Exclusive Interview with the band The Animal Warfare Act

 1- Hello and welcome to Metal Music News and Interviews. Our readers are excited to get to know you and your band. Could you give us a brief description of the group?  Where is the band from?

Corndog: Hey everyone I’m Corndog, I play drums for the band. We are a horror metal band originally from the Yukon, but we are now based in Toronto. The band consists of me and my older brother, We’ve been playing together as The Animal Warfare Act since 2018, but individually we’ve both played music since we were like four. 

Hopskotch: I’m Hopskotch, guitarist and vocalist. I was in a lot of bands as a teenager, but The Animal Warfare Act is definitely the band I always wanted to be in. We’ve released a couple DIY albums but are in the studio a lot these days working on some more professionally made releases. We’ll be dropping a whole bunch of new music over the next year or so. Our sound is mostly a nu-metal/metalcore hybrid and we get all theatrical with it too. 

2- "Another Prayer" is the band's upcoming single. How long did it take to compose and record it?

Hopskotch: I wrote the song in a day based off the chorus hook and thought it was a bit clunky and awkward. When I brought it to practice and we played it together, we realized it could be our best song yet. We couldn’t wait to play it live, so we did that a few times to sort of workshop it onstage. The final form is quite different than what it was at first, so I’m glad we did that. It drops everywhere September 15!

Corndog: Once we started playing it we got it down pretty fast and had it show-ready maybe a few months after first playing it. The title definitely addresses the religious concept the song is based off of but secretly it’s not actually about Jesus lol. To be honest it’s just a fun little silly tune we love to shred.

 3- What musical influences inspire the band's compositions? 

Corndog: Honestly, I find myself inspired by so many bands and even genres lately. Like I’m a huge Swiftie and I think Hopkscotch and I both try to incorporate a lot of catchy pop-feeling melodies into our music. I’d say right now the new songs we’re working on are heavily inspired by Slipknot, Motionless in White, and Bullet for My Valentine.

Hopskotch: Musically, I try and take inspiration from everything I listen to, which isn’t just metal—like Corndog said, we both pay attention to a lot of pop. I think a lot of modern pop is pulling from so many different genres too, which is exciting. But above all, I’ll always be a nu-metal guy. Slipknot, Korn, Mudvayne, and Kittie are always gonna be the big ones for me.

  

4- Can you tell us how did the members all meet?

Corndog: We met on day one of my life when I was a stupid baby that didn’t know shit.

Hopskotch: When I was like three, my parents brought home this stupid little baby. I wasn’t too interested because I had action figures to play with and stuff, but I thought maybe when the baby stopped crying and sh*tt*ng himself all the time, maybe we could start a band. That never happened, but we formed the band anyway. 

5- The new song title is "Another Prayer". Tell us the details about the content and a more in-depth meaning to this title?

Hopskotch: The song follows a narrator who is grappling with the idea that the faith they’ve been raised with is not going to offer a solution to the mental health issues they’ve been I am experiencing. think a lot of people who are raised religious are told to turn to god with whatever problems they are facing, but that doesn’t work for everyone. 

6- Are the current members of this band part of another band or project? Or is everyone dedicated solely to the group? How do you maintain a good balance working together?

Corndog: We are both in this other band called Royal Disturbance which is literally just us but terrible. But in terms of TAWA I’m dedicated to this for life I have the name tatted across my entire chest so.

Hopskotch: The band is just the two of us, and we work with session bassists for our live shows for now. I don’t want to do anything else with my life and I’m dedicated to this band. All my savings right now are going into making new music and videos and stuff, so if this band fails, I’ll be SOL. The way I see it, I’ve failed at pretty much everything else; I can’t afford to fail at this. 

7- Have you performed any shows in your area? If so, how receptive and supportive are the people of your music?

Corndog: We perform a lot of shows in our area and we’re slowly moving up the food chain getting bigger and better shows/opportunities. We’ve got a great team of people we work with, and the best fan base we could ask for. Everyone who knows us love us, and those who don’t love us we don’t care about them.

Hopskotch: It’s been wild to see how into this band people are getting. We’re amassing our own little cult following here in Toronto, and if people here are this psyched about what we’re doing when we’re just a little bar band, I know it can go a lot further. The last show we played, I could barely hear my own vocals because of the crowd singing.

8- Are there any upcoming shows or tours you can tell us about?

Corndog: We’ve got a lot of great shows to be excited about. In October we are playing at a venue here called the Rockpile which is pretty legendary and will be the biggest venue we’ve played yet which is super sick. But yeah, we’ve also got this other one in October that’s a festival and we are headlining one of the days which I’m totally pumped for too. Other than that, we’ve got some pretty exciting stuff to come in the new year that’s currently still in the making.

9- Thanks for your participation. Finally, what is the best way to get a hold of the group just in case someone wants to book or promote the band? Any final words?

Hopskotch: I’m 24 so the best way is Instagram. We’re just instagram/theanimalwarfareact there and pretty much everywhere else, though. The band email is theanimalwarfareact@gmail.com. Some people got mad that we took a stand against transphobia and backed out of a show after the organizers made some super shitty public remarks on Twitter, so they signed the email up for a whole bunch of gay newsletters which I honestly thought was really funny. Maybe don’t do that, but if you need to get a hold of us there, you can. 

Corndog: Listen to our music so we can afford rent.

Hopskotch: Thanks for having us and thanks for promoting metal

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