Interview with Allocer

What got you into music, and if you had not gotten into music what would you be doing today?

I think most of us have our parents to thank for getting us into music. All of us are deadshit tradies already so if we weren't doing the band I think we’d still be deadshit tradies, just we'd be hanging out at the pub a lot more.

What do you like to do when you are not playing music and how does that influence your creativity?

Most of us are gamers and there’s definitely the odd bit of inspiration that comes from some of the games we play. Most of us also own 4WD’s and enjoy getting out and about on tracks and down to beaches for some fishing. Other than that you’ll definitely catch us at a pub watching the UFC and or holding a band meeting, it’s really the only place for it.

How long has your band been around?

The band started almost 10 years ago with our vocalist Joel who started the band with a friend at his work, when he found they had a shared love of death metal. Myself (Grant, guitar) joined the band 5 years ago when I answered an ad on facebook for a death metal band that was looking for a guitarist. The band at the time was jamming in Joel’s living room, at that first jam I showed up struggling to play their intense tracks they had but then at the end of the jam I showed them a riff I had which was the intro riff to Crimson Countess and after that I was in. Our drummer at the time decided to move on and myself and Joel set to the task of finding new members. It took us many years of searching to find the current line up but it was worth the wait. We have a rock solid lineup now who are all exceptional at what they do and the band has never sounded better.

Where are you based out of and how did that influence your music?

We are based out of a city called Perth, the capital of Western Australia and the most isolated capital city in the world. We have pretty healthy metal and hardcore scenes here with some amazing bands that we've had the opportunity to grow up watching. The almighty Make Them Suffer are from Perth and all of our members grew up watching them and sometimes sharing the stage with them in other bands, also Voyager who recently played Eurovision are from here too. We have friends in a local band called Sedative that are doing some pretty big things right now and worth checking out. Our vocalist Joel also does vocals for a band called Paradise in Exile that are a band that’s been around for a while in the scene. We also have a show coming up with Vile Mutilation, Dripped and Iniquitous Monolith who are all great bands along with some other death metal greats like Xenobiotic and Grotesque that we have here too. Lastly and this is a massively biased opinion but a band called I Am Eternal who sadly are no longer around released an amazing album called Conflictions that is a must listen.

How did you come up with the name of your band and what does it mean to you?

Allocer (pronounced ‘Allo Sir); by us if you weren’t sure how to say it, is a Great Duke demon who induces people to immorality and teaches arts and all mysteries of the sky. Our vocalist Joel came up with the name for the band when it very first started.

Tell me about your most memorable shows.

We’ve been really lucky and all of the shows we’ve had this year have been great. We launched our Ep at a great local metal night called Hornography which was a great night and felt like a relief to release the EP, opened a local festival called Stormrider which had a great turnout, supported a local band called Aviscerus who launched their awesome new album, played with hometown heavyweights Xenobiotic and over east band Nicholas Cage Fighter while on their Australian tour and in august we’ll be playing on the Liquified Torment tour which is sure to be a huge night.

What is your favorite venue to play at, and do you have any places you want to play that you have not already?

The venue where Stormrider was held and where Aviscerus launched their album is a really cool bar called Badlands which is sadly closing at the end of the year. It’s one of the best stages to play on in Perth so it's a real shame to see it go. There is also a legendary venue in Perth called YMCA HQ that was which of the coolest places to play back in the day so hopefully one day it makes a return to form and we can get the chance to play it.

If you could play any show with any lineup, who would be on the ticket?

Think it would have to be

Cannibal corpse

Black Dahlia Murder

Archspire

Lorna Shore

Allocer

What is some advice that you would give to someone who is just getting into playing in a band and some advice that you would give to your younger self?

Practice every chance that you get and just get out there and start jamming with others as soon as you can. You really learn so much more jamming with others and there's a lot of things about playing in a band that can't be self taught in your bedroom.

If you could go back in time and give yourselves advice, what would it be?

GET YOUR SONGS RECORDED!!

Of your songs which one means the most to you and why?

Crimson Countess is definitely up there. We tend to end the set with it and the feeling of playing the outro and looking out at the crowd at the end of the show never gets old. It was also the first song that was written with an early incarnation of the current line up so it's a song that's been with us for a long time.

Which songs are your favorite to play and which get requested the most?

Crimson Countess is always so fun to play at the end of the set but Rodent Vision always gets the crowd going and we’ll had some really great feedback on it.

What is the creative process for the band, and what inspires you to write your music?

I don't think we do much differently than most bands, usually we will come up with riff ideas at home, bring them to jam, create a song that is an absolutely overly complicated riff salad and then streamline the song down to best ideas repeated the exact right amount of times. For the most part we don’t really try to follow what you would call “normal” song structures and opt more to try to build the songs in blocks to suit the atmosphere and mood we are trying to create and alter throughout the song.

What kinds of messages do you like to get across in your music?

I think for the most part we just like to try to tell an engaging story and try to create an atmosphere listeners can get lost in for a little bit while they listen to one of our songs.

Do you ever have disagreements in your band, and how do you get past them?

We’re all good mates in the band and have known each other for a decent amount of time now so disagreements don't come up much. At the end of the day everyone in the band has the collective goal of bettering the band in every way we can so that shared vision keeps us all on the same page.

What are your plans for the future, and do you have anything that you want to spotlight that is coming up?

We’re hoping to release a new single in the coming months that is one of the band’s original songs that has been completely rewritten with input from the current lineup. Then the next major release will be 6 tracks released as two 3 track Ep’s, we can’t give out too many details just yet but we’re looking to push ourselves musically with both releases and broaden our sound to showcase some of our less obvious influences.