Q. Please tell us about your hometown and upbringing.

i grew up in a small town just outside of Bristol in the UK. Wasn't exactly the most exciting place in the world... i spent most of my childhood doing stupid, and usually dangerous shit with my brother. doing jumps on mopeds in building sites (the Honda C50 was a favourite of ours!), stealing boats and seeing how far we could sail away from town, exploring abandoned military bases (there were a LOT of those near me), trying to make bombs...

when i wasn't being a totally irresponsible prick, i was usually doing something computer related. i got an Atari ST in the early 90s and it got me addicted. my brother and i spent a lot of time recording music under a million different aliases for a fake record label we had on Myspace - that's actually how goreshit started.

Q. When did you first become interested in music? Do you remember the first CD/LP you bought?

i think the first cd i bought myself was Cheshire Cat by Blink 182 when i was ten. soon after i discovered Anal Cunt on Napster and Blink 182 seemed fucking stupid. i got a record player around that time, and would hunt for records in the second hand shop in town. they had a room at the back with completely uncategorised vinyl, so i'd go through as many as i could after school, picking out those i thought sounded interested or had weird album art.

one of the first records i remember finding there that i actually gave a shit about was Scum by Napalm Death. i also found a whole ton of UK thrash metal shit there, stuff like Lawnmower Deth and Anihilated. then a friend's dad played me some Cardiacs and Nomeansno - that was the point when i started actually looking for specific stuff/getting shit mail order.

Q. You are also active in Black Metal. When did you first encounter Black Metal?

probably around the same time i got into Napalm Death, when i was eleven or so. i was always more into 'punky' black metal. a vinyl compilation i stumbled across had 'For All Those Who Died' by Bathroy on it - i remember really digging that. i don't remember ever finding many black metal records back then, so most of it i found on Napster. Wolf's Lair Abyss by Mayhem really stuck out to me back then - think it was a nice combination of harsh noises and weird time signatures. i was way more into grindcore and death metal than black metal, to be honest.

Q. What kind of teenager were you?

probably not much different to how i am now.... did a lot more stupid risky shit that i wouldn't do now, but lots of what i spent my time doing is still the same as today. i was always fucking around with trackers on computers, since i got the Atari ST. i got really into the concept of multitrack recording when i was 11 or 12 - i played guitar and drums (my parents were far too cool about letting me play, even though it really pissed off the neighbourrs) so i'd try and record whole songs of shit. i remember ping-ponging cassette recordings (record guitar, play it really fucking loud through a hi-fi and play drums along, using another cassette recorder to record that) cus i didn't have a 4-track or anything like that.

i got really into noise music when i was 15, so started fucking around recording that kind of thing. i spent a lot of time making 'instruments' out of fucked up electronics, messing with contact mics and tape loops, fucking up the tape recordings with acid and shit. it was that time i started my Hana Sumai project. i was also really into film photography too, using a similar method to how i was making music - take broken fucked up cameras, use out of date film, fuck up the negatives with bleach, yada yada. i still spend my time fucking around with noise and messing with shit two decades later. most things i'm interested in i want to understand beyond just being able to use it - i'm always fucking with my car, rebuilding ancient computers, rewiring my studio, making a video game, customising my OS, etc etc.

Q. What are the top 5 most influential works on Goreshit's music?

the first breakcore i remember hearing was the Venetian Snares mix of Skelechairs - think i was 17 or so. it sounded like shit, since we were playing it through the broken speakers of an 80s Peugeot. i think that made it appeal to me more at the time, all distorted and fucked up and shit. the same weekend my old bandmate showed me Boko Mo Wakaran by Bogdan Raczynski - after hearing that, i went home and pirated Ableton and made the first goreshit EP.

i think my love for math and noise rock (stuff like Don Caballero, Rapeman, Lightning Bolt) has always made it's way into goreshit tunes; harsh sounds, wonky time signatures, polyrhythms.

90s breakbeat hardcore has always tickled me the right way - early Prodigy, Foul Play, stuff on Rhythm Section; anything with a nice stab. i think that's much more obvious as an influence on releases i've made in the past 10 years or so.

another thing i heard early on that made me think "i wanna do that" was DJ Sharpnel, back in 2005 or something. i was really into this digital hardcore weirdo called No.305, and through them i found a super sped up megamix of Sharpnel stuff that someone had done.

i know i've already said five, but it feels wrong not to mention M1DY as another early influence, and bye2 as a more recent one - hearing bye2's stuff a few years back helped me out of a musical slump and made me wanna improve and make stuff again.

Q. How did Goreshit's activities begin? How did you meet the members?

the name goreshit was the idea of the other guy it started with in 2005 (he plays guitar on the song Daddy). i think we met when i was 15? he was one of the few local people that was into the same weird shit musically that i was, so we ended up hanging out a lot. we were going to make a stupid black metal joke thing to use for his college exam piece, but ended up fucking around with the first goreshit EP stuff instead. goreshit was just one of a million artists (that were all us) on our joke record label (my brother, some friends and i)

Q. When did Goreshit become your solo project? Can you tell us how it came about?

we just never recorded any other guitar parts.... wasn't an intentional conversion to solo project or anything. everything we did musically was short lived or a one time thing, just because we found it funny or interesting to do that thing at the time. somehow i just kept coming back to making stuff that sounded like it suited the goreshit thing.

