Genocide Pact don't just have one of the bleakest band names — they have the music and lyrics to match. The troupe from Washington, DC, left the city they share with President Donald Trump on a four-date tour, during which they met up with our Exclaim! TV's No Future to spill on their home base's impact on new album Order of Torment.
"We live in fucking Washington, DC. It's not like we live in an episode of fucking House of Cards, but we kind of live in the centre of everything. It's kind of all around us all the time," says Genocide Pact drummer Connor Donegan, who also plays in Red Death.
Vocalist/guitarist Tim Mullaney (who also grinds away in Disciples of Christ) adds, "I can see the fucking capital building from my place. It's like, on one hand there's the capital building, that's beautiful, but then on the other hand it's like, man, there's some people making some decisions that are fucking up millions if not billions of lives right there.... You never know what some guy in a suit that you're sitting next to on the metro, you don't know what the fuck he's about to do at work, and he could be drone striking a country remotely. There's a strange element of evil concealed in a suit."
According to the documentary that inspired Genocide Pact's "Blood Rejection," some of those suits were "contracting former Sierra Leonean child soldiers for combat in Iraq and paying them next to nothing — essentially slave labour but just enough to not call it that," says Mullaney. "It's this thing where U.S. consumers benefit from the toiling and paddling of people in Sierra Leone, and it's kind of out of sight, out of mind."
The lyrical awareness doesn't just look outward at politics but also inwardly at how one's relationship is worth examining. Mullaney suggests this, the message behind "Authoritarian Impulse," is even more important during the Trump era.
"People aren't very reflective of what little things they do in their daily life that kind of contribute to a larger system of oppression. It's kind of looking out for little bits of power in yourself and fixing that shit."
The band members also reflect on meeting years back while playing in punk/hardcore bands and bonding over Morbid Angel shirts and a shared love of old-school death metal, which led to the formation of the band. The group have only got more proficient since Donegan added a double bass pedal to his arsenal between debut LP Forged Through Domination and Order of Torment. In the process, they've found themselves less limited by their influences, but that proficiency will never lead the band down a tech-death path.
"I was like working a construction job," says Mullaney. "And one day at work I was like, 'Fuck this, I like playing heavy metal,' and then I started having fun writing music again and it became a nice distraction from real life stuff."
Perhaps that distraction is even more necessary in the Trump era. Distract yourself by watching the interview in the players below.
"We live in fucking Washington, DC. It's not like we live in an episode of fucking House of Cards, but we kind of live in the centre of everything. It's kind of all around us all the time," says Genocide Pact drummer Connor Donegan, who also plays in Red Death.
Vocalist/guitarist Tim Mullaney (who also grinds away in Disciples of Christ) adds, "I can see the fucking capital building from my place. It's like, on one hand there's the capital building, that's beautiful, but then on the other hand it's like, man, there's some people making some decisions that are fucking up millions if not billions of lives right there.... You never know what some guy in a suit that you're sitting next to on the metro, you don't know what the fuck he's about to do at work, and he could be drone striking a country remotely. There's a strange element of evil concealed in a suit."
According to the documentary that inspired Genocide Pact's "Blood Rejection," some of those suits were "contracting former Sierra Leonean child soldiers for combat in Iraq and paying them next to nothing — essentially slave labour but just enough to not call it that," says Mullaney. "It's this thing where U.S. consumers benefit from the toiling and paddling of people in Sierra Leone, and it's kind of out of sight, out of mind."
The lyrical awareness doesn't just look outward at politics but also inwardly at how one's relationship is worth examining. Mullaney suggests this, the message behind "Authoritarian Impulse," is even more important during the Trump era.
"People aren't very reflective of what little things they do in their daily life that kind of contribute to a larger system of oppression. It's kind of looking out for little bits of power in yourself and fixing that shit."
The band members also reflect on meeting years back while playing in punk/hardcore bands and bonding over Morbid Angel shirts and a shared love of old-school death metal, which led to the formation of the band. The group have only got more proficient since Donegan added a double bass pedal to his arsenal between debut LP Forged Through Domination and Order of Torment. In the process, they've found themselves less limited by their influences, but that proficiency will never lead the band down a tech-death path.
"I was like working a construction job," says Mullaney. "And one day at work I was like, 'Fuck this, I like playing heavy metal,' and then I started having fun writing music again and it became a nice distraction from real life stuff."
Perhaps that distraction is even more necessary in the Trump era. Distract yourself by watching the interview in the players below.