Photo: William Adam Russ

Craig Westwood – The Ruiner

Australian metal supergroup, The Ruiner originally formed in 2012 as a tribute band to Melbourne-based death/grind/stoner band Christbait (1989-1996), having performed then under the moniker of Dirtypunkmutha (the title of Christbait’s 1996 release, and the band’s sole full-length album). With the early intention to only perform a couple of shows and then call it quits, they managed to recruit original Christbait members Jason Vassallo (vocals) and Craig Westwood (guitars), and The Ruiner continued forward. Now, after much wait, this year has seen The Ruiner release their debut self-titled full-length via Desert Highways on September 26. The Ruiner are currently gearing up for their album launch show this Saturday (Nov. 5) at The Tote in Melbourne. Jonathon Besanko for Metal Obsession caught up with Craig Westwood to discuss in often-amusingly-honest style the origins of The Ruiner, his career with heavier, chugging music, and their impending album launch. Read on below!

What are you hoping to bring forth with your album launch, I ask? “Try and get through the set without fucking it up! [laughs] We have high expectations of ourselves. I guess it’s an opportunity to play the whole album from start to finish, because most shows the set times are a bit quicker so you tend to drop a few songs to fit in with everyone else. But with this, we get an opportunity to have the time and space to go through everything, which is kind of a novelty unfortunately sometimes.”

The Ruiner self-titled album had been a few years coming. I asked Craig what his current feelings are now it’s finally out there? “I guess it’s kind of that ‘unfinished business’ thing in that it’s finally finished. So you can put that behind you and go, ‘Okay’. That piece of the last three or four years that we’ve been playing is put in a compartment, really. Then you go, that’s the end of that period, and then you can move forward and look at doing other things. But it’s good looking back at it — you can kind of appreciate it more, instead of being caught in the middle of it. Personally, I’ve been enjoying listening to it, which is pretty much my main motivation for any music I do. I like to create it for my own consumption, really.”

‘The Ruiner’, out now via Desert Highways

I was curious to discover whether there been much of an evolution with the album; if it grew much over the years, or if it has stayed much the same to when it began? “Totally,” Craig affirms. “Because the band formed out of a tribute band for another band I was in, Christbait. And the lineup — once we’d done those couple of shows for that little project or event — we kind of just went, ‘Let’s just see if we can write some stuff and keep it going as a band’. We took the personnel that we used for that. I’ve been in bands with Jason ‘PC’ Fuller for a long time and I’ve been in a band with the vocalist, Jason [Vassallo], for a long time, but with the other guys, Adam [Stokes] and Ben [Stokes], collectively we’d never really worked together and it was more of an opportunity where we could all pretty much write. I made a point of keeping it that way because I could write a lot, and have a shitload of music there and go, ‘Here’s an album’s worth of stuff’. It was more seeing how that would work. We’re now on the other side of that and I guess we’ve come out with an album we’re reasonably pleased with. So that’s throwing our hats as caution to the wind, and I think that aspect has paid off and worked for us. It was a complete unknown, so I guess that’s where it evolved: that it’s gone past one month to where we are today.”

With Craig being one of Christbait’s original guitarists, I pondered whether it was easy convincing him to come back and perform these songs? “For the Christbait material, I guess the main motivation or incentive for me to do it was I hadn’t played these songs for twenty years, and I really didn’t see myself getting an opportunity to play them again, and I do enjoy playing them in a live format.”

Had you not played with Jason for a while either; was it a shock performing with him again too?  “We socially always catch up. I mean, we play poker together on a regular basis. So we’ve always been in touch. We’ve known each since high school, so we’ve always been friends. So ‘V’ and I… musically we hadn’t done anything. ‘V’ hadn’t done anything in a while anyway, since his last band Dread ended years ago as well. So I guess he was interested in it, so it was good to do that with him again. And Jason Fuller as well — we did Dern Rutlidge together and stuff, so we’ve always kind of done music together in one form or another.”

I was interested to hear how Craig would define the difference between Christbait and The Ruiner — both in the music, and where he was then in your life, as opposed to he is now, and he gave quite an honest and interesting answer. “I have a job now and a house [laughs], but back then, we were unemployed and leaving off our parents or share-housing. It was a whole different era in your life personally, and financially as well. I mean with The Ruiner, in the past year, three of us have had kids. There’s been a lot of other kids going on priority wise, whereas back in Christbait, you had a bit more leisure time where you could drink, sleep, and make music, but you didn’t really have any other responsibilities. I think The Ruiner sort of fits in the gaps of where we have all of our other priorities in our lives. Whereas, back in Christbait days, that was what we did: we didn’t really have much else. It was a whole different maturity level and everything was new to us back then. These days, there’s so many bands and everything’s kind of been done; everything’s fairly derivative of each other. I mean, really, you could say The Ruiner is derivative of Christbait, so I’m being derivative of what I’ve already done. So I guess with The Ruiner, we’re walking over ground that’s already been covered, but I’m better at what I do now than what I did back then. But then the spontaneity was a lot fresher.”

