The Deathtones are a 5 piece horror rock nuclear bomb. Covering everything that pertains to horror, including movies, tv, video games, literature, real life atrocities, serial killers and more. The band loves to talk about the darker side of humanity and it seems that people enjoy hearing about it. The more macabre the better.
The band is made up of Mr. Grim on the drums, Killer Pat and Dorian Mordrake on lead guitar, Mikey Murder on bass and Billy Bones on lead vocals keys and rhythm guitar.
We had a chat with Billy recently you can read that below!
Introduce yourself and tell us what you do in the band?
My name is Billy Bones and I am the lead singer, rhythm guitarist, key player and chief songwriter.
Tell us a little about your band, how you got together and the story behind the name if there is one.
We are a 5 piece horror rock band named “The Deathtones” from Milford, Pennsylvania, USA. We got together under another name in the summer of 2019. The name “The Deathtones” came out of a band hangout where we were all spit balling ideas, throwing names out there, and “The Deathtones” just stuck.
Tell us a bit about your latest single, what’s the story behind the song?
Our latest single at the time of this interview is called “Friday The 13th” and it’s all about part 1 and tells the story of Pamela Voorhees. We felt like Jason always gets a lot of attention, but it was Pamela who started it all, so we wanted a song for her character.
What is your writing process like? Do you start with lyrics and then come up with a melody or is it the other way round?
Usually I’ll start with one cool sounding lead or hook riff. After that I will build the song musically around that riff, adding guitar, organ, synth strings, et cetera. Once I have a semi-finished arrangement I’ll write and record the lyrics, then send it on our file sharing network to the other band members, then they record their parts. So usually half the music first, then lyrics, then the other musical half.
What bands were you listening to when you were writing this release? Do you think it had an effect on the end sound?
When we were first starting out I listened to a lot of Sabaton, Powerwolf, Dio, Sabbath and horror punk like Calabrese, Misfits and Blitzkid and I got most of my inspiration from those bands, but anymore I honestly just listen to our catalogue and it inspires me. We’ve developed a signature sound by this point where I can draw from our existing songs for inspiration.
What can you tell us about the album that the song has come from?
The album that this song resides on is the “Label Sampler, Volume 1” from We Are Horror Records. Really, we hadn’t planned on releasing a second song in January 2023 but then two things happened. We notified there was a Friday the 13th in January and we noticed that other bands were writing songs to do with the “holiday”. We strive to be one of the most prolific bands in the genre, so we couldn’t very well let this slip by if other bands were doing it. And we had to make our song better than theirs, hahaha. There isn’t a crazy amount of competing in our genre, like jockeying for position, but we always want to be the best, so we are constantly trying to up our game to be better than the rank and file horror bands.
What would people be surprised to know about you?
Me personally? I had haggis once and it freaking slapped.
For the band? After releasing 29 new songs last year, we already have a solid release schedule for the coming year and are trying to hit that number again. Shooting for 58 total songs by the end of 2023!
Do you have any shows coming up that we should get ourselves along to?
We are not currently touring or have any upcoming shows at this point in time. To be honest, a lot of the time smaller bands like us don’t make very much from playing out, especially when you’re splitting the gate with one or two other bands as well as the house. It’s also the rigamarole of breaking everything down, driving to god knows where, setting up, playing for 45 minutes to an hour and doing it all over again for little financial compensation. We’d rather utilize our time to put out more records and singles and grow that way. Now if a gig came up where we’d be taken care of and treated as professionals, we would absolutely consider it.
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