Fukking neck-breaking, ear-splitting exercise are to be expected listening to “From The Pits…”. Never losing its ramming impact forever, it is sad to say that it is the only album from THE KUNTAUTCULT. The band has split-up not long after its release, but at least I’m able to interrogate them when they’re still in it. Use your dagger, use your fukking dagger. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not that many of releases could produce such a blast that I’ve suffered after the initial listening of “From The Pits…”, the brilliant debut from Holland’s finest new band to emerge in the scene, THE KUNTAUTCULT… potent mixture of brutal death/grind that surely will damage your grandmother’s ears. This is my conversation with their ‘octopus-in-nature’ drummer, Pepijn…
Not that many of releases could produce such a blast that I’ve suffered after the initial listening of “From The Pits…”, the brilliant debut from Holland’s finest new band to emerge in the scene, THE KUNTAUTCULT… potent mixture of brutal death/grind that surely will damage your grandmother’s ears. This is my conversation with their ‘octopus-in-nature’ drummer, Pepijn…
The band first started as BODYBAG, so why is the name THE KUNTAUTCULT came out and eventually became the band’s new monicker? Changes of musical direction maybe? What does THE KUNTAUTCULT means anyway?
Like you said in the good ol’ days we were called BODYBAG, a typical name for a random Death band. As music evolved and got more extreme by the day, we figured “BODYBAG” was such a cliché name for the genre (I believe there are 6 bands already named like that), so we wanted to have a name no-one had yet. We wanted to have a name that was as unique as our music. During one of our flights through ancient wisdom and pop-up visions (we were high as a kite), we came on several terms, that we combined in a nifty fashion. When we woke up the next day, the name was born! It doesn’t mean anything in particular, just a weird combination of some weird thoughts.
I know that the music changes quite clearly as the band’s evolutioning. Was it not surfaced by the time “Skullcrushing Horror” was released? So why did you decide to release it anyway?
No, “Skullcrushing Horror” simply contains recordings of our material we had back in 1996. As you can hear, our musical style was much slower back then and based on the more mid-tempo death, as our interests were on that level then, and because we were still ‘training’ on our instruments. As months passed by, the music got more and more extreme, faster and heavier.
After that it’s grinding in almost all of your materials, isn’t it?
Practically yes. It’s not a matter of necessity using grindparts and blastbeats, but it sure does make it a lot more intense!
Even so it’s not hard to trace some other musical direction, like death Metal of course…
Believe it or not, but our inspirations and musical directions vary enormously, but are little inspired by death Metal bands. Our basic inspirations come from having certain needs for an outlet of the daily stress, energy and problems we experience through normal life. We just make noise every week and it has a positive effect, which wouldn’t be the case if we were playing pop music.
And also some other, like that particular song in your CD, which is an acoustic one. Tell us more about this song; like what’s the purpose of recording it? Can we call it some kind of a ‘ballad’ from THE KUNTAUTCULT?
Like you said in the good ol’ days we were called BODYBAG, a typical name for a random Death band. As music evolved and got more extreme by the day, we figured “BODYBAG” was such a cliché name for the genre (I believe there are 6 bands already named like that), so we wanted to have a name no-one had yet. We wanted to have a name that was as unique as our music. During one of our flights through ancient wisdom and pop-up visions (we were high as a kite), we came on several terms, that we combined in a nifty fashion. When we woke up the next day, the name was born! It doesn’t mean anything in particular, just a weird combination of some weird thoughts.
I know that the music changes quite clearly as the band’s evolutioning. Was it not surfaced by the time “Skullcrushing Horror” was released? So why did you decide to release it anyway?
No, “Skullcrushing Horror” simply contains recordings of our material we had back in 1996. As you can hear, our musical style was much slower back then and based on the more mid-tempo death, as our interests were on that level then, and because we were still ‘training’ on our instruments. As months passed by, the music got more and more extreme, faster and heavier.
After that it’s grinding in almost all of your materials, isn’t it?
Practically yes. It’s not a matter of necessity using grindparts and blastbeats, but it sure does make it a lot more intense!
Even so it’s not hard to trace some other musical direction, like death Metal of course…
Believe it or not, but our inspirations and musical directions vary enormously, but are little inspired by death Metal bands. Our basic inspirations come from having certain needs for an outlet of the daily stress, energy and problems we experience through normal life. We just make noise every week and it has a positive effect, which wouldn’t be the case if we were playing pop music.
And also some other, like that particular song in your CD, which is an acoustic one. Tell us more about this song; like what’s the purpose of recording it? Can we call it some kind of a ‘ballad’ from THE KUNTAUTCULT?
If you will. Both guitarists like to create a certain atmosphere using acoustic parts, it gives the other tracks a boost, more energy. And besides that, it shows a different perspective to our music. Please remember that we like a lot of different styles of music, varying from CRYPTOPSY to CYPRESS HILL, from PINK FLOYD to GUNS N’ ROSES etc. On our demotape “Skullcrushing Horror” you’ll find the titletrack also performed as an acoustic version.
