Formed in 2017, Inhuman Nature burst out of London and a representative of a new breed of heavy metal thrashers. High profile tours with the likes of Crowbar have brought the band to national prominence while forays into the Continent have found European metalheads falling for their charms. Following their triumphant set at this year’s 2000 Trees festival the Midlands Rocks caught up with vocalist Chris Barling and bassist Daragh Markham. Here’s what they had to say:
You’re fresh off stage. How was it?
Daragh: I think it was really good. The sound was really sick, but getting nasty at noon was a weird one for us. It was fun. There were more people than I’d expect on a Saturday morning.
Chris: I enjoyed it. Considering the rest of the line up, I think we stick out a bit, which is good, but the fact that there were a lot of people in there watching was great.
So how do you psych yourself up for a noon show?
Daragh: Cider, beer…anything else we can get our hands on.
Chris: It’s nice in a way because you just get up and do it. There’s not a lot at stake, but there can be…I think just going in and raging is cool and then you’ve got the rest of the day to enjoy. If you’re the headliner or your on later then you’ve got all the anticipation…
Daragh: …which is good and bad, but I guess the main thing with these daytime shows is the adrenaline comedown that you get, it’s so early in the day and your body’s not used to it. With an evening show you have the adrenaline comedown at 10 or 11 and that seems easier.
So how are you going to burn off all this adrenaline?
Chris: We’ll be leaving here in an hour-and-a-half and going to a writing session, so we’re going to be playing all night. We’re writing our new album while we’re all together. We don’t live super close so the rehearsal studio is on the way home so we’re going to get in there for four hours and work on new songs. So, there’s going to be more happening today, which is cool.
You are one of heaviest bands on the bill. Were you surprised you got the call to play 2000 Trees?
Chris: I was really surprised we got this. It’s a massive festival, and I like a lot of the bands playing here. I’m sad there’s a lot of bands I’m going to miss today because I like a lot of emo and pop punk. I’ve been listening to that stuff for years, alongside thrash metal. We knew about this festival and wondered if we’d ever get the call one day. We played in a really cool tent, to more people than I thought we’d get. Later this year we’re flying to a festival in Romania and Exciter are headlining with a load of trad metal bands, so it’s cool that we can play there and here.
Daragh: And not being beholden to any one scene. I think that we might seem an odd choice for 2000 Trees, I think by virtue of our energy people would hopefully get into it. There was a guy in the crowd in a banana suit…he was loving it!
Chris: There was a really young kid at the front and I think it was her first festival and she loved it, which is amazing.
Daragh: It’s things like that which make it worth while; you start a band trying to impress your peers and I think that’s only natural, but then you see the joy from someone being at their first festival or their first punk show, that’s the more long lasting reward and that’s what makes it all worth it.
The band’s nucleus is London which can be a harsh environment with lots of brutalist architecture and concrete. Did those surroundings shape your sound?
Chris: I think so, I mean I love brutalism, I had a brutalist calendar in my living room last year, I love that shit. I grew up in London and Daragh has lived here a long time; he came from Aberdeen, the “Granite City” and I grew up near Heathrow which is not a nice place, so that definitely feeds into it. I don’t want to get all political but I don’t earn a lot of money and living in London is hard, we’ve had a government who’ve been rinsing us for years, and that definitely plays into it as well.
Daragh: All that frustration plays into it; it fuels the fire.
Chris: On paper the band isn’t a political band, but lyrically it is, even if it is not very direct, it is fuelled by that, and what’s going on in Palestine and a lot of lyrics I’ve been writing lately have been influenced by that.
Daragh: Extreme Noise Terror, Antisect, that for me is a huge part of formulating my sound. A lot of those bands weren’t from urban centres like London, they still had that sense of claustrophobia, paranoia, anxiety, all of which London specialises in.
Later this year Inhuman Nature will be going on tour with Grove Street and Overpower, that’s three heavy bands who’ve all come to prominence at the same time. Do you think this is a case of art imitating life?
Chris: Maybe, I love Grove Street; I’m a fan as well as being mates. I think they’re very similar to us, if you were to look at their artwork and their album sleeve, they’ve also a political edge, so I think so.
Daragh: In terms of art imitating life, the guys in Inhuman Nature do, they use up all of their holiday pay from work just to be on the road. We love this, we do ridiculously long drives, we do live it, and in turn that fuels the art…and vice versa.
