Interview with Foetal Juice

December 15, 2023

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

My parents played a lot of music around me as a child, I think that was the thing that sparked my interest. My dad was always encouraging me to come with him to watch bands at a young age, then that spilled into picking up the guitar and then eventually drums at age 12. Then I found friends who were into heavier music in high school and progressed as a musician with them. If I wasn’t into playing music, I would have thought I would be into creating art for albums and t-shirts. I feel I would need to be doing something really creative to keep my mind occupied.

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

When I’m not playing music I enjoy going to a load of shows and festivals. I go to these as often as possible to keep myself in touch with everyone as well as drinking copious amounts of alcohol. Other than that I tend to watch a load of horror films with the Foetal Juice Guitar player. I think that helps us creatively because we compare music to films, Horror films = Horror music = Death Metal essentially. We see Foetal Juice as a musical representation of The Evil Dead saga. It started off a bit funny and now it’s getting more and more serious as it goes on, with a few little hints of its funny past.

How long has your band been around?

We started back in 2005, so this year we have turned 18. This is a disgraceful fact about us as we are just releasing our third full-length album at the minute. We should have had a load more by now but the technology and money just weren’t there for us to do that. 1 full length went missing and we recorded a load of EP’s and Splits instead. If this band was a person in the UK, they would legally be allowed to drink and change their name now.

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

We are from a small town in North Manchester in the UK called Ramsbottom. We class this as a small Postman Pat kind of village where there is fuck all to do really. This kind of environment encourages you to join a band or do something creative with friends mainly to pass the time. There were a few good CD shops close by that stocked Death and Black Metal like Vader, Entombed, Deicide, Vomitory and they really helped us get creative with this genre of music.

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

The name Foetal Juice is obviously a pun on the film Beetle Juice. This band name came from us being very young and very drunk. We wanted a name that stood out in the Death Metal community. Most bands were named after a disease or another band’s song. We didn’t want that for us. Foetal Juice was the first name we came up with which made us all laugh and the first one we agreed on, so we kept it. We use the English spelling of the word “Foetal” because we are English, not American, where they would spell it “Fetal.”

Please don’t ask us “What happens if we say Foetal Juice 3 times” – The answer is we aren’t interested in your interview anymore.

Like the best things in life the name “Foetal Juice” was a drunken mistake that we have had to live with for 18 years now.

Tell me about your most memorable shows.

For me the most memorable show has to be the biggest show we have played, which was the main stage Bloodstock festival appearance in 2020. We were all absolutely shitting ourselves from the time we got asked to do it until the moment we walked off the stage. It’s the most people any of us have ever played in front of and it was our first proper show since the pandemic, so we were all out of practice really. We did 1 warm-up show in Liverpool for it and that was it.

As we were getting announced to come on stage our guitar player Ryan wasn’t there. So that really added to the nerves. He came running back from the toilet and got to the stage just in time for us to milk the welcome and start the set.

Below is footage of the whole show.

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

Some of my personal favourite venues to play are the Flapper in Birmingham, The Black Heart – London and The Star and Garter in Manchester. These are all great pub venues with about 200/300 capacity. They always get really busy and the atmosphere in that kind of venue is always amazing.

There are so many incredible venues to choose from, but for me, it’s never about the venue, it’s about the crowd and the reaction they have to the music you are playing. The best venues in the world would be awful if no one was there. Saying that I would love to play Balver Hohle in Luisenhütte, Germany. It’s an incredible cave venue where they hold Prophecy Festival each year.

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

All of these amazing European festivals have the lineups we want to play with every year. As a Tour package, I would love to be on the Vader and Vomitory tour at the minute. Those are 2 huge bands for us.

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?

Don’t put too much pressure on “making it” you will never feel like you have “made it” because as soon as you have achieved something there is a next thing you need to do, then the next, then the next. It will put constant pressure on you and stop you from enjoying being a musician. Just enjoy playing and being creative with your mates. Whatever it turns into is completely out of your control.

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

To aim to do this as a hobby and not a job. Then the pressure would have been relieved years ago. The best thing I have done for my own mental health as a musician is to know that this is a hobby and there isn’t enough money in extreme music to realistically have the life I want and be in a band like Foetal Juice. As soon as I did that (maybe about 6 years ago now) I have enjoyed playing so much more as I just do the things I want to do now instead of the extra bullshit which is involved with “making it".

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

It’s a bit of a difficult question for a Foetal Juice member to answer because the songs don’t really have much meaning. They are just violent passages against personality traits that piss us off. One-off the new album is called “Cunt of the Litter” which is about the little gobby chav in a group of scallies. Basically the biggest bellend in a group of bellends. The song is just about telling them to fuck off and die really.

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

I love playing “Metamorphosis” live, it’s such an aggressive song that gets the crowd fighting from the very start. Then when it speeds up in the middle section it adds so much more violence. Such a good reaction live. We get a lot of requests for a song called “Service Station Masturbation” but we no longer play this song live. We could bring it back at some point, but we are trying to play the songs that everyone from the current lineup was involved with in some way. Unfortunately, this is an older song that left the set a long time ago, mainly because we have better songs in our opinion.  

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

Musically, everything is mainly written by myself and our guitar player Ryan. I think the main part of the creative process is that we are both incredibly difficult to impress. That means nothing can be put onto the table which is remotely half-arsed. The whole album writing experience is mainly us two trying to impress each other. Also, we write in a way where every single song has to be better than the last song that was written. That’s the vetting structure which means that every riff and drum part on the album is head and shoulders about the last piece of music we have written.

Once all the music is written we start on the lyrics which involved Derek a lot more. Any in the band can bring ideas to the table. It’s generally a funny title or a subject matter that is aggravating to someone in the band. For example; Cunt of the Litter is about the little, loud arsehole who starts all the shit in a group of Scallies.

Basically, the stupidity of mankind is what inspires our lyrics.

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

It’s not really a message that we are trying to get out there with our music. It’s just an outlet of violence. Offloading the stresses of day-to-day life and the way the world is. Basically, venting to get shit off our chest and hopefully off the chest of the listener too.

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

All the time. It’s human to have disagreements and different ideas about what the target is etc. Most of the time we have a few beers together, maybe a bit of a smoke and chat with each other to see how to get past indifference. If that doesn’t work, bury that shit as deep as possible and then kick them out of the band in the future hahaha.

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

We do indeed. We are promoting the release of our new album “Grotesque” which came out via Gorehouse Production on 17th November 2023. We have our music video out “Ghoul Amongst the Mouldering Dead.” I honestly can not wait for everyone to hear the album. It’s a body of work I’m incredibly proud of.

We are hoping to get onto a load of tours and Festivals off the back of this new album. So next year should be full. Then the year after we will probably start writing a new album again.

Music Video - Ghoul Among the Mouldering Dead -

 

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