Interview: Portrayal Of Guilt
Our sound is generally bleak, I would say. I think the lyrics inspired the title more so than the sound.
…Beginning of the End is the formidable new album from Austin, Texas’ Portrayal Of Guilt and it sees the band on fearsome form from start to finish. Mixing a whole host of sounds in with an intensity and passion that can’t be faked, Portrayal Of Guilt explore the darkest topics in the blackest manner and the results are breathtaking. From the harrowing ‘Backstabber’ all the way through to the closing maelstrom of ‘The Last Judgment’ and taking in sonic assaults like the dystopian black metal of ‘Heaven’s Gate’, the discordant beats of ‘Ecstasy’ and the pounding grooves of ‘Total Black’ along the way, …Beginning of the End really does sound sound like Portrayal Of Guilt are soundtracking the end of the world.
Ahead of the release of the album, Gavin Brown caught up with Portrayal Of Guilt vocalist / guitarist Matt King to hear all about …Beginning of the End and its creation and all manner of Portrayal Of Guilt related matters.
E&D: Your new album …Beginning of the End is coming soon. Can you tell us about the biggest influences on the sound and outlook of the record?
Matt: As far as the outlook, just reality, as far as the way I feel about it, how it’s been going the past. Sound wise, I don’t know if we’re particularly influenced by too much, as we write things together organically, but obviously we’re influenced by a ton of metal.
E&D: The title of the album is an apt one given the bleak times that we live in. Did you want a title that reflected the bleakness of the record and the way things are at the minute?
Matt: Our sound is generally bleak, I would say. I think the lyrics inspired the title more so than the sound.
E&D: There are brilliant hip hop/electronic beats on the likes of the songs ‘Backstabber’ and ‘Ecstasy’ on the album, do these beats enhance an already intense experience?
Matt: Yeah. I mean, we were more or less just experimenting with new sounds that we haven’t generally used before. We’ve definitely worked with a lot of samples and electronics and stuff like that, but we haven’t done too much of it, actually, in the music. So this time around, it’s a little more experimental.
E&D: Is that something you explore further in the future with your music?
Matt: Definitely. We’re gonna get a little more involved in that as we go, hopefully it’ll make for a more creative process.
E&D: How was it working with rapper Slim Guerilla on the album track ‘Chamber of Misery Pt. IV’?
Matt: That one was pretty interesting. Basically, I was working with a guitar loop and a little drum beat that I had going, and I was going to just make that an interlude. At the same time, I’ve always wanted to work with rappers as far as producing beats for them. I’m a huge fan of rap music, and I’ve always used, rap samples within our live show and stuff like that. But I figured I would reach out and see what he thought, and he was actually pretty into the idea, and turned the track around in the same day that I gave it to him. So it kind of opens the door for more of that, hopefully, in the future.
E&D: What other rappers would you you love to perform on a Portrayal Of Guilt track?
Matt: The list goes on. Project Pat would be crazy. I mean, anybody from Three 6 Mafia, that’d be good.
E&D: Would you walk with Slim Guerrilla again, and are you open to the possibility of him playing live with you?
Matt: Oh yeah, I definitely had that in mind for a record release show, but I think with him, it’s a little bit different. I don’t think he generally does a lot of live shows an I’m sure he definitely doesn’t do shows with bands and stuff like that, so I think there was maybe too much going on for us to even get him out with us. But I’m definitely going to see if we can work that out, probably in the future, maybe we’ll go to Houston to do that with him, rather than him come to us. But I hope that does happen in the future.
E&D: Are you a big fan of Southern rap?
Matt: Yeah, like Southern rap. like a lot of Texas rap and Memphis stuff too.
E&D: ‘Death From Above’ has a big death metal feel that reminded me of Morbid Angel, is death metal big influence on the band?
Matt: As far as death metal goes, for me when we’re writing songs theres never really any general idea of what we’re going to go for, but after it was all said and done, it kind of reminded me of later Celtic Frost, or Triptykon, or yeah, Morbid Angel, I love all of those bands. And I think that writing that song, I have a side project that’s strictly death metal, and I feel because I was working on that at the same time, I think it got a little twisted in there. So that’s kind of cool.
E&D: There are also big industrial, black metal and trio hop vibes as well, do you think this is your most eclectic album yet?
Matt: Yeah, definitely, I would say that for sure.
E&D: Are the different sounds ones that you would look to explore more of in the future as well?
Matt: Yeah, definitely, a lot more electronics getting more involved in that, and the industrial feel, I think really works. Obviously I love Nine Inch Nails. I really love older Nine Inch Nails, and even seeing the recent stuff that they’ve been doing is just super inspiring. I feel like we’re gonna try to tap into a little bit more of that in the future. But anything goes, anything can happen, really.
E&D: You have released a few haunting visuals for some of the tracks already. Is the visual aspect of the band an important accompaniment to your music?
Matt: Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, with our music videos. who we choose to work with, it has a lot to do with that. I mean, we work with our friend Craig Murray, who does a lot of great music videos, a lot of creative music videos that are more compelling to me than music videos where it’s just the band playing stuff. We haven’t done a video with us just playing. I don’t know if we ever will, that’s it’s definitely important to me.
E&D: There is a bleak, cinematic vibe to your music as well. Have you ever considered scoring a film, especially working with these filmmakers?
Matt: Oh yeah, definitely. That’s a huge thing in my mind. At all times I’ve been, I feel like I’ve been kind of putting it out there as many times as I possibly can. I personally would love to do that. I know we would love to do that. It’s really just up to someone reaching out to us, but I think we would do an incredible shot with something like that.
