“I Never Thought My Band Would Play With Black Fucking Sabbath”: In Conversation With Goatwhore Frontman Ben Falgoust

Interview by Jason Williams

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New Orleans, Louisana quartet Goatwhore is arguably extreme metal’s most rock n’ roll band on the face of the planet, as they’ve proven throughout their career, specially on their latest full-length effort ‘Constricting Rage Of The Merciless’, released in 2014 via Metal Blade Records. One of the most crushing metal bands in existence, both as a live act and on studio recordings in equal measure, Goatwhore are currently busy working on their seventh album, but still venture out for short tours in the US and Europe even whilst they do so. They just concluded their final US tour of the year 2016, a two-week run with support act The Blood Royale, revolving around their appearance at Ozzfest at San Manuel Amphitheater & Festival Ground in San Bernardino CA on Saturday September 24th, alongside the likes of Black Sabbath, Megadeth, Opeth, Suicidal Tendencies, Hatebreed and others. Goatwhore played one of the side stages in the afternoon, and after the set, singer Ben Falgoust took a break from selling his band’s merch to do an interview with our man Jason Williams. The conversation was about Ozzfest, Black Sabbath, touring, the next Goatwhore record, Soilent Green and more. Enjoy the chat below.

It’s nice that Goatwhore is on this grand Ozzfest occasion, but what made you want to come play this festival?

Dude, it’s Black Sabbath’s last show on the West Coast ever, right? (laughs) It’s like their third to last show in North America ever.

Yes, this is Black Sabbath’s last California show, ever! So this is a very special show. What has the band meant for you as a fan? And can you also describe a big moment, any interaction you had with them as a member of Goatwhore?

I’ve never had the ability to be able to just sit down and hang out with those dudes. Actually though, I have to say there was one year at an Ozzfest in Texas and it was back when the Ozzfest tour was slowly starting and all that. I know that Pantera, Fear Factory, Machine Head, and other bands were playing that year and we hung out backstage with Phil from Pantera, and we’re sitting in the room, and who’s sitting there in the room? But you’re in this moment where you’re like, “Alright, don’t act fucking retarded! Just hang out, everybody’s cool and just relaxing.” But when you left, you say to yourself, “Why didn’t I say something to him?!” But it’s one of those things that you just want to take it in, like, “Wow! I was in a room and that was Tony Iommi right there, just sitting on the fucking sofa.” It was fucking insane (laughs). So, that was pretty crazy, but overall, Black Sabbath are the fucking godfathers of everything we’re fucking doing pretty much, you know? Everybody. You have Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, all of these fucking things. And luckily, last year we played one of the days of Knotfest, and Judas Priest was fucking headlining! This year, we play Ozzfest and Black Sabbath is fucking headlining. You know, it’s like, as you’re going along as a band and you have these bands that you never think you would ever play with, in some sort of fashion, and you’re like, “Damn! We played with Celtic Frost, we played with Judas Priest, we played with Black Sabbath.” You know, that’s pretty fucking unique, just finishing up things like that.

With Black Sabbath being the first metal band to play ever, and they’re going to be ending after this tour, it’s going to take a lot more for other bands to set the bar and tone, and specially with these kinds of festivals that are hard to do in the US, these more extreme festivals. What bands would you like to see that you believe not only they deserve the spot, but would be also beneficial for US fans?

I think that there’s a lot of fucking bands out there, but you know what it is? Look at all the fucking time that’s passed and everything that grew since they first did it. The longevity is fucking insane. And there’s bands out now that they can’t even touch that longevity. Bands like us, and other bands on our fucking level have a lot of years and work to put in. And we’ll never reach that kind of level. Well, I won’t say never, because anything is possible. But you know what I’m saying? It’s one of those unique things. But with bands like Judas Priest and everything, those bands have been doing it for years, and were touring arenas back in the day and all that. There’s not many bands who do that kind of shit anymore. It’s a whole different era and it’s going to be a lot more work. But I think there’s a ton of fucking bands that are unique in what they do. I think if anything, maybe from this ending, let a couple of years pass, and build something small to build it up again. Maybe one of those bands that have been around for a little while, and some of these newer bands can rebuild the cycle again and add different variations to it.

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In terms of bands being able to get bigger, and especially in the US it’s quite tricky as an extreme metal band, whichever side of the extreme definition you’re on, doom, death, black, all of them, it’s difficult to really develop a consistent niche to tour here. What have you noticed touring Europe and touring here in the US, in which I believe Europe has the better system overall, what can bands learn and what can fans do to make more extreme bands to tour here, even if the result is very slow and gradual?

