RAGINPIT MAGAZINE

What happens when old school rules meets new school technology? That's the question I was asking myself as Cursed entered the studio in February to record their upcoming In the Trenches EP. The individual histories of each member can date back to as early as the mid-80's and all have vast experience and knowledge under their belts that may just give them the advantage over the young blood coming out. Everyone has those moments when they say, "if I knew then, what I know now." Cursed knows now what it was like then and has adapted to the technology and new and old business methods of the metal underground today.

I was able to sit with Roy Stanley and Scotty Whitfield of Cursed at the end of January to talk about their plans, their goals, and share some pretty hilarious stories. Settle in boys and girls as we go on a little lesson in history, the importance of fiber in your diet, and what it is like to truly be a metal head.

Introduce Cursed and who the current line up is.

Scotty: I'm Scotty Whitfield. I play the drums in Cursed.

Roy: I'm Roy. I play bass.

And the rest of the line up?

Scotty: Jeff's on guitar. Paul Telling, Aussie, we call him is on guitar, and EricTedder is the singer.

How long has Cursed been around and are there any former band members that stand out?

Roy: Cursed has been around since 2002. Former band members that stick out - we have a kid named Ivan Munguia who was the original guitarist. He's now in a band called Insanity. He bounced around with a few bands - Disharmony, they play locally here. We ended up replacing him after a couple of years because he moved on with a different project. That's when Aussie came into the band. We really considered me, Aussie and Eric Tedder; we were like the original members almost. We bounced around and we had the revolving door going on with our other band members. Drummers bounced in and out; vocalists in and out. Finally, we got Jeff to come into the band. Jeff came in and immediately wanted to change drummers and we brought back Scotty and it's like a reunion of the old local bands here - guys from Fatal Rage, Immortality, Infestation.

Scotty: Definitely veterans of the scene that are all involved in this band right now. It's awesome.

That's very cool. So individually you guys have a history dating back almost 25 years. How have your past experiences and influences tied in to what we know as Cursed today?

Scotty: Like on a personal level me and Roy have been friends. We were really good friends before we even played in a band together. Roy was actually a drum tech for me for a lot of years in Immortality and even sort of into Infestation a little bit. You know he was kind of playing bass and learning bass a little bit and we actually got to play together in Infestation and it was a blast. It was fun. We both have a lot of the same influences as far as like the bay area scene. We'd drive up to shows 2-3 nights a week before we were even got in bands when we were kids going to see Violence, Heathen, Testament. We even got to see Metallica at Mabuhay Gardens when I was like 16 years old so it was cool. A lot of bay area influence for both of us.

Roy: Everybody in this band has gone to shows and opened up for bands in the bay area from Testament to Exodus. Those are all our roots. I mean that's what we grew up on and that's what we stayed true to. When Cursed first got started we had some younger members in the band and it was more of a grind thing. Ivan wrote a lot of riffs and stuff like that and as time progressed it was like we went back to what we do best, what we grew up listening to and that's old school thrash.

Scotty: Yeah, it's making a huge come back, thank God.

You guys are going into the studio in a couple of weeks to work on your EP In the Trenches. What's the inspiration behind the title?

Scotty: Jeff kind of had a lot to do with influencing - I think he actually wrote some of the lyrics didn't he?

Roy: Yeah.

Scotty: Jeff wrote a lot of the lyrics, a lot of it's WWII kind of like what it takes to go through war you know, especially in this day and age and the time that we're in now.

Roy: And all the carnage.

Scotty: Yeah. The reality - the reality of what it really is. You're truly in the trenches. A lot of it's got the imaging, like even for the cover art that we're kind of doing a concept for right now is kind of like the WWI or WWII where they dug trenches like the British army stuff like that.

Roy: It's almost like a metaphor for what we're doing now because we're getting back in the trenches. We're getting in there with all these young bands that are coming out. We go to these shows and it's like we're playing with a bunch of kids and I was like man we gotta show these kids how it's done, we gotta get back to basics and like said we gotta get in the trenches with them.

How many songs are completed so far?

Scotty: For the record right now, six.

Any favorites that we should know about?

Scotty: I love the title track. I love "In the Trenches." The one that we're working on right now, it's untitled. We'll have a title ready for it by the time we start recording. I like a lot actually, there's been a lot. For me personally getting into the band later on than the rest of these guys, I've had to get my chops back up. I've been playing music, but I've been doing very, very different stuff. I was playing in a cover band for a while making a little bit of money kind of doing that thing, but to get back to doing what I love to do which is metal has just been amazing, but it's taken me a little time to catch my breath and get my chops back a little bit. So yeah the new song. I think a couple of these were Cursed songs before I got in the band, so I was just kind of putting my own twist on what they had already written and now I finally get to actually bring my own original stuff out into it and that's kind of what I've been good at. Jeff's great at riffs, Eric's great with riffs, Aussie's great with riffs, Roy's the guy who actually keeps everybody honest as far as where that song came from.

