Interview to METANOL (Poland)

Hello my friend, pleasure to have you on Rotten Pages ´zine. How are you doing today? Let us set the scene first. Where do we find you right now? Please describe your surroundings.

Hello there, Rotten Pages, FranZ of Metanol speaking for ya! Good to have you guys on the line. It's definitely snowy out there in Piotrków this year, winter is kicking our butts really hard, but we persevere! As always, there is a bunch of drunk people on the streets and a shit ton of nothing to do, so we cannot wait till spring so we can open back our famous Fuckin' Bunker for local metalheads to hear us playing rehearsals and all that good stuff. Overall, a shitty Polish winter landscape as you might expect, likely a novelty for much of American audience, and far from any pizza thrash vibes, but well, what can you do!

For those who are not all that familiar with you yet, could you tell us about the musical background of the band and how you came to work with each other?

We knew each other already for some time beore the idea of a band formed, particularly me and Tomislav had a stint in my previous band - Laggard, also from Piotrków. I was the vocalist and he did some gigs with us as a stage hand. We then met Suwel and even later Basszczak, and as all good metalheads do, we got shitfaced together, partied, and exchanged inspiration. You play one show with a local band, then peole enjoying the same music come round, and eventually you start working together - typical small-town story! Tomislav was always a big Pantera guy (e.g. outro riff from our "Legion Thrashu" is a statement to that). I was mostly inspired by relentlessness and RAW emotional punch of bands such as young 'Tallica and Slayer. Then I discovered our Polish crossover scene… oh boy. What a bunch of crazy asses these people are. Big shoutout to Tester Gier and Tassack - these guys combine humour and break-a-neck thrashery perfectly. So these bands were a HUGE creative fuel for me when we started out. We often make fun of Suwel for being a Power Metal guy… not really a thrash band thing, is it? But that variety of taste also brings some really creative drumming to our songs, as well as narrative, larger-than-life oriented lyric visions, which we all love to do, when writing a story-based track. Finally Igor (Basszczak) is the biggest Death Metal maniac of us all and makes sure we make a run for our money every show with those high tempos and wacky riffs! We sweat like fat pigs when rehearsing his tracks in Bunker, haha! (we'll finally play them one day, promise You, buddy). Overall early on there were definitely a lot of: crossover, thrash, groove and death metal influences in our musical worlds, which we think can be heard all throughout our latest record. We were writing just based off of pure Instinct, not really trying to copy the sound of any particular band, and had great fun putting all these early songs together.

In the already five years the band has existed, you have released only one demo and one debut album. What can you tell us about how was the response from the underground media and the fans to the music you already released?

There was a band hiatus around late 2023 to early 2025, and then at our friends' birthday we just kind of got back together, talked things through and launched our thrash assault all over again, this time with more determination and clearer vision of what we wanted to achieve. Initially some people didn't know what to think of us, name change and all that stuff… we simply never did care that much to write anything "deep" or "meaningful", there was always a lot of alcoholic-partyholic fuckery in our lyrics, because that was the vibe that was super easy and natural to us. Of course, we HAD TO piss off some conservative metalheads when we sprang on a scene like that, and people expected us to be a stone-faced, "serious" band. Let's just say than Polish metal scene isn't exactly super welcoming to anything "pizza thrash" and "humour thrash" oriented. People tend to take our music face value and skip the work we put into riffs just because we seem like a "funny" band. Truth be told, we prefer to look at this as more of a dystopian and grim thing: we basically take the worst of our excessive lifestyles and give it raw to the audience, no sugar-coating allowed. Even our current band name suggests something lethal, poisonous, adn that's exactly what being brought up in a small town neighbourhood will do for ya. There are also many people who lean into this vibe along with us, though, and that's very encouraging, of course. We caught the attention of Polish music media, some even making fun of our "high school" vibe, but we just take it as a free promotion, thank you very much! Releasing "Boys From The Thrash Can" is huge for us because people can finally see that aside from cheeky lyrics, we're also putting in the muscle to those fine thrashy chops and interesting compositions. "Legion Thrashu" was and early show of the chaos we're aiming to spread on the Polish scene, but BFtTC is definitely a more refined product, a full-on journey into our reality as young people.

Can you briefly inform us about the overall lyrical theme of the songs?

Speaking about "Boys From The Thrash Can" exclusively, it's just a full-on coverage of events from Piotrkovian front that occured somewhere between 2020 and 2023. Basically "The Best of Stupid shit that we did when we were around 20 - compilation". So you'll find stories about our drummer pissing in the sink, as well as running away from the cops in my old ride (nickenamed "Rakieta") and many more. I think every thrash squad of each city around the world has many of these stories to tell, and that's what we bet our money on with these lyrics. Basically autobiographical, but always with a little grain of salt and lots of laid-back attitude that we feel like our home scene could very much benefit from.

