Under The Dog

Somebody give this guy an award, I don’t care what award but he deserves something, anything if only for one reason. The guy answered my emails in a timely fashion. 99% of the artists I contact for an interview don’t return the email, 50% of the 1 % left say sure but never end up answering the questions. But Andre Sanabria has thrown a wrench into my entire equation.

Andre’s tracks can best be described as (this is the hardest part of writing about music, knowing the person you are writing about is going to read it) throwing a musical wrench into every equation ever. Currently one member playing guitar and singing with a drum machine and keys, this is definently on the abrasive side of mathrock/metal or industrial(think Gengis or Agoraphobic).

 Blownihlist ‘will fuck up any room he can fit his PA into’.

Q: Didn’t you used to have the name nihlist?
A: I used to sing in a mathy hardcore band, and we were called nihilist. We played around the Portland/Vancouver area for a few years with bands like Brutal Fight, The Dead Unknown, Thirty3, and had some bigger shows with bands like Botch, Converge, Darkest Hour and the like.

I came up with the name from Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons; a Russian novel from the 1860’s. Sadly, people used to come to shows and ask if we got the name from the Big Lebowski, which is in fact a great movie.

The band broke up in 2003, Nick the drummer & Jayson the guitarist formed Hauler with Aaron Edge and Ben Joner, then started El Cerdo a few years later, sans Aaron. I was diagnosed with a rare disease that in turn has made me ‘disabled’ so I had all the free time to make music and noise. I was asked to play a show with Thrones and Wrangler Brutes and that night went by another name; since we still had the domain name blowupnihilist.com, I decided to call the stuff I was doing that. At that time, nihilist’s bass player Tom was in Blowupnihilist. He’s since departed to pursue his own musical interests.

Q: Some artists hate the words mathy and mathrock, any thoughts on that?
A: I don’t know anyone personally who hates the term mathy or mathrock. Great bands like Pink Floyd, Rush, Yes, Big Black, Craw, Nomeansno and Frank Zappa are considered math rock I’d guess. Botch and Meshuggah are mathy as fuck and I think that’s what they’re going for. In my music I do odd time signatures because that’s what comes out of me. I’ve never been good at ‘jamming’ with other people. I’ll go off on fucking Syd Barret tangents and end up making a wall of noise or some shit.

Q: Care to make up a genre for your music?
A: A bad psychedelic trip. That’s the genre…(Authors Note:I was going to use this very description for the style and sound of the band)

Q: You cite psychedelics as an influence, is it part of the writing process or merely an influence?
A: A bit of both. When I was younger I never drank or did drugs, however I was introduced to LSD and Mushrooms and opened my third eye at a young age. Influential yes, in the sense of letting go of my ego, becoming more existential and seeing things for what they really are; playing music while on psychedelics is hard for me. I’ll just walk out of the room or off stage; you’ve got to respect the Doors, Pink Floyd and the Dead for being able to trip out and continue to play.

Q: What’s up with all the harshness with the kids on Lambgoat? I think they honestly have no clue what they are talking about. I thought all this stuff was about brotherhood? I think some of these kids are just negative to be cool.
A: I don’t pay attention to people’s meanderings on the internet. I’d say a majority of kids who talk shit about bands on message boards and sites like lambgoat have way too much time on their hands and need to go get laid. There was a time in the hardcore scene where it was more communal and more accessible, it’s still there, just hidden like it used to be.

Q: Any advice for someone booking their own tour or just about being in a 1 person act?
A: Book with someone you know, and if you can’t do that, book with someone who you know, knows. Look into the promoters history; have they booked hella grange hall shows with 10 bands whose audiences are essentially each other? Have they worked with other touring bands in the past. Do they promote the shows, IE: flyering other shows and hanging up posters, or do they just make up a design and post it on people myspace pages. It costs a little bit, but design your own tour poster and send it to the venues/promoters. They’re going to take you more seriously as an artist. Figure out how far your van will go on a single tank of gas, relate that to how much you need to make per show and never take the first thing that comes along. Houses and basments make you more money than a club or bar ever will (unless you’re Panic! at the Disco), after touring the country a couple times and seeing this first hand I can assure you of this. Not that making money is why I do what I do, but gas is over $3.00 a gallon now, and the dollar is plummeting quicker than Goose in Top Gun; sadly Kenny Loggins can’t pull us out of this economic dive.

I hate the phrase “one man band.” I don’t know why, it just bothers me. That’s like introducing Converge as a “four man band.” Is it really necessary? In the noise scene it’s never mentioned; Aphex Twin and Squarepusher are never billed like that. But when I play metal and hardcore shows people seem to want to say it. It’s got it’s ups and downs. Some people don’t take me that seriously because they think I’m just some guy in his bedroom with a computer making “bree-bree’s” and pig squeals. I don’t even own a computer, nor do I use one when writing songs. What I do, is meant to be heard live. I didn’t set out on playing by myself.

