On Coagulated Bliss, Being Creatively Hyperactive and Writing Forward Thinking Music, A Conversation with Sam DiGristine of Full of Hell
Photo Credit : Zachary Jones
Read my review of Coagulated Bliss here
The first time I heard Full of Hell was not so long ago, but I had somewhat of an epiphany. For the first time in my life, I was hearing a music that I carried in my head and in my heart since I was young. A mix of unbridled ferocity, industrial heaviness and wonder, overwhelming electronic interference and noise, I was immediately a fan. I also became obsessed with the creative process of such a unique and counterintuitive band that went against everything, every musician who ever thought they were extreme believed in.
Since I’ve been reviewing records for Vox & Hops and working at a journalist in the day job, I’ve been making contacts in the music business. Since Full of Hell is going to release their new record Coagulated Bliss on April 26th from Closed Casket Activities, I thought it was a great occasion to relaunch the Dead End Follies conversation with a new and exciting kind of guest! A member of one of the most intense, creative and forward thinking extreme musical acts working today.
Without further ado, here is my conversation with Sam DiGistrine, bassist, saxophone player and back vocalist for Full of Hell!
Coagulated Bliss is so different from the rest of your discography. AGAIN! But somehow it has an even stronger identity than the others. What was the moment or trigger that made you guys go “oh shit, this is exactly how we want this to sound”? When did you capture the essence of the record?
Once we finished the drums in the studio, we knew it was going to be apart from the other stuff we’ve already recorded. Going into it, we had grown as people and done the collaborations with Primitive Man and Nothing and we’ve learned from these experiences. Recording the Nothing record with Will (Putney) definitely helped. We leveled up a little bit.
This record is also a lot more personal. Not to say that the others aren’t, but this record has a lot more to do with the band as a whole, our hometown, the struggles of addiction and how small town stuff can get to you. We’ve also been aging together. I also think we’ve been listening to a lot more of the stuff we’ve listened to independently of Full of Hell. I mean, we’ve been listening to a lot of death metal, but Spencer really likes Sonic Youth, The Melvins and whatnot. We all do and we’ve been listening to a lot of that stuff, so that blended in.
You mentioned something interesting in your answer. You’ve said that you learned a lot from your collaborations with Primitive Man and Nothing, which is interesting to me because it’s your first collabs since 2017 and Full of Hell is known for that. What is it that you’ve learned from these two projects?
For the Primitive Man collab, we’re really shut ourselves in and jammed together, got some ideas and figured out what should be on the record. It was a lot like that with The Body collabs, but there was a lot less programming involved. It was a different way to come up with stuff. More organic.
We wrote the material and practiced before going into the studio for the Nothing project. We’ve learned about different tuning and the musicianship that comes with such a different sound. When we got into the studio to flesh the songs out and make them right, we worried about that aspect because we’re a grindcore band and it was never really a priority. The melodies, the guitar tones and whatnot. How it came together really contributes to what made this record so special. Diving in, figuring things out, spending the necessary time on each riff, mapping it out, etc.
I’ve read that Coagulated Bliss was entirely written and recorded AFTER the collaboration with Nothing from last December. Can you walk me through the timeline of that? Like from A to Z, how long does it take to write a song? How do you know when you got something?
We’re writing all the time, it’s kind of crazy. But after the collaboration with Nothing was recorded, Spencer stopped touring with us internationally. He doesn’t fly anymore. Doesn’t go to Europe and whatnot, but if a location is accessible by car, he’ll get there. We picked up our new guitarist Gabe (Solomon), so Spencer went back home to write riffs and whatnot. It helped a lot.
Having him released of that stress of traveling got him into a creative space he’s never been in before. That was a huge help in the writing process. Usually he comes up to us with riffs and stuff and we all flesh it out together, but I think that he really had time to sit and think while we were out there.
You play saxophone as well as bass. It’s not common, but it’s unheard of for bands with experimental leanings like Full of Hell. Somehow, it feels more at home than ever on Coagulated Bliss. It’s an instrument that more and more extreme bands start using. What do you think about saxophone lends itself so well to extreme music?
You can get crazy sounds out of it. It’s a beautiful instrument if you know how to play it correctly. Once you master it, you can apply some tweaks. Figure out our mouth technique, experiment with different mouth pieces, for example if you have a metal mouthpiece it’s going to sound louder, etc.
I played saxophone since I was a kid. I always loved Throbbing Gristle, John Zorn, industrial stuff and whatnot. My first tour with the band, I did merch and played saxophone during the set. I wasn’t playing bass yet. It was pretty cool. It was always something I wanted to bring.
You guys have been so hyperactive with your releases over the years. From a conceptual standpoint, what differentiates an EP, from an LP, from a split, from a collaborative release for Full of Hell?
