Knife Fight, an international two-piece slamming brutal beatdown project, have been making splashes in the underground scene with 2 EPs that have raised the bar for HEAVY. I caught up with Vocalist BT and Instrumentalist Sebastian in the below interview. Enjoy, get familiar, and click the links at the bottom!!
CEREBRALREVIEWMENT - Thanks for taking some time to answer some questions!
Who are we talking with and what is your role in Knifefight?
BT - Hey, of course, thanks for doing this interview with us! I'm BT, Knife Fight's vocalist and I also unofficially handle mixing duties.
What is the origin story of Knifefight?
The idea for a project like Knife Fight's been on my mind for many years with me being as big of an extreme metal fan as I am. And it was all just about finding the right kind of people to do heavy, heavy slam/slamming beatdown with and people that'd agree to start a project like that together with me.
I started searching a bit more actively last year and after a few rejections and other people that didn't really vibe with the idea of us being fully online, it was around the middle of summer that I found our guitarist/instrumentalist, Sebastian. I first got in touch with him and started talking to him because of a challenge in a Discord server where there was an instrumental provided that was made by him and everyone had to send their vocals to him so that he can throw those vocals on the track, mix it, and at the end people in the server can vote on who had the best vocals (spoiler alert/random trivia: I didn't end up winning). After that I threw at him the idea for this kind of project I had in mind and to my surprise he actually agreed to do it with me. So we started writing stuff together and after going through some name changes that's how Knife Fight was born!
So far there are 2 Knife fight EPs, both incredibly heavy and speaker blowing.
The most recent release is very collaborative. Can you tell us about how that idea came about and what the process of picking artists to work with was like?
The idea for us having features is something that's always been there. Not once has there really been a point where we've not wanted to have features on *some* material of ours. We wanted the debut EP to be feature-less to showcase what both of us are capable of as musicians without having to rely on others, but anything after that, we've always wanted to have someone. And for our latest release, "Homicidal Instincts", it all started with the first feature, Azeratè Nakamura from Ungraceful, Radiologist, Messmer the Impaler and many other bands. Both of us are huge fans of his vocals and how absolutely rancid and vile they are, plus we're also friends with him, so naturally we hit him up. And shortly after we hit him up he told us he can get us in touch with the other two features on the EP, Hugo Ojeda from Esophagus 08 and Larry Wang from Fatuous Rump, Gorepot and a ton of other bands. So, of course, we agreed since we're both huge fans of both of them too and that's how we got them on the EP as well.
So Knife Fight is only 2 people? Have you talked about adding more, or playing live? Do you live close to each other at all?
Yep, Knife Fight is indeed just me and Sebastian, our instrumentalist. We have considered playing live before, but the answer to that more so leads me to your next question, which is that we don't live close at all. We're about 10,000km (6,200 miles in freedom units) away from each other. So obviously us two playing together is almost impossible. We have considered maybe getting some other people that are more local to us to play live shows, but it's not really a thing we've taken too seriously. It just isn't the same if it's not the original members. Plus, I have horrible stage fright and have had it my entire life which further complicates and basically completely eliminates the idea of us playing live.
What were the original name ideas before Knife Fight?
The first name I threw out was Vomit Cocktail. Then we also had Wormvomit, Parasitic Cranial Rot, Teeth Meet Concrete and I think a few more that I can't recall off the top of my head. We initially settled on Wormvomit for a little bit before I suggested Knife Fight. We were pretty unsure about it for a moment because, and this is something very few people know, Knife Fight was supposed to initially be a gorenoise/goregrind project. We recorded one song that we never really gave a name to, nor even made it into anything more than a proper demo. So initially we were thinking of more gorenoise/grind oriented names. But then when we made the switch to go more slam/slamming beatdown we reconsidered things and settled on Knife Fight
Who is the main creative director? or is it all discussed with you both? Like the music, then the art, who runs socials, etc....
