THY ART IS MURDER recently released their new album, "Depth Perception."Metal Temple's Brian "Metal" Morton had the chance to sit down with guitarist Andy Marsh from THY ART IS MURDER and have a short interview before their show.

First, I want to thank you on behalf of Metal Temple and myself for taking the time to sit down and answer a few questions.

No Worries, anytime.

First thing I wanted to ask was about the new music video for your single "Human Target", what was it like?

It was actually pretty good. In fact we made it with that guy sitting right there. It was actually pretty crazy, it was one of the more enjoyable music videos. We are one of the bands that don't really like making music videos, it's always like a real long day and sometimes two days. We lucked out, shot a little bit and got lots of breaks which was nice also. Normally it's kinda like everyone doing everything all day. It's fine, I mean for us it was about eight hours at least.

That's awesome! So are you all excited about the new album?

Andy: I'm super excited! It's the most excited I've been for an album. I feel like we have a good platform now, have a really good record, we have a really good plan. Everything is going smoothly so far.

I agree, I saw right before I got the interview that you all had a new one coming out. I thought to myself "this is going to be great". I actually just got my "Death Perception" hoodie right over the winter and was like "Well, it looks like it's time to get a new one".

Well it will be ready in time for next winter.

So what to you guys normally prefer, touring or being in the studio?

I prefer both, recording takes a lot than one tour but is much less stressful on your body than touring, so it's a bit of a trade off, and you get to kinda make something. Touring is like doing the shows and I mean obviously you have great shows, we have shows that we play badly and shows that are going to be huge. So there's all these different variables that make it kinda of exciting, you know? You could have this one show that you're looking forward to and then all of a sudden something goes wrong and it kinda sucks. You could have a small club show and think it's gonna be terrible and lots of people come and you play really good. There are so many variables so when you do hit, and everything lights up it's like kinda the luck of the draw. It's very satisfying, you have a really big show, you're a little bit nervous, a lot of people come to watch you and you play great, the sound is great, it's like damn, that was a pretty special one. Whereas the recording we're not in really in any doubt with that. The whole process is behind closed doors and we are making something until it is great. So I like both for different reasons.

Now I noticed that you guys really shell out albums, like every two to three years.

Yep every two years for the last while. This will be our fourth album since 2012.

I hadn't even realized that "Death Perception" had come out until like three months after it had been out. I was like "I just got done listening to the last one!"

And we're going to do it to you again in the middle of this year and again in the middle of next year, we like to keep people on the hook ya know?

So what are your thoughts about what Chris Barnes said about "Human Target"?

Andy: I think it's really funny! He has a track record of saying people have particularly with two words 'human target' plagiarized him. Unfortunately for Chris Barnes, none of us listen to his band, we like CANNIBAL CORPSE and he hasn't been in there since we were like five years old. I did want to tweet him but he blocked us. It's like you're a grown ass man and you're a little bit cowardly on the internet that's kinda funny also. The other thing is he was caught like twenty years ago calling out some comic book for being called human target and they went back and found out it predated his song and he got really embarrassed and shut his mouth. Also there's like a movie from the sixties with the same name and like a cartoon series, there's all these things and we'd never heard of his band or songs so we couldn't really copy him. Sorry if you're a Chris Barnes fan.

I listen to SIX FEET UNDER but it became monotonous after a while.

After it all happened we talked to a lot of bands that toured with him, apparently he would hide in his bus and look out the window at the other bands. Also apparently he wouldn't pay a lot of bands that went on tour with him. He seems like a really not so nice person, so the fact that he's called us out, I take it as a bit of a compliment. He's so bored that he wants to talk about us, it's really pretty nice.

It shows you all must be doing something right.

I guess so, I mean it's probably something more right than what he's doing.

I think the last thing I heard him doing were cover albums.

SICK! Hopefully when I'm his age, that's not what I'm doing.

What are your all's thoughts on streaming services? Is it interfering with your monetary gains?

