GMA Interrogation: Banxai ChaosMaster (Homicide)

Interview by GMA's Bangladeshi Correspondent Nabil Abaddon
Banxai ChaosMaster a.k.a. Mim, is a supremely talented drummer who plays for the Technical Death Metal band Homicide. Homicide hails from Bangladesh, not really the place one would think of when it comes to that particular sub-genre of metal. However, with a very short history in the local scene, Homicide has proven to be one of the vilest bands out of the country. Homicice has just come out with their debut EP “Annihilation Pit”, which has been released by Infinite Regress Records, Australia. I spoke with Banxai to find out more about his band and himself.

Greetings Banxai! First of all, congratulations on the release of Homicide’s EP! Please give our readers a brief history of the band? How did the band’s formation come about?

Thanks! The journey of Homicide began in December, 2008 with three passionate members, Leon on Guitars, Istiaque on Vocals and Romen on Drums. They started jamming together to breed their inner violence through their ferocious and technical sound. As they were missing a bassist, the look up for a bass player was going on. A few days later, the line up completed as Anas joined the band as a bassist. As the pestilence was growing up, Romen decided to leave the band for study and other personal reasons few months later. The band was not able to find a suitable one until Reaz (of MechaniX) suggested Wahid as a substitute drummer. But it was a unfortunate for the band as Wahid also left the band due to musical differences. Finally I joined the violent squad of Homicide. The position of the other lead guitarist was maintained by Digonto (of Abominable Carnivore) for a few months, and then Shoumik joined as lead guitarist to continue Homicide's journey. Imtiaz Salim Tawkir is currently the manager and booking agent & Moin Ally is the official Photographer.


Technical Death Metal is relatively a new sub-genre in Bangladesh. What drew you guys into playing this style? Which bands inspire Homicide in that regard?

Yes, Technical Death metal is indeed a new Sub-genre in Bangladesh, but before we started this style of music, A band named Chromatic Massacre first started playing Technical Death metal in Bangladesh. Why are we doing this? Because this genre has influenced us from the beginning of our music career and we all wanted to do it. Moreover specially in Bangladesh, we don’t have many quality Death Metal bands except for the likes of Severe Dementia and Chromatic Massacre and both of the bands are paused for the time being. As we are inspired a lot by them, we wanted to continue the legacy what they have came up with, to show the whole world that Bangladesh is capable of doing this kind of music as well. The bands which inspire Homicide the most are Nile, Origin, Behemoth, Vital Remains, Hate Eternal, Cannibal Corpse, Psycroptic, Dying Fetus, Quo Vadis, Bloodbath, Decapitated, Severe Torture, The Faceless and lots more...

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Tell us about the EP. The look of the album art reminds us a lot of the Ancient Greek action movies. What does the lyrical theme deal with?

Well, we wanted to make the whole EP like a story. All the songs are interrelated. And yes we talked about Ancient Greek stories in the EP. All the lyrics have been written by our vocalist Istiaque. Each of the songs contains Greek history. That is why the album cover is based on a Greek soldier and a battle field including four wolves as we are four member of the band. We also have used a shot recording in the intro from the Movie called 300.

Considering the complexed music you guys make, how does the song making process work in Homicide?

Well, usually we compose songs when we are together, like when we jam. Sometimes our guitarist comes up with his riffs. Then we make changes together to make the compositions colourful. It’s a challenge for us every single time as we make a composition, specially when we are representing Bangladesh. Most importantly to maintain the genre.

Lets talk about you brother. You have been playing drums for a long time now. How and when did it all start for you?

I never thought that I’ll be a drummer. I always wanted to be a guitarist. I used to play drums for my school parade band. Later on I used to teach my school mates as well. After that I figured out that I should continue my drumming with acoustic drums. Then I bought my first drum kit and my mentor was Reaz (Mechanix). I am ever grateful to him. Later on I found interest on Technical Death Metal as I was a huge fan of Nile. I took lessons from youtube as to how I can develop my blast beat and other techniques. Music was always my hobby. I never thought that my band and I will achieve this much. I think we all were really dedicated to what we are doing now. I must say we struggled a lot. Especially myself as we have less number of death metal bands here. We obviously don’t have many Death Metal drummers to teach those techniques. I really worked hard to come this far and yet have a long way to go.

Who are your personal influences or inspirations in drumming? And your favourite bands?

