TECHNICAL MUSIC REVIEW
Ahtme is currently on the September Scum Tour with Micawber and Lago and had a chance to interview the guys in the beginning of their run. The band is celebrating the release of one of this year’s best albums in “Sewerborn” on their current tour. Their vocalist Brent and guitarist Dalton answered the questions in rotating order. Check it!
And in less than a week, this tour IS hitting up Tonanwanda at Stamps….Western New Yorkers don’t be stupid and hit up this killer tech/groove death metal show. The amount of talent on this bill is mind-blowing!
TMR: How has the reception of Sewerborn been? It’s been months since it’s inception. It’s more refined and mature than your debut which still crushes, you guys took it to another level with Sewerborn. Definitely a top five release of the year no doubt.
So farewerborn has been received well! Technically it’s a sophomore release but so much time has passed between it and the initial release of “The Demonization” that we personally kinda think of it as a debut. we definitely grew a lot in the years between the two records and at this point it feels like two totally different projects. Obviously our sound as a band stayed with us but we kinda “grew out” (for lack of a better term) of some things which pointed us in a somewhat different direction. We’re happy with how it came together and our fans response has been positive from what we can see.
TMR: What influenced the name change from The Roman Holiday?
We knew we wanted to change the name after our hiatus, so we started brainstorming a bunch of stuff. Nothing was really sticking… We had a song we had written as The Roman holiday (Lord of Shit) which was originally called “Ahtme, Lord of shit”. We dug the idea behind the song a lot and decided to steal the Deity from it and use it as our Moniker.
TMR: Can you guys explain the artwork for Sewerborn? It’s so ugly and hideous I love it! What is it’s meaning and representation?
The concept for the album is kind of just a general statement on how people are for the most part disgusting. The lyrics for the title track “Subhuman Remains” kinda speak to that idea specifically but most of our songs have lyrics in a similar vein. The face on the cover is actually made up from pieces of all of our faces. We sent the artist pictures of us and he basically made a collage from pieces of each of our faces and then made it look like it spent its life in a Sewer. It sounds like is all serious subject matter but it’s really just an idea that’s fun to explore and write about, none of us really feel like we have a “statement” to make, we just enjoy gross and absurd stuff.
TMR: How did Ahtme come together? And what does your band name mean?
After The Roman holiday went on hiatus we all still kicked it all the time, its always been a tight knit group. Nothing really changed from TRH to Ahtme, besides the name. Ahtme is the Lord of Shit. He is the God you pray to after a long night of drinking, doubled over on the toilet cursing christ, begging for the hershey squirts to stop.
TMR: Who’s everyone’s favorite up & coming band? Namedrop all your faves!
We’re all super excited for Warforged to put our the record they’ve been working on. There are a ton of bands from here in KC that we are stoked on too Destructionist, Sedlec Ossuary, Marasmus and Gravelord are some of our close buddies that are super sick.
TMR: What are your favorite releases of the year so far?
Too many to name… but off the top Slugdge, Gravelord, Alkaloid, Obscura, Soreption, Hideous Divinity, Morbid Angel.
TMR: What influenced you guys to get into extreme metal?
We all came up in the early 2000’s listening to a lot of deathcore back when that was popular and that got us playing “heavy” stuff But as you learn your instrument and become more focused on being a musician I think you just naturally gravitate towards more technical and challenging stuff which is how we got into death metal.
TMR: How did you guys become musicians?
Most of us started playing around the 8th grade. We (Dalton, Brent) used to flip through Musician’s Friend magazines during class and day dream about all the stuff we wanted to buy. Eventually we saved enough money to buy some beginner stuff and started a shit punk rock band… the rest is history.
TMR: Can you go into further detail for the Subhuman Remains video? It’s such a wildly entertaining video. Who came up with the idea?
Haha well The chorus of the title track is “Sewer-born” and we just decided to roll with that and give birth to a baby in a sewer haha. That’s about as far as the idea went, we just got ridiculous props together and spent the day in a snow storm shooting that video covered in fake blood in freezing sewer water. It was actually on Easter Sunday when we shot it and I (Dalton) got so insanely sick after that day I had a fever for like a week almost. As long as it’s up to us all of our videos will be stupid and wild like that. I for one would always rather look like an idiot than try to look cool.
TMR: What do you guys plan on doing after your upcoming tour with Micawber and Lago?
Comin’ home and sleeping in our own beds lol. As far as Ahtme is concerned we plan to start chipping away at the new record. We’re sitting on a fat stack of new shit right now. We’re super stoked to get the ball rolling on that!
TMR: Opinions on your tour mates recent releases?
Yeah, Both Lago and Micawber put out badass albums this year! We were pumped when we got to book this tour with them, it’s gonna be sick to play with them every night and watch them rip. It seems like they’ve both been well received too, we hope maybe we can all make a few new fans off each other playing together every night.
TMR: Any advice for new bands?
PRACTICE! Have fun, and don’t take yourself too seriously!
TMR: What bands would you love to play with?
That would be a loooong list haha but off hand I’d say: Vader, The Zenith Passage, Decapitated, Martyr (R.I.P.) Narcotic Wasteland, Nile. I could go on forever, basically every band that I’d like to see live.
TMR: What interests does everyone have outside of music?
BBQ (KC DOES IT BEST!), video games, camping, floating, being out on the lake, dog party’s… pretty much anything that involves us getting together with our friends and having a good time… booze are cool too.
TMR: You can only take one piece of gear with you after your place burns down! What do you save? A certain amp, mic or guitar of sorts?
For me (Dalton) definitely my guitar. Amps and pedals and stuff are a dime a dozen but I think your instrument you really wanna be super familiar with all the time. I play a Ran crusher 7 string and an Ibanez RG but the Ran is definitely my baby.
TMR: What new releases are you looking forward to?
To name a handful… Warforged, Gorod, Psycroptic, Devin Townsend, Revocation.
TMR: How does Ahtme write? At practice or on your own?
I write the riffs on my own, usually with simple programmed drums to help convey the original idea to the other members. I try to make a general outline of a song alone. We sit down as a band and hash everything out after that and that’s when the songs really come together. Sometimes I’ll write an entire song and we all just learn it as it is, but it’s usually got at least a little piece of everyone in it somewhere.
TMR: What is your favorite show you have ever played?
That’s a tough one… don’t know if we can narrow it down to a favorite one, but the last Devastation on the Nation line up was super sick; Psycroptic, Ingested, Disentomb, Arkaik, Venom Prison, Vale of Pnath, Torn The Fuck Apart, and us. Every band killed shit that night! We played a show with Gorguts and Exist, that one was sick too!
TMR: Give me your craziest and oddest tour stories.
We don’t get to hit the road much seeing as we all have full time jobs and lives and all that boring stuff but when we were really young back when we were the Roman holiday we definitely made some bad decisions hahaha. Some girl let us party at her parents house all night while they were gone out of town and our buddy rode a wheel chair off the roof into an above ground pool and totally fuckin smashed the pools pump and broke the side of it and we went ahead and took off lol. If that chick happens to see this… we’re sorry!
Originally published on Technical Music Review. Republished with permission.
