Interview with Tobias Augustin of the groovy goregrind/pornogrind German band COCK AND BALL TORTURE

- Conducted by Baz

Diabolical Conquest (Baz): Hello CBT! First of all, how are you? What've you been doin' recently? The last time I saw you, I was rollin' around in beer and filth at your feet whilst you performed at Obscene Extreme ‘08! How was OEF for the band, and do you have good memories of this fest?

Cock and Ball Torture (Tobi): Hey man how are you doing? We CBT guys have been working alot in the last time you know. Right, man, the Extreme Fest was really great last year! Damn it! But what about the stupid rain? I guess we were the only band with rain that evening. But the sickos in front of the stage absolutely lost their mind! We really love the Czech Republic and all sickos from over there

DC: The rain helped to make us all much more slippery and pliant whilst you embuggered us with riffs! Here's the classick interview question ‘Who are your main influences?' is probably irrelevant here, not only ‘cos you sport them clearly upon your pitchshifted sleeves, but also through CBT cover versions of classick gore/porngrind bands that have appeared on the releases over the years, such as RGTE, Mucupurulent, Squash Bowels, Impetigo, Nasum and Gut and everyone. Who else inspires you? Also, can you tell us any books, films or other stimulus that inspired your formation?

CBT: That's really a classical question, but I'm not annoyed by it as long as you won't tease me with the band-name-thingy... So, to be honest I never was the typical heavy metal head. I always had my three or four fave bands and i listened to that stuff all day long, but most grind bands never really appealed me. Timo is actually listening to almost every kind of extreme metal, and Sascha changes his attitude from time to time. But I guess that normal. As I am the guitar guy in the band and the guitar guys mostly have to figure out the riffs for the songs I always tried not to let my favorite bands to be heard in our songs too much. I know a lot of guitar players and you always know what their fave bands are. Unconsciously they copy those bands and you can hear that in a guitar players riff. Sometimes I tried to do something totally different. If you listen to your fave bands too much you will probably have their “vibes” in mind when you figure out a riff. Clear your mind and listen to something else and you will be able to be really creative. Well, about the influence ofmovies or books .... I got no idea about how a book could influence the riffs i try to figure out. ????
  

DC: It probably wouldn't inspire your riffs (unless it was a book of riffs), but I was thinkin' more of the influence of literature or film on your lyrical themes/imagery etc. Either way, here's the next q: I noticed that before you formed CBT, all three of you played in the band Carnal Tomb. I've never heard any of that stuff, so please describe it for me, and anyone else who may be intrigued. I can see from your song titles, as Lymphatic Phlegm would agree, that you were ‘pathologically explicit as fuck' at the time, so the pornographic influences obviously came later, but were your works then replete with poundin' bondage grooves and porridge-throated pitchshifted vox? Or did those only emerge when you began CBT?

CBT: Carnal Tomb was a typical Death-Grind band with splatter/pathologiy lyrics and artwork. You know that was over 10 years ago. And it was even boring then. But there are still bands that put out a record every year with the same shit again and gain. Forget about Carnal Tomb. The only thing cool was the logo. Sascha and me did it and it took us about 1 week to have it done. At the time we decided to form CBT, there were some porn grind bands, but no one really considered them to be serious. Most Grinders called them “fun” bands. We were sick of the splatter stuff and and we had a lot of fun during rehearsals so the porno thingy was absolutely ok for us.

DC: CBT slots snugly into a specific extreme musick subgenre, which arguably began with some sloppy old tripe recorded back in the day by your fellow cuntrymen, Gut, as well as the works of their slightly tighter friends, Dead, streamlined by Mucupurulent, then reinforced, corrugated and wrapped in latex by your own band. What appealed to you about the gore/pornogrind style enough for you to use it as fuel for your buffed-up BDSM bulldozer?

