Label: Nuclear Blast.
Latest Album: Electrified Brain.
Municipal Waste Tour Info.
Thrash metal crossover band, Municipal Waste, last graced our wide brown land with their presence in 2013. So finally, they’re back to wreak havoc, and pummel eardrums, now with a couple more albums under their bullet belts to add to their sonic artillery. Those uninitiated with the Municipal Waste live experience are in for a steep learning curve. They will deliver high energy, fast paced thrash metal, with tongues planted firmly in their cheeks. Their music, and sense of humour is about as subtle as the proverbial flying brick, and so, knowing that only too well, we very recently discussed their upcoming tour with long serving drummer, Dave Witte.
Stroppy Baby: Municipal Waste are returning to Australia, finally, after around ten years.
Dave Witte: Yeah, it’s been a minute. We’re real excited to come back. It’s been on the
list for a minute. We had a couple records in between, so we’re excited to come back.
SB: Presumably this means the set list is going to be more varied for this upcoming visit.
DW: Yeah, we have all kinds of stuff, and then, Waste ‘Em All got reissued [in 2023, on Nuclear Blast], so we’ve been playing that stuff, too. I think all eras of a Waste fan will be satisfied.
SB: Do you find revising the older material, such as from Waste ‘Em All, have the live versions have gotten faster?
DW: Yeah, I’m guilty of playing too fast all the time. It’s my cross to bear. The push and pull feels natural to me, but sometimes I will go back and listen to the stuff and say, ‘Man, we’re playing way faster than the record here,’ and I’m so caught up in it that I don’t realise it at the time. But also, I’ll go back and listen to some of the records, and some of the parts were playing slower because they’re super-fast on the album.
SB: Are the band members following your snare or kick drum?
DW: Everybody has their own thing; one guy follows the hi-hats, one guy follows the snare, the other likes the kick [drum]. We always use stage monitors. No one’s on in-ears.
SB: Right. So that means so you’ve got different setups across the stage? You need snare here; you need kick in this one.
DW: Our soundchecks are pretty good. The guy we use all the time, Mark Burr, is a super wizard. We love him so much. He makes things much easier for us, and he gets it all dialled in, and our soundtracks are pretty quick.
SB: How have your blast beats developed over the years?
DW: I’m not doing as many, that’s for sure. In my early days, I did way more. Municipal Waste isn’t really a blast beat band, but Phil [Hall – Municipal Waste bassist] and I have this project we’ve been doing for the last couple years called Morbikon [blackened death metal band], and there are some blasts in there. I’ve been sneaking them in.
SB: How many bands are you in these days?
DW: There’s only, like, four.
SB: Only four? Wow.
DW: Yeah. I was explaining that someone the other day, like, just from the beginning, I’ve been guilty of being in two bands. I’ve never been in one band at the time. Right from the beginning, it was two bands.
SB: Well, Ryan [Municipal Waste – co-guitarist] with BAT [bassist and vocalist] doesn’t regard that band as a project. For him, that’s another band.
DW: Yeah, and the band is great. I just saw them not long ago. They were killer.
SB: If your drumming’s getting faster, you must be exhausted by the end of each set.
DW: No, not really. I guess I’m conditioned; it’s like being an athlete. Stay in shape. I’m relearning how to play right now, too, which is a whole other thing. I’m retraining my calves and having a different approach, so there is less wear and tear on my body.
SB: Fair enough. There’s a lot of death metal drummers who also take up jogging. I would have thought that they’d get enough exercise just by drumming alone.
DW: Yeah, you do, but you need to really work on the other parts of your body, like the stuff that you’re not using. When you’re using the same muscle groups over and over again, you’re more prone to atrophy, it leads to more problems and all that stuff. So, if you balance it out and work out the other stuff, you’re less prone to injury.
SB: You don’t use triggers at all, I gather Ryan would not be pleased if you did.
DW: No, no, I haven’t used triggers. I never have, ever, with all of the stuff I did. I understand why people do. Years ago, when I was in the blast beat race back in the nineties, I was like, ‘No way, I’ll never do that!’ I was so anti trigger. But I understand it now, how works for people, and how people use it. I’m not as critical anymore, but, no, I’ve never used them.
SB: It has sort of crept into metal nowadays where it’s pretty much everywhere.
