John of Gigantic Brain Interview
by She Lay Gutted
Gigantic Brain is, in my opinion, one of the most original digital grind bands out right now. What inspires you to create this unique brand of music? Feel free to elaborate.
Honestly its nothing special. As soon as I got into grind, which was around 11th or 12th grade, I wanted to write that kind of music. Some of the first bands I had heard were agoraphobic nosebleed and flesh parade and I loved all that stuff the moment I heard it. When it comes to the different style, I just sort of got bored alot and put different weird parts in some songs and it ended up becoming routine to do that kind of thing.
You’ve done a ton of other projects in the past, most notably The Confusion of a Raped Animal, Goatgrinder, and Human Piss Parade. What made you stop making music with those projects and make you focus the majority of your attention on Gigantic Brain?
It all began with Goatgrinder when I was around 16 or 17 years old. That was the first project and it was just me and my friend Mark having some fun. We just did dumb things like covering an old willie nelson song and turning it into grind. Then I started The Confusion of a Raped Animal which was supposed to be my serious solo project. I was going through so many changes, I guess just because I hadnt been writing long and I was figuring out what I liked the most. Anyway the final product is Gigantic Brain and the other bands were just me experimenting and finding out what i really wanted to do.
You have a split with Umbrella under your belt, as well as
an Internet-only album called “Our Bovine Destroyers”. Are
there any other Gigantic Brain releases we should know about? If not,
do you have any plans to compile all the songs you released individually
on an album(s)? Also, now that mp3.com
is gone are you posting Gigantic Brain music anywhere else besides just
your official website?
Well I'm actually planning on selling Our Bovine Destroyers one of these days. Other than the Umbrella split there arent really any official releases though. Very soon there is supposed to be a Ganglia/Gigantic Brain split on Black Hole Productions so I hope we get that finished off one of these days cause we've had it planned for around a year now I think. I was a little upset when mp3.com went down but another free music site is coming up in its place sometime soon. Also on www.hxcmp3.com there are a few Gigantic Brain songs. http://www.hxcmp3.com/bands/125/
Your latest batch of songs, which appear on “Our Bovine Destroyers”, depart from what some would call the “classic” Gigantic Brain sound. While you retain your signature hyper drum programming you also experiment with pianos, strings, soft organs, slower drum tempos and a clearer guitar sound. Was this just a natural progression for you or did you sit down and force yourself to write something different?
That all happened because of my new drum machine. Also I wanted a much more darker feel to Our Bovine Destroyers because its a pretty gloomy concept. The piano, in my opinion, did make it sound a bit more depressing than my older stuff which was what I was going for on those songs. Anyway the new drum machine has guitar effects on it that made the guitar a little more proffesional sounding and the drums sound more real too. So alot of stuff changed with the new machine, it was like an entire different setup. Im upset that the new stuff doesnt sound as aggressive as the old, but I havent had this new machine long and Im still getting used to it.
When you write a song for Gigantic Brain, what kind of a process do you go through? Do you program the drums first and make the guitar and vocals compliment them, or do you come up with a guitar riff and just run with it? Also, what drum program do you use?
First thing is the drum tracks. I have almost nothing in mind when I start other than I know its going to be a gigantic brain song. If you listen to most of the songs theres usually 1 or 2 fast parts and then a slower part, thats the main routine that I work with when Im doing the drums. Then comes the guitar, then the vocals. Its always the same way. For the drums I use a drum machine known as the Yamaha QY-100. I used to use a Zoom RhythmTrak 234. The Zoom was alot easier to use but the yamaha has alot more features that I've always needed.
Many of Gigantic Brain’s songs are rather devoid of vocals and tend to focus more on the music. When you do throw vocals into the mix, do you actually have lyrics you use or do you just improve? If you do indeed use lyrics, what kind of subject matter do you tend to focus on?
Yes I'm not much of a vocalist. Thats the most boring part for me.
I hate writing lyrics and alot of the times I dont at all enjoy my vocals.
But I do know what kind of vocals I want on these songs and I would
have a hard time trying to get someone else to do it, so im fine with
it for now. I do have lyrics sometimes but alot of the times its just
me making noises to add to the music. The older lyrics were about random
terrible things like
mothers wanting to get rid of their children in terrible ways or weird
kids going on a rampage...stuff like that, but now I stick with certain
concepts usually. The Umbrella split was almost entirely about an alien
invasion and alot of testing on humans. Our Bovine Destroyers is about
an unstapable race of mutant cow-like beasts killing off the every living
thing on the planet...except cows (Im not a vegitarian or anything,
I just thought that it would be extremely unexpected if something as
harmless as a cow were to become an endless killing machine) . The song
Our Armies Fail is about the army attempting to stop the cow menace
and failing miserable, every one of them is killed. Ill explain more
about it on my site oneday.
Staying on the subject of vocals for a moment, do you distort or in any way alter your screams/growls?Also, do you plan to ever incorporate clean vocals into Gigantic Brain’s music?
I do always have a little bit of distortion on the vocals, it just seems to pick up better that way. I have used slight pitch-shifting on alot of the earlier stuff and alot on the umbrella split. The newer songs have almost no pitch-shifting that I remember. When it comes to clean vocals I dont think GB will ever have them, but thats not 100% because I have done cleans with the confusion of a raped animal. I just really dont think my clean stuff is very good so I tried to avoid it.
What kind of guitar do you use, and what’s your setup like?
I use an ESP 7-String. It was a gift from my friend travis that he gave me when I was 16 I think. I dont have an amplifier or anything to play through really. I just record through my computer. All the guitar effects are in the yamaha qy-100. I use Cool Edit Pro 2.0 to record and mix.
What the fuck is Ninja Gaiden? A forum member noted that you appeared to have a fascination for it, so could you explain what it is to those of us who are ignorant of it.
Ninja Gaiden is an old Nintendo game that came out around 1989. I've enjoyed the game ever since I was really young, but just here recently I've got into it a ton. I've been heavily into video gaming since I can remember. But when it comes to the game Ninja Gaiden, I really am nearly obsessed with it. I love the hero, I love the villian, I love the story. Its amazing. The song Dehumanize was written straight from Ninja Gaiden II (1990). I had the midi file of the game music and i just replicated it with the GB style somewhat. My name on the forums I post on is Jaquio, which is the name of the bad guy in Ninja Gaiden 1. There is also a Ninja Gaiden 3 out for nintendo and a new NG game coming for Xbox soon that I'm buying the second it comes out
What do you have planned next for Gigantic Brain?
Same old same old. Just writing more and more, hopefully releasing some cds one of these days. Most likely there will be another split on Crucificados Pelo Sistema. The guy who runs that label is the guy who released the Umbrella split.
Thanks for doing the interview John. Keep the good stuff coming.
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