Interview: Cameron of Sanguisugabogg
Interviewed by Tim Finch
Sanguisugabogg have seen a rapid rise to fame, from their E.P. released in 2019 on the independent Maggot Stomp label to signing with major label Century Media and are now preparing to release their debut long player, Tortuered Whole. We caught up with guitarist and sing writer Cameron to first of all find out who the hell do you pronounce their name. But then to delve into the creative process of the band and more...
The Razor's Edge: Welcome to The Razor's Edge
Cameron: What’s up?
The Razor's Edge: First off, To get it out of the way… how are you and how have you coped with the pandemic?
Cameron: I’m pretty good, you know I really miss touring, a lot. I wish we were touring as we had so much cool shit planned. But I think we used COVID pretty well and our time off to make the record much better. We’ve gotten a bunch of music videos done, kind of just made things better than they would have been if we were on tour constantly. And we have a record coming out to look forward to so I’m not bored as fuck!
The Razor's Edge: There is much debate about how to say your bands name… so exactly how do you pronounce it? And what the hell does it mean?
Cameron: It’s pronounced san-guee-sue-gah-bogg.
Sanguisuga is Latin for ‘blood sucker’ and the word bogg is like slang for a toilet. So it kind of means a toilet sucks blood or blood sucking toilet I guess. [laughs]
The Razor's Edge: Fair enough, you’ve got your debut album coming out in a few weeks. People, especially here in the UK will be unfamiliar with you. Can you describe yourselves as a band to our listeners?
Cameron: Groovy, disgusting death metal, with a fun twist. It’s just fun, it makes you want to party and have fun and jump all over your friends and shit. Rather than being serious or sad or just angry shit. So just groovy and heavy.
The Razor's Edge: I’ve been listening to Tortured Whole all week and it can only be described as brutal! There’s some obvious inspiration in there from bands like Cannibal Corpse, but who or what else influences your style?
Cameron: Me and Devin really love horror movies. We are really into any kind of horror movies and we really trauma stuff too and b-movies. Our entire purpose to our songs is to paint a horror movie picture.
The Razor's Edge: Your lyrics, song titles focus somewhat on gore, violence, the macabre. But there is a dose of humour in there. When writing do you aim to make a song that amuses as much as it batters the listener?
Cameron: I honestly think the fun and the humour just comes out naturally. We are all just goofy dudes and trying to do something more serious is not really us. We’re just very naturally goof balls, smoking weed and making fun groovy death metal and it kinds of just turns out naturally. I try to write the heaviest thing I possibly can and just us being us it turns out that way.
The Razor's Edge: I’ve done my research and recreational drugs play a role throughout the bands life. Does that feed into the music?
Cameron: Yeah. I don’t think I’ve written a single song not stoned to shit, or like on a bunch of acid or tripping on mushrooms. The E.P. was pretty much written on acid and the LP too.
I love drugs, like smoking weed and psychedelics for personal reasons, I feel like they have helped me out a lot with my anxiety and just being who I am now. I think with music they make me way more creative. I don’t think I could come up with the weird melodies without tripping on acid whilst playing guitar. It’s a pretty major role for us.
The Razor's Edge: And I guess it aids live shows too…
Cameron: Normally when we play live we aren’t tripping. I don’t think I could do all that, but we normally smoke a llot of weed when we are tour. We smoke a lot of pot before we play, and we try to keep drinking before we play but we drink a lot after and have fun!
The Razor's Edge: For any of us in the UK who haven’t seen you live yet. What can we expect when you eventually get to play here?
Cameron: Oh man! Well we are a lot of fun live, so you can expect to just party your ass off when we play. Devin always keeps people going, he’s taking shots on stage and making people chant stupid shit. I can’t wait to get over there and see what it’s like as opposed to playing shows over here.
The Razor's Edge: And can you see yourselves playing shows anywhere any time soon?
Cameron: Shit’s kinda coming back. They seem to be cutting some of the restrictions over here. Anyone you ask has a different opinion. Some people say it won’t even happen this year, but I’m just trying to keep my hopes up. Maybe by the fall or by winter that’d be really cool. Either way I’m going to take advantage of the time down and do some cool shit.
The Razor's Edge: Can you see yourself writing more, doing another album in the downtime?
Cameron: We actually a project we are working on. It’s not another album, but it’s something really cool we can’t really talk about yet. That’ll come round in the fall, we’re getting everything together this summer and we’re pretty exciting about it.
The Razor's Edge: Sounds interesting! So apart from that project, once the album is unleashed. What’s next for the band? Any long term plans?
Cameron: We’re going to keep writing and putting stuff together. Even whilst we do the other project we’re still writing for the next L.P. No matter what we’ll keep writing, keep doing splits and just wait for live shows to come back I guess. Maybe we’ll do a live stream, I’m not sure, we’ve never really been particularly into that. With us our big thing with us, seeing us live, is how much fun it is. Everyone jumping all over their friends, having a good time, chugging beers, doing whatever. That’s the best part just having fun. I feel like just watching us on a live stream would be way different. I’m not sure I want to do it or not, maybe we can come up with a different idea, and original idea that will make it more fun.
The Razor's Edge: Before we close out. What’s the scene like over in Ohio? Are there any bands we should be checking out?
Cameron: Well Ohio is really cool, a lot of cool bands round here. There’s three bands Maggot Stomp [record label] that we used to be on, 200 Stab Wounds, Inoculation and Sarcoughagus who are really sic. There’s a tonne of bands around Ohio, but those are some of the heaviest around and some of our best friends.
The Razor's Edge: Well, thanks for chatting to us today. I can only hope we’ll be able to see you guys play live soon.
Cameron: Oh yeah, we’ll be over there as soon as we can!