DW: Yeah, I mean, it makes sense for some people. If you’re playing at a million miles an hour the whole time and you don’t have any dynamic or anything like that, the trigger makes a lot of sense. It accents everything where you can, you know, it makes it definable, I guess.
SB: Ultimately, your drumming should be consistent enough to get that full attack.
DW: Yeah, but it’s a different game these days. These guys are just using fingers and it’s so weird, such minimal effort. So, the strokes aren’t as hard, so the trigger is kind of making up for that. It’s a weird thing. But I don’t mock anybody for anyone’s approach.
SB: No, I understand that. Drummer Stewart Copeland was recently saying that the traditional way of playing drums allows him to get as much power as he wants from a snare hit, just by virtue of how he uses his wrist and his elbow.
DW: Yeah, he’s great, there’s no denying that. He’s got so much, tremendous power. The wrist, for him, I think he uses traditional where he holds one stick to the side.
SB: A lot of metal drummer don’t tend to play drums that way.
DW: Sometimes it’s difficult to move around. If you’re using match grip, it’s way easier to move around, and learning traditional grip and developing that technique is way harder. To get everything to work that way, it’s a lot more work.
SB: For the last album, Electrified Brain, you worked with producer [and multi-instrumentalist] Arthur Rizk, who then worked with BAT. Presumably he doesn’t push the band too hard.
DW: He’s great, he offered suggestions when we needed it. He let us do what we wanted, and we’ve been doing this so long, we pretty much know what we don’t want to do, so we have it down, and he didn’t really fuck with anything. We just went through him, and we would go through the songs a few times each, just in case I wanted to swap something out. Then he would say, ‘Oh, maybe try this here.’ But he was pretty hands off, and he did what he does best, and made us sound great as a band, just on his end.
SB: You’re producing yourselves, to some degree?
DW: Somewhat, but he came in and did things we could have never done on our own, that’s for sure. He’s highly talented, he’s extremely laid back and very easy to work with. I was really comfortable with him. The whole session was really smooth. I can’t wait to do the next album with him.
SB: Live sound technology has moved so quickly where not all drummers need side stage monitors. But there is a risk for drummer’s ears to cop a beating during live shows. How’s your hearing going?
DW: It’s fine, it’s not bad, you know, I think I fried my eardrums early on when I was drumming for Melt-Banana. Like his [Ichiro Agata – guitarist] guitar; he used his Sunn Beta Lead [loud amplifier]. It was so trebly, and with so much high end, it felt like razor blades in my ears. I started wearing earplugs after that. I do have tinnitus. My ears ring all day long. But, you know, I have no problem picking stuff out in a mix and, you know, listening to things. I don’t have to say that many times. I do sometimes, not all the time, you know. It is not the best, but it’s not the worst either. A couple of guys I’ve played with over the years always complain that the China cymbal is the one that does them in the most.
SB: Indeed, it would. Cymbals are quite expensive these days, so I gather you avoid smashing them, like wrecking them.
DW: They’ve always been expensive, not just these days. You know what? I have good luck with cymbals, and I’m Paiste endorser, and they’re very good to me. I’m very fortunate, I say the same thing to everybody as they always answer my email or my call when I’m in need. They have such a huge roster, with so many talented and successful people, and they still have time for me, which I really appreciate. I love the cymbals. I’ve been buying them for decades now, and so I’m really happy to be a part of that team. I do whack those symbols really hard. I’m a pretty dynamic player, so I really lay into them as hard as I can at some points, and they really last for me. I’ll go a year or two without breaking one.
SB: Have you found when you’ve played festivals there can be an in-house kit, and you just have to modify a few bits and pieces to accommodate for your set needs?
DW: Yeah, man, I used to have the hardest time in a world with stuff like that, and then I got over it. Funny thing, I wound up writing an article for Modern Drummer years ago because I just learned how to adapt, address and adjust. Years ago, I was like, ‘Oh, I can’t play, I can’t play. I don’t have the right parts; I don’t have enough pieces.’ Then I realised, ‘Oh, that’s not true. I can just change this part, and no one will really care, and the song will be fine. It’s just a drum fill that will be different.’ So, I just talk myself out of my own head, and then I’m able to play on anything now.
SB: Presumably with drumming, there’s an element of attitude to get through as well.