Roy: I'm the riff police.

Scotty: He is the riff police. I think my strong point is like writing lyrics and arranging. I can arrange a song. I'm a drummer, I couldn't tell you what note to play, but I know if I hear something I like I could tell you we should do this or we should do that.

Roy: The cool thing about Jeff and Scott coming back into the metal scene the way they have is they haven't been influenced by a lot of what's going on. Scott doing the cover scene, he hasn't seen what has been going on with as far as a lot of the local bands. So it's like a fresh take on what we're doing. He doesn't have any biases. So we write songs, he has a new input on it and it's different from what going on so some of these kids are going to be a little surprised when we come out doing what we do.

Scotty: And that's the thing like I said before, you know the thrash scene is making a comeback or the metal scene is making a comeback. It has been; it's great. I love how popular metal is getting again. It's been absolutely awesome, but you got bands that are kind of that screamo thing - that's dying out. You're getting back to kids 10, 12, 14 year old kids that love that old bay area thrash stuff, but you can hear it. You can hear some of the bands that are coming up that are young kids that are trying to do what that bay area thrash scene was and it sounds almost imitated where as I think the thing that I like...

Roy: What we're doing...

Scotty: It's genuine. It's absolutely genuine.

Roy: It's what we've always listened to.

Scotty: You're getting the real thing with us.

Roy: A lot of these newer bands, some of these kids 6-7 years ago were jumping the fuck up and listening to Limp Bizkit you know. And when that scene changed, they combed their hair off to the side and they were into screamo. Now with the revival of thrash you're getting bands like Warbringer coming out, Bonded by Blood. Kids are starting to move into that and we've already been there. We know what that sounds like; we have the chops for it.

Scotty: Absolutely.

What kind of strategy do you have to shop the record out? Is it your goal to get signed or do you think labels are even necessary anymore?

Roy: No, not anymore.

Scotty: No, I absolutely think - we actually just talked about this in Cursed a couple weeks ago - the day and age of going out and getting discovered is dead. The internet has killed that and thank God. I mean, I thought Lars from Metallica took a lot of flack with the whole Napster thing. He took the bullet for everybody because now, I think what I love about this fact, basically the music industry as far as the big producers or the big managers has crumbled and everything now is truly back in the hands of the bands. I love that - you control your destiny; how your record gets distributed. What I think we should do or I think any band, the marketing for any band right now is go do your record, spend your money - if a label picks you up, they'll reimburse you whatever. But even as far as like bigger bands that we're friends with, not to drop any names, but there was a band that recently went out on the Metallica tour - no tour support at all from the label and they're signed to a major label. They have the choice of having the label put them on the road and when the tour is over pay the label back. They decided not to do that, they did it on their own. They spent their own money, but the money they made went back to them and I think that that's absolutely the way to go.

Roy: I think you need a distribution deal, you don't need a label. It's basically do it yourself? Take yourself on tour.

Scotty: If the record's good, the music stands on its own a bigger label can pick you up and distribute for you and I think that's where it needs to end. I think everything needs to remain in the band's hand and I love it. It sucks because the genre of heavy metal and thrash metal and everything that's come out of it has always been an underground scene and it's thrived in the underground. Nobody's getting rich doing this and I think everyone's come to the realization that you're not going to get rich doing this. You're going to do this because you love to do it and if you don't love to do it you're doing it for the wrong reasons anyway, you know what I mean. So having everything back in the hands of the bands and you can kind of control your own fate to a certain degree I think is awesome.

Being that the internet has taken back over, are there any sites do you think are beneficial to bands and are there any sites you think bands should shy away from?

Scotty: Oh, I'm on Blabbermouth three times a day. I'm addicted to that site.

Roy: Well Blabbermouth is a site, but it is a gossip site.

Scotty: Oh yeah. I mean there's a lot of bitching and moaning that goes on in that thing, but I mean if you really want to know what's going on - I think Borivoj from Roadrunner was the guy who actually started that site and got it up off the ground. We've got a long history with that guy too. He's awesome, he's a really cool dude, but he's harsh and that's what that site is - it's harsh. They don't pull any punches, but I think the gossiping is more for the people that are actually on there and doing their forums and things like that, but the site itself is essential. I love it.

