LISTINGS |  EDITOR'S PICKS | NEWS | MUSIC | MOVIES | DINING | LIFE | ARTS | REC ROOM | CLASSIFIEDS | VIDEO

Thrash masters

The cathartic saga of Random Acts of Violence
April 4, 2006 6:12:10 PM

METAL-HEADED: “You know it’s a good riff when you shake your head at the other guitar player,” says Random Acts of Violence guitarist Matt Hooker when I sit down with him, guitarist/vocalist Andrew Schnitzer, and drummer Phil Dubois-Coyne to talk over whiskey, beers, and cigarettes in “the saloon” — the second floor of the barn that lies adjacent to Hooker’s Quincy home. Hooker is explaining the one-upmanship that he and Schnitzer thrive on when writing songs together, but he could have been describing the sort of stupefied, I-can’t believe-they-just-did-that feeling that pervaded the Middle East upstairs a week ago Thursday at the CD-release party for the band’s new Cathartes Aura EP (Pino Bros. Ink) as the near-capacity crowd tried to comprehend what it was hearing and seeing: four guys playing their instruments with such ferocity and technical proficiency that it was almost too much to take. (They’ll be back at the Middle East upstairs this Saturday, April 8, to compete in the Rumble.)

At first glance, RAOV are a typical ’80s-style thrash band, trafficking in breakneck guitar solos and double-bass drum beats of the shake-your-head-in-awe variety. But a closer listen reveals subtleties — an unconventional guitar harmony here, a rhythmic curveball there — that set them apart from your average metal band. “Originally, you’d play as fast as you could and as crazy as you could because it hadn’t been done before and the novelty of it was impressive in itself,” explains Dubois-Coyne, describing the early thrash MO. “But after it’s been done and people try to regurgitate that same sort of thing, it just gets kind of old.” Although RAOV aren’t “reinventing any kind of wheel,” as Hooker puts it (shades of Iron Maiden, Exodus, and early Metallica can be heard throughout their music), they do bring a formal ingenuity and a fresh approach to the genre.

Schnitzer formed Random Acts of Violence in 1998 with bassist Jeremy Levenson and drummer Chris Lawler in the southern ’burbs of Boston. This incarnation of the band, which leaned more toward the hardcore/punk side of the thrash spectrum, was short-lived. Levenson and Lawler quit not along after RAOV released a split CD with a band called ADD, who broke up around the same time. Schnitzer eventually hooked up with ADD’s rhythm section, bassist James Delahanty and drummer Chris Guy, forming RAOV Version 2.0.

The trio were looking for a second guitar player in late 1999 when their friend Jon Hills suggested they talk to his roommate Matt Hooker. The two guitarists bonded over bands like Hate Plow, Iron Maiden, and Slayer, and Schnitzer invited Hooker to audition. Hooker quickly learned the four songs on the split CD note for note, and whenever a guitar solo came up at the audition, he took it and ran.

“I had never been able to play with anyone that had been able to do that, just be able to shred like that and hit notes so clean and play his ass off,” says Schnitzer. “For me it was no question. In the middle of that first song, it was like, ‘Yes. This is the guy.’ ” And he considers that a turning point in RAOV’s history. “It really did go in a different direction. Originally we were going for a more precise punk sound. When Matt joined the band, we went into a more metal direction.”

From early 2000 until 2003, the band focused on writing songs and playing shows “anywhere, anytime, anything,” as Schnitzer puts it, which usually meant bills with friends’ bands as diverse as rootsy punks the Lot Six and the ska outfit Big D & the Kids Table. In 2003, they put out their first disc with the new line-up, their only full-length to date, Unleashing.

In September 2004, after two tours of the East Coast and a bunch of home-town shows in support of the album, Chris Guy quit the band. “He was a punk drummer . . . he knew that we were just a different band than when he joined,” explains Hooker. They began the search for a new drummer, sending e-mails to their mailing list and posting on Internet message boards. The first person to respond was Phil Dubois-Coyne, drummer in a high-school band called Cryptic Warning that RAOV had played with a couple of years prior. Because he was so young, they ignored his e-mail, but one Friday night Hooker and Delahanty heard that Cryptic Warning were playing at O’Brien’s, and they decided to check them out, not out of any plan to scout for a drummer but because they had nothing better to do. “That night, it was like, ‘What’s going on behind the kit?’ ” recalls Hooker. “I just sat there and stared. Afterward, we pulled Phil aside and we were like, ‘You wanna come down tomorrow and try out?’ ”

The next day they picked up 18-year-old Phil at his parents’ house and brought him to their practice space. As Hooker puts it, “He killed it,” and the current RAOV line-up was set. With their new über-gifted “metal” drummer, Schnitzer and Hooker, who write the foundation of the band’s material before they flesh it out as a foursome, began pushing the rhythmic envelope. “We were like kids in a candy store,” says Schnitzer.

In April 2005, the band recorded three songs with Pete Rutcho, who owns a mobile recording rig called Damage Studios, in a downtown warehouse at which Schnitzer was working at the time. Waltham singer Frank Pino offered to put out the EP on his label, Pino Bros. Ink. Hooker named it Cathartes Aura after the Latin name for the turkey vulture, an ugly-ass bird of prey that defends itself by puking on predators. The literal translation is “cleansing breeze.”

“After it was done, it was like, in my mind, catharsis,” explains Hooker. “I finally have this one thing in my hand that I can feel comfortable with. It’s a fucking cleansing breeze.”

Random Acts of Violence + Faces on Film + Rooftop Suicide Club + Rudds | April 8 | Rumble opening round at Middle East upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge | 617.864.EAST
COMMENTS

No comments yet. Be the first to start a conversation.

Login to add comments to this article
Email

Password




Register Now  |   Lost password

The Best 2008 Readers Poll

MOST POPULAR

 VIEWED   EMAILED 

More
ADVERTISEMENT

BY THIS AUTHOR

PHOENIX MEDIA GROUP
CLASSIFIEDS







TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
   
Copyright © 2008 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group