Today we’re catching up with the party slam legends in Party Cannon! Thanks a bunch for taking the time guys, it’s much appreciated. Could you give us an elevator pitch to our readers that might not be aware of your band?
Noisy and also slamming.
Now, we’ve got to ask you guys, what defines the genre party slam?
Slam with extra nonsense. That sweet spot between brutal death metal and goregrind where the music takes itself seriously but everyone is aware of just how ridiculous it is.
We’re really excited about the new release that’s in the works. How was writing (what seems to be your heaviest material to date) during a global pandemic?
The writing was a bit different this time around as for most of the year we weren’t able to get into the same room together and jam out ideas there and then due to the pandemic. So to get around this global catastrophe we instead used this great program called Guitar Pro 5.2 to send riff and song ideas to each other and go from there. Our drummer was the only one who could get into our practice space regularly so he’d send us videos of him playing his parts and ideas so we could hear what works and what doesn’t until we eventually had distilled everything down to an album.
While Guitar Pro is great, things always sound a bit different in a live setting. This all sounds like a massive headache but it actually turned out to be pretty productive, without things like gigging/touring/rehearsing/going outside to distract us we managed to get through material pretty quickly.
What can fans expect from the new release?
Slams, blast beats, bits that make no sense. Music that will make you feel like showering. We’re not a band to reinvent our sound or get on some weird high horse about ‘outgrowing’ our previous material, so I’ll be upfront with what it is – more of the same but done better.
Which bands have influenced the band as a whole?
I would say our biggest influences are brutal death metal bands like Disgorge, Devourment, Guttural Secrete, Dying Fetus, etc along with grindier bands like Exhumed, Gorerotted, early Carcass as well as punkier bands like Spazz and The Afternoon Gentlemen.
How important is merchandise to a band like Party Cannon?
Extremely! Merch is the lifeline for DIY bands. On top of being the best way for your band to generate some revenue to reinvest, for a band like us it’s an important part of branding. We try to have our merch designs follow a distinct, colourful, and cartoony style that’s unique to us, when people see it they know it’s our band. Most importantly though we want to give the people that support us a quality item as it’s their support that keeps us going and we are extremely grateful to have that.
Working with a high-end merch company like yourselves is a lifesaver as well, we know our products will be of great quality with a quick turnaround so we can give our supporters to best service possible.
What are some of your favourite memories as a band over the years?
We’ve been pretty lucky to visit some amazing places and meet some great people over the years so it’s quite difficult to choose some favourites! I would definitely say touring Asia with Waking The Cadaver (one of my favourite bands ever) is up there though, that was literally a bucket list tour for me and we got to play in some countries I never thought a slam band from Dunfermline would ever make it to.
We played a pool hall in Davao, Philippines on a Tuesday night to 250 people which was surreal. We sped to the airport after the gig in the most torrential rainstorm I’ve ever seen so we could make our flight, the van was going through some proper floods.
The airport was blasting Linkin Park when we arrived for some reason which added to the surrealness. A few days later we were in Japan and people were arriving at the gig with gifts for us and telling us how long they’ve waited for us to play – I was just happy to be there, let alone that they’ve heard of us!
Touring America for the first time in 2015 as well was a big one, our first gig was at Bay Area Death Fest alongside bands like Psycroptic, Condemned, and Origin which was some way to start the tour.
At that point, it was the biggest crowd we’ve ever played to so stepping on the stage while mega jetlagged was pretty intimidating but it seemed to go down pretty okay (I think!).
Death Feast Open Air was the first underground European I ever went to as a teenager and going there made me want to start a ridiculous slam band in the first place, so getting actually getting to play in 2018 was insane. Playing to around 1,000 people and getting them to crowd surf on inflatable whales and do push-ups in the mud is something I’ll be telling the other people in the nursing home about for sure.
What advice can you guys give to bands that are looking to start out in the extreme metal genre?
Networking is everything. Get yourself out to gigs and talk to the people organizing and attending, just get involved with the scene. Before trying to promote your name be sure to get a quality package together to share with people, invest in a decently produced recording, a professionally done logo, and band pics so you have something people will want to check out. Understand your genre and the target audience then go after them – if you’re in a slam death metal band there’s no point in jumping on bills with hair metal cover bands.
There are plenty of groups online tailored to whatever niche genre you might fit into that allow you to promote your own music as well as channels on Youtube with large followings you can get to share your music.
Most importantly, just be nice to everyone you meet! Making a good impression and establishing yourselves as being reliable, approachable, and professional is the best way to get people to actually want to work with you.
What did you guys learn as a band during the global pandemic?
I think the main thing we learned is just how powerful social media and merchandising really is. Throughout the whole pandemic, we’ve been keeping in touch with fans online and still been selling merch which has more than made up for all the canceled tours we had planned. While the joy of being in a band is playing live and interacting with fans in person, it’s great to know that fans are understanding of the situation and still willing to support us which means we’re not starting over again from a bad position once things pick up again. We’ve also learned to be more creative with online content and create some more engaging stuff like studio diaries and jam videos to give our supporters to keep checking our page.
With touring and live shows hopefully picking up sooner than later, do you have any tips/necessities that are a must while being on the road?
You can never bring too many sets of underwear or strings.
Where can our readers check out everything Party Cannon related?
Cheers for taking the time to interview us! Readers can check us out at: www.facebook.com/partycannonuk and Instagram: @party_cannon_official as well as all streaming platforms.
