Matthew Bankuti, the mad genius behind Ero Guro, has been kicking up quite the racket for almost a decade now. Having more or less conquered the scene in his hometown of Brampton, Bankuti recently made the move to downtown Toronto to take on broader horizons, with new album Bankuti Simulator in tow. The album feels like an artistic leap forward, and Bankuti seems to know it, as it coincides with what feels like his most ‘official’ release yet. I caught up with Bankuti (which was pretty easy to do – we’re roommates) to talk about the new album, the big move, as well as what it means to mature and add focus to music that is so fundamentally chaotic.
Let’s start off with something simple. Describe your music in 5 words to readers who may not have heard you before.
I have spent almost 7 years trying to come up with something to tell my coworkers to no avail. Sadly, I don’t think I’ll be capable of coming up with anything good before you publish this interview. Alternative industrial is a somewhat close approximation even if it is totally off base, I guess.
Ero Guro is an incredibly prolific project; this is something like your 10th album or something absurd like that. Where do you find inspiration to keep dropping music at such a consistent rate?
Tenth record if you count the football one, yeah. Twelfth if you count Talk in Beaux, I guess. In the beginning, I was on a lot of drugs and composing was just something I did when I was fucked up. I wrote the first Ero Guro record, Eviction, in the two weeks between receiving my eviction notice and getting evicted. My friends and I drank a lot and I did a lot of ketamine and a lot of the decisions were made by committee (“I like the piano in this one but I don’t like the vocals”, etc) and the resulting record is something of a charming mess. There are a lot of cool ideas buried in bizarre mixing decisions and a lot of pretty incredible lyrics mixed in with some pretty incoherent ones. The records that followed up until Planet Earth/Impossible Galaxy pretty much followed a similar process to similar ends. I was less deliberate, on drugs, and undiagnosed. I consider Ero Guro to exist in two phases and Strategies for Coping with Loss was the first album where I really had a clear idea of what I was doing before I sat down to do it. My friend Barry died, I was dealing with a bunch of legal troubles and a bad breakup, and I had a lot to talk about. The first version of the record didn’t fit my vision and so I scrapped it completely (whereas I’d previously probably just release it anyways). I went from making two or three albums a year to just one. The songs are more fleshed out and their lyrics tend to be more immediately purposeful. Inspiration comes from all sorts of places, but oftentimes my relationships with myself, my friends and past lovers tend to shape a lot of the records. I don’t care as much about what people think of me anymore and when I say really fucked up things about people on record, no one seems to notice that it is about them or they think I’m kidding… and, I guess, sometimes I am kidding.
All Ero Guro records are extremely personal, yet the title Bankuti Simulator signifies that this album is your most personal yet. What about this album earns it the title of Bankuti Simulator compared to your previous releases?
I come up with titles before I work on the albums. I didn’t know what the songs would sound like when I started, but I knew the direction I wanted to go in and what I wanted to talk about. I wanted the album to be like a book and the songs to be like chapters. The album title actually has a lot to do with the compositions themselves. I wanted it to feel like an imperfect simulation so like I would go in and randomize the velocity at which I hit the keys and layer my vocal takes with autotune to throw my pitch… as if I’m trying to come through the computer, but it isn’t me. It is just a simulation of me. I didn’t write a single lyric for the album like I normally do, like there was no pen and paper, but instead I just hit record and took a drink and improvised a bunch of takes and stopped and stuck them together and went back and maybe added something. So, as a result, some of the takes are really unrefined. These were all choices I made to like achieve this idea that the record is an approximation of me as opposed to the real thing because the real thing is impossible and you can’t simulate me. There are about three hours worth of b-sides to the album and some of them are better than songs that are on the record, but they didn’t really fit what I was trying to do re:simulating Bankuti. They’ll probably turn up sooner or later. One track, “I could lose my reflection in a hall of mirrors”, is one of my favorite Ero Guro songs ever… you’ll definitely hear it when it fits.
There’s a very obvious emo inspiration on this record, especially in the vocals. Where did this come from?
The emo inspiration actually came pretty late in the writing process. I was having trouble doing my vocal takes, like I wasn’t satisfied with what was coming out, and the record sounded too much like Strategies for Coping with Loss because I was doing the baritone like Joy Division vocals and I didn’t want to repeat myself and I was having trouble coming up with something new… and then, in like March, I, uh, came really late to the party and listened to Glassjaw and Brand New… so, I was listening to that first Glassjaw record a lot. Like a lot. It is a really personal record and he says a lot of fucked up things and I liked how they were being delivered so clearly and the vibe it gave… and I was listening to the Devil and God a lot and had the same response… so, I figured, why not try it out? And the thing is, the vocal style really makes the record click. I don’t think the album would have worked if I wasn’t listening to those records. Or at least, it would be a much different record than it is… because it isn’t an emo record. I just stole some things from Emo.
Ero Guro has always been very DIY, with you handling all aspects of recording and mixing, as well as making your own CDs to sell. What made you decide to turn to an outside party for mastering and CD production for Bankuti Simulator?
