INTERVIEW WITH JONNY SPEEDSLAUGHTER, GUITARIST AND VOKILLIST

INTERVIEW WITH JONNY SPEEDSLAUGHTER, GUITARIST AND VOKILLIST FOR MANIAC, WINTER 2005.

1.HAILS JONNY! MANIAC IS A FAIRLY NEW TORONTO BAND, PLEASE TELL US HOW THIS BLASPHEMOUS CREATION CALLED MANIAC CAME TO BE AND WHAT GENERE BEST SUMS UP MANIAC?


-Hey Keegan you goat molesting pervert! We started out when I wrote a couple tunes to fill the side of a split that never came about for a buddies label Graveless Slumber Records (who is now releasing a different split with us and God Impaler www.gsr666.com), I called in some delinquents I knew to help me record the tracks, and they liked it so we kept on writing and rehearsing. As for genre, I call us Speed Metal if anyone asks.



2. WAS THE BAND NAMED AFTER THE CLASSIC SHOCK FILM "MANIAC" FROM 1980? IF NOT, PLEASE TELL US WHY THIS NAME WAS SELECTED.


-The band was not named after the shock film, I know Chris has it, but I've never seen it. I just had that chorus from Whiplash stuck in my head one day and thought that Maniac would make a killer name.


3. MANIAC'S FORTHCOMING FULL LENGTH DEBUT TITLED "FAST AND DEADLY" IS IN THE PROCESS OF BEING RECORDED AND WILL BE RELEASED BY A AMAZING UNDERGROUND CANADIAN LABEL "BLOODBUCKETPRODUCTIONS". WHEN WILL THIS BE OUT AND HOW DID YOU GET IN CONTACT WITH ALEX OF BLOODBUCKET PRODUCTIONS/HORDE OF WORMS?


-YES, we're very happy to have gotten this opportunity from Alex, he's an amazing guy to deal with, 1000% dedicated to the Canadian metal scene, and he runs a great label. Not sure when the album will be out yet, we're planning to start recording in April, but I don't think it will take to long. I can't remember how I got in contact with him, I think I met him for the first time through Paul E. who's been buddies with him for a while. Anyways he was awesome enough to take a shot on us and put us on his Bloodbucket Fest, we had a great show and I saw him at another show a couple weeks later and he offered us an amazing deal.
So we got together at the local titty bar Club Paradise and inked an agreement on Friday January 13th under an almost full moon using Tom Angelripper's pen.


4. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF ALEX'S KILLER BLAST METAL BAND "HORDE OF WORMS"?


-Alex's band is great, I'm glad we got the opportunity to play with them because they've stopped playing live. Dreams and Dying Eyes got a lot of play during my highschool years.



5. DOES MANIAC PLAY LIVE OFTEN AND WHAT DO YOU THINK OF TORONTO'S UNDERGROUND METAL SCENE? WHO ARE YOUR FAVOURITE LOCAL BANDS TO PLAY LIVE WITH?


-We try to play live pretty often, I think I can speak for the other guys when I say it's what we enjoy doing most. I was never really impressed by Toronto's support for local metal acts, but after playing a couple shows here I can't really complain, we've been getting good response, even an encore at our first show in the city which fucking blew me away. But it still seems that everyone here is too concerned with what's coming out of Europe, fuck that shit though, we've got too many bands here that deserve way more respect than they get.

-So far my favorite local band we've played with is Rammer, but I would love to get shows with Goat Horn and Demontage when those fucking Louts are ready to rock again. And obviously all the classic bands, it would be a fucking wet dream to get on the Gates of Hell show and get a chance to rock with the likes of Razor, Anvil, Piledriver and whoever else decides to show up.



6. WHO ARE MANIAC'S MAIN INFLUENCES AND WHAT ARE YOUR LYRICS ABOUT?


-Main influences? I couldn't really say, we all like tons of shit, the lyrics are just about things that will not be found on top of brokeback moutain, like toxic shit flowing into water supplies and making mad cities, or stalking chicks and vomiting on religious symbols and just being fast fucking rocking.



7. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF ALL THE RECENT GUN VIOLENCE THAT HAS BEEN OCCURING IN TORONTO?


-It's pretty fucking lame



8. I MUST SAY I FUCKING LOVE YOUR SELF TITLED DEMO TAPE AND I HAVE RECIEVED NOTHING BUT GOOD RESPONSE FROM EVERYONE I HAVE TRADED IT TO. WHAT KIND OF RESPONSE HAVE YOUR RECIEVED REGARDING YOUR DEMO TAPE? WHY DOES IT SAY "FUCK NORWAY" ON THE BACK SPINE? ANY PLANS TO REPRESS IT ONTO VINYL OR PROFESSIONAL TAPE?


-Thanks a lot, we've been getting a lot of great response too, and I really like how it turned out even though it sounds pretty different from the shit we play now. I just put the Fuck Norway thing because I think Norway gets way to much credit in the Black Metal scene, especially with the younger crowd. I like a lot those Norwegian albums, but fuck man Brazil, Canada, US, Sweden Switzerland, Germany, fucking everywhere were doing it way before them, it's just from being sick of every discussion of Black Metal revolving around that Lords of Chaos trash.
No plans to rerelease it in any way, it's a limited run thing and that's the way it's staying. A thing most people don't seem to know is that the first 13 copies are numbered in my blood and most, fucking maybe all of them are still available from Northern Sky Productions (www.northernskyproductions.net).


