Today we’d like to introduce you to Brandon Smith
Hi Brandon, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Graveyard Demons is a trio of 3 people, JUDAS(producer/vocals), KARMA(vocals), and GASTANK(vocals). We started off trying to achieve a “Trap Metal” type of sound similar to other rappers we liked at the time but quickly moved past that after playing some rap shows and realizing absolutely no one there liked us. We started experimenting with our sound more as we started attending local punk and metal shows and that instantly became a huge influence. We wanted to play shows with these bands we were paying to go see so we evolved our sound into a way we can be seen and respected in the local band scene. Being the only group that doesn’t play any instruments its been hard to get some genuine recognition from some of these bands and is still an active goal of ours to this day, but we have plenty of bands that are in completely different genres like Death Metal, Grindcore, Hardcore, and Punk that absolutely love us and include us in their festivities and vice versa. We started our transition into the punk scene by playing a mixed bill of punk bands and out of the ordinary scream rappers similar to us that kept the energy high and showed a good portion of show regulars that this is a fun sound that they can get down with. Recently we made our first album “D-DAY” that you can find on all platforms that really started our sound transition, it was a huge step in working towards what we’re putting out now which is a mix of a few different genres that achieves a very unique sound. In our two most recent tracks “BOMB THREAT” and “UNDER FIRE!” available on all platforms, we took aspects from multiple genres including punk, industrial metal, hardcore, and power metal that makes up a sound that we just don’t have a name for. These recent two tracks have gotten us the most praise we have ever received on our music to date and is only getting us closer to solidifying our names in this Cleveland music scene. We also pride ourselves on keeping everything we do “DIY” we make every beat, write every lyric, produce every song all from scratch, we even burn our own CDs, and throw our own shows in unique places. Over the summer we got to play some insanely cool shows including the Taco Bell Baja Blast II event that went viral on many pages across social media, a pop up gig at an Adultmart store that attracted close to 500 people before the police shut it down, and our own backyard shows that have been a hit!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
We still face many challenges 2 of us work full time jobs and the other is full time at college hours away so it takes a lot of effort on all ends to balance music and our day to day lives. Another challenge we still face is certain bands not wanting to play a show with “those rapper guys”. We also still face the issue of music not being very profitable when you’re starting out, we have to save up money to buy equipment and work with what we have to put these shows on and put our music out to everyone.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
All 3 of us are vocalists while one of us also produces on top of it, GASTANK, and KARMA are in 2 different groups one being Graveyard Demons the other being Septic Relapse, a beatdown hardcore & grindcore mix that hosts very violent shows. To date the thing we are most proud of is the release of our first album “D-DAY” making an album is something all 3 of us have always wanted to do and it was surreal to put an album out and have physical copies of our music. The thing that sets us apart from others is our work ethic, we have team meetings with everyone involved with our collective “Martial Law Records” to ensure the bands are meeting their goals and keeping the music going in a forward direction, something were not sure if any other groups around here are doing.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
Watch who you associate yourself with. Theres a lot of people in the music scene who have done unspeakable acts and associating with those people can ruin everything you’ve worked towards to get where you’re at.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/martial.law.records
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/graveyard.demons?igsh=OWIzeHI2ZnZ5d2xk&utm_source=qr
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCx8BdcQv_ShGOG4BZBWEf3A?si=xHyv_nHe3TLIWDJy
- Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/ATKrMJF4ZzmuMNcP6
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5ZfxxGbO8A4GWdpGIrXYhb?si=mbxaUsVcQQqGA3JCXORBPw
