Imagine if you will, the hot burning sensation of witnessing something so spine shatteringly awesome that it makes your hair stand on end. Seeing something so jaw droppingly amazing that words will simply  fail you. You can now imagine how I felt when one evening in November, MADE TO WASTE came to the Biker Rock Radio studio.

 

The band is split between Weston and Portishead, a quick trip down the M5 that by bike is only five or ten minutes! However, I was lucky enough to see them several months ago with Biker Rock Radio’s Punk Specialist DJ, Ghost. He had heard of a gig happening in Weston that was to celebrate the opening of a new live music venue and we decided to head down there and see what it was like. The bands that played that night were all very, very good; each one was slick, professional and brutal. Yet for me, one band really stood out as impressive. Imagine your dream bike dealership full of brand new bikes, every one is perfect and you can have just one of them. Sometimes you just have to follow your heart and choose the blackest most brutal bike there.

 

MADE TO WASTE impressed me with their stage presence, they owned that stage in a way that I have only seen done by bands that have toured professionally for a long time, they controlled that venue and the crowd that saw them worshipped them. So when I heard that they were playing at the same venue again I could not stay away could I? Once again I was more than impressed with the pure ferocity and humour of this band.

 

So, it was with the nervous excitement of a child on Christmas eve that I invited the band to the Biker Rock Radio HQ for a live broadcast. Yes ladies and gentlemen, we were going to have a vibrant, brutal death metal band play live in our studio. Now bare this in mind, our studio currently lives in our flat and to be honest, it is not a particularly big flat!

 

On the night that they were due, Carol set up the monitors, cabling and drum kit ready for the band to come and play their live set. I excitedly warned our nearest neighbours that the event was going to happen and it might be a little noisy, but no one seemed to mind, if anything they all seemed quite impressed. The clock was ticking by and I paced the flat like a hungry lioness.

 

I found Snyffs the Bassist in the street outside, wandering along the road looking for our place. Being hidden in a quiet looking block in a suburban street, you would never guess that the BRR HQ even existed. He came inside and started to tune up his guitar just as Alexander arrived at the door. A few minutes later John and Jake also arrived and the band started to get ready to play a set in our hallway, tuning guitars, adjusting drums and checking levels.

 

Then at seven O’clock we went live to the planet and a real, live, angry, DEATH FUCKING METAL BAND played a brutal hellish fast song in my FUCKING HALLWAY! Every aspect of the band was in harmony and with the power of a thousand exploding stars; these young beautiful men utterly tore my face off with guitars, drums and vocals that were so completely awesome, I could have wept. People do not associate Death metal with beauty, but this band play the sort of music that is so brutal, so aggressive and yet so perfected that it touches at my heart. In all of my adventures in this world, having MADE TO WASTE play live in my hall way is probably one of the most, if not the actual most exciting and amazing thing I have ever witnessed.

 



 

 

 

Alexander has a voice that is more than amazing, his singing is brutal, finely textured and yet somehow richly beautiful. Jake batters the drums with the intensity of a GP Bike engine tuned to perfection, running on the redline and just as fast. Carol joked that having a double kick on her bass drum was almost sacrilegious, but fuck me, that boy can drum like heavy artillery! The immense ferocity of the music they played was filled with guitars that screamed in murderous violent rage and MADE TO WASTE kicked into full speed ahead, while making it look utterly effortless. I was simply astounded.

 

As hard as I try, my words simply cannot justify the power that came from that band. If I believed in God, I would say that this was divine in origin. It came with the ferocity of an unstoppable force colliding with an immovable object! What I can say with certainty, is that when ever I think of this event, this quiet little smile creeps surreptitiously across my face. If you only ever see one band in your life, make it this one.

 

We do have one confession to make though. Not every neighbour of ours was completely happy with our private gig. Oh yes, we had just one complaint. One very angry, very abrasive and very indignant complaint… From the block of flats next door! Nice one Boys, not even solid brick walls built out of thick and heavy limestone blocks can suppress the ferocious MADE TO WASTE! ( and I saw them play a gig in my fucking hallway! )