Interview: I’ll Eat Your Face
Posted on 19th Oct 11 by Mike McGrath Bryan | 
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Days removed from The Face’s new album’s launch gig in The Pavilion on Saturday, Drop-d had a catch-up with the band’s percussion section, Barrytron, for a Q&A and some abuse.
Hot Brains Terror has been unleashed upon the public. How do you feel it’s gone down?
Well it’s only out about two and a half weeks so we’ll have to see. We need to play a few gigs to really get people talking about it etc but that should take shape over the next few weeks. We’ve been playing the album from start to finish at the last few gigs and people have been really digging it, especially Drowning Dogs and Enslaved…. Lots of people seem to be digging it for the songs rather than “oh it’s just two guys” or “hey the song titles are funny” or whatever which is great.
There’s also benefits for donators to I’ll Eat Your Face, such as stickers and hand-drawn caricatures of donators being slagged by ye two. Has there been uptake on it?
Yeah, a bit. But I stupidly never put an option in to go over the 5 bucks so people havn’t been able to pay for the drawings, just the sticker. Anyway if you ask for a drawing you can have one. I’d better sort that out actually.
HBT seems a lot more focused musically than anything ye’ve done before, with a frightening technical edge in places and slightly playing down the messery. Was that a response to the novelty tag that’s been placed on ye elsewhere?
Well I guess that’s our own fault, putting out DVDs of us waving our dicks around and what have you. I suppose we just got bored of stuff that was enjoyable purely because of it’s profound ignorance and stupidity, and wanted to come up with stuff that reeled people in a bit more. Also we had a great experience making Irritant and wanted to better it in all aspects. More cohesive, better playing etc.
Ye went across the pond with Lamp there recently, how did ye fare? Did they take to the chaos?
Yeah, we had great gigs. It was cool to play for people who had no idea what we did again. They’re always the best crowds. People who just wander in and enjoy it. We’re over again in a few weeks.
Saw the video there lately of the sessions for the new album, too, ye looked to be enjoying yerselves massively. Any studio stories for us on it?
Well our two pals came down to hang out and distract us all weekend, so it’s fair to say there was a lot of drinking going on. We would start tracking at about 11, finish around 8 and get banjaxed on cans and sneak back into the big room and jam all night, totally messing around all the mic positioning and whatnot. You would be moving a mic the next day and a flashback of your glassy-eyed self drooling and trying to play Dancing in the Moonlight jumps back into your head. Ha, it was a great laugh, it always is.
Once the album was in the can, was it always going to be a freebie, or was there thought given to a label for it?
Yep, it was always going to be free.
Ye’re not exactly known for half-arsed songwriting or conventional subjects. And where terrifying gas bills and Dr. Pancake are relevant and pressing issues for us all, where have the new threats of ententacled brains and flesh eagles sprung from? And what should we be concerned with next?
HOT BRAINS TERROR is all creature-based. We wanted to do something more cohesive, but also something that was humorous and horrific at the same time. We felt there was a real cartoon feel coming off it too, and that we should have a theme that felt good over this. A random collection of total bullshit pales in comparison to a reasoned and meticulously planned collection of total bullshit.
Speaking of cause for concern, either of ye watch the Cartoon Network show Adventure Time? There’s been a laser-swan doing the rounds. Your thoughts?
I think the laser swan thing came from some dream the Boy had about riding a creature with the body of a swan and the heads of Westlife or some crap like that. I don’t have a telly anymore, I was starting to feel suicidal over the frequency of adverts and Comedy Network idents that have the volume raised really high. Plus life is too short to spend it watching the predictable lines of Alan from Two and a Half Men. “Oh I can’t get a girl because I’m such a square. Blah blah blah mother, Charlie Sheen, my kid constantly farts.” It be good if they did a storyline where Jake had been abused by Charlie. Ha that’d be a bit different. Or Alan started scamming the state and winds up getting jailed for benefit fraud. That’d be good.
Ye put the word out for a promo video of some sort a while back, looking for ladies, no less. Was this an effective way of getting a selection of ladies in one place, and will a video result?
