Can you each introduce yourselves and tell me how your songs come together?
Matt Preston(Drums)
It's just me and him, We write this shit together. We have had a lot of different members in the past. I'm Wyatt, Burton I play Guitar and do the vocals. We pretty much do all the songwriting on the album. Me, Matt, and another dude started the band under a different name. We ended up parting ways with the other dude and named ourselves Steel Bearing Hand. It's pretty much just been me and Matt, with lineup changes along the way.
You guys are from the DFW area in Texas which birthed some really amazing legends, what is it like being in an extreme metal band down there right now?
Wyatt-The metal scene down there right now is really amazing. It made a pretty strong comeback. There are a few really cool venues like Blitzen, Reno's Chop Shop. It's getting better. Matt- There was pretty much nothing when we started our band. We came out of the punk scene. A lot of people were saying, "Why are you starting a metal band that isn't going to do anything." There was a big following since we started towards our band and a lot of other bands in the DFW area.
How often do you get to hear about the stories of legendary shows with bands like Rigor Mortis, Gammacide, and Watchtower?
Wyatt- Truthfully, not a whole lot. Most of the people that go to shows now are much newer and there is a lot of younger kids now. We don't see too much of the old guard. We did play with Wizards of Gore (aka Rigor Mortis) once or twice. That was pretty cool.
So what's the score with you guys these days?
Matt- We got two band members, a new guitar player, and a new bass player. Alex he plays in another great band called House of Harkonen. Chris he plays in a band with Wyatt called Tolar. He used to play in Wild Tribe and Unit 21. Those guys rip. Aside from teaching those guys the new tracks, we have been working on some new stuff.
Wyatt- Mostly it's been getting them up to speed to be ready for this tour. As soon as we get back we will start working on new stuff.
Your most recent release was a 5 song ep which included some older songs of yours that were rerecorded and a few new ones I am not familiar with, can you tell me about some of the changes you put into the older songs like Usurp the Hidden Throne?
Wyatt- We didn't really do a lot of changes to any of the old stuff. It was more like a rerecording of it. That two song ep that was just a tour demo we did where we went through the whole country. We just wanted to get a new release out for that so we went into the studio because at that time we had an ep out and we wanted something else.
Matt- We wanted it to heavier than the demo. Disenchant is more like the 1st wave of new stuff that we started writing.
Wyatt- It was the one from that 2 song tape and we just redid both of those. I think the way we rerecorded it for the album sounds much better on both sides.
With Kneel Before the Steel that song is about how some of the old guard bands have turned their back on the initial inspiration of metal and lost sight of the hunger and integrity toward it.
Matt jumps in Or super popular bands like Megadeth and Metallica.
Wyatt- Even Darkthrone to an extent because they talk about how they don't like playing live. Really they say that is because they don't want to be worshipped as gods. No musician in metal is the god. Metal is the god. That is what we trying to say. Metal is the secret force. We wield that force with many others. We kneel before the steel. We hope that everybody else that likes metal kneels before the steel as well.
Matt -Our buddy Travis in Austin, Texas.
Wyatt- The studio is called the Diamond Factory. It is pretty much just him that set everything up. He ran the board, and was super easy to work with. He was a really cool guy.
Matt- We took a trek out there for a weekend and just recorded it.
Wyatt- It was about 5 days, we spent a week out there.
How did your song the Charnel God come together?
Wyatt- That comes from our love of Swedish death metal. Internment, Crematory, even Harmony Corruption era Napalm Death, We like death metal, so that is our ode to that song. It is based on this Clark Ashton Smith story of the same name. It is called The Charnal God. There is this setting called Zothique. It takes place in the far and distant future where technology is eroded and it goes back into a fantasy type setting. It's about this god Mordiggian in this city, Zul-Bha-Sair.
I'd say I liked Tyrannical Shadows the best, since it is so monstrously long, and I really miss a real vicious long ass song. What kind of imagery do you want to invoke in people when they hear that song?
Wyatt Today we live in a world where we are ruled by select elites that are super duper uber rich that are so rich...
Matt- There are people that have nothing to do with the style of life that we are living...
Wyatt- They are obscured in tyrannical shadows.
Matt- These are also the people that are controlling everything.
When it comes to DFW and Texas as a whole what are some cool radio shows as well metal zines and newspapers that are friendly to the extreme music scene by you?
Wyatt-There is KNON, they have a bunch of different blocks they do. They have a Black/death/metal show called the Dungeon. They have been real supportive of us. The main dude is this guy named Raven, it runs Saturday night midnight to 4am. There is also Thrashing Alan but he does more of thrash and groove. The only zine I know of is Under the Sign of the Lone Star. It's run by this guy Jake, he plays in this band called Plutonium Sword. He is a really cool guy. He knows every band in Texas. It is solely dedicated to Texas Metal.
http://underthesignofthelonestar.bigcartel.com/
https://www.facebook.com/underthesignofthelonestar/
Final Words
Matt New York was fun as fuck. We had a good show tonight.
Crush Shit. Fuck Shit up. All Day All Night.
Wyatt- Kneel before the steel!
www.facebook.com/steelbearinghand666
Interview by Nick Perkel
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