CBT: We liked the basic schemes of the songs and we really liked to play “easy” stuff. Carnal Tomb was pretty fast and technical, so really enjoyed to just mosh and stomp around during rehearsals. Gut and Mucu were bands with simple songs but like almost no other extreme band that time they were able to create catchy stuff. Gut had so many songs on their records, but in contrast to classical grindcore bands the songs had a face and character. Simple but effective. That's what we liked to adopt.

DC: After the first CBT releases, a lot of other bands in like-minded pursuit of the biggest, bulkiest grooves began poppin' up, particularly in the Netherlands and also in the Czech Republic . Do you enjoy the bands that you've probably inspired?

CBT: It was cool to see that people liked our stuff. But after some time it annoyed us. They just copied each other in with all their intros or porn images from the internet. That was boring. But to be honest we really enjoyed and still do enjoy when someone describes the style of a band and uses CBT as some kind of a landmark.

DC: By now, I imagine everyone has seen the YouTube video of the wedding reception overdubbed with ‘Aphrodisianus'. Did it cause laughter in the CBT camp? Have you ever performed at a wedding? Eeeeee, I'd love a goregrind wedding.

CBT: We were supprised when we saw the video that online for a long time before we discovered it. It was funny and then came many other videos like it with dancing people unwillingly moshing to goregrind. Actually Sascha played drums on a friend's wedding. He played songs like “Lolly Pop” or “Hang on Sloppy” and stuff like that. That was fun. I guess it was in 2001 or so. But unfortunately he was not allowed to use the double bass or to perform snareblasts... hahaha

DC: Please state your favourite genres of pornography. Do you each have an extensive porn collection?

CBT: That's a classic question again. But i must disappoint you. I guess most people have more porn than I do. I have a beautiful girlfriend and I perform in my personal porn every day. Haha! Actually it's even thrice a day!

DC: Do your pornographic themes echo your tastes, proclivities, fantasies, passions or vices? For example, durin' a day in the life of CBT, would we hear you callin' up a series of Filthy Phone Fuck Sluts, or perhaps see you become involved in a Dildo Debacle with some corpulent whores? Also, various slappers are immortalized in your song titles, such as Juicy Lucy, Clit-Doris and Anna ‘n' Ass. Who are they?

CBT: Some of the older song titles were names of porn movies. Later we tried to figure out alliterations or other titles that can easily be remembered. You know up to the present day, we arranged about 130 songs (I know I know, Napalm Death must have about 500 songs done so far...). To easily remember all the songs we just had to use funny names. Some of the girl's names in our titles are inspired by girls from our hometown. Especially Clit-Doris.

DC: Do CBT consume drugs and alcohol? If so, state for us your preferences!

CBT: No drugs, but alcohol. Personally I like wheat beer (as most people from Bavaria will state) and strawberry limes. Timo drinks all types of beer and Sascha, too. Due to an injury of the shoulder I was not able to perform those 5 gigs in japan in 2006. But I can proudly say that my fellows Sascha, Timo and Jakob (who helped out for me) really brought the spirit of Bavaria to the far east. Haha. Our friends from Nippon had absolutely no chance to equal the amount of alcohol consumed by CBT. Destroyed!

DC: You are of course infamous for hideous pitchshifted vox, and daub your music heavily with lumpy, viscous mouth-broth taken from a rather wide palette of toilet-flush textures. Some lines might be drenched in all manner of slippery FX, whilst others sound like unprocessed inhales. How do you achieve these sounds? Whilst playin' around with the pitch in some of my old projects, I found that using a throaty, Carcass style rasp with plenty of phlegm as the original input usually has a good effect, death growls give more sloshiness, whilst crustier shouts creates a Rompeprop sort of sound. What are your techniques?

CBT: We always called those vocals “Mucu” (coz they did it before us) and “gurgle” (coz it gurgles). The “Mucu” is just inhaling and articulating with a wide-opened mouth. Quite easy. The “gurgle” is indeed the carcass stlye phlegm-sound with a pitch effect of one octave down. That's actually the best way to describe it man!

