GOATWHORE – BEN FALGOUST

Goatwhore have been attacking ear-drums with their heavy tunes since 1997 and still continue to do so almost two decades later. Ahead of their third visit to our shores, Metal Obsession had an awesome chat with Ben Falgoust, frontman of the band and all-round nice guy about the band’s latest release, travelling around the world, their upcoming Australian tour supporting our very own Psycroptic and so much more.

After exchanging the customary greetings (and him calling me Ma’am), Ben talked about the band’s latest album and how things are going well for the band. “ Everything’s great, I couldn’t be happier with how things have worked out and the album as well. We just got back from our European tour as well which was insane so we’re just enjoying playing the new album live to all the fans and now looking forward to doing that in Australia too!”

Goatwhore were confirmed  just a few weeks ago to do an Australian tour alongside our boys in Psycroptic and Ben is pretty excited! ” Well, I think it’s awesome that we get to go back to Australia after all these years. Usually when you do an Australian tour you do all the main cities, and maybe even add in New Zealand if it fits with the schedule but this time it’s going to be 12 shows over three weeks which is amazing. We’ve know Dave and Psycroptic for a really long time now and when he told us about doing a tour in all these little nooks and crannies and in support of Psycroptic, we just had to do it. It’s definitely going to be a unique experience because I don’t think very many bands get the chance to do something like this! Also we know the kind of following Psycroptic has in the country and that they’re one of Australia’s best extreme metal talents so we thought it would be a great opportunity for us as well.”

Last time the NOLA based metallers were last in the country in 2010 and Ben thinks this time is going to be just as great, possibly even better than the last tour. ” The shows last time were really good, the fans and the crowds were crazy and it was the first time we came there as a headliner so it was a great tour they went really well. So I think this time around, the fact that we’re touring with Psycroptic and playing with some other notable Australian metal bands, it’s going to be a really good time. This time we’re also doing two shows in Hobart,Tasmania which is really cool because like I said there’s not a lot of extreme metal bands that can say they’ve played in Tasmania!”

Ben and I shared our common love for travel and given the crazy number of shows that Goatwhore are known to do without a break, Ben couldn’t stop talking about how much he loves it. ” We’re always in and out of cities so it is hard to catch a break during tours but sometimes we’re lucky enough to get off days and that’s when I love going out into the city and exploring a bit. I go to this website called AtlasObscura which is this website where you can type in any city or any place in the entire world and it lists all these little weird places, unique places to go I even looked up things inh my own place and found things that I didn’t even know existed. Really unique, rare, obscure kinda places! It’s really useful for the kind of travelling that I do.”

Talking about extensive touring, the band recently did a European tour with Dying Fetus. Guess how many? ” Yeah that was intense [laughs]. We did a total of 43 shows in 45 days I think. I guess you just go with it because eventually you get used to that kind of lifestyle. You just do it. It’s a kind of regimen and that’s how it is with everyone in the band – we tour and we tour and we tour as much as we possibly can. We’re trying to actually bring that down now, because after our latest release we wanted to tour more outside of the US. So we’ve been focusing more on getting out of the US and heading to places that are completely different. After we tour Australia, we fly straight out after a couple of days to Oslo for Inferno which is crazy and to kick off our tour with Skeletonwitch! We want to keep that cycle going and then we’ll head back to the US because we’re actually working on some new material already!”

Pretty much exactly what I wanted to hear – updates on new Goatwhore! ” Well, it’s gonna take us a little while to put together and Constricting Age hasn’t even been out for a full year yet we definitely have some ideas but because we tour so much we don’t really write our stuff when we’re on the road so it’s all when we’re back home. We just focus on the touring and having a good time then. But yeah we’ve got a few things in the works. ”

 The band released their latest album ‘Constricting Age of the Merciless’ last year and Ben talked about how it all came together and how they approached this one. ” It was pretty much the same way as we always work on our music. We get together, pool in ideas, put songs together, tear them up, piece them back together and we keep doing that till we think what we have is perfect and till we’re satisfied that these songs are the way we want them and the way we want them to be in a live setting as well. It was so great to work with Erik (Rutan) again as well, he really played a big part in how this album sounded. I mean we learn so much from him every time and he knows us and our music. Even though we’re really good friends, he stands his ground when it comes to our performance and that’s what we like when we’re recording. ”

Benjamin Falgoust had one last message to the Australian fans and what they can expect from the likes of the mighty Goatwhore! ” We’re gonna come and give it 110% like we always do so definitely be ready, we’re gonna have a really good time and we hope to see all of you there with us!”

Don’t miss out on this MASSIVE tour featuring some of Australia’s most extreme music. 

Grab your tickets and head to one of the shows at the dates below:

Goatwhore Australian Tour 2015

03/12 Perth, AU Amplifier
03/13 Melbourne, AU The Hi-Fi
03/14 Adelaide, AU The New Dead Festival at Fowlers Live
03/15 Ballarat, AU Karova Lounge
03/18 Launceston, AU Club 54
03/19 Hobart, AU The Brisbane Hotel
03/20 Geelong, AU The Barwon Club
03/21 Melbourne, AU Wrangler Studios
03/25 Canberra, AU The Basement
03/26 Newcastle, NZ The Cambridge Hotel
03/27 Sydney, AU The Factory Theater
03/28 Brisbane, AU Crowbar

For tickets and more info:
www.metalblade.com/goatwhore

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