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Rock My Monkey: Hello, you are listening to the Rock My Monkey netcast on RockMyMonkey.com. Today we are speaking with Ben Parrish of the band Demiricous. How are you doing today, Ben?
Ben Parrish: I’m doing good.
Rock My Monkey: Cool. Now, listening to a little bit of your music right before this, I got to say in a world of bland metalcore bands, you guys seem to be one of the few that are doing more of an old school crossover sound. What influences do you draw from to arrive at the sound that you call ‘Street Metal’?
Ben Parrish: Well, I mean, it’s obviously you know, some of the stuff we grew up listening to, like Slayer and Testament, Obituary, whatever, Pantera. You know, whatever. I mean, the stuff we grew up on, because that’s the stuff we know the best. The stuff that we know the best is what we’re going to, not necessarily copy or whatever, but pull influence from.
Rock My Monkey: It does seem to be a slight change in style from this new release and your first cd. Was that intentional?
Ben Parrish: No. It’s just what we wrote. I mean, obviously the first record was pretty much straight up old school thrash record. But then we drew a little bit more influence from, I don’t know, a little bit more modern metal, I guess, but still keeping a little bit of the thrash aspect in our music. That’s what we did.
Rock My Monkey: At the end of June you guys had a bunch of your equipment stolen out of your practice shed. Have you been able to get any of that back, and do you have any leads on who stole it?
Ben Parrish: Obviously there’s no leads. The cops aren’t helping us out at all, or whatever. But we haven’t replenished our stolen assets yet, or whatever, which fucking sucks because a tour becomes more of a pain in the butt, because we don’t have any equipment. But we’re still working on that right now. We didn’t have insurance on any of that crap, either. That’s not helping us at all, either. Needless to say we’re not at the same practice spot anymore.
Rock My Monkey: They didn’t have like video cameras or camera surveillance or anything?
Ben Parrish: Well, they did, but I think they were strategically placed just enough for them to not get an idea of who it was. It’s funny how that worked out, I guess.
Rock My Monkey: Strategically placed just so the camera could be useless, in other words.
Ben Parrish: Yeah. I don’t know what the hell the deal with that was.
Rock My Monkey: On your new cd, what song on this cd do you think has the chance of being your Ace Of Spades, the song that fans demand for decades to come?
Ben Parrish: Probably, if I would have to pick maybe two of them, it would either be Never Enough Road or Knuckle Eye. I think those are the two. They’re probably my two favorite songs on the record. So hopefully something will come of that.
Rock My Monkey: What aspects of those songs do you think make it possibly one of the songs that grab the audience and make them pay attention?
Ben Parrish: I think our trash sound mixed with a little bit more modern day metal, I guess. I guess, ‘modern day metal’, I guess. Kind of mix it up, you know, I don’t know, to I guess bring the old school to the modern day, and let the modern day kids learn a little bit about what music was back in the 80’s or whatever.
Rock My Monkey: You keep comparing the new album to a lot of the modern day metal, but when I listen to it what I liked about it was the fact that it actually wasn’t modern metal. It actually sounded more of a kind of, like I said, an old school crossover, like an SOD or maybe even a DRI or Agnostic Front.
Ben Parrish: Oh yeah. Absolutely.
Rock My Monkey: So how did you guys, when you were recording it, how did you, how do you feel the balance of that is? Do you feel as the artist, do you feel that it is more modern metal, or do you feel that it is more of that old school, early 90’s crossover sound?
Ben Parrish: I would definitely go for the crossover sound I guess, more the 80’s and 90’s thrash metal still, or whatever. Even if you still listen to those, like you listen to your old Testament records, you listen to SOD, you hear, you know, ninety percent of it is what half the bands are doing nowadays, or whatever. In a different format, I guess, a different arrangement, or whatever, to make it sound ‘modern’, I guess. But I feel, like if you listen to, like you said, SOD, or whatever, you go through the whole Stormtroopers Of Death records, I feel-I mean, I guess the record isn’t totally like up paced because we play blast beats and stuff like that, and all those bands never did that. I mean, I would say it’s modern for the time, but we still draw the influences from the old school, or whatever, that we as a band take pride in.
Rock My Monkey: If I was to sum up this album in one sentence, I would say ‘SOD with blast beats.’
Ben Parrish: (laughs) Yeah. I wouldn’t say that’s a far stretch. I wouldn’t say that’s a far stretch.
Rock My Monkey: What do you think that Erik Rutan brought to the cd as the producer that would not have been there otherwise?
Ben Parrish: What was that again? I’m sorry. I totally didn’t understand what you said.
Rock My Monkey: Erik Rutan your producer, and member of the legendary Hate Eternal, what do you think that he brought to the cd that would not have been there otherwise?
Ben Parrish: I don’t know if it was anything to do with the music. I think it has a little bit more to do with the sound of the record. Because we pretty much just came in and had these songs and recorded them and you know, he put his own little producer twist on everything to make everything sound super heavy. And you know, obviously the drum sound, sound more like a death metal record rather than a thrash metal record. Obviously the bass drum or whatever sounded a little more clicky than any old Slayer record, or anything like that.
Rock My Monkey: I got to say, he’s definitely one of my favorite hot new metal producers out there.
Ben Parrish: He’s excellent. And he’s an awesome dude at the same time, too. That definitely helps when you’re in the studio, have someone who’s calm and cracking jokes the whole time.
Rock My Monkey: You guys had a video for your last release. Is there any plans for a video single for this cd?
Ben Parrish: Well, I’m sure there is. We haven’t discussed that at all just yet. We still got, I don’t know, when is it out? October? We still got a month to decide all that good stuff. Hopefully, for the last record we shot two videos, or whatever, so hopefully we’ll be doing that again for this one.
