ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 2 JUNE, 2012
When last Loud spoke to Simon Berzerker of Assaulter, the band was about to do their first ever tour, hitting the east coast capitals with their own flavour of dark and vicious thrash. Six months on and Assaulter is one of the main drawcards at the upcoming Evil Invaders show in Sydney on the Queen’s Birthday weekend. We caught up with Simon once again to chat about that show, and their upcoming European campaign where they’ll be linking up with old friends to, ahem, assault London.
The last time we spoke you were just about to go out on a bit of a tour. How did that go?
Yeah, that was last December with Hellbringer. The best turn out, the best night, was the night in Sydney, which was Friday. Melbourne was good; that was probably the biggest turn out. Brisbane, though it was pretty small, everyone got into it. So it was a good little jaunt up and down the coast. It was all right.
Your previous show before that was Evil Invaders, and here you are again at Evil Invaders this time.
Evil Invaders being Evil Invaders… if you can play it, you should. Obviously the offer was there, so I thought fuck it, we’ll take it. Also, it’s like a bit of a warm up, because we don’t play often at all… we played four times last year and two times before that ever. So doing Evil Invaders this year is a bit of a warm up for us going to Europe in July. It’s a good little percursor, what I think is Australia’s best fucking metal festival for sure!
You mentioned you were going to Europe last time, so I was going to ask how that was going. I guess it’s festival season over there now.
It’s festival season, and obviously there’s billions of festivals going on in every single country and we’ve managed to take a bone for a few. So we’re going over there first thing in July to kick off this Metal Magic Festival in Denmark, and there’s also a mini-Aussie festival in London which has got Destroyer [666], Hobbs Angel of Death, Gospel [of the Horns], Vomitor and us, so that’s probably gonna be the highlight of the whole trip. We’re pumped!
It’s basically going to be all the Melbourne lads getting togethert again.
Yeah, in London of all places! It’s the same weekend as Wacken. Not everyone goes to Wacken even though everyone tries, so you still have heaps of underground heads travelling. I know there’s people coming from Sweden and Switzerland, so it’s gonna be killer. And I haven’t been to Wacken in over ten years, and from what I hear it’s pretty expensive. So if someone wants an alternative, they can come to London. I know there’s some other shows, but that’s shaping up to be a highlight for sure.
And you are doing the Saturday night at Evil Invaders?
Originally the Friday night, but we swapped with Vomitor. So they’re on Friday and we’re on the Saturday. I think we’re on before Mournful Congregation. I think it’s the 7.30 slot.
It’s an extreme festival, but there’s plenty of diversity: Inquisition, Mournful and you guys, that’s a mixed bag right there.
Yeah, I know. I know that on Sunday The Corps, that killer hard rock, dirty hard rock band are playing and Johnny Touch as well, so there’s plenty of diversity there. A couple of doom bands as well. It’s kinda the best of the underground across various different genres. You can’t argue with it. It’s definitely the ultimate festival here for underground metal for sure. From what I can gather, there’s gonna be heaps of people there. It’s gonna be killer.
Did you end up making the clip that you were shooting during the last shows?
Yeah, that actually was only launched today. Metal Blade just got it up today, so that’s doing the rounds. We’ve posted it up on our Facebook page and you can find it on YouTube as well. It came out pretty well. No overdubs, just recorded straight through the desk and mixed and that’s it. It’s raw! It sounds live!
And how has the album been going for you?
It’s hard to say. I dunno, to be completely honest. You never really know for sure. From what I can gather, on the grand scale of things we’re still a band that’s trying to get our name around. So getting over to Europe is a big step to try and say “We’re here!” Because there’s so many bands you gotta do what you can to get out there. So as for the album getting out there I can’t say, but there’s been a bit of interest from overseas so I guess Europe’s the test. We’ll see.
How many shows are you playing over there?
Eight. Mainly northern Europe – Ireland, England, Scandinavia and Germany. That’s it.
So you’re playing more shows in Europe than you’ve actually every played so far?
I think that’s about right! We’re playing eight and I think we’ve only ever done seven here, come Evil Invaders.
It sounds like you’re going to become a little bit more active then, at least for the moment.
We’ll do Europe, we’ll go hard there. We’ll go as hard as we can. Once that’s done and we come back, we’re gonna regroup as far as writing goes and look do to the third album. When that’ll be, who knows? We’re gonna take our time with it so it’s the best we can fucking be.