The ‘Spray Q&A: …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead

Over the last eight years, Austin indie noiseniks …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead have consistently released some of the most gut-punchingly heavy indie these ears have ever heard, and they show no sign of letting up.

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead's last album World's Apart was picked by one hecklerspray scribe as being the best CD of 2005, and the band's new album So Divided has already been described as "the finest piece of rock n' roll you're likely to hear from the cradle to the grave."By us. And how did …And You Will Know us By The Trail Of Dead choose to reciprocate all this feeling for them? By sending band member Conrad Keely over to answer some questions about the potential danger of flying albinos, that's how…

Did you guys know that in one of hecklerspray's 2005 end-of-year wrap ups, your last album Worlds Apart was listed as the best album of the year?

That type of knowledge isn’t for everyone.

While we're on the subject of your last album, at the end of Worlds Apart's track #11 - The Best,
there's a woman screaming in horrible grief. We've always thought it to
be a woman who just discovered her entire village had been mercilessly
slaughtered by Mongols. How accurate an interpretation is that?

That scream had a very specific reference - the Peter Jackson movie Heavenly Creatures,
the very last scene in the movie, when they bash the one girl’s
mother’s head in with a brick, which fades into a scene of the girl
screaming as Kate Winslet’s character is taken away on a ferry boat. I showed that scene to Sophie
(the woman who sang the backup vocals) on DVD before I had her make the
screams. She had us turn all the lights off, it was actually quite
frightening.

Your new album, So Divided, has officially blown our minds. We've already played Stand In Silence for like 100 people. What's the track off it you're all most proud of?

I’m still too close to this record to listen to it right now, but off the top of my head, I really like the segue before Sunken Dreams.

We sense a Beach Boys influence on Eight Day Hell. Any truth to that?

Mais, bien sûr! I mean, a song on the last record was about Brian Wilson, he’s definitely in there. But so were The Zombies.

Besides you guys of course, who is your favourite band out there?

Are there other bands out there still? I was beginning to think we were all alone, and I was gonna cry.

Could you please copy and paste this phrase into into your next
answer section so we can tell people Trail Of Dead said it:
hecklerspray my baby's daddy.

hecklerspray my baby's arsehole?

What does Queen Directory mean, as in your new album's track entitled Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory?  Seriously, wondering keeps us up at night.

Well, that’s a question you’d have to ask Bob Pollard, the composer.

At the end of your shows you guys have a tendency to destroy your
equipment. What's the estimated total value of damage done?  Any
idea?

Ooo… Can we talk about something else? You know, I just went to see Borat and I really liked it.

It seems like you guys have a bunch of side projects, could you list them off?

Kevin and I are currently painting a wall. We’re painting it
solid blue. It’s four stories high and will be finished by spring. It’s
on the side of the Quality Insurance building on Congress Avenue. I’m
pretty excited about it.

If albinos grow wings and learn to fly, as a drunk mystic once
told us they would do for the purpose of world domination, what would
be your first plan of action?

Goose rot goat steam axe cradle hexagonal sturgeon mitten.

Anything you'd like to add?

Hexagon sturgeon mitten.

Now go see the …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead website