One Step Beyond from ska to metal



ONE STEP BEYOND are an extreme grind/death/rock/funk/reggae/hardcore/ambient, etc....band from Adelaide in southern Australia. Formed around christmas in '97, they recorded and released their demo in the winter of '99 and gigged extensively in support of it. The demo cemented the still current line-up of Justin Wood on vocals, Jeremy P.Lammas on guitar and founder Mad Matt Spencer on everything else. Late 2002 saw the release of their debut full length cd ’Life imitates art’, which they have since been promoting mercilessly worldwide to incredible critical acclaim.

interview with Matt on 29-07-2003

Please give us a short introduction of yourself?
My name is Mad Matt and I am the bassist, vocalist, beat programmer and songwriter for ONE STEP BEYOND.

You are one step beyond from what?
I guess to me we are hopefully at least one step beyond from peoples expectations of what an extreme metal band can sound like. That's just my version of it though, I want for people to make up their own meanings for the name, there is no obligation for people to agree with my take on it.

The bandname comes from the Madness song. First being a ska fan?
Oh yeah, I'm a big ska fan, especially MADNESS, FISHBONE and THE SPECIALS. There are alot of Jamaican originators of the style that I buzz on too but I am much better versed with the late 70's and 80's innovators. I really missed the boat in the late 90's when that new wave of ska exploded with THE MIGHTY, MIGHTY BOSSTONES and the rest. I don't know that they infiltrated Holland to the extent that they did Australia, but fuck it was all the rage for a couple of years down under, anyway it's not that they were shite, I just dig the energy of the old days more. It's these aforementioned bands that account for the touches of ska in ONE STEP BEYOND and it's something I intend to integrate more in the future.

What was the first metal band you heard? How did you know you wanna make metal music instead of ska?
When I was about 4 I became particularly aware of BLUE OYSTER CULT through my father, who also had me grooving to MADNESS at a stupidly young age. For the uninitiated B.O.C. play a blend of heavy metal, rock and prog and one of their heaviest songs, Godzilla, was for me the greatest thing in the world for many years. I still love that band like I always did and even though they are borderline fossils they still perform.

I guess what made me play metal oriented music was that it was the easiest stuff for me to comprehend to write when I was a teenager and first learning how to play and compose music. I mean it's not an easy form of music to play well, but you can write a cool grind song with minimal knowledge of music theory as the guitars and bass can all very conveniently play the same thing as each other, whereas in rock or jazz or ska all the instruments are generally doing vastly different things and I was then fucking clueless as to how to write that shit. Fortunately somewhere along the way I learnt some theory and I can now combine all these things with the death and grind that I started on. So I guess the metal foundation was basically by default, but I'm chuffed it went that way.

How are you building other musical styles in the songs? Where come the ideas from?
It got to the point for me where every other extreme metal band sounded too similar to each other to hold my attention for much more than a song, and when you get their albums it would be just ten versions of that same song. Granted I have a miniscule attention span but I just don't hear too many extreme metal bands with original ideas. So as a result I was determined to introduce something to the scene that I hadn't heard done before and also to have an album where the songs all sounded different. The idea to throw in all these styles came from being a big fan of bands like LIVING COLOUR, FISHBONE, THE CLASH and BAD BRAINS. All these bands seemed to be near limitless in what they could play and I thought that was the ultimate in musicianship, to be able to transcend genre like that, so I thought it would be cool to do this with extreme metal as the axis.

Don't afraid of narrowminded people who don't understand the fresh elements?
Man either people get it or they don't. I'm not even remotely interested in catering to any particular scene, unless you consider metal as a whole a scene, I'd rather create my own than fit into an established one. If people don't like us they don't have to listen. I play music to please myself, and if people can enjoy it then I'm chuffed, but I won't write music to appease anyone else. That would not be genuine and I would consider it as selling out.

How is the metal support Down Under? Easy? Sufficient?
Our metal scene is much like any other in terms of the amount of fans and bands, it's just that we are so fucking isolated that touring becomes a phenomenal expense. It's not like being a band in the Netherlands and being able to hop in a van and tour Germany, Italy and France in a week or so, it takes over 50 hours to drive coast to coast here and there is nowhere in the middle to play. So this is all a massive handicap for Aussie bands and activity is largely restricted to the east coast as a result. There are some great bands down here though and there are probably 5 or so annual metal events nationwide that can draw 200-600 people each. A local gig for us with 3 or 4 other bands can draw 40-120 people and international bands like OPETH and THE HAUNTED have this year pulled about 300 each. These numbers would be slightly larger for east coast shows.

Any preferences of country for getting interest for your music? Why?
Just everywhere man! Wherever there are cd players, I want our music there. Fucking hard to make it available though, I think labels are intimidated by us.

