Interview with Bastardator 2009
By Bradley Smith

Can you give us a little history about how the band formed and how you decided on a musical direction for Bastardator? How did you come up with the band’s moniker?

JO: I wanted the band’s name to be “Bastards Of Mayhem”.

Your new album Identify the Dead has been released. How do you as an insider describe what it represents? What sort of sound can the listener expect from it?

JO: I find it a bit too heavy! Maybe ‘cause were downtuned a bit too much.

Eric: That's cause you don't have long hair haha.  No I don't think it's to heavy if you can imagine the first Slaughter {Strappado} album well we're less heavy than that.

Your new album has been receiving a lot of praise from established veterans in the scene to include Fenriz of Darkthrone. What sort of feelings does that give to you to hear such well known artists give praise to your work?

Eric: It's definitely nice to have someone like Fenris talk about our music and it definitely helps with promo.  AND BY THE WAY IF ANYONE OUT THERE DOESN'T HAVE DARKTHRONE'S LAST THREE ALBUMS GO OUT AND GET THEM

There seems to be a strong punk influence within your sound somewhat along the apocalyptic crust sounds of Discharge and Amebix. What images and emotions do you feel when listening to these bands and how do you associate Bastardator with that same sort of vision?

Eric: When it comes to feelings and emotion I don't have any I'm dead inside hahaha.  But as for Amebix i just love that band it's extremly raw and the vocals just seem to cut through you, they're demented.

JO: I think Discharge offered the most accurate vision of the horrors of war. They where protest noise not music. Nothing compares to those early singles. The band was perfect in everyway! Aesthetics, recording, songs, lyrics.

PATRICK: Yeah and me and Jo played in a Discharge cover band so that just goes to show you. I listen to just as much punk as I do metal.

Your album features a photo collage. That seems to be mostly a lost art when it comes to metal albums. I love a good photo collage. Why did you choose to have one and what in your eyes makes a good photo collage? What is essential to feature in one and are there any band collages that stand out in your mind?

JO: Well essentially we just wanted to copy Broken Bones “never say die” 12 inch cover! Hahaha The collage is to humanize us as opposed to romanticizing us like in a black metal photo. We aren’t trying to appear larger than life.

One of the songs on the new album deal with the Spanish conquest of the new world. That is an interesting topic for a song. What made you choose that historical event? How do you view this conquest and the role it played in subjugating the “new world?”

PATRICK: This event is just one example out of many of the destruction of indigenous

peoples and their cultures in the Americas at the hands of the supposed "discoverers" of the "new" world. They discovered nothing new. They conquered and eradicated civilizations that where thousands of years old, and it's an ongoing process.

JO: Colonization is an on going process, even 500 years later.  Forced cultural and economic assimilation have almost eradicated aboriginal populations. Its great to see Native armed struggle like the Zapatistas in Mexico reclaim ancestral lands.

Canada has been responsible for some amazing bands within the underground metal scene. Do you think that Canada is given the credit it deserves for its metal contribution? What bands from Canada have had a personal impact on you as an artist and why/how?

JO: Voivod is pure genius! Then of coarse unknowns like Damnation, Vensor, Armoros, Witch’s Hammer, Cremains, Genocide, Slayed Necros, Unruled….

Eric: All the classics also like Slaughter, Razor, and Sacrifice.

PATRICK: Voivod and Razor for sure!

Looking at the devastated battlefield on the cover of your album it made me think of the harsh terrain of World War 1. What are some of your favourite war movies? What makes a good war movie and what makes a bad one?

JO: I like war movies that don’t proliferate heroes or nationalism. Its much more realistic to show a soldier who was drafted or made the mistake of enrolling in a terrible situation. Apocalypse Now is a great movie!

Eric: I found that Saving private Ryan really showed the horror of d-day.  And I have to agree with Jo on Apocalypse Now

Jo: Apocalypse now doesn't focus much on the war aspect. Casualties of War is a good one about soldiers committing rape in Viet-Nam and getting away with it. The longest day isn't that graphic, but is very accurate and detailed about the liberation of France in WW2. Une balle dans la tete (A Bullet in the head) is a good Quebec made film.

One of Canada’s biggest exports is its passion for Hockey. Do you have any interest in the sport or are you separate from your fellow countrymen? If you do support it what is your team and why do you think that Canada has such a love affair with Hockey?

PATRICK: It's a great game. It's one of those things that is passed down, it's part of your life whether you like it or not. Me and Jo always get together with a bunch of friends to play street hockey in the summer. It's all about picking up a hockey stick, not watching it on t.v.

JO: I don’t think any of us like pro hockey!

What are your thoughts on Globalism? It seems like that this current economic crisis that the world is being affected by is a direct result of the global interaction of all these different countries and cultures. Do you think that this global melting pot is even avoidable?

JO: I believe in a world wide conspiracy of an elite. The Billderburg group through its organizations like the IMF and World Bank have indebted the world and control world politics. We’re on the verge of a global government, electronic money (“the number of the beast”), total enslavement and submission!

PATRICK: Centralization of power is happening on all scales, I mean; amalgamations of cities, large businesses/corporations buying out smaller ones or merging, etc... Less people control more every day. The gap between the rich and the poor widens every day.

What near-term future plans do you have for Bastardator? Any new material or live events we can expect from Bastardator?

I’ll leave any final final words to you. Make sure you don’t disappoint all the fanboys out there that are hanging on your every word.