Evil Blizzard, the Preston six-piece made up of a drummer, four bassists, and a pig, are set to release their new album Everybody Come to Church on October 9^th. Kav and Filthydirty, two of the bassists, agreed to answer a few questions from GIGsoup’s Matt Watts.

Where do you start when asking questions of such a theatrical and left-field band? I suppose you should establish whether they really are evil, or if it’s just an act? Filthydirty says that when they’re potentially being evil, they’re having too much fun to notice anyway. Kav is straight to the point, saying “fuck off and die.” I take this as an invitation to continue.

With a band full of bassists, you would expect them to be admirers of some big name bass players. Flea? John Deacon? Paul McCartney? Chris from Muse? Lemmy? Who are Evil Blizzard’s bass idols? Well it turns out that there’s only one: Prowler. Filthydirty says that “He’s our hero. He’s his hero. And he should be yours too.” Prowler is also a member of Evil Blizzard.

As I mentioned in my review of Everybody Come to Church, the album isn’t quite as evangelical as the title would suggest. It seems that the name was as spontaneous as you would expect: “A load of people were busy having a particularly heavy drinking session at Kav’s house that sprawled into the next morning. A feral child who was curious about the band approached us in our delirious state and told us with great authority ‘you should call your next record this – (chants ominously) Everybody Come to Church’ and then proceeded to assault a gong.” It’s unclear whether the gong belonged to Kav or if the child brought his own, but Filthydirty recorded it all on his phone and used it as both the name and introduction to the album.

The best cover songs are those that take a completely different approach to the original and reinvent the sound as their own. I don’t think there are any songs that have been written for a four-bass setup, so anything Evil Blizzard covered would at the very least be interesting. Kav, the most business-minded band member, says that they hate playing covers but would be prepared to for a fee of £500. Filthydirty agrees that the band aren’t built for covers, adding “Having said that, I reckon we could do a cracking job of Laurie Anderson’s ‘Superman’. Or indeed Black Lace’s version of it.” So keep your eyes peeled for our GIGsoup kickstarter campaign, coming soon to fund a truly evil version of Black Lace.

Seeing as Evil Blizzard have such an unconventional sound and I’m a music journalist, I want to pigeonhole them. Thing is, I’m struggling with it, so I ask them who they think their audience are. “People with more money than taste, ideally. We seem to have a similar appeal right across any genre; metal, indie, dance, goth, dub; you name it – we can annoy anyone. We could start a new ‘goth/dub’ genre. We’re the kings of Gub.”

Even after my most searching questions, the seminal gub band Evil Blizzard remain as enigmatic as they began. So, rather than trying to get to the truth behind their rubber masks, let’s add some new rumours to their legend. I ask what stories the band would like to circulate: “Side’s Uncle played flute for Slade. Blizzpig is the most secretive member of the band as he is actually a politician. Stomper is in fact two children on each other’s shoulders. Prowler has five kidneys as they keep giving him transplants that don’t work and just leave the old kidneys in to rot. Mopman’s ‘mask’ is actually an elaborate tattoo. Kav is a classically trained musician. And I (Filthydirty) have a restraining order from Belinda Carlisle.”

Everybody Come to Church is out on October 8^th.