That night, The Razorblade Dolls commanded our attention with a slate of seething scorch-outs, revving in the red on a seemingly bottomless tank of industrial filth and fury not fully realized on its 2008 self-titled debut (pictured). Now, after swapping in a new drummer (Logan Coughran) and releasing a second independent album, A Name for Evil, vocalist Smitty (pictured, above left), whose throat-rattling scream is a force of nature, and guitarist Skar (above right) reveal the thrust behind the serrated songcraft and envelope- pushing live show that has landed them opening slots for such seminal acts as Front Line Assembly, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, the Revolting Cocks and Combichrist.
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Why is gritty horror, as the band’s bio states, the group’s "bread and butter?" Skar: Using horror and gore has always kind of helped us express the meaning of a song better. When we play, we feel like serial killers and just can’t help acting it out.
Smitty: There’s nothing that really separates us from any other shock rock band or theatrical group that has come before. We’re like film di- rectors. In almost all horror films, you have the mirror scene in the bathroom – the one where someone looks at himself, then looks down or away, and when he looks back, something happens to scare the audience. Because that’s such a horror cliché, it’s the director’s job to make it his own. Jesse James Dupree of Jackyl chainsaws chairs; I chainsaw pig heads. Till Lindemann of Rammstein beats himself with a whip; I beat myself with a chain. ... Everything has been done; a good horror director knows how to make it something fresh and new.
Have you ever run into trouble bringing such gruesome theatricality to the stage? Skar: We have been banned from a couple of places in Texas. I remember
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uring last year’s Texas Frightmare Weekend in Dallas, a few members of the Rue Crew caught a set by a band that had re- portedly been splattering stages with bodily fluids – real and synthetic, human and animal – since forming in late 2006.
Smitty threw raw liver at a show one time and it got stuck between the stage and the wall. Apparently it smelled like death in there for a few months. He’s done some pretty sick shit.
The band has also recreated scenes from horror movies during numer- ous shows. How did you choose which films to pay tribute to? Smitty: We’ve done three big ones: Re-Animator, because the green liquid in the syringe looks strange in a club in the dark, especially when the dominant colour is black and red. The Phantom of the Opera, because I used to do an incredible amount of different makeups on myself, and I wanted to do the scene where Christine removes the mask and Erik goes berserk because of his appearance. Lon Chaney, Sr. is my biggest influence. And Hellraiser, be- cause I wanted to come out of a mattress like Julia did in part two. That scene is grisly.
What’s the best opening slot the band has played? Skar: When we opened up for Michale Graves at a local horror convention called Fear Fest. It was at a hotel so, of course, when Smitty starting sawing a pig’s head in half and throwing chunks of bloody, raw meat, the people in charge of the convention got pretty angry. I’m not sure how, but some blood ended up being smeared on every toilet in the women’s restroom. I’m not saying [band members] Helz or Rah might have had something to do with that, but they might have.
If we gave you $100,000 and told you to put on a show, what would you do?
Smitty: I always wanted to just have free rein but keep it tasteful. I never wanted to do a Rob Zombie-, Alice Cooper- or Marilyn Manson-type of show. To me, that still has a traditional rock ’n’ roll element. I want to strip that away and make it more surreal and German Expressionistic. All other horror bands remind me of Freddy Krueger: lots of energy and horror, but [also] a hint of fun. I want to be very cold and ancient, like the Cenobites. Just sexless and cold, but with a superior presence of true horror.