Psychomanteum – An Xperience Interview

Psychomanteum – An Xperience Interview – by Rob Smittix.

RRX: A lot of cool stuff is happening in the Psychomanteum world.

MS: Yeah, we’re introducing a bass player. We have been a three-piece for the longest time. We’ve had bass players in the past. It’s almost like Spinal Tap; they kind of find a way of blowing up or just not working out. The new bass player, Bryan Bishop, plays in Against the Reign. He’s actually their guitar player. He reached out to us, and we’re like, well … OK, we’ll see what happens. Most people, we give them the music and they find an excuse. Either they don’t have a bass or don’t learn the stuff, but he’s been awesome, and I think it’s gonna be great.

RRX: Oh, that adds a whole new energy, you know? When a band has some kind of new thing or new guy, especially a bassist, because they really help hold down the foundation of everything. I’m sure it brings a lot of excitement to everybody else. Gives you a little bit more of a drive.

MS: And some of the songs we’ve been playing forever, but now just hearing the bass on there, it’s like, wow! Our original Brian normally records the bass for the studio tracks, and then when we play live, he has the stuff on his pedal. He’s like a mad scientist with all the equipment. I try to keep up with it, but have enough of a time remembering the lyrics. Having the bassist is making things a little easier for Pete, our drummer. It’s giving him some groove to play to.

RRX: That’s exciting, man, and I know you’ve got a big show coming up.

MS: Yeah, that’s October 17th at Empire Underground. We’re playing with some really cool bands, Malignancy, real heavy stuff. They’re headlining. Concrete; it’s their singer’s last local gig, so a lot of people will be coming out for that. Another band, Unbound, and Tyranize. We’re gonna be somewhere in the middle, and hopefully people will dig the new music. Thank you to Mike Valente for putting this together. He’s like the godfather of metal around here.

RRX: Oh, he definitely is. You certainly wanna have Mike on your side, that’s for sure.

MS: Absolutely.

RRX: To pry into your personal lives … I don’t know how old you guys are.

MS: Brian is probably the youngest. I think he just turned 48. I’m gonna be 53 in October. I think Pete is 55, and our new guy, he’s somewhere in his 50s. I don’t know his exact age. We’re old bastards.

RRX: But you know … 50 is like the new 35!

MS: Exactly. We’ve all been doing this for ages. I used to play in a crazy metal band called Hungry Jack. We were like the welfare GWAR. We used to wear stupid costumes and stuff. Pete and Brian have played together on and off for like 20 years, but Pete played with Joey Belladonna on an East Coast tour. He was his drummer, so sometimes I’m waiting for them to say, “Matt, we’ve finally found our singer.”

(both Laugh)

MS: These guys are the best musicians I’ve ever played with. We use in-ear monitors, and I tell the guys this is like having my own private concert. Sometimes I’ll mess up because I’m like, oh, I’ve never heard you do that before with the guitar. It’s just a weird and cool experience. No attitudes ever, it’s like a big brotherhood. If something’s going on, like … you’re playing too fast or maybe you should try doing this a little different … ultimately, we all want to make the songs sound their best. It’s refreshing from what people have dealt with in the past.

RRX: Definitely. And now knowing your ages, you’re all around my age, Gen X! We’re the best generation there ever possibly could have been.

MS: Agree

RRX: We’re still rocking it. I imagine you guys probably got real lives, like kids, marriage, and maybe even grandkids, right?

MS: Mhm. Yeah, definitely. We have the family thing going on, so when we do get together, we value the time because at this stage of the game … to get together for a few hours a week when you know you could be doing something else or you know you have responsibilities. You know? So we really try to maximize the time.

RRX: Life does get in the way sometimes. I think about my grandkids right now. I think about how I raised my kids, and I tried to raise them right as far as music goes, and they don’t listen. They don’t listen. They do their own thing, and all the music I hate, they listen to anyway. I think it’s garbage, but you know what? Maybe if I didn’t hate on it so much, they wouldn’t have thought it was so cool.

MS: Yeah, that’s true. My youngest daughter, she’s into a lot of the pop stuff, but my older daughter, she’s like into a lot of punk and all sorts of stuff. One of the coolest things for me as a dad is, a couple of years ago, we went to No Fun in Troy, and Gibby Haynes from the Butthole Surfers was playing, and that to me was like going to church. Afterwards, she had her picture taken with him, and to me, that is the coolest thing in the world.

RRX: 100%. You know we’ve really got quite the scene up here. I don’t know if people even realize how good we have it. I realize how good we have it when I travel to other places. And I’m even talking about bigger metropolitan areas. Of course, there are exceptions, but I could tell you, a lot of other places don’t have the scene that we have here. We’re blessed to have it.

MS: Oh yeah. And for the most part, everybody generally works together. For example, the Extreme Music Awards. Of course, you want to win an award, but it’s cool that you’re nominated with all your peers in the metal community. I just think it’s a really cool scene, and if someone can help somebody out and get him a show or point them in the right direction … everybody has been helpful. I think the main guard of that has probably been Mike Valente. He’s the man, and he’s helped us out. He got us on some good shows. We played with Ringworm and Crowbar and, uh, Hippie Death Cult, you know? They’re all national acts, which was really cool to say that we opened up for them. It definitely exposed us to people who wouldn’t necessarily even have gone looking for us.

Psychomanteum is Matt Smith – vocals, Pete Von Stettina – drums, Brian Manteum – vocals, guitar, bass, keys, programming, Bryan Bishop – bass guitar

 

 

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