Greasebeast: The Only Metal Band in Sackville, New Brunswick

After watching the soft folk of The Constantines’ Bry Webb or Julie Doiron’s distorted ballads all day at Sackville, New Brunswick’s Sappy Fest 9, I walked into a blackened Royal Canadian Legion at 1:00 AM to a hardcore metal set that blew my fucking face off. To be real, I went to Sappy this year just to hang out, but after Sackville’s Greasebeast, I arranged to meet up with them the next day because holy shit.

“Greasebeast has a lot of elements of hardcore, power violence and grindcore, but I think we like to call it Burgercore,” says vocalist Julian Merlin, “We’re really into barbeque, meats and sides of beef.” With bassist Mario Ferrari (his real name), Moncton’s Josh Landry on guitar and Sackville’s Luke Patterson (The Mouthbreathers) on drums, Greasebeast recorded a self-titled 13-track album in the shred shed studio on the edge of town, released in March. It’s stripped down, demonic and honestly super tight.

“We don’t get shows like Sappy Fest very often. We usually play in bars and basements,” laughs Merlin. “But it’s fun to look into the darkness,” Patterson says. No doubt. Greasebeast provided a very interesting musical contrast at a very intimate indie rock and folk festival. In past years, bands like Metz, Yellowteeth and Fucked Up have played alongside Fred Squire, Calvin Johnson and Basia Bulat.

“People said after the show that they don’t listen to metal but they really liked us,” says Landry, “That was fulfilling, to remind people they’re into live, loud, fast music. I mean, Sackville doesn’t need any more folk bands.” It’s doubly interesting that Greasebeast is the only metal racket in Sackville right now, and one of only a dozen or so active metal bands in the Atlantic region. They’re insulated. “Metal’s aggressive, so it’s a nice outlet. I love a lot of the music that’s here, but metal’s therapeutic,” Landry says.

With only one guitarist, Greasebeast hits the stride of technical metal without actually sounding like technical metal. That’s a pretty neat skill. I think Greasebeast’s level of technical musicianship is what I appreciated most. Also the super heavy creepy shit, I love that. Plus, Greasebeast sounds like they’ve been together way longer than a year. “We all just worked out right off the bat,” says Patterson, who had to learn metal drums, “Because we’re creatively compatible, that pushes me to get better.” With Landry’s background in hardcore punk, he says Greasebeast walks a fine line between punk and metal. Patterson adds: “I think we’re all just good at what we do and I think we all really fucking love this band.”

The live set was insane. Greasebeast’s songs are a couple minutes on average but I still didn’t think the Legion’s PA system could handle it. Beer and long hair was flying. I got elbowed in the mouth. But then, just as Greasebeast neared the end of their second-last song, as Merlin screamed “darkness” and the double-kicks stared to crescendo, the Legion went totally pitch black. Silent. I started screaming “Holy shit, holy shit!” because Greasebeast actually blew the fucking power supply. It only took a few minutes to restore, but it was probably the most well-timed accident I’ve ever seen. It was a metal fucking miracle.

“Inspirationally, I’m a big horror movie fan,” says Merlin about his lyrics, “Like, ‘The Battle of Brundlefly’ was inspired by The Fly, and ‘Now It’s Dark’ came from Blue Velvet. Then I also write about life, love and deep stuff, or silly Satanic stuff like being possessed and the devil. But it’s all in good fun. As seriously as we take this band, we like to have fun and that’s how I approach Greasebeast.” Just how greasy are these dudes? “Greasy. This festival has been greasy,” says Landry, “I’m ashamed of myself.”

Adria Young has been grease-free since 2007 - @adriayoung