Jon Dunbar is a copy editor at The Korea Times, as well as editor of the Foreign Community page and curator of the Korea Times Archive. If you have suggestions for possible articles, or wish to contribute articles yourself, contact jdunbar@koreatimes.co.kr.
New Orleans' Eyehategod coming to Seoul's Mullae metal district
The members of Eyehategod / Courtesy of Eyehategod
By Jon Dunbar
By Jon Dunbar
New Orleans is renowned around the world for its music. As well as jazz, R&B and funk, it is also home to more extreme genres such as punk and metal.
, coming to Korea for the first time this weekend, formed in the Louisiana city in 1988.
The band is widely associated with the sludge metal genre, although its members are known to shrug off any such labels.
“Sludge is just another label to describe a sound ― like grunge, same concept ― a label to lump a certain sound into one category,” Mike IX Williams, EHG frontman, told The Korea Times. “That's fine however. If people want to call us sludge, that's cool. We just really took the sounds in our heads and put it into musical form the way we wanted to hear. I'm happy for EHG to be crowned progenitors of an entire genre…sure.”
Williams himself emphasizes the band's roots in rock and roll ― “It's all rock and roll,” he said.
His own life experience shows he's no stranger to all its various subgenres.
“I personally grew up in the punk and early hard rock scene then got into metal a short while later as well as many, many other forms of music and anti-music,” he said. “My ideals have always leaned toward punk rock and early hardcore side of things.”
The sound of EHG is heavy and intense, and song tempos range from very slow to very fast.
“We put 1,000 percent into our live shows and it's strenuous no matter the speed we play at,” he said. “I pour my soul into this band and come off stage drained and smashed. The tempo isn't the issue ― it's the intensity. We are a very intense band!!”
EHG is also known for its harsh lyrics, which should come as no surprise considering the band name.
“A guy who only sang at one or two rehearsals thought of the name of this band. He went insane shortly after and became a born-again Christian. That's 100 percent true,” Williams said.
“It's obviously provocative towards all religions. I have no idea what they think about it as I've got no friends who are Christians but I assume it hurts their fragile feelings and they don't go away from it very comfortably.”
The band is no stranger to controversy, and was even targeted by protests in the early days. Just earlier this year, Williams says, a harshly conservative politician in Arkansas known for his anti-immigration and pro-nuclear war stances, took issue with an EHG show poster that depicted him eating a baby.
“His church goers protested us online but chickened out when it came to actually showing up at the club for our show there in Little Rock,” Williams said.
There's been no news yet of planned Christian protests in Mullae-dong. However, local event promoter Lee Yuying told The Korea Times Facebook banned him for a week after someone reported him for a post promoting the show.
“I didn't use any bad words, just simply legendary sludge metal band Eyehategod is coming to Korea,” Lee said.
But the show hasn't been overly inconvenienced, as Lee's back on Facebook and posted on Saturday that tickets were already almost sold out.
And Williams is looking forward to the
, and coming to Korea for the first time.
“Never been there,” Williams said. Looking forward to however! I want to hear Korean punk bands! Real punk bands...”
The supporting acts are
,
sludge/doom metal band Leper Temple
and
stoner/psychedelic heavy blues band The Bong Cheon Dong
.
Tickets cost 45,000 won, and entry at the door is 55,000 won, if any spaces remain.