Welcome to Racebannon's Terror...

During its ongoing thirteen years of existence, Racebannon perseveres as a quartet based on continual evolution and conceptualization. Always on the verge of a sheer maniacal descent into the void with each release, guitarist James Bauman (Medusa), bassist Chris ‘Sal’ Saligoe (Rapider Than Horespower, Magnolia Electric Company), drummer Brad Williams (Medusa), and vocalist Mike Anderson (Medusa, Rapider Than Horsepower) have crafted another concept album filled with venom and seething turmoil.

This new actualization, dubbed Six Sik Sisters, is an excursion into the minds of a 1700’s era family where the son is forced to deal with his plagued sisters. Their parents’ dabbling in witchcraft brings about the sisters’ illness, and their brother is charged with the sisters’ disposal. This is not a tale with a joyful familial reconciliation. This is a story based on dread and ill-fated human circumstance with an added touch of necromancy.

To execute such a lofty story, Racebannon stripped down their sound. With shorter, faster, and more concise songs the band presents Six Sik Sisters in a more streamlined fashion. Trying to capture the terror ingrained in the story as well as their live show, Racebannon left the prior studio experimentation at the door of the studio, opting instead for a direct injection of intensity via guitar to amp pummeling, thunderous drumming, pulsating bass, and throat ripping vocals. Six Sik Sisters finds the band focusing their efforts into a form of thrash that never lets up.

Racebannon is a band that has never let trends or status compromise their gnarled art or song craft. With Six Sik Sisters waiting for release, Racebannon is poised for a speed metal incursion into abrasion. James Bauman recently discussed with The Cracked Skull the making on of Six Sik Sisters, working with Kurt Ballou, and what is coming up for the band.

A new Racebannon record is on the horizon. How long has that been in the works? Is it going to be a concept album like ‘Satan’s Kickin’ Yr Dick In’, and if so what’s the story behind it?

We started writing Six Six Sisters a while ago. I think we even had it written before Acid or Blood was released. It’s a concept album in the vein of Satan’s with another story line created by Mike. It takes place in the 1700’s and involves a brother forced to get rid of his six sisters. The sisters are plagued with disease as a result of their parents’ interest in witchcraft. Making the record in Witch City, USA (Salem, Mass.) provided a nice setting and ambience for us. You can’t go anywhere in that town without thinking about the Salem witch trials. Surprisingly, they display it proudly.

What can the world expect from the new record? I would imagine it sounds more streamlined and straight to the point of melting faces.

It’s definitely more streamlined and stripped down. On this record we just kind of wanted to be a thrash band with speed metal parts that don’t let up. We tend to be long winded on our records, and we decided to go for a more short, sweet, fast approach this time around. A lot of the tracks have that classic speed metal riffage happening that we’re hoping listeners will be able to appreciate. Also, Mike’s vocals totally rip and sound scary as hell. While we were listening to the first round of mixes in the God City basement I said to Mike, “Whoa, this sounds really fuckin’ scary.” Everyone immediately agreed. For the first time on a Racebannon recording the element of terror, that we seem to have at our live shows, has finally been captured.

How was working with Kurt Ballou? How did the recording go at God City? I know things were financially a little tighter for the band going out there.

It went really well. Besides Sal having to deal with an injured hand he hurt loading his 8 x 10 cab a week earlier, it was probably the easiest recording we’ve ever done. Kurt is pretty easy to work with. He does things correctly from the start, so there is no need to fix anything later. In fact, he even made us go buy a new cymbal since he didn’t like the condition of Brad’s ride. While mixing we just let him do his thing and didn’t really have any concerns that he wasn’t already aware of. He knows what he is doing. It’s obvious. It’s not so easy to make him laugh though, and we’re pretty damned hilarious most of the time. He’s a very focused dude. As far as finances go, we made due with what we had. We had to do some camping, which was fun and sort of kept us in the zone for the next day in the studio. Really, we didn’t care how hungry or dirty we were. We just wanted to make the record.

I’ve heard he likes to track the songs as opposed to recording live. Did that make the recording process a bit less organic and emotive? It probably made the sound cleaner.

I was a bit surprised that he wanted to do it that way, but we quickly realized that tracking everything there makes sense for the room and the setup. In order for him to get the drum sounds that he wants, there’s no better way to do it. But, you’re right, it’s hard to feed off of each other the same way as recording live as a band.

Did you play around with any different instruments, amps, or toys in general while in the studio for this record? Or was it straight SG to amp?

No. It was a pretty stripped down setup. I used the same guitar and setup that I use live. Kurt has a nice collection of amps and cabs, but I used my Emperor 6 x 12 on top of one of his Emperor 6 x 12 cabs. It made for quite a mountain of Emperor worship. But most of our recordings I usually like to use a toy or some sort. I used a theremin in the studio on our second record, In the Grips of the Light, and I used an old rack mount delay during Satan’s Kickin’ Yr Dick In and Acid or Blood sessions. On this recording I used a cheap octave distortion pedal on some of the songs. I’m not usually a fan of pedals other than the channel pedal for my amp, so using a pedal like that one was a little different for me. But I like the gnarly and nasty sound I got from it, even if Kurt made fun of it. I think he was even encouraging me to throw it away. He probably went out and bought one as soon as we left.

Overall, are you happy with the recording and mixing of the new record?

For the most part, I am happy with it. I am never really a hundred percent satisfied with our recordings. Everyone is their own worst critic, right? There are always a few things I wish would have been played differently or just came together the way I thought they would originally. But, yes, I’m generally happy with how this records sounds. It’s blazing and abrasive. I definitely always wanted that from Racebannon.

When can the world expect this beast to be unleashed on the world, and what label(s) is releasing it?

I can’t answer that yet and can’t wait to know myself.

Hopefully, there is a tour or two in the works in support of the new record when it’s released. Is it too early to think about that? Maybe an U.S. tour or tour of Europe…?

Hopefully, yes. Probably an U.S. and European tour will ensue, and maybe a tour of Japan if we’re lucky. We need to make that happen finally. But we do have another record coming out before the new album called Wrap the Body on Joyful Noise Records. We’ll do some touring for that. It’s completely unlike the new album. It’s actually a DJ 12” complete with instrumental and acappella tracks that will probably take some fans by surprise. We had Jilly from We Are Hex do some guest vocals on it as well as a remix by Yea Big and Kid Static and Stak. It came out great. That will most likely drop at the beginning of next year. We’re pretty pumped for it.




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