Interview w/Nicolas Royles (Sore Throat Drummer)
Hi there!! Things here are ok. We recently had some great gigs with Siege and Infest. Wow!! Who would have thought we would get the opportunity to see Siege on stage. What a blast!!! Discharge just toured the UK as well but I missed that due to being ill. Also missing a great festival at Bradford’s infamous anarcho club the 1in12. It’s a great fest with Icons of Filth, Anti-System, Hagar The Womb, Potential Threat, Extinction of Mankind and more. Would have gone to this if I hadn’t been ill. Damn!!
2.Nicolas explaim more about the destructive and intense existence from Sore Throat.How be form? Memories? Gigs? Line-ups?
All four members of the original line up used to meet up at the Mermaid Pub in Birmingham where Darren of Rebellion Festivals used to put many gigs on. We were all regulars at many gigs there. Two members actually lived near to Birmingham while the other two, myself and Rich lived quite far away in Huddersfield but travelled down in my car to as many gigs as possible. We’d see Electro Hippies, Napalm Death, Heresy, Skumdribbluurrzzz, Amebix, Sacrilege, Concrete Sox and more.
We all talked about doing a noise band that would be total rubbish. Skumdribbluurrz set the template really, Skumdribzz and the insane noise mess of Disorder. We saw both bands play quite a few times. Skumdribz were just insane noise thrash punk with short songs and a crazy attitude. In a way we wanted to replicate that though we decided that we would not practice and just make up crap noise to annoy as many people as possible. Bri and John were already doing Doom and had just sorted out their line up while me and Rich were both at loose ends as there were not many people in our hometown to do this style of music. We’d both been in bands more in the Chaos UK style that had not really got out of the practice room so this was time to do something with more potential.
Rich and I had a few meet ups at his house and we came up with some silly song titles and then Bri and John visited our town and we hung out and decided to do the band. By the next time they had visited we had booked the studio and brought in Hammy of the Instigators and Peaceville Records to help us amateurs out in the studio. No practices beforehand and a commitment to never practice together. So we just made up some insane noise bursts and recorded our first demo. Totally amateur, out of time but hilarious to us, especially as I really couldn’t play drums. This first recording was featured on the Vile Peace compilation LP on Peaceville Records. Also featuring Axegrinder, Hellbastard, Electro Hippies, Atavistic and more. Great comp. After this recording we played our first gig at The Mermaid. The room was fairly full when we went on and we managed to clear it apart from a few crazy noise freaks.
The second time we all met up as a band we recorded the first 7”. Some local friends including Johnny who already had Deaf Records, had formed a record collective and wanted to release Sore Throat as the first record. Again we hadn’t practiced and met up at Lion Studios in Leeds to record the debut EP. The big surprise to me was that the drum kit had been set up on the floor below the recording studio. Previously we had observed each other when to stop start or finish a song. Now that was impossible. We had to shout down microphones the lengths and speed of each song as we recorded and you had to guess when they would end. Fairly ridiculous really but spontaneous blasts of noise was the result. Out of time and out of tune. Also not helped by the fact that I had not really played drums a long time and couldn’t really play them at all. To my ears it all sounds quite horrendous. Still does today.
After this we played another gig at the Mermaid. This time with Amebix, Deviated Instinct and Void of Sense. We were on first and managed to fill the room and went down a storm. I think this gig is on the Ecocentric Records 7” with the first demo on the other side. At this moment I thought Sore Throat was going to finish as we had done the 7” with most songs on and wanted to be a mysterious band that disappeared after that. When Meantime Records offered to do an LP with us the others wanted to jump at it but I said no and left. Hammy from Peaceville took over and they went and did the Unhindered By Talent LP. This line up played a few more gigs and recorded the Disgrace To The Corpse of Sid LP on Earache and the Indestroy LP on Manic Ears as Saw Throat in pretty quick succession.
Sore Throat has had many line ups and by the time of their first European tour they had a completely different line up with I think Sned from Blood Robots / Generic and now of ThisClose playing guitar and Fads from our hometown of Huddersfield replaced John on bass. Rich the singer has been the only solid member from the beginning. He took over guitar duties from Sned and the band operated as a three piece for some time. They eventually evolved into SludgeLord and as a three piece featuring Rich, Fads and recently joined drummer Jimmy on drums, they recorded a demo which has been bootlegged and released as Sore Throat. SludgeLord was more influenced by Gore from Holland and the Melvins. Instrumental dirge.
After Sludgelord finished, Sore Throat came back together with Rich on vocals, Me on guitar, Fads on bass, Phil on second guitar and Lionel on drums. Nothing recorded except a practice tape. Played one gig at the 1in12 club in Bradford and then split up. After Sore Throat split up Rich and I recorded a demo as a two piece under the name Nailbomb. He did guitars and bass, I did drums and vocals. After Nailbomb I also recorded a song as Sore Throat with members from CCS for the Endless Struggle 1in12 Club Compilation LP.
Many bands followed on from all the ex members. Here’s a few - Health Hazard, Bio Hazard, Warfear, Suffer, No Way Out, Wartorn, Ironside, Solstice, Unborn, One By One, ThisClose, Discontrol, Cracked Cop Skulls, War All The Time, Howl.
In the UK, Discharge started the Noise Not Music followed on by Anti Sect, Varukers, Chaos UK and Disorder and following on from that Heresy, SAS, Plasmid, Asylum, Napalm Death, Skumdribblluurzz. Even the side projects of ND, such as Brain Grinder. Lots of bands from Europe as well - Zyklome A, Larm, Rapt, HHH, Pandemonium, Wretched, Anti-Cimex, Shitlickers, Kuolema, Bastards, Terveet Kadet. Elsewhere there was Siege, early Gang Green, 7 Minutes of Nausea, Neos and not forgetting the mighty Celtic Frost.
4.Stuff edited by Sore Throat?
Really??? Can’t you look on discogs??? Ha!
There wasn’t one. Most local punks were more into Broken Bones and English Dogs. Some were into Chaos UK and Disorder but some of those were moving over to thrash metal at the time - Megadeth. Metallica, Slayer. Local metalheads were more into hyper speed thrash and noise/grind than the punks.
6.Your opinion about the actual grindcore/noisecore around the world?
There’s too many bands to keep up with. I listen to a vast range of music. For this style I prefer the old bands but appreciate some of the young bands live. Oldies I like are Infest, Siege, 7MON, Straight Ahead, Bathtub Shitter, Bud Spencer, Rapt, Psycho Sin, Cyanamid and a bit of Nausea/Terrorizer and Repulsion. More recent stuff - The Day Man Lost, Looking For An Answer, Famine, Groak and Lugubrious Children.
7.You know some from the extreme scene from Southamerica?
Mainly hardcore punk from Brazil - Ohlo Seco, Ulster and all the bands from that period.
8.Someday is possible a reunion from Sore Throat to destroy the young brains?
I really doubt it. Out of the original line up Bri is busy doing DOOM, Jon is doing POLICE BASTARD, Rich is doing SOLSTICE and I’m busy with CCS.
9.Nicolas now you have another proyect...tell us more about that!
My band HOWL has split up a while ago so now we are just concentrating on CCS. Hopefully two EPS out this year. No tours. Just records.
Thanks for the interview. Cheers to all your readers. Hope to come back to Perú again and check some stuff out. Couldn’t find anything in Lima when we were there.
rich militia master !
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