Ultra//Negative Interview - May 2014

 

Long, long ago, in a time before the intrawebs, the majority of my music purchases were made based on band names and album art.  Sometimes it worked out well and other times not so great (motherfuck you Grim Reaper).  Seeing the name Ultra//Negative brought me back to those times and I knew I had to check them out.  Not only do they bring one of the best monikers in the game but they back it up with a dejected fury of hopelessness.  I tracked down Cody from Ultra//Negative and he was cool enough to answer some questions for ShatteredKnee.

For those that may not be familiar, can you introduce yourself, tell us who’s in the band, and tell us how Ultra//Negative got its start?

Well I’m Cody and i do vocals, Jan plays guitar and does bass on the recordings, and currently Tom plays drums. Jan plays in Ramlord as well and Tom played drums in Robocop. Ultra//negative was originally my idea and i was trying to play with a friend of mine to get the ball rolling, for some reason he told Jan to come by to watch and well Jan and i clicked and went off on our own. Jan and I got some songs together and asked a friend of his to plays drums (Dalton). This was the line up for everything but the LP. Tom moved down to our area from Bangor, Maine and we asked him to play drums for us, and for a short time Dalton moved to bass. Unfortunetly Dalton didn’t work out and had too many outside the band things to worry about so we continued with Tom as a 3 piece again.

You guys blend together several different styles.   It’s fast hardcore to me, but how do you describe your sound to someone?  Stylistically, where do you draw your influences from?

I personally am pretty lazy and general when i describe our sound. I just say fast hardcore/ power violence or whatever the person might understand really. We draw influences from everywhere, honestly Tom, Jan, and myself have very wide diverse tastes in music. From classical, to noise/power electronics, to death metal, to black metal, to k-pop. Well i guess its just me on the K-pop. haha. Jan and I definitely have quite a motivation to research music and new bands, were always bringing something new to each others attention. I guess i could say Assuck, Dystopia, and Gehenna have always done it for me personally, as bands that are still better than 99% of music that came after them. For recent listening for me I’d say i really enjoy the Timekiller “bleed out” ep,  the Silent Order “demo”, Silent Scream “public execution”, Asile “kichesippi toxique”, and a promo for the new Gas Chamber Lp. Oh and also Heresiarch “waelwulf” 

“Finally, I’m At Peace” came out in 2011 on DIY Noise and is a blast of raw energy and hardship.  That was only released on cassette, right?  I remember seeing a CVLT Nation write up about it back then.  Those songs are as hard as it gets, how did that release come about and what kind of response did it get?

Yeah I believe it was released twice on cassette with 50 copies each. Once on DIY Noise and once on Opaqus records. These songs are mostly the songs I had written before i met Jan, with of course tweaks to them from Jan and Dalton.  Purge and From Nothing To Nothing are both their songs as well. I’ve definitely heard a lot of good feedback from the tape but i don’t really think it got out to many people. I guess i haven’t heard anything negative from it yet. haha.


Your “Rebirth” video on Youtube really captures the essence of “Finally, I’m At Peace.”  Is the fact that Youtube hasn’t banned that video a testament to how underground you are or their overall appreciation of how well done it really is?

Haha! Jan made this video. Jan’s into the gory stuff and at the time that kind of imagery really showed how i was feeling. So we clicked on that and thats what came out on all the early imagery. Id say youtube hasn’t banned it because no one knows its there haha.

I remember hearing rumors about a possible split with Water Torture.  Did that ever happen?  If not, is it still alive?

Well i'll answer this one straight up. At one point Water Torture sent us rough masters without vocals of their half of the split to check out. We remained in contact a bit and we weren’t in any rush and Water Torture was touring a lot. Then one day i downloaded the Water Torture/ Six brew bantha split and i listened to it and was like Ive heard this material before, and i came to the realization that it was the rough masters they had sent me earlier. From there i sent them an email if they were still interested in doing the split and they never responded. So to answer your question no splits are in the works, and not to say this is 100% but that LP probably will be the last thing released. 

Last year you put out the split 7” with Ira Graves, a band I don’t hear enough about out here, and it’s a complete monster.  How did that split come about?  How do feel it turned out?

