in college after building up my confindence and skills with Reason 4 computer software and I started to make new and better tracks. I also saw a VNV Nation gig last Christmas it was great it gave me ideas into how I wanted to create my music then I started to listein to similar artists to expand with my ideas.


2)DAD: What would be one of your greatest aspirations with this project?


Ben Gray: Hopefully my project will help people around my age to discover music that they didn't know other wise. Some people around my age complain that their is too much rubbish in charts these days (personally the music charts has always had rubbish in them at some point or another, but sometimes their is something different and good in the charts, but not often). My answer is to trun off mainstream Radio, turn off MTV and go on the Internet or check local gig venues. Reading non mainstream music magazines, peoples blogs and fanzines is good too. England especially is a bad place to market Industrial music these days, it seems to fair way better in Europe and North America than it does here in England.


3) DAD: Seeing all your work seems difficult and time consuming. How much time do you usually take on your work?


Ben Gray: Good question. Sometimes it takes me one day to work on a single sound on the synthesizer, then after I have done that and I am happy with it I usally use a sqeuncer or the Arpeggiator unless I am creating chords. Drums tracks can take a long time to especially if you want a good kick drum sound or a tight snare.


4) DAD: Is there some kind of instrument or specific sound that you would like to use more commonly on your work?


Ben Gray: I would like add some guitar to my work. I would like to work on a harsher vocal sound using multiple effects and a vocoder.


5) DAD: What is one of the biggest help you have around you. For example, what kind of people around you encourage to make more of your work?


Ben Gray: My family mostly. My father likes to create similar music with his friend. Both have been really encouraging and honest with me and thats the support I need. My tutors at college have been great too.


6) DAD: What kind of song do you plan to do next?


Ben Gray: I hope to finish a song called Raw. Which lryically is about a guy who Isolates himself from everybody after breaking up with his girlfriend. Basically he goes insane and starts having dark thoughts about rape, torture and killing. I am also working on a song called Apathy which is lryically from the point of view of a American soldier in command of a patrol in Iraq. Who goes insane and orders his men to slaughter an entire village without mercy before turning on themselves.


7) DAD: Do you plan on updating your Youtube with more BloodFetish songs from the past? Or do you believe that your new work is more superior than the one you had made before, thus meaningless to post it?


Ben Gray: Good question. I am thinking of posting uncomplete pieces as tasters for people and then I post the complete tracks when they are complete. I am also thinking of setting up a myspace account as well.


8) DAD: If you could collaborate with any artist, who would it be, and why?


Ben Gray: I would like to work with Ade Fenton who produced Gary Numan's last album Jagged, maybe he could do a remix of one of my tracks? I would like to work with Tim Skold who worked with Marilyn Manson on his Eat Me, Drink Me album, which personally I find is an underrated album. He also worked with KMFDM another good Industrial Rock/Metal act. It would also be awesome if Tom Shears of Assemblage 23 would remix one of my songs. In fact it would awesome if anyone remixed one of my songs.


9) DAD: Are there things that you would change in your work, or are you fine with it?


Ben Gray: I would like to get more gear and maybe a hardware synth and a small studio set up. But I am comfortable with what I have got for now. But musically I am going to just keep going for it and keep trying my best!!!!


10) DAD: Have you performed live on an audience? If you did, how was your expirience? And if you haven't, would you like to perform live?


Ben Gray: I had to perform one song in front of college, but luckliy it was only in front of three people but it was recorded, but I don't have a copy of it yet.


11) DAD: And Finally, what words do you have to say to the people who would like to make music in the future? Any particular tips or words?


Ben Gray: Go for it, don't worry how good you are and what think other people think and stick to your guns when people say other wise!!!! Thank you for this interview, Ana.


Alright, those where words straight from Ben Gray. Thank you for co-operating, and we'll hopefully see some more of you! Good luck in your musical career.

Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles

There I was on my local Borders where suddenly, I got the idea of actually staying in touch of the musical world other than watching VH1, MTV, and MTV2. This got me into buying a magazing that I would really like to recomend for Metal Heads and those interested in Heavy metal alike. Move over 100+ Nintendo Power magazine issues, there's a new kid on the block! (No 'New Kids on the block' Boy band pun intended).

Issue number 93

So it happens that I, like I said, bought this magazine simply because I wanted to be intouch with the musical world. I had this magazine and a Rolling Stones magazine with me, but as you can see, I chose 'Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles' instead. The main reason that I didn't pick the Rolling Stones magazine is because of a very ridiculous reason (Which mainly revolves around that Rolling Stones isn't monthly, magazines that aren't monthly drive me incredibly mad).

