MUMAKIL (Eng.)
– Hello and first of all, thanks for taking the time. How is everything going right now with MUAMKIL?
Everything’s fine, we just came back a couple months ago from a great tour across Europe with our pals of Afgrund, our first tour with our new drummer, and we’re currently looking forward to the shows we’ll be doing this summer.
– First off, I guess you have been asked this several time though, it’s not really usual to find Grindcore bands that have taken its name from Tolkien so, how did you come up with the idea? I guess it fits quite good the band’s sonority.
Of course there’s no need to say we can get quite geeky when it comes to Tolkien’s work. We came up with the name Mumakil because we think it’s a good allegory for our style, we hope this is representative of our music: something brutal, heavy, massive, crushing and grinding you.
– You will soon release your new album, «Flies will Starve». What are your expectations on it? And how are the first reactions being?
Over the years, we’ve always had the same expectations, that is, we expect that people will enjoy listening to it as much as we do. Then we hope this will bring us lots of opportunities to play it live all over the map. So far we are not disappointed as the first critics we read are rather good. But in the end, we are just very satisfied with what we did on Flies Will Starve and to us that’s already enough.
– For this album you’ve got a new member (though this is also your first full-length with Benjamin), drummer Kevin Foley. How has everything going with him so far? And what about Benjamin?
Everything’s fine with Kevin, he learned our setlist in two days before going on tour with us, so yeah, everything’s going fucking well. And everything’s fine with Benj as well; he was already a friend, he played with Tom in Stump Fucking, so we knew when we asked him to join the band that he had the technique to fit in.
– Anyway if I’m not mistaken, when Kevin joined the band the album was already recorded, in fact the album was almost ready a relatively long time ago so, why has taken you so long to finally unleash it?
Back to your previous question, we had two line-up changes, that was the main reason. First Benj replaced Tavern by the end of 2010, then Kevin replaced Seb at the beginning of this year, and you’re right, the album was already recorded when Kevin arrived, Seb is playing on it. Seb had to change twice his technique before we could record, so that basically we had to record Flies Will starve twice. And we’re not talking about all the other collateral shit that happened during those four long years.
– In fact this album has been released 4 years after your previous effort came out so, what have you guys been up to during these years?
Basically… we’ve just suffered from our boring usual lives, we’ve been working to pay the bills. And from time to time there was even a few pennies left at the end of the month so we could afford a new set of strings or a new pair of drumsticks.
– The own band produced the album. Due to this I would like you to elaborate a bit on how did the whole process go and what are the pros and cons of producing your own material, as I guess it can sometimes be a double-edged sword.
We just rehearsed a lot. Most of the material came up just as basic ideas for riffs. Then we put all this shit together, worked some arrangements, had some beers and… voilà! Then we just did exactly as we do when we rehearse, one after the other, with mics, and that’s basically how you end up with Flies Will Starve. When you produce your album yourself, you can afford to lose all the time you want, you have no constraint. On the other end we don’t have a real studio, the acoustics is not that good and we don’t have toilets (we piss in bottles).
– Lyrically you have always dealt with social issues and reals problems and, unfortunately, nowadays there’s a lot happening in Europe to take inspiration from. Could you please tell us what are some of the topics that inspired some of the lyrics behind this new «Flies will Starve»?
We basically write about everything that pisses us off, and as you pointed out there’s a lot happening, not only in Europe unfortunately. Usually we address our lyrics to all the morons we can’t stand; as we are clearly outnumbered, it gives us an endless source of inspiration. We hate the two facets of society nowadays: the first one is apathy (you know the system screws you but what are you doing against it?), the second one is some kind of Stockholm syndrome that makes people behave like they’re all cops (you know the system screws you but still you defend it). In Flies Will Starve, we just let all these people know that we hate what they do stand for (or don’t).
– After giving the record some spins, I could say this is your most Death Metal-sounding CD thus far. Was this something how you wanted the album to sound like or rather a natural evolution?
That wasn’t planned at all. We never think in advance about how an album is supposed to sound like, we don’t have this “concept album” philosophy. All the ideas came up very naturally during the four past years. Then it’s rather some kind of natural evolution, but as nothing is intended nor fixed it doesn’t mean that the band will continue to follow a death metal path from now on.
– There’s also a really interesting diversity. Is it easy to add some variations and creating a dynamic effort always being 100% Grindcore?
As for the death-metal turn you’re referring to in your previous question, we can’t say whether it is easy or not, as nothing is never intended. But we are aware that this new album sounds more diversified and therefore we’re not even sure we can say it’s a 100% grindcore album. Basically you end up mastering your record and listening to it for the first time and that’s when you realize that that the quality of the songs and the tracklist you just set up makes the whole album very interesting, you don’t get bored after 3 songs. We’re very happy with this final unscheduled result.
– All this about «Flies will Starve» being said; how could you describe it in just 3 words?
RUTHLESS.
MEATY.
HORSESHOE CRAB.
(shit that’s four words!)
– And finally, what are your near-future plans?
We’re currently preparing the upcoming release party of Flies Will Starve in our home city of Geneva. We’re playing in 3 festivals during this summer (check our facebook page for the dates), including Obscene Extreme festival 15 in Czech Republic. For the rest… if your question is “what does a band do once the new record is out?”, the answer is: answering interviews, rehearsing, composing new songs, thinking about the next record, scheduling new gigs and tours, and of course drinking beers.
– That has been everyting from my side, thank you once more for taking your time. If you now want to add any last words; feel free to do it.
Cheers to all our fans in Spain and especially to all the crazy mofos who were there in Bilbao, Guadalajara, Valencia, Barcelona and Madrid! You guys rule! Grind on!
