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| Joel Grind photo by Chelsea Englizian |
Toxic Holocaust blasts back to the Primal Future with their new album. It's a ferocious, NWOBHM-infused thrash record, following 2013's Chemistry Of Consciousness. It's also the return of Toxic Holocaust as a one-person project, centered around its multi-instrumental mastermind, Joel Grind. I recently spoke with Joel over the phone about his new album, sci-fi movies, and his mixing and mastering career as a sound engineer.
Primal Future is your first album on the eOne label. How has it been to join forces with a new label?
I don't want to do something just to realize a record where you're compromising the integrity of the band. eOne was really cool. They gave me full freedom to do whatever I wanted with the record. Once that was in place, it made sense to do another one.
I also dig the new Leathürbitch and Slashers albums that you mixed. Sounds killer!
Thanks man! Both those guys are personal friends. I like working with people I know as well. It's nice when you're working with bands that you like their music and are friends with.
How did you get into mixing and mastering?
Right around the time of the last record's release is when I got more involved with that. I was more involved with the production of Chemistry. Back in the old days, when I was a teenager, I got started with that stuff. I had a mobile recording business and I kind of brought that back. Now a days you don't need like reel to reels. You can bring a lap top. Now it's something I can do in between tours instead of working at a bar, or something. I can still be involved in music and be in the scene.
What do you think makes an album sound great?
I think if people are coming to me for something they know. I don't make every record sound the same, but I have a certain style. I don't like when bands use a lot of samples on drums and it's super produced, and it sounds very cooker cutter. It sounds like every other band because everyone's using the same presets on stuff and using the same drum samples. All my favorite records are the ones that have that weird character. Maybe they're not the best for audiophile shit. But they have that thing. If I can draw something out of it that adds that element of a little rough around the edges...That's what metal is about. It shouldn't be too clean in my opinion. It needs that rough edge.
Are there any examples of that you can think of?
Like, Sodom in particular is one where I always like the way the records sound. Persecution Mania and Agent Orange, I like the way they sound. Agent Orange definitely isn't raw. It sounds good to this day. But by today's standards where everything is so sanitized, it's still a produced record, but there's still mistakes on it. It sounds like humans playing on it. I always like the way that sounds.
Plus compared to the first two Sodom records, Agent Orange sounds like Dark Side Of The Moon.
You hear Obsessed By Cruelty and you'll never forget that drum sound. It's so crazy. It's awesome.
What was the song writing process like for Primal Future?
I kind of wanted something that was a little different than the last one. The last record, I felt that I took the two-minute long song that we always do to the maximum that we could realistically do with it. I was happy with the last record, that I said consciously to myself that if I did another one, I wanted it to be different. I said I'm going to do a little but longer songs and do more arranging. Influence wise, it's drawing from 80's era Judas Priest like Defenders Of The Faith. I kind of wanted that really reverby sound, but it still sounded like Toxic.
You're also back to being a one-man band in this new album. How did this come about?
I did a record in 2013 called The Yellow Goat Sessions that was straight up Bathory worship, where I went back to recording everything and playing everything on it. And there was so much feedback from fans that wanted Toxic to do that. So that was in my head at the time. Our label situation was up with Relapse. I didn't have a budget, so I was demoing stuff, and I was like I could just turn these into the album. I felt like it rejuvenated the original spark that started the band.
Tell me about the sci-fi theme of Primal Future.
It definitely has a vibe of post apocalyptic future meets super sci-fi thing. I always liked movies based in the future, where it's the eighties and they project the future where we're living right now. A lot of eighties movies are based in 2019, and I thought it would be cool to do a record of an eighties sci-fi movie based on what today would be.
What's one of your favorite sci-fi films?
It changes…I always go back to Blade Runner because I've always liked the atmosphere. Terminator is killer. That concept is just unbelievable. There's lots of B ones that I love too. But Terminator you can't fuck with.
Are there any underground bands you've been listening to?
On this tour we've been listening to this band called Ranger. They're killer. What's so cool about underground music is that it's always alive. There's always one or two band that still keep it alive.
Thank you Joel Grind for going one on one with the GRIM-1. Catch Toxic Holocaust on tour with Gwar and Sacred Reich at the dates below. Listen to Toxic Holocaust's new album Primal Future here.
Oct. 16 — Reno, Nev. @ Virginia Street Brewhouse
Oct. 17 — San Francisco, Calif. @ The Regency Ballroom
Oct. 18 — Portland, Ore. @ Roseland Theater
Oct. 19 — Boise, Idaho @ Knitting Factory
Oct. 20 — Spokane, Wash. @ Knitting Factory
Oct. 21 — Seattle, Wash. @ Showbox SODO
Oct. 23 — Fresno, Calif. @ Tioga-Sequoia Brewery
Oct. 24 — Los Angeles, Calif. @ The Belasco Theater
Oct. 25 — Garden Grove, Calif. @ Garden Amp
Oct. 26 — Las Vegas, Nev. @ Fremont Country Club
Oct. 27 — Tempe, Ariz. @ The Marquee
Oct. 28 — Albuquerque, N.M. @ Sunshine Theater
Oct. 30 — Oklahoma City, Okla. @ Diamond Ballroom
Oct. 31 — Dallas, Texas @ Gas Monkey Live
Nov. 01 — Austin, Texas @ Empire Garage
Nov. 02 — Houston, Texas @ Warehouse Live
Nov. 04 — Nashville, Tenn. @ Exit/In
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