VENOMOUS CONCEPT - Star Spangled Chaos
Interview with Kevin Sharp from VENOMOUS CONCEPT
Written by Tom Wilson | Sense Music Media
There is a gun sitting in a drawer in Kevin Sharp’s Atlanta home, and he’d rather it wasn’t there. It shouldn’t feel necessary for Sharp, a carpenter by trade who has spent the last several decades at the forefront of grindcore, to have to borrow a .38-caliber revolver from a friend because he doesn’t feel safe in his own home. A lot of things shouldn’t be happening, but they are. As the very un-United States struggle to grapple with COVID-19, Black Lives Matter and an election that feels eerily like history repeating, the star-spangled chaos Australians watch on the news every night often doesn’t seem real. But it’s real as hell to Sharp. It’s happening right outside his front door.
Pictured: Kevin Sharp in the studio
Photo courtesy of VENOMOUS CONCEPT
He misses our first arranged interview time, he explains, because he didn’t even realise it was Saturday. Life in the time of COVID feels like Groundhog Day on acid. Now, with his morning coffee in front of him, Kevin is disarmingly friendly, and his wit matches his surname. Most interviews are done and dusted in about twenty minutes, but his chat with Sense Music Media clocked in at over an hour. 2020 has been a hell of a year, and he’s got a lot to say.
In speaking about the inspiration for the new Venomous Concept album Politics Versus the Erection, Sharp reveals that he’s just had to step away from Facebook. “It’s either completely off-the-rails political ideas or fucking obituaries, and I’m not into that. So politics can go fuck themselves, and dying can go fuck itself too. I don’t want to be reminded of either.”
I mention that Facebook, it seems, has us living in a “post-truth era.”
Pictured: Politics Versus the Erection (2020) album cover
Album by: VENOMOUS CONCEPT
“There is no truth: Attack the media, distort the media, create chaos there. There is no truth. Everything is fake news. People are getting their information from some meme … The media has been manipulated by the people who have money, to push the agenda of their puppeteers … It’s amazing how many people I’ve spoke to, here in America, who have gone on to say, “I can’t believe, out of the millions and millions of people, really smart ones … we have a choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump for leader of the free world.” Go ahead and breathe that. Smell that. Breathe that whole concept. Both are absolutely near death. Trump could very well have a fast food heart attack within the next year.”
In this age of pandemics and social media, it seems like everywhere is divided. Battle lines have been drawn, and everyone is fighting. Sharp contrasted it with his own upbringing. “It’s really weird to me, because in the culture that I grew up in, back when the dinosaurs were roaming the earth … Back in the day, it was always a collective. Metal was united. It was us against them – us against the establishment. [Now] it’s divided. It is not what it used to be. There’s this really weird scene that is completely intolerant towards individual thinking, and they’re gonna hammer you … Bands like Municipal Waste, where it’s more specific about “fuck this Trump thing” … I’ve always been “fuck politics” in general. That has never changed.”
Sharp isn’t kidding. K.A.P., from BRUTAL TRUTH’s 1997 LP Sounds of the Animal Kingdom, is an acronym for “Kill All Politicians.”
Pictured: Sounds of the Animal Kingdom (1997) album cover
Album by: BRUTAL TRUTH
“When I was younger, it was like Reaganomics. Back in the day with [Ronald] Reagan, “Reaganomics” was this whole thing of “Let’s not tax the rich. If we don’t tax the rich, they’ll share the money with the poor!” You know what? Think about it. “Let’s not tax Amazon at all this year – they’ll be kinder to their employees!” Well, ironically, they just exposed them all to [the] virus,” he laughs. “Rich people didn’t become rich because they were caring towards the poor. They got rich by stepping on the poor’s heads. It’s weird how a lot of [Trump’s] base doesn’t seem to get that.”
“Amazon didn’t pay anything in taxes last year. Not a dollar. Zero money whatsoever. Eleven billion dollars, that dude pulled in, and paid nada in taxes, OK? If you were to pool together all the tax money [for] all the rich people [Trump] gave breaks on, the pandemic relief would’ve balanced out. We wouldn’t be in the hole trillions of dollars.”
Sharp looks at another demographic that will be voting red in November. “[Trump] has the religious right, not because he’s a Christian, for god’s sake. I’m certain he wouldn’t know how to begin to read the Bible, because it’s “worded weird.”” He puts on his best Donald voice, and I can only imagine him making the hand gestures. “It’s worded weird. They use strange words. They’re not beautiful words, they’re not special words, they’re not fantastic words – they’re words that don’t make sense.” It’s specifically because he is saying he’s pro-life … all the pro-lifers out there believe that this is the golden child who’s gonna repeal Roe v. Wade and bring abortions back to being illegal. So they will forgive banging the porn star and all the other crazy things.”
As a band, VENOMOUS CONCEPT is the result of grindcore musicians getting together and bonding over a love of hardcore punk – Sharp teaming up with Shane Embury and Danny Herrera of genre originators Napalm Death, and Buzz Osbourne from U.S. alt-rockers The Melvins, releasing Retroactive Abortion in 2004. Osbourne stepped aside for the arrival of Brutal Truth/Nuclear Assault bassist Dan Lilker, who played on the next two albums, Poisoned Apple and Kick Me Silly VCIII. Now Lilker has departed (on good terms, don’t stress), and John Cooke – Corrupt Moral Altar axeman and touring guitarist for Napalm Death – has joined the ranks.
