We caught up with Tim and Gian from The Rotted on the Metal Blade Assault tour when it rolled into Belfast for a show at The Limelight.

So you have played 3 dates so far. Your first Ireland date was last night.
(Gian) The first date of the tour was in Kettering in the midlands. A friend of ours own a pub up there and it was a good warmup gig.
(Tim) It’s a proper spitting sawdust pub so it was a good laugh. As soon as the fucking gig’s over its like get all the punters out. Then it’s beer, cigarettes til 4 in the morning.
(Gian) Yeah, then it’s like an old school metal pub.

Sounds like fun. So is this your first time in Ireland?
(Tim) No I’ve been here a hundred times same as you <looks at Gian>
(Gian) Yeah with a few bands.
With Cradle of Filth?
(Gian) Yeah with Cradle, The Rotted played here as Gorerotted.
(Tim) Everyone from The Rotted’s been here with either Gorerotted or various other bands.

When did you sign with Metal Blade?
(Tim) 2003 as Gorerotted. When we changed our name we kept the deal, it just made sense to keep business as usual. Starting a new band it’s fucking like hard enough to do stuff as it is.
You’re playing completely different music now though?
(Tim) Yeah, pretty much. Different band members, it’s only me and Ben left from the original band.
You don’t play any of the Gorerotted songs anymore?
(Tim) Yeah, we play a few. This is going to be the last tour where we do. We’re kinda putting it to rest so we’re going out and playing one or two songs from the old Gorerotted stuff. The next time we’re out on tour we’ll probably have a second album as The Rotted. We’ll have a lot of The Rotted stuff to chose from.
(Gian) But saying that, if we ever play a metal gig and there’s a few old school people there and they’re shouting for a song we won’t ignore them.

So for your next album everyone who’s in the band now will have an influence?
(Tim) Yeah, the album we just put out in July last year was written by the five of us so it’s just business as usual.
When and why did Wilson leave the band?
(Tim) Umm… I couldn’t be arsed to go into that to be honest <laughs>
(Gian) Basically, he’s got quite a good job and it requires a lot of his time. It’s a very highly paid job and he’s definitely earning a lot more than he would with the music. It’s dawned on him that The Rotted have taken a few steps back, it’s almost a fresh slate. There’s going to be a lot of work, a lot of effort as there is with any band trying to get out there. He just doesn’t have the time. He’ll still be dabbling in a few bands and things but on a lower sort of demo level.
(Tim) He’s a very different person from us. We’re very much about music as a lifestyle.
(Gian) All or nothing.
(Tim) Not something we do on top of our lives. He did it as a hobby to kinda enrich his life. So he has his career and his wife to be and all that. Now he just wants to dabble on a smaller, demo level.

How did it happen that we can walk into Topshop and hear one of your songs?
(Tim) Yeah, it’s kinda.. it’s just a mellow track. It’s a link between two extreme songs on either side of it on the album. It links them nicely together. I think the guy who selects the music for them just heard it. They like to do something kinda weird, they don’t want to just put the same old stuff up.
(Gian) We were just laughing our heads off. It’s the only mellow moment on the whole album. Someone goes into Topshop and hears it and they’re like ‘oh this is nice’.
(Tim) They go get the album because they like it and it just blasts their head off.
(Gian) Some chav or something puts it on and they’re like ‘fucking hell, what’s this shit??’

It’s taken a while for this tour to get organised, you were waiting for the right tour with the right bands. Are you playing with the bands you really wanted to hit the road with? You have turned down other tours in the past.
(Tim) Yeah the thing is with all the bands on this tour, none of them belong to a scene. It’s not like going out and playing with a selection of scene bands. They are the same as us, they can play with any metal band or any hardcore or punk band and they fit in. Us three together is really cool because there is no scene mentality. We just play.
There’s no pigeon holing
(Gian) Yeah definitely
(Tim) Yeah yeah, no pigeon holing and the guys are all really cool which is a plus.

How far are you through writing a new album?
(Gian) I’d say halfway through almost. We’ve got the stock material. It’s just editing it, seeing what we’re happy with. We’ll just jam it out and the bits we don’t like we’ll just get rid of it.
(Tim) We’re at the stage where you’ve built all the furniture but none of it’s painted. The foundations are there.
Is there a theme to the new album?
(Gian) Not really, it’s just the same as what we’re about. Our theme is us. We will just actually do our thing and that makes sense to us. We just talk about it and stuff. The next album will have experiences we’ve had on these tours. It’s like a diary of our lives.
(Tim) Something funny could happen today and someone will just come up with a song title to just sum up a half hour’s worth of stupidity. We just say cool, that’s going on.
(Gian) Yeah, we draw upon our own lives for this band. That’s all we need.
A big dose of reality?
(Tim) Yeah
(Gian) Yeah
(Tim) Which is very different for us. Especially coming from horror based bands, themed bands. Gian doing Cradle, us doing Gorerotted.
(Gian) Throwing yourself into a theme, like comic book style. Like fantasy, you know?
So you are all where you want to be right now musically?
(Tim) Yeah, we’re enjoying it. It’s nice to travel through life and do different things. You can’t live pretending to be a vampire or a serial killer for your whole life.

(Gian) And the money’s good <laughs> yeah it’s always good to get out there and see what you can do. Raise the bar, or even lower it. Just progress and get on with life. Cradle are still going as well. They’ve got loads of albums out, good luck to them. They’re always changing their sound and doing new things. So yeah, you’ve got to move on.
(Tim) Forward thinking. Be a leader, not a follower.

Do you have any advice to give to new bands just starting out?
(Gian) Totally, just don’t think about ‘will they’ll like it, will they not?’ If it’s good for you, that’s it. If you can believe that all the way then other people will believe it as well.
(Tim) Enjoy it and if other people see you enjoying it, they’ll get it. If they do then that’s the best feeling.
Just enjoy your music?
(Gian) Basically. Just have a good time and everyone else does as well. There’s no politics or issues or weirdness or stigma attached to the scene. We don’t want people to stand there with their arms folded looking all elitist. We want it like it was in the 90’s with a lot of bands.
(Tim) Come down, have a good time. Go home and think cool, that was a good escape from the drudgery of 9 to 5 or whatever.
If your fans have that attitude to your music, then you’re happy?
(Tim) We want them to just come down and say that was a fuckin brilliant night.

Good luck guys and we’re looking forward to the next album.
(Tim) No Worries.

Interview by Craig Young