Ever went outside of Australia?
Not yet but I can't wait to do so. I'd love to visit England and see Liverpool play at Anfield. I'm desperate to get to New York as so many musicians and moviemakers that have inspired me come from there, and just the sheer magnitude af the place would be something to behold. Also I'd love to visit countries like Holland, Germany and Italy, partly for the culture but mainly for the history and architecture. In Australia the oldest buildings are not even 200 years old whereas you have some truly ancient shit in Europe and I really buzz on that stuff, especially castles. I love the vibe and the sense that so much history has passed around them. As they say, ’If these walls could talk’. So hopefully one day touring will provide the perfect excuse to indulge in all this.

Notice something of the Dutch pioneers who imigrated years ago to Australia?
A little I guess, the bass player for my other band HATRED SLAVE is of Dutch descent and your soccer league gets some exposure down here so there must be some demand. Also we have some fantastic weed in Adelaide which may relate back to Dutch seed (heh, heh)!.

Why are aboriginals treated so bad? What is left of their inheritance?
It is a sad fact that a large amount of the aboriginals most commonly in the public eye are agressive, unhygenic alcoholics and they often congregate in large groups which many people find intimidating. So many of them just seem to have a very poor tolerance for alcohol but are so driven to consume it. Everyone knows that these are bad traits to combine. This is definetly not the case for all of them, there are varying degrees of it and it comes from the extent of their assimilation into western culture. At one end we have aboriginals who live in the out back very much in the tradition of their ancestors, very far out of the public eye. At the other end you have those who've assimilated so completely as to enter politics and shit like that. These are all generally inconspicuous people who do their own thing as people do and go generally unnoticed. It's the ones I mentioned first that are somewhat assimilated but not so pleased about it that walk through town pissed and smelly, shouting and provoking people that most base their generalisations on, and they are why so many people hate the Australian aboriginal. It's this bad habit people have of selecting the worst of any culture and using that to form their opinion of that entire culture, like saying that all Germans are murderous nazi's, it's just not true but people are often too lazy to look any harder. As for their inheritance it is mainly in the form of their art. They have a unique painting style involving mostly dots and they are frequently exhibited around the country.

Can you play a digirido? Getting sexual excited of the vibrations?
No, it requires this circular breathing shit that involves inhaling and exhaling simultaneously and it's a bit beyond me, however our guitarist Jeremy can knock out a few sounds on one, I'm going to write it into a ONE STEP BEYOND song sooner or later. I don't get particularly aroused when Jeremy plays, but maybe if it was placed on an erogenous zone it might be very exciting! It's got a big long hole in it so you never know what might eventuate. I've never penetrated an instrument before!

What kind of interest do you have outside music? Where can you talk about for hours?
I'm a massive cinema fan with several hundred films in my collection. I like all types of movies from the samurai epics of Akira Kurosawa, the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, anything by Martin Scorcese, Woody Allen, Kevin Smith, Peter Jackson, Dario Argento, Jackie Chan and Alfred Hitchcock. Really anything from the sickest gore to the sweetest romance and everything in between. I have this one Dutch film released here as ’Temmink: the ultimate fight’, which is cool but apart from that I've not seen much of your cinema. I'm also a big fan of stand up comedy with Richard Pryor being a personal favourite. I read constantly, mostly non fiction regarding music, movies and murderers. I'm very much into this fiction writer from Florida named Carl Hiassen who writes these fucking hilarious crime novels. Also, probably untypically for a metal head I'm a big sports fan, especially soccer and indoor/outdoor cricket. Our guitarist and I play indoor weekly and if I didn't have so many musical commitments I would play alot more. All of these things I can talk about for hours, especially when drunk.

Could you imagine a life without music?
I can't. I think I would have suicide as a teenager wtihout having music to relate to. It's an outlet that I desperately need to get alot of bad shit out of my system and other peoples music can also be your best friend you know? Sometimes you can feel out of step with everyone around you but find solace in the music or the message that someone wrote hundreds of miles away and possibly decades ago. Music is precious like that. It's also a great unifyer of people, I've been in contact with many people in more countries than I can remember as a result of a mutual love of music and anything that can unite different cultures like that is a great thing.

Which record do you take with you when going to the spermbank?
Good question!! There's so much music that makes me want to blow my load in a big way, but if I had to pick just one I would have to say Gyral by SCORN. If the subsonics on that don't tingle in your balls there is something wrong with them!

Why are men obsessed by sex while women are obsessed by buying shoes?
My girlfriend insists that it's because a good pair of shoes will make a man want to fuck a woman, but I don't need to look that far down to get in the mood!

What do you hope to reach in your life?
I have something of a mission to release more albums than FRANK ZAPPA (god!). One down, over 70 to go! But really I'd just like to produce enough original music to be remembered for it when I'm rotting.

Any messages for the masses?
Practice safe sex, listen to ONE STEP BEYOND and don't mix your drinks. All are good for your health and your wallet. Disobey at your own risk!!!!!

Last rites?
Cheers to BRUTALISM for supporting original, underground music. Zines like this are crucial for thousands of bands like ours to get exposure and we are appreciative. Anyone wanting to correspond get in touch. I will reply.