Black Rheno

Hailing from Australia, are Sydney’s genre bending heavy groove exponents Black Rheno. It’s no doubt that this three piece power house have left an undeniable mark on the scene since their beginnings in late 2015. They’ve built a solid fan-base through their high energy live shows and ability to translate their blend of stoner, sludge, punk, grind, groove metal into a wild and rollicking good time. The band have dropped their debut Noise Smasher and front man Ryan Miller tells Hi Fi Way more.

Was it a great tour with Eyehategod?
Very much so, the shows have been fucking mental. Life’s pretty good at the moment!

How exciting was it touring with a new record?
Super exciting, it’s just so cool to see the crowds get into the groves with us and bang their heads with us. Plus it’s great being our playing the fresh material that we are so proud of.

Were you happy with how the album turned out?
Yep, she’s a club banger no doubt \m/

For someone who hasn’t heard of Black Rheno how would you describe your music?
Brutal groove, a mix between all the stuff we like – grind, sludge, metal, rock and insanity.

Who do you look up to for musical inspiration?
All kinds of stuff really, it’s a really big blend ranging from stuff like Bad Brains, Napalm Death, Infant Annihilator, Pantera, High On Fire, Clutch, Red Fang, Parliament Funkadelic the list goes on…

What comes first the music or the lyrics?
The music for sure, we find the right sounds, changes and vibes and then make this fit lyrically and maybe mix up progressions to suit when needed. I guess there’s no real one answer but generally the music first.

How was it working with Kurt Ballou and what did you think he brought to the table?
It was great, he brought his obvious skills with the mixing of the album and just made the whole thing slam and have heaps of punch, which is what we were after. He also had some nice ideas in the pre-production stages and, just in general, having a fresh set of ears is always a great thing for any band working on an album. That’s fresh perspective really comes in handy.

Is making a debut album hard in terms of making a statement about what the band is?
I don’t know if we sat around thinking in these terms, we just wanted to make an album that sounded like us and had all the flavours we love within it. We just wanted to make the best bloody sounding record we could that would be a hell of a lot of fun to play live.

Was there a sense of relief when it was finished?
Yep, it felt great as we put a tonne of our time into it and then there’s always that thought of wondering how it’s going to turn out. Then once we got the mixes back and the mastering all finished off, it was like, wow, this things a belter and we recorded it ourselves and did it our way, a great feeling indeed.

Was it hard letting go of songs you worked so hard on?
Not really, it was just great to get them all put down properly.

How is 2020 shaping up for Black Rheno?
We have a few things cooking under the hood, we’ll get this big ass tour done and hopefully have some news for everyone after that 🙂

Interview By Rob Lyon

Follow Black Rheno on Spotify…