Municipal Waste: Interview with Dave Witte and Land Phil @ Earache Records, June '09

I had the opportunity to talk with with Dave Witte (drums) and Land Phil (bass) when they were in town earlier this month to promote Municipal Waste's forthcoming disc Massive Aggressive.



The new disc comes out on August 25th on Earache Records and the band calls it the "most ferocious and most focused album of their career." In advance of the CD release, the band is heading off to Europe for a run of July/August dates and then they will be returning home for a tour of the States later in the year.

Here are the current tour dates;

July 16, 2009, 6:00PM, Obscene Extreme Festival, Svojsice
July 17, 2009, 8:00PM, Hafenklang, Hamburg
July 18, 2009, 8:00PM, Welstock Festival, Holland
July 19, 2009, 8:00PM, Nachtleben, Frankfurt
July 20, 2009, 8:00PM, Feierwerk, Munich
July 23, 2009, 8:00PM, Rockplanet Club, Pinarella Di Cervia
July 24, 2009, 8:00PM, Palarockness Club, Genzano (Roma)
July 25, 2009, 8:00PM LORCA Fest
August 12, 2009, 8:00PM, OYA Festiva
August 14, 2009, 8:00PM, BLOODSTOCK Festival, Derby
August 28, 2009, 8:00PM, Leeds Festival, Leeds
August 29, 2009, 8:00PM, Reading Festival, Reading

Links:
Municipal Waste's MySpace Profile
Earache Records

Municipal Waste Video Banned from YouTube/Band Plays Europa on Sept. 25

Municipal Waste, who seem to be on a never-ending tour, are back in town for a show at Europa in Brooklyn on September 25th. The band is playing with Toxic Holocaust and Skeletonwitch and tickets are only $10.

Municipal Waste's sound is a welcome return to the thrash/beer metal sounds of the 80's. Check out this YouTube clip (below) and you will quickly get the idea.


The band's second release on Earache Records, The Art of Partying, was released at the end of July. If you go to the Earache store, you can purchase The Art of Partying on either CD or limited edition multi-color vinyl. There is also an unreleased track, "Boner City" that is posted to the band's MySpace page.

It looks like both the crowds and the pits are growing at the band's shows. Journalist Dave Ling caught the band at a recent show in London and here is what he had to say:

"Municipal Waste were the night's undoubted stars. The four-piece had brought along boogie-boards and their fabled beer-bong, plus an even more potent-looking weapon called The Inebriator, which was used upon several willing audience members. In honour of the song 'Terror Shark', some silly sod had even come dressed in a decidedly non-frightening Jaws-style costume, causing much hilarity by continually throwing himself off the stage and into the moshing throng. In 45 minutes they played more than 20 songs, including 'Headbanger Face Rip', 'Drunk As Shit', 'Sadistic Magician', 'Thrashing's My Business... And Business Is Good' and the unreleased 'Boner City'. Given that their tunes are largely inspired by alcohol and headbanging, it was entirely appropriate that 'Bangover' closed the set proper, a well deserved encore including the Stormtroopers Of Death standard 'United Forces'. For the time being, Municipal Waste are a stupendously entertaining live act..."

The band seems to be no stranger to controversy and, most recently, their Troma Entertainment filmed video for "Headbanger Face Rip" was banned from YouTube for inappropriate content. Earche has both the "gore" and the "tv-friendly" version of the video posted to a special webpage.

Municipal Waste: The Art of Partying CD Review

NME says that thrash "is a style of music that makes you want to pour lager over your head and jump off speaker stacks" and that the genre was founded by a "bunch of young metal dudes in the Bay Area of San Francisco [who] thought 'Gee, this music is ace, but it'd sound better if it was played faster and by drunk people'". There is a nice writeup on Municipal Waste and SSS (Short Sharp Shock - Earache labelmates of Municipal Waste) in the article.

NME has it right in that Muicipal Waste takes their music back to the pre-Satanic era of thrash metal. The music is fast and aggressive, comparable musically and lyrically to early Suicidal Tendencies, DRI, Gang Green and Kill 'em All era Metallica. Municpal Waste's lyrics center around beer (naturally), high school food fights, and radioactive warfare. The CD artwork, by San Francisco based artist Andrei Bouzikov, matches well with the band's lyrical themes and shows radioactive zombies at a keg party.

This CD continues where the band's previous release, Hazardous Mutations, left off. The band really doesn't slow down through the 15 tracks on this disc. As expected, the music is tight, the guitar work shreds and drumming constantly pushes the music forward. Stand out tracks include "Headbanger Face Rip", "A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Destroyer)" and "Born to Party" (which has the chorus "Municipal Waste is going to f*ck you up"). All of these tunes are perfect shout-alongs for the mosh pit. The band also shows their great sense of humor with the voice-overs on Beer Pressure and the 'hidden' bonus track. The bonus track sounds like a cover of an 80's pop song (but I haven't been able to track down the details on the track).

This CD has been released in Europe and is available on iTunes but the US release date has pushed back to July 31st. What is interesting is that the UK version (available through Play.com) has two bonus tracks:
Thrashing's My Business....and Business Is Good (Bonus Track)
I Just Wanna Rock (Bonus Track).

The band is finishing a short tour with Agnostic Front with a show in Detroit tonight and then they are off to a month-long run through Europe in August.

There is a new video for Unleash the Bastards (gore version) posted to the Earache site (link) along with photos from the photo shoot for Headbanger Face Rip (link).

Links:
Municipal Waste's MySpace page
Municipal Waste's Main Website