As you may have noticed if you read my review of their album ‘Death Dub’here , I was recently rather taken with Chicago-based sound-perverts and all-around deviants Drug Honkey. So taken, in fact, that I decided to interview vocalist and prime deviant Honkey Head, known as Paul Gillis to his mother and local authorities.
Read on…if you dare!

Hello to you Paul. First off, I want to ask how you balance your time – you have three projects, that I know of, Drug Honkey, Morgue Supplier and KLLU, all with full-length recordings due out this year, you’re a married man and I assume you have a job too – HOW do you find the time and how do you prioritise?

Yeah, time is an issue, and I have even more projects than that. I also have my noisegrind project Asscavern, which I plan on recording a full length with sometime this year or early next year. Also; myself, along with David Holland & Jim Deabenderfer of Cardiac Arrest have a doom/avant-garde side project called ‘LadyBug DeathCamp’ and we will be recording a demo by years end if all goes according to plan.
I am married and have a full time job building/repairing elevators. So, yes I am busy, but somehow I balance it all out and get it done… I just go with the flow. No major rush as when projects end up being released considering my schedule. I do most of my mixing & writing of songs late night when I have time alone. I am tired quite often.

Now, kinda sidestepping the obvious ‘where does the name Drug Honkey come from?’ question, I was wondering how big of a role do drugs play in your life and that of the band? I mean, there’s some severely warped music on ‘Death Dub’, ‘China Black (Heroin Pt.2)’ springing immediately to mind, so I guess what I’m asking is, do you have to be on drugs to play Drug Honkey’s music?

No sidestepping required.. Haha! The name, which seems to be a love it or hate it type of name, according to peoples comments/reviews over the years, developed over time. First we were called ‘Hate’ but there was the death metal band by the same name already in existence so we decided to change it to ‘Drugs’, but that didn’t seem to feel right, so since we were a group of honkys we went with ‘Drug Honkey’. The difference in spelling in the word honky versus honkey came with the idea that we were the honkys giving you the music that in turn is the drug… hence the ‘key’ being the music that us honky’s are giving.. Phew, you get all that?
As for actual drugs playing a role in the music, we’ve done our share, but as I stated above, the drug reference is mostly connected with the drug being the music. So no, drugs are not necessary for us to create the music that we do, although there has definitely been some usage over the years…

Listening to ‘Death Dub’, I get a sense that a Drug Honkey live experience and a recorded version of Drug Honkey are two slightly different beasts – what do YOU see as the main differences and which, if either, do you prefer?

There is definitely a difference, but the overall effect is still intact either way. In a live setting we can exude our aura onto the crowd at close range and that always seems to pay off. With recorded material it sometimes takes the listener a little more time to grasp what we are all about, but upon repeat listens they seem to identify quite closely with what we are doing. It really depends on how in tune the listener is with our brains.
As for which avenue I prefer, I can’t really say for certain. I do enjoy both versions of the band very much and attain different personal feelings from both routes. Our musical & lyrics really have a personal touch to them. They both can be taken in a number of ways, which is one of the things I like most about what we do.

What influences – musical or otherwise – do you bring to Drug Honkey and where does the band as a whole touch base, with regard to common influences? I feel a definite Butthole Surfers circa ‘Locust Abortion Technician’ vibe, that whole ‘drug-fuelled malevolence’ thing, am I right or way off the mark there?

Well, I love atmospheric, spatial and ambient music, so that surely has an influence in our style. So, stuff such as Scorn, Godflesh, Plastikman, and Bill Laswell enter within that realm. I am also into very heavy, dirty and enveloping music, so bands such as Autopsy, Gorguts, & Winter have their influences as well.
The other members have a very wide variety of tastes from punk, to dub, to drum & bass.. The influences are literally endless and at the same time, from nowhere, as we like to think much of our sound is our own..
As for the Butthole Surfers comparison, you are at least the second person that has said that. And while I do like and appreciate them, they aren’t a band that I ever considered being influenced by. Interesting…

Are there any other bands or performers out there that you feel a kinship with?

Hmmm, I think bands such as Ufomammut & Wormphlegm have similar traits to us to an extent, but most of the time we feel like outsiders and we like it like that.

How do you feel about the intrusion of corporate entities such as Scion into the underground scene? For that matter, do you still feel that the ‘underground’ exists?

Actually, I know very little about it. I do know they sponsored a festival in Ohio or something like that. Not sure why a Toyota brand would bother with extreme music other than to make money. Until I know more I cant really give a good opinion, though…
The “underground” definitely still does exist, because there are a bunch of killer bands out there that go unnoticed!! The internet in general, along with Facebook & Myspace make communication so much easier nowadays that one could argue that the “underground” is fading, but you have to remember that along with the “easier” avenues of communication and marketing of your band, also comes a flood of other bands & information that is easy to get lost within.

I totally agree that one of the problems with the easy availability of music and band info now means that the scene does get flooded. I trawl the blogs every day and get sent a lot of promos and whatnot and I really do feel that there simply are too many ‘bands’ around now. The lack of effort it takes to knock out a few tunes via cheap and easy software, and upload ’em online means every chancer around has a go. Sadly it means that some of the diamonds slip by without notice.

I’m glad you see it the same way.. I’ve been working at everything I do since I was a youngster and yes, it seems so many just throw some crap together.

Do you still find MySpace an effective tool for promoting your music, or do you have other ways of getting the bands name around?

