How Whiskey And Hangs Became Art

Living on the same street gave birth to Black Tusk. "We pretty much hung out together almost every night and drank together and stuff," starts drummer Jamie May. "We were all pretty much on the same level as far as music; listening to the same stuff and everything so this made it easy to vibe together right and come together to write."

Guitarist Andrew Fidler and bass player Jonathan Athon were playing in a crust punk group and May in a street punk band. Black Tusk was came together when the other outfits came to an end. "We all really liked metal and said 'we don't want to start up the same project again, so let's do something different that we haven't necessarily done before'." May still loves punk music though, digressing that you can hear the influences on every Black Tusk record.

Tragically, in late 2014 Athon sadly passed away in a motorcycle accident. "Well, for me personally, I had had what you would probably call my first best friend die in a car related accident. When I got in Black Tusk, and I had known Athon for so long, before being in that band he had become really close to me, what I would call a best friend. And then another accident, vehicle related, killed him and it's just, you start to see death as no matter how close you are with somebody that you need to cherish your friendship with them because literally in the blink of an eye they could be gone.

"There were a lot of nights that me and Athon would just stay up with a bottle of whiskey and just talk about all kinds of shit and write music together and what we were going to do with the band and our expectations. To do that and then see it actually happen is a crazy feeling," says May. "That's the stuff that I miss about him, the late night hangs and stuff."

Black Tusk now perform with Corey Barhorst on bass guitar, and though they've reached the international stage, May speaks very fondly of his hometown Savannah. "It's a small city and a small scene but there is a Savannah scene; magazines will talk about it and people wonder for such a small place how does all this really good stuff come out of it?" says May. "It's just because Savannah's thing is art, it embraces art. We have the second or third biggest art college in the world here… Everything is done out of creativity." The strong link between art and music is the defining aspect of each Black Tusk record: "There's been a theme for every album," explains May. "Every album cover has John Baizley (Baroness) doing the artwork. The theme to it that we come up with is from the lyrics to the album. After a while we usually start writing the music and then see where that takes us, and then through that we sort of write what the theme of the album is going to be. The art really plays a role in the music aspect of it because that's where we come from and that's how we do it here. Art that you see on paper has a lot to do with the music here too."