Bleak metaller DISCARDED SELF talks about horror movies in our new brief interview

Soon after our recent special track presentation for “Dance Upon The Dead”, we’ve got a neat little interview from Jarret of DISCARDED SELF where he talks about horror movies, a subject that he loves and he’s got lots to say about.

Bridging the gap between the heaviness of sludge and the bleakness of doom, DISCARDED SELF weaves together room shaking heavy grooves, filthy atmosphere of blackened metal with bleak tonality and gloomy feel. The song comes from Discarded Self’s upcoming self-titled album, due out on April 30th via Sarcophagus Recordings. The album was recorded at Doom Tomb Studios in Lloydminster, Alberta Canada.

The horror talk, with Jarret Beach of DISCARDED SELF:

Hey Jarret! What do you think about John Carpenter’s “The Thing”? Do you have a story to tell about how you came to watch it, when, and how it made you feel?

I do remember the first time I saw the movie “The Thing”. I was about 10 or 11 years old and I was supposed to be in bed, but I would always sneak out of my room and watch late night TV in the basement with the volume real low so I wouldn’t get busted. I watched the whole movie and it freaked me out so bad I couldn’t even move, and I was scared of my dog when he came downstairs because I thought he was sick with the alien organism. I always wanted a flame thrower after watching that movie!

I also remember after the movie I was watching Much Loud, and that’s the first time I’d ever heard White Zombie. I don’t remember what song it was, but my Dad came downstairs and busted me on that one! I wasn’t allowed to watch MuchMusic at all when I was a kid, but I did anyway, and got in trouble from my day. The White Zombie video blew my mind though, and it made me a fan of theirs ever since! Me and some friends even threw a little air guitar concert in elementary school! We did the song “Dragula” and we kind of got in trouble for that too!

Becoming a White Zombie fan the first time I watched “The Thing” was a monumental night in my early musical development!

What are some of your favourite horror movies?

One of my favourite series of movies is the “Evil Dead”. The first time I watched that movie I was with my friends and we ate a bunch of mushrooms. Those ‘shrooms started kicking in right when the Evil was first flying through the forest! As I watched the movie I felt like I was being sucked into my old busted couch and the movies audio sound seemed to be breathing! I don’t know why but we were laughing so fucking hard the whole time we watched that movie that my stomach hurt after! We had to go outside after to clear our heads, and I ended up climbing a tree and wouldn’t come down for a few hours. The cops ended up coming and made me get down, but let me go. It was a real good time!

How have horror movies influenced the music of Discarded Self?

Well I watch a horror movie almost every single evening. At the time that I was writing all the music for this album, I was watching a lot of documentaries about possession and serial killers. The lyrics of “Dance Upon the Dead”, and “Cultist of the Pentagram” were directly influenced by those documentaries. I also watched the show “Ratched”, and soon after I wrote the lyrics for “Orbitoclast,” so figure that one out! So its pretty safe to say a lot of this album is influenced quite a bit from dark films and horror for sure!

Other than Cannibal Corpse, what other metal band do you think perfectly relates to horror movies?

In my mind I would say horror movies and the darker genres of metal go hand in hand. A lot of the lyrics these people are writing for sure have a lot to do with what people grow up watching on TV. I can’t really name a single band because I feel like I would have to name thousands of bands. Let’s just say horror movies play a major influence on metal music, and in turn metal also has a huge influence in horror movies. It’s has its own type of culture.