Both of us contribute to the making of the music. Since I'm the one who's more into slamming beatdown stuff and slam in general, since I've been listening to that sorta music for the better part of a decade now, I'm the one that recommends the suggestions and ideas for the material we write. I take certain parts from some releases that I like and maybe throw a few other suggestions that I think would go hard as hell and then Sebastian throws his suggestions and ideas into the mix if he has any and from there we just write the songs as a sort of mish-mash of ideas we have. The artwork for the releases is also something both of us are involved in, even though it's mostly Sebastian who's contacting the artists. And as far as socials go, for the most part, I'm the one who manages them. I run our Youtube channel, Bandcamp and almost everything that gets posted on Instagram (which is where we're most active) is posted by me. Though when it comes to promoting stuff it's both of us sending our material to everyone we know.
How old are you guys?
Both of us are young! I'm 22 and Sebastian is 17. And, fun little trivia: I'm born on Halloween!
BT, what other bands or projects have you been apart of?
I've gone through a *lot* of projects but I'll try to list all of them off. The first one I had was an ambient project called Abyssal Darkness that I started in very late 2019, just a few months before COVID. I just made super, super long songs with that one, sometimes even going on for more than an hour. The longest one I ever made was about three and a half hours off an album that never saw the light of day because I ended the project around 2021 or 2022. Then I had a super short lived project called Rotten that I called noisegrind when in reality it was just noise. Everything on there was recorded with a broken guitar cable that I had plugged straight into my PC, since I didn't have an audio interface, and I was just messing around and trying to make riffs on a 6-string Jackson. But in reality it was mostly just incoherent garbage and it's the project I hate the most. Then I had a hypertone project called Blvck that gained me some of my first "popularity" in music, since I was making songs with BPMs that people had never even thought were possible. Or so everyone thought, because I was just straight up blatantly lying about the BPM and I admitted to it afterwards and then killed the project. I "revived" it once and then killed it again for good and that's been dead since around 2022 too. Then I had my first band called Inherit Dissection which was a brutal death metal band I made with someone that I met online that could legitimately be my dad. That's how big the age gap was. I was 16 and he was in his 40s. That's also the first band I ever did vocals for. We released one song which is now private everywhere and then called it quits. Then I was in a goregrind project called EOTBBIYAA, which is an abbreviation of the full name, Exacerbation Of The Bitter Bacteria Inside Your Annihilated Anus. That one I also didn't really have a lot of fun in and even though it lasted longer, I only ever recorded vocals for I think two songs. Then I started a downtempo project called Kirai. And that's sorta where I personally like to pretend my career started because that's sorta where I started making music that I genuinely liked. Since I couldn't, and still can't program drums, everything on there was only recorded on guitar. But not a real guitar like the one in Rotten. I have a 9 string guitar plugin and a pitch shifter. And so I was literally making the slowest, lowest tuned songs ever. The lowest tuning I got to was a C#-7. I released two full-lengths with that one before calling it quits in 2024. Then I started a project called Noosehanger. And that's the earliest project that I started that's still semi-active. And say semi-active because it's currently on a little bit of a hiatus. I initially tried making deathstep with it, but later I decided to make it sort of a "successor" to the first project I mentioned, Abyssal Darkness. So I took the concept of that project, tweaked around some things and just started making the most unsettling ambient music I could muster up. I've still got songs I'm sitting on and I promise those will be out at some point. Then I formed Knife Fight around summertime last year, though we didn't start writing anything until around September. And then finally there's my newest project,
. That one's blasting brutal death metal/goregrind and also still active, in the process of writing some new music as we're speaking, actually. So yeah, those are all of my projects over the last five and a half years, all nine of 'em.
Can you talk about some of your influences? Whether it's art, music, movies, or anything in your life!
