Horror shock metalheads Scream Baby Scream has come a long way with line-up changes, show and touring rotations and music of course! Their catalog spanning an EP and two LPs 2011's "Campfire Tales" and 2014's "From The Otherside with Love". Bassist Beck Delirious, Guitarist Rendih Ironscrap, and synths and tech engines Ryan T. discussed these releases and their differences with some in-depth details about what horror shock metal is all about.
1. Can you give us a bit of history behind the band, who is Scream Baby Scream and how did the
band form?
Ryan / Becky: The project was born in summer 2010 from Becky Delirious (bass) and Rendih Ironscraps (guitars), two friends with a common passion: rock n roll. In the beginning the concept was really punk n'roll, the sound was similar to Backyard Babies and Hellacopters... and for the lyrics we took inspiration from horror movies and books. After some months, with Damien Evil (vox) and David Benji-Rotten (drums) the band released a digital EP containing 4 songs. After many live shows and great feedback from the audience, the band looked for some synths components to turn more into industrial atmospheres. Was the end of the year when Ryan T. 3rr0r (synths) joined SBS. Finally completed, the band was in studio to record the first full lenght “Campfire tales”, released on May 2011. We released 2 singles, with videoclip in the same year. Then we went on tour, all over Europe, to promote the album until March 2012, when the drummer left the band. One year later we announced Mark Knox as new drummer and we start to tour Europe again, before to record the sequel of “Campfire tales”, called “From otherside… with love”. The new album was released this year, March 5th.
2. Scream Baby Scream where did a name such as this come from?
Becky: I love to say that nobody knows what SBS really means, but you know, among the common passion of the zombies, there’re horror n b-movies. One of those’s called Scream Baby Scream, it’s a classic from the ‘69. Represents us cuz in this movie the main character “transforms” some beautiful girls in something he find personally more beautiful, same way the band does with music and songs (i.e. See our remakes of Gaga
and on…)
3. Can you tell me about the song and video for "Tanz Schlampe".
Ryan / Becky: Myc is the second single from SBS. Is one of the songs also released on the debut ep “You and me, three meters undergrond”. The videoclip was completely shooted in studio and is connected with the upcoming single from the new album. It’s a sort of tribute to snuff and modern horror movies, we refer to “Hostel” and “Saw” and the meanin’ is something like turning our death into a new musical rebirth.
SBS is a kind of hymn for us, specially live is one of the songs that has the best groove.
The video just represent some part of the story told in the lyrics: witches hunting girls.
Tanz schlampe it's the first single taken from new album. I though about the lyrics the first time we was on
tour in Germany, kidding with 2 girls in an hotel room, we were joking about the meaning of "tanz
schlampe" so I promised’em to write a song for the new album with this title. And so we did! The lyrics
talks about love for dead girls and necrophilia. The video, as announced is a kind of sequel of our first video "Make your choice", we had to kill new drummer to let him join the undead band! And this is what’s happening in the video!
4."From The Otherside With Love" how does this release differ, compare, and evolve from "Campfire Tales"?
Ryan / Rendih: CFT is composed of many horror stories, like those scary ones you tell your friends around the fire. Here’s where the name came from. All the song are different, some more punk n roll, some more rock, there’s a ballad too and some with more synths, but in the end a main line lead the whole composition:
ironic way to talk about horror stuff, the soul of SBS. FTOSWL, as we call it, is an evil-ution in SBS composition, of course! You can feel it in the sound as in the recording quality. Matches much more with our taste, we kept the rock n roll parts, put some metalcore breaks, and experimented more with synths between horror and industrial. This specially cuz the biggest difference is that in CFT many of the songs were born only thinking at guitars and vocals parts, ‘cause Ryan joined SBS during the album recording session, then in the beginning has really weird to rearrange songs with new synth's lines. Instead for FTOWL I started to compose my parts thinking at how Ryan might frame with me. In the end, listening to the new album, I think you can feel this all.
5. Do you have a favorite song of the album?
Ryan: I think everybody can have a fav one… same as our fans. I really think this has been the biggest power of CFT have really different kind of songs. I personally love to play “SBS” and “Undead heroes” live, but as a song to listen I maybe prefer “Porcelain doll”… Talking about FTOWL instead is little different for me, as I put much more of myself this time. But in the end I like’em all, best depends on my mood!
Rendih: Yes of course, eheh… I love the punk'n'roll style so, not for praising myself, but just because I love it, I like best "No Brain" and "You and Me" from CFT and "Pact with the Devil" from FTOWL. The last one ‘cause fully screams my anger, against society, lost friends and much more. Another one of my fav is "Blood in the Street" written by Ryan, really head for guitars... That song’s perfect!
6. What are your songs about? (What specific themes do they cover?)
Ryan: We talk bout blood, horror n scary things, with lot of irony and black humor. Our song are inspired to
everything can be in our dirty minds, story of our lives and daily chronicles, reality sometimes brings more
horrors than some books or movies.
7. Do you write your own songs? (Discuss the songwriting process in detail.)
Ryan: Of course we do… what you listen is something coming from our own. But the way it comes out is different, song to song. Can be to have a riff in our head, come to the practices and play it until it has sense, then maybe someone else has some rhymes that can match the sound, and playin it together brings time after
time to the perfect arrangement of a new song. Other times it’s one of us, composing on his own that
brings a more developed concept to the practice or just send it by mail to the other members of the band,
that find how to manage their part, record it to show the others the idea and then the thing goes on in the
studio pre-production. Well… something like that!
