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7000 DYING RATS

By Kevin Stewart-Panko

Presently comprised of members of Lair Of The Minotaur, The Flying Luttenbachers and xBxRx, with a revolving door of contribution that has included past and present members of My Lai, The Christpunchers, Harpoon, Ten Words For Snow, Invisible Witch and Cattle Decapitation, you might expect Chicago's 7000 Dying Rats to be an esoteric project responsible for irreverent and unclassifiable music bordering on insane genius.

It all kind of depends how you define genius. If your idea of genius is music that twists and turns between spazzy grind, electronic noise, cock-rockin' metal, hip-hop and piss takes on nu-metal, punk, Journey and a video game-sounding version of "Paranoid" played with keyboards, a banjo and acoustic guitar christened with titles like "Death Hammer Of The Bearded Ones," "Balls Of Bigotry," "We Want Weez-E" and "We Had Dying In Our Name Way Before All Those Metalcore Cocksuckers Came Along" then 7000DR's new album, Season In Hell, could be your new A Brief History Of Time.

If the above is your idea of an instant headache or you got seriously shortchanged the day the sense of humor gene was handed out, then do yourself a favor and avoid this at all costs. Metal Maniacs recently caught up with 7000DR guitarist/vocalist, Steve Rathbone [Lair Of The Minotaur], and found a man who just wants to let off a little steam, have a good time, clear a room or two and shop at record stores in peace.

Metal Maniacs: I took a quick look at the list that's on your website of people who've either been members or contributors to the band and it's quite impressive. How long have you guys been around?

Steve Rathbone: Since about '92. I came in around in '94. It originally was the brainchild of one of our vocalists Josh [Diebel, The Christpunchers, Sheephead] and another guy, John Davies [Beaver Shoot]. Originally, it was supposed to be a recording project, when they started doing stuff live was when it turned into a full band.

MM: From the beginning, was it designed to have that comedic side to it or has that just sort of happened along the way?

SR: It's funny, the term "comedy grind" gets thrown around a lot; one of the song titles off the last album [The Sound Of No Hands Clapping] was "Straight Up Comedy Grind" and it was us pretty much us making fun of people that called us that. Now, we get the "self-proclaimed, comedy grind band" tag a lot [laughs]. It's not like we're out to make a Richard Pryor record or anything; we just have a good time. A lot of the stuff is inside jokes and, for the most part, stuff we do to amuse ourselves. The fact that people are interested at all is very surprising.

MM: Everyone else in the band seems to have another band on the go, some more serious than others. Is 7000 Dying Rats something that just comes together whenever it comes together with no real sort of plan?

SR: Yeah, that's pretty much how it works these days. We've toured and that kind of thing, but it seems like what we're going to be doing now is recording whenever we feel like it, maybe doing fests and one-off shows.

MM: Going back to the "straight up comedy grind" thing, with a lot of the reviews I've read concerning the last album, people seem to always make a point of mentioning that, but almost in an apologetic sense. It's sort of like, "Don't feel stupid if you like this because it's only a joke."

SR: [Laughs] Yeah, I know what you're saying and I think we've gotten thrown in with bands who do the whole joke thing but can't really play. If people actually listen to what we do, they'll hear that we actually play music and write songs; we're not just a noise band making fart jokes, y'know? I don't think I've ever seen a review where they don't mention Anal Cunt. I write 80-90 percent of the songs and I hadn't even heard Anal Cunt until we toured with them that first time. I always think it's funny that Anal Cunt gets mentioned as the main influence of the band.

MM: In your case, keeping in mind the more serious of nature of Lair Of The Minotaur, do you ever get shit from unflinchingly serious metal people about not only participating in 7000 Dying Rats, but also taking your focus away from LOTM and doing stuff like the "Paranoid" piss take on the new album?

SR: [Laughs] I'm sure we do. No one's given me shit about it, but I'm sure we do and I'm sure there are a lot of people who'd have a problem with it, but that's part of the intent — to kind of make people feel uncomfortable. When we first started playing shows, we would do it to see if we could clear the room. We would book ourselves on shows that made no sense, like we'd go play some jock show at a sports bar or something. We used to have a guy with a counter who would count the number of people who would leave [during our set] and I think the most we ever made leave one show was 75 people [laughs]. We knew all the promoters in town, so we could get on any show that came through and we'd play and have fun with people who had no sense of humor. And comedy would ensue [laughs]. Over the years, we've kind of developed into a little bit more of a real band — some of the stuff I've been describing is stuff we did 10 years ago — especially now with the music we're doing now, it's just a big umbrella under which different stuff can be done and we can do whatever the fuck we want.

MM: How did you get Scott Kelly [Neurosis/Tribes Of Neurot] involved on the track "A Real Kneeslapper?" There's a guy who doesn't really involve himself with stuff that's not "serious."

SR: And that's the best part about him being on the album [laughs]. Scott and Josh are old friends. Josh used to do Alley Sweeper Records, which put out a lot of old ambient stuff by Final, Nik Bullen, Mick Harris and all that ambient/drone stuff that was going on in the mid-'90s, including the early Tribes Of Neurot releases. So, we've known those guys for a while and whenever Neurosis would come through town they'd always stay with us. I told Scott we were going to be recording a new 7000 record and we had talked about possibly doing stuff together; he said he had a spoken word piece he wanted to throw on, so we did it and I think it's the highlight of the album.

MM: On the enhanced part of the CD there are video clips from two different "final shows." Is that something you do often, tell people it's going to be your final show?

SR: [Laughs] Well, that's more of a kick in our own pants. Two of those shows were supposed to be our final shows, but we never actually said we were going to break up, just go back to being a recording project.

MM: And the song on there about the pretentious record store employee ["Argument At Your Local Indie Record Store"]…My first inclination was to ask about what influenced that, but everyone who's ever been into a record store has had to deal with record store dweebs, their "obvious" superior musical tastes and knowledge and judgmental attitude toward your purchases.

SR: [Laughs] Yeah, that's not directed at anyone specifically, but that track was originally created for a four-disc noise compilation label for a Japanese label. We were just kind of having a little fun and wondering who would be the guy who would buy a four-disc noise compilation and we figured it'd be someone who worked at a record store. That was half us and half our experience dealing with local indie record store people in Chicago. I think we've all been in that situation.

MM: You get it everywhere. Like I'll buy CD's of albums I own on vinyl to replace them because I don't have a record player anymore and I love it when a clerk feels the need to impart some of their wisdom about my inferior taste or rolls their eyes because I didn't buy a particular record in 1988, when in reality I did.

SR: Like you just heard about it on MySpace yesterday, or something [laughs]. [www.7000dyingrats.com]