We recently had a chat with The AVD and Stitch D of fast rising Brit metallers The Defiled on their recent headline tour.
Rocksins: What do you think of the music scene in the UK?
AVD: It’s good, we have to appreciate what we’ve got.
Stitch D: Yeah, people should stop yammering on about that yank nonsense and start supporting our own bands.
AVD: We have amazing bands here, we have Sylosis…
Stitch: …Architects, Bring Me The Horizon
Rocksins: Do you have to work harder to stick out within the scene?
AVD: I think we stick out like a sore thumb anyway haha.
Rocksins: In the last year or so, you’ve went from being the opening for bands like Sylosis to headlining the same venues on your own. Can you pinpoint when things really started happening for you?
Stitch: The Murderdolls tour.
AVD: Giving out 50,000 copies of our CD with Metal Hammer, that definitely helped.
Rocksins: MCR fans call themselves ‘Killjoys’, You me At Six fans are ‘Sixers’. What should we call The Defiled fans
AVD: Cunts…
Rocksins: A friend of mine came up with ‘Stitch’s Bitches’
Stitch: Actually, when me and our old bassist used to live together we got obsessed with darts for a while, my darts name was Stitch “The Bitch” Dangerous and he was Drex “the Sex” Exel.
Rocksins: Is there anything you can tell us about the Grave Times ReWorks album?
AVD: Were about half way through it.
Stitch: It takes time, it’s not as easy as just sitting recording guitars and that, you have to sit for hours and hours and hours finding sounds.
Rocksins: So it’s not going to be the standard “Oh let’s make a dubstep CD!”
AVD: definitely no.
Stitch: yeah, we’re not going to just do whatever is “cool” right now.
Rocksins: Have you been working on any new material?
Stitch: We’ve started doing stuff in the last couple of weeks, demoing new tracks. We’ve been getting together at his studio.
AVD: It’s going pretty good. We’re becoming good producers,
Stitch: We were working on stuff the other day and we though “This actually sounds better than our album!”
AVD: yeah, we’re learning.
Rocksins: Would you ever consider recording some covers?
Stitch: We’ll probably do something as a B-side. We got asked to do a Metal Hammer gig, their 25th anniversary thing, and they wanted us do a set of covers since we are playing in London just before it. But it’s really hard for us because we’ve got all the electronics.
Rocksins: It’d be really interesting to hear a bunch of covers done in your style, because it wouldn’t just sound like the same song.
AVD: That’s why we couldn’t do it on just a weeks notice.
Stitch: We couldn’t just play a bunch of ‘80s songs or do Slayer and Pantera with keyboards.
Rocksins: Slayer or Pantera with keyboards would just be wrong.
AVD: Yeah, you gotta respect the classics.
Stitch: We’d have to just do a whole set of Strapping Young Lad songs.
Rocksins: What do you think of illegal downloading?
AVD: We love it. Do it.
Stitch: We don’t get money for the album anyway.
AVD: We wouldn’t be where we are if it wasn’t for people sharing our music and generally giving shit away for free.
Stitch: We’re only ever gonna make money from merch and playing shows, so…
AVD: I think times have changed; illegal downloading is just like a continuation of tape trading.
Stitch: Like Nirvana did back in the day, they had bootlegs everywhere.
AVD: The most important thing is word of mouth, and the internet is the best thing for that. I’m all for piracy!
Rocksins: Since we’re coming to the end of the year, what have been your favourite albums this year?
Stitch: new Stray From The Path album is definitely up there, so is the new Slaves To Gravity…
AVD: I’m really getting into upon A Burning Body.
Stitch: The new Bring Me The Horizon?
Rocksins: That was last year, dude.
Stitch: Shit, was it? I’ll go with new Stray From The Path then.
