CEREBRAL REVIEWMENT - Hello!!! Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions! Can you state your name, age, and some things about you?
CHRIS / POISONED WOMB - My name is Chris - I am 33 and I’m based about 1.5 hours north of Flagstaff, AZ. My current active project is Poisoned Womb, a solo BDM project. Originally started out strictly as a studio project but now have a couple shows coming up.
About 4 years ago I started really making an effort to go to more death metal shows, which required quite a bit of travel due to my rural location. Meeting a handful of DM musicians at shows, I was inspired to start writing and practicing music after quitting for a few years. Originally I had high hopes of meeting some other musicians and creating a project remotely, or finding others in Northern AZ. However I absolutely sucked at music at that time and hadn’t even refined to any extent my own style or musical ability. About a year and a half ago I really fell in love with the more brutal death metal sound. Simultaneously I was coming to terms with the difficulty of collaborating with others, with me coming from what I felt was kind of a position outside of any scene. What really finally inspired me to go ahead and start a solo BDM project was the guy behind Moldavite and Resplendency up in Washington. After I heard what he did, I fully embraced the idea of the solo BDM artist and officially embarked on the journey.
I think Casual Atrocity Amusement is fucking great. Has it's own unique sound, nice riffage, and nasty vocals. Can you talk a little about what it's like to be the one in charge of EVERYTHING?! What is your process like??
Thank you so much - I appreciate your feedback! So now that I’ve come to embrace the concept of the solo metal project, I recognize the creative freedom it offers. I can also appreciate more the skill it takes for others to actually work together to create music as a band. I realize now that it probably wasn’t ever for me unless maybe I’d have kept with it when I was a teenager. I chose a different path. Back to the question-I appreciate that working solo lets me be myself creatively. Sometimes I’ll come up with a song starting with one riff and building off it with whatever I can come up with over the course of a couple weeks. That’s if I’m on a creative streak. Some songs are months in the making. I might decide to use a riff/motif I came up with months before and add it to something brand new after I have a creative breakthrough. Once I feel like I have something solid I go and spend like a couple nights programming drums based on what I wrote for guitar. Bass so far has been strictly based on the guitar part, although I’d like to get more creative and better at it. The song’s concept/subject could come before, during or after a song is written. I keep a list of potential sick song titles or concepts. So far lyrics have always been written after the rest of the song parts are done.
How did you come up with the name Poisoned Womb?
Also, I love the lyrics and the enunciation throughout your gutturals! So thank you for doing that! How long have you been practicing your vocals?
"Depravity is endless, bottom of which it knows no end
Completely helpless, beat of your heart is wearing thin
Womb is enticing - an instinct urges you back in
But you're immobile - the abuse just begins again
Your fragile body finally succumbs to the misuse
Your life cut short, you've been abused back to the womb
Your life cut short, you've been abused back to the womb
Only to be reincarnated back into the same abuse
Conceived to be abused, you're born practically dead
These monsters bring you back to life just to do it again
Abused back to the womb, through the flesh portal again
Reincarnated into this cycle without end"
Thank you so much - I wouldn’t have thought anyone could say something positive about my vocals. Back in January I was still planning on having someone else do vocals for me. At one point someone I follow on IG commented on a riff recording I’d posted. He said it would be sick with some gutturals over it, and sent me a voice clip with him doing gutturals. I was like, man I can’t do gutturals. He was like, dude just get on it now and it will get easier with time. So I kind of worked my way up to a mediocre level of gutturals by the time I recorded them in April. I have been practicing much more seriously ever since I signed up to do a show.
Yeah man the gutturals sound nice! So you say you kind of quit music for a few years? What sort of things musically were you doing before?
When I was in high school I was in a band and then in college I just jammed here and there. Nothing serious. Just kind of got preoccupied with partying and building a career…
For the shows you have coming up, will it be just you and a drum machine? Or live band members?
I’ll be doing vocals and guitar with a bass and drum backing track!
How are you feeling about doing the vocals while also playing guitar? That’s always seemed to me like it would be a whole other difficult skill to learn.
I’m feeling way more confident about it now that I’ve practiced for a couple months. Really starting to get the hang of it. Totally new skill for me so gave me something to work towards on a daily basis.
So a year and a half ago or so, can you pinpoint what pushed you over into your love affair with the bdm sound? Certain bands? A certain album? Something random?
I think with my addictive personality I’m just always looking for more intense things in life, including music. In all honesty probably the first BDM bands that were on repeat around then were Devourment and Stabbing for whatever reason. Oddly - Amputated Genitals because I had a fascination with Colombia. Also Rottenness’ Die Wege der Lust. Really random. I mean I’d heard of the more iconic bands before, I saw Suffocation once. But I wasn’t really into the scooped-ass guitar tones and blast beats until then. Then it was a rabbit hole after that. I will admit that I am obsessed with some of the new bands like Regurgitated Entrails. Not that I want to replicate the style-I just think it slaps.
You are stuck on an island, you can have 3 albums dropped off to you. Any genre. What would they be?!
It would probably not even be death metal. Don’t think I can name 3 right now but I’d have some solace on a deserted island if I had something like Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy. That’s comfort music for me. Classic rock and shit that I grew up hearing from my parents.
Did Casual Atrocity Amusement ever have a physical release that I missed? Plans for that? Or merch perhaps?
So I had no idea how to handle getting anything on physical. I messaged a couple labels that left me on read and then I ended up just deleting the messages out of shame haha! Recently this chill guy that goes by Encephalic Productions asked to do a small run on tape so that’s it thus far. He has that for sale on his Big Cartel. I’m happy keeping it underground or DIY at this point, though I hope to do CDs sometime. Something special about holding it in your hands!
I’ll be watching and listening! Any final words for fans?
Thank you for the support man. I really appreciate it. Honestly I think just doing something creative where the reward in the end is just knowing what you accomplished and having something to be proud of - it’s a great exercise in artistic integrity and humility. Especially with a genre where fame and money have nothing to do with it. I admire all the younger (and some older) people that continue to come up with truly incredible, brutal music.
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