How often do you get to listen to hardcore from South Africa? Conqueror are here to prove that guys in Johannesburg are holding it down for hardcore and they're thirsty for your blood! If you're down with some thrash infused hardcore, make sure you keep your eyes on this band!
Name: CONQUEROR
Location: JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
Active since: 2009
How do you define your overall style?
Straight up hardcore with a blend of old school thrash.
What’s your goal with this band?
Tear shit it up as far abroad as we can. I think if we could jam one of those hardcore all dayers over Europe side it would be a definate goal attained. Nothing beats touring.
What do you have recorded so far?
We did a 3 track Demo a while back which is up for download and are currently tracking 3 more tracks with our local bro's Go!Go! Bronco for a split EP. Gnarly
Could you introduce the band and tell us where you’re from? How did the band came together?
5 dude's thrashin it out. Myself (Rich) and Rod spoke of starting a band, we then laid down a DEMO and asked Ross to yell out some vocals. From there we got Nem and Ben to round things off. Ben used to jam for a horror punk band called Dean and the Deadbeats which was dope as hell, so he was a must. Rooted in Hate City JOHANNESBURG South Africa. South of Heaven.
The good old thrash core influences are pretty obvious in your music but it also feels like you wanted to give it a more modern twist. Would you agree with that? Was it the idea from the start to blend both old and new influences or did it just come natural?
Thrash is king. Praise to SLAYER and D.R.I. I don't think we wanted to give it a "modern twist", it's just how we knew to play it. The idea was to play straight hardcore but there were thrash elements which we could'nt resist. The tracks for the split are loaded with squeels and dive bombs.
What do you want listeners to experience while listening to your songs?
Fear and Doom, with a gnarly backtrack. Haha. If the tracks make dude's wanna mosh out then i'd say we're doing what we aimed for.
Where did this religious, or you could say anti-religious, themes in your image come from? Is there any deeper meaning to it or is it just for a shocking value?
We believe ourselves to be advocators of free rational thought, and although we don’t purely rely on shock value, we can’t deny that we use this element of surprise to challenge peoples’ pre-existing value patterns and static paradigms. This is important to us, as we all share the common belief amongst ourselves that organized religions inhibit the evolution of society by continually creating more dividing lines, which in turn make it easier for people to discriminate against, judge, and ultimately drift further and further away from each other. Most of us come from Christian homes, and what we have come to realize growing into adulthood, is that the motivation behind our peers and families’ beliefs is not love or reason, but a blind fear for the unknown, backed solely by outdated and unsubstantiated myths. We have grown to despise the hypocrisy of the average South African church-going Christian, most of whom (apart from an hour on Sunday) lead lives driven by love for money, hatred of fellow races, and passionate violence inspired by cultural phenomena including sports and a group mentality fuelled pride. We believe that a good life is one inspired by love and guided with knowledge, and we don’t see how any organized religion can further this cause, seeing, as history has proven, that the only effects it has had thus far are mass murder, genocide, oppressive morals and condoned delusion. It is time we as a human race shrug off these ancient and oppressive myths, and move forward into an era of scientific exploration and understanding, realizing that although there might not be a rational explanation for every human experience, we still can’t rely on Egyptian allegory for the answers to our questions, because the answers we come up with will be open for interpretation. This leads to a vast variety of differing explanations, splitting into different denominations, and essentially more confusion than we had to begin with. This is where we find ourselves today, and surely this is testimony to the falsehood of the answers that we’re given, and some of us choose to believe, because we don’t want to burn in the hell that someone realized thousands of years ago could be a mechanism of social control. Anyone who claims to know the truth is a liar. It is only they who claim to seek the truth that should be trusted. We don’t know the truth, but we are unhappy with the way that the masses accept deluded testimony as fact, and so we feel it is our duty to challenge blind faith and the stupidity of the actions that it so freely encourages, and we do so with love and joy in our hearts, with music as our only weapon.
How many shows have you played so far? What was the most memorable one and is there any you consider to be a total catastrophe?
We have only jammed a couple so far. Not even at 10 yet. The first show was super gnarly, we were on at like 12am and dudes pulled through to check us out. It was also with our GGB hombres. Rod tends to keep the Catastrophe under control.
What can we expect from you guys in the future?
The GGB split out early next year. A euro tour sometime next year. Drop us a line if your keen to give us a hand. Would be much appreciated. Haha. Advert. EP out 2010.
Any additional comments or shout-outs?
GGB! Kawabunga crew, Mr Alper, Ash.
STAY POSITIVE.
