In-depth Interview With Goatwhore Vocalist Ben Falgoust

By Andrew Bansal

New Orleans black ‘n roll tyrants Goatwhore are currently slaying stages across North America on the Metal Alliance Tour alongside Behemoth, 1349, Inquisition and Black Crown Initiate, and are ready to unleash their sixth studio album ‘Constricting Rage of the Merciless’ on July 8th via Metal Blade Records. They delivered a crushing set at the House Of Blues Sunset Strip last Saturday, despite vocalist Ben Falgoust’s insane schedule that day wherein he flew straight from New Orleans to make it to the show just in time for the set. To discuss that adventure and lots more including this tour, the new album and rock ‘n roll influences, I spoke to Ben over the phone yesterday April 8th for a detailed interview. Enjoy it below, see them on Metal Alliance and pick up their monstrous new album this summer.

Ben, it’s great to have you again on Metal Assault. It’s been a while since we last talked. First of all, you had a crazy little trip to New Orleans and you made your way back to LA for the show here last Saturday. What was that like?

Well, my sister was getting married and it was planned way before the Metal Alliance Tour got put together. Then when they came with the dates, I felt like we were going to cancel LA completely because I didn’t know what time the wedding was. It was on April 5th, the same date as the LA show and the tour started off on the 4th in Phoenix. But I looked at what the time was and started looking at flights. I found a red-eye flight out of Phoenix the night of the 4th that would get me to New Orleans at 9 in the morning on the 5th, and the wedding was 11 AM to 3 PM. Then I would jump on a non-stop flight from New Orleans to LA at 5:35 that would get to LA at 7:50 and we were supposed to get on stage at 8:50. Going through LAX and getting to the venue after arriving in LA could be a crapshoot as well, knowing traffic on the interstates out there. But everything pretty much fell into place and it all worked out! There were no mishaps. I went to the wedding, it went great and my sister was way appreciative of it, and I made it back and played the show, which was awesome that night.

That’s insane, and it’s great that everything worked out. Nobody could have guessed that you had done this, because the way you sounded on stage was just as great as usual.

Yeah, I did get a little sleep on the flight, as much as I could. Flying is always weird and you don’t really get good sleep but I got some of it in there and may be that helped out a little bit. But I think overall I was just excited that everything was falling into place the whole two days, from leaving Phoenix to getting home and making it to the wedding, then flying out and making it to the show. There was no disasters that came up. I’m glad everything worked out because like I said, originally we weren’t even going to do the LA show. The wedding was set way before Metal Alliance was, and so just like any respectful family member, I had to attend it.

But have you done anything like this on a tour ever before, where you flew out one night and then came back the next day?

No, not really! It was my first time (laughs). But because it was booked so far ahead, I saw the opportunity to purchase the flights when they were available and sorted it out ahead of time. So it wasn’t like a last-minute throw-it-all-together kind of thing. I planned it out. The only way I could have failed was if the flights got delayed or if I ended up in some kind of miserable traffic trying to get from LAX to the House Of Blues in Hollywood. But it all panned out really well.

Right, so you guys are doing this Metal Alliance tour now and before this you’d been laying low for a while to work on the new album. You must be feeling fresh and motivated for this tour in general.

Yeah, we’re playing a new song on this tour and the tour is important in many different ways. We have the new record coming out in July, so we want to get the people back into us. There are so many bands and extreme metal bands that tour and everything, if you don’t stay on it you just kind of get pushed back and people just forget about you because there’s so many things going on. I mean, we tour a lot already but when we start working on new material we try to pipe down and focus on that and not be on the road so much. We try to absorb ourselves into the material a little more.

You said on stage at the LA show that people should be raising their fists like at a Judas Priest show, and I think you have a very strong rock ‘n roll element in your extreme metal. Do you think you’re the most rock ‘n roll band on this Metal Alliance lineup?

Yeah, we have a lot of roots in that, Judas Priest, Motörhead and things of that element. I mean, you can obviously tell that we have a lot of different influences and we’ve always been really greatly influenced by Celtic Frost, Bathory and things like that. We have all our other elements too and we try and incorporate that, but I guess you could say that we do have a little more of a rock ‘n roll element to it. We like to mix it up with the black metal thing and make it “Black ‘N Roll” or whatever. We have our own little quirky thing that we call it (laughs).

The new song you mentioned earlier, ‘Baring Teeth For Revolt’, I thought it’s taking you back into a more old-school style in that sense. There’s more of the black ‘n roll, as you called it. Would you agree with that?

Oh, definitely. Before we played it, I made a comment that if you’re into Accept you’ll probably dig this one. It has the old Accept kind of feeling to it. That’s how we are, we like a lot of old metal. We like a lot of new things that come out now but we always seem to revert back to the old stuff we grew up on.

Do you think extreme metal fans these days are losing that essence of the roots because they’re going by what’s on the surface?

You know, like all of us, I was young once and I had blinders on. At one point, I remember I was a death metal fiend. I wouldn’t listen to anything outside of death metal. I just had those blinders on, and I think we all go through that kind of phase every now and then. We lock into something, but then we realize, holy shit, I’m leaving all this other stuff behind that was into because I just started focussing on this. But then we all go back to things we grew up on. Those things are nostalgic to us. They make us remember when we had a good time and things like that. It’s all a reference and you back to it continuously.

Exactly. So, with this new material how have your vocals and lyrics developed to go with the evolution of the musical style?

