Brvtal Africa: Interview With Vulture Thrust from Overthrust

Botswana's Overthrust is a band that turns heads. These death metal cowboys are the total package, with a larger than life look to match their Earth-shaking metal sound. 

Overthrust's 2015 debut album Desecrated Deeds To Decease is 18 minutes of insanity. Rumbling double bass drums, raw riffs, and vocals roared like an angry lion. It quickly catapulted Overthrust to the largest stage in the world, with an appearance at Wacken Open Air Festival in 2016.

Overthrust's drummer, Suicide Torment, lost his life when he was hit by a car in December 2018, but the band moves forward to honor his memory. Their next album will be titled Suicide Torment, and it's certain to continue the momentum they gained since their debut.

Svart Records cover art to Brutal Africa

I conducted this email interview with Overthrust's vocalist and bassist Vulture Thrust below.

HELL-O Vulture Thrust! Thanks for your time. I really enjoyed the sound on Desecrated Deeds To Deceased. Very intense, groovy, great drumming breakdowns. What inspires you to write death metal?

Thanks for the compliment, I grew up in a strong metal family with my father into old school heavy metal and Rock N Roll  also a biker listening to Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Dire Straits, Deep Purple etc and my greatest inspiration was my uncles who were deeply into underground stuff and I was first introduced to death metal by my uncle Dux Drag Dee whom left me in his house with a playlist on and among that playlist Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse extremely got into me so much that the sound was so unique, extremely aggressive and sounded dangerous just the way I liked It for my energetic youth days by then. That was in 2006 and from there I started practicing growling vocals by imitating dogs when they bark and lions when they roar in a television program, so as I grew up I had opportunity of access to the internet and I started downloading and watching Florida old school death metal bands and passion to start our own metal band was fueled and in 2008 we started Overthrust with my cousin Spencer Thrust.

Who are your heavy metal heroes, who influenced you as a bassist and vocalist?

My heavy metal heroes are the late Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister, David Vincent, Tom Araya, Glen Benton, Chris Barnes and Alex Webster, bassist for Cannibal Corpse influenced my bassist attitude, I love how he attacks his bass riffs and his techniques.

How did the death metal cowboy culture of Botswana come to be? I really dig your fashion sense!

It all started around 1960-70s, when western movies were a huge attention to Botswana and looking at the fact that farming, rearing cattle and riding horses has always been Botswana nation lifestyle and culture, so the cowboy fashion and lifestyle was already there. When our Western friends came to Botswana back in the days as missionaries and tradesman we had good peaceful working and interactions relationship that resulted in inter-marriages and business relationships AND that’s when the Rock N Roll and Metal was spread into Batswana by our Western friends. By time the youth was introduced to too much Punk Rock and Glam Metal, the likes of KISS, Motley Crew etc and the dress code of those bands brought an idea designing our own unique attire by combine cowboy fashion with rockstar fashion while listening to metal, so with years passing metal became brutal and we did not leave behind the introduction of spikes, chains and skulls became part of some of our new fashion and we kept it that way till present time.

Overthrust was recently featured on the Brutal Africa compilation by Svart records. How does it feel to be on a label release with some of your country mates?

It really feels great, is a strong opportunity and exposure for us, is real difficult for an African band to be featured or get an opportunity like that and when those chances come that band must be real interesting.

What's it like to be a metal head in Botswana? Is it still an underground movement or has it become more mainstream?

Botswana has always been tolerant and supportive for any kind of music no matter how brutal the music sounded except a few individual religious people. Well the past 10 years with the pushing spirit of Overthrust it has real become more mainstream, but before that it was just underground not that it was opposed simple because metal bands choose to keep their scene underground, though in Botswana we have never faced any strong opposition from either religious or government against our music. When we Overthrust came in the scene back in 2008 we strongly fought against any religious or social criticism against our music and never gave up or cared about what people said, we fought with our brutal music lyrics against bullshitting religious critics till they understood and learnt to respect our music and its fans, as we speak now Botswana is a metal State, is a peaceful Country with loving, just caring and considerate nation with too much tolerance expect a very few, at least 5% of religious people that feel intimidated by metal.

What other bands from Botswana do you recommend we listen to? 

Wrust, PMMA, Crackdust, Skinflint, Remuda, Stane and some of the bands that has not recorded yet but still in the process of doing it watch out for Raven In Flesh, Vitrified, Evagren, Dust N Fire.


I'm really sorry about the loss of your drummer Suicide Torment last year. Tell me one of your favorite memories of him?

The late Suicide Torment, who died in 2018.

He loved drinking beer a lot. He could drink three days in a row without taking a break and still he will ride those drums with too much energy. Whenever one calls him through telephone, before he could hear what you called for he would say that, “where is the beer, let’s go drink.”

I remember very well that we often got into trouble with hotel management whenever we are touring as when he gets inside a hotel room he will drink all alcohol inside the hotel room and when asked to pay later on he would say he thought it was for free of charge. Someday we were travelling from a show in Gaborone and we made a loss in 2016 and the little money we had was for food and he said that, “well I didn’t say am hungry brothers, can you please buy me beer with my share instead of food, I don’t need food I want to drink.” 

Sometimes when you find him at his place and you trying to discuss issues with him and you find that his concentration is low he would say, “I need beer, lets go get a beer so that I activate my concentration.” But Suicide was a real loving and caring brother, he had a high team work spirit and always over-protective to his brothers, he used to get in trouble for fighting his brothers fights, we used to team together in streets fights against non-metalheads in a drinking pub ha..ha..that was back in the days when we were immature.

I read one of his relatives is the new drummer for Overthrust? How's it been working out with your new drummer?

His uncle, the young brother to his mother,  Beast is in fact our very first drummer, Balatedi Folai aka Beast Thrust. So in 2008-2009, Beast taught Suicide drums. Then in 2010 Beast handed the drum section to Suicide. So when Suicide passed on, Beast was the obvious replacement and his family and our friends had the same idea and he was immediately a replacement. 

Overthrust live at Wacken Open Air 2016

He is doing great. He is an experienced brutal drummer, it took him two months to finish eight new songs and two weeks to re-adjust old songs that he already knew back in the days. He is more faster and had a brutal drum blast beats attack a little faster than Suicide, but when one listens to today’s Overthrust is more or like or just the same as old Overthrust.

You also played Wacken Open Air a few years ago. How cool was that to play in front of thousands of metal heads? 

It was a dream come true. I remember in our early days in the band when composing new songs in 2008 when our guitarist Spencer Thrust said that, “with this new song I am just seeing Overthrust in Wacken.” So when the dream came true it was a great out of this world experience, the crowd, sound and lightning and the beer was great. We had too much confidence and excitement to show the world what we were made of and we were looking forward to meet our Europe and World metal family. Wacken has a great warm welcome and caring attitude for metal world and everyone is very nice and ever smiling. Wacken management is the best.

What types of non-metal music do you listen to?

Pop, our traditional music, Country music and old school splash music from South Africa.

What else are you excited about in the future for Overthrust!? 

New album, upcoming tours.

Suicide Torment, the upcoming full length from Overthrust.

Thanks for going one on one with the GRIM-1.  Anything you'd like to add in closing?

A BIG HELLO TO METALHEADS ALL OVER THE WORLD, MUCH RESPECT AND LOVE TO THEM. HAIL!!

Follow Overthrust on their official Facebook.