Hemoptysis are our new best friends. We reviewed their upcoming album, ‘Misanthropic Slaughter,’ earlier this month, we are exclusively streaming a song, ‘Hopeless,’ off of their new album for a week and now, I conducted an interview with Masaki Murashita, vocalist and guitarist, and Travis Thune, drums.
Make the jump for the interview.
Dose of Metal: First off, tell us a bit about yourself and about the band.
Masaki: I’m Masaki. I am the singer and guitarist for the band Hemoptysis (He-mop-ti-sis).
Travis: I’m Travis and I play drums for Hemoptysis. We have been around since Masaki and I started the band in June 2007. We put out an EP called “Who Needs A Shepherd?” in September 2008. We re-recorded the first song on that EP called “Shadow of Death” with Ryan Greene (Megadeth, NOFX, etc.) and made a music video for it this year. That video was on Fuse on demand for a while in the spring of this year. We went on to record the rest of our new full length album with Ryan Greene. That album will be out early next year. We have a long list of great reviews for our EP and we anticipate allot more great reviews of our full length album when it comes out. We also won “Metal Band of the Year” for the past two years in a row from the LA/Phoenix Music Awards.
DoM: What does Hemoptysis mean?
Masaki: Coughing up blood.
Travis: My wife is a pharmacist that specializes in infectious diseases. She came up with the name when we were stuck on what to call ourselves.
DoM: ‘Misanthropic Slaughter’ is your first full length album, what do you want to accomplish with this album?
Masaki: We are hoping to get more recognition from this full length and tour worldwide.
Travis: We wanted to express ourselves musicaly and lyricaly with a solid recording and excellent producer that would show our ideas in the best manner possible. I think we accomplished that with this record and hopefully it will help us further our career so that we can make more albums and tour the world!
Hemoptysis - Shadow of Death
DoM: You’re currently unsigned, have you been in talks with any record label?
Masaki: Yes. We are currently shopping the labels now. Hopefully we will find a place to call home soon.
DoM: How would you describe your music to someone who has never listened to Hemoptysis before?
Masaki: We have a lot of different elements in our music. Our lead guitarist, Ryan Miller, describes our music as a “Buffet of Metal”. We all have different musical backgrounds and that makes our sound unique and different.
Travis: We have elements of thrash metal, death metal, melodic death metal, some black metal, and hints of other elements that aren’t metal. Masaki’s vocals are very different and it adds a big difference to the sound as well. The end result is a unique sounding metal band.
DoM: Your album features all kinds of extreme metal, are you extreme people?
Masaki: In some ways I guess I am. For me, to be motivated and to keep running I am driven by revenge. All the anger, stress, hate and everything influences my attitude towards the band and music.
Travis: We are extreme in our own individual ways. We have allot of songs that involve murder because that’s how I feel allot of the time. But, instead of ending up on death row, I can write lyrics that give me an outlet for how I feel. But I am not just about hate. There are lots of emotions in our music and in our full length album that range from depressing to violent. We have a little bit of fantasy in certain song lyrics but you can still feel the raw emotion that was used to write them. The music is equally expressive of ourselves, if not more expressive, than the lyrics.
DoM: The artwork for your album looks pretty oldschool. Does it have a deeper meaning and who was responsible for creating it?
Travis: It was created by Evil Dave of Incision Tattoo in Glendale, AZ. It was modeled after the title track, “Misanthropic Slaughter.” We wanted the continue using the beast we call Vetis in our artwork and have it killing everyone in the world to symbolize the idea behind the album and song title. We had other ideas about what the picture would detail in the background but we just let Evil Dave do his thing and it turned out better than we ever immagined! You might recognize his work because of the album art he did for Vehemence and our EP.
Click for full view
DoM: How did you find out about this awesome site called doseofmetal.com?
Masaki: I was surfing the web and looking for some badass Metal website and came across doseofmetal.com.
Travis: Masaki told me! Hahaha!
DoM: Seriously, we’re awesome, aren’t we?
Masaki: Yes you are. Thanks for supporting Metal!
Travis: Yup! Thank you for the interview!
DoM: Featuring you on our site will make you that much more awesome. Are you aware of the responsibilities that come with being so awesome?
Masaki: Yes, we are honored to be a part of it and appreciate all the support.
Travis: Yeah, I’m sure we can handle it!
DoM: I haven’t found much info on you touring, just one past tourdate and one upcoming tourdate. Do you have any plans on touring?
Masaki: Yes. However, I must mention that being unsigned, touring is very tough to do, especially in this economy we are in. It is impossible to cover all the costs for unsigned, underground Metal bands like us. Obviously, we have to pay everything from our pocket, and we have to eat. We are trying to do our best and definitely plan on touring to support this new record.
Hemopytsis - Who needs a Shepherd?
DoM: For those who have heard your first EP, ‘Who needs a Shepherd?,’ what’s the main difference between the EP and ‘Misanthropic Slaughter’?
Masaki: We have much more experience than when we recorded “Who Needs A Shepherd?” “Misanthropic Slaughter” is more developed, melodic and progressed compared to the EP, and its production is killer. Big kudos for Producer Ryan Greene. Also, having a shred monster Ryan Miller (who is also in a band called Lunatics Vision) was a huge plus for us. He is an amazing guitarist and great guy to hang out with. I can’t immagine anyone else playing with us as our lead guitarist. We are so happy and fortunate to have him in the band.
DoM: Any last words for your readers at doseofmetal.com?
Masaki: Thank you for your love and support of Metal. We all truly appreciate it and we hope to get to see you at the shows soon. Our new record “Misanthropic Slaughter” will be out in Spring, 2011 and we will definitely keep you posted.
Travis: Check us out on our site, Facebook page, MySpace page or on Reverbnation.
