“We’ve always tried to create a weird world with our lyrics, so it’s not the same thrash-metal themes about nuclear war or the president sucks again.” So says Municipal Waste vocalist Tony Foresta about Electrified Brain, which takes its title from a lyric on the Richmond, Virginia, thrashers’ 2005 breakout album. “We have, like, six or seven running themes on our albums, and that one’s from the ‘Deathripper’ storyline that started on Hazardous Mutation,” Foresta tells Apple Music. “We also do Kurt Russell songs—although not on this album—and songs about Municipal High, which is a fictional high school we made up. On our seventh record, we still crack up about some of the dumb shit we think of. Wait, not dumb shit—I mean brilliant shit.” Below, he discusses each track.
“Electrified Brain”
“This is part of the storyline from ‘Deathripper,’ which was the first song on Hazardous Mutation. There’s a lyric about ‘seeking out justice with an electrified brain,’ which is where the title comes from. We made a video for this song that’s out of control. Norman [Cabrera], the director, is a fucking genius. It’s kind of cool and inspiring to have a visualization of someone else’s take on the lyrics.”
“Demoralizer”
“Lyrically, this is about overcoming obstacles—not just overcoming them but obliterating them. I got the concept from when we had these basketball tournaments in Richmond. If you were up by, like, eight points and then, instead of getting the last point to 21, you shoot a three-pointer just to shove it in someone’s face even further—we call that ‘the demoralizer.’ I think it’s one of the stronger tracks on the record. It’s got a real old-school Metallica vibe to it.”
“Last Crawl”
“This is one of our obligatory drinking songs—there’s a few more, of course. It’s just about looking out for each other when you’re out late at night and everyone is raging. You’ve got to keep track of your surroundings and make sure everyone gets home safe. It’s like a youth-crew song, but it’s about going the long haul at a bar.”
“Grave Dive”
“This one is [guitarist] Ryan [Waste]’s baby. He wanted to write a song about digging up our dead fans and throwing their corpses into the audience—so, instead of ‘stage dive,’ it’s ‘grave dive.’ I think I said somewhere that it’s supposed to be an inspirational song for the kids or some dumb shit like that, but corpses in the mosh pit is actually what it’s about.”
“The Bite”
“Blaine from The Accüsed does guest vocals on this. The Accüsed are a huge inspiration to us, which is probably obvious to anyone who listens to heavy metal. The other fun thing about this song is that our drummer, Dave Witte, wrote the lyrics, and then I adjusted them to fit the song. Sometimes it sucks writing lyrics because we have so many fucking songs on every record, so I was stoked that he wanted to do this. It’s about the lawnmower scene in Dead Alive.”
“High Speed Steel”
“We have a couple of heavy metal-leaning songs on the record, all written by Ryan, and this is one of them. He wrote the lyrics to this one, too, and he likes writing songs about heavy machinery going fast down roads. If you’re a fan of his other bands, Bat and Volture, I think both of those bands have songs about being in a car and driving fast. So, this has got that rolling-down-the-street, running-over-shit vibe to it.”
“Thermonuclear Protection”
“I think this was kind of inspired by Dog the Bounty Hunter—it’s not actually about him, but it’s more about that type of dude. Not the racist shit, but the persona, if that makes sense. I always wanted to write a song called ‘Thermonuclear Protection’ because of the Oakley ads I saw when I was a kid. Whenever I see a guy like that, I’m like, ‘Don’t fuck with that guy. He’s got thermonuclear protection.’ So, it’s not about Dog per se, but that kind of energy.”
“Blood Vessel / Boat Jail”
“This idea came from when we played one of those metal cruise-ship things, like Barge to Hell or something. I was sitting at the bar with Tomas from At the Gates and our friend Greg when we saw this dude on the ship just punishing everybody and throwing shit around, just being a total piece of shit. Then these big guys came out of nowhere and took him away. We never saw him again for the rest of the four days we were on the ship. So, the song is about partying too hard on a boat and getting sent to boat jail.”
“Crank the Heat”
“I always wanted to write a seasonal song, like ‘Cruel Summer,’ you know? Especially living up north, you’re pent up all fucking winter, just waiting to get out. But this kind of means a little extra because everyone has been pent up for two fucking years. Now everyone is going out to the festivals and having a good time—everyone’s just extra excited to see each other and be out again. So, this is a positive, fast thrash song, like, ‘Let’s get up and go outside.’”
“Restless and Wicked”
“That’s another one of the heavy metal songs that Ryan wrote. I like singing over his version of writing. When he writes this type of song for Bat, it’s for him to sing, but when it’s for us, I’m obviously singing it. I also really like how the vocals came out on this one. I was doing something a little different than what I normally do. To me, it’s a standout track because it sounds way different than our other shit and it’s really catchy.”
“Ten Cent Beer Night”
“This is about an event that happened in Ohio in the ’70s. It was based around a feud between the Texas Rangers and the Cleveland Indians. They got into this gnarly fight during a game in Texas, and both teams were talking shit before they went to Cleveland. I’m gonna fuck up the story, but basically the stadium decided to serve 10-cent beer in order to pack the place, and shit just escalated into a huge riot with fans storming the field, throwing shit, and getting naked. It got to the point that the players who were fighting each other had to team up to fight their way out.”
“Barreled Rage”
“This song is cool because [bassist] Phil [Hall] sings on it. He doesn’t sing on many Waste songs, but I always encourage him to because he’s, like, the evil genius of the band. He writes a ton of shit and has a lot of input on our records, but he likes to sit back in the cut. Another cool thing is that Phil and Witte teamed together to write the lyrics. They’ve never done that before. The title is a beer reference, obviously.”
“Putting on Errors”
“I did an interview with someone in Europe yesterday, and I had to explain that this is a play on ‘putting on airs.’ They had no idea what I was talking about, but the song is basically saying that we’d rather be fuckups than what society deems proper. I feel like it fits the band pretty well. It’s actually a really chaotic song, but it has some cool sing-along parts. We got Barney from Napalm Death to do guest vocals to make it extra confusing.”
“Paranormal Janitor”
“Hopefully, we’ll do a TV series about Municipal High one day. There’s definitely a lot of shit we could work with there. This is about a person who is sentenced to work as a janitor at Municipal High for eternity. They’ve gotta pick up grime and shit and slime and trash and whatever else. We’ve got some spooky sound effects in there to get the vibe we were going for.”