Psycroptic Are Pumped For Froth & Fury…

‘When we go up there, everything’s sorted and that’s why when this offer came from Jason North to do Froth and Fury, which we haven’t done yet, Dave, our drummer, I think he played it last year maybe with Werewolves or Abramelin or one of the gazillion other bands he plays in and he said it was just an awesome festival. He said it’s New Dead but stepped up to a whole another level’.

Jason Peppiatt, vocalist of Tasmanian death metal gurus Psycroptic is excited about another jaunt to Adelaide, this time to play Froth & Fury Festival, due to its reputation of its organisers and the day itself.

‘It’ll actually be nice to get on something like this because often when we do these day festivals and stuff in Australia, we end up headlining. So it’s nice that we’ll actually be on a bit earlier on this one because there’s a lot of bands that are bigger than us so we can actually get our show played, enjoy it earlier in the day and have enough time to still hang out and enjoy the show, catch up with friends, watch other bands and stuff. So that’s something I’m really looking forward to with it as well.’

Psycroptic emerged from a barren Tasmanian music scene and became one of Australia’s finest death metal bands over the last two decades. For those who have not seen them before though, it’s not all ‘being-smashed -in-the-face-with-a-million-beats-per-minute- fare though.

‘We’re energetic, very much so. Even though we’re older, middle-aged gentlemen now we all like to keep fit so we still keep the high energy shows up. We probably play majority of our set, I think, will be off the most recent three albums, so we try to pick sort of live, I mean there’s a few fast ones in there, but we really try to look at the more groove headbang mosh pit sort of tempo songs for the live set these days. So yeah, a lot of that. But yeah, in saying that there is still a few speed songs in there.’

Drummer Dave Haley was the driving force behind spreading the bands wings outside of the Apple Isle to far reaching lands.

‘Dave has just always been very ambitious and very driven. The sort of guy that in his mind he is like, well, fuck, I want to go touring. I want to do this, I want to do that, so I’m just going to figure out how the fuck I’m going to make it happen! So he’s very driven and very business savvy. He’s the sort of guy that’ll just set his mind on crazy tasks and he’ll just figure it out. I think I attribute a lot of the band success with touring and getting out of Tassie to Dave and just his prowess.’

It’s a far cry from January’s upcoming monster tour across America with thirty seven shows over forty five days with Nile and Six Feet Under that spreads to late February.

‘There’s off day shows on that tour as well, so I think there might even be another six or seven shows on top of what’s listed there. I’m not actually going on that tour. I got commitments with work and kids and family and all the real life stuff. We’ve got Jason Kayser from Origin, he’s an American boy, he’s going to go in in my place.’

The rock n roll lifestyle always gives way at some point to real life unless you have Taylor Swift money.

‘I mean nowadays when you get in your forties, you’ve got older kids, you’ve got mortgages, you’ve got businesses to run or pretty serious careers and stuff. Death metal’s never going to pay the bills! I mean maybe if you get to Cannibal Corpse and beyond, but at our level we’re happy if we can earn enough to pay our bills and support the families while we’re away. But the minute we step back on home soil, you might get a day off to get over jet lag and then you’re straight back to work six days a week!’

Psycroptic don’t stop though, while America may have a substitute in place for Jason, the band continue to be creative and work on new music, hopeful of a 2025 release.

‘Yeah, a new album is on the go. I think drums are fairly close to complete, bass, that’s fair way in. Well, as much as what was written when Todd Stern, our bass player was in Australia a few months ago. There is a lot of working in different studios and stuff like that. We’re hoping to have it finished by the end of the year.’

Interview By Iain McCallum

Catch Psycroptic at Froth & Fury Festival at Harts Mill, Port Adelaide on Saturday November 9. Tickets from MoshTix…