DC: Can you describe for us your songwritin' process and how it has developed over the past decade?

CBT: Songwriting is a hard thing, coz from one rehearsal to the next we sometimes change our opinion about how the song should be like. I guess there were about 50 songs that we fully arranged then rearranged and finally left behind in the last 5 years. It mostly starts that I have prepared some material, some riffs that fit together quite well. I play them and the other guys join it and together we alter the stuff and find a pattern and a pace for the drums. Et voila. Sometimes I have prepared and presented some material and we all found that it was already complete. In the beginning we never cared too much about the exact riffs. It only took us 8 weeks to find our style and write all “Cocktales” songs. Nowadays we go more into detail.

DC: For the benefit of those amongst us who experience significant crotch activity whilst lookin' at lists of equipment, please tell us your preferred instruments and other gear.

CBT: I have two 7 string baritone Ibanez guitars live and in the studio, Line 6 stuff for recordings and a Peavey XXX for live gigs and rehearsals. That's all. Nothing special. Unfortunately... I am still searching for my perfect guitar.........

DC: What music, books or films have you been entertainin' yourselves with recently?

CBT: I really like the movie 300 and the books of Richard Dawkins. Timo reads a lot and I guess he has more books than I have CDs.

DC: You often create rather endurin' images for us with your strikin' cover art. ‘Cocktales' got the ball rollin' with some rather graphic cock and ball torture on its original cover, then after that your stuff started to look a bit more sophisticated, like the tattoo lickin' bitch on Opus(sy) VI and the clinical yet stylish PVC theme on ‘Sadochismo'. Who usually designs/directs the art, and do you have a favourite CBT album cover?

CBT: Sascha is working as a media designer, so he did all the artwork for us. He's pretty good in that and I guess you have been holding other album artwork in your hands that sascha did.

DC: When you released your ‘Opus(sy) VI' upon an unsuspectin' grindcore public, you'd galvanized the sound of ‘Cocktales' with poundin' production, injected yourselves with lethal dosages of groove, and expounded upon your pornographic peccadilloes. The result was a very fresh soundin' goregrind record, which gave us our first full, creamy taste of your now unmistakable sound. What were your feelings about the record then and now, and do you think it has aged well? Is the title a play on the Abigor album ‘Opus IV'?

CBT: We all like the Opus(sy) VI songs now and then. The record features a good mixture of elements we had in mind then. And I have to admit I think it was really outstanding when it came out. There was no other band that had songs like that. We were absolutely proud and happy with the sound and the artwork. Plus; people liked it a lot. The name Opus(sy) VI came out because it was our 6th release and we wanted to combine the elements “opus” and (of course) “pussy” – great sounding porngrind songs.

DC: I play in a two man porno/goregrind band called Noxious Coitus. One of our more recent songs, ‘From Feculent Flatulence to Turdulent Shatulence', is heavily influenced by ‘Sadochismo'. When we appear on the bill when you play your first show here in Leeds , you'll get to hear it! So you can sing along, here are a few of the lyrics!

CBT: That sounds good man. Im already looking forward to it

DC: Enguzzlement of roughage/Flatus turgid gutwrench/Turgid bowel spillage/Bilious gastric dryretch/Imbrued faecal centre-piece/Choked in sterco-aroma/ Orgiastic stooltastic feast/Self induced copro-coma! Mouth agape, secured with tape/I micturate all over yer face/ My flocculent bumgut puckers and dilates/Profferin' the cake what I baked! Visage submerged in gluey gut-surge splash/ Look at you! You've got a comical excremental ‘tasche! A crack-shot shit slots into the throat/Defaecation inhalation; titterin' as I boak/ Entertainin' scat-act; funny faecal farce/Face engulfed by my smelly balls ‘n' arse! Hack and gag on cack, you cack-hag!

