Written by: Tom Wilson @thetomwilsonexperiment - Sense Music Media | Tuesday 2nd August 2022

Asking Grind’s Age-Old Question: Team Barney, or Team Dorrian?

With a band name like INEVITABLE DECLINE?, and an EP called I Can Predict Tomorrow, you might think that my interview with drummer Marc Whitworth would be full of questions about the state of the world, and where he thinks we’re heading. Well, you’d be right to think that, but that only occurred to me after I did the interview, so instead, here’s us building grind supergroups and finding out which NAPALM DEATH frontman he likes best. Their debut EP is a point-blank sonic assault that is done and dusted in under seven minutes, so you’ve really got no excuse not to check it out. He spoke to SENSE while feeding his greyhound…

How did INEVITABLE DECLINE come about?

So, Jack Webber, the guitarist, I’ve known him for quite some time through the scene when I used to tour in my band FIVE STAR PRISON CELL. He was kicking in a band called OUR LAST ENEMY … We sort of knew each other from playing shows together and stuff, and then later on, after that, Facebook friends … just kept in contact a little bit there. He’s always been into metal and whatnot, and he basically just put it out on Facebook that he wanted to do some grind, and I was there at the right time. I said, “Yeah, I’m up for a bit of nastiness and a bit of fast stuff.” He just started sending me a few riffs that he’d just gotten together. It sort of happened the same way I do my drum covers; I just put some demo drums onto the top of it and started from there. I contacted Andrew Mortensen, the bass player. He’s another guy I knew in Sydney from quite a few bands he’s been in … He was in SERIOUS BEAK and SLIMEY THINGS, which were like a pop/sci-fi weird BUNGLE-y kind of band – MR BUNGLE kind of stuff. I knew he’s always up for stuff. Basically it was this love of grind and NAPALM DEATH, basically. [Laughs] That’s kind of how it came about! I contacted him and he was all for it. Mick, the vocalist, he’s also in Sydney, from a few different bands in the scene. He was in a band called ADRIFT FOR DAYS, like a doom/psychedelia kind of band. He’s very much into Patton sort of stuff, as you might be able to tell through the EP – he’s quite erratic, and he’s got that crazy talking/yelling sort of stuff, so we thought he’d be a good sort of mix, rather than the low growl grind-y, or high grind-y. He adds a bit more flavour to it. That’s basically how it was, and everybody was sort of keen to do a little recording process, and there it is. We just chucked it out there!

Watching you do the NAPALM DEATH covers on your Youtube, I have to ask – are you Team Dorrian, or Team Barney?

I am probably more Team Barney. I got into NAPALM probably ’95 with Diatribes, and even though I went back through the back catalogue, which I still love as well – NAPALM is probably one of my favourite bands in general, I think … Dorrian is fucking great, I love him as well – it’s just insane for that time – but Barney is probably my favourite vocalist of all time. There’s just so much savagery about him, and he’s still doing it. He’s amazing!

I’ve been cranking the EP, I Can Predict Tomorrow … Do you think it’s a bit long? It drags on a bit.

Oh yeah, I know. The attention spans of people – we should’ve thought of that, yeah!

I know! Nebula is over two minutes long! Who do you think you are? DREAM THEATER?

Who can sit there and listen to a song that long? [Laughs] Crazy!

It’s fun, man. Talk me through the creation of it. Did you form this band in lockdown?

Yeah, basically. Jake, being in lockdown, just wanted to … he’s got this vault of songs from 2010 or something that he’s recorded, and he’s got all this stuff on his laptop. I believe that these were new riffs that he wanted to try [something different with]. He’s very much a thrash metal dude, and he kind of wanted to branch out a bit more and try a bit of grind as well. I think he’s been listening to a lot of NAILS and stuff like that … not that that’s grind or anything … He just wanted to write some stuff. Basically how it all worked, he would write riffs and create the majority of the song … [laughs] the majority of the twenty-second song, and he’d just shoot it over to me and I’d put my flavour down on it with some stuff. It was really, really easy. It was probably one of the easiest things that we’ve all done – just the comradery of it all, and the ease of how everything came about. There was obviously no egos and bullcrap … everybody was just all on board. It was basically no changes or anything, it was just straight into it. Not that it’s a fucking huge, huge thing – it’s only six minutes – but everybody was really happy with it, and it was nice and quick!

If you were going to put together a grind supergroup, who would it be, and why?

Shit … a grind supergroup? OK, Barney is up the front, of course – he’s my boy! On drums, I would probably put Dave Witte from DISCORDANCE AXIS and BURNT BY THE SUN … Guitarists and bass players? Ah shit … It’d probably just be a mix of BURNT BY THE SUN and NAPALM DEATH, really! John Adubato, I love his riffs, from BURNT BY THE SUN, and bass player … I’d probably put somebody not from a grind band in there. I love KEN MODE’s stuff. KEN MODE’s bass is nuts. It’s the most distorted, horrible thing in the world, and it’s just beastly, so yeah, probably that!

I Can Predict Tomorrow is out now.

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