Interview with X, Lead Vocals & Lead Guitar for Gürschach.

Let's start out with you giving your name and socials. Plug them below.

My name is X, and I play lead guitar and lead vox in the band Gürschach. Buy our shirts!
Facebook: www.facebook.com/gurschach or @gurschach
Twitter: www.twitter.com/gurschach or @gurschach
Instagram: www.instagram.com/gurschach or @gurschach
YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCuu9Ej-P9j2jeB47KAb-rIA or @Gürschach Official
We’re also always up to date with our main website www.gurschach.com and rumor has it,
that’s a really good place where you can buy our shirts!

Where are you from/Where are you based out of?

We’re from all over the East Bay Area. I’m from El Sobrante, our bassist Scotty is from
Concord, our rhythm guitarist Leyland is from Oakland, and our drummer Daniel is from
Pittsburg. We mostly do practice in my garage, so I guess that makes us based out of El
Sobrante. Either way, we just tell people we’re from San Francisco ‘cause it’s easier.

Name at least one weird habit that you have that you regularly do, and has anyone ever
noticed you doing it?

I try my best not to do it, but I pick at my beard a lot whenever I’m talking to someone. It’s
something I do instinctually whenever I’m thinking, but it’s gotten to the point where all the other
guys in the band are fully aware that I do it all the time. That’s probably the main reason why I
never let my beard grow out, or else I would just play with it all day long.

What do you think about Heavy Vibe? Or media in general, if you could say something to let
all people working in media know, what would it be?

    Heh, I mean it seems alright to me so far. I’ve done a lot of interviews that ended up going
nowhere, or were just a front to advertise some shady scam to us, so as long as that’s not what
this is about, I can’t complain too much. Some of my favorite interviews I’ve participated in are
ones that felt like I was just talking with a buddy of mine.

    Honestly though, being part of the daily buzz is something I have to force myself to do,
but that’s just how I am. When I started Gürschach, my only goal was to write and
release music because it was such a huge passion of mine, but as you get deeper into it
you realize an even bigger part of doing what we do successfully is reminding people
that you exist. In high school, I was the kid who always wanted to move somewhere
quiet to get away from everyone else, so I’ve always been content to just write the
music and show to maybe like 16 people tops.

    However, these days there are a lot more people who truly care about us and want to
know what we’re up to. The way I see it, if there are billions of people out there in this
massive universe we live in, and you found even 100 people out there who care about
you that much, why would you want to let them down?

What do you like most about working in the music industry and what do you like least about it?

    Real talk, what I like most about the industry right now is that it’s not as powerful as it
used to be. If this were the 90s, a band like us wouldn’t be allowed to exist without an
overemphasized image, a music video for MTV, a multitude of causes to support, or that
one song about a high school problem we haven’t had to deal with in 10 years that gets
played on the radio every single day. Record labels used to be able to control what you
wrote, when it was released, how often you released new material, and who gets to
hear about you in the first place. These days the only thing you really need to worry
about is writing a song that’s worth listening to and you can find an audience who cares

about you all on your own.

    Unfortunately, it’s still just as much a popularity contest now as it’s always been. If
you’re just in the industry to “sell” music, then the quality of the music always seems to
come second to your social skills. I get it, most people see their music tastes as a part
of their own personality, and they want the artist to reflect the kind of person they are.
It’s just that there’s no way of creating that kind of culture without also creating a lot of
toxicity. There are way too many people out there who won’t even hesitate to destroy
your future if it means giving them a few minutes of spotlight. For bands like us who still
play rock and metal, the only bands that would do such a thing are in denial that there is
no spotlight for us anymore. And that especially upsets me when it comes to people
taking credit for things they didn’t do and could never have done themselves.

