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Bringing The Fire With The HUMAN FURNACE From RINGWORM · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  Yeah, this is a human furnace from Ringworm and today we're gonna be talking
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  about our brand new record coming out called Seeing Through Fire. It comes out
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  August eighteenth on Nuclear Blast Records, and uh yeah, we're gonna chat a
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  little bit about it. Yeah that maye. Thanks for joining us this morning.
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  You're welcome as decided to be here. The Ringworm will unleash your night
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  studio album Seeing Through Fire, on August at eight eight. So you guys
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  a know strangers to release in music, mate, But do you still get
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  nervous or anxious the closer it gets to release date? No? Never,
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  No, no, I never do. I mean we get excited. I
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  wouldn't say nervous. I mean, you know, we've been down this,
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  we've done this before, and you know, like a lot of bands,
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  this record was done a long time ago. I mean the record had been
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  done well over a year ago. I mean it takes a while these days
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  to get a record out, so we've been sitting on it for a while.
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  So if anything, it will be a relief, like finally this record
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  comes out, you know. So yeah, we're we're pretty psyched for it.
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  It all worked out. Sometimes if when you're patient because we're originally going
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  to put this record on ourselves, because we went in the studio recorded it
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  and we're intent on putting it out ourselves. And then we were patient with
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  a little bit and because of that, we were able to connect with Nuclear
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  Blast and they were all about putting it out and doing it for us.
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  So we're very excited about that. Thank you. Tell us a bit more
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  about the album from a musical point of view and what are you going for
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  with it? Well, you know with this one are the way we go
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  about records is it doesn't change too much. I mean, we are we
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  are how do you say it? We're not ashamed to say that we're maybe
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  a one or a two trick pony, meaning you know, meaning we don't
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  want to We don't We're not going to reinvent the wheel. But what we
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  try to do is say, perhaps reinvent our own wheel every so often.
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  I mean, you know, there's a lot of bands that you want,
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  you know you're going to expect from them, like bands like Motorhead or ac
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  DC or Boat Thrower. You know, you know what you're going to get
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  from them, and that is totally fine, you know, So we don't
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  ever feel the urge to upend what we do and what we've always done.
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  Now that being said, with this new one, musically, as far as
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  the songs go, we've always been a band that has incorporated, even from
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  our demo f in nineteen ninety one, we've always incorporated a little bit of
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  everything. We've had some grindcore, thrash, metal, hardcore, punk rock,
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  you know what I mean. We've always been a kind of a hybrid
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  band. We've never really we've been pigetoled into one thing. Because some people
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  call us the hardcore band, some people call us the metal band. You
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  know. Some people from a different point and be like, hey, you
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  guys sound like a punk rock band, you know what I mean. So
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  throughout the throughout the years, and through each record, all that, all
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  those elements are built into our DNA. So some records have a little bit
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  higher count of met some have leaning a little bit towards more hardcore, but
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  all those elements are in there. With this new one, we kind of
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  think we leveled everything out, so there's equal amounts of just about everything that
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  we kind of bring to the table. There's there's still a lot of punk
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  rock field to it, but then there's some some hardcore stuff that that's definitely
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  in there. There's definitely some thrash metal, definitely some grind, there's a
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  little bit of elements of death metal. So I think with this new one
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  musically songwise speaking, we've kind of leveled everything off and kind of went back
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  to our first couple of records where we had a you know, a fresh
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  mix of all of our I guess influences. Yeah, that's fantastic, right,
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  I probably one of the Yeah ever had you released the singles on No
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  Solid Snoke, Arter My Mercy and Thought Crime, So would you say they
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  would go to Sonny representation or what do we expect? Yeah, I mean
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  that's what we tried to do. It was kind of hard to pick.
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  You know, there's a lot of other really catchy ones on that album,
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  but we picked those two. It's pretty good representation. Thought Crimes is just
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  lights out speed. The other one has a good some good heavy hooks in
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  it, some good mosh stuff, some a lot of good headbanging stuff.
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  So you know, the Crimes also says kind of a dead punk rock debeat
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  swing to it too that we were love. So I think it's a pretty
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  good mix of what you're gonna hear on the rest of the record. Yeah.
