Give The Goods On New Orleans

07/20/07 9:50am

by Andre Mihsin (CHARTattack)

Goatwhore are one of several talented bands that have emerged from New Orleans' fledgling metal underground scene which also includes Down, Crowbar and Eyehategod. Goatwhore singer Ben Falgoust talked to ChartAttack about the metal scene in NoLa and hurricane Katrina. He also revealed some good news for Canadian fans of his other band, Soilent Green.

ChartAttack: With so many great bands coming out of the New Orleans metal scene, why don't you think it gets the same amount of attention as Norway or the Bay Area?
Ben Falgoust: That's actually a really good question. Being from there you don't think much of it, but then you go on the road and people ask you, "Oh, do you know the guys in Crowbar or the guys in Eyehategod?" I guess it's more of a cult-based thing. There are people that are really into the scene, but it's not a big-time widespread thing. The thing that'll probably happen is once none of these bands exist anymore, that scene will probably blow up. I kind of like how it is now. I've always been into the idea of cult followings, something that's unique and it's whispered around. It would be nice if the scene was big, but if it got too big it could hurt it as well.

Is it a really close-knit community? Do you ever see or hang out with the other bands?
Yeah. It's not a really big city. I can see any of those guys in any of those bands at any given time of the week. Whether you go into a Wal-Mart or you go to a place to eat, you run across somebody.

What are your favourite bands from that scene?
I like all of them. They're all really good. There's newer bands that are up-and-coming that are really great. Everyone there works really hard. The thing that I like that makes the scene unique is that every band seems to try to strive to be its own entity. It's like Crowbar has its sound, Eyehategod has its sound, Goatwhore has its sound. So it's not like you have four or five bands that sound like Eyehategod. Even though we're all influenced by each other, we strive to be different from each other as much as possible.

Yeah, it's not like Seattle where all the bands had a similar type of sound.
Yeah, maybe that's another reason why the scene isn't as huge. Because the sound isn't one solidified sound that people recognized. It's more diverse, and when you say the New Orleans scene you think of all these bands, but none of them sound alike. Like you said with Seattle, it was a sound that they all had that was caught together in this little circle, whereas in this scene it's not like that. Everyone is separate and individualistic and it makes the scene that much more cult.

How is the city recovering from Katrina?
When we got back home, we just tried to do what we could to help out, whether it was help rip things out of the home to help rebuild, move things, anything like that. It was definitely a crazy experience. Things seem to be moving better at this point. It's slow and I know the media will say bad things about it, but when you're from there you see it. You can only get so many construction crews in there because of the way the city is. It's pretty much surrounded by water. Any way out of the city in any direction, you have to take a bridge. So until they start building and will be able to house more people and more construction workers to come in, things will move slowly. I really believe it's going to be 10 year plus job to get everything solidified there.

I ask because you don't really hear much about what's going on anymore.
You can't dwell on it. I know there are people that are like "They forgot about the city." Nobody forgot about it, but what are you going to do, talk like this for the next 10 years? I'm from there and I understand the tragedy that happened there, but at the same time it's working on itself. You can't dwell on the negatives in life. It was something bad that happened and now it's time to move forward and make things progress.What's the latest on your other band Soilent Green?
We have eight new songs. The guys are finishing up songs right now while I'm out on the road with Goatwhore and when I get home I'll finish writing with them and Soilent's going into the studio when Goatwhore gets home and the record will be coming out around March 2008.

Is it coming out on Relapse?
No, it's actually on Metal Blade.

Oh, you got a Metal Blade deal? That's really good for Soilent because Metal Blade is a bigger label.
Yeah. Relapse is a great label and the people there are awesome. They're always a step ahead of the whole underground thing and it was a really good thing everything we did with them, but at this point it's time to move forward and Metal Blade showed a lot of interest. So we worked out a deal and the next record will be out through Metal Blade.

Well, hopefully we'll get to see you guys in Canada now that you're on Metal Blade because we've been waiting for a long time.
Oh, definitely. Soilent's never been to Canada, so the guys are really itching to get in there. Because of numerous problems with the border and stuff like we were never able to. But we're going to work it out this time to make it happen.