If I go along the progressive cycle of each record, it’s just a natural progression of what we’ve been doing. There are little changes here and there, and I think that’s natural because as you go along, you get different influences and you bring back old ones that you might have kind of left behind a little bit, just because you were so caught up with listening to newer things that came out and stuff like that. So we have a little variance in there but we’ve never been a band that’s made huge giant jumps to things. So if anything, the new record is a natural progression. I think with the new record, instead of being the Celtic Frost worship band we were in the early years, we’re moulding into what Goatwhore is becoming. We’re starting to solidify our style, how we are as a group and what we do. The variances come in because your influences shift as you go along and grow older. I didn’t do anything really that far different on the last record, or may be I did! Sometimes you never know. You’re so involved in it that you don’t really see a change.

You’re playing only one song off of the new album on this tour because it doesn’t come out for a while yet. But in terms of the whole album itself, does this song give us a fair idea of what it’s going to be like or is it pretty diverse and all over the place in that sense?

I think it’s very diverse and all over the place, kind of like ‘Blood For The Master’ where you have a song like ‘When Steel And Bone Meet’ which has that Motörhead rock ‘n roll feel and then you go into a song like ‘Judgement Of The Bleeding Crown’ which is more of a death metal-y thrash song. The newer material still has that element of diversity and I’d definitely say that the new song we played live doesn’t represent the whole album. Every song is its own entity. We talked about playing two new songs on this tour but then decided that we shouldn’t reveal too much, just put the one song out there and let everything unfold. When it comes out in July and we’re on the road, we can offer more out there. So it’s a mystery in that sense but in a way not really, if you’re familiar with Goatwhore.

Talking of your plans, after the album you’ll obviously be going on a whole cycle so I’m sure we can expect Goatwhore to come back and tour a lot more in the coming year or two.

Oh yeah, definitely. As everyone can see what we’ve done in the past, every time we’ve put a record out we pretty much go on the road, may be a little too much at times (laughs). We don’t have anything solid in stone yet, but we are in discussions for July and then we have some stuff that we’re going to be doing in the fall and possibly the winter as well, going into the new year. So we’ll definitely have a busy schedule when the album drops.

I have just one more question for you. You mentioned some of the old bands that you like, the bands that have influenced Goatwhore. Some of those bands are still going strong, but in your opinion which are the older bands that are still as good as they were, or at least close to it?

You know, that’s a really good question. I like Celtic Frost’s record ‘Monotheist’, and I really like Judas Priest’s ‘Angel Of Retribution’. When you go back to earlier records and you look at a band like Slayer, everyone always talks about ‘Reign In Blood’, or when you talk about Judas Priest it’s always ‘Screaming For Vengeance’ or something like that. All that stuff is a moment in time that you’ll never be able to duplicate, and that’s why those records were monumental when they came out. As far as all those bands go, they’ll never be able to reproduce something like that again but they will still be able to go on and do something. Like I said, I enjoy Priest’s ‘Angel Of Retribution’ and I still enjoy every record that Motörhead puts out. I enjoy numerous other things from older bands. It’s just that you’ll never be able to duplicate those moments when those pinnacle records came out. It’ll happen to a band like us as well. We’ll get to a point where we’ve made a record that a lot of people really dig, and the other records are just kind of liked by people here and there. So I don’t really try to focus on things like “Oh, I wish Slayer would do another Reign In Blood” or “I wish Priest would do another Defenders Of The Faith”. It’s not going to happen, because it was a moment in time, when it all fell into place and how it came out. It’s also a moment of the scene and industry of that time and how things were, and how it all unfolded. I guess it’s one of those things that you just accept. You still embrace the older stuff but when they put out new stuff, you give it a chance. You need to look at it in a different light. You don’t look at it and go, “Oh, it doesn’t sound like Reign In Blood”, or it doesn’t sound like this and that. It isn’t that moment, it’s a new moment and the band’s trying to fulfill something else with it.

Exactly, man. I totally agree. Well, I think that’s all I have for this interview. Ben, it was great talking to you. I’m glad we got this thing done. I know your schedule was crazy in LA and we didn’t get time to chat.

Oh, I appreciate it too man. I’m glad it worked out. I appreciate the questions. Some really good ones in there.

Oh, thank you! Have a great rest of the tour, take care and hope to see you soon.

Great, see you in the summer!

Related: Gig Review + Photos – Metal Alliance Tour Visits Los Angeles

Visit Goatwhore on the web:
Goatwhore.net
facebook.com/TheGoat666
twitter.com/GoatwhoreNola
instagram.com/GoatwhoreNola

Visit Metal Alliance Tour on the web:
MetalAllianceTour.com
facebook.com/MetalAllianceTour 
twitter.com/MetallianceTour
instagram.com/MetalAllianceTour 

Remaining Metal Alliance Tour Dates:
4/11/2014 House Of Blues – Cambridge Room – Dallas, TX
4/12/2014 Emo’s East – Austin, TX
4/13/2014 House Of Blues – Houston, TX
4/15/2014 Beacham Theatre – Orlando, FL
4/16/2014 Tremont Music Hall – Charlotte, NC
4/17/2014 Theatre Of Living Arts – Philadelphia, PA
4/18/2014 The Palladium – Worcester, MA
4/19/2014 Irving Plaza – New York, NY
4/22/2014 Club Soda – Montreal, QC
4/23/2014 The Opera House – Toronto, ON
4/24/2014 Agora Theatre – Cleveland, OH
4/25/2014 House Of Blues- Chicago, IL
4/26/2014 Skyway Theater – Studio B – Minneapolis, MN
4/27/2014 The Garrick – Winnipeg, MB
4/29/2014 MacEwan Hall – Calgary, AB
4/30/2014 Union Hall – Edmonton, AB
5/02/2014 Rickshaw Theatre – Vancouver, AB
5/03/2014 Studio Seven – Seattle, WA

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