INTERVIEW – Kim Choo, Feed Her To The Sharks – July 2013

By Matt Karpe

Melbourne metalcore mob Feed Her To The Sharks are making strong waves across Australia, quickly becoming one of the premiere acts down under.  Their second album Savage Seas was released back in May and received strong plaudits from myself in my album review for 100% Rock Magazine.

Kim Choo, A.K.A Chewy, had a chat about the making of Savage Seas, and what the future may hold for Feed Her To The Sharks.

Matt: First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. How are you doing today?

Kim: Hey dude! I’m doing well, just been preparing all our gear and logistics for the tour in August, and playing lots of Call Of Duty! Haha.

Matt: Let’s start with the new album. Savage Seas is a superb and addictive listen. You must be really happy with how it’s turned out?

Kim: Yeah man we’re pretty pleased with how it turned out! Considering the resources and time we had, we couldn’t have asked for a better end product.

Matt: I’ve read a lot of reviews for your debut album The Beauty Of Falling, and many people have gone as far as to say it’s the best metalcore album they had ever heard. Did early success take you by surprise?

Kim: I still think we’re quite far away from any “success”, but our previous album paved the way for us to make Savage Seas. And now Savage Seas will pave the way for us to make another new record!

Matt: So with those kinds of statements after your first album, how did you approach the whole writing and recording process for Savage Seas, knowing you had to better what came before it?

Kim: Well, that’s the whole idea. We live to create music. And we always strive to better ourselves as people in every aspect of life. But there was no pressure writing Savage Seas. We never once thought we had to “better” our previous efforts. We just aimed to make a record we were happy with.

Matt: The results are certainly there for all to see. I’ve seen nothing but strong positive comments for the new release. The quality in song writing and production seems to have gone up another level.

Kim: That’s great! It always makes us happy to hear positive feedback! Yeah, we are always learning new ways to create new music and new sounds, and that keeps it enjoyable for us!

Matt: I can’t stop listening to two songs in particular- “Memory Of You”, which I wrote in my review of the album for 100% Rock as a perfect metalcore song. The brutal breakdowns, ferocious screaming and then a stunning chorus full of melody and clean vocals- do you feel it’s one of the best songs you guys have written to date?

Kim: It’s so hard to choose our favourite song(s) or our best song(s). They all reflect different moods and different feelings and emotions. We definitely love that song but we can’t decide which is our best! We’ll leave that up to the fans!

Matt: The second song that struck me is “Fuck Melbourne”. The technicalities in the musicianship are incredible, but just explain a little about what the song means. I used the term in my review as ‘a twisted oath to your hometown…’

Kim: Yeah you’re right! Once again, this song reflects how we felt at the time of writing it. At the time, many of our “friends” close to home just shut us out like we meant nothing to them, and left us feeling like nobody gave a shit about the band and what we had worked so hard to achieve. Melbourne is by far one of the most awesome cities in the world, and we love it there, but every city has good and bad people. So if this song reaches out to you in any way, please don’t think of it in a negative sense. It’s more about the feeling you get when you’re stuck in the same city/town every day, and you aspire for something greater, only to have people close to you drag you down. Fuck that!

Matt: I read that you travelled to Gothenburg, Sweden to work with Fredrik Nordström, who has produced albums for other Australian metalcore acts as well as my homeland heroes Bring Me The Horizon. A change of scene and temperature compared to Oz- how was the whole experience?

Kim: Freezing! We saw snow for the first time! It was amazing. Fredrik and Henrik (Henrik Udd- producer) are true professionals and brought out the best performances from us! It was a great experience. We love Swedish pizza and Julmust, which is like a soda they sell at Christmas time!

Matt: As I don’t live in Australia, I haven’t been able to see your rise to fame first hand, but you must get a lot of love and support from your homeland?

Kim: It’s always hard to get support from anybody! Every night on stage is like a battle to gain everyone’s respect and attention. We cherish our closest friends who have been with us from the very beginning, and our true fans who have been to all of our shows here at home! It’s always good meeting fans that are truly there for the music!

Matt: You just finished a small tour with Born Of Osiris including a couple of shows in Melbourne. How did it go for you, it must have been special to bring your music home?

Kim: Hell yeah! Upon A Burning Body were on the tour as well. Both BOO and UABB were legends! We learnt so much touring with those guys! It was a great tour and met a lot of crazy fans on the road! Also our friends in a band called A Breach Of Silence were on the tour. We knew them quite well and they are great dudes to be on the road with!

Matt: Fingers crossed you’ll be able to take your live shows further afield. America, Europe – I would certainly love to see you come to the UK, any plans in the near future?

Kim: Yeah mate. We’re planning some overseas tours currently, so stay posted! We’ll be over to tear up the stage real soon!

Matt: So what does the rest of 2013 hold in store for FHTTS?

Kim: We have another tour in August in Australia called Loud Fest 2013! Killer line-up, it’s going to be awesome! We’ll be writing a bunch of new material as well

Matt: Ok, I think that wraps up this interview – my first interview, hopefully I did ok!!

Kim: You did awesome! Thanks man!!!!

Matt: Thanks so much once again for your time and congratulations on Savage Seas. All the best.

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Category: Interviews