Dick Porter talks to the crust legends about their new album 'Corrupt Fucking System' and their relationship with Bradford's 1-in-12 Club.
Corrupt Fucking System
Released on the band’s own Black Cloud label, DOOM’s first studio album in well over a decade has cemented the group’s triumphant return. Demonstrating the band’s enduring commitment to their beliefs and the quartet’s collective ability to whip up blistering firestorms of sound, the disc bears comparison with their most powerful earlier recordings. VLR caught up with founding members Bri and Stick to chew the crust:
How was the process of recording the new album? Are you pleased with the final cut?
Bri: For me, long and hard, as I also recorded it. I am immensely proud of what we have created and it has reinforced my belief that we can still do this shit, without it sounding watered down or half hearted. We’re still angry bastards wanting to make a fucking noise. The final sound I will never be 100% happy with, I’m never happy with anything I record, so to play on it too it’s a double whammy. As for the final vinyl cut, I am a bit disappointed in it, but everyone seems to like it, so there you go. As for the recording process it went really well and I think we all found it quite ‘natural’. Actually writing some songs in the studio was a bit new for us, but it actually worked really well – being able to crank up my guitar sound to write riffs instead of a poxy ten-watt practice amp or an amp simulator plug-in at home. The worst part for me was Denis being in Sweden. In the end I had to go over there to oversee his vocal recording.
Stick: It was a more immediate approach to writing and recording, we had the luxury of having the studio set up so we could write a track then keep going until it was tight , record it and move on, just capture the energy there and then, then start a new one. I was worried that we would think them great at the time then further down the line wish, we had done it different, but apart from a few tweaks, it’s what we had at the inception.
You’ve recorded a track with Andy T – How did that come about?
Bri: I’d met Andy a few times and immediately got on with him. Another top bloke I have a great deal of respect for. I ended up having the honour of recording his last album Life At The Tethers End. So we asked if he would write us a poem. Of course no-one else could perform it but Andy, so myself and a friend went round to his house and recorded it in his living room. It’s an honour to have him on the record and we even performed ‘Prey for Our Souls’ live at a local pub with the man himself on vocals, which worked out really well.
I am a 1-in-12
Formed by the disenfranchised for the disenfranchised, Bradford’s 1-in-12 Club has provided the most disadvantaged elements of the local community with a meeting place, information centre and cultural hub for over 30 years. Having moved to the area in the late 1980s, Bri initiated a long relationship between Doom and the Club:
"We’d visited friends up in Bradford and on one occasion I came and saw the initial work that was happening converting an old mill to an anarchist social centre, a space for ‘us’, with no boss and no bouncers. It blew me away. This was a direct, practical realisation of the principles and beliefs inspired by Spanish anarcho-syndicalism from the Spanish civil war, the European squatting scene as well as the anarcho-punk scene. It actually developed out of the Bradford Claimants Union, which was all about empowering unemployed people, giving them legal advice, support and somewhere to go to socialise. I thought it was amazing and there were loads of really enthusiastic “switched on” and inspiring people involved. Around this time the scene in Birmingham was becoming stagnated and quite negative. The venue that was at the centre of it – The Mermaid – closed and that was that for me, so I moved to Bradford in 1989 and got practically involved with the 1-in-12. This has included maintenance, organising events, doing live PA, to building a rehearsal room and recording studio, to studio engineering/production – as well as drinking loads of beer!”
READ MORE OF THIS INTERVIEW IN THE NEW ISSUE OF VIVE LE ROCK (No. 17), AVAILABLE HERE