I sang in a “mathy” hardcore band for a number of years and when that dissolved, this catalyst formed to make the chaos I’d heard in my head for years. I made a number of tapes in 1999 and early 2000 but at that time, I didn’t even know there was a scene or audience for this kind of music. I loved Throbbing Gristle, Nurse With Wound, Boyd Rice, etcetera but didn’t know a single person in Vancouver who knew who they were. Originally Blowupnihilist was a three piece band, and there was a revolving door of musicians for a short period; but it works out best this way.

Q: Have you ever shown up for a show and had the promoter say to you “where’s everyone else”?
A: Usually when I play a show I’ve got a friend or two with me and they’ll help me load-in, it isn’t until I do a sound check that people notice it’s just me. I bring a few speakers and take up almost as much space as your typical grind band.
When I tour I bring along at least two people and it becomes a party/road trip. Touring is to bands what frat guy shit is to jocks.

Q: (maybe it’s not the best idea to ask you about gear as it was damaged but you seem fairly open. I hope I’m not rubbing salt in any wounds…) Do you do all your drum programming with hardware? Any software.
A: Luckily my most expensive piece of gear, was in an Anvil road case. The fucker is built like a tank and surprised the hell out of me when after a few incredibly long minutes it started up again. I don’t use computers at all. I don’t use MIDI either. I’ve got an Akai MPC 2000xl that I program all my beats on. I’ve tracked live drums then dumped them into it, but it’s a drum machine, sampler and sequencer all in one unit. It’s the machine Dr. Dre used to write “The Chronic.”
My keyboard died, and my amps & speakers are fucked up, but that’s another story.

Q: Tell me about your periodical please. Is it like McSweeney’s for metalheads?
A: I’m not familiar with McSweeney’s, but no it’s not like that for metal heads. It’s closer to something City Lights out of San Francisco might put out or maybe Feral House. I’ve been writing as long as I could hold a pen or pencil; it’s just never been good enough to me until now. It’s mostly non-fiction short stories, poems, rather fictional stories and an occasional interview with someone who is interesting. The latest edition has two actually. One with comedian Doug Stanhope and the other with the Salt Lake band, Gaza.

Q: People familiar with your music would be most surprised to know that you have ______ in your musical collection?
A: Just about everything Madonna put out on vinyl from 1983 to 1994; the singles Like a Virgin, Papa Don’t Preach, Lucky Star, Like a Prayer, Vogue, Crazy for You, Erotica, Rain, Take a Bow, and the albums Like a Virgin, True Blue, Like a Prayer, and Bedtime Stories. I don’t know how I aquired them all, first I believe was True Blue then I just went crazy and wanted them all. I’d pick them up in bins at EM or Music Millennium. I don’t listen to them much anymore, unless I’m having a party or someone requests them.
I also jam on Neil Young and Miles Davis a lot.

Q: Not to be a snitch or anything, but I found your EP on an mp3 blog, does that piss you off?
A: Not really. I wish you hadn’t simply because I don’t like those songs anymore. What does kind of piss me off is the fact that my full length is being sold in Russia on some mp3 site and even though I’ve contacted them a couple times no one ever gets back to me, and they continue to sell it for like $.15 rubles or kopeks or some shit. I’ll probably never play Russia so I’m stoked there are people in Russia digging on my shit, but I’m not a communist and I want my cut of whatever they’re making.

Q: Anything you wish to add?
A: Listen to Pulse Emitter, El Cerdo, Robert Johnson and Chris Clark; watch movies by Akira Kurosawa, Warner Herzog, and The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman. Read instead of watching anything on television, even if it’s a fucking comic book. Our society would be a much better place.

Andre was recently in a van wreck and some of his equipment was destroyed, from his myspace:

Saturday  night at around 5:57pm in a snowstorm on I-84 Eastbound; on the way to a show in Boise later that evening, my van flipped and rolled three times.
In the vehicle were myself (Andre), David Mullis and Jon Wayne Rebello; tour manager and Roadie extraordinar, respectively.
Doing 40mph in the right hand lane we felt the rear end swerve to the right, I turned into the slide, it slowly shifted to the left and then we were sliding on black ice in the middle of the two lanes going straight. Things seemed to be doing well. Suddenly the rear spun around which had us sliding backwards to which we then flipped and rolled three times into the ditch in the center of both lanes.
Windows busted out; snow was inside; most of the gear was destroyed or damaged; including a lot of the merch I just had made for this tour; personal belongings, etcetera. We three however are alive. Thank fuck.
The van is totaled and bills are at upwards of $6,000.
To some this might not be that big a deal. I however don’t make that much in a single year. Disabled cats like myself seldom do. Tour is over.
Though I hate this to sound like a handout, I’ve known this to work for some bands/people at times of crisis like this; so I’ve set up a paypal account (at) excommunicate@gmail.com in hopes to possibly help recover some of the loss. God damn it, that’s just what it looks like as I type this.

Sending more, I’d include copies of my new periodical (and/or) my CD’s I have left, tee-shirts and other weird shit I know you’d love.
If you don’t feel like ‘donating’ Relapse and Interpunk have several copies of my album still available.

I strongly suggest donating a few dollars or purchasing a record.

Tunage:

Porphyria

Buy:

http://shop.relapse.com/store/product.aspx?ProductID=26326

http://www.interpunk.com/item.cfm?Item=67660&

Myspace