Well Ira Graves is from south of boston and we both got put on a show together. A few days later Jan and I went to a Weekend Nachos show and we recognized them there too, so we started chatting. So I asked them to do a split. I’m quite happy with the split, Ira Graves rule and are awesome people. We did a mini weekend tour with them a few years back too and had a lot of fun. My only gripe with that split is it took like a year and a half after we recorded to get it out. Mostly because finding a label is impossible for us. We still don’t have a label for the LP just 30 rejection letters ha.


Along those lines, I have to ask about “From Nothing to Nothing”.  It was on “Finally, I’m At Peace” and it showed up again on the Ira Graves split.  I could loop that song for an entire day.  What made you put that song on the split over any of the others?

Well i thought it was one of our better songs and I hated how Finally sounded so we decided to rerecord it and put it on the split. Throat Cutters Union is from Finally and is on the LP too. We’ve actually recorded that one 3 times now due to the fact we were putting it on the Water Torture split.

Your lyrics and the way you deliver them is super intense. You touch on scene bullshit, social bullshit, you can be self-deprecating, and graphic.   What’s your process for laying down lyrics to a song?  You’ve got that throwback 90’s, higher end, powerviolence vocal delivery, is that a strategy or just the way it happened?

I guess I’m kinda just an intense angry person at times, Especially at the times for those songs. I’ve actually had multiple people who don’t know each other relate me to the “Dexter character” on the Showtime show. Im not sure if thats a good thing or a bad thing at this point. When i write i just go, just write what pops out of my head. I normally write very quickly and generally think what ever flys out of my head quickly is the best. Its definitely something that eases me, If i didn’t say things the way they came out then i don’t think it would be as much of a catharsis for me.  Its purely my anger coming out, i don’t mean to shock with it and hopefully i don’t offend too many people with them. As far as my vocal delivery its definitely just how it comes out, i don’t try to do anything special its just my natural. 

What’s the current  state of the band?  I thought I’d read of some internal strife and a send off show after the Ira Graves split, yet your bandcamp has an upcoming full length on it, which seems like a culmination of most of your previously recorded songs.  Are you guys still active?  Are you still playing shows?  

We are currently a band, Tom decided to move to Oakland for school but had to come home due to some issues on the home front.  Tom now lives 3 hours north of Jan and I, so we are together but the distance slows things down a lot. We haven’t played any shows this year, but we have one coming up May 20th in new jersey with Chainsaw to the Face and Detroit, plus some others. 
 
Speaking of that upcoming album on your bandcamp, do you have a label for that?  Any planned release date?  That Partisans cover is perfect.

We don’t have a label yet to release it on LP, we’ve had a hard time finding one. Though Broken Limbs is going to put it out on tape.


What’s your biggest gripe in the scene?  Lack of all ages venues?  Band shirts with lyric verses on the back?  Dudes like me being able to track you down via the internet?  Violence?  Politics…etc?

For me, I generally hate punk kids. The loud obnoxious ones that destroy stuff. Its just obnoxious and childish to me. They just want fucking attention and live their little scripted punk dream. Also it kinda annoys me the hype bands get, I just think a lot of bands are scripted clones with no real personality, but yet they have labels releasing every little thing they do and have malls for merch. I guess people just have horrible taste. haha

What’s the state of the New Hampshire/New England scene?  Is it primarily venue driven up there or mostly house shows?  Any bands up your way that we should know about here in the Midwest?

There is no New Hampshire scene, house shows rarely happen, due to cops ect. A few bar venues exist but its just generally the same few bands that play the same old boring post metal clone stuff. Boston is pretty much the music scene, a lot of good bands and very productive people. Unfortunetly late last year they passed some sort of law to deal with parties and undercover cops starting busting shows before and while they were happening. In turn its gotten a lot more “ask a punk” to find out about shows, which sucks up here in New Hampshire. I tend to miss some cool stuff. I did just see Column of Heaven last week and they were great!


I appreciate your time in doing this and hope to see that full length on wax.  Anything else you’d like to put out there?  Any advice?Recommendations?

We’d like to thank you for wanting to hear our opinions  and we always appreciate the support.

Much respect to Cody and all of U//N for doing what they do.  Their LP is streaming below, but be sure to check out Ultra//Negative's bandcamp page for all their stuff.  Also, be on the lookout for an upcoming split featuring Ultra//Negative and Sickmark(Germany).  Any labels out there that are looking to help out with  this crucial LP can contact U//N at shokthis@hotmail.com