Perth heavyweights All This Filth have suffered through a pandemic and a major line-up upheaval to get their latest album out. Presenting a powerful combination of thrash, groove, death metal and industrial elements, their latest album Tomorrow Will be Better dropped early March through Louisiana-based label Brutal. We let vocalist Brandon Preston fill us in on future touring plans and the pros and cons of being a band difficult to pigeonhole.
LOUD: How have things been for you Brandon? Things seem to be going well for All This Filth right now.
Brandon Preston: It’s been pretty busy, pretty hectic. Overall, I would good. We released the album at the start of March – it’s called Tomorrow Will be Better. Then we did the album launch show last Friday at the Rosemount Hotel here in Perth. It’s one the better venues here is Perth, that and Badlands is probably the best venue. We launched the album there and it went pretty well. So far we’ve had good reviews from the media and good comments from fans. I can’t really complain. We’ve got a few things in the works…we’re trying to put some tours and such together, come over east again. We’ve just been busy, basically, and it’s looking good so far.
LOUD: Have far have you got with the plans to come east, because it does take some planning to get over here from Perth?
BP: Definitely. At the moment…at the end of last year we went to Victoria for Killfest and we did two side shows in Melbourne and SUnbury while we were there. We got on Killfest and then planned the rest of the tour ourselves, sort of DIY, which is our style. It was hard, but rewarding. We met some good bands and great individuals. Then, earlier this year we went to Brisbane and played the Monk and Pedal Festival, which was great! A mate of ours – Lee Robinson – set that up, and we played another show that Lee also set up, which was good. We’ve done a bit of touring lately which has drained the bank account, because flights are ridiculous! The cost of Perth to anywhere is just ridiculous. That is literally one of the things stopping bands from WA coming to the east coast. So far for touring plans, we’re just in talks with a few people. Nothing’s set in stone, but there’s some bands we’re talking to and some promoters. We want to get over to the east coast as much as we can, and it pretty much comes down to how much we can afford and how much time we can take off our day jobs.
But anyone who knows the lay of the land, please hit us up because basically what we need is knowledge and money!
LOUD: I think everyone needs those things. It’s getting tough at every level. You have managed to get your album out, so give us a little bit of background on that now. How long did it take to pull it all together?
BP: Well it took us a long time. We released our last album Misery Season in 2019, and that took us a fair while. So it’s been five years. We started writing shortly after we released the last album, but we had a different line-up to the one we have now. Almost completely different – only myself and the bassist/keyboardist Benny Bones remain from the previous line-up. To cut a really, really, really, reaaaalllly long story short, we started writing with those guys, went into the studio…we’d finished recording by the end of 2022. It started getting mixed at the beginning of 2023, so that gives you some perspective about how long it’s taken. Once you get it written, and you demo it, and then record it, that took us two or three years. Then once it was ready to go we didn’t want to self-release like we’d done before, so there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes business stuff that you’ve got to do.
We also had the disadvantage of a lot of people from the last line-up leave. So we had to replace those members, get back on our feet and play the album launch accordingly. So we’ve done that…we took our time, which dragged on forever, really. But looking back, and with a little bit of hindsight, we did the right thing because if we’d had rushed it and just released it, it wouldn’t have done as well.
LOUD: So have those songs taken on a new aspect now the band has a different line-up?
BP: Well obviously the album was completed with the old members, so the recording hasn’t changed, but has the vibe of the band changed? Definitely. Whenever you get a new line-up or a new member, it’s like saying the same thing with a different accent. It’s the same song, but with a slightly different accent. So when we play them live, do they sound different? Of course. Not because we play them differently, but you’ve got different [guitar] tone, a different feel on the drums, so it feels different. Benny and I were there from the last line-up to where we are now, so we can feel the difference with the energy. For better or for worse, it’s for the fans to decide, really, but I think it’s better. We’ve got a good sound now, everyone’s handling their roles pretty well, and I can’t complain. When we’ve played at new places we haven’t been to before, or even when we play at home, everyone’s getting into it and we’ve playing a lot of the new songs. At the launch we had a long set and I didn’t realise at the time that we played six songs from the new album, so half the set! It’s changed the vibe of the band, but no one’s complained that we’re not the same band. We’ve still got the aggression, we’ve still got the groove and the industrial overtones.
LOUD: People like to categorise things, so have you come across those who find it hard to take the band because you can’t really be put into a box easily?
BP: All the time I come across that! Whether that’s a good or bad thing depends on your point of view. I think it’s funny because when you look at it, metal in general was built by people who took something, some element of other genres and built something new with it. The culture of metal has developed to the point where there are probably people you would call ‘metal purists’ out there who are, for example, saying ‘This is thrash metal. I only listen to thrash metal!’ And if that’s you, that’s absolutely fine! If you’re into thrash metal or industrial metal or hardcore or aggressive music, or whatever you’re into, that’s fine. The thing with us, just myself, I get into all sorts of different metal, hardcore and punk, but I like to bring it all in, because that’s what keeps it interesting for me. And I can say similar for all the guys in the band, because we’ve all got different preferences. For me, that makes it interesting and cool, and some people like that, and some people don’t.
Pretty much everyone I’ve spoken to this week has said the same thing, that we’re difficult to categorise, and I think that’s a good and a bad thing. The business side of the music industry likes to categorise things, and if you don’t fit into a certain niche, you can be left out. Sometimes with supports or tours, or whatever, you can get left out, but, that said, because we sort of fit into our own category, we can do our own thing and there’s no expectation, and that’s kind of exciting. So it make it harder in one sense, because the industry makes it harder, but it makes it easier for us to stand out. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing is up to the listener, and for the people I trust, my friends and the ATF crew, that’s what I’m worried about – if they’re digging it, that’s the main thing. People are going to think what they’re going to think, and if you worry about whatever other people are thinking, you end up second guessing yourself. Most artists and musicians are doing this to express something from themselves, and if you’re doing it for the right reasons, that’s why you’re doing it and you hope that you connect with people on the right frequency.