Roy: You've got other sites. You've got Powerslave back in the day. It's not as strong as it used to be, but it used to be a big influence in the bay area.

Scotty: And of course Raginpit. Raginpit is huge.

Of course.

Roy: So there are a lot of sites. Arizona had one - the name eludes me off the top of my head right now. There's one in Nevada. It's local bands and local promoters putting together stuff like that.

What advice would you give to bands starting out? Do you have any survival tips you can offer?

Roy: Stay true to what you play. Don't go with the flavor of the month.

Scotty: Yeah, who cares?

Roy: We've been playing thrash and death metal for as long as we've known and like I said, some of these kids I've seen; they've gone from their grunge to their Limp Bizkits to...

Scotty: Bullet for my Valentine.

Oh yeah don't get me started on that.

Roy: Well then you know.

I do know.

Roy: That band went from screaming death metal to let's get on the radio.

Scotty: Do what you love. You know the first band I was ever in was with Jeff and, first like real band was actually out playing. I mean we were a Metallica cover band.

Roy: We all started that way man.

Scotty: You've gotta realize this was back when only Master of Puppets was like their latest album you know what I mean. Do what you love. It's okay to be influenced by stuff, but just because somebody says, "oh, this is what's hot right now," don't go and play it. I know it's cliché.

Roy: Yeah, you've gotta do what you like. If you don't like what you're playing, whether you're getting paid for it or the gigs are more successful, it doesn't matter if you're not happy at the end of the day.

Scotty: Don't get discouraged because everybody gets robbed. You're going to go play in front of ten people, and then a week later you play in front of 5,000 people.

Roy: He went from his successful cover band that made a lot of money and had a good time with what they were doing to doing this and it's like can we at least get a couple of drink tickets you know?

Scotty: Buy us a couple of beers, Jesus. I just drove 120 mile to come play this show.

Roy: If you come to see us, buy us a beer. We need it.

Well speaking of shows, what can fans expect to see from Cursed at a show?

Scotty: The chair. I was going to say Roy's throne and windmills, lots of windmills from Aussie. It's a fun time.

Roy: Aussie windmills at the bar by the way.

Scotty: It's what we know, we're back to doing what we grew up doing and it's just a really good thrash show. You're going to get a lot of cool riffs and it's going to be pit, pit, pit, you know what I mean. Big circle pits, that's what we're after. Come out there and beat the shit out of each other, then after the show's over have a beer with each other. That's kind of the philosophy.

You are booked locally through March; can fans expect to see Cursed go out on tour?

Scotty: We're in the works, we're talking with a couple of other bands right now about going out and going into Oregon, Washington.

Roy: Start small and work our way out.

Scotty: Yeah, yeah, exactly. You've got to think of it like a reverse hurricane. We're going to start in the middle then just start going on the way out.

Are there any venues you'd like to visit?

Scotty: I'd love to get down into The Knitting Factory in Hollywood. It would be just awesome. The Rock in Tucson would be great.

Roy: The Terra Cotta up in Oregon, the Mason Jar in Phoenix.

You don't want to go to the Mason Jar, it's a gay bar now.

Roy: Come on, what?! So they made use of that cage finally huh?

In more ways than one, let's just not go there.

Scotty: So what's hot in Phoenix right now?

There's a new club that John just went to. The Clubouse is right down the street and they do a lot of local shows. If you can get into the Marquee, that is just awesome. It's a completely gutted old opry house.

Roy: We played in Albuquerque - we played at an abandoned Wal-Mart.

Nice.

Roy: We just had the power rolling in there.

Scotty: It was a good fucking show.

Roy: It was a really good show, but it was weird. It's a huge building.

Scotty: The after show was even better. The after party was even more fun in Albuquerque.

Roy: Oh yeah. Nothing like driving 40 miles out of town.

Scotty: Three word for you - ping pong balls. Ping pong balls, that's all I am going to say. We went to a strip club afterward.

We're not talking Priscilla here are we?

Scotty: It was good, it was a good show.

Oh we are down to the fan questions. This is where it gets fun.

Roy: Wait, we actually have fans?

You have fans. Maybe not many, but you have fans.

Scotty: And fewer after this interview.

Kidding. So apparently there is a story about a red bear that I need to ask about.

Scotty: Oh God, the red bear.

Roy: Jesus! My old lady gave me a red teddy bear and it's one of the things we have around here. If you pass out at the practice pad, you will get your picture taken with that red bear doing vile things to you. Scott here has been pictured.

