Killer Be Killed Debuts Live Shows In Australia

Metal supergroup, Killer Be Killed, will be debuting its live shows in Australia during Soundwave.

Usually one would think a group made up of extremely experienced musicians (Max Cavalera, Soulfly and ex-Sepultura; Troy Sanders, Mastodon - Vocals/Bass; Greg Puciato, The Dillinger Escape Plan - Vocals/Guitar and Dave Elitch, The Mars Volta - Drums/Percussion) would start from London or New York… anywhere but Australia.

Carl Neumann spoke to Max and Greg recently about their worldwide debut record success and upcoming Soundwave tour:

Why did you decide to tour Australia before the rest of the world?
Max: "Killer Be Killed record sales in Australia was our highest chart position, it was number 40 something and we were very glad about that. We are very glad to be doing KBK’s first show in Australia. The people, who bought your record the most, should be the first place that you play—that’s happening in Australia.

"We are going to practice in January. We are really going to put the pedal to the metal, figure out the set and learn the whole record and a couple of extra songs so that we can have an hour of material because we will have never played before live. There is so much energy on that record. Some of the stuff, I.E.D, Curb Crusher, Face Down, that stuff is made for mosh pit man. So there is going to be some madness going on when we play those songs when we play live, and I’m excited for that."

Greg: "In Dillinger Escape Plan, before we every came to Australia, we paid for everything with our own credit cards we had no means of getting there. We didn’t know if anyone there was going to ever can. We just really wanted to go to Australia. So we put ourselves in debt to go and if no-one would have cared we would have just been up shit creek. So from the very first time we went to Australia people have really embraced us and we have found that over the years when we are going all over the world is that there's a certain culture in Australia where the music is really a cultural driving force. It’s not just a commodity the way it’s become in the United States. Australia, for whatever reason music still seams very important to the people there and I’ve always felt that at home and going somewhere where music is still kind of regarded as meaning something. And talking to Max and Troy the feel the same way. We couldn’t be more excited to play the first shows we are ever going to play in Australia, so we are fuckin' psyched. We are going to be the most excited people there. I think we are going to self-combust."



Have you worked out where you are going to be standing on stage?
Greg: "Troy is really tall, so I am guessing he is going in the centre. Max and I aren’t really tall… dude… We have no fuckin' idea at this point about where we are going to go. When we rehearsed we played the songs live there was really no rules. One day I was here and the next day I was over there and Max was there… We don’t really know!” [laughs].

When recording the self-titled debut, were there any ego clashes in the studio?
Max: "You know what man, the recording went incredibly smooth. You wouldn’t think that you could bring in people into a room and everyone bringing their egos, or they may not like being told what to do… Honestly, I thought it was going to be hard. I thought that Max was going to be the hardest to work with, but, he been pretty much the boss of everything.

"Since Sepultura, he hasn’t really been in a band situation where he hasn’t been the ultimate authority. But there was none of it [ego] man, we really established really early that if we are making this record we need to treat it as if every one of our bands doesn’t exist and be completely willing to just say every fucking idea we think of to be willing to let go of those ideas and not feel the need to validate ourselves. The fact that we were there and working together meant that we had already accomplished and done what ever we needed to do to be creatively validated. We wouldn’t be in the room if we didn’t respect each other creatively, so we just went let’s get our hand dirty and start writing.

"We left that [egos] all outside. That was not allowed in the studio. [Laughs] Actually we had a sign on the door saying, “No rock stars.” None of that stuff went on. We are all guys that love music and we are not into the rock start trip. We all come from different parts of metal like Mastodon is very different, Dillinger Escape Plan is very different, and so is Soulfly but we all agree none of us are rockstars, and none of us have that personality and that we are all just cool people, and we want to make cool music."

How did you go about recording the album? Were you based in the same city or recorded at different locations?
Greg: "There wasn’t a single file sent. Not one single file or mp3 was ever sent. There isn’t one fuckin' email that has Killer Be Killed attached. That was really important to me. I’m not really interested in putting shit out. I don’t have any sort of checklist where I can just cross it out, done, you know. I actually like growing as a musician, I like writing, and I like getting my hands dirty, so I didn’t want it to be just a collaboration on paper.

"I did not want to lay down tracks and send them back and forth and someone puts it all together — that’s not a collaboration, that’s just protecting egos. That’s really just hiding behind distance and being like ‘well I gonna do whatever I want and I’m going to send it off and this guy can’t change it and they are going to do whatever they want’. There’s nothing exciting about that.



"Every single thing that we did, and this is what made it take so fuckin' long actually to do, everything we did we were in the room together. Everything was happening at the same time. Even when we were recording, we were all there, every day, from noon to midnight for a month and a half straight. We were changing the songs while we were recording them. We were deciding who would sing where while we were recording them.

"Every instrument was mic’ed and everything was set up at the sometime so if we had a song that, two-thirds of the way through, we decided ‘oh, Max sang this part before, but I actually think that it would be better if Troy sang that part. We could just fuckin' change it on the fly and it made it all really exciting because what ends up happening is that instead of me tracking for just two or three days and taking a break and then Max taking for two of three days, I would go in and do a vocal and then come out of the booth five minuets later and Troy would be like, ‘What you just did made me completely rethink what I was gonna do. Let me get in there real quick and do this. And, when he did that I would be like, ‘oh, shit, now that you did that I have to go back in and change mine because what you did was fuckin' awesome, and now mine sounds like shit.

"So, it was this constant collaborative process, and it made it all really exciting. When I listen to that record, I don’t know what other people hear, but I hear the fun of the three of us all in the room, all feeling like little kids together while we were playing. I have not had that feeling of this unbridled, anything goes, feeling since I was like fifteen."

Killer Be Killed Tour Dates

Lamb Of God + Killer Be Killed + Special Guests
Tues 24 February - 170 Russell (Melbourne)
Thurs 26 February - The Metro (Sydney)

Soundwave 2015 Dates

Sat 21 Feb & Sun 22 Feb - Bonython Park (Adelaide)
Sat 21 Feb & Sun 22 Feb - Flemington Racecourse (Melbourne)
Sat 28 Feb & Sun 1 Mar - Brisbane Showgrounds
Sat 28 Feb & Sun 1 Mar - Olympic Park (Sydney)