LA's Total Massacre are ready to tear things up with their new LP Class War. They've already delivered two tracks from the album (which, for reasons beyond the band's control, we're gonna use to pad out this interview), and TGEFM got ahold of vocalist Cap'n No Fun for a Roll of the Dice. We… ugh… rolled a TWO.
So… Total Massacre has a new album coming out: Class War. The band's themes seem to primarily focus on socio-political issues, “unapologetically reject(ing) fascism, racism, and capitalism.” What should listeners expect from the new album? What similarities and differences should we expect from your previous music?
Yeah the new record definitely continues to focus on socio-political issues if that's what you want to call it. Primarily the issue is that I'm pretty sure capitalists are literally gonna kill us all and leave the planet a dead smoking crater if we don't change the trajectory we're on. So not much has changed there compared to our old stuff, which was also about that.
What is new is we got a second guitarist because we clearly weren't loud enough already. And even though a lot of these songs were written before he joined, Eric has still really done a lot to make these new tunes more dynamic and, dare I say, melodic, than the older stuff. Also new is that, in the past we recorded and mixed everything ourselves, and don't get me wrong, we're proud as hell of the work we did on those recordings. But for Class War we decided to enlist some help from people who actually know what they're doing! So shoutout to Riff at Riff Audio for making this record sound just so fucking good!
It's been about three years since your last new music. What has Total Massacre been up to in the interim, and what can expect from the band looking forward to Class War and beyond.
Christ, I guess it has been that long since the start of the pandemic, huh? Well, I'd say for a good chunk of that time we were just trying to survive the weirdness that was the covid era or whatever. Then it was back to writing songs and working Eric into the flow of things, although honestly he fit pretty immediately. I won't speak for the other dudes but I know for myself the last few years have been full of a lot of introspection (therapy will do that to you I guess) so I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that there's a little bit more personal stuff on this record compared to our older stuff. There's stuff on this album about my struggles with my mental health which I wouldn't have dreamed of writing about in the past, so I'm pretty proud to have gotten that out there.
As for what the future holds? Right now we're just working on booking shows and doing promotion to back up Class War. After that? Well we may or may not be writing a rock opera about techbro billionaires disrupting the funeral market and dooming us all. I guess you'll have to stay tuned to find out whether I'm joking about that or not.
Thanks guys! Hopefully I rambled on enough to make those 2 questions really count!
Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.
the white drew carey (aka – Jeff Sorley) is the founder and head editor of TGEFM. He's lived (outside of) Chicago, Madison WI, (ugh) Penn State, Lyon FR, Oxford UK, central New Jersey, and now within earshot of SFO in the Bay Area. When not scouring the web for more great bands and labels to post about, he also spends time drawing (mostly) silly sci-fi and anime stuff under the name Asplenia Studios.