We’ve been big fans of Fuck The Facts for a while now and can’t wait to get our hands on their new EP, Amer. We wanted to know what inspired this Canadian grindcore sensation from Ottawa, so we asked guitarist and founding member Topon Das to fill us in on five albums that changed his life. Amer comes out this Tuesday — you can pick it up here.
1. Metallica
…And Justice for All
This is where my love affair with music all started. I got this cassette from my older brother and basically wore it out. I don’t know how many times a day I would crank this at home and rock the fuck out using a hockey stick as my pseudo-guitar. “Dyer’s Eve” was my jam and I wanted to be Jason Newsted.
2. Carcass
Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious
It actually took me a decent amount of time to get into death metal. I loved bands like Metallica and Anthrax, but there was a period where even Slayer was a bit too much for me. My transition from thrash into death metal dude was started with this Carcass album. I think it was the melody on the album that really grabbed me and since it wasn’t as extreme as some other bands, I was able to digest it easier. Before I knew it, all I as listening to was death metal. Malevolent Creation, Sinister, Deicide and Cannibal Corpse were some of my favorites, but I was pretty much consuming anything that had a Dan Seagrave cover and could be considered death metal.
3. Brutal Truth
Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses
I started co-hosting a radio show with a friend and one day he put on “Walking Corpse” by Brutal Truth. My jaw just dropped and I couldn’t believe how intense the song was. This led me to discovering a lot more extreme (and weirder) bands that were on Earache Records and as well as Relapse Records. Even though this BT album is the one that started my obsession with grindcore, Need To Control is the album that I hold up as not only their best, but one of the best albums of all time, period.
4. Dystopia
Human = Garbage
I discovered this album and many others by bands like Agents of Satan, Plutocracy, Hellnation, His Hero Is Gone, etc. from a guy that did a more punk/hardcore radio show before mine. I had a little label (Dedfuk Records) where I put out tapes of my bands/projects at the time and of some friends as well, and this guy would trade me 7″‘s and CDs for the tapes I was putting out. Even now I don’t know what he was thinking, but I really do appreciate it because I credit this discovery to be what really got me to start Fuck The Facts in the first place. These were more just normal dudes playing music because they loved, and it was much easier for me to relate to them. Everything was raw and crude and had a real personal touch to it. I loved the DIY aesthetic and “realness” to the music. Before I knew it, I was making Fuck The Facts recordings on my 4-track and tape trading with people from all over the world.
5. Masonna
Inner Mind Mystique
Noise is a pretty tricky thing to get into, but I REALLY got into it. I’m pretty sure I got this album because it was released by Release (a sub-label of Relapse). This is back before downloading, so I went to the record store, saw this and I think I paid almost $30 for it. Again, I never heard anything like it and it intrigued me. The harshness of this album and the all around “not giving a fuckness” was just insane. It opened a door to a new world of people making noise and releasing albums like this that I didn’t know existed. It just seemed so crazy at the time, but before I knew it, I had a microphone plugged into every pedal I owned and was screaming while pushing pedals and turning knobs for hours on end. During this period I put out two full length Fuck The Facts releases that are just noise. The noise influence is probably not as noticeable in our current releases, but it’s still in there. Even outside of the band I still often sit down with a floor board full of pedals and my guitar, grab a beer and just make noise by myself.