Scotty: I'm on the internet; it's all over the internet. We've all had the red bear at one time or another. Don't pass out around our rehearsal spot.

Roy: You will get a picture taken of you and we will sneak up on you, so have another beer.

Yeah, thanks. Um, how many band members have been with transvestite prostitutes and how has that affected the dynamic of the band?

Roy: I'll leave that up to our drummer.

Scotty: Well there's a rumor that that has happened. It's strictly a rumor, it was a rumor started in an old... Okay, fine, hell, it was me. It's an old gag.

Roy: It's like the Richard Gere gerbil. You hear the story so many times, the legend becomes true.

Scotty: My first big metal band that kind of started to take off, it was called Fatal Rage. We went to a recording studio in San Francisco and it was me and a couple of the other guys in the band, then our engineers. We had the engineer and the assistant engineer. We all had pizza, we ordered from a place in San Francisco that was open 24 hours. It sucked. So the engineer calls the place up to get our money back. I volunteer to drive me and the engineer down to the pizza place because we ordered like six pizzas and it was like $160 or something and we were broke as shit, so we were like, "yeah, we're getting our money back? Fuck yeah." So we drive down to the pizza place, it's like a forty minute drive away. We get our money back, we come back, but we were gone so long that when we come back - I didn't know this - we leave, we come back to Merced. The engineer decides to spread the rumor with three of my band mates that we went and picked up transvestite hookers. That's how the joke fucking started.

Roy: Oh come on. Scott spent the pizza money on the hookers.

Scotty: The real kick to it was is they asked, "what did she look like?" The guy said it looked like Wilt Chamberlain in a wig. So that's the funny fucking story, ha ha ha ha. Is it true or is it not true? You be the judge.

Roy: Does it matter anymore?

Scotty: The better you know me, the more possible...

Roy: The more you believe it.

How important is fiber in your diet? And how helpful is that to the band?

Roy: Man, my bathroom is the official dumping depot of this entire band. I've got guys that come by here just to use my bathroom. Why? Because, according to this fool, I have fresh reading material.

Scotty: Yeah, Roy has got the best. First of all, he subscribes to Playboy and ladies; you have to believe that we do actually read it for the articles. It's not just because there's naked women in it.

Roy: It helps.

Scotty: He's always got the latest metal magazines. I mean that's when we do our best reading is in there.

I know a lot of guys who do their best thinking in the bathroom.

Roy: Of course.

Scotty: And Eric our singer, if you want to know about fiber ask him about when we toured in '97 and everybody on the tour bus...

Roy: Oh Jesus. My eyes bled.

Scotty: Everybody on the tour bus pretty much did their business on the tour bus, but we had to stop and when you empty the tour bus out there's a hose that comes out from underneath of it and you empty it. Eric at the time worked for a company where his day was they would empty port-a-potties. So Eric got volunteered to empty the toilet on the bus and the hose the comes out from under the bus that goes into where you dump a RV's or buses' toilet had a hole in it. Eric didn't know that so he is standing there while the bus is emptying, everybody's piss - it was all over him.

Roy: Literally, he got pissed on by everybody.

Scotty: Everybody in the band peed on him.

Roy: Everybody in Infestation, everybody in Exhumed, everybody in Impaled, a couple of guys from Master. I mean who ever came on that bus; basically he got squirted on by. I have the photographic evidence.

Scotty: Yeah there are pictures.

Roy: We don't have a picture of Wilt, but we do have a picture of him next to that too.

Scotty: I'm smarter than the average bear.

You have all done something to forge forward in metal. Do you feel it's metal heads against the world? What would your ideal metal world be like?

Scotty: I think the movie Metal Head summed it up best. It really kind of touched me in a weird way, it's a great film. You don't watch a movie like that and get all emotional, but the thing that he says at the very end - and they have this big shot going across of the crowd at like the Wacken Festival and the thing that he says the thing about metal is that it's always been very underground, it's always been very personal and you know it's always kind of been metal heads against the world. So yeah I truly do believe that and like he says at the end of the film, "but that's okay, we don't need the rest of the world, we're doing just fine without you."

Sam Dunn.

Roy: A Headbanger's Voyage?

Scotty: Yeah, it's a great man, it's a great line.

A Headbanger's Journey or Global Metal?

Scotty: No, A Headbanger's Journey, the first one.

Roy: The second one is Global Metal.

Scotty: That's just a cool line. To even talk about now, I still get a little chill.

Roy: If you're with us, cool. If you're not, we don't need you.

Scotty: Yeah, exactly. We're doing just fine without you. It's great.

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