“Catcore from Castrop”. That’s how metal/deathcore upstarts SAMURAI PIZZA CATS describe themselves; led by ESKIMO CALLBOY guitarist Daniel Haniss and joined by members of FALL OF GAIA and HER SMILE IN GRIEF, the quartet bonded over a love of anime and a desire to make some music on their own terms, purely for the hell of it. Thus were the SAMURAI PIZZA CATS born, and if the name sounds familiar, there’s a good reason, as they “are all 90s kids that watched anime all day” – particularly the futuristic anime they take their name directly from.
It wasn’t, however, a sudden meeting; Haniss and Sebastien Fischer (vocals) both played together in HER SMILE IN GRIEF, the precursor to ESKIMO CALLBOY, while Fischer and Stefan Buchwald both played in FALL OF GAIA. And if that’s a combination you wouldn’t expect, it’s one the band agree with. “We don’t compare what we’re doing now with what [they] sounded like,” Haniss explains. But, because “we knew each other way before SAMURAI PIZZA CATS and played in different bands before,” that friendship formed the basis of what became SPC in 2021. “We just decided to work on some songs for fun, and it escalated very quickly,” he grins.
Much like Haniss’ day job, SAMURAI PIZZA CATS are bouncy and fun sonically, with a sound that pulls on a myriad of modern alternative genres; “It’s a mix of metalcore, deathcore, nu-metal and a big portion of synths,” he says, “but mostly we just write whatever we enjoy.” Take release day single Have A G.O.O.D. Day! that features REDHOOK vocalist Emmy Mack during its chorus; it might charge out the gates with a bouncing riff and Eurodance synths, but the verses are deathcore aggro and Mack’s choruses are acidic pop punk.
That cheery willingness to try anything and see if it sticks extends to their aims with the band; when it comes to particular things he wants to achieve, Haniss stresses that SAMURAI PIZZA CATS is, first and foremost, a fun project for them. “In the beginning, we just enjoyed writing music for fun,” he smiles, “and even now when things are going off, we’re just going with the flow. We’re up for whatever happens in the future, but we’re not aiming for anything specific.” It’s a remarkably carefree attitude, one borne of making music with a group of friends for the sheer fun of it.
That music has finally coalesced into debut album You’re Hellcome; released this September, it’s the pinnacle of what the quartet have worked towards so far and features a slew of guest features, silly moments and an entire series of videos that each inhabit seemingly their own cinematic universe. Haniss is honest that a lot of those features come from connections made through ELECTRIC CALLBOY. “I’m very fortunate to know so many musicians and other people,” he explains, “it served as a great kick off because I could reach out to so many people we wanted to work with!”
Alongside the aforementioned Emmy Mack feature, rapper MRS NINA CHARTIER crops up on the rap metal Alpha, trading bars in German against Fischer’s screeches. Immediately after, Freakshow has FUTURE PALACE vocalist Maria Lessing (an unsurprising turn given Haniss and Lessing toured together recently), while Alma Alizadeh of Dutch extreme metallers FOR I AM KING crops up on the closing title track with her excoriating roar that pushes the track further into the deathcore side of the band’s sound for a short, sharp (sub-two minute) blast of frenetic squeals and growls. In fact, there’s only one feature that might be actually expected here.
That is, of course, from ELECTRIC CALLBOY bandmate Nico Sallach on the incredibly silly Pizza Homicide, which with its earworm hooks regales the story of murdering someone for putting pineapple on pizza. Naturally, at that point we had to pop the question – and got a far worse one in response. “Pineapple on pizza is like Nutella with butter,” he grins, which sounds like something you ought to be tried in the Hague for. Moving swiftly on from that, we ask them about the songwriting process and how they created such a colourful concept for the songs that make up You’re Hellcome.
“The instrumental song is written first without any lyrics, so the music doesn’t always relate to a non-musical source,” Haniss explains; there’s got to be at least some link between the song itself and their own name. As he tells it, when they’re writing though, “we sit down and think about what style of lyrics and theme fits each song” rather than having a predetermined idea going in. Another thing that worked in SAMURAI PIZZA CATS’s favour during its gestation from 2021 to now was that the band created it entirely in their own, custom studio in Germany.
Haniss says that as they could “work whenever you have inspiration, and whenever there are creative days,” it made the process significantly easier for them. “We hit the studio whenever we wanted.” Ultimately, the downtime they had gave four friends the impetus to finally kickstart something together; taking their love of 90s anime, a desire not to take things too seriously, and a laundry list of friends in bands, SAMURAI PIZZA CATS was born, with a ridiculous, eye-catching name, visuals that really need to be seen to be believed and a love of pizza, horror and cats. After all, it’s Catcore from Castrop.
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