The Support Squad

Psycroptic

"People are going to like it if you put out something good. I try to avoid any politics or 'scenes' or whatever. We just do our own thing.”

In a world of Tumblrs, online forums and cyber-bullying, music scenes are growing into microscopic organisms with increasingly strict rules and regulations about what one must do, and perhaps even more importantly, not do, to participate in them. Haley, who's seemingly helmed the kit at one point or another for every Australian extreme metal band worth a damn over the past decade, doesn't buy into it.

Now that Psycroptic – the band he formed with brother Joe back in 1999 – are big dogs in the proverbial backyard that is the Australian extreme metal scene, they've had opportunities to bring some of the up-and-coming extreme bands out with them on tour. They helped bring The Amenta to a wider audience, provided a showcase for the talents of Ruins and now they're bringing those grind thrash crazies King Parrot with them on their latest national tour. But Haley says those decisions have never been about 'supporting the scene'.

“'Supporting the scene' is kind of just an abstract statement. What is a scene? Does it ever exist?” he asks rhetorically. “If we can bring out bands that we're collectively into, then that's supporting it by default I guess… But [that] whole 'support the scene' ethos is kind of a weird thing. It's like, well, how do we do that? Do we donate money to this scene? It's strange. We're into supporting those who support us in terms of the fans who come out to the shows; we try to repay them by putting on a good show and a good package.”

Citing some of the influential bands that took Psycroptic out on the road when they were coming up in the world – the band performed on European tours underneath death metal royalty like Deicide, Nile and Cannibal Corpse – Haley explains that while Psycroptic don't feel any allegiance to a perceived 'scene', they do think that's it important to repay the favour. And it just so happens to be a win-win situation because the fans want to see bands like King Parrot, and so do Psycroptic.

“I think it's important to us as a band, because we've had the opportunities earlier on where other bands helped us out and took us out on tour, as well as it gives something to the fans, who probably don't want to see the same line-ups every time,” Haley continues. “You know, people are spending their money, they've got a choice whether they come to the show or not, so we want to make sure that they get their money's worth. We've gotta keep it fresh for everyone; for ourselves, for the punters.”

And anyone who's seen one of King Parrot's recent chaotic shows will know that freshness is all but assured. And when you're in Psycroptic's shoes – veterans of more than a few Australian headlining tours – that's the kind of thing you want in a support band.

“Turning up with someone like King Parrot can be very interesting,” Haley smiles. “But in terms of the live show, we try to up the ante every time we tour. We've started playing along to click tracks and samples, so we've got the whole set planned out, which is something we haven't done in the past. But then getting a band like King Parrot onboard, who put on an insane live show and there's a massive buzz around at the moment, pushes us to be better. Because we don't want to get our arses handed to us on the live front.”

The upcoming run will mark one of the band's last for The Inherited Repression, the band's fifth record. Released in February last year, Haley says the album's response still seems very positive.

“It seems to be our most widely-received album that we've put out. Every album we do is kind of completely different to the last one, more so just to keep ourselves interested, but this one seems to have a more widespread appeal. The most frequent comment is people coming up and saying, 'Oh, I didn't like your older stuff but I'm digging your new stuff,' which is a cool thing.”

Though he's cautiously optimistic about how the songs on the record have been received (“People will come up and tell you whether you've done something good, but they won't tell you if something sucks. At least not to your face,” Haley reckons), how has touring the record for nearly 18 months changed what The Inherited Repression songs are sounding like?

“Once we create a song, that's it. That's why our sound on albums evolves, rather than songs we've already got evolving on the live front – we evolve with newer material. So once we're done with an album, that's how it goes, and we focus any newer influences to the newer work that we want to do.”

As for when some of those new influences might coalesce into something more tangible that the fans can dig on, Haley says: “We're continually writing; we've always been a band that accumulates material gradually, rather than sitting down and going, 'Okay, we've got six weeks to write an album.' We're always chipping away at material.

“We've already started recording new tracks. We recorded three tracks earlier this year… So we're just trying to figure out how to release them. We're definitely going to release a new song as a film clip, because that's something we haven't done and it's something a bit more interesting than just putting a new song up online.”

Haley promises that the new track and clip is well on its way. “We've already shot the clip. A friend of ours who shot the Initiation film clip said to us, 'On this date I've got access to a slow-mo camera and a studio so let's do a clip with you playing and I'll do it all in crazy slow-mo.' So it's going to be interesting to see how it all comes out because whenever we work with someone creative, a video production person or artist or whatever, rather than telling them what to do we usually give them complete creative freedom, because we don't have much of an idea about doing a film clip, so why should we overshadow a more suitable person's creative work?”

Haley says that recording of a new album is likely to get underway “at the beginning of next year”, but in the meantime there's going to be new Psycroptic stuff popping up in the second half of 2013.

“[The video clip will] be out some time in late August. We'll put that out, but then we're not too sure yet what to do with the others. We'll just take it as it goes. Which is a good feeling, because now we're in a position where we can do what we want with 'em.”