What do you get when you cross a band that looks like LA Guns and Motley Crue but sounds like a cross between Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, and Pantera? Well, you get British based metal band The Defiled. It all sounds like an unlikely pairing but somehow these blokes seem to just throw it all into a blender, mix it up, drink it, and spew out their own lil hybrid of industrial, hook laden, and melodic metal.
I recently had the opportunity to speak on the phone with The Defiled’s singer/guitarist Stitch D. Stitch is a really cool and funny dude and we talked about his current change of local to living in LA, why American food is so awesome, and what band he’d love to sing in for just one night if he had the chance. This was yet another fun one and I hope you’ll dig getting to know Stitch D. from The Defiled.
Hey there Stitch, this is Don from the Great Southern Brainfart. How are you this evening?
I’m doing good man. How about yourself?
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So I never heard of or even heard The Defiled before but after giving your album a listen, I really enjoyed the album a good bit.
Well that’s a relief. I can only imagine how awkward it would be to interview a band that you despised [laughs].
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So are you living in Los Angeles now?
Yeah. I just moved here about three months ago. I was only here about three weeks though and had to go back to England and do about 6 or 7 weeks of touring in Europe. I got back here a few weeks ago.
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So how did and Englishman end up in LA and how are you adjusting to life there?
It’s been a crazy different. Just getting used to the weather. It’s kind of nice and more relaxed than in England. I moved here because I had wanted to move out of London for a while. I never felt like I could move because of the band but then I realized that I didn’t even really need to be in the same country as those guys. We’re not one of those bands who rehearse day in and day out. We just get together before tour and rehearse so it doesn’t really matter where we live.
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Technology has also made it much easier to work as a band spread out across the globe.
Ah yes, the power of the Internet [laughs]. We can actually write and collaborate together online. We can remotely connect to each other’s desktop and share ideas and recordings with each other.
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Well be careful out there in LA. I’d hate for you to get too much sun. It might ruin your image.
[laughs] Exactly!
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So you guys look like LA Guns and Motley Crue but you sound like the kind of band that would kick those guys’ asses! Is part of The Defiled’s mission to shock the living hell out of everyone by not sounding anything like you look?
Yeah, it’s a bit strange. People don’t expect it but yeah, it’s kind of weird. We always thought that we were too metal for the Goth kids and too Goth for the metal kids. I think people usually are shocked when they see us first, and then hear us. I guess that’s a good thing. It makes people not judge your music instantly but sometimes it does make people judge you massively.
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So for those that don’t know anything about The Defiled, how would you describe your band?
I’d say that we’re a metal band with a heavy electronic influence like Nine Inch Nails and things like that. Bands that we grew up loving you can’t help but take some influence from them. Even if we didn’t set out to sound a certain way, this is just how it naturally came about. We’re still metal kids as well so there are a lot of heavy things in there as well. We were also grunge kids so we like big choruses and things like that have sneaked its way into the songs.
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I hear a lot of things going on in this band. I hear elements of Pantera, some death metal, and I even hear some an industrial influence in there ala Nine Inch Nails. Who do you consider some of your primary influences and how did your sound really come together?
I don’t know. It was like we said, “This is the sound we want.” I remember when I had moved to London that I wanted to start a band that would have electronics in it but nothing that was just one person pushing play on a laptop. I actually wanted someone to do it as their role in the band as opposed to something that was just there for the sake of being there. Influence wise, we pull from Nine Inch Nails, Slayer, Pantera, Alice in Chains, and even some of the heavier bands from nowadays.
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I have to say that it’s always entertaining for me to hear European bands listing American bands as their influences while American bands list European bands as their influences.
[laughs] It’s quite weird isn’t it? I guess it’s kind of like when you’re a kid and you think it’s cool to say, “Ooo, what’s going on in America? It’s got to be better than what’s going on in England!” [laughs] I guess it’s the same way in America!
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Your latest album “Daggers” will be coming out here soon. How does this album stand out from your 2011 debut Grave Times?
I just think it’s such a cheesy thing when a band says that their current record is their best record but it’s the truth. This is just a much heavier, stronger record. I also feel that it just sounds so much better since it was produced by a proper producer. Grave Times we did on our own. We released it ourselves and we didn’t really have someone to help us out or 2nd guess things. When I listen back to that record I hear things that I feel should’ve been done differently. It was nice to go to Florida with a good producer for this album and have him say things like, “That is shit. Do something else.” [laughs] It was quite nice to have someone else say things like that so I think that everything in regards to this new album I feel is so much stronger than Grave Times.
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What have you found to be the biggest benefit to being signed to a label like Nuclear 
Blast as opposed to doing it all on your own?
