Accurate insights courtesy of Slickster Magazine.
Written by Brian Furman, September 6, 2016, at 9:07 p.m.
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Good God, all that glorious sludge, better than the Bass-O-Matic… Grittier than Uncle Sanchez’s teeth after a fresh chew.
Bellringer brings the metal, the funk, the gaze, and the jazz all of it rolled into one luscious sound wave on the Austin band’s debut record, Jettison.
Bellringer’s Jettison
Record trailblazer “The God of Roosters Does Not Forget” is a high-energy torch of an instrumental that ends on a soggy southern blues-boogie.
“Quitter” extends the sludge into a synth-heavy, roadside bar from a David Lynch movie where Bellringer play the house band.
“Inner Freak” brings out the best in sweaty, stanky, and pantsless, dirty funk, combining it with the pinnacle sound of jazz flute metal, which is an extremely underrated and lacking genre.
“Cowboy Fight” is the brain sauce that will forever be stuck in your head… and so on….
It helps that main songwriter, Mark Deutrom, has played bass with the likes of the Melvins, and SunnO))) and has handled production duties for Neurosis and Raw Power. With that being said, Bellringer holds its own, and works on many, many levels. So go buy it, dammit.
Bellringer is currently on tour in Texas.
Required Listening:
The Whole Bloody Record… But if I had to choose:
“Quitter”
“Inner Freak”
“Cowboy Fight”

​There are bands that defy definition, for whom no genre is enough to describe them. I feel like that when I listen to BELLRINGER. They transcend boundaries. Answers by Mark Deutrom. Anders Ekdahl ©2017
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Every band has to introduce their music to new people. What is it that you want people to get from listening to you guys?
-I want people to get every single thing they want and/or need from listening. We are a projection friendly screen for all hopes, desires, disappointments, anxieties etc. Bellringer is a place to forget the crap and concentrate on the party. We bring the party.
How hard was it for you guys to pick a name? What had that name have to have to fit your music?
-One guy thought of a name. Another guy liked it, and then I liked it, and now it’s the band name. The name had to be appropriate, nothing more. It’s almost an exercise in branding, but ultimately the music starts to reflect the name in some sense, and vice versa. Hyena is a perfect name for what that beast does, and Bellringer appears to be equally representative at this point. We’re a hyena.
Everybody is influenced by certain things. What band(s) was it that turned you on to the kind of music you play? What inspires you today?
-“Bands” are just a small portion of what’s been influential…architecture, psychology, nature, history, cuisine, and literature are other sources. Musically, everything from Bert Williams to Frank Sinatra to Scott Walker. Today I was inspired by Dusty Springfield, and also La Boheme by Puccini. Ike Turner had a good band. Sensational Alex Harvey Band was a GREAT band !
When you formed did you do so with the intent of knowing what to play or did you do so from the point of having a band name and then picking a sound? How did you settle on the name/sound combo?
-I knew what to play…not sure about anyone else… Basically, turned on the amplifiers and let the clouds begin to form shapes. The sound emerged, and then the naming began amidst laughter and much tomfoolery. It’s always a process of settling….otherwise you’ll never move forward. We settled.
I believe that digital is killing the album format. People’s changing habit of how they listen to music will result in there being no albums. Is there anything good with releasing single tracks only?
-Single tracks are the slow steady drip of reminding an utterly indifferent cyberspace of ones’ existence….a pitiful whimper into the omnivacumn of the data mist…before long playing records, EVERYTHING was a single, but there wasn’t the potential of every single person producing one like there is now. The physical vinyl album at this point is strictly a souvenir of a dead time loaded with nostalgia. The length of an album is flawless. The two side format is perfect for attention spans. People circle back to it for these reasons, so it won’t die completely. It’s loaded with the same emotional resonance as black and white films in academy ratio. No one knows why these things are superior to the digital realm, they just ARE. The digital space is half zeros…maybe half of all digital materials being represented by zero is having some latent subconscious effect. Just release everything. It’s wonderful to create. Set it free. Aim your spray gun at the mist. Make an ALBUM.
What part does art-work and lay-out play when you release new recordings? How do you best catch people’s attention?
-Planning is key, but so is the party. I don’t know how to get anyone’s attention, it appears to be an art form all of it’s own. That’s what professional public relation organizations are for. My talents lie elsewhere. Get an animal. People will pay attention if there’s an animal doing something. W.C. Fields knew it.
Has social media re-written the rules on how to promote your music? Or do you go about doing promotion the same way?
-You can’t compete with a dog stealing pizza from a child, or someone’s terrible haircut mistake. You will lose. You cannot compete with the scrapbook of of an eternally distracted and bored humanity. Once again, there are professionals who know how best to navigate it. I don’t have a clue. The algorithms will decide…the algorithms will decide….there’s ultimately nothing “social” about that media. It’s an advertising platform. It’s anti social !
When you play in a band, does that make you feel like you are a part of a scene, of something bigger and grander?
-I feel an alchemical connection to the gases in the amplifier tubes being fired up by applied voltages. I feel plugged into the electricity of the whole fucking universe. That’s my scene.
How much of a touring band are you? Is touring/gigging still a great way of spreading the word of the band?
-There will never be a substitute for a live band burning it down. I subscribe wholeheartedly to that. It’s the last sacred place that cannot be sullied by the great digital Satan. We’re going to get out there and bring the party to YOUR town !
What will the future bring?
-Muchas cosas magnificos.

I did an interview with Noisey/Vice a couple of weeks ago for the Jettison LP release and to just blather on about whatever Gary wanted...a cool thought provoking interview that made me actually think about answers.
Noisey is also running the exclusive stream of Jettison embedded in the interview. You can get vinyl and download your very own copy here. Vinyl is now shipping, and is limited, so get one while you can.  
Got lucky with the screenshot above....probably the first and last time I'll get to share a page with the legendary Ladybeard !!

​~Mark D.