Danish WEEDIAN Sludge/Stoner Metallers SLOWJOINT make a welcome return with Piss & Gravel. Their best album yet. Their trademark humour has been dialled back for a more serious sound though still retaining their heavy thunderous Sludge/Stoner Metal sound.
I’ve supported the band ever since my time as The Sludgelord and it’s been a long time since I interviewed Lead Vocalist/Bassist - Dennis Fumblefinger.
So here’s my interview with Dennis.
How are things with the band and are you looking forward to the new album release.
Hi Steve. It's a little over a week for the album release and then we start to go on tour. It’s a concept tour where we only play on the floor without the exception of a container. They open the sides and will have a stage in there and it’s right next to a brewery.
So is that just one date or is this multiple dates.
This is actually six dates but not in row because this is Denmark and we can’t really do a full week of gigs. As people in Denmark don’t go out during the week. So we have to do this on the weekends.
Is the whole tour going ahead with this “crate/container” idea or is this just certain dates.
One of them is in the container and the rest are on the floor for different dates of the tour.
How did the idea of the container come about?
We’re an underground band and we thought of playing this on the floor and decided it was best to play in a container which we play mainly within the brewery.
How long will you be playing on this tour.
We will be playing for an hour and it’s only us on this tour. Nobody else. Just us.
Will you be filming that part of the tour.
We are hoping to be filming the Copenhagen set. As it’s really a small intimate place and venue. It’s an old tavern where you can eat and drink during the day. In the night time they move all the tables and chairs for bands to play right in the corner.
This has a real dive bar feeling and we are one with the audience on the floor.
All the places we are playing are really small with audiences of 50 people.
Do you like playing small intimate gigs or bigger venues.
We love the smaller venues. As we love to be in the front with audiences and doing our thing. Bigger venues we always feel very far away from the crowds and that we always thrive being so much closer to the audiences.
Will you be playing the new album in full.
We’ll be playing five new songs from the album and then songs from the other albums. So it’s a good mix for the audience to experience newer and older songs from the band.
Piss And Gravel is your new album. What can people expect from this album.
It’s still SLOWJOINT with banging riffs. The sound is a bit different. The bass and guitar have an equal place in the mix. A little more tricks and off grooves on the album.
It sounds like you guys have grown up or matured on this release compared to your other albums.
You’re totally right. We’ve always played this to show our love and appreciation for bands such as BONGZILLA, WEEDEATER and EYEHATEGOD. We never really thought too much about being the next big thing. We did this for the love of it all but now we decided to do some things differently. And that’s what’s happening on Piss And Gravel.
I noticed on your previous albums the humour has been dialled back within the lyrics and it has a more grown up feeling to them.
There's still humour here and there but it’s more tragic humour. It’s more human comedy and it’s not all about WEED.
I noticed that as well with some of the song titles on the album such as Snot And Shit.
Oh yeah, the one with the long distorted guitar riff.
Another favourite is called Screwdriver.
That song is about a huge drought of WEED before the COVID 19 pandemic hit the world in South Denmark. When you don’t have any WEED, you scrape your BONG with a screwdriver.
We thought let’s call it Screwdriver as that was the song was about.
It could have easily been called WRENCH.
Did you record this album during COVID-19 or before COVID-19.
We recorded just before everything opened again from lockdown shit. We played shows where people had to sit down and it was very weird. And we were playing on bigger stages. It became even more weird playing to audiences that were sitting down. We love playing gigs and venues with people standing and having fun or headbanging to our music.
We played a few shows to promote the last album before COVID-19.
We wrote the new album when things opened up when rehearsing. We then recorded the album over four days in the recording studio. We recorded the new album LIVE where we just played and press recorded. We had a good time recording this album.
Four days. Is this the quickest time you ever recorded an album.
No. We’ve recorded the last two albums within two and three days respectively. We wanted to take our time with this album even if it was a day or two longer.
And we’re happy with the results of this album and it is perhaps the best we’ve ever sounded despite the raw sound and energy of it all.
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You’re about to celebrate your tenth anniversary as a band. Looking back did you ever feel you would reach that milestone.
We never really thought about this to be honest. Like I said earlier we do this for the love and the music. We don’t make any money this nor will we ever do. We create and play music for the love of it all and we hope to continue that for long as we can.
Thanks for your time Dennis in doing this interview. All the best with the new album and upcoming gigs. Piss And Gravel is an amazing record.
Thank you Steve for doing this and for your awesome support over the years. Speak next time.
Words by Steve Howe and Dennis Fumblefinger
Thanks to Dennis for doing this interview and for the promo materials.
Piss And Gravel is available to buy now on Cassette/DD via Virkelighedsfjern.
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