2021 might seem like a challenging time to resurrect a zombie-themed thrash metal/hardcore band, but the path of the rotting undead is never an easy one to tread (or shuffle). Thankfully for fans of British zombiecore pioneers Send More Paramedics, that's just what they've chosen to do.
Resurrected for a second time, the four piece have reformed a decade after their last release, to play a couple of one-off Halloween shows later this year, as well as recording new material for upcoming release.
After interviewing them in their original incarnation many years ago, SPB decided to don personal protective equipment (eg. a kevlar vest, full-face mask and a hand axe), and sat at a safe anti-social distance from frontman B'Hellmouth to find out what prompted their return from the musical grave.
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Scene Point Blank: Hi! Please can you introduce yourself to the newer members of our audience who may not remember your original incarnation?
B'Hellmouth: Send More Paramedics was/is a zombified thrash metal/hardcore punk band from Leeds, UK, originally active 2001-2007. Band members (B'Hellmouth – vocals, Medico – guitar, X. Undead – bass, El Diablo – drums) are themselves members of the living dead and all their material is obsessively focused on the pain of being dead and other aspects of undead existence. The band recorded three albums plus various demos and splits, toured and gigged with groups including the Offspring, The Misfits and Avenged Sevenfold and made appearances at the Leeds, Reading and Download festivals. They crawled screaming back into the grave at Halloween 2007, briefly re-emerged for a sequence of temporary infestations in 2014 and have now risen once more for a series of one-off cannibalistic thrash-fests at Halloween 2021.
Scene Point Blank: Okay, I thought zombies only came back to life once. Are you telling us you died, were reanimated as a zombie hardcore band, died a second time, and now you've returned from the grave again?!
B'Hellmouth: I can tell you've been working on your powers of deduction – because that's exactly what took place. One can never second-guess when the living dead will arise once more. Anything could set us off – alien radiation, a chemical spill, a quirk of the Mayan calendar – it matters not (although the twenty-year anniversary of our original 2001 reanimation might have something to do with it…). What matters is that we're back – and hungry for BRAAAAIIIINNNNSS!!!
Scene Point Blank: Why now? What part of the last eighteen months made you think that zombies would be an improvement?
B'Hellmouth: When are they not? Zombies never plan, but I suppose there was an instinctive impulse to take advantage of humanity in its weakened state – to exploit the international crisis of the last couple years as a means of feasting on vulnerable and hapless human flesh. As one does.
Scene Point Blank: It would be remiss not to acknowledge the virus that's already sweeping the globe: how do you feel about coronavirus, as zombies?
B'Hellmouth: Well, if you know our 2006 album 'The Awakening' you'll know that it's a concept album about a terrifying zombie virus that sweeps the Earth, originating in China. So, to have your predictions proved true in 2019-21 but in such a zombie-free and relatively tedious way was something of a disappointment. That said, the reduction of much of humankind to a perpetual state of staring dully at Netflix did serve to bring out some of the inherent similarities between zombies and their human cousins – which is always nice.
Scene Point Blank: Fifteen years ago, in "Everything Is Not Under Control", you told us "Now it's twenty twenty-five / the Dead arise to claim your life" – can you reveal anything else about the not-too-distant future?
B'Hellmouth: Jeez dude, one prophecy at a time, alright! We haven't even reached 2025 yet. I stand confidently by my original prediction that in 2025 a zombie virus will rage through all of human civilisation, reducing the entirety of humanity to a state of gibbering, mindless undeath. And if I'm not proved right then you can eat my brain. [Incidentally, I'd just like to point out for those of you that missed it the allusion to the Dead Kennedys' "California Über Alles" embedded in the line "Now it's twenty twenty-five" – or "nineteen eighty-four" as Jello sings in the original. Punk Points, yeah?]
Scene Point Blank: A lot has changed musically since your undead fingers grasped a microphone. Are you recording new stuff or just reanimating your old material?
B'Hellmouth: Nine blisteringly evil new tracks have flowed from the decrepit guitar of Medico and will soon be engraved upon posterity (with shrieking, hammering and thundering from myself (B'Hellmouth), El Diablo and X. Undead) at a top-secret secure location. [Actually it's the Stationhouse Studios, Leeds, lair of rock fiend and production maestro James Atkinson, of Gentlemans Pistols fame.] Release plans are as yet undecided but there is no plan to tour the record.
Scene Point Blank: I feel obligated to ask your opinion of Netflix's Army of the Dead: do you feel it accurately represented your necrotic brethren? Can you ride a zombie horse?