Rock My Monkey: What would you say is the most annoying cliché in heavy music right now?
Ben Parrish: Like for style, or for the style of people?
Rock My Monkey: Let’s say as far as the music itself goes. What cliché would you guys never want any part of musically?
Ben Parrish: I would probably have to say the open E fucking breakdown, you know, mosh, ninja kick type stuff, or whatever. Even though we had a couple of parts that might be considered like that. But believe me, it’s not our intention.
Rock My Monkey: Right, right, right. The obsession with the breakdown to me, it was always kind of, it was like in the 80’s when everybody was obsessed with the bass. Why is everybody so obsessed? It’s like the guitar is obviously-one has six strings, one has four, but they’re obsessed with simplifying the music with a breakdown, instead of the more complex part of it, the part that has a little bit more into it. Stripping the music down, why are people focusing in on that so much? That always made me a little frustrated.
Ben Parrish: I guess you can kind of think about it, like guitar is more accessible, guitar and bass are more accessible to people than I guess drums. And it’s probably one of the easiest things to learn. People never really take it past that.
Rock My Monkey: When people do see you guys live, what can people expect from your live shows? Is it more of a stripped down t-shirts and jeans kind of thing, or do you guys add any special lighting or theatrics to make it more of a memorable show?
Ben Parrish: We’re pretty much straight forward. Plus a big production costs a lot of money that we don’t necessarily have. We just try to bring people, try to tear people apart with our live show, you know, just flailing around like a jackass the whole time. Not necessarily acting like a rock star or anything. Just getting out there and doing what we do. I mean, I can’t really explain it. It’s just what we do. Bang our heads. We all got long hair, so hair is always flailing around.
Rock My Monkey: What do you think is more important in a live show? Getting the notes right, or making it a memorable show, and having a real energetic show?
Ben Parrish: I would say the energetic show. Save being perfect for when you’re writing a record, or whatever. It only really matters if you’re perfect for a live recording, or something like that. Obviously the recording has to do with everything. But blowing people’s face off with your live performance, I think counts more than that. If you can play your set eighty-five, ninety percent perfect, then you’re good. Anything past that, you don’t need it.
Rock My Monkey: In hindsight, is there anything about this new cd that you wish you could have added, or anything you wish you could have changed?
Ben Parrish: Not really. I mean, for the time that we had, and the time that we had to actually write the record, I think we accomplished everything we were looking to do. So no. No.
Rock My Monkey: I got to say it’s a definite progression for the band, and that’s always something to be proud of, when a band can progress greatly from a first album to a second album.
Ben Parrish: Oh yeah.
Rock My Monkey: With this being your second album, is there any lesson that you guys learned the hard way that you could share with other bands that are spinning their wheels trying to make it?
Ben Parrish: Well, I would definitely say touring is the hardest thing out of everything. Obviously, getting members, like steady members together, and stuff like that, we been though that with the whole drummer situation. Like on this new record we have a new drummer. We probably went through like seven or eight drummers in the past, in 2006, when we starting touring, or whatever. That was the biggest pain in the ass for us, I would have to say, is finding steady members or whatever, people who are down to do the band, or whatever. Which is always hard. You start off and you don’t make any money. You’re gone and you’re away from your family. It is hard. It’s super hard. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Rock My Monkey: Since Dustin has been the drummer for almost a year now it seems, how does he seem to be working out?
Ben Parrish: Yeah, pretty much. Oh, excellent. I couldn’t ask for any better dude, really.
Rock My Monkey: He actually came from a band that you shared, basically you were right next door with in the old practice space?
Ben Parrish: Yeah, both the bands shared the space collectively.
Rock My Monkey: What are the chances of the band doing a full coast to coast tour of the United States within this album cycle?
Ben Parrish: Oh, well, I mean, more than likely. It’s all in the works right now. We just basically need to sit down and get all that crap figured out. We’ll see what happens. Sooner than later, I know that. Sooner than later.
Rock My Monkey: I do have one final question that we ask every single band from classic rock legends to the most extreme death metal bands at the end of every interview. Partially to stump people, but also to see who pusses out and won’t answer. This year I’m asking people to look into their crystal ball and predict what political figure, world leader, musician, celebrity, anybody well known, anybody world wide famous, who do you think might die before the end of the year?
Ben Parrish: Oh shit. Uh, Michael Jackson. I don’t know. That was the first thing that came off my head. I don’t know. He’s a weird guy. I don’t know. And he’s from Indiana, so we have that in common. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, or what. (laughs)
Rock My Monkey: Some people say he’s a robot.
Ben Parrish: I don’t know dude. Maybe he’ll malfunction someplace. What’s that?
Rock My Monkey: Or he could be an alien from Mars. You never know with him.
Ben Parrish: God, yeah. He’s a weird guy, I know that. He blows my mind.
Rock My Monkey: Yeah. Alright, well, I thank you very much for doing the interview, and anybody that’s listening to the audio version can go to RockMyMonkey.com for the full featured version with clickable links, readable text, and many more wonderful features. I’m asking people to click on the album cover both above and below this interview to pre-order the album (two) Poverty by-I’m going to try to pronounce the band name again-Demericous.
Ben Parrish: Demericous.
Rock My Monkey: Demericous. Okay.
Ben Parrish: Everybody mispronounces it.
Rock My Monkey: This is one reason why people should listen to the audio version of this, as well, so they can hear the correct pronunciation.
Ben Parrish: Yeah.
Rock My Monkey: I do hope to see you guys up on tour up in the Northwest sometime soon, and I thank you very much for your time.