Actually, we never do anything on Myspace anymore. We just leave it as it is. It really was a great tool for a few years there, and it definitely helped bands get exposure, but it is basically a ghost town now. It can still be used to reference a bands songs and info but Facebook is much easier to communicate back and forth with. In a perfect world a combination of Facebook & Myspace would make for a great tool!!

How did you hook up with Kunal at Diabolical Conquest?

I contacted Diabolical Conquest webzine about reviewing my other band Morgue Supplier’s 2009 EP “Constant Negative” and Drug Honkey’s “Death Dub”. We received fairly good reviews for both from them. A while later I noticed Kunal’s announcement about the birth of Diabolical Conquest Records. I immediately contacted him about possibly signing Morgue Supplier. He wrote back relatively quickly, expressing his interest in signing Drug Honkey instead…and the rest is history!

Where do you see Drug Honkey progressing to? What are your future plans?

Well, we are working on our new album for Diabolical Conquest Records entitled “Ghost in the Fire” which should be out by late summer if all goes according to plan. It is definitely different than our other material, but each album has been different, while staying in a somehow similar style, so I guess it’s natural. We just do what we do musically, and it is what it is. That may sound cliched, but it is the truth. There is never an agenda. If anything, what I am hearing so far from what we’ve recorded for the new album, it is a bit more accessible than “Death Dub”, but then again maybe it’s not. I really don’t think in that way.
We plan on continuing on the same path musically & playing shows that we feel suit us best. Speaking of which, I’m very excited about our upcoming show with Boston doom freaks ‘Upsidedown Cross’.

Seems like a match made in heaven to me….or somewhere a little hotter.

So, that’s it, I’m all interviewed out I’m afraid. My thanks to you, Paul, for taking the time to do this interview, and I await ‘Ghost In The Fire’ with bated ears.

Thanks again for the great review & the interview. Endless cheers!

More info on Drug Honkey at: Drug Honkey @ Myspace
Interview conducted by Paul Robertson during February 2011.
Used with kind permission fromThe Sleeping Shaman

This album from the crazy mutha’s from Chicago, “Drug Honkey” has been around for a while, over two years actually but an email from Kunal from the Diabolical Conquest label requested a review and I was more than glad to take up the challenge. The band has been together abusing ears and minds everywhere since 1999 and have released some great albums such as the self-titled début in 2002, the Hail Satan album in 2005, 2007’s live album titled Quatro de Mayo and this one titled Death Dub. If you like really ugly, aggressive music that spews forth truck-loads of spiteful sludge, doom with an industrial noise rock edge then Drug Honkey could be “your band”. On the surface Drug Honkey makes some of the most annoying music to ever grace the earth, dig a little deeper though and you uncover one of the most atmospheric and compelling bands around today. The music at first seems like an improvised f..ked up doom meets industrial droning noise but you soon discover how talented each individual is in this band. Each member pushing himself and his instrument to create a new sonic plateau using hideously harsh sounds, crazed samples and chaotic drones.

“My Sins” begins the album with a hellish distorted attack that reeks havoc on the senses but behind the horrific noise is poetic beauty and sure it is ugly and disturbed but it is also mesmerizing in its intensity. The vocals from Paul Gillis is like a mental patient running amok with sickening barks, tortured screams to high-pitched wails. The guitar on the other hand runs the gamut from the sinister and haunting to downright deranged heaviness. The result is a sound that sits somewhere in the middle of Eyehategod and Ufommamut but anymore of a precise comparison would be less than pointless and properly not do Drug Honkey justice. Two songs in and you are steam-rolled by “The Devil Lasts Forever” which is more bass driven than the opener and more of a drug-induced psychedelic meets industrial mind-crusher of a tune. Things get a bit more minimal with the next track titled “Death Threats”, stretched over an oppressive 8 minutes it is sparse and a gloom filled journey with an intense atmospheric quality. “Communion” is the track that sends the album into overdrive however combining psychedelic keyboards with industrial drones. The guitar is chugging but unlike your average Doom Metal chug, something about this is within the realms of space-rock but space-rock has never sounded this intrusive and threatening.

“I Can Not” goes from slow to fast building up atmosphere along the way but there is a more solid groove laid down for this tune but again the guttural vocals gives this a disturbing edge which takes away its only hope of being musically traditional in any shape or form. “”China Black”(Heroin Pt. 2)” is a live track showing that Drug Honkey are no slouches behind their instruments. Recorded at the Double Door in Chicago, they blend in the song “Heroin” from the “Hail Satan” album into a 7 minute wonder of hypnotic, trance-like noise. Next up is cover of Pigface’s “Burundi”, from their 1997 double album “A New High in Low”, Drug Honkey’s version is even better though in my opinion as they turn it into a truly nightmarish piece of music. The album ends with a very short “Who the Fuck” which is nothing more than a one minute dose of noise abuse. “Death Dub” shows that Drug Honkey have more than just one trick up their sleeve as this is a very much varied album blending a lot of styles into one (almost) cohesive package. The only problem I have is the last 3 tracks seem tacked on as filler and it spoils the flow of the album. The loose way they construct and play their songs may put some people off too but there is so much incendiary sludge on this album that it is hard to ignore. For fans of Eyehategod, Yob, Ufommamut and early Godflesh, this album flew under the radar, it’s now time to track this beast down and play it loud……….8.5/10
Drug Honkey @ MySpace
Drug Honkey@Diabolical Conquest Records