Last week (4 April 2012) Coilguns absolutely decimated London’s Star Of Kings with their own blend of grinding, d-beat hardcore (if there is such a thing). After the release of their new EP Stadia Rods on Dead Dead Dead records and supporting Dillinger Escape Plan in their homeland of Switzerland, things are looking up for this reckless trio.

OneMetal.com’s Luke Morton caught up with guitarist and bassist Jona Nido for a chat about his new outing and why he’s as excited about the project as we are.

OneMetalYou’re still relatively unknown in these parts, how would you describe Coilguns to people who haven’t heard you before?

JonaWe’re really positive people but we’re trying to create a violent sound, the kind of sound that makes you laugh because it’s so violent or makes you want to hate people. My favourite quote is that it’s like “a good rough fuck”. In end everybody’s happy, but while it’s happening you’re slapping, spitting and choking. I guess that’s a good description of what we’re doing.

OneMetalWhere does this violence come from?

JonaI actually have no idea. I like music without compromise. It’s not really the same sound but Meshuggah has been doing this for 20 years now; atonal music, music without melodies. I like extremes, so either I’m listening to really sexy, gay music or super brutal, violent stuff because for me it’s all about emotions. For this band we always choose the extreme side of evilness, but it’s not like we’re evil ourselves. I don’t want to do the cheesy ‘Yeah, it’s something to express myself blah blah’, I don’t have any problems, my life is cool, but it’s just the sound I like to play on stage. I like dark stuff, especially when it sounds deep and evil.

OneMetalYou’re from Switzerland, which isn’t particularly known for metal, does it have much of scene?

JonaThe thing with Switzerland is that it’s really easy to have a good life, which means we have really talented bands but everyone has a really good job and doesn’t want to leave it to tour – so nobody knows them. But we have a really good scene, most of the time it’s not trendy stuff but deep because people don’t care about making money or becoming famous – they just like to make music for themselves and that gives us a good, quality scene but not worldwide fame. We still have bands like Young Gods, Samael, Coroner, Celtic Frost, so there’s still some big bands. The scene’s pretty big there but no-one knows because they’re not touring.

OneMetalYour band are also members of The Ocean, why did you decide now is the time for a side-project?

JonaWhen we decided to start it wasn’t the right time at all because it was last year, and we toured for seven months last year. But a year and a half ago we were drinking in Berlin and we mentioned we could start a fun band, a d-beat punk band. With The Ocean we have this big production that asks a lot of us with the light, the visuals, the samples and everything. We wanted to do the opposite – go to a room, play two riffs, do some d-beat shit and kick the shit out of people.

I was in the US in 2010 when I bought this new guitar and within three hours I’d written the three songs from our first EP. I sent them to the guys and they thought it was cool. I booked a studio when I got back from the US and we didn’t even rehearse. Luc [Hess, drummer] pretty much wrote his parts in the studio, I didn’t even wake up to see Louis [Jucker, vocals] record the bass and do his vocals, but after three days it turns out we had three solid songs. And then things happened somehow. We got an offer to support Dillinger Escape Plan for our first show in Switzerland and we were like ‘fuck yeah!’.

Then we had three months of touring with The Ocean, but a month before the gig we realised we only had 10 minutes of music so it was like ‘Oh fuck, what are we going to do?’ Then Louis decided he didn’t want to play bass so I had to come up with a huge system to have some bass with a pedal board and several amps. We rehearsed for six hours a day all summer, wrote 30 minutes of music, and a week before playing the show with Dillinger we went to the studio and recorded it. We recorded everything live in five hours, a week later we made 150 copies and we had an EP out. Then it got released officially through Dead Dead Dead Music.

OneMetalYou recorded your EP in just five hours?

JonaThe goal was to have one good take, more or less. There are still fuck ups but who cares anyway? Louis did his vocals in his living room two days afterwards, and we sent everything the next morning to Julien Fehlmann – the guy who mixed and mastered the album – and he did it in four hours. That was a good experience, I’m not willing to record in another way from now on. This whole editing and Pro Tools thing is cool but it’s a pain in the ass. I like to write songs and I like to play them live, but I don’t like to record in front of the computer alone. It’s just boring.

OneMetalThis is your first time in the UK with Coilguns, what sort of reaction are you expecting?

JonaI have no idea, I’m just happy we could make it because the UK is the country of rock ‘n’ roll, right? Condition-wise it’s never been easy, to be honest, it’s probably one of the worst countries to tour as a small band, but there’s a vibe here that everyone is following every scene somehow. Everyone is really interested in discovering new things. 80% of my iPod is filled up with British bands, whether it’s pop, rock, metal or whatever. So I’m really happy we could make it here. We got really good press here, even with the first EP, which isn’t the case in Germany for example. But the UK seem to like it.

OneMetalIt’s fairly early in the year, but do you have any plans to come back and see us again?

JonaWe’re not going to be able to do big tours because Louis is starting his studies again, he’s doing a Masters in architecture so it’s going to take quite a while. We’re hoping to do weekend shows and depending on how this tour goes we might come back, we’ve had an offer to go to Ireland already. I’m completely up for coming back here, I’ve got ideas for which bands I’d like to play with. There are so many good bands like Humanfly from Leeds and Aliases from Manchester who’re really good. The UK’s a big market although it’s hard to talk about ‘market’ when you’re a small DIY band, but it’s still an interesting place to dig your hole. People know how to appreciate the music here and that’s the difference with a place like Italy where the underground culture doesn’t exist at all. Here it does exist and I want to be a part of it.

Coilguns’ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Coilguns/119957368080867