Thy Art Is Music

Founding Thy Art Is Murder member Lee Stanton has heard so many versions of how his band got its name he has to stop and think about it.
“It’s really quite a boring story, really,” Stanton said.
“I think there’s been so many embellishments over the years the truth is actually pretty boring.
“One of our old guitarists came into our jam space one night and suggested the name, we all liked it and that’s just what we named the band.
“I’d like to say he was reading Shakespeare or Edgar Allen Poe or something dark and twisted and amazing, but… yeah, I doubt it.”

The deathcore band from Sydney’s western suburbs has seen many lineup changes over the years, with drummer Stanton and current bassist/previous rhythm guitarist Sean Delander the last original men standing.
“Some people left over musical differences, you know, tastes change and people change,” Stanton said.
“A couple of people were asked to move on because they were naughty.
“The current lineup has been playing together for four or five years now, everyone knows their place within the band, everyone gets their say and we all get along really well so I think we’re in a good place now.”

Stanton laughed at the question of whether the band’s upbringing in western Sydney had influenced the intensity of it’s music.
“You know, I had never really given it much thought,” he said.
“To be honest, it does suck in most areas around west Sydney, but for the most part we’ve all moved on from there now.
“I live in a much nicer place now in Brisbane with my girlfriend.
“It makes rehearsals a little trickier but in a way it’s better, too, because we just fly everyone to a jam spot, get away from our everyday lives for a few days and concentrate on the music.
“I think doing that has helped us mature and grow more as a band, really.”

TAIM’s second studio album, Hate, debuted in the Top 40 ARIA chart, which took even the band members by surprise.
“Oh that was a big surprise,” Stanton said.
“We really didn’t expect to get into the proper charts with any release, so we were all kind of shocked when it happened.
“When we released it we kind of knew we were onto a good thing from the feedback we were getting, but then it ended up charting here and in the US, which just blew us away.”

The band had just returned from a tour of the USA, in fact.
“Hate has been out for around six months over there, so we’ve just come back from our first headline tour,” Stanton said.
“We just had the most van trouble we’ve ever had, actually, we had to have two vans and two trailers and just had the most annoying things happen to us on the road, it was awful.
“We got a good reception over there, though, which was good.
“We’ve also got a good following over in the UK and Europe now, the heavy scene is big over there.”

Stanton said he had noticed a difference in cultures whilst on tour.
“Definitely a couple of our shows in America were more violent than usual,” he said.
“Europe is a crazy place for our shows, too, they go pretty mental.
“It’s a very metal-based scene over there.
“The US scene is larger than in Australia, obviously… oh, and they definitely have the worst food.
“The last thing we wanna do is come home from tour with diabetes, which is really kinda hard over there because literally everything is based on fat, salt or heaps of sugar.
“We lived on a lot of Waffle House or McDonald’s over there, but then you try to balance it out – you go, ‘Okay, I ate three cheeseburgers today so  I’ll have two apples now,’.
“European beer is awesome, but the States’ microbrewery boom is great because it means you can actually get a decent beer over there now – try a beer called Dogfish Head when you get the chance, I highly recommend it.”

The guys are working on some new material, now that the global promotion of Hate is out of the way.
“Our guitarist Sean is working on new stuff right now,” Stanton said.
“Hopefully sometime in the new year we’ll be able to get into the studio and release some new stuff before next summer.”

As for future goals? Will we see more chart toppers from the boys?
“The whole ARIA thing could have been just a fluke,” Stanton said.
“We really just want to keep on touring, pretty much.
“We’ve gotten so see more of the world because of music, so it would be nice to see the rest of it while we’re able.
“It would be nice to have money, to actually live comfortably from making music… I think that would be any musician’s dream though.”

In a final minute of randomness, I asked Stanton who he would make out with, marry or murder from a choice of Miley Cyrus, Ke$ha and Julia Gillard.
“Oh, that’s a tough one… what are the choices again?” he laughed.
“I think, if I had to choose, I’d probably make out with Miley, marry Ke$ha and murder Julia Gillard, but if I could I’d probably murder all three.”

Thy Art Is Murder will perform across the country on the Soundwave tour this month. For more information visit the official web site.