The highly developed instrumental skills of BLOODNSTUFF (Fuzzorama Records) made me go crazy about their cool flow executed with such grace. In anticipation of their upcoming Warsaw gig with stoner rockers from FU MANCHU, I am giving you a chance to dive into their world of chaotic, sludgy rock’n’roll and learn a bit more about their story. Check out my interview with BLOODNSTUFF below!
Join them at the following stops of their European tour (see the dates below) to challenge your perception of what you know about impish, alluring, and adventurous live performances.
Live photo by Old Abbot.
Hey there buds! What’s up? How are you? How’s everything going with BLOODNSTUFF these days?
Howdy, we are doing well and we will be playing the 3rd show of the FU MANCHU European Gigantoid tour. Things seem to be going well. A few really rad things have happened over the last couple months.
How did the partnership with the legendary stoner rockers come about? Is this your first time in Europe?
So, yea we sent this a little late. I think I can get away with saying we have been kind of busy
recently. Our manager at the time somehow got us on the Action is Go tour. Something about an animal sacrifice. Yes, this is our first time in Europe. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the UK’s warm, relaxed, and quite fun immigration offices. It was so fun, we decided to spend many hours there.
OCT 7 Warsaw Proxima, POLEN
OCT 8 Erfurt HSD Gewerkschaftshaus, GERMANY
OCT 9 Luxembourg Den Atelier, LUXEMBOURG
OCT 11 Deventer Burger Weeshuis, NETHERLANDS
OCT 12 Antwerp Desertfest, BELGIUM
OCT 13 Copenhagen Pumpehuset, DENMARK
OCT 14 Stockholm Kagelbanan, SWEDEN
OCT 15 Oslo Vulkan Arena, NORWAY
OCT 17 Helsinki Nosturi, FINLAND
Are there any concerns about the trip? What are the best and worst foods and logistic fuck ups that you’ve come across while being out on the road? :)
I guess when I think about it I have tons of concerns, but it is not how I want to go about the tour. We will face whatever challenges come about, because this has to happen. We will make it work. On our last tour with FU MANCHU, we had some super bitchin BBQ in Kansas. I think about it very often. As far as worst food, I dunno. I tend to not remember the really bad things we eat. Wait, I just realized we were eating some stale bread about an hour ago. I was so close to forgetting that. Logistically, we have always made it to our shows. We have had to do things like change a starter in our tour ambulance, in a Walmart parking lot in North Carolina. We managed to get to that show with 5 min to spare.
Listening to your latest tunes, one wonders how complex and rich sounds can be produced by only 2 guys. How do you deal with the fact of being a duo and how does that affect your live performance?
We feel that there are too many “cheaters” out there nowadays. Too much auto tune using, over looped, post production crutch wearing assholes out there. Anything we have recorded can be played live. I use a lot of amps and have a few guitars we modded out using parts from the 70s. I like many do use octave generators and the closest thing to a loop pedal I use is a “freeze” pedal. It is basically a sustain pedal for guitar, but you can grab a note and play over it without sustaining the others. So, to answer, “how does this affect our live performance?” It doesn’t…except for vocal harmonies, those make recordings sound better. Forget I mentioned that part.
Ok buddies, so let’s break down BLOODNSTUFF and dive into the story of this project. What other bands have you guys been in and when did you realize you were musically
compatible?
We have been playing together since senior year of high school. We have been in bands exclusively since then. Our only other band of note, was called ECONOMY TEAM. A 3 piece mathier type rock band. We realized we were good together right after we were done hating each other. We were both willing to experiment and put verything we had into it.
Can you tell us a bit about your early days and the most wicked aspects of your forming?
This is a tough one. I have been playing guitar live since I was 10 and Dylan has been playing various instruments since he can remember. I new the first day I played guitar that I wanted to be a musician. We never really had a choice. When you have a passion/sickness like us, you are compelled to keep going. If we weren’t Bloodnstuffing we would still have to create. That is how it is and how it should be. As far as wicked aspects of forming, I feel like u want to hear a story about us finding separate pieces of an ancient unreadable tablet. The pieces spoke to us in our dreams and controlled us as we slept. We met for the first time on stage, as the pieces became one, we woke and started rocking.
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of your early sessions as a duo?
Awesome bad ideas and frustrating great ideas.
Can you expound more on your local scene? Highlighted by local legends, how is it when it comes to new artists. How vital is it?
Well our local scene has some history and is always changing. PRINCE, HUSKER-DU, SOUL ASYLUM, and THE REPLACEMENTS to name a few. Well, luckily people are always watching for the new thing. We definitely used the scene to our advantage, being that we played for almost a year without any recorded material. We generated hype and forced people to come out and see us. Word of mouth worked for us. It was super vital. We started opening for big bands as they came through town. Until, we got our first Fu tour.
Has there been a movement over the last few years to revive stoner rock has it just evolved and gotten more popular?
I don’t know. We just write stuff we like. If it fits in that category, so be it. I can be proud to be a part of it.
Considering your self-titled album, how are you feeling about it and the reaction you’ve received so far?
Well it old to us. I think any performer should almost of be sick of what they do before they present it. People are being pretty great about it. I think it’s fun.
What inspired the concept of the album?
General inequality and mediocrity.
What’s the songwriting process like? Is it a collaborative effort? Or is one of you pals in charge of composing? Can you talk about the recording and production process behind the record?
I write the lyrics and most of the riffs. It is a heavy collaborative process though. We are a band, not a singer/songwriter and a drummer. We got a good engineer and produced it together with him. Jacques Wait. We recorded in a studio we have used a few times, but we used the lobby/commons area instead of the main recording space. The vocals were added after the fact, but the guitar and drums were done together. That way the ebb and flow would be natural. We are a live band and wanted to capture that.
Photo by Christian Betancourt.
What do you think of when you write?
Usually things that I want to change about the world or myself and sci-fi imagery.
Haha, awesome! Are you creatively satisfied?
Never. You don’t get much time to appreciate your creations before you know you can do better.
Alright guys. So, besides this upcoming trek, what do you have planned next?
Another album and more tours. Who knows really everything can change in an instant.