So as a band that plays thrash metal (or “Vulgar Thrash” as you call it), which are the major bands that had an influence on your music? And do you prefer European or American thrash metal bands?

Ah, yes, Vulgar Thrash it is indeed! We like that name, it encompasses both Pantera influences and just a general vibe of all our lyrics. Step aside, bands who put one f-bomb in their entire album, WE will show you guys how it's done! We feel like the vulgar language is yet another weapon that we like to use in excess to bring even more shock value to our style, and if anything we'll only crank that up in later releases. As mentioned in reponse to musical influences, there's definitely Pantera, Slayer, Metallica and Polish crossover scene to talk about here, but we can't forget the Godfathers of the genre - Acid Drinkers and D.R.I.! (we play "Abduction" live as often as we can). Some more unusual influences include Suwel' power metal (forgive me oh mighty Lord Suwel, for I do not know the name of your poser-ass bands, with all the love Brother!) and Tomek's love for classic hard rock and blues guitar! Basically entire "Twój Stary" (last track on BFtTC) is a love letter to a classic blues sound. Acid Drinkers loved to utilize swing and blues in their crazy-ass Thrash, so we're very much following in the steppes of our Legends here, not to mention the overall gangsta attitude of Titus & the Gang. Municipal Waste is also a big one, just for the sake of how batshit crazy their overall appearance and shows are. As for me & Igor, we love slamming some good old school Cannibal Corpse, or even Chimaira and Decapitated, when our other guys aren't around to complain, haha (that's also where our love for breakdowns stems from).

Musically, your music is packed with magnific riffs and some very speedy guitar work. How do you go about picking and creating the guitar parts for each song?

Thanx! Riff's gotta sit right with the groove that we have in mind, and carry the musical idea for a song. If the riff doesn't slap, we ain't working on that song. We're very anti bullshiting-our-way-through-some-basic-riffs kind of guys, so we can be very picky and critical before we choose the final variation of the riff that we like. We also don't like to just sit on one riff for too long - every song requires variety to flow smoothly. For me, rhythm guitar has to work almost perfectly with drum parts, with some additional room for occasional madness. I often have a percussion pattern ready in my head before i even start chopping down on the guitar (as was the case with verse and breakdown riff of "Trve Chad"). Also, having some melody in guitar parts is a big one for us. Not just any melody, but something that the listener will hold on to when they finished listening. When we have good melody, Tomislav often backs it up with a nice harmony or even layers a melody of his own on the basic structure of a rhythm guitar work. We think in layers a lot, try to add and take when necessary, so that might be one of the reasons why riffs don't feel boring. That attention to composition might be not very crossover-like, but we sure enjoy a good structure. That is not to say we won't break it apart in later releases. Igor especially is a big fan of caveman-style bashing when necessary, and to great effect at that! Sometimes you just have to hit that 000 into oblivion when the rythm hits just right!

How do you record your music? Are you self taught or do you have a friend that helps out with the mixes etc?

Tomislav is on his way to finish his Audio Engineering degree (given his excessive lifestyle, we think he sold his soul to Satan to give him that paper but whatever), so we have a solid techincal mind on our team. Music wise, two of us, me and Igor, have music school background and Tomislav also attended guitar classes for many years, hence the great work on the solos. Having a guy on Audio Engineering university is nice, cause we can work with lots of talented people as well. Olek Pietras, Tomek's friend from uni, is definitely an unsung hero for us, putting in many hours to mix and master our debut to our liking. Recordings we did in various places, most notably we recorded the drum parts in Witek Nowak's very own Bourbon Ranch studio (cheers Witek, we still remember that epic jacuzzi & whiskey party after recording session!), and some parts such as backing vocals we did ourselves in Fuckin' Bunker, with our friends coming along for some additional screams and other unhinged sounds. Recording this album was a hella good time and we feel blessed with how many creativa and capable people we have around, truly a great feeling to work with them.

What is your opinion about the Polish thrash and metal scene in general? Do you think the scene is more active than it was before?

Polish Thrash scene was sprawling with creativity in the 90s with the return of mighty KAT and the rise of Acid Drinkers, and has since been in decline. This is now slowly changing, thanks to the resurging popularity of these old Giants of Polish and European/American Thrash among youngsters. We see the scene exploring new territories and branching away from traditional thrash sound, which is a net positive for us, cause we're very much not a conservative, traditional metal band. Technical thashers Species from Warsaw are doing Gods' work to launch our scene to the West, their latest album is an absolute bomb and proof that we can have nice things in Poland too. That space-themed sound paints a beautiful picture that can be compared to Vektor, but also with some technical death punches reminiscent of Death and Atheist, a real bomshell of an album (playing as a three piece no less, Rush style baby!). Last few years have been overall good for thrash, but not many bands stood the test of time. There aren't that many artists who consistently put on quality shows over the years. I definitely have to mention Lucy from Tassack here, the man has been putting in massive work to keep his band afloat for the better part of the last 10 years, and you can see that he managed to establish his crazy band as an actual force to be reckoned with, making collabs with legendary underground 90s rappers and all that good stuff. Also, a big shoutout to our forver friends from Mind Enslaver and Depths of Hell - Krakovian and Silesian Thrash metal hordes, both being consistently great but sadly still in the deep underground, we hope to see them play big stages soon enough!

