Gary: I was pretty sick of going out for a drink and having to listen to the same top 40 music everywhere I turned. There were a few places around where they played some metal but I felt as though I was hearing the same thing over and over again at those clubs. Nowhere seemed to be playing a mix of new and old metal, nowhere seemed to be delving into the heavier side of things. I figured I probably wasn’t the only one that felt the Sydney scene was lacking in that respect and it turns out I was correct! With the idea of a night club that played actual heavy metal in mind, I took it to my friends Tain, Seth and Anna.

Tain: Gary, Anna, Seth and I have been friends for a long time and all went to support each others gigs but for a few years we’d been finding there wasn’t really one place we all felt at home for a while where we could just go and chill. One day Gary asked me to come the Warrenview(a pub in Enmore) so he could talk about a “top secret project” and brings up this idea. He didn’t have a name for it at this point but he knew what he wanted and once he’d explained the idea I realised it was what a BUNCH of people in the Sydney metal community had been talking about needing, myself included! Gary had the idea of the word “deaf” being involved in the title and so I rattled off a flurry of puns and Deaf To All But Metal came out and we both instantly knew that was the one.

Gary: From there, we went to Seth and Anna with the title and our ideas and the whole concept turned into a place where metal-heads could hear some excellent heavy tunes, see some great bands, witness some metal related performances and more. Basically, it was the kind of place that we would want to hang out in were it to exist so we worked hard on making it happen. As for how it was received by the metal community in Sydney, mostly positively I think! It seemed as though quite a few people were picking up on what we were attempting to do with this project and from there grew a cool group of regulars which seems to grow with every event we put on. While other commitments meant that Seth and Anna had to pull out of DTABM early on, Tainand I have been keeping this crazy beast afloat, expanding on what DTABM is and taking it in interesting new directions.

You have had a lot of local (and some interstate) bands play at DTABM, what have been some of your personal highlights?

Tain: I think for me I remember it all becoming very real all of a sudden when Fenrir played our first night and absolutely killed it! Also when we had Offensive Behemoth, who usually play more DIY and punk venues, come and play for us and to an entirely different crowd who totally just lapped it up. That really captured our intent of successfully exposing some different parts of the local heavy scenes to each other… not exposing in the way Gary is thinking.

Gary: When Tain “exposes” any of his “different parts”, it certainly isn’t very “heavy”.

This is a tough question because there has not been one band we’ve had play at our events that I’ve regretted putting on or didn’t enjoy. Like Tain said, when Fenrir hit the stage on that first night, it was an overwhelming feeling of, “we did it” followed by a big wave of relief as I watched a pack room of metal-heads enjoying a killer set from a killer band. “Scroungewave” was another highlight for me, too. This was a mini “festival” we put on for metalheads who couldn’t afford 100s of dollars to go to bigger festivals. It was a pretty eclectic line up (Masta Gravity, Pagan’s Realm, Whisky Smile, Darker Half and Diminish the Gods) but the crowd seemed to really dig it. From then on, I’ve tried to maintain the mentality of wanting to see a lot of different styles of metal at one show. Some of the upcoming gigs we have organised definitely reflect that!

And who would you like to see play?

Gary: Another tough one! Maybe King Parrot, Portal or Mortal Sin. I’ve really been digging the stuff that Graveir, Drohtnung and King have been putting out there lately. Drowning the Light would be incredible! If we could resurrect some old, now defunct bands like Sad Ex, Deadspawn etc, that would be something. There are a lot of great bands in the NZ black metal scene I’d like to see. Any good international bands would be more than welcome. I guess we’ll see what the future holds in that respect, though!

Tain: This is tough as we’ve discovered doing this that there is always someone new and interesting we’d love to have, but having some local bands on the level of King Parrot or Portalas Gary said would be amazing. I’d love to also use the club as a staging point for some bands I’ve been lucky enough to meet on travels through Europe such as Flayed Disciple from England or Human Desolation from Sweden. Also I’d really like to take advantage of us being so close to South East Asia, seeing as though it seems to be really taking off on a more international level now, and having an awesome band like Impiety come and play at DTABM would be brilliant.

Last year you received a playlist from Henry Rollins. Firstly, how did that come about and what was on the list?

Gary: I had the idea of having some big names in the international metal scene provide us with a DJ setlist they would play if they were at the club on the decks. I compiled a list of musicians I’d like try to get in contact with and heard from pretty much none of them until I remembered how good Henry Rollins, who I’m a big fan of, is at responding to emails. So I sent off an email and within about an hour I got a reply with a Dropbox folder of songs that he would play if he were DJing at the club. It was pretty amazing. Not many other musicians have responded. I’ve kind of given up on doing it after I managed to track down a contact to Fenriz from Darkthrone and he gave us an amazing list of old school metal to play at the club. After that, who else would I go after? Fenriz is pretty much the ultimate metal DJ!

Here’s Henry’s list:

High On Fire – Baghdad

Early Man – Death is the Answer

Pink Fairies – Do It

Black Sabbath – Into the Void

Sunn O))) – It Took the Night to Believe

Lair of the Minotaur – Let’s Kill These Motherfuckers

Slayer – Stain of Mind

The Obsessed – Touch of Everything

Saint Vitus – War is our Destiny

Electric Wizard – We Hate You

Black Metal Twister. Whose idea was that?

Tain: Actually it was Anna‘s! We were all sitting around and talking about how we could make the nights have a bit more of a “heavy metal living room party” and she suggested it, saying all the spots should be black and we all had a good laugh, but I kept thinking about how we could actually make it work. I ended up buying a Twister mat and stenciling over the whole thing and changing the colours to symbols that metalheads would recognise – namely an inverted crucifix, an inverted pentagram, the Satanic crucifix and of course Abbath’s corpespaint from Immortal! Now we have an original handmade set and our resident black metal specialist Natriz happily spins the tunes while we play!

Gary: Well, as happily as a black metal fan can do anything.

The podcast has been a great way for metal fans to connect with DTABM, especially for those who are interstate/overseas. What sort of feedback have you received? How much of it is preplanned ahead of time/is there a lot of improvisation?

Gary: Man, the podcast is a lot of work but the times when we do actually get feedback makes it feel pretty damn worth it. Besides which, it’s also a lot of fun! For the intro to each podcast episode  we usually have a loose script or at least a couple of points for us to ramble towards. Besides that we just speak honestly about the music we are showcasing. Usually we’ll have some notes about each release but that’s just to make sure we don’t miss mentioning anything.

Tain: We have been very lucky in the sense that we seem to be getting a lot of listens from all over the world in places we didn’t really expect as well. For a while, our third largest audience was actually in Iraq! Usually it is people we actually see in person who we hear from, but it’s cool that we do seem to be building an active audience now. As far as organisation is concerned, our one rule (that also applies to interview guests as well) is a four drink minimum O.B.L (Optimum Beer Level) before we start recording just so we are in the state we’re usually in when we talk about metal and dick jokes.

There’s another gig on the 10th of September with the usual shenanigans but also with the bandsEnfiled (NSW), Nucleust (WA), Beast Impalor (ACT) and Stormtide (VIC) playing. That’s gonna be wild, don’t miss out! Again, downstairs at The Valve Bar, 8pm start and ticket price TBC (but probably $15 for a show with two interstate bands playing). [Click here for more info]