Last year I pulled a lot of 55 hour work weeks, so I had the money. I don’t know how to master, so I never mastered my shit. I really like this album and I had the money to master it, so I asked Brent Peers (who is doing the physical packaging) and he linked me to Greg Dawson (who has worked with Binge Ninja and Hormoans) and the price was right, so I did it. I’m glad too, because the masters sound really good.
Ero Guro started out very noisy and chaotic, slowly becoming more melodic and controlled. Has the transition been difficult to replicate in a live setting?
I, uh, I’m still working it out. I didn’t start playing the new stuff live until recently. Some shows have been really successful. It works when I’m playing in claustrophobic settings and it works when the sound guy knows what he is doing. I don’t beat myself up as much, but I get a bit more madcap and zany. The football songs didn’t work on the record, but they work like pickled ginger between sushi rolls live. I’m still figuring it out though. Some shows have gone better than others, whereas I don’t really play bad shows when I do the old stuff. That’s ok though because I’m bored of the old stuff and when the new shows go over well… the results are better than any of the old stuff. It’s more mature. Anyone can stick their hand down their throat and vomit, they just have to be willing to deal with the consequences. The new songs are better. I want a live band, but it is hard because I am sort of a domineering prick.
Speaking of live settings, you have a record release show scheduled this Saturday at All Stars Bar & Grill, a venue you’re quite accustomed to playing. Ero Guro shows are notorious for being complete shit shows (I got slapped in the face with a shoe at the last Ero Guro show I attended). How the hell did you convince All Stars, or any venue for that matter, to continue letting you perform there?
All Stars likes me because I make them money, I think. My fans drink a lot and the bands I book drink a lot. Some of the more notorious EG live stories (the vomiting, the live piercings, smashing my friend Tori’s head through the drumset) didn’t happen there, so that helps. There’s been a couple fights and I beat a crackhead with a microphone at my last birthday show, but I didn’t exactly start the fight. They don’t like when I stand on the bar barefoot, but they never actually punish me for doing it. I’ve been kicked out of a few venues… I’m sure I will be again. I’m not on drugs anymore and I’m calmer now, so this stuff happens less frequently.
You’re a frequent collaborator. Should we be on the lookout for any exciting collaborative releases in the near future?
The First Seed and I have two records that are pretty much finished. Some finishing touches and mastering and they’ll be out. A lot of the songs are a few years old now. It is very aggressive. There’s some pretty recent stuff too. There’s a song with Binge on there that I’m pretty excited about called “Grease King.” It’s like the fucking All Star team. I don’t think I would be what I am today without the First Seed. He caught me when it was really unrefined. We were playing at Bread and Circus, it was my first show in Toronto and Brandon was on stage back then and I would beat the shit out of him and the songs weren’t really done yet. He liked it though, I guess… he gave me the instrumental for “Her Vagina is a House” a little while after. I listened to the instrumental like a thousand times and I wrote like a hundred different versions of my parts in about two weeks… like it was all I did for two weeks… because I wanted to be as good as the song… as good as the First Seed and I just wasn’t yet… and I still am not… but I really worked at it and the song turned out pretty good and through the process, I got a lot better. We have a really special record, I think.
What’s your personal favourite song/lyric on the record?
The last track “Matthew/Too High Here/I’m So Proud of You” is the darkest shit I’ve ever done probably. It is really brooding and awful. It’s great. Favorite lyrics are tough, barring that last track, I like “if you want them to love you for who you are then you better change who you are” off “No Slouch” and the whole second half of “U Always in My Memory” where it gets creepy and like “you know that I will always love you once I get to know you let me know you let me love you let me touch you like I do in my dreams in my old memories like those memories were today I wish today I wish today I could capture how I crossed you how I touched you how I loved you I wish I could feel that love, etc”
Ero Guro has been your moniker for close to a decade now. Do you ever feel a schism between what your younger self decided to name this project, and your adult self identifying with it?
Ero Guro is a bad pun. I would change it, but it’s too late now and that’s ok because nobody knows what it means anyways. I used to stress out about it a lot, but now I only stress out about it sometimes.
You’ve developed somewhat of a cult following for yourself in your hometown of Brampton, and you very recently decided to move to downtown Toronto. Has this been a difficult transition for you, artistically?
Toronto is terrifying. I have to work from the bottom up and there’s a lot of stuff happening here. In Brampton, being a big deal is easy because there isn’t much happening. Towards the end though, a lot of my following had moved to different places and stuff anyways. Brampton is a good starting point, I guess. I’m not sure where I fit in here though. I don’t make digital hardcore anymore, but I get booked with a lot of digital hardcore bands because I used to.
You have an incredible work ethic, and I don’t doubt you’ve already started writing your next record. Any idea what direction you plan to take in the future?
I’m taking my time with it. I want to work on my novel for a few months before I do any serious work on it, but I have ideas and a title. Writing albums is exhausting though.