United Screamdom: Gallows

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"GREY BRITAIN" is a kick in the nads.

There's really no other way to describe the second album by Gallows, a snarling punk quintet from England who mix Motorhead-like riffs with a rage that's born of working-class British bile.

While the group's first album, 2006's "Orchestra of Wolves" (Epitaph), was a rousing affair, mixing the spastic energy of Refused with the hard-rock romping of The Stooges, Gallows' major-label debut, "Grey Britain" (Warner Bros.), is a collection of protest songs that are as polished as they are pissed. The record is crushing and catchy, with heavily tattooed singer Frank Carter declaring war with every spat word, as guitarists Laurent "Lags" Barnard and Carter's younger brother, Steph, riff like Angus and Malcolm Young would if they played punk instead of metal boogie.

Gallows appeared on the 2009 Warped Tour, and before their Merriweather appearance in July, Steph Carter spoke to Express about how the brothers Carter came to love the heavy stuff, how the band records and writes its songs, the political anger that fueled "Grey Britain" and what it's still like to live with mom.

» EXPRESS: Who introduced punk and metal to the house — you or Frank?
» CARTER: He did because he was older than me. ... He's like 18 months to the day older than me. ... I listened to a lot of the music he listened to. From there I just went and found my own way with it. I think the first band he brought into the house that was remotely heavy was the Deftones. So, I got really into the Deftones from him. From there, I went looking to see who influenced those guys and looking into the bands that toured with them, and so on and so forth. He brought the music into the house; he introduced me to heavy music.

» EXPRESS: Did you guys always get along growing up?
» CARTER: We tried to kill each other on a regular basis. When we hit 15 or 16 all that teenage angst was out of the way. He's been my best friend since as long as I can remember now. When we were growing up it was tough. ... You know, brothers and sisters fight all the time. I got three brothers. Frank is the oldest and I got two brothers younger than me, and we used to fight all the time growing up, but now we're all really, really close. Me and Frank used to be pretty bad to my little brother. We used to beat him up and then lock him in the garden so he couldn't come and tell my mom we hurt him. It's just the stuff that everyone does when you're growing up and you got siblings.

» EXPRESS: Since Frank is also well-known as a tattoo artist, I imagine he's inked you.
» CARTER: My brother has tattooed me loads of time. I'm like his crash-test dummy. He's like, "I want to try out this new idea; I want to try out this new style." And I'm like, "Yeah, go ahead. I don't care." My brother's ... always been into illustration and art. The first tattoo he done on me was when I was 18. He got his first when he was 18, too.

» EXPRESS: Why weren't you in the original version of Gallows?
» CARTER: When they first started Gallows, they asked me if I wanted to do the band. Frank said he was going to started this band with Lags and he said, "I would really love if you would be in it. It's totally up to you if you want to do it or not" I was actually starting my university degree, so the reason why I didn't join the band was I was just starting my degree. I had everything in place: getting my loans through, had my house sorted, put my money down. ... I would have to put my degree on hold. I kind of wanted to get my education out of the way in one go when I still had the opportunity to get it done. And then the other guitarist in the band used to band in a band with Laurent. ... But unfortunately Paulo couldn't fulfill what the band needed and then they asked me to come in — and the rest is history. I was in my second year and I joined the band — I actually joined the band and carried on with my degree for a year. So, I ended up passing my degree in 2007 and and we signed our record deal a month before I finished my degree. I got a degree in creative musical technologies.

» EXPRESS: That means you can record all Gallows' demos.
» CARTER: I actually recorded all of [Frank's] vocals for "Grey Britain" in my bedroom at home.

» EXPRESS: You guys still live at home with your mom, right?
» CARTER: We still live with my mom. Because of how much we're on tour, it seems completely pointless for me to get my own place. Renting someplace where I'm never going to be seems pointless. If I'm going to throw money away, I'd rather ... give it to my mom. She's given me everything. ... I can live in the home with her and she doesn't have to worry and I can look after her.

» EXPRESS: So, you recorded vocals in your childhood bedroom?
» CARTER: Yep. I drilled a whole through the wall, put the microphone up in Frank's room, deadened the space around it. Had the live room which was his bedroom and the control room was my bedroom, and we recorded the vocals in there for six weeks.

» EXPRESS: Did you guys do music together growing up, or was Gallows your first experience working together?
» CARTER: We've been in loads of bands. We've been playing together since I got my first guitar when I was like 14. We started playing together then, and we've done two or three bands with each other, and we've written loads of stuff with each other. When we're at home I'm always writing new songs and different types of music, and I'll show it to him and he'll write lyrics to it.

» EXPRESS: The first part of "Vultures" is acoustic, which gives you a chance to hear that Frank can actually sing.
» CARTER: Yeah, he's got a really good singing voice.