I mean, America is a hell of a lot bigger too, so there’s a big difference in that. All the way on the East Coast you’ve got New York City, out here on the West Coast you got LA, you have all of these scattered little cities throughout, and it’s just difficult. There’s a lot of releases coming out, so it’s hard for people to fucking keep up and know what’s going on. Nothing against America with this, but the European audience is really passionate about extreme metal, in general. When you play a festival there, you’re just like, “Holy shit! This isn’t like Weekend Warrior shit, these motherfuckers live for this shit!” Just big time. And I’m not saying that there’s not people here who don’t, because there’s definitely people here who do, but there was something instilled in the Europeans, you know? When I was growing up and Entombed put ‘Left Hand Path’ out, the band was just like 14, 15 years old, and they put out a sick fucking record! And now, you go over there, and you see young kids there and they’re fucking amazing! And in the US, they have to be 21, 22 years old to get to that level. But it’s coming along now, and I’m starting to see younger kids in the US be more involved in it, getting better and things like that.

I believe when it comes to touring, it comes down to the fans, the band, the promoters and the venues. All four need to be in sync in order for extreme metal to be successful touring here. When you’re on solid tour packages and truly stand out as an outstanding live act, have you noticed fans are stepping up, and do you think promoters and venues need to do more?

It depends on where you go. They all vary. Some places the promoter could do more, other places the fans can step up more. It’s just different everywhere you go. That’s what I’m saying, the US is so much bigger and they have so many more little spots. And also, as far as things that we do, we play like little weird towns, you know? Like on the way out to Ozzfest, we play like Lafayette, Louisiana or Beaumont, Texas for example. And Lafayette is a smaller market town. And even like, when we’re not fully touring, we’ll do weekend things and we’ll play smaller market towns. I mean whatever, maybe 50 people will show up, but those 50 people are totally maddening about it, because no one ever comes to those kind of places. And then when you go back again, there’s more people because they were like, holy shit this band played here! So when you go back, it fucking helps out . I don’t think everybody’s looking for an answer to the equation. And I don’t really believe there is an answer. I think it unfolds and certain things happen. I think when people start getting caught up in the idea of, “We gotta do this! Because it’s going to make this happen!” I don’t think it works like that. I just think it unfolds and sometimes with the luck of the draw, everything works out in a certain way. If you look around, there’s a ton of fucking amazing bands that never get recognized, and then you have other bands that are kind of like, they’re just so-so and why are they so big, while the smaller band is fucking amazing? But it’s all in the cards, in all how things are. I think that at one point I just learned to just do it and to have a good time. That’s why you’re doing it and why you started doing it. If you’re starting to sink into your head too much, then you lose the idea of having a good time doing it, and you’re worried about everything, you know? And some bands get involved in that, and its like, just do it! If anything extra happens, it’s a benefit. So anything like this situation, playing this Ozzfest show, it’s a beneficial thing that happened and fell in our laps. It’s anything like that for any band, it works out the same way. “Oh, we played Europe at this festival, and Slayer was playing.” That’s also a thing, and it fell on your lap, it worked out in that fashion. You move along and just have a good time.

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I’d like to discuss your most recent album, ‘Constricting Rage of the Merciless’. I’ve noticed with the album before and now with this one, it’s more of a “Black ‘N Roll” kind of vibe, as older Entombed for example. And I believe it translates live even more so. Can you talk about the change and the transformation of the band in terms of the music and going from a black metal style to really something that’s keeping the black metal there but keeping a tasteful groove and making it really expansive?

Yeah, very much. I don’t necessary fully label us as a black metal band. Some people do, some people don’t. We have a lot of elements of death metal, thrash metal, even old fucking rock, you know? Def Leppard, old AC/DC, shit like that. So that’s kind of blended in, and that’s where you would get that “Black ‘N Roll” sound, and even Motorhead, things like that. And those are just things that we all grew up on and were influential in how we’re writing and everything like that. It just kind of rolls off in that way. The whole reason we started the band was the era of Celtic Frost, and Venom, stuff like that. And then you have more of the modern black metal like Emperor, that just influenced things as well. You also have Darkthrone, who stepped in there and were doing a sort of “Black ‘N Roll” thing, mixed in with their material. They were like the punk black metal band. If you sat down and listened to it, these are a lot of punk elements in the songs and they would throw all of that in there, and it would just sound nasty. So it’s all those different things and influences. I just think too, as a band, we are gaining our own structure. I mean our influences are still there, but they’re not so dominantly relevant in that sense.

I would say if that someone heard ‘A Haunting Curse’ and then hearing ‘Baring Teeth for Revolt’, one might assume that each song was performed by two different bands. You’re representing this contrast in styles live by displaying an older era of Goatwhore, and then a different newer era as well. For example, Opeth playing tonight on Ozzfest, their last two albums have no harsh vocals at all, and were more of prog rock then their older prog extreme metal sound. And a group of fans have distanced themselves because of the direction they have now taken, but that’s something Mikael of Opeth has always believed in. Which is, he’s always loved that ’70s rock style and sound. What do you feel about incorporating other genres into metal? Do you believe it’s a lot easier to do it now?