    The good news is, there’s a silver lining. Of course, whenever metal goes through a
huge growth phase where it’s really popular, there tends to be a lot of shady competition
and dirty blows. But whenever you’re in a period like right now where it’s every band for
themselves, the only bands that get anywhere are the ones that learn how to work
together and be good to each other. Then once that phase of popularity returns, those
bands already have a head start and they got there without dragging anyone down. So,
early on it’s very important to surround yourself with the best of your kind, and never put
yourself above others.

Do you have a mentor?

    I have a few actually: Michael Abrahams and Daniel Coffeng. Michael was my first guitar
teacher back when I was a diehard elitist kid who was metal 24/7 with no compromises. He not
only taught me that there is no shame in allowing yourself to like all forms of music, but that
there’s untold opportunities in letting those influences show in your own material. And damn
was he right on the money about that.

    Daniel Coffeng was my second guitar teacher, and he taught me something a little bit different.
He noticed that I was getting better at the guitar, and my ambitions were getting higher, but so
were my expectations and personal tastes. He was the one that taught me that while it’s great
to set those goals for yourself, there’s no level requirement to writing or enjoying good music.
What you wrote when you were a beginner doesn’t become garbage once you’re an expert,
because everyone was a beginner at one point. You can be a shredder and still write super
easy riffs that sound good because all that matter at the end of the day is that you enjoy it
because it sounds good to you. Honestly, if it were for him, I would’ve thrown away several of
my early songs long before they ended up in someone else’s playlist.

If you could meet one celebrity, who would you meet? (dead or alive)

    What I like about this question is that you almost have an obligation to choose someone
who’s dead, because by simply answering that question it implies that you brought them
back to life.

    But either way, I’m gonna have to go with Buckethead. I know he doesn’t talk much, but
no one lives forever, so I wouldn’t ever want to miss my one chance to meet my biggest
idol if that chance ever arrives. Plus, it wouldn’t matter to me if we never even spoke to
each other. If I could have Buckethead record a guitar solo over one of our songs, that
would be enough to make my musical career a success and I could happily retire
whenever I want to.

What was your dream job when you were you were younger?

    No joke, I wanted to be an architect. I used to play with Knex all the time, I was a huge fan of
Sim City 4 and RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, and I took tons of engineering and architecture classes
all the way through high school. Unfortunately, those prospects went right down the drain
during that 2008 recession and entering into an engineering school at that time was basically

guaranteed career suicide.

    Still, I don’t think that would’ve been enough to dissuade me if not for the fact that I became
obsessed with music around the same exact time. I still have a lingering interest in architecture
and all that, but my interest in music never faded even a little bit.

Name something that makes you uncomfortable, pet peeve, phobia, etc. and explain why.

    It’s not as bad as it used to be, but I used to have a phobia of planes flying overhead. If
I had to guess, I’d say it was because of 9/11 because even airliners gave me haunting
images of bombs dropping and massive explosions over the horizon that I could never
run away from.

    The cool thing is I basically created my own therapy for that phobia by writing a song
about it. All I did was I took everything that horrified me about watching planes in the
sky and I jotted them down as a sort of grizzly premonition of the future in the form of
song lyrics. For some reason, just getting the words out there for someone to find them
someday was enough for me to not be as worried about it happening anymore. We
even released it on our debut album Dark Matter and made a lyric video for it, the song
is called The Night the Sky Rained Nukes.

Who is the best cook in the band?

Leyland, hands down. He cooks bomb ass everything. We never even ask him to do it,
he’s just always in the kitchen making fine dining for fun, and he’s even generous
enough to share it with all of our ungrateful asses whenever we’re on tour. Hell, was
this question specifically written for us?

Where was or would be your favorite place to perform?

Hell, I don’t really care where we perform, as long as the audience is cool and aren’t afraid to
have a good time whenever we’re on stage. But I gotta give props to Red House in Walnut
Creek, which is where we used to throw down all the time to a crowd that never seemed to go
away. We had most of our best memories playing shows at that venue when we were starting
out. It’s really a damn shame they don’t do live music anymore, because that place was ground
zero for so many great bands today that are doing bigger and better things now.

