Appropriately enough for a metal show, there was plenty of chaos involved in actually getting this interview to happen. Originally we were going to be interviewing The Absence and Goatwhore before the show but The Absences' van broke down 2 hours from the venue so the boys from Goatwhore went to pick them up. By the time they got back everyone was scrambling to get the Absence to the stage. We finally caught up with Ben Falgoust, front man for Goatwhore as well as Soilent Green after their set.

Interview written by Adam Burton
C\onducted and transcribed by j. ward.
Photos by Luz.

[COMA] After your contract with Relapse (Records) was up what were the deciding factors in Soilent Green signing with Metal Blade (Records) over any other labels?

[Ben Falgoust] They showed alot of interest in it and since I was already with them with Goatwhore and things seemed to be fairly smooth so far with Goatwhore, I mean, and thing could change in time, labels are weird like that but... I always wanted to keep the two separate as much as I possible can and signing to the same label is hard in a way, to do that. But it keeps things closer so I can keep an eye on shit. If you look at things they're doing, in the last 25 years even in the last 5 years, you can see what they've done and you can actually go in stores and find stuff. Nothing against Relapse, Relapse did a fine job and Relapse is a great label for bands that are doing something obscure and want to start out, they're great. Look at the bands they've spawned off, Nile, Mastodon, all these kinds of bands, Pig Destroyer, Cephalic Carnage, there's so many of them that other labels would have never touched where Relapse stepped in. They go after more obscure, underground things and present them to the public. It was just the end of that cycle and it was a mutual kind of thing with us and Relapse to be away from each other and then we moved on and we worked out our deal with Metal Blade. We did have some interest from some other labels but I just felt comfortable just because, the guys in Soilent would ask me...

(at this point I received a call from Luz who was supposed to be there shooting photos of the interview and we went to get her.)

[COMA] I was reading that your European tour was canceled last minute and I know you were looking forward to playing Europe. Do you have any plans to reschedule?

[Ben Falgoust] Yeah, we have plans but they're all in the works right now. It sucked, we were pretty aggravated about it. We've never been (to Europe) yet with Goatwhore so we really want to get over there and do some shows a couple of times to build that fan base, start building a following. Just like when you're a band and you first starts out in your home town, in your local scene and you play and you play and your fan base expands cause you keep playing and more and more people come out and then you start touring the U.S. and the same kind of process evolves. We want to do that in Europe but we're fighting this thing and we're trying to get there and hopefully we can get there soon. It's not like we don't want to go, we really want to go cause it's definitely a different kind of market and we'd like to see how that market takes in Goatwhore. It'll come eventually, we got things but we just gotta see how they fall into place and all the plans have to work out properly.

[COMA] What was the reason for the cancellation?

[Ben Falgoust] The agent that put the whole tour together flaked with something and ruined the whole entire tour. It fucked over all the bands on the tour.

[COMA] This being the final date of the Metal Blade 25th anniversary tour, how was your experience on the tour with the other bands and everything?

[Ben Falgoust] It was amazing. This whole tour was amazing. I don't want to speak of too many other tours, I mean we've been on alot of different tours and it's fairly good but it just seems that on this one, all these bands, they all share the same idea, extreme metal in general but they all offer a slightly different variation of what's going on within extreme metal. It was really good. Everybody got along really well. All the bands, We've toured with Black Dahlia (Murder) before and we know the guys in The Red Chord and we've done a partial tour with Cannibal (Corpse) before and it was good because everybody had been acquainted before and all the junctions just met perfectly and everything went so smooth. Everything went smooth, everybody got along, there was no problems with change over times or anything with the bands and if there were shows like tonight where it's a smaller stage we worked together and shared equipment so we could run things smoother. So, it's been really good man, it's really good and it was really good for us to come off of Sounds of the Underground and then go into a tour like this. It was fucking awesome.

[COMA] Your new album, A Haunting Curse, I heard a rumor that the studio you recorded in was haunted, any...

[Ben Falgoust] Not A Haunting Curse, the studio we recorded Funeral Dirge For The Rotting Sun in was haunted. There was some weird little things that happened here and there. There wasn't anything outlandish, the studio was two levels, the bottom floor was the studio and the top floor was a house, it used to be used, back in the day as a bookie house of some shit like that. Supposedly it got raided, like some mob involvement and a bunch of people got killed on night in there but we were in the studio late one night, it was like 3 or 4 in the morning. It was me, Sammy and the production guy and you could hear footsteps running upstairs all over the place like the was 40 or 50 people up there. There was no way to get up there besides where we were up this little spiral staircase that went up to the top floor cause everything else was locked and sealed off. It was weird, one night me and Sammy stayed in the engineering booth area with the mixing consoles and everything and we're laying there and we saw something quick out of the side of our eyes like it was moving fast or running and it was just weird. It was just little weird things with it and it was pretty creepy, it was a strange experience.

[COMA] Do you think that added anything to the album?

[Ben Falgoust] Maybe in some kind of odd subconscious way but we were in the middle of it and little things like that happen. One night we'd be there and something would happen and a week later some other little weird thing would happen but we pretty much had everything written and everything set. I'm sure it gave it a feel.

[COMA] I also read that the name of the band originated from an experience of one of the band members' friends had with a stripper, would you care to elaborate on that?

[Ben Falgoust] Sammy was out with a bunch of friends one night and they were at this strip club and one of his friends was really fucked up and the stripper had her hair in pig tails and she had this long odd face, they said she looked pretty ugly, they said it looked long like a goat or some sort of animal like that and she came around after a little dance thing or whatever and asked for a tip and his friend was all drunk and he was like, "Get out of my face you fucking goat whore!" But it goes even deeper than that. Aleister Crowley used to make his wives/mistresses have sex with goats and then bunches of men and had these ritual things going on. So, we have that idea from it as well. Basically a goat whore, she had to do some kind of fornication with a goat and then with several males too.

