Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Overcoming Adversity With GREG McMANUS From NAUGRIM
Transcript
- 0:00My name is Greg. I'm from the Bean Norgrim. We're just about to
- 0:04drop our new EP, Adversity. It's for fans of Lamb of God Arch
- 0:11Enemy as are they dying a bit of classic medical Yeah, we're fucking we're
- 0:16starked to get it out there. Really bets bro, sort of steal today's
- 0:20question, Like I was going to say that I said to release it if
- 0:22a w rep Adversity November tenth. So how are you feeling? Maybe you're
- 0:27nervous, Are you're excited? Y'ah? Anxious? Like what sort of feelings?
- 0:32Yeah, well, it's a little bit, a little bit anxious,
- 0:34I suppose is a bit of the unknown because you know, like we've sort
- 0:41of we've only been round a year and this is our sort of first major
- 0:45release. We played some pretty cool shows, but yeah, this is our
- 0:49first real test of the waters. I think. Yeah, bit nervous.
- 0:54Yeah, but you're no stranger to the music industry, like you've worked in
- 0:57it for a long time. Bro, But what's source of things? Do
- 1:00you focus on going into your debut album to make sure you get right?
- 1:06You know? It's funny like and I'm sure you're the same, like you
- 1:08see a lot of stuff, and you see a lot of different music and
- 1:11different bands and things. And the one thing for me personally I've been trying
- 1:15to concentrate on is not sort of letting that influence anything, if that makes
- 1:21sense, Like just trying to make sure that we're doing our own thing and
- 1:23that we're just happy with it, you know, like because there's so much
- 1:27stuff as popular or you can see what's sort of hitting real well, and
- 1:34it's just trying to do your own things still, I think if that makes
- 1:38sense, so tells a bit more about adversity from a musical point of view
- 1:42than Brian what you're going for with it. So what we're going for,
- 1:46like we're all big fans of like classic metalcore and just Lamb of God at
- 1:51the Gates as are they dying, So musically we're trying to we really admire
- 1:57like a lot of grindcore bands too, So it's got some speed blast beats,
- 2:04but then it's also got the groove side of it too, and even
- 2:08because we've got three of our members are in a doom band, there's even
- 2:12like melodic guitar solos and stuff in there too, so it gives it like
- 2:16a real good mix. Yeah, just no rules, no rules around what
- 2:22we wanted to do. The best thing with music made, no rules,
- 2:24just let it, let it write a same course. Yeah, we didn't
- 2:30want to try and fit into like a box or anything. Just try and
- 2:32do our own thing and see what hits, you know. But there's only
- 2:38five tracks on the EP or up mates, so I thought we'd run through
- 2:40them all wonder time and I can tell us a bit more about him,
- 2:43So we'll start with Destroyer. Yeah, so Destroyer is a song about what's
- 2:52the best way to scribe? Destroyer It's really it's about it's a it's about
- 2:58a faith destroyer really, so it's just the it's when you hit a point
- 3:02where like everything's blown out all hope if anything is probably one of the darkest
- 3:09sort of songs on the on the album, as in just where I was
- 3:13at at the time when we wrote it, and it's just it's it's lost,
- 3:22I suppose, just being lost and just no hope. Really yeah,
- 3:27it's kind of negative. But how about seven? So seven is about just
- 3:38cutting ties with people from the past and just how I suppose it's a little
- 3:44bit of COVID stuff in there around just how people changed during that period,
- 3:52and I don't know, like you know, some people just changed and like
- 3:57you wouldn't talk to and ships that were cut, not with me personally,
- 4:01but just from what I saw with friends and everything. And yeah, I
- 4:06think it's sort of really opened up humanity or what people are really like.
- 4:13So it's just cutting the ties from those people who just don't serve or you
- 4:16know, can't serve that need with you anymore, can't meet you on the
- 4:19same level. Yeah, and we've got abolition. I don't even know what
- 4:24that word means. Explain that to me as well. So I had the
- 4:31I had the meaning here man, because that was kind of bad. Like
- 4:34we came up with that was like a last minute song title name as we
- 4:39were recording it. So pretty much so this song was it's just about it's
- 4:46a lack of motivation pretty much abolition. So it's kind of like just indifference
- 4:51and you've got no motivation to do anything, get off your ass, or
- 4:57do anything at all. So it was pretty much just the vibe of that
- 5:01at the time. A lot of the songs and that when I've written them,
- 5:06they've been named off something. That's what's where I was at at that
- 5:12time. If that makes sense, Hey, then we've got a curse.
- 5:15So yeah, a curse is just so this is like it's mainly about anxiety
- 5:23this song and just self destruction really the verge of a panic attack and where
- 5:30that's at. I know, like there's a few a lot of people that
- 5:33suffer with it. But yeah, like crippling anxiety. Man, it's pretty
- 5:39much that song. It is what it's about. I don't get them as
- 5:43much anymore, but when they do come on, they're pretty ruthless a so,
- 5:48yeah, anxiety. Then it finishes off with from the Ashes. Yeah,
- 5:55so from the Ashes this is like rebirth, man, this is about
- 6:00just becoming the newer version of yourself. Like I made a lot of changes
- 6:06in my life over the second the second COVID lockdown here in Sydney. So
- 6:13what's that twenty twenty two? I think, no, twenty twenty one,
- 6:17whenever that was. But I made a lot of changes, man. I
- 6:21quit a corporate job, started running my own business, I went full balls
- 6:27deep back into music again and just I became the best version of myself I
- 6:32think. So I felt it was like a rebirth, like being reborn.
- 6:39Yeah, so it's just a rise from the ashes man becoming becoming like the
- 6:43best version of the true version of yourself. That sounds kind of cheesy,
- 6:47but some of the common sort of run through the album lyrically deal with depression,
- 6:55isolation, and addiction. So overall, would you say the epsp of
- 6:59hope or despair? I'd say hope, really, dude. It's like acknowledging
- 7:05those ship parts and then coming out the other side and working through it.
- 7:12Yeah, so it's definitely more hope than than loss. You know. I
- 7:16love to cover artwork too, bro, Like it's essentially a picture of the
- 7:20ocean meeting the mountains, but it's so much more going on there, Like
- 7:24what's the right to portray it looks? So that's kind of like a mix
- 7:29of us, I suppose, like we're sort of we're from the Blue mountains
- 7:31and everything, and we love nature where we're based. We wanted something that
- 7:40could be interpreted in a few different ways, and it wasn't you know,
- 7:45we didn't want to be sort of pigeonholed into like a pentagram and a you
- 7:48know what I mean. We just wanted to leave it open for interpretation more
- 7:53than anything else. Man. Yeah, we're pretty circle with it actually,
- 7:57like it's good. It's a good mix of a few different elements. Yeah,
- 8:01yeah, real stoked on it. Wait, you're got to be hitting
- 8:05the road surely, Tudor promote Adversary. So where are you headed and when?
- 8:09Yeah, so we're looking we're just looking to book shows and stuff now,
- 8:15probably from March and April, and we're going to hit like all the
- 8:18East Coast and then whatever opportunities come up in that as well. We're pretty
- 8:24much ready to go anytime. So yeah, we're just we're looking to have
- 8:31our own tour or go out with another band March for April at this stage.
- 8:37Wait, so Adversity is out on Friday November the cent Runners, So
- 8:41where can people get themselves hold of a copy? Or I have listened to it