The Death Wheelers | Interview | New Album, ‘Chaos And The Art Of Motorcycle Madness’

The Death Wheelers are back with a brand new album, ‘Chaos And The Art Of Motorcycle Madness,’ out August 25th via RidingEasy Records.

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Since their self-titled debut in 2015 and in 2020’s cinematic-storytelling breakout, ‘Divine Filth,’ the Canadian outfit have tapped into wind-through-hair freedom and careened down open roads of groove, not a cop in sight. Their third record, ‘Chaos and the Art of Motorcycle Madness,’ more than lives up to its name on all fronts.

The band tells the story like this: “Cursed to ride forever on this mortal plane after partaking in a satanic drug ritual, the Death Wheelers pledge allegiance to the god of hell and fire. However, in order to prove themselves to their newly anointed leader and for the spell to take effect, the club will need to engage in a series of lewd acts of sex and violence across the country. Immortality comes at a price and you’re about to pay for it…” While forging songs adherent more to ideology than style, The Death Wheelers cast their biker cult in their own image, and on ‘Chaos and the Art of Motorcycle Madness,’ they challenge death head-on as only those with no fear of it could hope to do.

“I was really into the bikesploitation aesthetics at the time and saw this untapped musical potential just waiting to be exploited”

It’s really fantastic to have you. I have been a fan of your band since I first heard ‘I Tread on Your Grave’ back in 2018. Tell us when the band originally formed.

Max Tremblay: The band originally started in December 2014 as a solo project. I started making demos at home recording all the instruments, mixing and mastering the whole thing myself, DIY. I had no idea what I was doing at the time (still don’t). I uploaded the songs to Bandcamp and I made a short run of tapes compiling all the demos, which sold out instantly. I was blown away! I did not expect this kind of response to essentially a home recorded project. At this point, I wanted to take things to the next level and play the songs live, and start recording a full-length album, so I recruited some local musicians to turn this solo project into an actual live band. Here we are today nine years later, three albums in.

I would love to speak about your early influences and how you first became a musician.

Early influences would definitely be from digging through my dad’s record collection. I was raised on a healthy diet of Grand Funk Railroad, The Ventures, Black Sabbath, Neil Young and Led Zeppelin because of him. He is also a musician and was in several local bands back in the 70’s. He always pushed for us to play music. Early on he enrolled me in piano classes, which I loathed at the time.

Fast forward six years later, I had developed a healthy obsession with bands such as Mötorhead, Deep Purple and The Stooges through my high school friends. In typical suburban teenager fashion, we all decided we wanted to start a band to emulate our 70s heroes. We rehearsed in the basement at my friend’s house. The project was short lived but it allowed me to pick up the basics. I moved to the city not long after we broke up and started mingling with the local underground scene.

What was the scene like in your city? Were you part of any underground clubs or bands before forming The Death Wheelers? Did you have a special hangout place where you listened to records?

When I first moved to Quebec City, the scene was very much alive, lots of DIY venues and new bands were constantly popping up. I used to go to concerts on a weekly basis and would see a bunch of fresh faces who are still to this day good friends of mine and/or musical collaborators. My favourite spot was, and still is to this day, the SCANNER. I played some of my first shows there and I have seen some amazing underground acts at this venue over the years. A good friend of mine at the time showed me the ropes of the underground scene. He was a musician, promoter, graphic designer, venue operator, he did it all! He asked me to play bass in his band and I picked up a lot of things along the way. He most definitely had a heavy influence on my DIY ethos.

When starting the band, what would you say was the main concept behind it? Your overall vision?

The project was born out of necessity. I had quit my previous band and job, and I had nowhere to channel my creativity. With plenty of time to create (the joys of being unemployed) and a growing interest in soundtracks, I thought it would be interesting to attempt something in the realm of the instrumental genre. I was really into the bikesploitation aesthetics at the time and saw this untapped musical potential just waiting to be exploited. The main concept was originally pretty loose, just straight up smutty /sleazy biker riffery. I thought it was interesting to start with a loose concept/idea rather than restricting myself to a genre and pigeonholing myself. Over time, the project became more focused with each album devised as a soundtrack to a fictional biker film with a home brewed synopsis. I thought it would be an exciting experiment as a musician to create my own universe from scratch just like Voivod did over the course of their musical career.

You must be a big fan of 60s and 70s exploitation films. What are some that you like the most? I won’t mind if you share some lesser known ones as well.

Satan’s Sadists (1969) | You can actually hear two samples from this movie on our new album.

Stone (1974) | An Aussie flick that set the groundwork for Mad Max 5.

The Proud Rider (1971) | Bikesploistation Canadiana.

How would you describe your sound?

Sleaze n’ roll with a touch of Afrobeat.

If I’m not mistaken, you released several singles that ended on your debut album, ‘Mind-Blowing Trip!!!’. Would love to hear about those early recordings.