I think people are open minded about it for sure. I mean when I was growing up and I was listening to music, there were times that I was stubborn about it. And later on, and I listened to it again, and I thought, ” Damn, why did I push that record off? It’s really fucking good!” I just think it’s a ‘young’ thing, you know? The rebellious thing, sort of. “Oh, they’re not fucking cult!” Or this and that. Because usually a lot of people, like myself, you get a little older, and you’re like, “Wow! I kind of blew that off, and I shouldn’t have blown it off because it was really fucking good.” I just think it’s generational, sometimes, and people put things in social categories. Then you move along and people will just kind of step on it in their little social perimeter, and I don’t give a fuck what those people think. I like this shit, you know? As I was saying earlier about Def Leppard, ‘High ‘N Dry’, is a fucking sick album! The riffs in it are fucking maddening, dude! But then others would say, “Def Leppard, what the fuck?!” And yeah, but you have to go back to that shit and hear and understand the point of it.

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Definitely a good point. I’ve always felt ‘The System Has Failed’ from Megadeth was supposed to be a Dave Mustaine solo album, and people at first weren’t used to the sound, they say to themselves, “Oh! Now I get it!” Some things take a little longer than others to hear it.

Yeah, yeah. And some people out there just want to hear “Megadeth”. And they see Dave do something, and they’re like, “Well, I want to hear Megadeth!” And it’s like, well the dude wants to do something slightly different, so it’s going to be a variation of the band. He has the Megadeth thing, and he wants to do another type of thing.

What’s been the update touring wise, in terms of being on these great main support touring packages recently, and festivals as well? What’s the next step for Goatwhore in terms of a next possible step of performing more headlining tours, new album possibly?

This year has been slow in the touring cycle because we’ve been working on new stuff. We’ve been working on everything for the new record, and we’ve been doing little sporadic runs in between and everything. We went to Europe for a couple of weeks to do some festival stuff. With this, we have about two weeks of shows, like a week to get out here and play Ozzfest, then we did some shows in between and on the way back home. Then we’ll be home for like 10 days and then we’re going to go to the studio and record the new album.

Will it be released by the end of this year or sometime early 2017?

Most probably 2017. I would say March/April, something like that. We’ll probably finish it all up right around the beginning of November, and then just the way the industry cycle is with releases, it’ll come out at that point.

Would this new material be more in the way of “Constricting…”?

Yeah, I would say it’s definitely more like “Constricting…” As a person being in the band, sometimes when you say stuff, and then later on a fan’s like, “I don’t really see that!” You see and hear things differently. But for me, there’s some elements that remind me of the intense parts of songs like ‘A Haunting Curse’. So there’s definitely some real intense structured stuff that’s in the newer material. But then there’s stuff that we’ve always done before, there’s that kind of “Black ‘N Roll” feel, so it’s still the next cycle and progressive thing that Goatwhore is going to do. We’re not making some huge step. We’re not going completely clean vocals (laughs). It’s still in your face, fucking chaos.

I was mentioning before the interview about your other band Soilent Green, and I was one of the lucky ones to see that incredible show in 2006 with that band, Hypocrisy, Decapitated and Nile. You were in Goatwhore then of course but had more time for Soilent Green, a more sludgy southern style metal. Would Soilent Green’s history have any influence on the newer Goatwhore sound? And is that band completely done, or is that something more of free time can make it happen again?

I always kept Soilent and Goatwhore separate. Lyrical and content wise, so it was definitely different from me. A different approach on things, extreme music and all. Now it’s just been in limbo for a while. Our drummer Tommy (Buckley) has been playing full time with Crowbar, he’s doing a fucking awesome job with that. Brian (Patton) has Eyehategod, and Goatwhore is also busy. I know that’s not the answer people want to hear, but Soilent has been a complicated machine and it always has been. Truly unique on things, and I do miss a lot of elements of it, but then I’ll understand because we’re older and everything. It’s just harder to sort it out, in general. I mean, who knows? We were talking about the possibility of performing a final show, just to kind of put it out there on the table because we really don’t know what’s going on with it, it’s probably better to just do that. But who knows. It’s not put in stone so we’ll see in the future.

Any lasting advice on the California scene and any particular ways you would like to see the fans get more involved in showing support?

Just participate a little bit more. Get other people involved, get friends involved, whatever you have to do. Do your Instagramming, do your Facebooking, share everything and get it out there. And like I said, there’s so many fucking bands that people can’t definitely follow everything. But, if everybody, and I mean everybody, just put that one little bit at a time, we can expand things even more. It’s weird, because you do some shows and with all this social media, you’ll get to some places and you’ll be like, “No one knew about this show.” And I’m like, “How?” I don’t fucking get it. Because the way social media, how does someone not know?

And that’s why the question is so important to ask.

So that’s the thing. I’ve seen people tag friends and just pass this around to everyone. It’s all over the place, Spotify, YouTube, people can listen to anything and at any given time. Spread it around! Let people know what shit you’re into. I’m not saying people aren’t doing it, but anyone can do a little extra more, it’ll go a long way.

Goatwhore links: website | facebook | twitter | instagram

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