We kind of plan super far ahead. We have this new record coming out, but we have other stuff coming out later too that we’ve been working on for a while. There are some more collabs coming up too. We’re always writing, so we always have material to play with. I mean, we can write an LP, but there’s always gonna be some extra material left over. If there’s a compilation or a soundtrack project happening, we have somewhat of a bank we can work from and flesh into something.
Otherwise we just talk with our friends. If the idea of doing a cool music project with our friends materializes, we’re gonna work on it together and it’s going to eventually come out. We just never stop, really.
What qualifies a band to become a collaborative record candidate with you guys? The unpredictability of your releases is part of the fun of being a fan.
I don’t think anything specifically qualifies a band to work with us on a collaborative record. We just like working with our friends. As far as the Health collab is involved we’ve made a t-shirt that just said Full of Health on it and friends of our friends were friends with them, so we ended up connecting and making a Full of Health record.
We just like to bounce ideas off of our friends and if we have time to do it, it’s eventually gonna happen. It’s just collabs too. We got Ross Dolan from Immolation on Coagulated Bliss. He’s one of our heroes and good friends. We just asked him to help out. We like to do that. What’s the worst that’s gonna happen? Someone’s gonna say no?
Has anyone ever refused to collaborate with Full of Hell?
No! But I mean whenever we have an idea, we always bring it up. Eventually something might come of it. It’s what we did with Nothing. We were just friends with Nicky (Palermo) and it just worked out. The spirit of it is to build things with your friends. That’s really it. You should try to make as much stuff with your friends as you can.
So, you’re telling me the Full of Health t-shirt that was on sale at your last tour existed actually BEFORE the Full of Health project? The one with people eating vegetables on it?
Yeah! We just thought it was a stupid t-shirt. It was an old design that we made. Kind of a meme. Our friends were like “yo, have you done something with the band?” and when we said no, they hooked us up with John (Famiglietti). We bounced ideas back and forth through email and worked at it together until we had complete songs.
Your sound is so unique and sometimes counterintuitive to “common knowledge” in metal. There’s what I call the virtuoso fallacy in a lot of metal bands where mastering your instrument becomes more important than writing good songs, while I find that Full of Hell is more into harnessing chaos. What is important to you guys when writing songs? What are the variables of a good song?
It’s about what feels right to you. If you write a riff to write a perfect riff, you’re doing a disservice to yourself and to your creativity. There’s no goal to reach there. If you pinhole yourself and tell yourself that you have to write the “best metal riff”, you’re never going to land on what you feel is right. I don’t think you should second guess what you feel when you’re writing.
Full of Hell is turning fifteen this year. I know you have only been with the band since 2015, but what did you say are the most important things you’ve learned as a unit from all these years of being on the road and writing forward thinking music?
Building a community, keeping your friends close and just being nice. It’s the way everything should be. It makes everything easier on the road when you have good relationships with people. When you go back, they treat you well.
Just to be authentic, you know? Be yourself. It’s not fun to go out there with a band who thinks they’re better than anybody else and are rude to the staff. Nobody wants to be around that. You gotta be nice and be yourself. That’s the most important thing. Don’t put on a front. Don’t be an asshole, just be nice.
Nerd question: your vocals blend so uniquely with Dylan’s. You guys sound so otherworldly together, it’s one of my favorite things about Full of Hell. How do you guys work together on vocals? What makes good Full of Hell vocals to you?
Dylan is an insane maniac as a vocalist. Whatever he does is crazy to me. Did you know he’s tracking all his vocals sitting in a chair? It doesn’t make any sense.
At first I was trying to do high vocals to go along and I wasn’t really hitting it. So, I just started doing lows. Whatever came out of me, I just tried to figure out a way to blend it with his that doesn’t sound too different, but I do like when vocals sound different, you know?
He’s got such a unique thing. He can match vocally with anybody. I’m just working on the lows and perfecting that. Dylan is like possessed by a demon on stage. It’s really funny to see him go into stage mode and come back and be such a sweet guy.
Another nerd question: one of my favorite songs from you guys is Crawling Back to God, but judging by your Setlist.fm numbers, it seems like one of your favorite songs too. What makes you go back to it over and over again?
It’s just a fun, bouncy song that gets the crowd going. It gets everybody hyped up. The sample at the beginning comes up and everyone goes like "ouh, I know this song".
It’s pretty easy to sing along too. On bent knees, crawling back to God is easier to sing along than some other stuff where Dylan is going all crazy. We play Vessel Deserted a lot too. It’s such a crowd pleaser. People really like singing along to it too.
Where next? What is the next creative endeavor for Full of Hell? How do you even plan what’s next?
We have some more collabs coming out. We’re going to be touring a lot. Dave and I’s other band Jarhead Fertilizer is going on tour also. Right now we’ve been practicing for the Dying Fetus tour, so we’re getting ready to hit the road again!
If you want to know more about Full of Hell or buy merch, it’s here
