BODY PRISON
Q1. Can you provide some background on the band for our readers who aren’t familiar with you? Where you’re from, when you formed, that sort of thing?
We're based out of Melbourne, Australia, although our drummer Frankie is from Sardinia. The band came together around mid 2022, I (Tom) reached out to our vocalist (Dmac) with a handful of songs I had written over the months since finishing up with my last project. After that I hit up our now bassist (Nick) to be our 2nd guitarist but he opted to fill the shoes on bass instead, Nick also put us in touch with a killer drummer (Frankie) and before we knew it our lineup was sorted.
Q2. What are some of the primary influences on Body Prison’s sound?
Honestly we all have relatively differing tastes in music, with a large common ground in the deathcore/deathmetal genres. Bands like Humanity's Last Breath, Cattle Decapitation, Anaal Nathrakh, Full Of Hell, Frontierer and Tony Tapdance Extravaganza cover a large spread of the musical influence and we let Dmac do his thing on vocals!
Q3. You recently released your debut full-length UNTIL MADNESS. What was the writing and recording process like?
Until Madness came together pretty naturally, by the time we had played our first show in April of 2023 over 75% of the record was complete! Generally our writing process is started off by me writing in the studio, developing ideas before bringing them to the guys. Although tracks like Rumination and a few unreleased new ones the guys had given me writing prompts of themes/ideas and I'd put my own interpretation on them!
Q4. Can you walk us through the record a little? What are some of what you’d identify as highlights? Are there thematic through-lines, things you were looking to express or communicate?
Lyrically Dmac has made this record rather personal to his own struggles, touching on the subjects of mental health, grief, anger, and using the music to try and release those emotions. Musically some of the tracks are quite claustrophobic in their pacing (eg; Tunnel Vision and Until Madness) where we tried to keep the unrelenting vibe going for as long as possible before a brief moment to drop the tension. Tracks like Dysmorphia are more of a melodic side of the band, which we're exploring further in new material!
Q5. There are a number of remixes at the end of the record. Tell us about those.
The remixes were done by our friend Daniel Barnett (AILL), who previously played in a band with Nick. Nick reached out to Dan one day asking if he'd be keen on doing a remix of Dogma, which quickly turned into Dan remixing 4 tracks. We let Dan take the wheel with the remixes and he came back delivering the goods!
Q6. What makes a great breakdown?
Sick fight riffs, massive bassdrops, pitch shifting guitars down to indecipherable nonsense tunings and ringy snares.
Q7. Who would you say are the “Big Four” of Australian metal?
Currently or in the past?
Current; Parkway Drive, Polaris, Alpha Wolf and Make Them Suffer
Past; Red Shore x4
Q8. What’s on the horizon for Body Prison? Shows, tours, etc.?
We're keeping our heads down and have been writing a bunch of new music to hopefully release over the course of 2024. As far as shows go we have a couple booked already and are keen as to get touring when the time is right!