9. WHO DRAWS MANIAC'S SATANIK LOOKING ARTWORK?


Well I did the original logo, which was a rush job because I had done another one but we changed our name before the demo was released so I did this one really quickly. Our GOOD logo was done by NINA K. who's also doing the cover of our full length (www.foulfiend.com), she's great and it's going to be awesome to have original cover art.
Chris also draws up a lot of shit for us, like the shirts I wear live and the speedslaughter logo, and he's working on some other shit.



10. HOW COME MANIAC DOESN'T HAVE A WEBPAGE?


-Chris and I agreed on this when we started, we both think most band pages are fucking lame, so we didn't want to have some stupid page where we talk about what we like and what strings I use and dumb shit like that. But if a fan does a site for us we are very honoured. We've got two official/unofficial pages now at bloodbucket (www.bloodbucketproductions.com) and speedslaughter records (www.speedslaughter.com), and a buddy/fan made a myspace page for us, which I kind of had mixed feelings on because we want nothing to do with that retarded teenage loser dating community, but on the other hand it's really cool that people like us enough to want to promote us like this, so chris wrote up a disclaimer and asked the guy to put it up on the page and we just let it be.


11. DO YOU AGREE WITH ME THAT TAPES ARE BECOMMING TO HEAVY FOR WIMPS?


-No one has a fucking tape deck anymore! a couple times I've tried to give tapes to buddies and they're always like, "what? I can't play this". There's nothing like that warm sound of a cassette, it just sounds so real.


12. NAME YOUR TOP 10 CANADIAN METAL BANDS, PAST AND PRESENT.


-This question is impossible! Plus I don't really have favorite bands, I'm more of a favorite album type person. But I'll give it a shot, but let's just say these are the top 10 metal bands from Canada(fuck just from Canada though! these are some of the best metal bands from ANYWHERE) that I'm thinking of at present, and in no particular order.

ANVIL - Hard and Heavy and Metal on Metal two of the greatest albums ever written, just fucking rock solid all the way through.

SACRIFICE - Totally violent, unbelievably great, and the Exorcism demo definitely one of the finest slabs of Black Metal.

RAZOR - No explanation needed, if you don't like Razor you probably think that Iron Maiden sucks and Venom and Bathory are decent "thrash metal" bands.

SLAUGHTER - Surrender of Die 1 2 Fuck You!

DISSECTION - FINAL GENOCIDE, if you don't have it, get it. Totally under appreciated.

GOAT HORN - These guys fucking rule, they deserve every piece of praise they get and then some. I just wish I could see them destroy Headbangers Open Air this year with goddamn CANDLEMASS and GIRLSCHOOL!

METALIAN - A little known band from Montreal, goddamn man they have tunes that can stand up against the greatest Priest, Maiden, or Exciter hits. Whenever their album comes out it will be put up on a pedestal with the likes of ANTHRAX - Fistful of Metal. Also the singer is honestly unrivaled in the Canadian scene, PAST OR PRESENT! Out of the way Beehler!

DEMONTAGE - Take everything great about old Grand Belials' Key, Candlemass, Mortuary Drape, Venom and Varathron and you've got Demontage. Best active Black Metal band in Canada without doubt.

BLASPHEMY - fucking re-release your material! I kind of hesitate to put these guys on the list since I only have dubbed and ripped material from them, but fuck it, I love Fallen Angel of Doom, and pretty much everyone who doesn't have hundreds of dollars to blow on ebay is in the same boat anyways.

INFERNAL MAJESTY - Had to make the list, None Shall Defy is insane. And I saw them a couple years ago and they still ruled, even though they were playing for like 10 people.

If you asked the other guys their lists would probably be pretty different.



13. HAVE ANY MEMBERS OF MANIAC EVER PLAYED IN OTHER BANDS?


- Yes we all have, I haven't since a while before we started MANIAC, neither had Chris, Paul still does.



14. WHAT IS YOUR VIEW ON SATANISM?


-I suckle at the hot tit of the Goat Lord and stroke his hairy goat boner.



15. THANK YOU FOR THE INTERVIEW AND PLEASE TELL US ALL THE NECESSARY INFO WE NEED TO GET AHOLD OF YOU OR TO STALK YOU..HAHA...


-Thank you Keegan, for the interview and the review and all your support, we really appreciate it. You're the lone warrior keeping print zines alive in this towne!!
People can contact us through the speedslaughter site for now www.speedslaughter.com, our official contact address is speedslaughter@gmail.com for the band, we all check it. the address on the demo is no good anymore since I moved...but we're going to be setting up a P.O. box sometime fairly soon. And if there are any fine ladies interested in stalking us you can find out our preferences from the bloodbucket info page, www.bloodbucketprodcutions.com.

METAL UP YOUR VAGINA!