Name one time you have broken the rules.

    Just one? Heheh, that’s like a regular thing with us it seems. I think the one time I
definitely remember the most is trespassing at Byron Hot Springs Hotel back in 2015.
We were just there to get some promo shots for our EP Beautiful Nightmares at the
time, but I guess we were spotted ‘cause on our way out we witnessed a giant black
pickup truck Tokyo Drift into the driveway outside the gate we were walking towards.

    Leyland nearly had a heart attack after this huge bald dude jumped out and shouted
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THERE?!” from like 20 yards away. It’s cool though, I just
told everybody to walk over to him nice and slowly and keeping it casual, and by the
time we actually met up with him like 10 minutes later, he had already calmed down and
let us leave.

So yeah, that’s the story about how all four of us almost died.

Who is your biggest musical influence?

Buckethead. Bar none. Like it’s not even a question. If I listed my top 5 artists, it would be
Buckethead first and then a huge gap of empty space before I even mention number two.

If you could go on tour with any band or artist, who would you go with? (You can list more
than one)

    You know, we’ve actually been discussing that lately. In the immediate future, some of our top
picks would easily by HellHeart, Phantom Witch, and Hemorage. The cool thing is we did this
before with our brothers in Suburban Paranoia and Vicious Wishes, and those were like the only
tours where we actually made money. So there’s a weird sort of method to the madness of
sharing a van with that many people at once.

    But let’s be honest, we all just wanna know the Fantasy Football type answer to that question
don’t we? Well for that, I think it would be cool to hit the road with Mastodon or Buckethead
obviously. Exodus and Testament would be sick ‘cause their crowds would be just as crazy as
we are. Disturbed, Slipknot, or Tool would be really cool ‘cause they bring their stage show with
them the whole tour and that would be like a Halloween party every day. And honestly let’s just
add Iron Maiden, Muse, and Metallica to the list, ‘cause their live shows are the best of all time
and the sky’s the limit when we’re just fantasizing about this stuff!

Do you like spicy food? Why?

    Again, this sounds like a question that was written for us.

    Hell yes we do! Last tour we even brought hot sauce with us just to make the days in
the Midwest smoother, ‘cause the spiciest food they’ve got out there is mayonnaise.
Leyland and I have had hot sauce battles before, and Scotty complains that Tabasco
isn’t even spicy enough for him. Let’s just say if we were ever on Hot Ones, it wouldn’t
be to talk about our uninteresting lives; it would be for that Last Dab!

 Are you usually late, early, or on time?

    I mean I guess I try to be early or on time to most things. None of us are typically late to
anything. I dunno, there’s not much to say about that one.

 How often do you use the internet?
    Way too much. I really wasn’t the most social kid growing up, everyone else hated me in
person. Almost all of my growing up came from being on the internet and talking with people
over forums and message boards. To a certain degree, being that plugged in to the internet has
become a strength of mine, but it’s also a bit of a curse in the sense of knowing that making a
drastic change to being offline would take a lot of time and effort for me. Then again, these
days it’s just considered normal. Unlike teens today, when I was a teen, being that glued to the
internet was considered the uncool nerdy thing to do. It’s kinda nice to see that’s no longer the
case.

What scares you the most, and why does it scare you so much?

    If I’m being honest, what scares me is getting to the age where I’m going to hate everything
that’s new. They always say when you’re 25 your brain stops developing and learning new
things is either a lot harder or comes with the sacrifice of things you already know. I know I’m
probably already picky about the kind of music I like right now, but I hate the idea that a day
may come where I get so overwhelmed with what’s new that I don’t even bother to give it a fair
chance anymore.
    

    That’s not to say I force myself to like everything that’s popular. A vast majority of the music
that’s most popular right now is just pure garbage. That’s just always been the case no matter
what age I am.

 What is your favorite kind of animal and why?

    My favorite animal is the Thresher Shark. I mean, come on, it’s got a whip-like tail that’s longer
than the rest of its body, and it uses that tail to stun its prey by blasting it with an underwater
shockwave! It doesn’t get more metal than that!

