People Call Us Doom Crust - Gallery

Gallery have recorded one of the best demo's of the year which is available for free from their Myspace site. You will want to check it out because its a masterful dose of Crusty Sludge and Doom. In this interview we talk about the recording of the demo, the band's history and what is in the future for the band. I find the band's sound to be somewhat fresh compared to a lot of other newer bands out there and i can't wait to hear a full length album from them. Hope you will check out and support the band after reading this interview with Chris and Alex from the band.




1. Hello, how has life been in the Gallery camp lately ?

Alex: Things have slowed down a bit recently, we're trying to find work and a place to practice since we no longer have one. Before we were playing an insane amount of shows through August and September, one night in particular we were triple booked. That was really trying! Personally its a bit of a welcome relief to step back and work on some new material.
Chris:Yea not having a consistent practice space is slowing us down but it has been good like Alex said to not have to worry about playing while we write new songs.

2. Tell us a bit about the history of the band because the band seemed to come out of nowhere for most people i know.

C:I started the band with Jon(the drummer) earlier this year. We actually had the idea for the band a year before that but it didn't take off at first as we were also working on our grind band BruceXCampbell.
A: I joined up in March of 2009, but Chris and Jon were jamming the songs a month or two before that. We started as a 3 piece, and later added Robert on lead guitar right after we finished the demo.


3. The demo is a real well produced recording, how long did it take ?

A: Thanks!.. For a DIY recording I was really happy with the work Chris did on it. My memory is foggy on this one, it was at least a few weeks for tracking and about a month by the time we had mastered it.

C: Yea it took a while to just finish. We did everything in our garage with a computer and a p.a. system. It was fun though.

4. Where exactly is Montebello ( i know its in LA somewhere ) and what is the music scene like around there ?

C: Montebello is right next door to East L.A. We are like 15 minutes away from
Downtown. There is not much of a scene in Montebello itself. The bands in our scene are usually from other cities where there isnt much of a scene either and we sort of converge in L.A.


A: I live in Redondo Beach and Robert lives in North Hollywood. Jon and Chris are based out of Montebello, though. We're the only sludge band left standing to my knowledge.


5. The band has influences that can be found in a lot of Sludge/Doom bands but Gallery don't seem tied down to any one sound. How would you describe the noise Gallery creates ?

C: Lets say crust punk influenced sludge metal!
A: Some people call us Sludge Metal, others call us Doom Crust, I've heard people liken us to a lot of our influences, and we do wear them on our sleeves quite a bit, (laughs). But the goal is to keep things fresh, we want to keep the audience guessing what happens next through each song and not sound too predictable.

6. What is your opinion of the Sludge/Doom scene in the US ? Is there too many bands doing it or would you like to see more bands playing the style ?


A: Nowhere near enough, at least here in L.A. Sludge bands come to our city we will hook you up with shows! We've been hard up for playing with bands more akin to our style.

C: Yea like Alex said we haven't played with any sludge/doom bands from L.A.yet. As far as the scene in the US goes i'm just totally in love with it. I'd say the more the merrier!


7. What equipment are you guys using and if you could buy anything you wanted, what would be your set-up ?

A: I'd like an ampeg full stack, that would be rad... my GK back line 600 head/cab has served me well but it can't hang at the bigger venues and has some problems at high volumes.

C: I can't afford equipment i can be proud of. I currently use a borrowed Line 6 Spider III half stack and my beat up old Ibanez i got in the 8th grade.

8. What has the live shows been like ?


A: Much better now, but we could use an actual Sludge show for once... a lot of the early gigs were with bands who play really fast, so when we came on people lost interest since we were a totally different style. We always get a good response though if anything.. we've only totally bombed one gig where most of us were hungover (Sunday day shows!!). The more recent gigs have been excellent though, we played a festival at the Project Infest warehouse in Downtown LA and played for a very large crowd who really got into the music, they were fantastic. Playing with Hellbastard was another really good show, we got our first encore that night. We're getting better with every show.

9. What about future recordings, is there a full length CD happening soon ?


A: Yes I really badly want to record, we still don't have anything with Robert on it yet, he's a great guitar player and a real credit to the sound... One of our newer songs is almost 10 minutes long so we're not far off from a full-length. We're working on writing new material, then hopefully we can track down a studio to record us. But it's likely that we may have to DIY record again since we're really scraping for money right now. At this point we couldn't afford to release physical copies of a CD, that's how bad things have gotten.


C: We hope to re-record a few of the demo tracks along with our new material to put out something new but yea money is tight and there hasn't been any outside interest in us so far.


10. Is there any one band that you listen to for inspiration ?

C: Eyehategod.


A: Amebix.. very primal and powerful. Also like how despite their crazy hardships they still managed to function as a band.


11. My favorite track off the demo is "Know No Wrong" which is a instrumental. Can you tell the readers how that came about and is there plans for more instrumental tunes ?

A: That's on Chris he wrote it... What's strange is that we both had the same idea for the samples before we told each other.


C: Yea as soon as i saw the movie that sound clip came from i knew i had to use it for an instrumental clip. I love instrumentals and i think i'd like to include one or two in every future release. There's always room for a jam.


12. What about your favorite bands ? Has each member of the band got a different taste in music ?


A: We generally share the same taste in music, metal in all of its different forms. I'm more into crust and thrash, old school UK stenchcore like Deviated Instinct, Amebix, Hellbastard, Axegrinder, Antisect, etc. Prophecy of Doom is pretty sick too. My favorite sludge band is Iron Monkey, that shit is so evil its fucking great..


C: On top of my already deep rooted love for crust punk the last few years i've just fallen in love with sludge metal. The dark bluesy riffs, the heavy and slow tempo, its just cathartic. My top bands right now are Eyehategod, Sleep, Electric Wizard, The Sword, Grief, Noothgrush... it goes on and on!


13. The artwork on the demo is great, i believe Alex came up with that one. Is there more plans for doing your own artwork ?


A: Most definitely, I had a lot of fun drawing the cover and will top it with the next release. I don't think we could have afforded another arist anyway so I volunteered.


14. What is happening for the rest of the year with live shows etc ?

A: Taking a break from heavy gigging, we want to direct our energy into new material. I think our focus has shifted to quality over quantity. The next time we play we really want to come back stronger and prepared to totally kill. We will be appearing at the Serpent Descends Fest in December and we'll be joining Man the Conveyors for a show in January.

C: Hopefully just getting the new songs written and a few shows here and there and I know I'd be happy. I love just having fun with the band and letting things happen.


15. OK, thanks for the interview. Would you like to give everyone the info on how to get into contact with the band ?
gallerysludge@gmail.com
www.myspace.com/gallerysludge
merch will be available at: www.blackmarketdistro.com

16. Any final thoughts or messages for everyone out there reading this ?


A: Stay free, keep it heavy..
C: ...Stay [down]tuned.