Those recordings were done entirely by me. I played all the instruments, and most of what you hear was done in a few takes (you can tell because of the multiple mistakes and how primitive everything sounds). The whole thing was recorded in the span of a couple days at home and not much was premeditated or revised. Almost everything was improvised. Fun fact, the guitar is barely audible on these recordings because I superimposed two bass tracks (overdriven and clean) to beef up the mix. The end result is quite unorthodox but still listenable. For artwork, since I was broke at the time and incompetent with photoshop, I just ripped off the Psychomania logo and used the art from a movie called Free Graas. Sunmask (a now defunct Canadian label) got in touch with me not long after I self-released this compilation to put it out on vinyl as a split with Canadian band Witchstone.

We are just a few days away from your exciting upcoming album, ‘Chaos And the Art of Motorcycle Madness’. How long did you work on it, and what can you tell us about the songs from it?

The album was a labour of love and hate, but mostly hate (which makes for great music), and this for many reasons: line-up changes, jam space issues, pandemic, artwork delays. It took around ten months to write the entire thing and it was recorded in two separate sessions, which was a first for us (we usually record everything in one stretch).

Where was the album recorded?

We recorded the album in David Lizotte’s studio, which is essentially like a sex dungeon: stone walls in a basement. Felt right at home!

I just love the production. Tell us about the gear, amps, etc. that you’re using…

Without going into details (sorry gear nerds), we usually try to keep it pretty simple in the studio; not too many bells and whistles. We do not want to alter things too much as we don’t want things to sound too modern and retouched. Also, this time around, we decided to use combo amplifiers to have more range when it comes to recording at high volumes. But at the end of the day, it does not matter what amps you use; we all know tone is stored in the balls!

Are you planning to go on tour after the album is out?

We had a tour planned with The Obsessed, but it got cancelled just as we were about to leave last month. We’re trying to rebook something ASAP to make up for these Canadian dates. As far as Europe and the US, we’d love to come. Unfortunately, we need VISAS to play in the USA, which suck$. If not for this, our Canadian asses would have already played there. For the moment, we decided to do a release show at our local record store, something we have never done in the past.

How would you compare it to your previous album, ‘Divine Filth’?

Our latest album was fully recorded in a studio, which means all the instruments were recorded separately. Our two previous albums were recorded live (all instruments at once) in one room in two to three days.

This studio approach allowed us to experiment with layering and also overdubbing which is something we had not done a whole lot in the past because of technical and time constraints.

You know, one of the coolest album works of art I have ever seen must be the one used for ‘I Tread On Your Grave’. Who is that outlaw on a bike and who finished the cover artwork?

Only the entity known as Brouemaster, the man behind this artwork, could answer this question. Unfortunately, we will never know. He has retired/vanished from this mortal plane. He took it to the grave.

“Spontaneity is key. Deliberate thinking would only lead to useless noodling and weak riffs.”

How do you usually approach songwriting? Do you just jam together or…?

Sometimes someone shows up with a finished song and we fine tune it together as a band. Other times, we start from scratch and we build on an idea collectively (aka jam things out until a song appears). There is no right or wrong way to go about this, both methods have their pros and cons. One thing is for sure though, we do not dwell on things too long. Spontaneity is key. Deliberate thinking would only lead to useless noodling and weak riffs.

I have to mention another project I’m really keen on. Tell us about Strange Broue. Do you see it as the opposite of The Death Wheelers?

It was the first musical project for which I was 100% behind the wheel so to speak. It was basically my first attempt at writing music, and it shows! I wore my influences on my sleeve and heavily relied on them to create at that point.

Listening to it, I hear some Electric Wizard influences…

We did have a song called ‘Electric Blizzard’. We were pretty much an Electric Wizard worship band and never claimed to be anything else.

I think the concept must be really important when it comes to your projects.

It is. It’s the driving/artistic force behind everything, the purpose. Aimlessness is the enemy of creativity in my opinion.

I’m a bit confused when it comes to Strange Broue. Can you clarify how many albums were released by the band?

Strange Broue officially released two albums: Self-titled and ‘Seance – The Satanic Sounds of Strange Broue’. The self-titled is a collection of all the EPs that came out in 2014 and 2015.

Are any of you involved in any other bands or do you have any active side-projects going on at this point?

I also play Marécages and Enfants Sauvages and run a small label called From the Urn Records. Jean-Michel, our drummer, also plays in a trad metal band called Warning Sign and Ed, our guitarist, has another instrumental project called Le Superclub.

Let’s end this interview with some of your favourite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?

Low-life Motorcycle Dad Rock: HazeHound

What death sounds like: CRAWL

Local flavour: Sedimentum

Thank you. Last word is yours.

Keep it real, DIY or die, fuck the haters, if you don’t like it, don’t listen, if you do, join the crew.

Klemen Breznikar

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