CBT: I'm so glad we have NO lyrics. I couldn't remember a single line of it dude. Not because it's hard to understand. But .... i hate learning anything by heart

DC: Speakin' of lyrical filth, I remember when I first looked on your website a few years ago; there were links to some lyrics, which I think were taken from ‘Cocktales'. I've also seen the ‘Opus(sy) IV' lyrics online. Are these performed on the actual recordings? Did you use lyrics on your other releases/splits or did you always prefer to just find the most appropriate vokill slop-sound and slap that on your riffs instead?

CBT: We had lyrics but we practicably never used them. There were some other lyrics for splits, but Sascha was not in the mood to perform them for the vocal track. Live we never used lyrics. Mostly I tell some impro story and sometimes I just “rrroarrr grrrggl” and so on. Haha. A former colleague from the company I worked for found out that there is a band called CBT and he googled those lyrics. Later he found out i'm in band, too, and that those lyrics belong to my band. Well, I think he was rolling on the floor and laughing for about 10 minutes with tears in his eyes and he almost suffocated. We've been working together for 3 years before that day and he never knew about CBT.

DC: Excellent! Around the time of ‘Where Girls Learn to Piss on Command' and ‘Sadochismo', I noticed that one or more of you recorded under the name Bradyphagia. From what I can remember, the stuff on the split with Neurovisceral Exhumation displayed much grindin' potential. Did you record/release any other Bradyphagia stuff, and do you plan to resurrect said project?

CBT: Damn, the whole CBT gang is in Bradyphagia dude. We only recorded for one release yet, but we often perform that kind of grind when it gets boring during our rehearsals. And, to be honest, I guess you will hear some Bradyphagia elements in future CBT songs. So Bradyphagia will still be alive....

DC: When you did ‘Sadochismo', you slowed the tempo down a bit, cut back on the ol' blast-beats and became even more besotted with massive chugulated riffs than ever, the result being a very well oiled spankin' machine. Underneath the fun mosh-friendly rhythms, the thing sounds very cold, clinical and calculated. Are you happy with that album? Some riffs bear more than a passin' resemblance to those of one Miguel Rascon of Coal Chamber fame. Are you fans?

CBT: The album sound was meant to be clinical as you can see from the artwork. And I'm really happy with it. The first time we found our “new” pace was when we arranged “Enema Bulldozer”. It was the first song with our typical “stompy”-pattern as we call it for the drums. You can hear that pattern in about 80% of our songs. But we were never were fans of that Coal Chamber thingy.

DC: If you can remember, please describe for us your favourite or best live performance(s) so far. And your worst!!

CBT: As I told you before we really enjoyed last year's Obscene Extreme and I guess that the show is in our top 3. The Maryland Deathfest show in 2007 was also extremely good. Hmmm. I don't really want to talk about our worst shows, but I can assure you that we were not to blame for some ass-sounding gigs. Mostly it was the fault of the sound technicians. Well, let's talk about something else....=)

DC: Token food question. Whilst travellin', which national cuisine has suited your tastebuds the best?

CBT: We were mostly lucky with the food on the road, but I have to admit that we have always been more interested in regional brewery. Hahaha. The food at the NRW Deathfest in Wermelskirchen (Ger) has been outstanding the last 2 times. You really gotta check it out.

DC: Other highly influential bands like Carcass, RGTE, Impetigo and Gut have had tribute albums dedicated to them, so where's the CBT tribute? When it is compiled, who would you most like to see coverin' their favourite CBT tunes?

CBT: We're still waiting for that, too. But we heard rumors that some garage bands from the Czech Republic have already considered to do a compilation. We have no favourites concerning a possible compilation. Anyone who dares to lower his or her niveau to reach CBT level is allowed to do so. Hopefully there will be some really olde songs from cocktales.....

DC: Whilst visitin' my girlfriend's family for Christmas, her parents and both her grannies were plannin' to watch the British film Cock and Bull Story at the cinema. Later, when we were all sittin' together enjoyin' a drink, she asked: ‘Are you all still goin' to see Cock and Ball Torture?' by mistake! I laughed and laughed and laughed like I've never laughed and laughed and laughed before!!!