» EXPRESS: Was the stuff you worked on growing up more singer-songwriter or indie?
» CARTER: Not really. When we was growing up, I was writing a lot of instrumental music because that's my passion. Bands like Pelican, Mogwai and Sigur Ros, that's what I like to listen to. I was writing stuff like that, and I showed it to Frank and he was really into it and was like, "Mind if I write some lyrics and we can try and work it out?" I had written all these songs that were meant to be played instrumentally, and then he wrote lyrics to fit over of the top of them. ... He was singing and screaming at the same time. ... We've written a whole fucking folk album together that's just sitting on my computer that we've done nothing with — him singing and me playing acoustic guitar. So, maybe that will come out one day.

» EXPRESS: How does the band typically write its music?
» CARTER: Before I joined the band and they wrote "Orchestrate of Wolves," Lags wrote all the music and Frank wrote all the lyrics. When I joined and it was time to write "Grey Britain," the five of us came together as a band and it was a really organic writing process, and collectively the five of us wrote the record.

» EXPRESS: Did Lags have any problem opening up to collaboration?
» CARTER: No, not at all. Because all of us are in the band together; it can't be a one-man show kind of thing. ... He had no problems with it because it took a lot of pressure off him to write a follow-up to "Orchestra of Wolves" by himself. And because I wasn't in the band during the first one, I was like, "This is my chance to show people what I can do songwriting-wise," so it'd be fucked if somebody said, "Yeah, you're not writing on this album." So, I've made sure I wrote on it.

» EXPRESS: Gallows comes across as a bit of a gang anyway — one for all, all for one.
» CARTER: Exactly. That's the way we roll. We're five best friends, we all roll together, if someone's got a problem we all take it on headlong all at the same time. It would be pointless to do it any other way — why would you want to be in a band with people who you can't trust? The people who trust each other the most are in a gang — you've got to rely on everyone else to have your back and your' got everyone else's back. What would be the point of doing it if you haven't got your friends' back? It would be stupid.

» EXPRESS: It's like what Frank sings on "The Riverbed": "I believe in my brothers and my brothers believe in me."
» CARTER: Yeah. ... I wrote that song at home with him and we took it to the band. It's got meaning for the obvious reason — we're blood brothers — but the other three guys in the band are all like my extended family; they're my brothers and I roll with them every day of my life now.

» EXPRESS: I've read that the lyrical concept of record came after the music was written, and Frank's said this album was political because he feels like he has something to say now. But I think "Orchestra of Wolves" was a statement-oriented album, too, even if it was more about personal issues than politics.
» CARTER: That's the main difference for this record to the other one: "Orchestra of Wolves" was written on a very personal basis. All the songs were written about the band itself and about what's going on with the band. Whereas "Grey Britain" is a social commentary of what's going on around us. We've traveled the world, we've seen the world now in all its glory and all its disarray. So, it's definitely a wider aspect ratio for this record compared to the first one, just because we've seen the world; the first one, nobody had seen anything.

» EXPRESS:You had a quote where you said, "A lot of people are being taught to go on the dole, being taught to not work hard for a living cos you get more money in benefits." That's an interesting statement from a rock musician because you could characterize that as a conservative viewpoint. Have you caught any grief for that since you're known as punk band, which — according to the punk-rock handbook — is supposed to have strident leftist ideas only?
» CARTER: Not really. I just personally, my opinion, if you're not going to work hard for a living and you're going to sponge off other people, you're a fucking cunt. ... I'm not right wing, I'm not left wing, I'm nothing — I was brought up to work hard for myself, that's it. If you can't work hard for yourself, what's the point, man? Why would you want to wake up every morning and think, "Yeah, what I'm going to do today is I'm going to go into town and sit an the dole office and use other people's hard-earned money to look after myself." It's pointless. And all these people who are like, "I can't actually get a job," you're just not looking hard enough. That's my opinion on it; I could be completely and utterly wrong — I don't know. But my opinion on it: If you're going to sponge off someone else, you're a fucking twat.

» EXPRESS: Since "Grey Britain" is a political record, and it's mostly what Frank's thinking, is there anything he's written that you don't agree with?
» CARTER: Not really. ... I can appreciate where he's coming from with all of it because I've grown up and seen it all myself. The way politicians act is ridiculous, the monetary situation, the way our country acts with striving to go out and live for the weekend and nothing else. ... Britain was called Great Britain because it was a really great and proud place — and it's not anymore.

» DC9, 1490 9th St. NW; with The Scare and The Mostly Dead, Sat., Nov. 14, 6 p.m., $18; 202-483-5000. (U St.-Cardozo)

Photo courtesy Warner Bros.
Story originally published July 13, 2009