FACEDOWNINSHIT
Negative Creeps
By: Anthony Bartkewicz
Whatever it is about the American South that has traditionally bred the meanest and gnarliest of sludge and crossover, Facedowninshit have harnessed it. Probably the loudest thing in Greensboro, North Carolina, FDIS play a darkly pastoral take on sludge and crust that¹s as raw and unsettling as the sight of a skull bleached by the scorching sun, informed both by hardcore punk and by frontman Jason Crumer¹s interests in harsh noise and dark ambient. The band¹s first two full-lengths Concrete World and Passing Times and the singles compilation Shit Bloody Shit found them sharing stages with the likes of Today Is the Day, Kylesa and Baroness. As Facedowninshit prepared to record their third full-length (and debut for Relapse), Crumer took the time to discuss his plans to take the sound of FACEDOWNINSHIT into even darker territories.
How did you get involved with Relapse for your new record?
We hooked up with Relapse actually through Amazing Grace [one of Crumer¹s other projects, on Desolation House. David Sullivan, who was then Facedowninshit¹s guitar player and also a member of Amazing Grace, sent Desolation House the demo that became Passing Times. I asked James if he knew of a label we should ask about Facedowninshit's third record and he basically said "I'll see if we can do it on Relapse" and they went for it.
Of course we're thrilled.
Is your Relapse debut written/recorded yet? Is there any sort of overall theme to the record? Any specific songs you'd like to mention?
Yes, the record is written. We actually record in a week so I've been thinking about this a lot. The album is called NPON, which stands for "Nothing Positive, Only Negative"‹go figure. That, I suppose, is the main theme. Unglamorous suffering, unglorifiable suffering. There's a song about selling plasma, lots of alienation type songs. Not a lot of happy shit on this next one. The lyrics are a bit more punk I guess, kind of giving up on the idea of being poetic at all.
You mentioned on FDIS' site that the next record would be "a lot rawer."
What sort of sound are you going for, and how do you plan to achieve it?
We are recording at a different studio than the other records were done at, and using our shitty, broken equipment as opposed to borrowing the studio's fancy shit. We realized that after years of playing, we'd arrived at a sound that was very much our own and that none of our previous records actually captured that. It's not going to be an intentionally bad recording or anything like that, just a more honest music recording that hopes to capture our live sound. I personally want it to have a very harsh guitar sound. I¹m not interested in making a socially acceptable record this time around but rather, an honest album. That's the kind of band we've always been and it's never been captured. We hope that¹s what this album will captureŠwe'll see.
The word "apocalyptic" is used a lot when people describe Facedowninshit. Is that what you're going for? What does the term mean to you?
I don't let riffs get by that aren't dark in some way, but "apocalyptic"
isn't part of what I do, or what I go for at least. I don't have any message I want people to take from listening to Facedowninshit; it's a personal expression for me. There are certain ideas I don't mind communicating, so I tend to go back to them, but as far as the listener goes it's up to them what they get from it. But listening stoned helps.
Outside of Facedowninshit you have several noise and ambient projects: Amazing Grace, American Band, and you also record and perform under your own name. What is it about those projects that you can't express in FDIS or, alternately, what is it about FDIS that the other projects don't allow you?
It comes down to control. Facedowninshit is three people expressing something at once, and that¹s when we're at our best‹as one. The noise groups are generally with people whom I admire. If I like the work of someone, I try to do a project with them kind of in that direction. For me that's just a matter of growth and discovery. I have a lot of projects but they are all basically learning tools to give my own solo work depth.
Working under my own name, representing it as Jason Crumer, I wanted to strip away anything I could possibly hide behind in the sound and just make noise as best I could.
Facedowninshit is also just not a noise band. While compared to some groups we may be a bit experimental. The deal with FDIS has always been to write real songs, with beginnings, endings, bridges and so on. For me it is an important distinction. It allows me not to feel like I¹m "cheating" on any of my projects. I enjoy different things about both.
What are your tour plans once the new record is done?
Two to three week tour of the Southeast and the South in March. Six week tour of the United States starting in mid-April. One and a half week tour to California in the fall, and then from there we fly to Japan and Australia.
I¹m hoping that American Band, as well as Jason Crumer solo performances, will tour in the summer. American Band is probably my best live project:
it¹s me, Matt Franco from Air Conditioning and Lee Counts, who is a southern guy in his fifties, a painter. It's basically old school harsh noise using massive sheet metal.
Finally: is Facedowninshit for PC fucks?
I personally think that the anti-PC backlash of the PC overdose in the mid-Œ90s is just as dumb, if not dumber, than the original PC wave. It's a natural reaction to people kind of overdoing it, but stillŠ. Facedowninshit is barely even for Facedowninshit, let alone PC fucks, but I don't like "fucks" of any kind, except the good ones....
INTERVIEW BY ANTHONY Bartkewicz
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