Music that saved my life

I’ve been in many bands over the years, most of my bands have been metal / prog initiated but Post Death Soundtrack has always been and industrial, experimental band, except for the most recent album. I just decided to go in a more organic direction so following the artists that initially inspired us. So Nirvana, Alice in Chains, merging with modern artists like Russian Circles and Yarn – putting it together in one pot and seeing how it comes out, that was the goal. I think it turned out pretty well, we did the best we could, I’ve already started writing the follow up album.

Talking about Nirvana, they pretty much saved my life when I was like 12-13 years old. I went to a nice private school which to my parents credit they took a lot of time and effort to get me into the right place for my growth. But from my perspective when I got there it was like Lord of the Flies. What I mean by that is basically there was no help, you’d get assaulted, bullied, there was no refuge from it, it was a horrible experience.

But luckily through that experience I heard artists like Nirvavna, I got into rap music at the same time, like Cypress Hill. My school mates – the other losers and rejects – would show me these artists and I’d be like “oh my god these people actually understand where I’m coming from” like they’d know who I was and it opened up this whole new world, We started going to underground shows, stealing liquor from our parents cabinets and all that as you did as a teenager.

We basically got heavy into music through Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots. I’d say Nirvana, going back the albums I listened to the most are Bleach and Incesticide – even though to me their work is flawless. I listen to Nevermind but it’s just a different production experiment. Like Bleach and Incesticide are them at their most raw, and their non album tracks – their B-sides. They should release another compilation they have so many, its just that stuff that helped me feel understood when I was growing up and having a real hard time.

People can say Kurt Cobain had negative things to say because of how he managed his life and all that, but I think it was really brave because of how he expressed himself artistically. So, at the end of the day I really wanted to understand it, I studied this over the past 20 year, how to express myself lyrically in an abstract way.

There are stand outs from the album, School is probably the greatest, it could be the greatest rock song of all time, its way up there, every time I hear a live version of Bleach it’s like freaking fantastic, and yeah like Bleach is incredible. The whole album is incredible. Scoff is another one of my personal favourites and Paper cuts if you want to get more gritty. But those are some choice tracks form that album. Although that whole album, it just flows.

I don’t channel this stuff now, it’s just there because I love it so much, you know how theres a lot of people you talk to who have the perspective I was into this in my teens and I grew out of it, now don’t get me wrong that’s very fair. Theres a lot of things you do rightfully grow out of as you get older but I’ve always found that Nirvana was one of those things hat I continually gain fresh inspiration from and I never want to abandon because they stood up for me when I was in a hard spot, I was young and I was unable to defend myself. I found this band and I still love them.  Its not just because of that, theres a richness. Its like getting into the Sex Pistols, they only had a tiny catalogue but if you get it you get it, if you don’t you don’t, you can put on the Sex Pistols and you can feel their primal scream. Nirvana is a similar sort of phenomenon.

I still tap into that all the time, I tap into that weekly, I use it for inspiration, I use it for my writing and I’m constantly trying to. I love when they really stretch themselves, before Kurt died, like on In Utero when they wrote stuff like Milk It and Scentless Apprentice and Tourettes. They were really challenging, non commercial songs, these songs would have been rejected by their label if they didn’t just say no.The famous story is they put it on the record label’s desk and just “screw you” we’re just doing this. The label would have said no, but it s that kind of stuff that makes me want to make music, I want to make difficult music like that.

Taken from an interview with Steve from Post Death Soundtrack. The group’s new album Veil Lifter is out now, you can find out more at https://www.postdeathsoundtrack.com/