Pretty hard to answer. So many drummers in the list. Definitely my first favourite is Rafa from Severe Dementia and Reaz from Mechanix. I mainly follow George Kollias (NILE), and John Longstreth (Origin). And my favorite bands are NILE, ORIGIN, THE FACELESS, DYING FETUS, FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE, DEATH, MORBID ANGEL. Joey Jordison is also one of my favorite drummers. He inspired me a lot in drumming. Can’t argue with that.

Tell us about your gears Banxai! What do you like to use in the studio and live?

I prefer zildjian and I use them as well.

Cymbals:

Pitch black crash 17”
Pitch black crash 18”
Pitch black Heavy Ride 22”
Pitch black splash 10”
Pitch black Hi-hat 14”
Pitch black china cymbal 17”
I also have Paiste cymbal - Paiste crash 17”

Drums sticks:

Pro-mark and Vic Firth.
Drums stick Size: 7a

Pedal:

Iron Cobra twin pedal. These are not good enough for Death metal Drumming. I Prefer Axis. Soon I will switch to those.

Back in the early 2000’s, bands like Dripping Gore, Bloodlust, Ostitto were the first few bands to start this brutal music in Bangladesh. Severe Dementia took it to the next level. A lot of Death Metal bands have come and gone since then and now it seems that there are only three / four Death Metal bands active to bear that torch. What do you make of the Death Metal scene in Bangladesh? How things have changed in the scene now?

Well that's really a hard question. Dripping Gore, Bloodlust, Ostitto they were the pioneers of Death Metal scene In Bangladesh (none of them are active now). We have learned so many things from them. Back in the 2000’s, it was quite difficult doing Extreme Metal. I must admit we are here because of them. Talking about Severe Dementia, they are the main Inspiration of Death Metal in Bangladesh. You can ask just anyone! Each and everyone knows Severe Dementia’s music. Severe Dementia taught Bangladeshi metalheads what is Death Metal. Because of them, we are here and extreme metal still exists here. Back in 2000’s, it was quite impossible to make people understand what is extreme metal music. To most of the metalheads back then, the idea of metal music revolved around Metallica ,Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Pantera etc. But Dripping Gore, Ostitto, Bloodlust, Severe Dementia changed that perception for good. Well, the main problem we face in Bangladesh is the lack of Extreme Metal listeners and musicians. Doing Death Metal is not an easy task. People here who are into this music don’t last long because of less recognition and lack of devoted followers. And another reason is that we have good number of Death Metal guitarists but really a few drummers. I don’t know about other Death Metal bands here, but I don’t have any plans to shut down Homicide. Recently the scene here has been changing rapidly though. Now we have quite a good number of Death Metal fans In and outside Dhaka. We have two International acts like Severe Dementia and Orator .Few weeks ago I had a tour with Homicide in Chittagong (2nd Major city of Bangladesh). It was one hell of an experience. Metal scene outside the capital is getting damn good day by day. It was quite unexpected. We are trying our level best to take it further, especially the Extreme Metal scene In Bangladesh. There are many organizations here who are working to keep up the spirit of Extreme Metal. One of them is Metal Morgue. They are doing quite well. I am really grateful to Saimum Hasan Nahian (Powersurege & Severe Dementia) and Rahman Kazi for organizing such level of gigs here through Metal Morgue. I am lucky that I have their full support.

Share your experience with the Australian record label Infinite Regress Records. How did the both parties get together? How are they promoting Homicide internationally?


Well, IRR is absolutely amazing. Basically, I mailed our mastered songs to the owners: Lindon and Steve. They are great people indeed. And they liked our tracks and agreed to sign Homicide immedietly. And so far it’s been a great experience for me to work with them. Homicide has plans for gigs in Australia and we will definitely hit Australia sometime soon. We also have plans for our full length album this year if things go well. This time around Steve is going to master all our tracks. We are looking forward to that. About the promotion, IRR is doing a great job! It is beyond our expectations and we thank them for the immense support. Not only IRR, each and every band from IRR is helping us. I would also like to thank Goliath for the amazing album art.

Thanks a lot for your time comrade! Any last words?

It was an honour giving an interview to GMA. The day is not far away when Bangladesh will have some insane metal crowds and we will arrange shows like Wacken and Bloodstock. I want to see my limits.

You can follow Homicide on our facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/homicide.bd?directed_target_id=0

You can also buy our EP from :

http://infiniteregressrecords.com/store/ep/irr-new-release-homicide-annihilation-pit-ep/

You can also search on iTunes by typing 'HOMICIDE Technical Death metal'.