Whatever Comes Next with Tom Osman

Canadian, extreme-metal unit APES just put out their second full-length record, Penitence , on Secret Swarm Records — with the band finding new ways to fulfil their mission statement of being heavy and relentless. I caught up with drummer Gabriel D’Amours to discuss the latest record, the history of the band and how Gabriel keeps his life centred around music. Band photo courtesy of Tom Morin Clos...

Tommy Meehan is a man on a mission to follow the DIY-music-making dream. One of his more recent musical projects Squid Pisser just put out their latest, great, bizarre, head-spinning, glitch-punk-metal album Dreams of Puke (SKiN GRAFT Records). Tommy joined me to talk about the band, the album and how it was put together — as well as the equally wonderful and bizarre artwork (by artist/ musician G...

Indie-rock-pop group Oh, Rose released their debut EP That Do Now See in 2014. With a ten-year-anniversary reissue coming out this Thursday on Antiquated Future Records, alongside "The Call", the latest single from their forthcoming album Dorothy , songwriter and vocalist Olivia Rose joins the show. She talks about her musical background growing up in Asheville, North Carolina, moving to Olympia,...

Thalia Zedek (Come, Live Skull), Jason Sanford (Neptune) and newest member, drummer/ saxophonist Ernie Kim, are E. With their great, latest record Living Waters released in April on Silver Rocket, the band is about to embark on a North American and European tour. Thalia, Jason and Ernie discuss tours, recording, the making of and meaning in Living Waters, some of Thalia's other musical projects, w...

Oakland, California's death-metal trio Necrot is a band that lives to be out on the road. Having recently released their powerful latest album, Lifeless Birth on Tankcrimes, the band is poised to set off on another North American tour. Vocalist and bassist Luca Indrio discusses some of the trials and tribulations the band went through leading up to the making of the record and how the global pande...

Joplan, Missouri's Gravehuffer play what I like to call "Psychedelic Heavy Metal Monster Music". That's my best attempt at describing this unique and adventurous band, comprising vocalist Travis McKenzie, guitarist Ritchie Randall, bass player Mike Jilge and newest edition, drummer Wes McNeely. Ritchie, Mike and Wes join the show to share their tales of life in a DIY band, booking tours, travellin...

Although Fabien W. Furter didn’t know it before our interview, both he and Steve Albini are significant to the genesis of this podcast. Before starting Whatever Comes Next I decided that I’m going to write a book about DIY music making. Part of my initial idea was to spend some time with several people involved in DIY music scenes around the world. When I was thinking of who would be great subject...

Neezy Dynamite is one half of bubblegum-doom duo FOX MEDICINE — a band with their own unique sound (and a taste for the caps lock). What is bubblegum doom, you ask? Well, if you’ve already heard the band, you don’t ask (you already know) and if you haven’t, I’ll let Neezy put it in her own words. In any case, the band is something different and a lot of that can be put down to Neezy, with FOX MEDI...

[ A shorter print version of this interview first appeared online at New Noise Magazine - you can read it here ] Although a minor spelling adjustment has helped LA-punk-rockers CNTS avoid falling foul of online algorithms, it makes little difference when referring to the band out loud. Therefore, welcome to the sweariest episode yet of Whatever Comes Next. So hold onto your hats — and if you need...

ATER is an extreme metal group from Chile, combining a love of Meshuggah with other elements like black metal to create a unique sound. Their latest record Somber is out now. I spoke with founder, bassist, vocalist, producer and sole constant of the band Fernando “Feroz” Bühring to learn more about this crushing sound that he’s created with the band. I’ve had a lot of fun listening to the record a...

Dolly Dagger is an antipodean abroad (we get around). Based in LA, Dolly and her band are carving out their own little space in the indie-rock landscape of LA. Anyone who’s spent a minute checking out Dolly’s Instagram (@dollydagger_xo) will immediately see the commitment to engage with fans and really create a community around the band and the music. Out last week, “Tower” is the latest single, f...

Back in March the writer and performer Brother Dege released Aurora , an album evocative of his home town of Lafayette, Louisiana. It’s a beautiful album, rich in emotion, exploring the cycle of romance, break up and its impacts. Sadly, just weeks after this conversation, and days before the release of the album, Dege died. His backing band The Brethren and record label Prophecy Productions releas...

Del Judas has quite an eclectic musical story by anyone’s standards. One-time extreme metal drummer, crooner by day, country-goth artist, now having released something separate from all of these elements, new single “Angela”. I was drawn right in by “Angela” on the first listen and intrigued by the shift in tone from the significantly darker debut album Deity. How often do you come across an artis...