    I’m also a cat person. Kitties are the best.

What is the nastiest thing a fan has ever done to you, and what is the best thing a fan has
ever done?

    Well, I’m not gonna get into the nastiest thing, so the second nastiest thing a fan has ever done
to me is they sent me a love letter that depicted me using my gloves to beat the crap out of
some popular girl at school and they had someone deliver it to me. It had a super graphic poem
about me, and it sounded like some cringey fanfic where I was the main character. I never
found out who actually wrote it, but I still have it somewhere. It’s incredibly disturbing, but I still
find it amusing in a kind of morbid way, hah.

    As for the best thing, I would actually have to give that one to Jerm from Arkansas during our
Oklahoma stop on our Kiss Our Jobs Goodbye Tour. We generally try our best to find a place
to stay the night before, but some stops on the tour we weren’t as lucky, so we mentioned at the
show that we were kinda stranded. We were just expecting someone to point us to some cheap
motel that we could just pass through, but this guy who came all the way out from Arkansas to
see us used his reward points to give us all individual rooms at a freakin’ Hampton Inn. We’ve
never even stayed anywhere as nice as a Marriot or Best Western on tour before then, and here
we suddenly were at a Hampton. Dude, if you’re reading this, you have no idea how much that
made our week. You freakin’ rule dude!

What is your favorite song by your band, and what is your favorite song to perform at shows?

    That’s a little hard to say, ‘cause my favorite songs of ours aren’t even released yet and
one of them doesn’t even have a title. Of the ones that we’ve actually released so far,
that one might go to Purest Momentum. To be honest, though, I don’t feel like that song
came out as good as I had it in my head, so some time way down the line we might
come back to the old back catalog. Out of all the other songs on Dark Matter, Purest
Momentum is the closest to what our music sounds like now though.

    As for my favorite to perform at our shows, I gotta go with Undead Empire. It’s super
easy to play so I’m never worried about screwing it up, and just getting to see
everybody chant the words “Zola Schukada” back to us gets me so high. We have
nights where people aren’t that into it, but man when we play it on the nights when the
crowd is digging it, they just go crazy out of control!

What is one song or band that whenever you listen to it/them you can’t stand to listen to it?

    I don’t know if I could name a song like that. There are plenty of songs that I’ve heard that
sound terrible to me, but I don’t ever go out of my way to listen to those songs. Why would
anyone do that to themselves, anyway? Just turn it off.

23 Make me a playlist, put some songs that you have been listening too lately here.

    I’m not really a big playlist guy, I generally listen to new albums in pairs of two and I
listen to them all the way through, so playlists are kinda weird for me. What I do have is
a playlist that I go to for getting people into Buckethead for the first time ever. Most
people start off with the best song by any band or artist, but I don’t do that ‘cause if you
start with the best song, then it’s all downhill from there. So here’s my beginner's guide
to Buckethead:
1. Buckethead – Flock of Slunks
2. Buckethead – Jump Man
3. Buckethead – Final Wars
4. Buckethead – King James
5. Buckethead – Too Many Humans
6. Buckethead – Whitewash
7. Buckethead – Mantaray
8. Buckethead – A Real Diamond In The Rough
9. Buckethead – Soothsayer
10. Buckethead – Nottingham Lace

Back to the Nasty. What’s the nastiest thing that’s happened to you before a show,
recording, traveling, anything related to your work.

    Boy, you’ve got quite a thing for nasty stuff.

    Honestly, I think that would just be the entire filming day for the performance shots of
our music video Undead Empire. All of us were dressed up as zombies, so we were
already wearing a bunch of makeup, but that wasn’t even the end of it. I had to keep
popping charcoal tooth powder in my mouth so my teeth looked more gnarly, which was
causing me to drool uncontrollably. I had conditioner stuck in my hair to give it a
twiggy corpse look which was totally disgusting. Leyland had a scene where he pukes
up blood, which involved him having to keep a pool of chocolate syrup in his mouth 12
different times. Not to mention, we started at like 11AM and it didn’t stop until 12AM the
next day.

