09/16/2022
Devoid interview on Vinyl Lollipops: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=492748639525575&id=100063713285136&sfnsn=mo
Devoid
September 2022
Interviewed by:
Laura Williams
Vinyl Lollipops
Photos courtesy of:
Todd Phillips
Devoid is:
Chris Szablewski - Bass
Travis Rainey - Guitar
Chris Phillips - Lead Guitar
Scott Malcolm - Vocals
John Emrick - Drums
Laura:
What genre of music do you consider Devoid to be?
Travis:
I guess we were thrash metal.
Laura:
What was the ultimate direction for your band?
Travis:
We had hoped to be the next Metallica. Keep in mind this was the early 90s. Chris S. and I had just graduated from high school and we were all in. Originally the band was Chris Szablewski and Eric Peterson when I tried out for them. Chris and I got along great but Eric often thought we were too silly. Eventually Eric went off and started his own band called Scoff. Chris and I worked to find another guitarist and we were always looking for drummers. I think we had gone through 3 or 4 drummers by the time we found John Emrick. Looking through my stuff recently I found I still have some of the fliers that we would place at local music stores around Huntsville, Alabama looking for guitarists and drummers.
Laura:
How would you describe your music making process?
Travis:
For the most part Chris Szablewski and I would write almost everything together. Our instrumental, Comatoast, was all Chris but for most of our music it was both of us working together. Later, when we took on Scott Malcolm as our vocalist, we pretty much gave him free reign to do what he wanted. In hindsight that was total madness; we should’ve been working with him to keep him in check.
Laura:
Why call the band, “Devoid?”
Travis:
This was Szablewski’s band at first and he already had the name chosen as I seem to recall. I’m not sure if it was chosen by the old “dictionary drop” method or if it came to him somehow. I do remember joking around about calling the band Bowling Ball Massacre but again that’s more of our silliness showing through.
Laura:
Typical question here. Who has influenced you the most via music?
Travis:
I love this question because it’s probably the one I like to talk about the most. At that time I was hugely influenced by Metallica. Back in 1986 a friend let me borrow his copy of Master of Puppets and there are few times when I heard something that affected me as much as this. I was still new to playing guitar when I first heard Metallica but within a few years I had a couple of different bands under my belt before I tried out for Devoid. Chris Szablewski was listening to more Slayer than I was but I would have to say without a doubt that we wanted to be the “next Metallica” if such a thing were even possible. While in Devoid, Chris Szablewski and I started listening to more and more Skinny Puppy and Sepultura. After our demo came out we started writing more songs with lots of breaks and changes more like Sepultura. Unfortunately, we never recorded any of them.
Laura:
How can fans and future fans locate, listen to and buy your music?
Travis:
At present our demo is available only on Bandcamp.
Laura:
Is there anything else you would like your fans to know?
Travis:
What is available on Bandcamp is a totally remastered version of our original demo tape from 1992. I went back to our original master tapes and tried my best to salvage them. I tried to gently EQ while compressing and increasing loudness to make this the best it could be. Keep in mind these are live recordings and I was not doing multitrack recording back then. Much to my chagrin, every wrong note, stick click and singer microphone switch-off is recorded there forever.
Laura:
Is there anything that you would change about your experience, Mr. Rainey?
Travis:
About a week after Metallica’s Black Album released Devoid had Enter Sandman all figured out; the whole song. However, our singer refused to sing it. We had a show in Athens soon afterwards that, to this day, I wish we had played Enter Sandman at. We probably should’ve ended our set with it and it would’ve been epic. It still bugs me.
Laura:
What is coming up next for Devoid?
Travis:
Sadly, there are no plans for anything else. Despite all our drummers, and all the other recordings we made, these are the only recordings that I can locate. We broke up back in late 1992 or early 1993. I was semi-traumatized by the whole experience and went on to become more of a solo artist (ala Trent Reznor) and started integrity 236 in late 1993.
John, our drummer, was immediately in another band within a week or two but other than he and myself I am not sure that anyone else from Devoid ever played in another band. During my time in Devoid I had started recording other bands in Huntsville like Original Sin and Kat-A-Tonic. Soon I landed a job as the soundman at the Tip Top Café. I went on to record Decorum, M**f Weasel, the 3Ds, The Sewer Punks, the Panic Buttons, Superfreak, Jarvis, and Daikaiju to name a few. It’s been a long, strange trip to say the least.
Laura Williams
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