Punk bands aren’t generally my thing but every now and then one will cross my path and catch my ears as is the case with West Virginia’s horror punk band Blitzkid. The band is currently out supporting new album “Apparitional” as an opening act for Face to Face and Strung Out. After a really fun and energetic set, I had the chance to talk with bassist/singer/songwriter Argyle Goolsby about everything from his love of Buddy Holly to why “Night of the Living Dead” is the scariest movie ever. This was a really fun one and I hope you all will dig this one!
Ok, for starters who are you and what do you do?
[laughs] My name’s Argyle Goolsby and I play bass and do some of the vocals for Blitzkid.
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You guys really did a great set tonight. How are you digging being on tour with Face to Face and Strung Out?
It’s great to be on this tour. Those are two bands that really had a lot to do with Blitzkid being a band. The only other thing that could really validate the existence of this band would be Lemmy to just be like, “You guys are fucking cool.” At that point I would just say, “Fuck everybody. We’re awesome!” [laughs]
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I have to say, Blitzkid’s songs are really quite infectious and catchy. I’ve really been digging the new album “Apparitional.” Are you involved in the songwriting process at all?
Yeah, I do most of the songwriting. TB, our guitar player, is a songwriter too. We both write independently from one another. We’ll bring songs to each other and work off of each others vibe and influences.
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That’s cool that it’s a collaborative effort.
Yeah, I’m always writing songs. I have a little micro cassette recorder and if I get a riff in my head I’ll just sing it into the recorder, especially while on tour on long drives. I’ll get home and put it together and we’ll make something out of it. It’ll either be exactly what I wanted or come out different and the song will take a completely different direction which is just as cool.
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So Blitzkid has been said to be the next leaders of the “horror punk” movement. Why horror punk and not just regular old punk?
This is funny because we never really intended to charge in this direction. It just became natural for us and I”m glad people feel that away about us. We were always just a punk band and started out as a punk band. We didn’t have a theme but being from Southwestern Virginia people just tend to frown upon anything that had any tinge of the devil or darkness. We just thought it would be a perfect outlet to lash back at our town so we started wearing the corpse paint and painting our faces and just going in that direction for fun and it just clicked.
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You said that you guys are from West Virginia. That place is known for being pretty creepy at times in it’s own right. Does being from West Virginia serve as an influence on the lyrical content?
Absolutely man. I’m not a hippie but I love nature [laughs]. I could hang out in the woods all day long an I’d be totally happy with that. I think our environment has kind of helped shape that melancholy vibe of what we do. We’ve been surrounded by it for so long that it’s just a part of us so it’s not awkward to write about it. It’s been instilled in us.
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Blitzkid, as of this release, has put out seven albums. How do you feel the latest album “Apparitional”measures up to the others?
I think it’s more of a full circle for us. When we started out we were just a pop punk band doing our own thing and then we went in the direction of horror punk and we kind of crafted that. From that we tried to expand on it a little bit and started exploring other genres. We’re not just into punk. We like metal, goth, reggae, classical, we like everything. My favorite band is The Clash and I always felt like they were one of those bands that could incorporate any style of music into what they did and still make it sound like The Clash. For “Apparitional” I feel like we kind of came around full circle back to our punk roots on this one. The last album we experimented with a more somber theme but on this one we just put four on the floor and and went at it.
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This is the first album for People Like You records. So many artists feel that they have to compromise so much when signing to a label. Do you feel the same way?
I don’t feel constricted by it at all. They get what we do and that’s one of the reasons they wanted to sign us. They just wanted us to do what we do and they’ve been very supportive all the way. Nobody listened to our record and said, “This isn’t going to work.” There are a couple of songs on this record that I was worried about. I thought maybe the label would try to curve what we were doing. We have a song called “The Cask of Amontillado” and it’s nothing at all like anything we’ve typically done. I tried to explain it to the label that it was going to have a ska influence with saxophones and they were like, “Ok, we trust you.” [laughs]
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What a great thing to feel like you can be yourself as an artist and not feel like you can’t expand or experiment as an artist.
Yeah, it’s totally cool. We’ve had nothing but positive experiences with this label.
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Earlier we were talking about your influences and in listening to you guys I hear so many elements of old punk like The Ramones and NOFX that I love with this kind of modern twist to it. Who do you consider some of your biggest influences?
First and foremost for me, my biggest musical influence was Buddy Holly. That was my first foray into music that made me want to be a musician. I really got into The Doors when I was about 13 or 14 years old. The thing with The Doors was that they were a really artsy kind of band. They were on the fringe of everything. I saw all of the somber themes and lyrically they really inspired me. It really struck me that their lyrics kind of conflicted with their sound and I found that as well in The Misfits. The Misfits were so energetic and sometimes happy sounding like joyous but the lyrics were so somber and grim [laughs]. The first punk band that really opened the doors for me was Minor Threat. Living in West Virginia with no access to the outside world, I had a cousin from Virginia Beach. He would come in every summer for reunions and bring me cassette tapes. One year he brought me a Minor Threat cassette and the first song I heard by them was “Stepping Stone.” I remember thinking, “Is this the old Monkees song?” [laughs] Then I heard “12XU” and from there I was hooked and I never looked back. When I started writing music for Blitzkid I think all of that just kind of came together on my end.
