Lochlan Watt – Colossvs

2014 has been a massive year for metal-heads and it doesn’t look like we’re going to get a break! Melbourne based Colossvs have been around for a few years and October 31st finally saw the release of their debut album ‘Unholy’. Not only do we have a new album from the band, it also features the insane vocal prowess of none other than the famous Lochlan Watt, host of the much loved radio show The Racket and one of Australia’s biggest meme addicts. I caught up with Lochlan to talk about his new venture with Colossvs, the band’s upcoming tour around the country, the new album and heaps more!

Lochlan was on his way to band practice as I called him. “We’ve been pretty busy just over the last couple of months with getting all the artwork, the video, the release, pre-orders ready and we’ve sort of been neglecting the jamming side, now we’ve got some time till the launch shows, so kicking it in to multiple jams a week.”

Only when he was announced as the new vocalist was I introduced to this band, so he gave me a little background history of Colossvs and how things got started with the band. “They’ve been around since 2011 and they released a demo with another singer, then played a few shows around Melbourne but a couple of the members had other bands that got really busy, so Colossvs kind of went on the backburner for a year or two. But then they got another with another singer did a 7 inch and started writing for the album, They also did couple of tours last year so the band has been around for 3 or 4 years but its only the last year or so that things have been busy.”

Lochlan was announced as the band’s new vocalist a few months ago and he shared a funny story of how it all happened. ” I was actually demoing some stuff for a band that didn’t end up happening – a band that I tried out for with my friend Mike Deslandes who was producing the album and I went to his place, which is when he told me to check out this new album that he’d been working on and showed me a few tracks from Unholy. I instantly thought to myself ‘holy shit this is killer I need to be involved with this somehow‘. I sort of hung out with the old singer a few times and got talking to him, asked what they were doing with the new album and he asked  if I wanted to put it out which I agreed to do through my label Monolith. So there was a lot of back and forth, we hadn’t figured out everything yet but everything turned out great. I haven’t really had a full time band in a few years so it’s really cool that way.”

 We also talked about what the writing process was like for ‘Unholy’. ” It was mainly the two guitarists who did the writing – Michael was the main writer, Joseph contributed a fair bit as well and from what I understand, they wrote the whole album with just guitar demos and bedroom recordings. Then the guy that produced the album  went over everything, tore it all to pieces and said ‘try this’,  ‘change that here’, ‘do this instead’ after which they recorded all the songs live, as a full band. Then they did another round of changing things here and there, so it was a pretty collaborative effort from what I know and I guess the songs on ‘Unholy’, as they are, are more refined versions of the original tracks.”

Colossvs – Unholy

I love talking to the musicians about the artwork of their album covers and what ideas/concepts they had in mind when designing it and the ideas behind ‘Unholy’ are quite interesting! “The bassist Adam is the main designer and does all of our designs. Basically,  the image is a creative commons copyright free picture that we found online. It’s the inside of a European church that’s  really pristine. So we took this image, changed a few bits and pieces and I guess the  significance of it is, it’s a massive, beautiful, expensive looking church but if you look closely at the altar it’s covered in blood and then for the inside, back cover art, tour posters, video etc we had sheep heads. Those basically represent the followers of  Jesus who are all part of a flock – we wanted something really confronting, shocking and even a little offensive to contrast with the really tranquil looking front cover and just have some fun with it at the same time. ”

 To those of you who haven’t yet heard ‘Unholy’ or of Colossvs, this is how the vocalist describes their sound. ” I guess at the root of it, it is metalcore but really strongly influenced by death metal and black metal so it’s like death black metal influenced metallic hardcore [laughs]. The band started off as a Ringworm, Converge, kind of sounding band over the 7 inch and now with ‘Unholy’, the amount of death and black metal influences really stepped it up so I’d say it’s definitely more aggressive, really intense and raw sounding.”

 Colossvs also have a massive Australian tour coming up, and they’re playing alongside some of the biggest and heaviest bands in the country which is a great first step for the band and also making these shows, ones you cannot afford to miss. “Most of the bands on tour are friends, bands that I’ve enjoyed or played with before when I was in other bands and I’ve been touring and booking tours for quite a while now and it all came together pretty naturally. The Brisbane show we’re playing with White Horse and Meth Drinker from New Zealand which is sort of an unusual line-up for us because they’re more doom/ sludge sort of metal bands and that came about because they wanted the same date at the venue as us. Then the booker just told us to combine venues which we agreed to. Getting Psycroptic  on  the show for Tasmania was pretty crazy but I live with Dave Haley, the drummer and Ruins was already on the show so we got them to jump in on this as well. Colossvs has done a couple of smaller tours and they were mostly more hardcore shows, this is the first time playing with a lot of metal bands so it’s going to be interesting for sure!”

I’ve always admired Lochlan for his sheer passion towards music – he’s host of Triple J’s The Racket, works for some pretty big labels in the industry, is now vocalist of an up and coming band, runs his own label Monolith, the list is endless!  He talked about how he manages his time and how work isn’t really work because of his love for music. ” Yeah, it’s going to be interesting, but I’ve definitely done it before. When I started working at Triple J, I was in a band that was touring a lot and that was the first year was at the job when I also did three Australian tours, an overseas tour – booked all that myself. Throughout 2013 I wasn’t in an active band as such but still did a whole lot of tours, traveled on some as well and even this year before being in Colossvs, I’ve done a lot of touring either as a tour manager, just tagging along or as a fill-in vocalist. I think for me I’m lucky in that my work life, my social life and my hobbies are all tied in together, makes it a lot easier, and a lot of the time it doesn’t really feel like I’m doing work. Of course there’s the boring stuff that comes with it but it’s flexible, I can work from home – as long as I’m in a capital city I can do my show, and if I have internet connection I can do my label work. I think I’m just a hyperactive person in general, I like to get things done I like to travel given that I can work from the road, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. We’ll see how it goes!”

After a little more chit-chat, Lochlan had one final message before he hits the road with his new band!  “The album is out, check it out and have a listen because I think there’s something to be enjoyed in it for lots of different fans of metal and hardcore music – the shows are only going to be 10 – 15$ so it should be fun and hopefully see lots of people at the shows! Cheers!”

Colossvs begin their tour in Sydney this Friday on the 14th of November. Be sure to catch one of their shows, because it looks like it’s going to be an absolute riot!

Friday 14 November – The Factory Floor, Sydney
w/ Lo!, Legions, Vile Ways

Saturday 15 November – Crowbar, Brisbane
w/ Meth Drinker (NZ), Whitehorse, Defamer, Frown

Friday 21 November – The Reverence Hotel, Melbourne
w/ Jack The Stripper, Party Vibez, Imprisoned

Saturday 22 November – The Brisbane Hotel, Hobart
w/ Psycroptic, Ruins, The Absolution Sequence

Friday 28 November – YMCA HQ, Perth
w/ Earth Rot, Cursed Earth, Bounty Hunter

Saturday 29 November – Eliot Street Bar, Bunbury
w/ Earth Rot, Alignhate, Kimura, Reapers Riddle, Medudsa’s Gaze, Stone Lotus, Drown The Faith, Souls of Bughuul, Darkenium, Maleficar, Tears For Atlantis

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