What in your opinion is the difference between old school thrash (first & second wave), “old school” thrash (the revival) and modern thrash (the rest)?

From our perspective, the KAT effect is a massive thing here in Poland. They're the symbol of what kvlt thrash sound should be, which also has its drawbacks. It's interesting because taking our polish bands into account, we really have a different understanding of what particular "waves" of thrash are. As mentioned before, traditionally our thrash began with our national treasure - KAT in late 80s, so you could call that our "First Wave". Raw production, screeching guitars and occult lyrics, that's what early thrash in Poland was all about. The "revival" movement is very much focused on directly copying that vibe, to a varying degree of success, which we aren't exactly fans of. We're still massive followers of Roman kostrzewski's legacy (Me & Tomek attended his last ever concert with KAT & RK), but we feel like creating "new" legacy bands in the vein of old KAT is cheap solution and basically just a nostalgia ripoff. Even those 80s-styled outfits that some bands propose are kinda ridiculous tbh. We prefer to keep it simple and to the point, no dressing up as children of communism, just being ourselves - young metalheads with some craziness attached. So yeah, we're very much not against any creative & fresh directions that new bands take in this modern thrash movement. E.g. Diving Stove from Warsaw went as far as to include some post-punk influences in their otherwise thrashy "Atavism" released last year, and we're not backing down from making more creative choices ourselves. Just listen to "Sprinter" or "Twój Stary" and you'll definitely hear we're aiming for something more here than just copying old-school thrash sound.

How is the mood in Piotrków these days concerning cooperation between musicians and the relationship between musicians and audience?

Great question! Piotrków is not a very big city (around 70 thousand inhabitants) so naturally the Scene is basically one big, interlocking organism. One musician often plays in two or more bands simultaneously, and that creates a nice dense atmosphere of cooperation and a lil bit of sport rivalry. Like good punk-thrashers that we are, we love D.Y.I. movements, often organizing local concerts ourselves at our Bunker or in some local pub. When one person starts making new music, they immediately get sucked into the Scene - it's just as natural as hobos getting drunk on a railway station here at saturday evening! We can definitely proudly say that we put a lot of effort to inspire and give sign for others to move their butts and start creating something new. We have seen over the last few years emergence of some really nice bands, such as alt-rockers/metaleads Aporia (our Suwel being suspiciously similar to their drummer), a one man solo effort of our friend Kazu - DSBM project Error, and an epic Beatles-core 60's rock girlsband Archidea! (all the bands are available to check out on Spotify). We constantly hear of a need for new places to play music in and people talking about their new ideas and starting new bands and projects when we meet up at gigs, and that's very uplifting. Scene is definitely bigger and more vibrant than 5 years ago and we hope it grows well and strong!

If you could go over your whole musical career and pin point the events that you are most proud of what would they be?

Oh man, we'd have to probably become sober to remember those! For real though, last year was an absolute blast and definitely the busiest we have ever been. 15 shows played overall, our very first open air performance at Moto Fest Ciechanów (cheers to all the bikers who welcomed us generously), the long awaited day of our first record's premiere (26th of September), and of course a 2-gig stint alongside parody metalheads Tvoyastara of Death (loosely translated to Ur Mom of Death), playing for over 200 people per gig is definitely no small thing for us, and we hope for our audience to only keep growing, going into 2026.

So, what’s coming out next? Anything you want to divulge from the vault of your future plans?

Expect even more grim and dystopian topics being explored, more rage and angst in the lyrics, and even more srtaight-from-the-gutter vibes. We'll give it to you raw and nasty and smelly of the week-long booze parties and existentialism. We're definitely not confining ourselves to being humour-based party band, but this sort of lifestyle and its consequences will continue to be ou main source of inspo. There are singles on the blueprint waiting to be recorded next, and you might be surprised at a musical direction that we'll take with these, so deifinitely stay alert!

We have reached the end of our conversation, is there something that you want to say still?

We're super glad our music has reached American audience, and we hope to always deliver the raw emotion and thrills to your ears! We probably won't "come to Brazil" any time soon, but we love you thrash maniacs to moon and back, and will definitely keep you supplied with thrash madness for many years to come! Cheers from Poland and JEBAĆ HAMULEC!

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