You also have some sampling interwoven between the songs. Does it related directly to the songs?
Most of ‘em do. The intro of “Xavier” comes from the movie “Doom Generation”, where Xavier as a title comes from, “Use Your Dagger” was a phrase used in Monty Phyton’s “Yellowbeard” that was stuck in our minds. It’s rather hard to explain the “Pop…” sample. Skip that one. Anyway as an interbellum-like intermezzo between “Galaxy Legends” and “120 Bars of Pressure Up Your Appendix” we’d chosen a random brutal sample from one of the coolest movie ever “Cannibal Holocaust”. For an outro we’d decided to use the concluding piece of “The Great Race” (the number one coolest movie of all times). It’s difficult to spot the links between the songs and samples, but as long as we see them and understand the reason why we put ‘em there, it’s fine by us.
Honestly, the song titles sound very interesting, therefore I would like to know the lyrics of, if not all; some of it…
Haha, thanks! Well, first of all, even though our song titles are somewhat ‘gory’ in an odd way, we don’t sing about religious, political or horror theme-like subjects. We’d quit doing that in the same time we changed our name. It was just the whole concept; we wanted a different name and a different type of lyrics, not something that was already done a million times. It’s mostly about our own experiences, dreams, visions and thoughts, all wrapped together into one big pile of emotional screamings of death and subterranean grunts.
The record deal with DISPLEASED RECORDS emerged after the recording of the MCD, but it’s not released yet. So how did they know about the band back then? The demo tape? I don’t think so, because that particular one was released in 1996…
We’d sent the MCD to DISPLEASED RECORDS. They contacted us after short notice and offered us a contract. Only thing is that they didn’t really like the idea of releasing a MCD. So we decided to transform it into a CD, adding up two more tracks.
And as the MCD is not being released, why only the songs “Use Your Dagger” and “Venus” were included in the album? Do you have plan to release the whole MCD later on?
Nope. The two tracks that were included, were the only two tracks that we believed were good enough to make the CD complete. Our most recent material is ‘somewhat’ different, and some tracks weren’t finished at the time of the recordings, thus the rest will appear on the next CD.
THE KUNTAUTCULT, a three-piece band, with this kind of music, playing live… Now that must be interesting…
It is really! Indeed with “only” three members performing, it’s not always easy to play, because the right tuning, volume and sound are sometimes hard to combine. Second, it’s not always pleasant, playing on someone else’s gear, which usually happens with festivals and shit. I, for instance, have to feel completely comfortable behind the drumkit, or else it’ll effect my drumming. It can really ruin your show man. But besides that, all three of us always give everything on the stage. We try to give the audience the bruteness they want and we seldomly fail to achieve that. Despite of school and work we’re not always capable to perform throughout the week, so when we play, we usually have a lot of support, and that usually takes a lot of weight of your shoulders.
Is your drummer gets any help from the technology to enhance his ‘bashing’ skills and ability? He’s a fucking maniac, if we listen to the album.
Thanks, I appreciate that. On the album I used some bass-drum boosting (for instance on “Axe Rectal Trunk Pisser”), to create an effect that was to give an edge to the edge, understand? Just to make it more aggressive. Only the bass-drums were triggered in case we wanted that ‘special’ boost (just listen to “Galaxy Legends”!!!), but for the rest I did everything exactly the same as I would do live.
If people ask wherein in the band’s music lies what we would call ‘art’, what would be your reply then?
I’d be flattered. It’s difficult to come up with this shit, it takes a lot of practicing. I consider it more of a sport to play the music and I guess ‘art’ would be a nice compliment.
Does everything in the band affects the way you’re living too? If so then it might be a dangerous one…
Nope, just like I said before, THE KUNTAUTCULT is a practical outlet of negative energy, and as long as you can put it in (any) music, or sport, we’ll all can live in peace. Heheh…
Is the band openly endorses violence or such thing?
Negative, I don’t think you should combine aggressive music with endorsing violence and being it. Mayber some people will think we are; but we’re not. “From The Pits…” is the result of finding the right type of music we’ve been working on for quite a while, stuff that evolved through the years and is being labeled as death-grind.
So, some of your new songs had been worked. You stated that the newer materials will be less technical but more aggressive and groovy than what we could get in “From The Pits…”. Why leave those technicality behind? Why more aggression and grooves are included?
We tried it with more groove, because it contains more emotion in the music, more power and more effect on whoever’s listening. Technical parts can be very powerful, but it’s usually very emotionless, without any form of recognition in it. Groovy parts (like the beginning of “Use Your Dagger”) will be the more effective ones, that people evidently recognize as such.
Do you have any warns or threats to anybody who read this?
Never send us any viruses again, weenytoad!
I really hope that the music of THE KUNTAUTCULT will not turning ‘wimpy’ or ‘gay’ in the future, can I count on you?
The music of our next album is probably gonna be heavier than “From The Pits…”, so don’t dare to call us wimpy.
