Whatever Comes Next with Tom Osman

For episode 100 of Whatever Comes Next I wanted to do something special and thanks to Dave Brenner at Earsplit PR I was able to put this multi-interview episode discussion of DIY music together. My guests have decades of experience in the musical underground in pretty much any dimension of getting music out there you can imagine. I talk in turn with Dave Brenner (Earsplit PR/ Gridfailure), Greg Me...

Pain Magazine brings together the two musical worlds of industrial-techno duo Maelstrom & Louisahhh and post-hardcore three-piece Birds In Row. Violent God (out on the 3rd of October on Humus Records) is the musical child birthed of this dark union. As lyrically violent and menacing as the music is, Violent God has its moments of not exactly light, but a certain sonic respite that glimmers as shar...

Multi-instrumentalist Chris Grigg has been involved in numerous musical projects over the past 20 years. Back in 2007 Chris started black-metal project Woe—first solo, before expanding to a full band. With Woe most recently releasing their fifth full-length, Legacies of Frailty, in 2023, Chris has also found time to feature as the drummer for death-metal group Glorious Depravity (the band soon to...

New York based artist and illustrator Caroline Harrison's work with underground and extreme bands and musicians goes back almost 15 years designing the logo and and various cover art for death metal group Pyrrhon, but her journey as a visual artist goes back much further than that. More recently (and including a decade working at the sadly now closed Saint Vitus Bar in Brooklyn) Caroline has creat...

In a musical career that's spanned decades, many projects, several solo releases and becoming a published author Blake Fleming first made a name for himself in the 90s as the teenage drummer for post-hardcore group Dazzling Killmen. Having built an enduring relationship with SKiN GRAFT Records, the band split in 1995. Now 30 years later, as a new iteration of Dazzling Killmen gets back together (o...

Speed of Light (released this coming Friday) is the second album by psychedelic-pop-rock project The Silver Snails and a record a decade in the making. Recorded between Italy and Portland, Oregon, the record (like The Silver Snails itself) is tied to no one specific place—with the project's architect Lucas Ward having lived and drawn influences from all over the world. Lucas joins me to discuss th...

Gucked Up (out this Friday on Three One G) is the debut album by LA noise-punk five-piece GUCK and fits right into the delightfully cacophonous musical world the label has curated, with bands like Deaf Club, F**k Money and Stress Positions. Vocalist April Gerloff and guitarist Chappy Hull join me to discuss the record, their musical backgrounds, April's history with Three One G founder Justin Pear...

Guitarist, editor and writer Jon Fine came up in the US indie-rock movement of the 1980s, most notably with rock trio B***h Magnet. In his engrossing memoir of a decade ago Your Band Sucks , Jon gives an entertaining and insightful look at how the indie-rock landscape evolved over those years and his part in it. Having at times extracted himself from an underground, DIY music world that doesn't al...

Industrial-hardcore music-maker and producer King Yosef releases his great, second full-length record Spire of Fear this Friday and on the eve of the record's release returns to the podcast for a second visit. We discuss the making of the latest record, the pros and cons of working alone, how to book tours, Portland, forthcoming shows (including the second Bleakfest next month) and underground mus...

New York City's in this house of mourning (ITHOM) represents the dark side of the project's mastermind Ben. Following 2022's penance EP, Enlèvement is a compellingly savage album, pulling from a range of extreme-metal sources. Dark, atmospheric and sinister. Ben joins me to discuss the album, its recording and some of his musical inspirations like Dragged Into Sunlight and Neurosis. Closing track:...

Whether you want to call them experimental metal, or mathcore, or progressive metal, New York's Car Bomb don't sound quite like anyone else. Greg Kubacki has been delivering brain-melting guitar parts for the band for almost the entirety of Car Bomb's 25 year (and counting) history. With the band about to release their latest EP Tiles Whisper Dreams (Yes, I keep mispronouncing it all through the i...

Stephanie Dodd and Justin Badger didn't always plan to form an indie-folk-cabaret duo, but life can lead us on all kinds of unexpected journeys. In the case of Dodd it took her from Fremont, Nebraska, while for Badger Fremont, California was the starting point. And so where The Fremonts took there name from becomes clear. Friday sees the re-issue of We Don't Live There and The Failure Cabaret , th...