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It’s always a cousin, older brother or someone’s older brother!
[laughs] It always is. It’s always like this other weird dude who’s like, “Here’s some tunes. Listen to this man.” [laughs]
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In addition to the horror aspect of your songs, is there some political or social commentary to your songs?
Not really. We don’t have any political or social commentary. We’re not devoid of any political views or anything. I enjoy and appreciate bands like Crass and Antiflag who have a message. Music is an important and very strong medium to convey a message but for us personally, we just want to have fun, let the music be what it is and let the people interpret it however they want. Our stuff isn’t so much preachy as it is energetic and fun. People can do with that what they want.
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I feel like there is plenty of serious music out there and I feel like it’s not fun all the time. I hear you guys and I just think that it’s really fun and easy to listen to.
Thanks so much man.
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I noticed that some of the Blitzkid song titles not only come from horror movies but also some books as well. Are you a literature fan?
Oh yeah. When I started college, I majored in Literature for a little while. I’ve always been into books. When I was kid I started out reading Garfield books which are huge books when your kid [laughs]. Then I started reading all the old classics like “Last of the Mohicans” and “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”. I was like that kid from “The Never Ending Story.” I was always reading [laughs]. Then I got into stuff like Edgar Allen Poe and HP Lovecraft. My favorite author is Algernon Blackwood. “The Willows” and “The Man Whom the Trees Love.” That stuff right there combined with the summer that I read “The Lord of the Flies” is what twisted me and really opened my eyes.
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I definitely made a connection between Blizkid and Iron Maiden in the sense that while you both write from your literary influences, neither bands are somber, dark type of people.
[laughs] Thanks. We just try to tell stories as quickly as possible. We have about two minutes to tell them so we can’t go too deep into them [laughs]. It’s cool. We just try and tie all of our fragmented thoughts together and use the process of story telling they teach you in school. The rising action, falling action, climax and resolution but just in two minutes [laughs].
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Ok Goolsby. Let’s have a lil fun and talk about horror in general. I have a few random questions for ya.
Absolutely. Go for it.
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Who’s scarier:
Alice Cooper or Ozzy Osbourne
Man, [laughs]. I’d say 10 or 15 years ago I could’ve answered that question but now neither [laughs]. I mean, Alice Cooper plays golf and Ozzy is like an octogenarian who can’t make popcorn [laughs]. No disrespect to those guys but man, I can’t say either. Tom Jones is scarier than both those guys [laughs].
Gwar or Slipknot
Man, I don’t find Slipknot scarry at all but GWAR is in no way shape or form to be taken seriously as scary. Again, I would have to say in this case Slipknot by default because GWAR is so funny [laughs].
Betty Davis or Joan Crawford
Oh man, Joan Crawford all the way. She’s just flat out creepy [laughs].
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Let’s talk about horror movies. Have modern horror movies lost the edge they once had?
I don’t really think technology is to blame. I think it’s just people’s overuse of it. I just see a lot of product placement in movies like the Motorola shots zooming on the phone or the Pepsi cans and shit like that. I don’t see horror movies today not having any validity but me personally, I don’t find the same magic in them. I like old German expressionistic horror movies like “Nosferatu” and that Paul Lenny stuff like “Waxworks.” There’s just something about that stuff that can’t be replicated and to me it’s more on a soul level. It’s inspiring and I just don’t get that with new horror movies.
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What is the greatest horror movie of all time and why?
Man, the scariest movie of all time? I really think the original “Night of the Living Dead” was really fucking scary. Maybe I’m a little partial to saying that because of the time in which I saw it. I was a young kid staying up by myself watching USA Up All Night [laughs]. What a horrible choice of shit to watch by yourself at nine years old [laughs]. My house had a huge glass door that looked out into a field and there was a graveyard near by and I was like, “Holy shit!”
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So what’s next for Blitzkid in 2011? More touring I suppose?
The plan for us is to finish this tour out. We were in Europe for four weeks and we had two days home and then we started this tour so we’re on a roll.
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How was Europe for you guys?
Europe is more receptive to us than anywhere we’ve been. It’s hard not to feel like it’s my favorite place to play. I love playing American but over there even the bad nights are great. They’re just so fucking into it. This one guy came up to us and had bought a button. He stuck it in his forehead and was yelling, “BLITZKIIIIIIIIIIIIIID!” [laughs] Just stuff like that. It’s so hardcore and it just transcends cultural differences. After this tour we have about three weeks home and then we’re going to back out to Europe to play some festivals over there. We’ve played festivals over there like Summer Breeze which is primarily a metal festival. The last time we played it was the only time I can remember ever being really nervous before going on stage. I thought they were going to eat us alive. These two full on metal Italian guys did track us down after our set and they came up to us and said, “Blitzkid! You’re fucking show was great!” We were like, thanks a lot and we asked if they had seen us before. One of them says, “No. Your music sucks but your show was awesome!” [laughs].
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Well I hope all will go well in Europe for you guys again. Goolsby, thanks so much for doing this interview tonight. I hope you guys will swing back through town and we can catch up.
Definitely man. Thank you so much. I really had a good time.
For more on Blitzkid:
Official Website: http://blitzkid.com/main/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlitzkidOfficial
The Brainfart & Blitzkid’s Argyle Goolsby
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