This interview was conducted by Philip A. Wickstrand with guitarist Greg Peterson and bass guitarist Willi Stabenau at the East End in Portland, OR on November 12, 2011.

Usually when I think of killer U.S. Doom bands, I think of my home in the Pacific Northwest or the Bay Area, which I consider to be the two main hotbeds for the style. But not every great American Doom band comes from these regions - New York City has a few gems, as well, such as BATILLUS. Oppressive heaviness, electronic noise and great rhythm are just a part of what you get with this great band. Their most recent full-length, Furnace, was released on Seventh Rule this last April.

Phil: First off, how’s the tour been so far?

Greg: I think it’s been very solid. It seems like every tour we do, it’s a little bit better than the last one in terms of people coming out and.

Willi: It’s been a high drive to show ratio but this being our first time and my first time out on the West Coast; it’s been more exciting than any other tour I’ve been on so far.

Greg: Yeah, lots of miles per show but the energy at all the shows so far has been really nice.

Phil: At least you catch a break with only having to drive to Seattle tomorrow, that’s not bad.

Greg: Yeah.

Willi: People have been showing up, which is really the most important thing for us, no matter how far you drive. You get a full room - it’s what matters.

Phil: Tell us about the new album, Furnace, and the split seven-inch with MUTILATION RITES.

Greg: The album came out in April; we recorded it last year in Chicago in about a week. We did all the recording and mixing and so it went by… it was a really fast, fun process.

Willi: Very concentrated. I think we all worked very hard on it. I think it shows. I’m proud of it… but it certainly was intense.

Greg: The best part about recording is sort of seeing how the songs actually evolve because you never really know what a song is going to be until you’re in the studio working on it, hearing the actual sounds, so keeping an open mind until the very last moment I think is the key ingredient to success in the studio. And the split we recorded earlier this year, I think in March, in Brooklyn instead of going to Chicago; we just wanted to do the one song kinda close to home and it’s with our friends MUTILATION RITES, who practice down the hall from us, so I think the idea came up just passing in the hall at the practice space, where it’s like, “Let’s do a split.” “Sure.” Then the idea came to do a tour after the split, if I remember correctly, so that happened in July.

Phil: With the album, being a smaller band, you probably were limited with a fairly small budget; how satisfied with the recording are you?

Willi: That is a matter of preparation, I think. Get shit done in the practice space, then when you go to record, you can make a good record. Then you have the time to polish the thing which otherwise you wouldn’t be able to do, your ideas are much further along than if you go in there with only a very vague idea of what you want. That having been said, I’m very pleased with it. First, of course you’ve recorded it and you feel that everything’s gone wrong and then give it a month off,  two months off, three months off and it gets better and better, and the more time goes between the recording date and now, the better I feel about it.

Greg: Yeah, we went to Sanford (Parker) because we knew kind of what he could do and I think he really did a great job and I think the results were maybe even better than we expected, so we’re all really happy.

Phil: I know you guys are very good about making your music available online for free… how important do you think it is just putting it out there versus making your money back on the recording?

Greg: I think at this point in our development it’s more important for people to hear your music than make money. People who make a living from their band are few and far between and very lucky and if you try to go for that right off the bat then it’s just not going to work at all. The music’s probably not going to be very good and you’re probably not going to make much money anyway, so you have to take it one step at a time and exposure is the number one priority for us at this point.

Willi: Right. As a band, you always have to have a day job. The fortunate bands that can make that happen for themselves, they can live comfortably, are so small that it should be about the music first and if not, then you shouldn’t be playing the kind of music that we play to begin with.

Phil: I was mostly just asking about recouping the money spent out of your own pocket for the recording itself.

Willi: That would be nice.

Greg: Hopefully eventually that’ll come back, but I think you have to put the money into it expecting that it’s not going to come back… but crossing your fingers that a lot of people will hear your work.

Willi: A packed show is the most important thing. If enough people download it so that they come out to the show and the show is full and the energy is great and it makes you want to play your best, that’s the most important thing. We give it all away for that because it comes back to you in that way.

Phil: How important is it to have your music available on vinyl also?

Greg: It’s certainly important for our own personal collections because vinyl is all I listen to when I’m at home and then when I’m out and about, it’s MP3’s, so vinyl with digital downloading seems to be the best option for this day and age and for the future as well because there’s always going to be a serious fan who wants an object in his hand.

Willi: I think when we them the music, we want to actually sell them the music, not a file, but the real thing etched into a piece of vinyl, the hard copy, the artwork, you get a product that is something.

Greg: Yeah; it’s an artifact. An MP3 is not anything that you’re going to look at again in forty years and think “Oh, remember when I listened to this back then?” But records have that quality, like put it in a box for a long time, you open that box up again, it’s like a piece of your life.

Phil: And also, if your computer gets a virus, you’re pretty much screwed.

Greg: Yeah, that goes without saying.

Phil: Recommend a book for our readers and then explain why you recommend that particular work.

Greg: Let’s see… I read a lot of books…

Willi: Greg and I just read Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens, which is a book that is unexpectedly pertinent to what’s going on today with Occupy Wall Street with people’s feelings about greed, accumulation of money and the behavior of the wealthy.

Greg: It has more cliffhangers than The Wire.

Willi: It’s a lot of cliffhangers. It’s, I think, as I said before, applicable today despite having been written a hundred and fifty years ago.

Greg: Dickens really creates this patchwork of characters and locations and just this world that when you finish the book, it’s like you’re sad that you can’t…

Willi: It’s a lot really about death and about rebirth, about purifying yourself from materialism. I recommend it for anyone who’s interested in what’s going on today.

Phil: Where do you see BATILLUS is the next year?

Willi: Fucking famous. [laughter]

Phil: Okay, is there anything else you’d like to add?

Willi: We have a bunch of new material written, we’re looking around for a label that wants to pick it up, so I would say look out for something new hopefully soon.

Greg: Yeah, we do have a bunch of new stuff and hopefully nest year some time our new record will come out.

Batillus

Interviewer: Philip A. Wickstrand

December 17, 2011

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PHOTOS BY PHIL A. WICKSTRAND

(Click on Photos to Enlarge)

(Click on Photo to Enlarge)

Formed 2008
New York City, New York  USA
Label: Seventh Rule Records
Genre: Blackened Doom Metal

CURRENT LINE-UP:

Fade Kainer:  Vocals & Syths
Greg Peterson:  Guitars
Willi Stabenau:  Bass
Geoff Summers:  Drums

DISCOGRAPHY:

The Batillus EP (2009)
Beard Destroyer Tour EP (2009)
Batillus/Hallowed Butchery Split (2010)
Furnace (2011)
Batillus/Mutilation Rites Split (2011)