Though you might, like me, be fooled at first listen into thinking that Hypomanic Daydream is a full band, it is in fact the creation of one person, Marie (AKA Manic Dream Girl). The Yearning (out today on Fiadh Productions) is an album of wildly creative metal that's very hard to describe. Maybe certain reference points like King Crimson, Demilich and Voivod can help to give some idea (although n...

Allan Vest and Barb [Hendrickson] Vest have been making music together as doubleVee since 2012. Creators of their own quirky indie-rock musical world, doubleVee release their latest EP Periscope at Midnight on the 25th of July. The EP opens with a reworking of track originally written and recorded by one of Allan's former bands Starlight Mints. This along with two more singles have been released s...

Pili Coït is at its core the musical duo (and couple) of Jessica Martin Maresco and Guilhem Meier. Almost immediately after meeting 19 years ago the pair started making music together. In 2017 with the creation of Pink Noise the musical entity of Pili Coït was born. Since then the duo have released Love Everywhere in 2021 and most recently a split EP with Yowie (both on SKiN GRAFT Records). For...

If we are to follow official accounts, then Admission (released last week on SKiN GRAFT Records) is the 26th album by Chicago's Cheer-Accident. Word has it that the album may be the band's best ever. And while it would serve no one to get caught up in hyperbole, it is indeed a great album. Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Thymme Jones has been at the helm of the band since its inception in 198...

While 31 years is a mere blink of the eye for the universe, for a band it's a long gap between records. For Washington DC's Strange Boutique their 1994 record The Kindest Worlds was very much intended, at the time, to be their final farewell—with the various members all going on to separate projects. With the passing of guitarist Fred Smith in 2017 singer Monica Richards and bassist Steve Willett...

Drummer and composer Charlie Werber made his name in the 2010s applying his distinctive drumming skills to underground, Chicago rock bands like Lovely Little Girls. More recently, a little state-hopping saw Charlie involved in other intriguing musical projects like CHIROMANCER (alongside composer, pianist and singer Evelyn Davis) and The Flying Luttenbachers. The newly-released Krater (mastered by...

Both singer Eugene S. Robinson and guitarist Xabier Iriondo have no shortage of credits in the world of music making and beyond. Together, however, they are one half of hard-rock four-piece BUÑUEL (alongside bassist David Haemery and drummer Frank Valente). October of last year saw the band's latest album Mansuetude co-released by SKiN GRAFT Records and OVERDRIVE Records. Today, as the band embark...

When recounting the rich history of Chicago's weird and wonderful boundary-pushing rock bands, a special place will always be held by U.S. Maple. Comprising drummer Pat Samson, singer Al Johnson and guitarists Mark Shippy and Todd Rittmann, the band gave the world 12 years of their own unique brand of angular, idiosyncratic rock n roll before scattering in the wind. With SKiN GRAFT Records having...

The Whimbrels brings together a group of musicians with an impressive art-rock pedigree, featuring former members of Glenn Branca Ensemble, Swans, J. Mascis & the Fog and many others besides. Arad Evans, one of the band's three guitarists (one of two vocalists and chief songwriter) joins me to discuss the group's forthcoming eponymous, debut record (an album full of inventive playing and memorable...

In the few years that Venice, California's Strawberry Fuzz have been in existence they've already built up a dedicated local following, toured with The Buzzcocks and built a reputation for delivering wild live shows. The band's latest album Miller's Garage is about as varied a release as you could hope for in the realms of punk rock. Tight, powerful, catchy, funny and well produced. With lead guit...

U De Fas, the debut full-length record by French alternative-rock four-piece Zir Pachet, was released on Influenza Records last Friday. That three of the band’s four members live in different parts of France did not stop Zir Pachet from realising their creative vision and I’m very happy about that, because U De Fas is a great record and if you, like me, are a fan of bands like Sonic Youth and Fuga...

Shelby Lermo, the mastermind behind deathgrind unit BLOOD MONOLITH, is never short of musical projects to keep himself busy with. In the midst of a tour with Nails (supporting Obituary) at the time of this interview, the vocalist and guitarist joins me to discuss The Calling of Fire , the brutal debut record from BLOOD MONOLITH (out now on Profound Lore Records), as well as talking about his guita...

K L P S (out now on These Hands Melt) is the self-titled, second full-length record by Swedish sludge-metal group K L P S (pronounced /kəˈlaps/), a record that you can definitely work out to, or indeed feel the raging fires of the apocalypse coming over the horizon to. Guitarist and vocalist Daniel Wallenborg joins me to discuss the record, the origins of the band, making music during the pandemic...