B'Hellmouth: In all honesty I was a little disappointed by that particular outing. Firstly, by the idea that any kind of intelligence could develop among the shuffling, shambling hordes of our kind. And secondly by the lamentable focus upon human group dynamics and character development which distracted attention from the groaning, barking and drooling of the feature's true stars. [Can I ride a zombie horse? Of course not! – I'm far too uncoordinated.]
Scene Point Blank: It's 2025 and the zombie apocalypse has begun: where should the typical Scene Point Blank reader hole themselves up to avoid you and the rest of the horde? I always thought the Leeds Royal Armouries Museum was a good zombie fort: surrounded by water and full of martial weapons. Would I escape?
B'Hellmouth: Leeds's Royal Armouries would indeed be a wonderful venue in which momentarily to postpone one's inevitable consumption by the baying masses. I imagine you could get in some truly enjoyable chopping, impaling and hacking as you struggled to survive. But of course, in the end you would not escape, and would in all likelihood be disembowelled by frantic packs of apoplectic unfortunates.
Scene Point Blank: Speaking of Leeds, I understand you're performing some Halloween shows there later this year. How do you prepare for performing after such a long time in the grave?
B'Hellmouth: To ready ourselves for performance our corpses require rigorous and sustained treatment with high doses of a top-secret military chemical known to those with the relevant security clearance as 2-4-5 TRIOXIN… ah, you've heard of it? Well, there's no keeping anything secret these days… I blame the bloody Internet… We are playing Boom in Leeds Friday 29th October and Saturday 30th October 2021, and I should also mention that we are spreading the infection south to London with a single show at The Dome, Tufnell Park on Sunday, 31st October.
Scene Point Blank: Are you back for good, or is this a temporary re-infection?
B'Hellmouth: Our shattered sinews and scorched nervous systems can only sustain brief bursts of reanimate activity… our brief burst of Halloween insanity is projected strictly as a one-off.
Scene Point Blank: I'd prefer it if you moved back a little bit, do you need a snack or something? You look a little pale…
B'Hellmouth: Mmmff… It's nothing, I just get these little…spasms… sometimes. I'll be OK in a minute. Gff! Please continue…
Scene Point Blank: You have the power to send one musical cliche into the underworld, never to be heard from again. What is it?
B'Hellmouth: Well – speaking personally, it goes like this… DUD DUD eek… DUD DUD eek eek eek eek… OPEN DROP D POWERCHORD semitone interval on the top strings with someone barking over it… When we were first around, back in the early 2000s, we played shows with a lot of metalcore bands that made heavy use of this breakdown formula, and personally speaking I don't miss it at all. Then again though, that's just my personal opinion… I'm not sure what a certain Tyno Undead, formerly of Leeds's The Nothing, would have to say about this…
Scene Point Blank: Can you stop staring at my head so intently, please? I only have a few more questions: what do zombies make of the wave of populism sweeping the globe? Is this your doing?
B'Hellmouth: Mmmmmnnnssggg…must…stay…focused… Populism! Populism, you say… Well, much as we'd love to claim responsibility for anything that made humanity more unthinking, herd-like and instinct-driven, I'm afraid we can't in this case. That Donald guy was doing a great job, a truly outstanding job, but he's gone now… Luckily there's still a few opportunistic, brainless morons floating around – hopefully the dead can take advantage of this to continue fucking humanity up even more. I 'd like to think we… Sorry, just give me a moment, I'm not feeling so great here… One minute… Grrrfffff….
Scene Point Blank: Okay, last question: where do you get your inspiration—hey, back off man. Where's the publicist gone? I didn't—hey. Hey! STOP THA—
B'Hellmouth: We only have one source of inspiration…and that source of inspiration is BRRAAAAIIIIIINNNNSSSS!!!! BBBBBRRRRRRAAAAAAAIAAIIIIIAAAIAIINNNNNNNSSSSSsssSSSSZSSS!!!!
[There follows a sequence of un-transcribable crunching and squelching sounds with a background of screaming. The yells eventually peter out, to be replaced by sounds of earnest, energetic chewing. After a couple of minutes there is a dragging sound and a dull THUD as the mic cuts out completely.]
END OF TRANSCRIPT
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Catch Send More Paramedics at their UK Halloween shows here:
- Friday 29th October and Saturday 30th October 2021 – Boom, Leeds
- Sunday, 31st October – The Dome, Tufnell Park, London
The as-yet-unnamed new tracks will be released in the near future so keep your undead eyes peeled.