    So yeah, that was a very gross day. But it was worth it!

Tell me about your recent Album.

    Our most recent album is called Dark Matter. And that’s basically what we call the
genre of music we play as well. We’ve always wanted to do an album like Venom’s
Black Metal where the name of the album is the name of the genre, so that’s kinda what
we did here. It’s basically experimental progressive thrash to sum it up lightly, but I
think it’s mostly just the foundation of what we’re all about. All the songs on it are when
we just started to dip our toes into the weird ideas we kept getting, but there’s still plenty
of familiar ground for people who already like the classics. Our main goal with the
album was to take super contrasting elements of metal and to combine them with each
other in a way that people don’t even notice. So there’s a lot of clean stuff mixed with
super harsh stuff as a result.

    It’s also 70 minutes long, so there’s that.

26 Where do you think your music direction is heading? Have you felt you have changed a lot?
Elaborate.

    Oh man, it’s only been getting weirder. Like, if it weren’t for the fact that we define our
music as Dark Matter, I don’t really know what you could compare it to. I think after the
first album, we all learned how to play our instruments well enough, so writing songs
based on our skill level wasn’t such a common thing anymore. Instead, we started
coming up with really wild and difficult ideas just so we could challenge ourselves to
write it anyway.

    For instance, there’s this one song we wrote that has 36 different song sections, but it’s
played at 200bpm and only lasts for 4 minutes. We have another song that starts off at
102bpm and then doubles the speed over 5 minutes, so it just keeps getting faster and
faster the entire time. And then we have one song that’s over 10 minutes long and has
a keyboard solo in it.

    We basically decided to take every rule we’ve ever learned about writing music and

chuck ‘em all out the window. And somehow this album was by far the easiest one to
write, ‘cause it all just came to us naturally, so I’m really excited.

What are you future plans, this isn’t just music related.

    For right now, we’ve been talking a lot about doing a cover song that we played all
throughout our 2 week summer tour. It’s gonna be for Metallica’s St. Anger, but there’s
a catch: it went through a ton of changes. Honestly, that song is the one song that got
me into Metallica, so I kind of have a soft spot for it despite how universally hated it is.
But I wanted to rewrite it in a way where it doesn’t have all the glaring mistakes the
original has, and then maybe people will be able to hear how good that song was
always meant to be. Or at least the way I heard it from the time it first played on the TV
screens at Hard Rock Café back in 2008.

    Other than that, we’re pretty much working on Absolutely Nothing.

Say some advice to anyone trying to go into music.

    The most important thing to always keep in mind: never sacrifice what you like to hear
so that other people will like it. You’ll never be able to please everybody, but if you stick
to what you enjoy writing, the people who do like your music will be people just like you.
Don’t start a band for money or fame, ‘cause there isn’t any. Start it for the joy of doing
it in the first place, and never compromise who you are. Don’t just write an ok song, or
even a good song either, write a song that you’re absolutely addicted to, and the power
of your music will do all the work for you. ‘Cause if you can’t get into your own material,
who else will?

Who is the most exciting person you have worked with music wise?

    Kind of a weird question to end things on after that last one, but I got an answer.
For the song Buried Under Insanity (track 6 of Dark Matter) we had a really scream
heavy chorus to record, but neither Scotty nor I felt like we could do it justice. Luckily
for us we managed to get Chelsea Murphy to agree to do those vocals, and she
crushed it! She sat in a burning hot vocal booth for 30 minutes straight busting out one
heavy scream after another, and she nearly fainted like three different times. Each
chorus wasn’t just one track, two tracks, or three track, it was four different tracks of
screamed vocals. Just listen to the song yourself and tell me those aren’t the most
beast sounding harsh vocals you’ve ever heard in your life.