Interview with Anavar!

Facebook

Genre(s): Deathcore/Death Metal
Location: Perth, Western Australia

PSAB: Where does the band name "Anavar" come from exactly?

Anavar: Well, actually, it comes from a performance enhancing drug, and it’s a type steroid. When Andrew, the bass player, and I were talking about band names he jokingly said brought it up.  We originally were planning to do a “gym culture” parody band, but when we started jamming the material was sounding really good, so we decided to go in a more serious direction.

The name was really just a personal joke between us, and when it came time to try to pick something else, we couldn’t think of anything. The name just stuck so we went with it and we really didn’t care about trying to sound brutal or hardcore. Most people don’t know about it so it just ends up sounding like a standard metal band name, but a few people give us funny looks when the penny drops.

We’ve kind of had to get into better shape as a band though, as most people expect us to look like a bunch of monsters haha

PSAB: Your EP I, Dominus came out on December 21st 2014. What can we expect from this EP, and how have you been preparing for the release?

Anavar: We worked really hard on this EP and it took ALOT longer than we hoped. We originally wanted it out MONTHS ago, but we had busy schedules with uni, work and ran into a ton of brick walls during the recording process. We were really lucky to have such a good engineer with Nish Raghavan, he is a really talented up and comer and a pleasure to work it.

You can expect an aggressive mix of Deathcore, Death Metal and Melodic Death Metal, with of course, LOTS of breakdowns. Most of us in the band came from a very “metal” background, and it shines through with the vocals and drumming in particular, so we incorporate those elements to really give something unique to the listener. We like to think that we are a good example of a blend of Metal and Core that both sides can really get into. We’ve had a lot of great feedback, and the support has been more than we could have hoped for.

In preparation, we’ve been playing as many shows as possible. We were lucky enough on our second ever show as a band to play with the mighty REZUME of Indonesia, which really helped get out name out. Luckily for us the Perth scene is really tight. Most of the active music fans are also in bands so they are always willing to share your content and play shows with you. We’ve got a release party planned with some awesome local bands, so for you guys in the Perth Australia area, get yourselves down to Leederville HQ on the 24th Jan 2015!

PSAB: If you could any position in the music industry, besides being in a band, what would be and why?

Anavar: I couldn’t really think of much, security maybe haha

I’ve tried my hand at putting on organising a show, and while its fun, being a promoter looks like a lot of work. You’ve got to be able to work with other bands, venues and also be able to be a salesperson, so it can get crazy, and i only did it once haha. People like to give promoters a hard time, but its way more fun being on stage, over organising it.

Recording might as well be fucking wizardry to me. I’ve spent many nights saying “im gonna figure this pro tools shit out tonight, no excuses” only to bail about 30 mins in and play Pokemon. So I don’t think I’d trade my position for anything. Being a performer is too much fun and having people tell you “You played an awesome show”, or “Your music is really cool” is just the best.

PSAB: What's the local scene like in Perth, Western Australia?

Anavar: It’s really good man even though some people say it’s dead. While some genres enjoy slightly more popularity than others, it really comes down to your work ethic. For example, the generalization is that is only “Core” bands enjoy popularity from Perth (Make Them Suffer, Saviour, Iconoclast, FINDERS ect.) but take a band like Earth Rot, who are as Metal as they come, and they are really taking off. Those dudes have a crazy work ethic, they write good music and the play insane shows. I was talking to Chris, the drummer, about this and he straight up said “It doesn’t matter what you play, as long as you do it well”.

And even with the core bands I mentioned, they work like dogs. So if you write good songs, support your local scene, get your name out and bust your ass, you’ll be more likely to find success. Also, talking shit about other local bands never helps haha.

But overall the scene is awesome. You’ll always find a show on during the week and on the weekends and the quality of bands in the area is premier. The scene is tight too. Other bands will always be happy to give you a shout out, share your content and give you feedback. Often the guys going the hardest in the pit will be either the band that was just on or the next one about follow you. We lose out a bit with getting interstate and international bands over due to the cost of flying here, but it just gives us another reason to support those shows when they happen.

PSAB: What plays the most influence on your music? This can be non-music related.

Anavar: In terms of bands Thy Art Is Murder, The Black Dahlia Murder, Blood Red Throne and Whitechapel have a lot of influence on our sound and. We definitely have a lot of influence from black metal, as most of us in the band are massive Immortal and Gorgoroth fans.

All of us in the band have such diverse musical tastes. One minute we could be jamming Hate Eternal, the next minute it’s Rise Of The
Northstar. Personally Andrew and I are big fans of DMX, Xzibit and NWA, and Mitch (our singer) jams Jeff Buckley all the time. Kai
(guitarist) is the same; we can go ages listening to lots of “non-metal” just because it’s a guilty pleasure of ours. Adam (our live drummer) is really the only Metal purist, and he’s always shaking his head when we start cranking some terrible rap from the 90’s.

That being said we know which influence’s to bring into our music, and which to leave out. We definitely aren’t going to be one of those bands that have a Rap verse and a Dubstep breakdown. It’s not that we have anything against it; we just aren’t interested in those elements, stylistically. We want to keep it brutal and heavy.

Non music related, I know Mitch pulls a lot of his lyrical ideas from various movies he watches, books and history he reads. He’s a smart dude and has a vast knowledge on psychology and world history. We all take from personal experiences, struggles and life lessons and put that into our music. It’s always a good outlet to have for all that negativity in life.
 

PSAB: Any shout outs to give?

Anavar: Obviously a MASSIVE shout out to Nish and the other guys from Xenobiotic. Without them, we would just be a shitty bedroom band. Nish in particular took us under his wing, introduced us to people, hung out with us at shows, invited us to local events, got us onto gigs and did an incredible job with our EP. I’m sure at many stages he wanted to pull his hair out, but last time I checked he’s still got those lovely locks.

Also to all the bands we’ve shared the stage with, that have shared our music, and the promoters that put us on shows, for that, we are really grateful.

Definitely some bands to check out are IMPALER, Dawn of Leviathan, Iconoclast, Exanminis, Novarchy, Xenobiotic and Sanzu, but there is just too many good bands in Perth, so I’m sure I missed a bunch.
 

Thanks for having meJ