INTERVIEW: Andy Marsh – Thy Art Is Murder

On the verge of one of their biggest shows to date, we caught up with extreme metal stalwarts THY ART IS MURDER guitarist Andy Marsh before their support slot for PARKWAY DRIVE at the world famous Alexandra Palace (read our review here). From what makes the band tick, to what it’s like being in the recording studio – we delve deep into the heart of one of metal’s most exciting, brutal bands.

At this point THY ART IS MURDER are one of the most respected bands in extreme metal, was their a moment where you realised you had become one of the bands in the scene, or was it a more gradual realisation?

Andy: I think we just toured really hard, and made what we think to be good records consistently. So it’s just a matter of feeling confident in what we did, and gaining the respect of our peers and the crowds year after year, and eventually you get to a place where you feel a little bit more comfortable – and that’s where we’re at.

Going back to Holy War, the songwriting on that record seemed to take a step up from Hate in terms of structure and lyrical themes, was the idea going in to record something a bit more sophisticated? Or was it a coincidence the songs sounded that way?

Andy: Musically we don’t have too much of an idea of what we’re going to do [in the studio]. Songs kind of write themselves to an extent, so you gather all these inspirations, and things that you like playing on guitar and then it just kind of comes out in your hands, it’s weird to explain. Lyrically though we definitely made deliberate attempts to work on the lyrical content on the record, and develop new ideas and talk about things that were more relevant to us, more real things; less fantasy, less un-targeted aggression.

I had the idea of calling the album Holy War before we even wrote the song. We were just gathering a lot of inspiration from our travels around the world and seeing a lot of things not going so well for a bunch of different people. So we started writing songs about more real world stuff, our record Hate is also about a lot of real things but also kind of wrapped up more in this religiosity. Holy War obviously has a lot of anti-religious stuff in it also but there’s also a lot of other inclusions like political unrest and animal welfare. So that’s when we really started delving into what was the news for us, and we’ve kind of gone further down that road as we’ve progressed.

From the outside looking in, your music is so intense that it’s easy to believe that the recording process is equally as intense i.e. SLIPKNOT. Is this the case for yourselves? Or is your time in the studio much more laid back?

Andy: Well, it’s insane in terms of the schedule, we’re serial procrastinators, we’ve made every record in like 10 days or something ridiculous. We don’t even write the records in advance – we just go the studio, we write the album, and then we record it. So we usually write the albums in like 2/3 weeks and then record them in a fortnight at the end of the session. So it’s like super intense trying to get as many songs as we can, for the last album we ended up with 25 components for songs and we had to narrow it down to 12. But in terms of the actual recording process it’s not that crazy, we don’t really see it each other. For Dear Desolation I was the only guy that was there most of the time, CJ came and recorded vocals, Sean came and recorded some guitars, then Lee came and recorded drums, and once they were done they all went home. But it’s super chill, we don’t take it too seriously.

You’ve said that you don’t go into a studio with 12 songs already written, as a result do you feel pressurised when you’re in the studio?

Andy: Yeah it’s definitely a lot of pressure, but with that being said without that we’d probably just sit at home doing nothing anyway. Somehow we manage to thrive under pressure, maybe the next time we make an album we’ll try and write songs for a longer period of time, but I don’t think we will.

Speaking of a next album, are any ideas floating around for that at the moment? Any themes set in stone?

Andy: For the last couple of years I’ve tried to think about making a mental note about things that I’d like to write lyrics about. Things will happen where I’ll be going to bed and be like “make a mental note of that for in the morning!” and it still hasn’t happened. I guess you gather all these things that annoy you, or inspire you over the course of the record cycle that you’re on, and it’s just fuel for the next one, and there’s not really too much rhyme or reason to what you select. We just get there, we make music, and then normally the music inspires the vibe of the lyrics which determines the kind of topic that I’ll write lyrics about. A lot of shit has happened in the last two years, but the last time we recorded was right around the US election, so obviously a lot of crazy shit has gone on in the States so I’m sure we’ll have some interesting stuff.

