Lords

There are bands that strive to relive the past and those who inherently know how to take its best elements, mutilating them into something unique and brilliant. Louisville, KY’s Lords storm into the latter with Fuck All Y’all Motherfuckers, their follow-up to 2005’s Swords. Raucous, abrasive and loud, its 16 tracks are dirty, fast and loose, the perfect culmination of what would have become of crossover if Slayer’s morbidity had more impact on acts such as Nuclear Assault and Testament than the low-end chugging and meandering solos of Metallica and Megadeth. The end result on Fuck All Y’All Motherfuckers is a chaotic blast of Black Flag hardcore ravaged by Zeke’s hyperactive dexterity and further distorted by inspiration from the Melvins’ oddball musical twists. Stoking the fire, guitarist/vocalist Chris Owens’ raging, overdriven vocals unleash a well of frustration and anger via tracks with such endearing titles as "Waist Deep In Shit,” "Why I Don’t Give A Fuck” and "Man, Everything Sucks.” To the point, agile and quick-paced, the rapid-fire nature of songs incensed with Kittens’ rabid, downbeat-heavy attack ensures that Fuck All Y’All Motherfuckers is as cunning and blunt as it is the perfectly bastardized child of punk, hardcore and metal.

So, despite the line-up woes [Lords recently parted ways with bassist Matt Jaha], you’re continuing on?
Owens: Yeah. "You’ve gotta roll with the punches to get to what’s real,” as a wise man once said. We’re on tour now, driving through Branson, MI or something like that.

It’s just you and [drummer] Eric [McManus] on the road right now, correct?
Yeah, just us. I guess you’ve read the blog. Fuck it. [During a show], dude threw a tantrum, didn’t want to load his own shit, started slamming shit around, threw one of my amps and actually fucked up Eric’s kick drum, cracking it, which we didn’t realize until the next day, so I punched him a few times. Everyone else but him seems to think it was valid. I put the word out around town and a couple of people wanted to go out but couldn’t do it in the timeframe of a month. One guy could do it but couldn’t get the songs down so we said, "fuck it, let’s do it as a two-piece.” Obviously it’s better to have bass but it’s better to go out as a two-piece than not at all.

It’s impressive to hit the gravel despite not having a bassist in a power trio.
We can still do it; it’s determination. I’m also very accustomed to hardships such as this so it’s not shocking to me. Nothing ever works out right. You expect the worst and you’re never let down, but it never really occurred to me at any point to not go on tour as long as Eric was into it. He was down so we did. Last night was the first night and it went pretty well.

I suppose you had to live up to your commitments regardless?
Absolute worst-case scenario would be to cancel, which would be a bummer but we’d book another [tour]. In no way was it the end of the world.

Forgetting the politics and getting into the new album, this is a pretty aggressive disc.
A lot of it’s incidental. We never sat down and said, "This is what I’m trying to say.” We wrote songs and that’s how they turned out. The only thing that was conscious — and Eric wanted to murder me at several points during the recording — was that I was intent on not mellowing with age. A lot of bands tend to do that and I was like, "Play it fuckin’ faster!” "It’s fast!” "No it’s not! It’s not fuckin’ fast enough!” "It’s absurdly fast.”

I think your plan was great. You can really hear Eric’s anger on the tracks. It carries across the finished product ’cause it’s all so furious.
I got to tell Eric. [Speaking to Eric McManus.] He says your drums come across more aggressive ’cause you were really angry. [General murmur of contentment.] He’s happy you recognized it. As for myself, I did all of my guitars in 22 hours straight. We recorded at my studio, which is my job so when Lords are in there I’m not making money for anything else. We had two weeks blocked off for the Lords record and there were other bands coming so we had to get it done. There were a lot of fucked-up marathon sessions. It was a pretty intense process of recording the record. Maybe some of that translated. McManus: Can I talk more about the frustration with the drums? At multiple points, I was like, "goddamn it, man!” I ended up with tennis elbow for a week and barely got through the recording session with the drumheads I had on. He kept pushing me harder. "Waist Deep In Shit” was the song that pretty much killed them. I was starting to feel really shitty and almost didn’t make it through the sessions. Chris said, "Oh, I’ve got a secret weapon” and pulled out these Sudafeds from when he was sick. I took it and then I was wailing and smashing on the drums. It sounds dumb but it worked. We’ve got a big sense of accomplishment with this record. We busted our asses with it. It was stressful but we’re really proud of it.

Lyrically, this is hilarious.
Owens: I think so too. That’s the point I was trying to get across. Maybe there’s some of a conscious effort there. Reading some reviews of Swords, people thought the music was cool but the songs were about fantasy shit. They were Osama Bin Laden quotes. It goes back to the Henrietta Collins And The Wife Beating Child Haters EP: "This time, we’ll leave nothing to your imagination. We tried that last time and obviously it didn’t work.”

So you were intent on fucking with people via the lyrics?
Kind of but most of the time it’s on the fly. It’s about something specific, which is pretty self-explanatory on songs such as "Man, Everything Sucks.” I’m drawing a line in the sand. If you don’t get it, it’s about you. If you’re American right now and you’re not a fuckin’ millionaire and you don’t hate most things, you’re either incredibly stupid or you’re one of the people making me hate most things.

Even the artwork featuring the Jesus with a boner is pretty shocking.
I had ideas because that’s the kind of shit I think is cool. Usually there’s someone else involved that shoots it down. Our old drummer designed all the previous stuff. The content that I think is cool, he didn’t and it was his department so I didn’t interfere. This time around I got to do it my way though. I’d give him stick figures ’cause I can’t draw. "This is what I want! Give him a big dick.” I think it’s pretty cool.