A huge chunk of my influences are from brutal death metal and slam. Obviously some of them aren't really influences anymore and were more influential to younger me when I initially started, but the first ever influence I ever got was Chris Barnes. I always wanted to have my vocals be as low as his and lower. Then when I moved onto deathcore, some of my influences were Mitch Lucker, Rheese Peters, Ben Duerr, Ben Mason, Alex Terrible (I know that aged horribly), Alex Teyen, etc. But as far as my current influences go they're Angel Ochoa (Cephalotripsy, Abominable Putridity), Andrew LoMastro (Cerebral Incubation, Nemesism), Kyriakos Destounis (Embryectomy), Brandon Smith (Agonal Breathing, Incestuous Impregnation, etc.), Hugo Ojeda (Esophagus 08, Puthroatfucktion, etc.), Azerate Nakamura (Ungraceful, Radiologist, etc.), Ricky Sotelo (Flesh, Messenger of the Covenant) and Joe Wolfe (Heinous Killings, Sick Hymns) James Shuster (Delusional Parasitosis, Ineffable Demise, Necessary Death), Justin Boehm (Orchidectomy, Gutvoid), Larry Wang (Gorepot, Fatuous Rump, etc.), Mikko Friberg (Torsofuck, Limbless), Jossi Bima (Abhorrently, Dissanity), Martin Funderud (RIP) (Kraanium, Psychosomatic Self Mutilation, etc.) and Benjamin Wingmark (Diphenylchloroarsine)
SEBASTIAN - A few of my musical influences stem from movies. Especially psychological movies such as The Cube film series. I find them to be useful for creating musical themes for my projects and it ultimately fuels a big part of my creative process. Another major influence is my older siblings, who have been part of the rock and power metal scene for over two decades. They have been incredibly supportive and have shaped me into the musician that I am today. While they do not make slam, their rock project Part Time Apes is worth checking out.
How long have you been doing vocals? Always extreme vocals?
Truthfully, I'm not sure when I started. Because the earliest footage I have of me doing vocals is from around May 2019, but back then I sound like I've been doing vocals for a decent amount of time already, at least over a year. But I can't find any recordings of myself from before then. So at the very least, I've been doing vocals for 6 years, but in reality it could be close to 7-8 in total
Can you give us 3 albums by 3 different bands that have really inspired you?
Cephalotripsy's Uterovaginal Insertion of Extirpated Anomalies. My favorite slam album of all time, been that way since I started listening to slam. Heinous Killings' Hung With Barbwire. The reason I love predator vocals so much and why I wanted to learn them. And lastly, Cystgurgle's Ubi pus, Ibi fermento. The most extreme album I've heard in all of metal and it's not even close. Unmatched brutality
Three albums that inspired me are Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory by Dream Theater, Molesting the Decapitated by Devourment, and L.D. 50 by Mudvayne. These albums have taught me so much about what I know about music now. Although they are vastly different in style, I have always taken elements and put them in a way I see fit, turning odd ideas into digestible riffs, if you will. These records helped me become a better musician and instrumentalist, enabling me to create instrumentals for projects like Knife Fight, Unrecognizable, and Gurgling Fluids.
I know we are just coming off of a crazy heavy EP release, but are there any other plans for KF's future yet?
Yeah, we're constantly thinking of new stuff! We even had a talk earlier today about some potential stuff we can do for the next release. Both me and Sebastian are really creative and constantly have ideas running through our heads so we've definitely thought of some stuff for the future. We're thinking about what direction we wanna take Knife Fight going forward and we've already got a pretty good idea. And we may not be done for the year just yet. Just maybe. That's all I'm gonna say.
We have talked about future music but nothing is currently set in stone.
Thanks again for creating such heaviness and answering some questions!!!!
Anything you would like to say?
Thank you as well for this interview, we really appreciate it! Nothing much I can say other than just go and stream the new EP and everything else we have, destroy your sound system/speakers/headphones, share it around with your friends, keep supporting the bands you love and keep an eye out for us. This is only the beginning!
Thank you for the interview! Hopefully, people enjoy Homicidal Instincts as we have worked hard on it. I would like to give a special shoutout to Azerate Nakamura, Hugo Ojeda, and Larry Wang for their incredible contributions on this new release. Homicidal instincts would not have been possible without them. I also want to thank all of our supporters who have been with us since our debut EP Disfigurement, and all of the new fans and listeners we have gained due to the new release. It has been a crazy journey so far, and I am excited to see what the future holds!
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