DW: Yeah, as long as the song is intact, you know, no one’s going to care if you do a three-count roll, or a four-count roll. As long as it doesn’t fuck the song up, I think it’s good in my head.
SB: Where is the snare positioned for your kit? Do you generally have the snare close being between your legs?
DW: No, not that, I sit pretty far back. A lot of the guys I know are right on top of it, and it’s right between their legs and so it’s really close. I kind of sit back so I have a lot of room. That way, I can really lean into it and hit it if I want to do so.
SB: Municipal Waste has a sense of humour. That comedic aspect is entertaining.
DW: Yeah, we like to have fun. We’re not too serious.
SB: A song title such as “Paranormal Janitor”, is funny, but has some comedic insight, and people respond differently.
DW: Well, that’s the best thing about it. You can take it how you want, and you can create your own little journey through the song title and the lyrics. You know, there’s a story there, like, with horror movies, science fiction, and monsters, stuff like that. But you can always look at it a different way and have your own little story within.
SB: If you try to do a serious song, given the punk rock ethic, does it get taken properly?
DW: We don’t really think about that. We love what we do, and we’re happy to do what we do. It’s so funny because we have this long running joke; ‘We do what we do, we play what we play,’ it’s a little old inside joke. But when people ask us to describe what we do, we’ll say, ‘well, we play what we play.’ It’s kind of funny. But at the same time, I don’t think we’re really too worried about that. I mean, if you don’t get the joke, that’s on you. You know what I mean?
SB: Yeah, I do. Speaking of different things, in the Electrified Brain title track, not long after the lead guitar solos, there is a half time rhythm figure interlude.
DW: Oh, at the end. Yeah, that’s my favourite part.
SB: It just works really well, and it’s a little bit Black Sabbath styled.
DW: Yeah, you’ve got to learn how to let it breathe, and let it rock every now and then. We’re pretty frantic in general.
SB: Doing that kind of stuff gives you a bit of live dynamics and gives you a bit of a break.
DW: Yeah, everybody in the band are hard rock and heavy metal fans, especially Ryan. So that stuff has been creeping its way into our sound a little bit more, certainly for the last couple of records, and it’s refreshing to have that element in the band, for sure.
SB: A full live set of just smashing through it, you’d all get pretty tired, very quickly.
DW: Yeah, and not only that, but you also get bored. Ha-ha, you can only make the same record so many times, you know?
HM: AC/DC have perfected that artform.
DW: Well, they’re the greatest band on Earth, so they can do whatever the hell they want.
SB: True. But when you’re going into those sorts of half-time parts, does that involve a lot of rehearsal or is it just natural to the band at this point?
DW: It’s just natural, and it just comes out. I mean, it’s always been there, but we just play it many more times now. You know, back in the day was like, ‘Oh, here it comes, and then it’s gone.’ Now we ride it out a little bit more.
SB: You’ll be putting together drum and session charts next.
DW: Ha, it’s fun to play rock beats. I really like it a lot.
SB: Sure, most definitely. You’ve done a lot of tours with bands from all sorts of genres. Is there a particular one that stands out over the years, like maybe playing with Destruction or At the Gates?
DW: Man, we’ve toured with At the Gates a few times, and they’re the best guys ever. We really love them. We toured with Exodus a few times and we really love them, too. Early in the beginning, we toured with so many times with Annihilation Time [Californian punk band], which we were really stoked on. And I think the band we’ve toured with the most, well, I mean, we’ve had done a few tours with Sick of It All and Napalm Death. We love all those guys, too. They’re all our good friends. But I think the band that we tour with the most is our homies, Toxic Holocaust. Out of all the years, I think we’ve gone on the road with them the most.
SB: Evidently both your band and theirs has a mutual love of Anthrax and S.O.D.
DW: Yeah, we’re all on the same page, guaranteed, for sure, and we love those dudes. Joel [Grind – Toxic Holocaust bassist and front man] is the Man. Joel and I share the same birthday.
SB: When people talk about the big four of thrash it is overlooked that Anthrax and Slayer was very different to the way that Megadeth and Metallica were approaching things. It was almost like these two different branches of thrash.
DW: Oh, no doubt, for sure. Yeah. Everyone had their own thing, and none of those bands sound like each other. You hear them and you immediately know who they are. There’s no question.