If you do the math, that makes the 2020 version of VENOMOUS CONCEPT 25% Brutal Truth, and 75% Napalm Death. And from what we’ve heard, it’s 100% fucking amazing. New single Lemonade is a ferocious, urgent grind-punk attack, with all the subtlety and nuance of a punch to the nose. “Fuck this shit, I’ll burn your dream!” Sharp bellows, his gravelly, rapid-fire vocal delivery sounding like the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes after a meth binge (that’s an endorsement, by the way). Sense Music Media gets to preview new tracks Simian Flu and Eliminate. Spoiler alert: they’re awesome. By all indications, Politics Versus the Erection is going to be familiar chaos for fans of V.C.. They’re saving the stylistic curveballs for the album after, where, Sharp says, they’re going to sound like Hüsker Dü. Over the phone it’s hard to tell if he’s kidding. I guess we’ll just wait and see.
I want to ask him if he’s at high risk for COVID, so I hazard that he is “fifty-ish”. I hear him laughing. “I’ll take that, that’s cool. Yeah, when I was running around with Jason Fuller and those idiots [Aussie grind-n-roll crew Blood Duster, with whom Brutal Truth toured Australia] back in the early 90s, I had no conceived ideas of fifty-something. Now I’m here, and a little confused as to what to do with myself.”
Pictured: Ook, VENOMOUS CONCEPT mascot
Artist: Unknown
What does he remember about that tour?
“Bankrupting Fuller,” he replies with a smile, before referring to the two bands playing together as “stupidity on parade.” “We had such a good time. I could talk about Tony [Forde – BD vocalist] fuckin’ getting drunk on Ouzo and taking faceplants on skateboards … The debauchery and full-throttle lunacy of intoxication and this, that and the other,” he laughs. “We were bad boys, but we had a good time!”
The conversation shifts to the surreal scenes in early May, when anti-lockdown protesters, some heavily armed, entered the Capitol Building in Michigan, singing The Star-Spangled Banner. “I think that’s hilarious, because they show up at the courthouse with machine guns, saying that they need a haircut, and that kind of protesting is okay. But if you get down on your knee and lift your hand up, you get kicked in the head by cops. I don’t really understand this, because it’s upside-down-world … I never had a gun in my life, before all of this. I have one now, because I’m aware that, at any point, it could go completely south.”
Pictured: John Cooke, Shane Embury, Kevin Sharp + Danny Herrera - VENOMOUS CONCEPT
Photo courtesy of VENOMOUS CONCEPT
“Completely south” is a fair description. In mid-June, Rayshard Brooks was shot in the back outside a Wendy’s by Atlanta PD officer Garrett Rolfe. Rolfe and his partner Devin Brosnan had found Brooks asleep at the wheel in the drive-through. They were attempting to place him under arrest when Rayshard tried to break free. As seen on bodycam and dashcam footage, Brooks struggles with the two officers, then grabs a taser and attempts to run, aiming it back at Rolfe. Rolfe shot him. In the days that followed, protesters shut down the I-75, and the Wendy’s was burned to the ground, Brooks was fired and charged with felony murder, and the police chief resigned. This happened a mile from Kevin’s house. “All these cops started calling into work sick – they called it “the blue flu.” I live in a neighbourhood where the cops may or may not show up.”
Pictured: Eric Burke, Dan Lilker, Kevin Sharp + Richard Hoak - BRUTAL TRUTH
I ask him about the gun. “It’s a .38. A buddy of mine let me borrow it, because it’s idiot-proof. It’s hidden away. It’s not like I look at it or covet it or even want it in the house, but [things are] on fire here.”
Sharp is quick to clarify that he isn’t an expert – in fact, he calls himself an idiot – but he offers his perspective, for what it’s worth. “If you shoot someone in the back, and they’re running from you, I don’t know how it could be considered anything else other than some form of murder. I’m not a lawyer, I don’t play one on TV, but this dude is running away from you. You have his information … Let him go ahead and run!”
He tells me about a house party on his street that dissolved into violence and gunfire. He has footage from his home security camera of herds of people running when the shooting starts. “That’s America now, you know? It’s debatable as to how all this happened, but I would say, honestly, the one-percenters have tightened the [screws] so tight that it’s so difficult just to exist, [and] people are explosive for whatever ideology they back. There’s no breathing room. That’s why everyone’s fucking lit. That’s why all the people on Blabbermouth are cracking off … It’s really ironic to me that the internet, as an idea, should bring people together closer, yet it divides people further apart. If you’re into sociology, it’s a good time to be around, but other than that, it fucking sucks! … There is always some kind of meme that will express your opinion, no matter how radically incorrect it is. There are no truths anymore, and that’s the scariest thing about the pandemic. We have been conditioned not to believe anything, and now we’re stuck with something where the only way to survive it is to have faith.”
It’s hard to have faith these days. Everyone wants to spout off on social media, but no one seems to want to listen. They’re just trying to come back with a zinger to screenshot and share to all their friends and be proud of the time they owned the libtards/Trumpers/feminists/men’s rights activists/whoever has earned your righteous ire for the day. A naturally left-leaning guy, Sharp nevertheless has empathy for those he disagrees with. “I do understand that your [average] Trumper exists because of the life he has lived, and if you cannot listen or see where he came from … and you just fire off and say, “You’re a fucking idiot,” you’re demeaning the life that that person has, and he’s going to be defensive and fire off. You have to understand where people are coming from, as to how they think. If it’s something that you don’t agree with, you have to be conscious enough to respect the person’s life that has brought them there, and try and make changes to bring about a change to their perspective, not yours. You can’t just tell people, “You’re fucked up. Change.” That’s not the way that works.”
What a Venomous Concept that is. Here’s hoping for change ahead. I’m sure Kevin is looking forward to giving back that gun.
Download
Politics Versus the Erection is out August 28th on Seasons of Mist.
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