“Black Tar is about the lowest places a person can find themself–self-harm, self-isolation, nihilism, and mental illness…the list goes on,” states guitarist and vocalist Devan Fuentes of Scalp. “The lyrics are judgmental and bitter.”
Scalp glaringly shine a judgmental light on the murky, selfish behaviors that humans are capable of exhibiting. Through a pummeling blend of hardcore, grind, and death metal, the five-piece sets out to paint the darkest of pictures on their latest album, Black Tar, guiding the listener into a world they’d normally not want to admit exists.
There is a method to his disheartening madness, though, as he adds, “People may feel a comfort in knowing that others have been in such a terrible place. Personally, I’ve had family members overdose and die. I live with a bitterness and feeling of abandonment. I hold disdain for the trauma myself and other family members experienced because of their actions.”
Fuentes is no stranger to personal trauma, and he uses his experiences as inspiration to write the band’s intense songs. Not only has he suffered tragedies in his personal life, but also as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) he’s come across harrowing scenes that have surely contributed to his art.
He explains, “I have photographic memories of certain traumas I took on, like child deaths and being attacked by patients. All of these collective experiences created a lot of inspiration for the themes of Black Tar.”
Very few people know this, but Scalp, with all their brutality and dejection, actually originated from a joke band called Hellboob.
Fuentes playfully reminisces, “Our singer, Cole Rodgers, and I worked at a local coffee shop where all the young people in our area would stop. […] We joked about making a Halloween house show with a parody metal band. We named it (Hellboob) because I had a calculator watch and those were the cool words you can put on a calculator watch. We promoted the show so easily since we worked at the spot with the most local heads coming through.”
To Fuentes’ surprise, along with recruited drummer-now-bassist Cole Sattler, the show went off like gangbusters.
“We saw a side of Cole Rodgers that we never knew could exist,” he laughs. “His performance, crowd engagement, and energy was something that not only surprised us, but also impressed us. Our friends and people that showed up to watch all said, ‘joke or not this is what he should be doing.’ We had so much fun doing it we quickly said, ‘let’s start an actual band.’” When Sattler took on bass duties, Scalp brought in Luke Smith on drums.
For Black Tar, Fuentes wanted Smith to up his speed level from their previous release, Domestic Extremity, and found a sneaky way to push him.
“We tricked Luke into thinking we were writing songs at a slower tempo than they were actually being run on our click. His confidence in the untrue tempos gave him the unexpected ability to play as fast as we needed him to. We laughed about it, and then he just needed to clean it up a little bit.”
The bruisers from SoCal tapped touted producer Taylor Young [Nails, Twitching Tongues] to help shape the new album, and Fuentes can’t speak highly enough of his contributions to the band’s success.
“Taylor is a very hard-working and focused person when getting the job done. He’s the best we’ve worked with. He’s talented at every instrument and he can give the smallest tips that make big differences. The band’s career has involved decisions from the guidance and perspective Taylor has given.”
It’s clearly evident that there are many layers of inspiration guiding Scalp, and the music is that much richer because of it. They are a collective of ambitious and passionate storytellers that will hopefully be generating nightmares as well as, ironically, comfort in listeners for years to come.
Photos by Derek Tobias