CBT: That sounds funny. How did the rest of the family react? I assume her granny was “not amused”. There are interesting parallels in the Bavarian/German language and the porn grind terminology. Once i was at the gas station and a teeny before me said: “i nehm' a bull dose” which meant “I'm going to have a can of (red) bull”. But he pronounced exactly it like “enema bulldozer”. And another time i was in an Italian restaurant reading the menu featuring “tortellini bolognese”. The (Bavarian) waiter asked whether I wanted to have the “torterlini ball ‘o' neese” which sounds quite similar to one of our older songs......

DC: Hahaha, good stuff indeed. Amusingly enough, no-one noticed that she'd asked them if they were goin' to see CBT, in actual fact they all replied with ‘Oh yes, definitely!' Hohohoho! Now, of the various bands, promoters and labels you've worked with over years, who was the most fun?

CBT: We really enjoy working with curby of obscene records. This is one great motherfucker. It's fun to talk to him and it's really great to perform at the Obscene fest. He's a fair guy and he' s really caring a lot about all the bands he works with. Hail you Curby!

DC: Yes, Curby is indeed lovely. He's let me into OEF free of charge for the past two years in exchange for my fest reports. I remember readin' about undesirable events durin' your relationship with Ablated Records. What happened? Have you had any other bad experiences with labels etc?

CBT: Well let's forget abot that chapter. We recorded Sadochismo, we send the master CDs to the USA and we never got any answer to emails or snail mails or phone calls. Brian from ablated did a few thousand CDs and sold or traded them but we got not one cent. He used the name CBT on t-shirts with artwork we would have never agreed with. Fuck that bitch!!!!!

DC: About ‘Egoleech'. With it, you modified and updated your signature sound and aesthetic, distanced yourselves from the porno-themes and adopted some new vox styles, but it was rated rather poorly by fans and critics alike. I daresay it left me less than tumescent; so flaccid in fact that I swapped it for a some second hand death/grind album in my local metal shop soon after. A bit hasty really, ‘cos I should've given it further spins, and now I've got a gap in my collection too! Are you happy with ‘Egoleech', and are you glad you experimented with some new ideas on it?

CBT: Personally i like Egoleech. There are some things we could have made better about it, ok, but the songs are not that bad. There are bands, even major bands, that put out records that are boring as hell, but they still get good reviews. I don't understand that. I mean there are bands with absolutely obsolete music, boring songs, shitty artwork and horrible sound quality. But they all they get is thumbs up. I guess reviews for Egoleech would have been way better when we still had porn artwork and faecal song names. Most fans were disappointed by the new “style”. I really like the death growls Sascha did on some songs. I guess those vocals combined with some of the groovy Egoleech riffs recorded by another band would have gotten better reviews. The only thing i am not happy with is the sound quality. We had another mix but we decided to use the one you've heard. Sometimes I wonder what egoleech songs with sadochismo sound would sound like....

DC: What's next for CBT? Should we anticipate new stuff??

CBT: Well, we've done about 20 new songs since the recording of egoleech, we've experimented a lot and we've re-arranged a lot over and over again. There's plenty of new material and we're still doing more and more songs. The songs are very different from each other, so no matter which part of the new material will be on the next release, I can assure you that it won't be boring at all. We've got faster songs in the Opus(sy) VI way, we've got sadochismo-style songs, we've got slower moshpit songs, we've even got Bradyphagia-style material. The final result will be a mixture out of it including new elements, somehow different vocals and loads of catchy tunes and hook lines. So, if you ever liked any CBT material, you will find at least one or two songs that will please you.

DC: Many thanks for doin' this interview with me, I hope it entertained you. Have fun!!

CBT: Thanx for your time and your questions. Hope to see all of you out there on one of our next gigs. Cheeeeers