INTERVIEW: Alexis Mincolla – 3TEETH

LA’s 3TEETH joined industrial pioneers MINISTRY for a run of 24 European and UK dates recently, and DISTORTED SOUND had the chance to witness the five-piece entrance Birmingham’s O2 Institute via their twisted melange of vicious grooves and post-apocalyptic soundscapes. We later had the opportunity to sit down with frontman Alexis Mincolla for a post-show chat ahead of the release of third album METAWAR – and get the conceptual story behind it.

Hi Alexis. Welcome to Birmingham and thank you for taking the time to chat to Distorted Sound. Is it true that you guys almost didn’t make these UK dates due to immigration issues – what happened there?

Alexis: Thank you for having me! It’s like being in the Mecca for heavy metal with the BLACK SABBATH connection and everything! And yeah, it was absolute fucking madness. We flew into Gatwick and they had the passport machines, you know like the scanners? We’d got off a plane from Berlin and we’d had a couple of drinks, so we were all like “oh great! No lines!” so we all just scan our passports. Andrew couldn’t find his, so we ask someone for help. We get asked what we’re doing here so we tell this guy that we’re a band here for some shows. But then he goes “well you guys didn’t get a stamp”. We are then told that we’ve entered the country illegally and aren’t allowed to play.  We were there for like five hours, they flagged us in the system and told us “if you play, we will arrest you.” We asked what our options were and got told that we’d have to leave the country, re-enter and get our stamp. We had to go back to France! We drove to Dover, went through the tunnel and then back here to Bristol, that’s where our hotel was booked, but we then had to miss the gig. The next morning, we had to go all the way up to fucking Glasgow, which is super far away, and do the show. We then got completely wasted, drove another five hours down here on like one hours sleep and here we are!

Your third album entitled METAWAR drops tomorrow. Having heard it, we can’t imagine the reaction toward it being anything less than positive. But do you still feel any insecurities prior to putting a record out?

Alexis: The reviews and reception seem to be pretty positive so far yeah so we’re excited. Although I do remember reading one, someone clearly did not like it, it was given a 4 out of 10 or something. There was absolutely zero substance to it – it was one of those blogs where the guy had like 42 people following him and reading it. One of the internet’s trolls. I read it out loud to the band and they all just laughed. As long as I like the record, that’s what matters to me. The one thing you have to do is like your own record. You cannot write music for other people. It’s like being a chef – you should always be cooking and creating something you enjoy.

For the benefit of anyone who has been living under a rock and is still unfamiliar with the band, what would you say are the main differences between the 3TEETH sound now and that of the <shutdown.exe> era?

Alexis: The first two records were written purely in our spare time. We were passing audio files around, writing parts separately and working in this disjointed manner. With METAWAR, I think it sounds like a band in a room together. Maybe that makes it less industrial and more rock as a result? But there is still a tremendous amount of industrial influence in what we do – using all these weird synths and layering and having that density to it. Its just the record we wanted to hear. We’ve been fortunate enough to play in some huge places and you get the chance to learn what works in big rooms. And with this one, we wanted to make an album that worked when played in these big rooms.

Can you tell us the story behind the band’s name? And is true that as a collective you have something of a penchant for the number three itself?

Alexis: [Laughs]. Well, this is number three for a start! 3TEETH stands for “trident” which is the divine weapon of the creation of destruction. There were a lot of myths that we’ve kind of explored with it. I prefer not to over explain the concept because I think it’s more fun for people to do their own weird, deep and wonderful delving into it? To discover their own take on it. But yes some of the best things absolutely come in three’s. Or sequences of three’s. I mean, threesomes? They’re very good!

You’ve referred to the concept behind the song EXXXIT and it being a a metaphor for humanity’s inherent urge for self-destruction. Given the current state of the modern day world – Trump, Brexit, politics – do you think that this feeling is just going to escalate as time goes on?

Alexis: Absolutely. You know how it is when you work a 9-5 job. It is our response to the claustrophobia of getting ground up in the bullshit system. And come Friday, we’re like “lets just go and get ripped up!” No matter what, even during recessions and the like, alcohol is recession proof. Times are shitty? go buy a bottle. Times are good? Go buy a bottle.

What do you regard to be the epitome of liberation?

Alexis: I think it comes in many different forms. Whether it be mental or physical liberation. I think that it’s self-governance. I don’t think that it’s like running through the streets or doing every fucking drug in the book. I think self-discipline can be liberation – being able to govern yourself and not have to worry about someone else’s safety.

On METAWAR you’ve got songs like American Landfill, Affluenza and Sell Your Face 2.0. Is this you guys exposing the vapidity of modern living – for example consumerism, pop culture – via these musical allegories that you’ve created?

Alexis: Totally. It’s us drawing a lot of bigger points from what we feel are these bigger systemic issues with the human experience. There’s a conceptual ultimatum in this record, like we fix things or we’re fucked, you know? We just wanted to make everything feel like a bigger iconic distillation of the things that we do. And I think that’s what METAWAR is. It makes me think where we should go with the next record. I feel like this one is, in many ways, the culmination of a 3TEETH state – so I feel like the next record is gonna have to contain a new trajectory.

The video for President X parodies the forthcoming presidential election as well as this conspiracy that humankind is controlled by reptilian overlords. There’s obviously an element of humour there, but the reality is far less comical. Do you think that whoever comes into power will simply be “repackaged” in order to maintain the illusion of choice?

Alexis: That’s basically the concept behind the video yes. It’s a sardonic cynicism – you end up making those jokes because the situation is so fucked up. Its like lampooning it is the only thing left to do. ‘X’ is merely the integer that can just be replaced – and it really doesn’t make a fucking difference what the outcome of the equation is.

The album contains a cover of Pumped Up Kicks by FOSTER THE PEOPLE. Can you tell us what prompted the decision to choose that particular song? 

Alexis: I’m not a huge fan of doing covers in general. To be honest, I’m not actually a massive fan of the song itself. Instead, we saw it as a challenge, to see if we could make it cool. I just wanted to do something that was gonna be really unexpected and make people go “what the fuck are these guys doing?!” And to me, that is what a cover should be. To take a song that’s not an industrial metal concept and give it new vocals. Put new production on it. We wanted to make a new one out of it – a genetically modified cover!

What do you want people to take away from this album?

Alexis: I don’t know, that’s a good question! For me, if they take anything away from it then that’s cool. I don’t like telling people how or what to take away from our music ‘coz I think that defeats the object in the first place? It becomes like an advertisement – that we wrote and created this “image” to make you go and buy that thing.

METAWAR is out now via Century Media Records/RED Music.

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