It’s an interesting way of looking at it, I note: how it’s almost like visiting the past, but approaching with a new level of maturity and sophistication gained from all of Craig’s experiences up until this point in his life. “I suppose it’s kind of going back and revisiting concept’s I’d had back then but hadn’t really thought about for a long time. I’ve done other things musically that weren’t as heavy, so The Ruiner’s the closest thing to what Christbait was today. It’s more akin to what I was doing initially back then, so it’s going back to my roots kind of music.”

What’s fascinating about The Ruiner in your current lineup is that each of you have crossed paths at one time or another through your many different bands. How much more organic did that make the process when you were all forming The Ruiner? “I guess you don’t have to learn too much about people strengths and weaknesses. With Adam and Ben, the other guitarist and the drummer, I hadn’t played with them before, but I’d known of their work before. They’re pretty highly skilled musicians, so I like what they do. It makes life easier for us to what we’re doing as there’s no real work to it. I guess the way we write songs is different, and how we think about how a song should be are like polar opposites. But I guess that’s the challenge of trying to meet the middle ground, and try and make songs happen. That’s usually our bigger challenge: our thought process and how a song comes together are different, but we manage to corral it in the end. But mind you, there’s a lot of songs that don’t make it. [laughs] There’s probably  more songs that remain unfinished as opposed to what gets to the finished line.”

Craig has always played in stoner and doom metal style bands. I wondered what is it about this music that attracts him as a guitarist and vocalist? “I think it’s suitable to my limited skill level, I guess. [laughs] I’m no real great virtuoso or anything like that. I’m a pretty average guitar player for the amount of years I’ve been playing, but I guess I put out of what I put in. I’m more of a spontaneity sort of guy where I work with what I know — I’ve never been a shredder or anything like that. There’s so many people out there who clearly play better, or are more and more skilled than I am, but I guess I’m more about the songs. These days, I think I always have been. The reason I wrote all of my own material was because I really wasn’t competent enough to cover other people’s material ‘cause I was just too lazy to work out other people’s music. So I guess it just inherently developed a style that I have. That’s why I intend to gravitate towards this — I like the heavy music, I like the resonance too of it. It appeals to me. I have done other music that’s not stoner or heavy or whatever, but I do find myself gravitating back to it because I like the frequency and resonance that I get from it. It works for me.”

What’s next for The Ruiner after the album launch? “We’ve got River Rocks in Geelong at the Barwon Club Hotel, which they’ve kindly invited us back to. It’s our third year in a row now. Usually most things I’m involved with, we do it, and then no one invites us back again. Whether it’s us as a group or they don’t like us, but they’ve been kind enough to have us back. It’s a really good festival. It sells out every year and we seem to get a really good response, and our sound works well with the lineup. There’s always a very eclectic and broad palette of music there, and I think we just fill that little gap so it works. Then the night after that, the 20th I think, we’re at The Tote playing with Dirt Clod Fight from the US, who Christbait actually did a split with back in ’94 [Truckin’ / I Got Crazy Things from Death Valley Records]. So that’s going to be interesting to do. They’re really the only the only two shows. I think there’s some stuff lined up next year (maybe in March), but we really don’t have tours or anything. Our lives are kind of full of domestic bullshit really, but we squeeze in The Ruiner when the appropriate shows turn up, but we don’t really cause it, we don’t really chase it. It’s just not on our radar. We just get together because we get along and we seem to make ok music together, and we don’t really push it any further than that.

“It’s a complete polar opposite to what we used to do in bands. I know when I was in Dern Rutlidge and Christbait, there was a lot more focus on trying to get shows and tours and get on the road and get albums out. But personally, I’ve moved on from that. Particularly in today’s modern era of music, with he amount of work you put into it and just the shitty return you get with it. I just choose not to participate in the whole thing anymore. If people want the music, they’re welcome to come to it, but we’re not going cheaply or going out of our way. The Ruiner’s kind of “moving forward”, I guess, to be a corporate kind of wanker buzz word type of person. We do it when it works and all the pieces fall into place, but we’re happy just rolling on and doing our own sort of thing. As long as the music’s good, then we’ll keep doing it. I think that’s the main motivator.”

Any final words for your fans anticipating the show? “Turn up, have a good night, don’t be an asshole to each other, y’know, enjoy. Give us a bit of slack or leniency! [laughs] It’s hard to actually try and slog rehearsals together. I think we’re potentially rusty because we don’t do a lot of tours. Anything could happen on the night. It’s rock’n’roll, so it could be a night of surprises!”

For those in Melbourne, be sure to catch The Ruiner this Saturday at The Tote where they’ll be launching their brand new, self-titled debut! Joining them will be local acts, Horsehunter, Watchtower & Bunyip.

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1126164277481566/

The Ruiner is available now through Desert Highways. Click the link HERE to stream and purchase:

http://deserthighways.bandcamp.com/album/the-ruiner

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