Alive Feature

Hard Reign's Gonna Fall

Columbus' Evil Queens unleash their third album of rock thunder

by Stephen Slaybaugh

With this week's self-release of their third album, First It Boils,
Then It Spills, the Evil Queens have brought to fruition the promise
that's percolated beneath the surface of their previous efforts, 2003's
Dos and their self-titled debut of 2002, and that's always been inherent
in their live shows.

Recorded, like the last two albums, by Jon Chinn at his Workbook
Studio, First It Boils is cut with the smiting riffs and thundering
grooves that have been intrinsic to the Queens' sound since day one. But
here Chinn and the band have rendered them more rabid and fierce,
finding ways to give the album a bigger bite than its predecessors.
"Well, this one was approached differently," vocalist and guitarist
Jacob Sundermeyer explains. "We took a much more casual pace. We'd spend
a weekend on just two songs instead of nine."

The extra time spent shows, especially on the standout one-two punch of
"American Cancer" and "The Government Has Cloned You" midway through the
record. There's little let-down throughout the album's 10 tracks, save
for the closing "Requiem for Antonio Pants," a song written by bassist
Eric Hinterscheid in the studio that reveals the Queens' softer side for
the first time.

Sundermeyer's vocals are marked with particular fervor, and lines like,
"I've got a master plan to fuck you over" ("The Master Plan") would seem
to indicate that he's got a bone to pick.

"I don't know, it's just the way it works," he says. "I don't want to
write songs that are funny because songs that are funny are boring. I
want to write music that I would want to listen to. There is a certain
amount of emotional investment put into the work and if you're not going
to invest yourself on some sort of personal level, then I don't know why
you're doing it."

Sundermeyer's been investing himself in his music since he was in high
school, when he and Evil Queens guitarist Mike Eckhardt and drummer
George Hondroulis formed Our Flesh Party with George's brother
Constantine on bass. After about six years and despite local
recognition, though, that band had run its course and Constantine opted
to quit.

"We'd been together so long there were some hard feelings on my part,"
Sundermeyer remembers. "We've since gotten past all that. It's like any
relationship, though, after a while the thrill is gone. So he moved on
and eventually we moved on."

Sundermeyer and Eckhardt decided to take some time off from making
music in 2000 while Hondroulis drummed with Jack Neat. After about a
year of not playing, though, the guitarists were itching to form a new
band. After auditions didn't produce any suitable drummers, they decided
to re-enlist Hondroulis.

A bassist search lead to Behemoth guitarist Eric Hinterscheid, who
they'd known from when his band at the time, Swivel Arm Battle Grip,
shared bills with Our Flesh Party.

"I had never played bass before," Hinterscheid recalls. "And I didn't
really want to play bass, but I said, 'Alright, I'll give it a try.'"

Dubbing themselves the Evil Queens, the band set to work rehearsing and
writing songs with the end goal of having a debut CD ready to sell at
their first show. Initially, though, they had a much different concept
for the new group.

"It was completely the opposite of where it's ended up," Sundermeyer
says. "We wanted to get rid of our giant amps and have Fender Twins and
computers and stuff. When we finally got together with Eric, though, we
realized that that's not us. We were made to play with giant amps."
Still, the guys weren't about to simply revisit what they'd done with
Our Flesh Party, instead taking a simpler approach with the new band.

"When we first started playing," Sundermeyer explains, "George played
with a real stripped-down kit. Part of me and Mike's deal was not to
play with a million pedals. Mike's gone back to his natural way of
playing with that stuff, but it started out more stripped-down and
straightforward. Eric had a lot to do with that too.

"It's a totally different band," he continues. "We work together
differently. We never used to practice with the old band; we'd practice
once every three months and now we practice once a week and everybody
writes songs or parts of songs."

After recording their debut with Chinn, the Queens hit the ground
running in 2002, playing out with increasing frequency, then heading
back to Workbook to record Dos less than a year later. The response in
Columbus has been encouraging.

"It's been a lot more positive than with the other band," Sundermeyer
says. "I don't know if our timing was off, or if we're doing something
so dramatically different, but it's been fun to play to people who we
don't know and aren't just our family and friends."

The band attributes the sound they've locked onto to give-and-take.
"Sometime we have fights in the songwriting process," Hinterscheid
explains. "I've always played in bands that weren't necessarily
accessible—or maybe people just didn't like us—so I'm always for more
poppy while Jacob tries to make it noisy and somewhere in the middle is
where we land."

The new album's title comes from a Greek expression Houdroulis' father,
who passed away while the album was being made, would use when George
asked him how he was doing. It's also a suitable description for the
manner in which the band has brought their music to peak temperature
over the course of three records.

"I just wanted it to sound good," Sundermeyer says. "I think every time
we record together there's something we're all collectively shooting for
and as a result it ends up differently, but better."

The Evil Queens will celebrate the release of "First It Boils, Then It
Spills" with a show at the Ravari Room on Friday, March 4. Branks and
Jon Chinn open. Click to theevilqueens.com for info.