Now on to the point of why I actually liked the magazine, is because it takes every aspect of Metal into the magazine. I get to be intouch with Black Metal bands (Which is a musical genres that stays underground mostly, because its main emphasis with Satanic lyrics) and underground European bands with no problem. And from what I've seen, I doubt they'd ever made an article of bands that are normally everywhere on other magazines that extremely obnoxious, such as 'My Chemical Romance'.

Another thing that I simply adore of this magazine, is the fact the magazine not only reviews a vast extent of Metal CD's, but also reviews underground unsigned bands (Unsigned bands that send their stuff via mail) and give them constructive criticism. I find that to be very helpful, and I really think that does inspire bands to go and get signed by a record company.

But something altogether, something that bothered me about the magazine (Which is virtually the only think that I can actually say that I hate) is that not most of the pages, but some of them are actually printed in Black and White. This I found somewhat frustrating, because it's a bit, well boring. Only advertisements and important articles are printed in full colour (Which is the vast majorty, I think); however, I like the quality of the paper used for printing the magazine which is atleast something that I consider a very nice detail.

Now, I simply got the issue of this month's being my first, which is issue #111. And I'll continue buying this magazine, because for me, it's very promising. With articles and reviews from bands like 'Judas Priest' and 'Ted Nudget' and being published by Martin Popoff (Dubbed as 'Metal's most recognized journalist') Why not give this magazine a try?

Angels of the moon~

I'll probably sound like a complete ass for saying what I will right now, this being particular of the new 'You Oughta know' band in VH1 called 'Thriving Ivory' of the Alternative Rock and Piano Rock musical genres. It is a band that recently released their first album on June 24. Although professional reviews haven't stated their opinion on their first music video 'Angels on the Moon', I will. The members are Scot Jason (Piano, Keys), Clayton Stroope (Vocals), Drew Cribley (Guitar), Bret Cohune (Bass), and Paul Nidiermier (Drums, Percussion).




Like I said in the first pharagraph, I know I shall sound like a complete ass, because people have been going ga-ga over this new band and more spefically their music video. Lets first start with the music video itself, and frankly, there's nothing to say about it. Because the music video is so incredibly basic that you really have to ask yourself whether they where actually serious about this being a 'good' video. The video has no real plot at all (Heck, I would've be pleased if they'd atleast did something interesting!) because it featured all of the musicians simply playing their instruments with the lead singer walking around a higway (Doing absolutley nothing!). In reallity, it's a very boring music video that I myself ask why was this featured in the 'You Oughta know artists'.

Now my main complaint around with the band is the vocalist's voice (Clayton Stroope) which is so odd it makes the music video look even odder. It's certenly different from the steryotipical Alternative Rock/Metal vocalist which is usually something great, but in this case it's somewhat dissapointing. I'm on my way to say that the song 'Angels of the Moon' would be better off with a better vocalist, or rather the band itself.

No Age

This might be a few days old, but it's still worth updating for. Chances are, if you saw the FNMTV premier last Friday, you saw a Noise-Pop, Noise-Rock, Experimental Rock, and a Punk Rock band called 'No Age' releasing their first music video (Am I right or am I wrong here?). Now this band is undoubly getting thousands of positive reviews from professional sources, and I can't blame them, because they produce an excellent sound. But I'll be talking on my opinion of their newest music video 'Eraser'.




Let's talk a bit about the band, shall we? No Age is a band founded in Los Angeles, currently signed in with Sub Pub records. The band has two members, these being Randy Rallan (Guitarist) and Dean Allen Spunt (Drummer and Vocals). They're associated with the band 'Wives' and they've released 8 albums, 3 of them being completely EP's. However, undoublty, the most famous album of all is their newest album: 'Nouns'.

Their Music video 'Eraser' is a low-budget video made with a lot of artistic-like effects. Which you have to give them props, because their video was undoubtly creative unlike other low-budget music videos. However, something quite frustrating from 'Eraser' is how the video is carried along.

The Video starts with the two band members running around in a child-themed party within the non-vocal part of the song. Which this moment, is almost completely endless in reality. They take so much time to actually start performing the song, it gets a bit frustrating to wait. For example, once they arrive to play their instruments they begin to run all over the place again, and it's not until three times that they do the same thing is that they actually get to play the instruments and perform the song.

Something that I could say that bothers me as well, is that fact that Dean starts singing, his voice is barely hearable because the instruments' sounds are too high in volume than his voice. But nonetheless, Eraser is a good song, though I think that list Low-Budget video keeps much more to be desires, despite being certenly superior than others.