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  I love the film No Solace too, bro like when you've got a
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  battle waging between two vikings in the forest, But that looked like a lot
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  of yeah, look like Yeah, that was pretty fun. We looked up
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  some of some friends of ours, this company called The Coin and usually I'm
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  I'm somewhat of a control freak when it comes to aesthetics and stuff, and
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  they took the They had a lot of great ideas for that, so I
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  kind of let them do their thing with it, and they did a great
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  job with it. We kind of we went over the song and what it
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  kind of means a little bit, and they kind of came up with a
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  little direction to go with it, and uh, I thought they did great
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  with it. We have another video that we did with them that's going to
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  be coming on very soon too, for another track on the record, So
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  I'm excited for that one as well. Yeah, Hey, you sort of
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  touched on this a little bit, Ellio bit, you're quite only saying that
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  we wanted to go with a slightly different approach and looked in previous releases on
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  these records, So can you elaborate on that furs Well, you know,
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  it was a strange thing and uh, you know, with you know,
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  when when we put on our previous record in twenty nineteen, we did a
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  little bit of monitoring for it, and we were really gung how about kind
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  of really taking it out there and doing some touring, go to Europe because
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  we hadn't been there a while. We were gonna try to do a lot
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  of stuff with that record. And then, of course, you know,
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  the world shutdown for two years, you know, and that was a really
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  tough thing for a lot of bands to deal with. Some of them some
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  bands didn't make it, you know, some bands just couldn't do it,
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  you know. And so we had just that was our third record with Relapse,
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  so our contract was up with them, but they had the option to
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  do another record and they wanted to pass on it. So we were like,
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  okay, that's fine. And at the time at the time, like
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  you know, the world may have been shut down for two years, but
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  there were still bands writing and recording music. So there just came this bottleneck
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  of like hundreds of releases that these labels had to deal with, you know.
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  So even if you know, we were to stick with Relapse, we
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  probably wouldn't have been able to get a record out with them for till twenty
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  twenty four, basically because they were still bottlenecked. And you know, so
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  we were like, you know what, that's okay. But at the time,
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  we had lost our manager, we had lost a booking agent, we
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  lost our label, you know, we had a lot we didn't you know
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  what I mean, And then the world shut down and we're like, ow,
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  So we just went back to what we always do. We're like,
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  you know, we love doing this, so let's just write a record.
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  Let's just write it our you know, record it, put it on ourselves,
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  and this is what we're here for. You know. We're not here
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  to make millions or to you know, play the coliseum. We're here to
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  just make a record that we like. So that's what we did. And
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  so it seemed like a fresh start for us, you know, and in
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  particularly the way we recorded this record. As far as the sonic elements of
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  this record, it's it's just, you know, all our records are aggressive
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  and mean and nasty, but this one just kind of ups the annie a
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  little bit. And then with the artwork, I took a fresh take on
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  the artwork. So that felt like a new a new era, I guess,
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  kind of getting away from the three previous ones I did for the Relapse
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  albums. So everything just felt pretty fresh and new. And when we were
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  done with it, our engineer Noah I was like, guys, I know
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  you're gonna put this side to yourselves, but this record sounds pretty fucking good.
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  He's like, do yourselves a favor, and just at least for me,
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  just go shop this around. And we were able to. I had
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  a couple of friends and I was able to talk to some people and Nuclear
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  Blast gave it a listen and right away they're like, yeah, we want
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  to do this, let's put it out. So from there on we're like,
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  okay, let's do it. And things kind of came back all around
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  again. So so I think go back to the beginning of the band,
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  Mate like a ringweb started in Cleveland, o Hire back in nineteen eighty nine.
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  So what was supper climate like that gave birth to the band and where
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  did you fit in initially? Well, that's that's really awesome because back in
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  eighty nine, you know, there wasn't so many you didn't have to be
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  piget holed into a certain genre. There wasn't that many back then, you
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  know what I mean. Before that was before internet, before i'll type of
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  stuff where you could put your music into certain folders, you know what I
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  mean, like this type of grind, that grind, you know, this
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  core, that core. There wasn't that, you know what I mean.
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  There was very few genres that you could get placed in, so to speak.
