Simon Neil’s face has contorted into an expression of pure anger, verging on disgust.
“I just can’t understand how people can be that fucking ignorant,” he spits. “That fucking lacking in empathy or decency. It makes me sick.”
He’s just heard his friend, former Oceansize frontman and current Empire State Bastard bandmate Mike Vennart, recount a run-in he had with notorious right-wing agitator Tommy Robinson and his legion of troll followers. It’s an event that could have had a depressing, negative impact, but the revulsion and venom Mike felt instead provided the seed that inspired this new extreme metal project.
We’ll get to all that shortly, but first: Simon Neil. Yes, this is the same Simon Neil who fronts Biffy Clyro, one of the UK’s most successful, if idiosyncratic, modern rock bands. The Scottish trio have scored three No.1 albums in the UK, headlined Download and the Leeds and Reading festivals multiple times, and even had Simon Cowell take their 2009 song Many Of Horror and repurpose it as a No.1 single for long-forgotten X Factor winner Matt Cardle under the title When We Collide.
Empire State Bastard are a completely different beast. The songs that make up their debut album, Rivers Of Heresy, sound like someone his zip-locked Converge, Amenra and early Hüsker Dü into a plastic bag and told them to murder each other. Jagged white noise, throat-shredding vocals and jackhammer rhythms – the latter provided by none other than ex-Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo, more on whom later – are the order of the day, putting even Biffy’s most wilfully awkward moments in the shade. It’s unlikely that Simon Cowell will be calling Empire State Bastard and asking to use one of their songs.
