Guitarist Andy Marsh Shares Why Thy Art Is Murder's Message Needed To Change

In several respects, the Thy Art Is Murder of 2019 is almost unrecognisable compared to the incarnation which issued their first EP, 2008’s Infinite Death. For one, after the recent departure of drummer Lee Stanton (replaced by previous fill-in Jesse Beahler), guitarist Sean Delander is the sole remaining original member.

Guitarist, co-songwriter and lyricist Andy Marsh is keeping mum on the reasons for Stanton’s exit – they haven’t yet consulted with him about how he wants to address the line-up shift publicly – other than stating “it was him leaving because he wants to”. “Lee definitely has a style – very mechanical and fast. But because we write the music in the computer, Sean and I normally write the drum parts anyway,” Marsh offers.

However, he adds that the new sticksman has pushed him as a writer and guitar player to “deliver a few different options”.

Also, the band, which once proudly proclaimed its Western Sydney heritage, now has membership spanning the US, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney. Meanwhile, not only is the bruising, tightly honed brutality of new album Human Target a quantum leap forward from primitive deathcore in terms of technical proficiency, songwriting and sonic heft, thematically they’ve also progressed from the misogynistic subject matter of early songs like Whore To A Chainsaw.

This is an issue directly addressed on key new album track, Atonement. Exploring themes of sexual violence, it’s also self-referential – literal reparations for those questionable lyrics from their formative days. “I always have the topics and match the topics to the songs,” Marsh explains. “The record has an oppressive tone lyrically... That song, mood-wise seemed to suit that tone.

“Having the word ‘atonement’ was wordplay on my part, it’s a line in the song. The song is about trying to put myself into the shoes of a woman that’s had to overcome some sort of sexual violence. It’s also a wordplay on the band seeking atonement for things that it’s sung about in the past.”

Was it vital for Marsh to address these issues, and perhaps close that chapter of Thy Art Is Murder’s history for good? “I wasn’t really thinking of it in that respect, I don’t really care what the band did earlier. I don’t agree with it, but it also had nothing to do with me. So I wasn’t motivated in that regard by it, but it’s definitely something that I took into consideration, and knew somehow that it would be intertwined because the band has sung songs of an opposite nature in the past.”

Admittedly, the group had still been playing EP songs such as Whore To A Chainsaw live in recent years to sate long-time followers, although of late frontman CJ McMahon has rejected punters’ requests for them at gigs. Marsh reiterates that they will no longer play any of those EP tracks at shows. “It really came to a head [when] I had a daughter four years ago, and I never liked that song anyway,” Marsh continues. “And I definitely wouldn’t want to be playing songs that have a message sharing that sentiment to impressionable kids.

“Also, Germany’s a very progressive nation and I met with a board of feminists in Leipzig a couple of years ago, to also discuss various methods of reparation that the band could take... No one in the band really had anything to do with it, except for Sean, and he’s the only guy who still wants to play those songs, [but] I don’t really care to represent the material. I didn’t have anything to do with it, and it’s not something that I agree with.”

Elsewhere, Human Target, the death-metallers’ fifth full-length album, tackles topics such as organ harvesting in China, the role of social media in the mental health epidemic, addiction and the surveillance state, and for-profit-prisons. Also noteworthy is the mosh-ready Make America Hate Again, which the guitarist insists isn’t intended to alienate any of the band’s more right-leaning audience members.

The Music suggests the song’s message could potentially be misconstrued by some devotees Stateside though. “Yeah, it is something that I’m concerned about because I don’t want to alienate our conservative fanbase in the South, which is where we do quite well. I will be issuing a statement to go along with the music video for that song.

“The song isn’t about conservative Americans and Republicans and whatnot. It’s more about how the recent Presidential campaign in America, really, if it succeeded in one thing really well – because I don’t think either party had a great campaign – it just succeeded in making Americans actually hate each other,” the typically forthright axeman chuckles. “The whole blue versus red thing. And I think Democrats have as much to answer for as the Republican side of the nation. It’s escalating the level of animosity between Americans for their differences. The song is just about that, and it’s obviously leveraging the Trump campaign slogan for intrigue, and to make it a little bit funny.”

And while they’ve established a sizeable profile in Australia, it’s overseas markets such as the US where Thy Art Is Murder’s death metal/deathcore fare truly appears to be on the rise. However, their work ethic may be tested by real-life considerations, such as McMahon recently becoming a father.

“We just try to work smart, cover the world as best as possible,” Marsh explains. “We really don’t play that many shows – we play less than a hundred shows a year and we have done for the past five years. Not a lot of people realise that; they seem to see us everywhere, because we are, but we’re just doing it efficiently and effectively. Most bands of our size have to play 200 shows a year to cover this much ground.

“CJ has only just recently started his business up, I’ve got a kid that’s three-and-a-half years old. It gets pretty hard to maintain the touring thing. I would like to play more shows, we all really would. The thing that really slowed our momentum down the most was CJ dipping out for a year, and we had to be super tactical about how we handled that scenario for the 18 months. So hopefully next year we’ll be back to regular programming and be up somewhere around 150 shows a year.”