Paul, guitar played from Cerebral Bore, interviews Brutal Death Metal virtuoso Shaun LaCanne, for Metal Blast!
Shaun is the man behind Putrid Pile, a brutal band from Wisconsin (the cheese state!) with a very characteristic sound, very graphic and brutal lyrics and, most importantly, a great musical quality.

Paul: I’ve heard you have a new album coming up
Shaun: Yeah, it’s called “Blood Fetish”, which will be released by Sevared Records. I just finished doing the main vocals. After the festival  I’ll spend a week in Denmark and afterwards I’ll go back home to finish the high vocals and start mixing.
I also have a DVD coming out, “Live from Obscene Extreme 2011″, which was recorded by Lunatic Media. They did a really great job in editing and took a lot of time with me. We also have some extras on that DVD, a couple of extra shows and stuff like that. It’ll also be released on Sevared Records.

 P: Is the artwork done already?
S: Actually, Tony Koehl, the one who did “House of Dementia”, is also working on this one. He’s actually working on it right now. It’s gonna be good.

P: Have you decided on a color scheme for the cover?
S: Just like in “House of Dementia”, there will probably be a lot of red too, since it’s called “Blood Festish”.

P: How typical!
S: Yeah, very typical. It sounded good, I liked the name.
But, in any case, I don’t really know what the artwork is going to be. I haven’t had too many ideas, so I just told tony “go with it”. I wanted him to make it sick, but don’t make it like everybody else, like with serial killers in a basement hacking up bodies and blood everywhere. It’s been done a million times. I wanted him to do something different, something that will stick out.

P: What stage are you in the recording right now?
S: I have all the music laid down. I did the main vocals and once I get back from Europe I’ll do the high vocals and then we’ll start mixing.

P: I heard you got some guest vocals there, a ghost writer too. From Putrid Pile or something like that.
S: [laugs] Yeah, Paul from Cerebral Bore, this Scottish cunt right here, did the lyrics for this tune called “Deep Fried Evil”. It’s about some times when we were on tour with some funny stuff thrown in there; it’s just a joke, nothing really serious. I mean, it’s serious, because it’s still a song of mine, but it’s a fun song. And I had Paul to write  the lyrics for it, and Som (vocals, Cerebral Bore) actually did the vocals for the demo track, but no one will ever hear that.

P: I’ve had this song for like 6 or 4 months, and only two days ago I actually made a demo version of the vocals for him.
S: Yeah, I was like “Paul, I need these lyrics and the patterns now, since I’m recording vocals”.

P: So I’m waking up Som going like “You need to wake up and do the vocals… I’ll tell you exactly what you need to do… it needs to be with Shaun in the next couple of hours”.
S: Since I like to mix things up a lot, I also put a lot of old school stuff in this album, as always,  but also some newer school stuff in there, like some technical stuff (but keeping the old school breakdowns). Still, really good vocals, and I’m really excited about the vocal tracks.

P: Every time I see you doing something live I’ve noticed that your vocals have that extra fucking kick to them when you’re not using your guitar, since it even allows you bend to do the growling.
S: You even feel it a bit more too, since you can concentrate more in feeling the lyrics and the vocals.
It’s always nice to have Paul with me on stage to play with me. We played “Mounts of Death”, in Las Vegas, where he played “Shit body pain” and “Bind, Torture, Kill”
We’re going to do it tonight too.

P: I heard that yesterday or the day before that your album “Pleasure and Suffering” got banned in Germany.
S: I just found out about that yesterday. It got banned because of lyrical content, because I just sing about sick, disgusting gore and stupid shit.

P: We’re not talking about extreme things, just the kind of stuff Cannibal Corpse does, right?
S: Yeah, just stupid stuff. People “higher up” just take the music more seriously than it’s supposed to be portrayed.
I sing about these topics because I don’t have shit to say. I don’t care about anything, I don’t care about lyrics… I care about vocal patterns, but that’s about it, my heart is in the music. Other than that, I’ll just talk about stupid zombies, gore and shit like that.

P: That’s why we at Cerebral Bore writes mostly about stuff that actually happens to us. For example, in our new single, released two weeks ago, part of the lyrics are about a fart done by Shaun in Portugal.
S: Yeah, Som has to thing about my farts for eternity.

P: We’re the exact same thing as he is. You have the choice of either singing about something gory and brutal or you thing about something else, whatever that may be. We choose to do a bit of funny tour stuff, you know?
But it’s important to understand that Shaun’s CD hasn’t been banned because of anything extremely graphic; it’s just the same stuff applied to something new.
S: It’s just gross and shocking content. I really don’t care about my content, I like the music.

P: If you can get your music banned in the land of the Scheisse movies, then you know you’re doing something right.
S:  Definitely. In any case, there’s a re-release of the album , through Sevared Records.

Metal Blast: Why did you decide to be a “one-man band”, as opposed to just work as a tradition ensemble of musicians?
S: It just happened. I used to be in this thrash band called “Numb Skull”, which later morphed into a Death Metal band, but then we disbanded (in amicable terms). I still wanted to be part of the underground, since I was just getting into the bands, like Disgorge,  Devourment,  Skinless, Dehumanized, Fleshgrind and bands like that. I still wanted to be a part of that, so I just figured that I’d write some songs, maybe put out CDs, play a show here and there, and that was it. Originally I just wanted to put out CDs, but then it kept blowing up. At first I’d just send out my demos to anyone who’d take it, for free, not even charging shipping costs. I sent demos everywhere, and it kept creating more and more shows.

P: At the time you did that, you were perhaps the only person in the death metal scene doing the “one-man” thing. I think that it allowed a lot of people to realize that if they can’t find good members they can simply say “fuck it!”
S: Yeah, just pick up a drum machine and write songs.  And I saw Insidious Decrepancy at the Ohio Deathfest, back in 97 or 98, and he was doing that way before I was even thinking of doing Putrid Pile.
I just want people to know that it can be done. Don’t leave your good songs and good material; don’t leave them waste. You can still put out CDs and, who knows, you might play open air festivals and stuff you never even dreamed of. It can happen!

P: Speaking of Open Air Festivals, what else do you have coming up for the rest of the year? Anything outside the US?
S:  I have one more European festival coming up, in Germany, I think in August. Other than that, it’s just national shows.

P: You’re probably going to do a small UK tour by the end of the year, around November.
S: I still have to see all the castles.

P: Well, we did have a drink at Sterling Castle: we’ve also been to the Edinburgh castle.
S: Yeah… also to Stonehenge. I was playing a ukulele in Stonehenge because of this guy and his “ideas”.

P: It was a good idea!
S: Yeah, it was.  You gotta make sure you have the tape of that.
Anyway. I have the new CD coming up, probably by the end of May, just in time for the Maryland Deathfest. The DVD will probably be released around the same time. It’ll be two nice releases, so I’m happy for that.
I’m also working on another project,  called “Earthburn”, with former members of Broken Hope and possibly former members of Cephalic Carnage. We already have some songs written, and we’re going to demo our stuff. They’re laying down the drum tracks in the States, probably as we speak. That’ll be more like old Terrorizer or Napalm Death, with a little bit of old school death metal, and some of my..

P: Some of that special magic?
S:  Yeah, a little slam here and there…. fairy dust.