Absolutely, they've completely destroyed what we can do financially, although that's not to say it's their fault. They are making the best of a bad situation. I mean it really has to do with the purchaser. There's something in economic school the Efficient Market Theory which dictates the value of something is determined by the price that people are willing to pay for it. Twenty years ago when the internet blew up people decided they didn't want to pay anything for music. Does that mean music has no value, I'm not sure it's not for me to decide. There is intrinsic value that can be calculated by how much it costs us to make the record, how much our time is worth, how much the studios time is worth, the equipment we have to use. So all of those things, to put a price that you could say the record is worth a couple hundred thousand dollars cause that's how much it cost to fuckin' make it. People decided they didn't want to pay anymore and we have no control over that, Spotify has no control over that, Apple music has no control over that. That's something the people of planet Earth kinda decided on. So I welcome the streaming platforms because they help us get paid, they help disseminate the music all over the world, whereas shipping a CD all around the world if we were an underground metal band in the nineties or the eighties, how's everyone going to hear it. We're in a point now that seventy five percent of the bands music royalty income, comes from digital platforms and seventy five percent of that comes from Spotify alone. They're definitely helping collect money, whether that's enough money or not, something that's definitely for sure is it's more money than limewire or all of those torrenting napster like sites that were paying artists zero. It's a step in the right direction and hopefully they will raise the royalty rate going forward and we can all live happily ever after.

That reminds me of how Devin Townsend just put out his new album "Empath" and had to go around apologizing for saying back in the day to just steal all the music.

Yeah, that's kind of like a thing people are trying to say nowadays. I'd rather they didn't steal it, I'd rather them pay $9.99 to get a Spotify account and then we will get one tenth of of one cent everytime they listen to a song, it's actually less than that, but it's something which is more than nothing.

Very true. Well I am definitely looking forward to the new album, I am going to make sure and request to review it when it does come out.

It's a good one, I will be sending out the reviews in the next three to four weeks, so you might get your hands on it.

I did see what I think was the official track listing of "Human Target" and saw a track on it named "Make America Hate Again". I love it.

*laughs* You love it?

I absolutely died when I saw it.

As a God fearing Republican in the state of Kentucky how do you feel about it?

You already know im not. *laughs*

Kentucky is kind of turning into a blue state isn't it?

Well you have Louisville, well Jefferson county which is predominately blue and then you have Lexington which is blue as well. The rest of the state is all red. Like you go anywhere out of those towns and it's nothing but Trump signs.

It's crazy, I mean we have a lot of fans that are Trump supporters, and that's fine, we also have a lot of fans who are religious people also. We played in Salt Lake City and probably ninety percent of the people who come out are Mormons. We don't want them to hate us and we don't hate them, we don't want them to dislike our music because you know, that's not a free world. We don't get to decide and they don't get to decide for us and vice versa. The song isn't necessarily, I mean the title is kind of tongue in cheek and inflammatory like we want people to get annoyed and say "Oh those bloody Democratic dick heads from Australia". But the song is mostly just about how this whole, especially this most recent political campaign in the United states, hasn't really achieved much. Whether you like Trump or you hate him, he's not really doing all that much. He's just going around the world being a bit of a douche, which is also fine if that's how you want to be the leader, he got voted in. Mostly I think more than giving America a new leader, more than giving the world a new person to deal with or make deals with, it really turned Americans against one another and that's what the song is really about. We really want to kind of spread that information out there so that we don't alienate any of our fans. We love the south and we do really well in the south and we love the south. One of the reasons that Trump got into power is because Democrats of which we are Democrats, just hate Republicans. It's just as bad as what the blues have done to the reds by going around saying "Oh you voted for Trump, you're a racist and you hate gay people, you hate freedom and you hate this and that." It's like well they don't, I've got very financially conservative leanings which is borderline with the Republican party. A lot of old people especially, are just old and like the Republican party because of that and because of the minimization of government. Going around telling those people that are just good people, that they are bad people and they are racist and they hate anyone that's different from them, is wrong. That's why so many of those republicans got up and voted for Trump, because they wanted to make sure that those kind of lunatics and there are lunatics on the left, don't get into power also. That's what that song is about, it's not us hating republicans, it's just about the whole situation.

I kind of figured, it's kind of like when "Holy War" came out, it's not like you all were knocking anyone's religion.

Just the idea of religion, it's a little bit crazy to me that a man in the sky, decided everything that ever has been and ever will be.

Alright, well I don't want to take up anymore of your time, I know you're just trying to mellow out before the show, on behalf of Metal Temple and myself, I want to thank you again for taking the time out to answer a few questions.

Andy: No worries, thanks for the interview.

Watch the Video for"Human Target"here:

When clicked, this video is loaded from YouTube servers. See our privacy policy for details.

https://www.facebook.com/thyartismurder/