E&D: If you could score a film that’s already made, which one would you love to put your own spin on?
Matt: I would like to do something like Hellraiser. I feel like we could score anything. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a horror movie or anything bleak like that. I’m pretty much open and interested to see what happens with anything. But yeah, I feel like we would kill a like horror movie!
E&D: With your Christfucker album you did a remix album to accompany it. Have you had any thoughts about doing the same for …Beginning of the End?
Matt: Oh, yeah, definitely. I think I’ll probably start looking at some doing something like that once we get our album out there. I am working on a remix for the song with Skim Guerrilla but basically adding another verse with another rapper, so that song will be extended. So we’re definitely going to do that, and then I would like to do a couple more remixes. Maybe we’ll do like a deluxe edition, or something like that.
E&D: Who would you love to have remix these new songs?
Matt: God, there’s so many. We have some friends in a band called Spike Hellis, and I’ve wanted to work with them for a while. We tried to get them do one of the Christfucker remixes, but they’re just so busy. I would like to work with them. I want to work with Broadrick. That’d be fucking awesome! A JK Flesh remix would be sweet shit. Autechre, if that would ever be a thing, that would be pretty incredible. But the list goes on. Really, if there’s any kind of different creative take on our music is incredible to me,
E&D: Are you looking forward to your upcoming tour with Street Sects too and bringing the songs from the new record to the stage?
Matt: Oh yeah, very excited about that. We toured together, actually. I think it was 2018 or 2019 when we were just starting out. So turn it around and bring it back around is a pretty sweet deal. We have a festival show that we’re doing in the Netherlands, so we’ve been working on these new songs, and it’s going to be very challenging, but we’re very excited to play new music, because I feel like we’ve been playing a lot of the same songs for years now, so we’re ready to move on.
E&D: How did your European tour with Deafheaven go at the end of last year and what were some of the highlights?
Matt: That tour was amazing. I feel like I underestimated how huge they actually are. That’s another situation where we toured together in Europe back in 2019 and the growth is just crazy to see. And for us, some of the best shows we’ve ever played. There were so many highlights on that tour. The London show was incredible. I remember we played this very intimate spot in Switzerland that was pretty amazing. But really, the whole tour was incredible!
E&D: You played at the Damnation festival as well in Manchester. How did that day go for you?
Matt: That one was interesting, because it was one of the first shows on the tour. So I don’t think we really had a chance to warm up technically yet, but it ended up being, I would say maybe to this day, our best show that we’ve ever played. So, yeah, what an experience. Such a good show!
E&D: Will you be making a return to the UK and Europe with this record, you mentioned the festival in Holland?
Matt: Yeah, I think we’re talking about coming back in November and I believe half of it is in the UK. So I’m looking forward to that.
E&D: Portrayal Of Guilt have played with so many cool bands, who have you loved sharing the stage with?
Matt: I feel like pretty much everybody that we’ve toured with has just been amazing to me. We toured somewhat recently with Baroness. They’re really fucking awesome. We did a tour with Touché Amore, Deafheaven of course. We’ve just been touring with a lot of different bands lately. Those three specifically would probably be our most recent, even though, within the past couple years tours, we toured with Sumac, not too long before that. For the most part, we’re not just taking tours to take them. We’re genuinely interested in the bands that we’re touring with, so pretty much every band we’ve ever toured with, we’re fans of and proud to be on the road with them.
E&D: Who would you love to play with in the future, that you haven’t done so far?
Matt: That is a huge list. I’m gonna try to think somewhat realistic ideas! There’s this band from Michigan. I say this because it’s at the top of my mind, because they just confirmed a show with us in Detroit. They’re called Cloud Rat. They’re an incredible band and I wish that they toured more. They understandably cannot, but they are so good! Spike Hellis, obviously, that’s another one. I don’t want to speak too soon, but I know that we had been talking about them doing that our Europe tour. We’re trying to get them to come along with us. So hopefully that works The list goes on. Full Of Hell. That’s another band, It makes no sense to me that that hasn’t happened yet. So I feel like that’s something that we got to line up pretty soon.
E&D: Once the album is released, are you going to be on, on the road for the remainder of the year?
Matt: I think that’s the plan, more or less. We’re going to try to take it as many places as we can. We have our East Coast US tour, and then we are going to follow that up with the West Coast tour. I think we’re trying to do Australia. Then we’re going to do Europe. We’ll see how far we can stretch it.
E&D: When you’re on the road, do you work on new music?
Matt: I feel like we should do that. I know a lot of bands do that, but we actually don’t, however, that’s definitely something that I think we might start doing, but at the same time, for the past couple of years, our drummer has lived in New York, so it’s been a little harder to practice together, but I think he might be moving back here to here in Austin. If that’s the case, we will be practicing all the time, in which case there’s no need to be working on music while we’re touring.
E&D: What music do you listen to while you’re on tour?
Matt: It’s kind of funny, because in the van, when we’re on tour, it’s a lot of podcasts and audio books. We each kind of intertwine our podcasts and audio books but we’re all each into different music, everyone’s different, but I generally more or less listen to hip hop, but at the same time on those long drives, it’s the podcasts that get you through it for me.
E&D: Thank you so much for talking to us Matt, have you got one final message for your fans in the UK?
Matt: Well, I love the UK, first of all, and I can’t wait to be back there. The shows are always fucking incredible, and really, I just hope that everyone likes the album.That’s really the biggest thing I can say