Rendih: I think for a band, or however a pop singer, a classical composer and on, is essential to compose own works, ‘cause we're all artists and what we do is what we are... so, in my opinion, play something
composed from someone else steals something from an artist, it’s ok for a song maybe, but as you see,
also in our remakes we change lyrics and rearrange music. This is why I don't like too much cover bands or singers that play songs written by other people. You just feel half of an artist.
8. Which are your musical influences?
Ryan: We all have different backgrounds. Except from Rendih, we all came from different experiences with other bands, from sleaze and glam, from black n death metal, from trash and from industrial and electro.
This influences are present in the composition and I really think it made the difference when we released
CFT and FTOWL…
Rendih: ahahah true I was a newbie... I just started to play with Becky in a glam metal band a year before we found SBS. I personally love all the 80's rock'n'heavy sounds, the 90's punk wave and something from the new metalcore scene. Sometimes mix my ideas, this kind of music tastes and the other guys’ has been hard, but in the end we did it and you can see the results.
9. How do you describe your music to people?
Becky / Ryan: Perfect soundtrack for your worst nightmares? We just play… ppl and press say that. Maybe we can label “industrial horror shock”, like Manson meeting Rob Zombie, Murderdolls and Deathstars, with lot of irony! But’s really easier if you listen and make yourself your own idea!
10. What image do you think your music conveys?
Ryan: I think it depends how deep you want to go. If you just see a picture somewhere you can have some
feeling that can be different form those you have listening to a song in loop, if you know what I mean…
Music is art and it gives you a lot of emotions. But among a million ppl what you feel is just yours.
Personal.
Rendih: Talking about my songs I think we can convey anger, desire to tell the world we're fuckin' angry! This ‘cause in our country in this moment is really hard to play music, like in my case, it’s hard to find a decent job and no one bet on you, cuz we don’t do pop or dance music. We have to put our money first and bet on ourselves, like self producing, so sometimes you really ask yourself if you can really go on playing. Really hard to manage the balance. But we’re here, still! Cause when we play we let out all of our problems.
11. Your band is from Italy what is the music scene like there? Would you have any bands to
recommend checking out?
Ryan: The scene here does not exist at all. No way. In the last years that little that was trying not to drown has been lost. There are a lot of interesting purposes that don’t know how to come out and nobody helps, cuz here they just want business and if they’re not sure you can do their business, they leave you there on your own. You can see from Lacuna Coil i.e, they needed 10 years of hard work to be “seen” and they were great 10 years before to be worldwide famous too.Rendih: We have many good bands here but the weird thing is that most of Italians think if you're not from Sweden or US, YOU SUCK! Reality is we have many bands that can compete in the worldwide scene, but nobody bet on em and it’s hard to have productions and promotion like the ones you have in US, with lot of sponsors and if you do by yourself… you stay your place.
12. How would you describe the overall sound of the albums?
Ryan: As told before, CFT sounds rnr. It’s not squared n clean.. and there are some choices that now we’d like to change, but in the end it’s nice the way it is, was our first step, and we knew the upcoming was going to be much better. And so it is, we better checked the sound, we had more time to work on songs, lyrics and everything. The persons we met, Federico Pennazzato @ Authoma Studios and Alberto Cutolo @ Massive Arts, that made the mastering, really helped us in the right choices according with our tastes and their great experiences.
13. Did the band have any goals they were shooting for before the recording process began for
this album?
Ryan: When we came in studio for the first time, to record CFT, we wanted to have something to promote our band with, also where we where not able to play in the beginning, and in the end, we were touring the
whole Europe.. so we def can say we scored! This second time we wanted to do it again, better, taking care of something that was not that good in CFT, and seems we scored again. But now there’s a match to win, which is make a step and come to more ears here in Europe and we hope in America too!
14. Are you using any new instrumentation you've never used in the recording process before?
Ryan / Rendih: Well, for some of us CFT was the first real experience with a pro recording session, but in the end techniques and hardware are those common used in all the pro studio, both analogue and digitalis…
But we better considered hardware during the recording of FTOWL, you can see it in the guitar sound for
example! ENGL really kick asses!
15. What are some of your personal favorite horror flicks to watch when the band has some
down time?
Ryan: Movies factories are always getting out with new stuff but in the end the best come from old stuff and few remakes… I personally prefer apocalyptic situations, but I’m the blacksheep in here.
Rendih: same as Ryan ahahah… I like many horror movies but not too much the old splatter b-movies! Those are for Becky and Damien! I've seen Nightmare only because Becky forced me to see it like: "You can't play in an horror band if you've not seen these movies!!!".
16. Why did you want to consider horror rock as your band's genre of choice?
Ryan / Rendih: Well, about the music… was a natural choice, it’s the way we feel music. We’re not plannin’ to do it. Just come like that… it’s the reason why we don’t put any label on it, but is ppl and press doin it, just to catalog. Lyrics instead came cuz we were talking funny about death and monsters! And everybody is catched by ghosts, vampires, zombies and all this kind of things. So we tell stories about reality and fantasy mixed together in a rotten twist.
17. What are the upcoming plans for Scream Baby Scream?
Ryan / Rendih: For the future we are heading for a second single and video from FTOWL and of course a promotional tour all over Europe again. But this time we really hope to have concrete chances to come to US and South America. Some of us in the mean time is working on some new songs for the 3rd act! By the way we're planning many "cute" things, so you just take a look to our FB
(https://fb.com/screambabyscreamrock) and get scared from our bloody news!
18. Anything else you want to add or say?
SBS: We almost said everything we guess… Just want to thank you for this interview, really sorry for being really fucking late! But you know, we’re dead… you know how fast can walk a zombie, right? Big rotten hug goes to all our fans that support us all around... You all know we wait you on the other side!
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