Hello Rockstars! Today’s Artist of the Week is Deathcore Metal Band Body of Filth!
Here’s their own story in their own words, enjoy!
And also, check out their new Single “Horse Incinerator” on all Music Platforms!
VMS:
“When did you start writing and performing your music. What’s your backstory and current lineup.”
Body of Filth:
The current lineup is:
Joe Koos – Guitar
Ryan Blas – Guitar
Loren Means – Bass
Micheal “Fundip” Taylor – Vocals
Chuck Shumway – Drums
“Body of Filth formed in 2021 by original members Earl Owsian, Joe Koos, Jason Benoit, Andrew Purio, and Loren Means. Jason’s career took him across the states and he left at the end of 2021.
Ryan had a podcast called Mosh’d Up and had interviewed us where we learned that he played guitar and we brought him in immediately. He’s been in the band ever since. Earl had life take him elsewhere and he departed the band early 2024.
Looking for a drummer was pretty simple, Loren knew a drummer, Chuck, who was moving here to Vegas. We met Chuck and he immediately became a part of our family. Vocally, Andrew was jamming with us before we started BoF, and we had parted ways for personal reasons. We are all still great friends, and there’s definitely no issues between us.
Since Andrew was gone, we had put an ad out and “Fundip” responded. He came and tried out and he brought a different style Vocally, while also keeping the integrity of the original sound. The material we’ve been writing together has been amazing.”
VMS:
“What artist or bands inspire you and your sound.”
Body of Filth:
“We’re all fans of different styles of music individually, so that brings a lot of different ideas. We have these hardcore style songs, we have some really slam style riffs, and then you’ll hear some thrashy, beatdown stuff. It’s all over, but it’s us. You can def catch on to what we do when you listen to the tracks.”
VMS:
“What’s your writing process and inspiration for your lyrics.”
Body of Filth:
“Writing – Mostly guitars will come up with a riff and pass it around, but recently we’ve been just smashing a quick freestyle warm up and writing some really good stuff all together. We can read each other well and it shows.
Lyrically – There’s video game references, different ancient torture methods, gore stuff, but then also some real-life situations. Piracy is basically about a person trying to steal your identity or take something from you. Where our new track “Horse Incinerator” is more about being trapped, chained or held down with no escape.”
VMS:
“I love your songs “Dreading the Day”, “Enterprise Elite” and “Erosion of Hope”.
What is the inspiration or story behind these songs.”
Body of Filth:
“”Enterprise Elite” is about the elite, just being the elite. Looking down and creating suffering on people they see as below them.
Listen to “Enterprise Elite” on Spotify:
“Erosion of Hope” is about losing hope and that despair is just punishing you.
Listen to “Erosion of Hope” on Spotify:
“Dreading the Day” has video game references and was our first track done together with Fundip on vocals.”
Listen to “Dreading the Day” on Spotify:
VMS:
“Tell me about your EP: “Grounds for the Tortured”. What was the inspiration and process of writing it.”
Body of Filth:
“The ep was sort of a collection of some riffs that Jason and Joe had. Earl came in and helped shape them to what they are musically.
Lyrics – Andrew brought a lot of anger and aggression out and had a focus on different ancient torture methods. All of it really is about suffering, hence the name “Grounds For The Tortured”.”
Listen to “Grounds for the Tortured” on Spotify:
VMS:
“Which local artist would you like to work with and why.”
Body of Filth:
“Hmm…there’s a lot of good bands and other stuff happening musically in town, but we’d love to do a split perhaps sometime with our buddies in Teach, Slaughterhouse Effect and Asylum of Ashes. We’ve done a handful of shows together and it’s all great heavy music and it’d be really cool to see everyone’s take on each other’s songs. It would be really fun!”
VMS:
“What’s your overall theme or message of your music.”
Body of Filth:
“Our theme has been heavy disgusting lyrics, nasty riffs and slammy breakdowns but we try and deliver the message that we’re a party band. We party at shows and always have a blast.”
VMS:
“Do you have a favorite song that you like to perform.”
Body of Filth:
“We love playing our songs “Frailty” and “The Slow Process”. Those songs drive and are just heavy as shit. As far as new favorite song to play we love to play our new release “Horse Incinerator”.”
Listen to “Horse Incinerator” on Spotify:
VMS:
“Do you have any crazy or interesting stories from working in the music scene.”
Body of Filth:
“There are so many things that you see happen when playing shows – When we were on our tour called “The Small Towns and Beatdowns tour” with Teach, Asylum of Ashes and Slaughterhouse Effect, one of the promoters tried to skip out on paying us all.
All the bands saw him run away from the venue when the show was over and we all cornered him and made him pay us. Since then, we all call ourselves the shakedown crew.”
VMS:
“What does the future hold for Body of Filth.”
Body of Filth:
“We’ve just got back in the studio to do some tracking. We hope to have a new EP out by the end of the year. We have a couple shows coming up as well. Next year we hope to get out of town more, tour with some more badass bands and land on some festivals.”
VMS:
“What do you want your audience to feel and experience at one of your shows.”
Body of Filth:
“When you come to a BoF show, you experience a party. We aim to bring you back to being a kid and just being able to let loose and have a great time, a rowdy time.
We do a game called pitboss, where we toss out our Body Of Filth ball to the crowd and the person who brings it back at the end of our set, gets a special edition BoF pitboss shirt.
You can only get these at the shows by winning the game. This game can get really wild. We’ve seen people rolling on the ground, getting stepped on, getting picked up into the air with the ball, being thrown etc etc and everyone has nothing but smiles after it’s over.
There are things you can always count on at a BoF show, having fun and hearing some heavy music.”
Vegas Music Scene Thoughts:
What I love about Body of Filth, is how balls to the walls raw, gritty and insane they are with their excellent musicianship and their amazingly sick hardcore songs. They are not afraid to not only have fun in their music, but they are also not afraid to rock your fucking socks off. I will be honest and say that I am still learning a lot about the different offshoots of metal, like Death Core, but musically when I hear a song, I know what I like and what I vibe with, and Body of Filth (for me personally) has the whole package. They have the gritty, dark, morbidly sick themes in their songs, and they also have a gritty, dark, and morbidly sick take as musicians. You can feel the energy and intensity they bring to what they are talking about in their music and it’s a truly joyous infection for the listener. Ranging from social, political, and mental health issues, lyrically they are not afraid to lay it all out there and talk about what is important to them, and I respect that immensely.
I encourage you to go see their live shows, cause what they mentioned in their interview is very true, they bring a good balance of talking about important topics all while making you get up, Mosh and have fun, which in itself is no easy task to accomplish. That magnetic energy you hear in their music definitely translates to their live performances as well, if you ever see that they will be playing live go! They will give you an amazing, once in a lifetime experience and leave you longing for more, their shows are not to be missed!
I’m so excited to see what the future holds for Body of Filth, every album and song shows their evolution as a band so effortlessly, and they just keep surprising me time and time again with how solid, intense and amazing their music is. I hope they never lose sight of that intensity and that obvious passion that they have for what they do. I can see the possibilities are endless for this sick ass band. That’s why I’m proud to call them my Artist of the Week!
For more information about Body of Filth, please visit their links.
—–Vegas Music Scene.
Thank you so much for this feature!!!