O ZORN! has been described as post-metal, sludge metal, doom metal, but I’m not one for putting bands in boxes (when I can avoid it), so let’s just say O ZORN! is dark. That’s certainly a suitable descriptor of the band’s latest record Vermillion Haze . The band’s frontman, songwriter and driving force Bill Kielty and I discuss the events leading up to the making of the album and as you’ll hear pl...

Lina Sophie & Richey Rose first met in November 2017 in NYC and discovered a shared love of indie-rock bands from the UK like Suede, Manic Street Preachers and The Cure. Forming Songs for Sabotage, the duo’s first album Night of Joy drew from these guitar-centred sources, with splashes of the pop sensibilities of bands like Roxette. Having dubbed their debut their “New York album”, the pair decide...

Prisoner are a hard band to put into a neat box. The Richmond, Virginia five-piece could be described as sludge metal, crust punk, industrial metal and more besides. What can be said with certainly is that the band’s forthcoming album Putrid / Obsolete makes for a convincing soundtrack to a world going up in flames. As heavy in mood as it is sonically, you might expect (after listening to these ra...

Victoria, Canada’s NoMeansNo is a band that the average person on the street might not recognise, but their favourite band probably does. In fact NoMeansNo might be their favourite band’s favourite band. Formed in 1979 by brothers John and Rob Wright, NoMeansNo carved out their own bass-and-drum-heavy strain of jazz-infused punk rock for over three decades, before finally putting the band to rest...

King Yosef makes dark, industrial music. If you’re a child of the 90s like me, you might take Nine Inch Nails as a jumping-off point, but that’s only one aspect. Let’s just say the music is intense, often abrasive, but catchy too. It would fit right in in a rock club, you could listen to it in the gym, or going for a run, sometimes you could even dance to it. Yosef has navigated his way through th...

Guitarist/ vocalist Tony Gonzalez and drummer/ vocalist Timo Silvola formed Barren Womb back in 2011. Since then the duo has released five full-length records, the latest being Chemical Tardigrade (F*****g North Pole Records/ Blues For The Red Sun). A band with a social conscience, Barren Womb layers its societal critiques in absurdist humour (and no small amount of abrasive, guitar-driven rock)....

Scotty Heath has been running Tankcrimes for half his life. The underground label, dedicated to grimy punk rock and metal, has just put out new EP Noxious Concoctions by monstrous death metal entity Ghoul and this Thursday the band, alongside label-mates Necrot and Dead Heat will join Municipal Waste for the Brainsqueeze 2024 tour, celebrating 21 years of the latter’s debut album Waste ‘Em All. Sc...

For the latest episode of Whatever Comes Next I talked with vocalist Vincent, guitarist Heddy and drummer Mathieu of French, chaotic-hardcore unit Something Animal to discuss the five piece’s newly-released EP, Bestial Curse Pt. 1 . Having released their first EP, Urban Zoology, back in 2019, Something Animal found their plans disrupted by the global pandemic and subsequent lockdowns in France. Th...

As soon as I listened to a promo copy of Without Motion (the newly-released debut album by post-punk band Feral Family) I knew I wanted to promote it somehow. I’ve been listening to the album regularly over the past weeks. The band’s mix of gothic guitar-driven rock, satisfyingly propulsive bass lines and moody imagery came as a welcome change of pace for me amid a lot of noise rock and extreme me...

On this latest episode of Whatever Comes Next I talk with Pej Mon, until recently a powerful and versatile drummer who made a major decision prior to the creation of his latest project Sätyäsenä. Pej decided he didn’t want to just be the drummer, he wanted to be the main creative force and songwriter. The issue? Pej operates within the varied permutations of guitar-driven rock music (of the dark,...

Bronson Arm is a noise-rock duo based in Kalamazoo, Michigan, comprising Blake Bickel on vocals and baritone guitar, alongside Garrett Yates on drums. With their debut, self-titled, full-length album set for release on 12 January (Learning Curve Records) I caught up with the pair to talk about the forthcoming record and their experiences making music together. Everything about Bronson Arm generate...

Well, here we are. This is my interview with Peter Stahl of Scream. It’s also the first episode of my new podcast. The name? Yes, you guessed it: Whatever Comes Next. Branding is important, no? I don’t want to repeat too much of what I say in the intro to the interview, but to quickly contextualise this post, I interviewed Peter and Franz Stahl and Enoch Thompson of Scream for New Noise Magazine a...