SB: So, what’s your recollection of when you joined Municipal Waste, and how much of an influence Anthrax was to your sound?
DW: Man, it was a big, big part of it. All that stuff. The funny thing is, I always wanted to be in a thrash band. I loved crossover and thrash, but I never really found the people to play it with in New Jersey. So, when I moved down to Virginia, I had seen Municipal Waste before that, and I fell in love with them. I was like, ‘Oh, man, this band’s so good. It’s like everything I love from the stuff growing up, and they’re nailing it.’ Then I moved down there and next thing you know, they needed a drummer, so I just joined up. I went out and did a weekend with them and had the time of my life. It was so much fun. So, it was really easy to join that band.
SB: It’s curious that there was seemingly nothing in New Jersey. Is it just a different scene?
DW: There was, but I just didn’t know the people, you know. All my friends wanted to do different stuff.
SB: What track on Electrified Brain are you most proud of at this point?
DW: I really like “Demoralizer”, and we play that. The funny thing is that was a song from 2014 that we had laying around that we didn’t like. We never really, I don’t know, it didn’t really work. We didn’t have the right parts for it. So, then we decided to pull it back up and finish it. I think it turned out really great. Finally, we had that one part that – we couldn’t figure it out years ago. Yeah, that one sat around for a long time. I always thought it was good, and I always thought it could be great. So, I’m happy we decided to give it another go.
SB: Certainly, and there were guest musicians on the last album too.
DW: Blaine [Cook – guest vocals] from the The Accüsed A.D. sang on “The Bite”, and then we had Barney [Greenway – guest vocals] from Napalm Death on “Putting on Errors”. I really love that song.
SB: So, when a well-established guest, like Barney Greenway comes in, I gather there’s no need to guide their performance?
DW: Oh, I’m pretty sure Ryan and Tony [Foresta – lead vocals] handles that, because he’s the vocalist, and Ryan sings too. But I’m pretty sure those guys go, ‘Hey, here’s the part where we want you to do your thing,’ and then they give them the lyric and they just let them do it their way because that’s the whole reason we want them. What they do is why we want that part of them on the record.
SB: How would you say the songwriting process has changed over the years?
DW: It’s all over [the place], now that we have Nick [Poulos – co-guitarist] he joined the band, so we became a five piece in 2017. You know, we would all just get in a room together, and now we just go in. Sometimes it’s all of us together, but Phil and I will go in on our own and write a whole bunch of stuff. Then Ryan and I will go in, and then Nick and I will go in, and those guys will get together to write riffs together. So, then they’ll come in and have ideas. or riffs for the skeletons of the song, and then we’ll add drums and bass to make it into a song. So, it’s kind of varied.
SB: Municipal Waste have had two cover stories with Decibel magazine. That’s pretty good.
DW: Yeah, that was cool. I love the magazine. Albert [Mudrain – editor] is an old, close friend. I used to stay at his house with my old band when we were on tour. I’ve known him for a long time, so the magazine’s great. I’m really happy for him, and it’s an honour for us to make the cover twice.
SB: One of the best things about it is the little vinyl exclusive aka sound page.
DW: Yeah, you know what? We did a track titled “Religion Proof” [B-side from 2012 release The Fatal Feast]. That might be my favourite song that we’ve done. That song didn’t make it to The Fatal Feast for some reason, but I really like that song a lot. [https://www.decibelmagazine.com/2019/01/30/the-top-20-decibel-flexis-of-all-time-for-now/]
SB: The artwork on your album covers lends itself to the vinyl format, to take it in.
DW: Yeah, especially on the last one, Electrified Brain. James Bousema nailed that one. We loved the last album cover so much. We were so psyched when we got that and those guys gave him, direction and idea, but man, he really nailed it. He’s such a nice, talented guy.
SB: It makes perfect sense that previously one of your film clips included working with Troma Entertainment, best known for The Toxic Avenger films.
DW: Yeah. We did a video with them a long time ago for “Headbanger Face Rip” [The Art of Partying]. That was fun. Yeah, [Sgt.] Kabukiman was up in there, too.
SB: Thanks for your time, we will see you in Australia this week.
DW: Oh, yeah. If you’re coming out to the gig, we’ll have a Coopers.