Great to know a band from Taiwan playing Grindcore! Everyone should check BRAIN CORROSION out. The guitarist, Lee with us talking further about this awesome band. Grind on! – Interview by Harshziqr [02.10.2020]
Hi mate. How are you today? What’s going on in Taiwan lately?
Lee: Hi, Harshziqr. Well, nothing new here. Due to covid-19, shows were mostly canceled here, and my honey moon is fucked up. But some cool local bands like Aohen and Myxoma had something new coming out for fans who were into death metal and goregrind, go check them out.
Please introduce Brain Corrosion; the band history and brief background of the lineup?
Lee: BC is me on the guitar, Derek on bass and vox, Chien on the drums. The band was found by me and Derek, Derek runs the Rottenpyosis Rec., the only grindcore label in TAIWAN and launched many great stuff in the past. I bought CDs and shit from Derek during college, and one day we had a chat about starting our own band, but raw black metal was my first choice and Derek was not really into that type of stuff at the moment, but grindcore and crust punk was our common point, so I took the advice and that’s how it get started.
We are about to play something like GUT, C.A.R.N.E. at the very first beginning, but that didn’t went well due to gore/porn grind is really unpopular here, you can hardly find someone is welling to play or even listen to it, and we are not satisfy for being just a studio band, so we give it a try for styles like Looking For An Answer, Gruesome Stuff Relish, Dead Infection, and luckily I found Chien, my schoolmate during my grade school who is willing and qualified to play the drums, and after that we’re settle down.
Tell us further about your latest release; “Exhumed From Eastern Tombs”, the split with Ripped To Shreds?
Lee: We and Andrew (Ripped To Shreds) initiated this project after being invited to perform with Ripped To Shreds during their tour in Taiwan in 2019.
We made these songs at Analog Studio which is a local DIY studio owned by a doped guy, and the tracks were mixed by Andrew and mastered by...It took a while to complete recording since we only have time gathering for this on weekend. Fortunately, Andrew finished all the mixing in the quite short period of time after sending tracks to him, and we did learn a lot from him.
Could you explain more about your music and sound? I’m interested with the term ‘Jiangshi Grindcore’, what is that? Where do the influences come from?
Lee: Well, the Jiangshi (殭屍) is also known as a Chinese hopping vampire or hopping zombie, is a type of reanimated corpse in Chinese legends and folklore, which is mentioned by a Qing Dynasty scholar in his book, and thx to wave of 80’s horror film industry of Hong Kong, it has been well known and become a significant icon of Asian horror element. For fans of Lam Ching Ying and Sammo Hung will know excellent what I’m talking about.
By the inspiration of HONG KONG cult / horror cultures, we really wanna to come up with something of our own style and mixed with our Asian roots. The Jiangshi film did provide us with lots of materials, not only the theme and lyrics, but also the image and artworks. So, to match the theme I tried to use as many as Tao talisman / magic figure / occult signs in our album.
It would be nice if you could talk something about the previous releases?
Lee: Previous releases witness the transform of BC, from a GUT imitator to finally a pure Asian horror executor, once again we have to thx for the creators of those classic 80’s Hong Kong horror film, BC could not be completed without these legacies.
Brain Corrosion have played in Obscene Extreme Asia 2014 which was surely good. What do you learned and experienced from the fest?
Lee: 2014 is a pleasant memories for us, me and Chien was in the grad school and working hard for our thesis, and Derek was also quite busy on his day jobs. We have only 3 weeks to prepare by the time we are being informed that we are chosen and allowed to play on OEF. We’ve been rehearsed three times a week and 3hrs on each time, super high pressure but it’s dope. And guess what, we get the chance to saw a bunch of great legend grindcore band in three days, and that’s just worth for all the suffer we had.
What were written in your lyrics?
Lee: Like I said in previous, all our members are huge fan of 80’s Hong Kong horror film, the lyrics were all surrounded by such theme. Like the song “Her Revenge” from our “Sleazy Supremacy” EP, it was about a none-Jiangshi film which plays by Lam Ching Ying during the 80’s, and evaluated as the HK version of “I spit on your grave”.
And the song “Corpse Refining - To Become a Jiangshi (煉屍)” was inspired by the Rigor Mortis (2013), which talks about how a Tao sorcerer using young child’s blood to refine an accidental dead body into Jiangshi.
What do you plan for the future; new recordings, next releases, etc?
Lee: We still have songs that haven’t been recorded yet, so maybe we’ll focus on that in the future and perhaps a few local shows would be nice. But the most important things, hope everyone survived and conquered this pandemic, fuck COVID-19!
Thanks for your time. Last words?
Lee: Buy the physical records fuckers! bandcamp and digital albums sucks!