[COMA] That's kind of the idea I got from the name that's why....

[Ben Falgoust] Yeah, I mean, it's obscure, I like the name, it's odd, I think at points it might put us in a position. When we were first going with the band a lot of people kinda approached us as a joke. But we weren't, we had an idea of what we wanted to do and we were influenced heavily by earlier forms of black metal, Celtic Frost, Venom, Bathory, things like that and we wanted to project that and move on with it and the name just, it fit good, it was the thing, it sat with us well. It still sits with us well but when we cross the border we get snickers, the border cops are like, "Say that one more time...What was that name again?" and then one of them will be like, "Who was it?" and the other is like, "I'm not repeating it. I'm not repeating it." but, it is what it is.

[COMA] How has the response on the tour been to the new album?

[Ben Falgoust] It's been good, at this point the albums been out a year and one month and overall it's gotten a really good response, everything has been going really well with it, we're really pleased. We had this thing too, once we got signed to Metal Blade this was basically our debut for Metal Blade Records so we we're like, "We gotta bust ass, we gotta get out on the road, we gotta make it happen and build something so when we go on to the next record it's even more of an impact." Because, Metal Blade being the label they are and being able to promote and everything that it would build a resource for them to build to go into for the next record. It was a different step for us, completely from Rotten, Rotten Records is another small label and they could only go so far with us and Metal Blade can bring us that much further at this point. I don't see anything higher, I don't see us going to any kind of Warner Brothers or anything like that, I think it's a little absurd. Even if we did get to a stature where things got bigger I wouldn't really want to go to a bigger label. I want to stay with a moderate (sized) label because it seems like a lot of bands take that jump up to that then they have to jump back down anyway because metal's obscure anyhow, even as big as it can get, it's not big enough to compete with Britney Spears and all that fuckin' foolishness. Those labels that step in and want to be involved with it, do the record then they're like, "Oh, this didn't do as much as we thought." and you end up dropping down so why end up humiliating yourself? Just stay stable and stick with the label that has been with you the whole time instead of trying to jump up to something bigger?

(More of Bens' thoughts on major labels can be heard in the audio version of this interview.)

[COMA] Alchemy of the Black Sun Cult is the first single and the first video off of A Haunting Curse, I understand it directed and edited by David Brodsky. How was working with him on the video?

[Ben Falgoust] He's amazing dude. He is amazing, his work just gets better and better and better. I've seen a recent one he did for The Red Chord and it's fuckin' phenomenal. He's somebody that's... even though he is getting more and more recognition as he goes along, he still keeps close to the small ones cause he's like, "You guys are the ones that are helping build my career." We just saw him actually, when we played up in New Jersey him and his girl came out to the show and hung out. Whenever were up there he comes out and hangs out. He's always like, "I got newer ideas for the next video we do." and it's awesome. But he never exceeds himself cause it's like, "You know, our budgets not going to be that much if we do another one because the label's being tight about it." and he goes, "We'll work it out, we'll work things out." He's a great individual and his ideas are amazing and they just keep expanding. You could just give him a small tidbit, cause with the Red Chord video a guy from The Red Chord gave him this idea from this dream and he just took off with it and it's amazing the work he did with it. He's got shit in there that's better than some of these fucking CGI movies that are coming out. It's awesome and he's a really wonderful person to work with and I wish the best for him. I hope one day he's doing Madonna videos or some kind of wild, crazy shit like that cause he definitely deserves it and he does really awesome work.

[COMA] Were there any parts of the video that the band and David didn't agree on that you feel should have been done differently?

[Ben Falgoust] No, actually no. Basically he does it then he send you a version, a cut up version. He goes, "Go through it, give me your ideas of things you don't like and things you might want to add." and you look at it and you're like, "I think there could be less of this." or "There should be more of this" or "There could be more shots of this." and he goes through and changes it again and then you finally come to an agreement but we really didn't have to do much with the first one he sent. There were a few little things we wanted altered slightly but overall... You explain things at the get go with him so he tries to get everything together from the beginning but once he does it it's not solidified until you see it and you want these small changes done. He's done two for us now, he's done Alchemy of the Black Sun Cult and then he did, it's more of a live performance video for Forever Consumed Oblivion and he did great with that too, that was totally awesome, it makes us look like we're playing this huge, enormous place and there's people...I mean it was a good show and it was packed but the place, it's cool because you can take video and you can make it look like you're playing this fucking enormous place. He makes it look like an enormous fucking show.

[COMA] Now that this tour is over what does the near future hold for Goatwhore?

[Ben Falgoust] Right now it's head home and let everybody decompress slightly from being on the road so long. We did have plans to do something maybe in the beginning of December but I think we're gonna roll with just jumping into the new year. We have a tour that we're probably going to be doing in January and February with Exodus and if that doesn't pan out we've been talking to Dimmu Borgir's management about doing something possibly but we'll see. We'll see what happens. Maybe a few more really good tours and then I think we're going to sit down and start working on new stuff for the next record and who knows, maybe some Europe stuff will pop up in the early part of next year as well.

[COMA] Well, thank you for your time, that's all the questions we have is there anything you wish to add?

[Ben Falgoust] No I'm pretty good I guess.

Goatwhore's newest album "A Haunting Curse"is out now.
Visit Goatwhore's official website at goatwhore.net

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