If there was a ‘Hardest Working Band in Atlanta’ award, it would be difficult to find another group more deserving of winning than Lazer/Wulf. Fresh off of last month’s East Coast tour, the Pat Stone benefit at the Earl, and last week’s Daikaiju show in Athens, the experimental metal trio will perform at Slaughter Que on Saturday. Anyone familiar with Lazer/Wulf can speak to their genre-bending dynamic and technical wizardry, their chaotic compositions and exuberant live sets. In a day full of some of the city’s best metal acts, Lazer/Wulf is band you won’t want to miss.
I had the pleasure of hanging out with guitarist and vocalist Bryan Aiken to talk about the group’s overall legacy and his perspective on the Atlanta metal scene. Lazer/Wulf will headline the main stage at Slaughter Que, Atlanta’s largest local metal festival. Featuring 16 bands across 2 stages, the all day event boasts not only a boatload of beer and BBQ, but also a carnival midway with classic carnival games, a full freak show, and an assortment of sideshow performances including sword swallowing, fire breathing, juggling, a contortionist, aerial acrobatics, street magicians, and stilt walkers. The festivities kick off at noon.
Would you consider yourselves veterans of the Atlanta music scene? What does that mean to you and has your status in Atlanta changed much since coming from Athens?
I grew up here and I consider Atlanta to be “my city,” especially the more we get to travel. But I think to be a veteran of a community, you have to have an understanding of it that allows you to see patterns and predict changes; but the beauty of Atlanta, and Athens absolutely as well, is that these scenes change so often and so drastically that they stay unpredictable. New local bands keep coming along with exciting ideas, either snowballing off the last, or deliberately subverting them. And with so many genres at play in this city — metal, folk, hip-hop and beyond — not to mention all the other art forms that thrive here, it’s impossible to feel like you have a foothold on what it’s about to offer you. That’s massively exciting to me, all the time.
Do you ever miss Athens? What was the scene like when you first got started in the city?
We really don’t let ourselves get a chance to miss Athens [laughs]. And I hope we never do — that’s where we met and formed and became adults and artists, so that’s the home of Lazer/Wulf, if not of any of its members at this point. That being said, I’m still in a few bands based out of Athens, so I spend a few nights a week over there. It’s still a huge part of my life, personally and musically. But the house parties there are where we came from, the understanding that experimental or heady or wildly dynamic music can still be fun and rowdy and kick holes in your couch and bite you if you’re not on guard. That’s the Athens that inspired us to start Lazer/Wulf to begin with, and that identity will never leave us.
Courtesy of Lazer/Wulf
What makes Atlanta such a great city for all things noise, metal, punk, etc.? Is such a cohesive and dedicated metal community unique to Atlanta, or have y’all noticed similar trends in other cities?
Atlanta has an awesome family aspect to it; I’ve never lived in another state, and I’m from Atlanta — Decatur specifically — but I believe there’s a Southern aspect to our metal and punk community that wouldn’t exist elsewhere. The dudes here all hug [laughs]. That’s just not the case outside of the South. There’s so much love and support here, for each other personally but also for the arts in general, and I’ve seen amazing examples of artists helping each other through unbelievably rough times.
And none of the bands in this city even sound alike to me, so it’s not genre allegiance or scene exclusivity, y’know? There’s not an easily defined “Atlanta sound” that has become the password to a preferential group. But we all share bills and promote each other, and the audiences are so receptive to that. We’re actually friends with the audience too. I’m a strong believer that bands that make negative music get a chance to groom their own negativity, keep it in check, so we can stay positive for each other.
I have a weird way of judging an album or single by how easy it is to work out to. I’ve found that I have an easy time getting pumped to a lot of Lazer/Wulf tracks, particularly those on The Void That Isn’t LP. Y’all are some buff dudes, so is it fair to assume that fitness and exercise influence your compositions?
I choose to take that as a compliment! But we’re energetic people in general, so our music just plays out that way. And I don’t mean positive necessarily, you can be enthusiastically negative. We just don’t really do vague or care for ennui, especially when you’re trying to make something genuine. Our music is very much who we are, so I imagine it would come off the same way any conversation with any of us would: spastic, lots of mood swings, dark humor, energy… and long-winded [laughs]. Lazer/Wulf is very much a product of who we are as people, there’s a lot of honesty there.
What’s your favorite cut of beef?
A bloody prime rib. Barely cook her… just whisper with hot breath across the top, “You’re so fucked right now,” and then punch it straight into my gullet.
Lazer/Wulf will perform on Saturday, September 24 at Slaughter Que at the Masquerade. Doors open at 11:30 a.m.. Admission is $20.
More Info
Web: lazerwulf.com
Bandcamp: lazerwulf.bandcamp.com
Facebook: @lazerwulves
Instagram: @lazerwulves
SoundCloud: @lazerwulf
Twitter: @lazerwulves