You’re pretty much at the apex of extreme metal at the moment, at this point are you planning on doubling down on extreme metal and becoming the AT THE GATES of the genre? Or is there a chance that you will branch off and become something more? 

Andy: I don’t know, we’re not too obsessed with titles or being the number one this, or that. I just look at bands like AT THE GATES, BEHEMOTH, LAMB OF GOD, SLIPKNOT, PARKWAY DRIVE and KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, and regardless of the genre those are all career metal bands that have consistently put out great music. Fans will say “oh that record was shit” okay, maybe you didn’t like that one as much but you can’t disagree that they’ve toured consistently at a high level and made records at a high level. Whether or not they dipped out for an album or not, and that’s all we wanna do. We want to play our best live shows, and make the best records that we can.

You seem so relaxed about everything from song-writing to the recording process. A lot of bands have specific aims and goals that they want to achieve but that’s not something you focus on either, does that make your time in the band incredibly easy?

Andy: I think that for a lot of bands that’s where they mess up, they have these egos that pre-determine their goals for them, and when you have too many of these pointless goals that are really quite arbitrary it just sets people up for disappointment, desperation, and missing out on the core components. My whole attitude is just do the small stuff right every day and that’s all you gotta do. We want to be a successful band, and that comes down to being a successful band every day – play the best you can, be the best kind of person that you can.

Dear Desolation was released 18 months ago, is the idea to let that album settle for a little longer before dropping a new album?

Andy: I’m not really to fussed about it really, we’re pretty busy, we’ve got lots of tours going on. So whenever we get some time to write a new record, which only takes us a month or so, then I guess we’ll do it. But for the moment, we’re out on tour, we go home, then we do more shows, so it’s pretty busy.

You’ve achieved so much in your career, what keeps you motivated now?

Andy: Erm, doing cool shit I guess [laughs]. Our job is cool, we get to travel a lot, eat lots of food, meet lots of great fans, play lots of cool music, and play with other bands that make cool music. I guess what’s anyone’s motivation to earn a living? If I didn’t write songs then I don’t know what I’d do – so this is what I do and thankfully as a byproduct of that we’re able to earn a living.

What’s been the most difficult album for you to write?

Andy: I don’t know, they’re all equally difficult to write in their own way. I mean there’s always a challenge; finding the write lyric, or finding the right anything. Eventually we get their though, it’s never any harder or easier – it’s like a Rubik’s cube [writing a record], you get better at doing them, but it’s always difficult.

You’re a band that says you’ll write what you want to write, you’ll get in the studio, see what inspires you at the moment and you will make the album about that. Does that make the album process easier because no matter what it’s about what you really want to do at the time?

Andy: For sure, I mean as we get older we have very broad strokes. Like with Dear Desolation we were like “maybe we should strip back all the extra guitar layers” stuff like that, or “maybe we should just do a couple of extra layers not ten”. “Maybe we should put less breakdowns in some songs if it works”. We never have any ultimatums, just some general directions that will gradually evolve the sound of the band rather than saying “on the next record we’re gonna have clean singing”, it’s very small steps, just fine tuning it. And also whatever we feel like, do we feel like playing less breakdowns? Maybe on the next album we’ll feel like playing more breakdowns, maybe it will JUST be breakdowns.

In terms of external pressure there is absolutely none, like our label Nuclear Blast, they don’t even care what we do. Which is cool for us, the A&R guy normally comes in when we’re finished recording a record and he says “yeah this is sick, good job, go release it” and that’s about it.

And finally, if you had to name one trait about THY ART IS MURDER that differentiated you from the rest, what would it be?

Andy: I don’t know….. we try really hard? [laughs] But actually we don’t try at all so it’s weird, I think a lot of people just try, and they put their energy in the wrong areas, and we’re very focused on the right areas and we don’t really care about any of the other stuff everyone else seems to care about, and it works for us, we’re very lucky.

Dear Desolation is out now via Nuclear Blast Records.

Like THY ART IS MURDER on Facebook.