You also have some sampling interwoven between the songs. Does it related directly to the songs?
Most of ‘em do. The intro of “Xavier” comes from the movie “Doom Generation”, where Xavier as a title comes from, “Use Your Dagger” was a phrase used in Monty Phyton’s “Yellowbeard” that was stuck in our minds. It’s rather hard to explain the “Pop…” sample. Skip that one. Anyway as an interbellum-like intermezzo between “Galaxy Legends” and “120 Bars of Pressure Up Your Appendix” we’d chosen a random brutal sample from one of the coolest movie ever “Cannibal Holocaust”. For an outro we’d decided to use the concluding piece of “The Great Race” (the number one coolest movie of all times). It’s difficult to spot the links between the songs and samples, but as long as we see them and understand the reason why we put ‘em there, it’s fine by us.
Honestly, the song titles sound very interesting, therefore I would like to know the lyrics of, if not all; some of it…
Haha, thanks! Well, first of all, even though our song titles are somewhat ‘gory’ in an odd way, we don’t sing about religious, political or horror theme-like subjects. We’d quit doing that in the same time we changed our name. It was just the whole concept; we wanted a different name and a different type of lyrics, not something that was already done a million times. It’s mostly about our own experiences, dreams, visions and thoughts, all wrapped together into one big pile of emotional screamings of death and subterranean grunts.
The record deal with DISPLEASED RECORDS emerged after the recording of the MCD, but it’s not released yet. So how did they know about the band back then? The demo tape? I don’t think so, because that particular one was released in 1996…
We’d sent the MCD to DISPLEASED RECORDS. They contacted us after short notice and offered us a contract. Only thing is that they didn’t really like the idea of releasing a MCD. So we decided to transform it into a CD, adding up two more tracks.
And as the MCD is not being released, why only the songs “Use Your Dagger” and “Venus” were included in the album? Do you have plan to release the whole MCD later on?
Nope. The two tracks that were included, were the only two tracks that we believed were good enough to make the CD complete. Our most recent material is ‘somewhat’ different, and some tracks weren’t finished at the time of the recordings, thus the rest will appear on the next CD.
THE KUNTAUTCULT, a three-piece band, with this kind of music, playing live… Now that must be interesting…
It is really! Indeed with “only” three members performing, it’s not always easy to play, because the right tuning, volume and sound are sometimes hard to combine. Second, it’s not always pleasant, playing on someone else’s gear, which usually happens with festivals and shit. I, for instance, have to feel completely comfortable behind the drumkit, or else it’ll effect my drumming. It can really ruin your show man. But besides that, all three of us always give everything on the stage. We try to give the audience the bruteness they want and we seldomly fail to achieve that. Despite of school and work we’re not always capable to perform throughout the week, so when we play, we usually have a lot of support, and that usually takes a lot of weight of your shoulders.
Is your drummer gets any help from the technology to enhance his ‘bashing’ skills and ability? He’s a fucking maniac, if we listen to the album.
Thanks, I appreciate that. On the album I used some bass-drum boosting (for instance on “Axe Rectal Trunk Pisser”), to create an effect that was to give an edge to the edge, understand? Just to make it more aggressive. Only the bass-drums were triggered in case we wanted that ‘special’ boost (just listen to “Galaxy Legends”!!!), but for the rest I did everything exactly the same as I would do live.
If people ask wherein in the band’s music lies what we would call ‘art’, what would be your reply then?
I’d be flattered. It’s difficult to come up with this shit, it takes a lot of practicing. I consider it more of a sport to play the music and I guess ‘art’ would be a nice compliment.
Does everything in the band affects the way you’re living too? If so then it might be a dangerous one…
Nope, just like I said before, THE KUNTAUTCULT is a practical outlet of negative energy, and as long as you can put it in (any) music, or sport, we’ll all can live in peace. Heheh…
Is the band openly endorses violence or such thing?
Negative, I don’t think you should combine aggressive music with endorsing violence and being it. Mayber some people will think we are; but we’re not. “From The Pits…” is the result of finding the right type of music we’ve been working on for quite a while, stuff that evolved through the years and is being labeled as death-grind.
So, some of your new songs had been worked. You stated that the newer materials will be less technical but more aggressive and groovy than what we could get in “From The Pits…”. Why leave those technicality behind? Why more aggression and grooves are included?
We tried it with more groove, because it contains more emotion in the music, more power and more effect on whoever’s listening. Technical parts can be very powerful, but it’s usually very emotionless, without any form of recognition in it. Groovy parts (like the beginning of “Use Your Dagger”) will be the more effective ones, that people evidently recognize as such.
Do you have any warns or threats to anybody who read this?
Never send us any viruses again, weenytoad!
I really hope that the music of THE KUNTAUTCULT will not turning ‘wimpy’ or ‘gay’ in the future, can I count on you?
The music of our next album is probably gonna be heavier than “From The Pits…”, so don’t dare to call us wimpy.
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