Chris: We love what we do, but it can be stressful at times. It’s a very first world problem to have, to take time off work and play a show in Germany or come here and do this, but it can grate you.
Daragh: Everything is geared towards the band; we still have the worries about rent, but if I didn’t quit my job then I wouldn’t be in this band. I filled in on tour a couple of years ago, but I was only able to do it at the last minute because I quit my job…but fuck it! You’ve only got one life.
It’s been five long years since you last album, although you released a split and a live offering. Why so long, and how has Daragh influenced your new material?
Chris: He’s influenced the band in many ways [laughs]. It’s the things we talked about earlier with work getting in the way. When we released our first album we had a different line-up, and then the split which had a different line-up, so we’ve always wanted to write an album, but in the middle of trying to do it we got offered some really good tours. Our previous bass player Jack [Wilson] had some health issues and left, but now Daragh’s in the band full-time we’re channelling his influences. Daragh’s a big Amebix fan, we both like Anti Cimex, that nasty Swedish d-beat kind of stuff. Now everybody in the band who plays guitar is writing songs, before it was mostly Ben [Taylor, guitar], so I think people might be surprised with the new album; it’s going to be thrash, it’s going to be fast and heavy, but it’s going to sound different.
Daragh: I think it’s going to be a good variety because Ben is such an amazing musician, and Mack [Stray, guitar] too, I’m not even the best bass player in the band; Mack is, and they bring a very technically competent thrashy style and I write more Neanderthal stuff (!), so it’s a nice balance between super crazy metal shit and crusty, knuckle-dragging stuff.
Chris: The album art is already done, so it has to happen and the title of the album is painted onto it so if some motherfucker takes that title, I’ve had it for three years, so it has to happen. We are going to record it in November and we hope it’ll be released in April next year, and we’ve also go the release shows booked in, so it’s all good.
You’ve just dropped a live album, Meltdown In Milton Keynes. Was it always your intention to drop a live album, or did you hear the tape and think this needs to be released.
Daragh: We know the sound guy Tom, who also plays in Tuskar, he’s a fantastic musician and a fantastic engineer, just an all round lovely dude, and he was up for recording the set, there was talk about filming it, but we weren’t too sure, so we went for a soundboard recording. He sent it over and we loved it, Chris really pushed it.
Chris: It was recorded on the Crowbar tour, and that’s another thing; we were meant to be writing then, but then we got offered Crowbar out of nowhere and thought we can’t skip that. Crowbar are most of this band’s favourite band, so that would have been crazy to miss. I was talking to Daragh about the weirdest place to do a live album and it was Daragh who came up with the title, Meltdown In Milton Keynes. It was the last date of the tour and everybody was just so strung out.
I think the title is the perfect antithesis to all those exotic live albums; Live At Budokan, No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith…
Daragh: Exactly. We need to lean into it, it’s so funny. There’s not much humour in the band, we take it seriously, but that title is so absurd, Meltdown In Milton Keynes. Chris said we should do a series from different UK towns. Hungover In Hull…
Chris: I really like it because I am a massive Kiss fan and I think of all the live albums they released, but there’s not many bands at our level do it. We did a live album years ago, and a lot of people really like it, some people say they like it more than the album.
Daragh: That live sound isn’t so easy to capture in the studio, so it is nice to have a complimentary piece in the shape of a live album.
Chris: There’s also a song from the forthcoming album on the live release, so it was good to do for that reason. So it was good to get it out for that reason, although there’s a mistake on it that no one will notice, but we all know it’s there.
So I wonder if you have a special relationship with Milton Keynes. I saw you there with Fleshgod Apocalypse and Crowbar, and you’ll be there on April 2nd as part of the Grove Street package.
Chris: I do actually have a soft spot for it, ever since Hang The Bastard was very active 10, 15 years ago, we used to play there all the time, I’ve been to loads of gigs there and I’ve seen massive bands play there, and the people who run it give it such a good vibe…the first time we played there with Inhuman Nature was with Okey Dokey [laughs], we were asked to do it and it turned out to be awesome. Every time we go there it’s great and that was the nice thing about doing the live album there, because they are like a bunch of friends.
Finally, if I had a magic wand and could make a wish come true for the band, what’d it be?
Chris: That we actually do an album [laughs], that it goes smoothly and it comes out on time…and that we support Metallica!
Daragh: That we could tour forever…and I could bring my cats. No more working, just touring with the band.