Ya, we got some…er…’takers’…but we ditched that idea unfortunately, it was becoming something that would be difficult to do and not look shit…now we’re looking for cash to do a vid but it’s hard to come by. We have a plan though and it should be quite good and funny once we can get the cash together. Please donate for the album!
Ye’ll be playing the Siege of Limerick. It’s a stellar, unreal line-up. Who are ye looking forward to seeing the most/least/hardest?
It seems like there are a pile of bands I’ve been hearing about all of a sudden, like ‘Bricktop’ for example. Or am I just not going to gigs anymore? Anyway I really like RITES, and I’m looking forward to Zealot Cult. Lots of bands on there I’ve never heard of or seen so it should be good craic, something different at least.
I’ll Eat Your Face has been a going concern for five years now, even longer if you count your solo demos. How has IEYF changed in that time for ye? And his IEYF changed yer lives in that time, do ye feel? Where’ll it all be in five years, ye reckon?
Yeah I did the first demo in 2004! So that’s 7 years ago now, fucking hell. Yeah I probably wouldn’t be in Cork if not for the Face, I would have moved long ago. I want it to be listened to after it’s finished or whatever, that’s all I hope for it. It’d be cool to tour more and I want to do some gigs in Japan and the States. I have no idea where it will be in 5 years. I want to say “THE ANALS OF HISTORY” but that would be childish and pathetic.
What tickles your sonic receptors right now? Any recommendations to our readers for local and international bands?
This week I’ve been mostly listening to: Buried at Birth (sweet US grind), Metallica‘s ‘…And Justice for All‘ (as usual!) and my current favorite band, The B-52‘s. They have a few tunes that have literally welded themselves to my cortex. Fucking great band. It’s the Summer of Love, Love, Love!”
Speaking of local, how do ye feel about things here in Cork at the moment? Bit of a time of transition, with the Quad being gone and all, isn’t it?
I said in the Metal feature in the Irish Times that Cork has a varied scene rather than a metal scene per se – people gave out to me for it but I still think that’s true. I like these new late gigs in the Cyprus Ave, they’re a good idea. I have moved out of town a bit so I’m not at as many gigs as I’d like to be. It’s a shame KVX broke up, I liked them. To be honest this question just ends up being a list of your friends’ bands, saying they’re great. Hey LAMP are class by the way. We live with Ted.
What of ye now the album’s done? How do ye intend to close out the year?
Some gigs in London and Belfast are next.
You’re curating Live Aid, it’s 1985, you’re on top of the world, but, suddenly, due to a rift in space and time, you find yourselves in a grind band in 2011. How do you undo this delicate situation without changing history as we know it?
I suppose there’d be a lot of crying & confusion. I’d probably lash out at the new unfamiliar world and jabber endlessly about being from 1985 until a healthcare professional was notified somehow. Then I imagine I would be locked away in a state hospital where my pleas for sympathy would be roundly ignored by the curt Phillipino nursing staff that would change my bedding daily. I would eventually become severely depressed while looking at and feverishly trying to understand a meaningless copy of GRAZIA featuring Kelly Brook and ’5 sexy apps for your iPhone’ on the cover. Too late for the present, and with a mind bent out of recognition to handle the past, I would resolve to take my own life by repeatedly headbutting my ward door until I collapsed bloodied and lifeless in my pyjamas, having violently and explosively soiled myself. The only person who will be at my funeral will be the Indian shop manager from across the street who, in trying to keep a good business relationship with the hospital staff who’s lunches his deli often provides, misguidedly thinks he should attend patients’ funerals – a practise that will ironically result in his own inevitable sectioning. He will be buried beside me in the FUCKED IN THE HEAD section of the hospital graveyard.
I’ll Eat Your Face maraud the Pavilion Saturday night with Time is a Thief. Free show, y’alls.
Tags: Albums, Barrytron, creatures, Hot Brains Terror, I'll Eat Your Face, The B52s, The Pav