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  You know, crossover was one of those genres where they you just I
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  don't know what they are there, crossover, and that's kind of where we
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  fell in because we would end up playing shows with straight up metal bands and
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  straight up punk bands on the bill and then us, you know, so
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  it was it was a good time where you know, it was kind of
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  the wild West in a certain way because there were so many different bands just
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  all in the same bill, and it was great because you get to hear
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  all types of stuff. And so as time progressed out of that and we
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  kind of took our progressions where we were going, you know, and I
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  guess the hardcore genre went one way and the metal went one way, and
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  we kind of just kept going straight down the middle. So at a certain
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  point we would kind of get I guess people sometimes had a difficult way of
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  putting us in a genre because sometimes where they'd be like, well, they're
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  too hardcore to be metal, and then other people like, well, they're
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  too metal to be hardcore. So we always fucking found our way to kind
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  of ride the fence or to our favor or sometimes not, because when you
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  get labeled a hardcore band, okay, you know, in my eyes,
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  you know, Terror or Agnostic Front, they're more mad Ball. Those are
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  hardcore bands to me kind of, you know. And if someone's like,
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  oh, Ringworm, they're a hardcore band. You know, if you're a
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  metal head, you're like, no, I've heard mad Ball on all of
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  them. I don't like hardcore, and they wouldn't give they wouldn't give us
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  the time of day, and vice versa. Metal bands like I don't like
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  hardcore bands, you know, or hardcore guys like I don't like metal bands.
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  So that we would always ride this fence and not get listened to by
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  either side because we were categorized as one of the other. So over time
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  we kind of forged our own little niche in the middle where we just we've
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  always incorporated everything, so sometimes that's good because both sides or you know,
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  more people can like you. But in a way, sometimes some people won't
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  listen to you because they think that you sound something that you don't. You
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  know what I'm saying. It's difficult. It's sometimes it's difficult, but we
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  wouldn't change a thing. We still we do what we do. You know,
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  So you've got seeing three five comes out on old side eight Fight.
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  But what's the next for Ring Web after that? What do you got playing
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  for the rest of the year. Well, well we we go. Let's
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  see. Next week we have a pre record release show we're playing here in
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  town with death metal band nun Slaughter and Deceased. So that should be really
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  fun show here in Cleveland. I think that one's sold out already. Then
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  we kind of completely flipped the script and two days later we go up too,
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  just like I was talking about, we're playing a death metal show Unslaughter
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  in the Ceased. Two days later we're up in Detroit playing with Sick of
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  It All and Life of Agony. So they're that right there, shows you
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  the econonomy of this band. You could do this. We can play with
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  these death metal bands and then we could go play with Sick of It All
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  so and then after that we have after the record comes out, we do
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  a three week tour on the East coast United States with Venom Inc. And
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  old school British heavy metal band Satan. So that's gonna be awesome. So
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  that's a totally fan base right there. That's we're going out with Venom and
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  we're playing with you know, we just did Cromgs so we could fit in
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  with everybody. And then after that it's not it's not set yet, but
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  we let's just say that you you where are you calling me from Brisbane?
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  Which? What's what city? Brisbane? Where? Brisbane? Oh? I
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  just did one from Brisbane this afternoon. But I'll tell you this same thing.
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  You may be seeing our band down there before the end of the year.
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  Very good man. Well, if that's the case, I'll make sure
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  I come along and we have ourselves be out all right, we'll have more
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  than one has. Girl says even better. We're working on logistics to try
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  to make that work. It's it's it's always difficult these days. It's always
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  has been coming down there. But we're hopeful that we can make it work
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  because we've we've been down there like four times in our career, and we've
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  loved every single time. It's been awesome. So oh well, I might
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  push you for too much for all, mate, but hopefully that does happen
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  and we see you out of his end. Yeah you bet, you bet
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  all right, brother, Well, thanks very much for your time. But
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  I got to call you James because calling you human Furnace just does. It's
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  okay. Human Furnace is my stage name, my stripper name. I'm glad
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  you kept your clothes on for this one, mate, too early in the
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  morning from late mail nudity. You can't see me from the waist down,
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  so I mean, don't stand up. I haven't had pants. I've been
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  doing zoom meetings all day. I haven't got it to put pants on.
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  Man, may be a favorite. Don't stand up? All right? Right?
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  Yeah brother? Well see you through Fire is out August, like you
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  say, she's a crack about out a listener before this interview and very very
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  very good album mate, so but luck with it and nope, you're out
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  here before Christmas. Sounds good to me.