They can take things to the next level for us. It just got to a point where we got stuck and we really needed someone to take us to that next level and I believe that Nuclear Blast are the ones that’ll be able to do that for us. They’re able to take our music worldwide and they are really behind the band so that works really well.
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You guys tour pretty extensively for that debut album. How much did that tour help to shape you into the band you are now?
Quite a bit I think. You can’t help but learn from other bands when you’re on tour. Too look back on how we were before our first album got released to now as a band on stage is a totally different band. There’s more confidence and we just seem to be more professional now.
What kind of message do you hope that your fans take away from your songs if any?
I don’t know really. I never thought about that too much [laughs]. They’re not exactly the happiest songs in the world [laughs]. The songs are just events that have happened in our lives and maybe other people can relate to them if they’ve had the same kind of things happen to them.
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You guys have a US tour coming up here soon with Davey Suicide. What are you most looking forward to from this tour?
Just seeing places that we’ve ever been to before really. We’ve never really extensively toured the states before so this is going to be fun. We’re just five guys who are friends in a band so it’s going to be fun to experience these places with each other. That’s quite a cool thing. Since moving here, I haven’t seen the rest of the guys too much so it’ll be cool to show them where I’m living now. We’ll get to do some touristy things in LA and then we’ll get to go to Seattle which I’ve always wanted to. I really want to see the Nirvana exhibit at the Experience Music Project.
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That’s a great museum. I was there a couple of years ago and the exhibit was the Seattle Metal Scene so it had stuff from bands like Metal Church and Queensryche.
Oh really? That is awesome. I’ve heard they have all kinds of cool things there. I’m looking forward to seeing that.
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What’s your favorite food to eat while touring here in the states? Being that you’re an Englishman in the states, you must be indulging in some fine American dining.
[laughs] It’s just been non-stop chicken for me [laughs]. When you’re in tour, you don’t really get to eat well. You’re eating tons of fast food constantly but I can deal with that too.
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You’ll have to make sure to hit up a Waffle House while in the South!
Oh yeah! When we’re here we usually hit up steak joints and BBQ joints. When we did SXSW last year, our guitar player put on 14 lbs in one week [laughs]. It was crazy. He even took a picture of his belly to send to his missus and said, “Sorry but this is what’s coming home to you. I’m really sorry” [laughs]
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Man, sometimes you just have to live it up.
[laughs] This is true. You have to live it up while on tour because if you don’t you’re going to live to regret it.
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So I heard you had a great adventure regarding knives not too long ago.
[laughs] Oh man. I know what you’re talking about. When we did a video where we announced the band’s signing to Nuclear Blast, we had a knife thrower and it was a quite painful day [laughs]. We had this guy that was supposed to be a professional but obviously he wasn’t. It was unbelievably bad. He couldn’t even get the knives to stay in the board and one of my band mates picked up a knife and made it stick in the board. Kind of sad really when a band mate can do it and a professional can’t [laughs]. The idea originally was that we were going to have someone on a spinning board and this guy throwing knives. Now I’m glad we didn’t do that [laughs].
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Are there any artists or other genres of music that you listen to that your fans would be surprised to hear you listened to?
Not really to be honest. I feel that I’m a bit stuck in my ways. I don’t really listen to anything that isn’t really guitar based. I do listen to stuff like The Rolling Stones though and then it just gets progressively more rocking and heavier up to stuff like Black Dahlia Murder. If music doesn’t have a guitar in it, I’m generally not into it. I’ve just never been into the hip hop and dub music and all that.
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You guys have toured with Dragonforce, Alestorm, and even Ghost. What band would you love to see The Defiled touring with?
I’d love to aim for a band of our genre and style. I’d love to tour with someone like Slipknot or Rob Zombie or other acts like that. I think we’d go well the audiences of both those bands. We’re toured with lots of bands who sound nothing like us and sometimes it kind of works which is odd.
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If you could sing for any band of any era for just one night who would it be?
As weird as it sounds, it would probably be Foo Fighters [laughs]. They’re a band that I grew up loving and they can do no wrong in my book. I love that band.
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Finish this sentence: If I wasn’t a musician I would be _________ .
A bum most likely!
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In England or in LA?
[laughs] I’d most likely still be in England because if didn’t have the band I probably would have been able to get here [laughs]. I’d probably be bumming off my parents and what not. God that would suck.
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Thanks so much for doing this interview Stitch and let me know when you’re in Atlanta. Beers on me.
Oh wow. That sounds quite good actually [laughs]. A giant party in Atlanta most definitely! Thanks Don and take care!
For more on The Defiled, head over to https://www.facebook.com/thedefiled
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