Blood, guts and burning bodies with Boris The Blade

Boris The Blade promo image

Melbourne mosh merchants Boris The Blade recently unleashed their second album Warpath onto the world and Metal Hammer is premiering the official video for Nihilist. Full of the bloody gore we’ve grown accustomed to from the Down Under deathcore lot, it’s a solid slab of savagery to snap your neck in two. But why all the corpses? And where does this aggression come from? To find out, we caught up with frontman Daniel Sharp for a quick chat.

What is the story behind the song Nihilst?

“The song is inspired by the time in my life when my parents separated leaving me feeling miserable and nothing more than a bastard child.”

What inspired the gory video?

“I wanted to have the band involved in creating the dark atmosphere the music portrays. Our first thought was the film clip for Korn’s A.D.I.D.A.S. where they are dead in a car accident.”

Your previous video for Warpath was also filled with blood and guts, do you have a special interest in human innards?

“We really just wanted the visual aspects of the clip to reflect the music we created; death, gore and horror portrayed these emotions perfectly.”

How did it feel setting fire to bodies hanging from a tree?

“Lighting the corpses was definitely the highlight of shooting. We had one take for it all to go to plan so the pressure was on to get it right.”

Do you worry that gore is a cliché in metal now?

“We couldn’t give a fuck what’s cliché or not, I have always had a passion for horror films and now we get the chance to create them to our music. The video was shot next door to the farm house I was raised in by my mother during my troubled teens, which made the experience of shooting at this location so much more powerful and personal.”

Your new album features some of the biggest names in deathcore on guest vocals, what was it like bringing other people into Boris The Blade’s world?

“Having these guys feature on the album was not just a choice of featuring a high-profile vocalist, I chose the songs they featured on for a reason. CJ (McMahon, Thy Art Is Murder) is one of my closest friends who helped me though my darkest days when it came to relationships and heartache, hence why he was chosen for the Misery chorus. Scott (Lewis, Carnifex) and Tim (Goergen, Within The Ruins) and I discussed our past while on tours together, gaining an understanding of each other as friends in similar inner-battles determined which songs I wanted them to feature on.”

Boris The Blade’s latest album Warpath is out now, via Siege Music.

Luke Morton joined Metal Hammer as Online Editor in 2014, having previously worked as News Editor at popular (but now sadly defunct) alternative lifestyle magazine, Front. As well as helming the Metal Hammer website for the four years that followed, Luke also helped relaunch the Metal Hammer podcast in early 2018, producing, scripting and presenting the relaunched show during its early days. He also wrote regular features for the magazine, including a 2018 cover feature for his very favourite band in the world, Slipknot, discussing their turbulent 2008 album, All Hope Is Gone.