Q. Goreshit has the musical influence of Breakcore, when did you first encounter this genre? What artists inspired you?

probably already covered that in the influences bit... before i heard Venetian Snares like i mentioned, there were a few other things that got me into noisy breaks and stuff. there was a local band called Ninja Dinosaur Bastards, which were a guitar/electronics/vocals digital hardcore rave kinda thing. at the same gig i saw them i also saw GTUK from Germany - chiptune grindcore kinda shit. i played a gig with DJ Scotch Egg as Hana Sumai in the mid 2000s; i remember that staying with me.

Q. I would like your definition and history of Lolicore from your point of view.

i remember people using the term when i started in the 'myspace days'. to me it was always just breakcore/speedcore/hardcore with anime samples, which i don't think is enough to make it it's own genre. i suppose a lot of it had more of a noise or experimental vibe than a lot of breakcore... and no one making it really took themselves too seriously. it's hard for me to pinpoint when the term became associated with anything sexual.... i didn't get into social media, so i didn't get to see the growth of people freaking out about it.

loli to me was lolita fashion, slice of life anime... stuff that seemed to be nice for the sake of being nice - really used to appeal to me back then, with how depressed i was and how shitty i thought the world seemed. watching Lucky Star or Azumanga Daioh and forgetting that life wasn't really that innocent and simple was really cathartic for me. but yeah, now it definitely seems to be seen as something more sordid.... maybe it always had people who saw it as a sexual thing, and i just didn't hear about it. who knows. would be interested to hear what someone who paid attention to it back in the day thinks!

Q. I feel that Goreshit's music is changing; since 2010, Goreshit has been more on the Rave music side and electronic music side. But I think listeners still categorize it as Lolicore. What do you think about that? Do you still consider your music Lolicore?

i accept that i might not see genres the same way a lot of people do - i think the amount of sub genres we have to describe what i feel to be really similar music is pretty dumb; labels like neurofunk and dariacore seem waaay to specific to me, but then i don't listen to music on the internet. there's sooo many artists available to everyone now that without these super specific labels, it'd probably be impossible for people to find specific music on the internet, so i get that my opinion of 'sub-sub genres are dumb' is itself pretty stupid.

even though i never really adopted the label of lolicore myself even for my old shit, i get why people would call it that. but the later stuff? it seems pretty far removed from anything lolicore! i haven't watched anime in years, so i don't sample it any more. i sample whatever media i'm interested in at the time. but who the fuck am i to say what is or isn't x or y? 80s R&B had fuck all to do with what it was in the 60s, and some of the shit people refer to as breakcore now (ambient drum and bass usually...) has fuck all to do with what people saw as breakcore when i started 20 years so, so if people wanna call it lolicore, i ain't gonna get mad about it ^__^

Q. You have sampled Japanese animation in the past. You also used anime images on your jackets, but did you even understand their meanings (words and characters)? Or did you focus more on sound and atmosphere?

most of it was just found through random google image searches, chosen for aesthetics alone. i didn't have a fucking clue what cirno or vocaloid were when i used the pictures for covers!! i think the only stuff i used from animes i knew the context of were Ergo Proxy and Paranoia Agent (i loved both of those shows). to be honest when i think back on stuff where i used japanese writing, usually in the wrong context and with horrible translation that didn't make any sense, i'm quite embarrassed - teenage me was on a proper japanese obsession kick. i can imagine most people find things they did two decades ago pretty lame!

Q. You have also released an album as Wounder. What is the concept behind this project? How do you write the songs?

Wounder was a product of not really having anyone i felt musically compatible enough with near me to make a band with, so i thought fuck it, i'll record shit as if it's a band. i'm of mixed feelings about the lyrics and concepts of wounder now... when i started it, my mental health was pretty terrible and i wasn't dealing with my schizophrenia in very healthy ways. most of the lyrics are about self harm, suicidal thinking, that kind of shit. i can atleast say the lyrics don't say either of those things are good - it's more about how i tried to avoid those things, but always came back to them. i'm much healthier mentally now, which is probably why there hasn't been any new wounder in so long. those albums were all recorded during periods of bad mental illness.

i spend a lot of time with my guitar in my lap, when i'm watching tv or whatever, so i'd just come up with things by fucking about. if i liked a riff, i'd end up thinking about how to expand that, then eventually come up with whole songs. with wounder i always recorded the songs as just guitar, then i'd program drums around that, add second guitar parts and shit, then come up with lyrics/make sentences i'd kept in my head fit the music. a lot of goreshit stuff is written first by fucking about on guitar, too.

2024.08

MDC Interview#64 " Goreshit "

MDC Interview#63 " Istari Lasterfahrer "