Beartooth: "This is therapeutic"

Music is personal. It comes from one mind, and then it’s up to others to interpret it in their own way. Often the music is a cathartic release, but sometimes it’s the only way for a musician to cast out the demons inside. For Beartooth’s Caleb Shomo, it’s more therapy than a career.

After joining Attack Attack! at 15 years old, he’s been heavily involved with music from then on. But this new outfit is far removed from that electronic twaddle; Beartooth leans toward the A Day To Remember school of big choruses and powerful, harsh vocals. “Beartooth is more grown-up and I now know what I want to do with my music,” says Caleb. “I don’t have any stress about whether people are going to like the record or not because I’m just writing for my own therapeutic reasons. If you don’t like it, fine, I don’t expect everyone to understand it. But it’s awesome that someone else can get it.”

Beartooth is a band, through and through, but debut album Disgusting is the brainchild of Caleb, who writes all of the music himself. And with the debut album landing this month, it’s going to be a very public emotional outcry. “It’s what I write in my basement when I’m stressed out or depressed,” he admits. “This is my therapeutic outlet and I’m not going to turn it into something it’s not. I’m gonna make these records the way I want to make them, and it’s probably going to be in my basement by myself.”

Beaten In Lips

With a well-received recent UK tour with Of Mice & Men and Issues under their belts, Beartooth are officially aligning themselves with the new, genre-crossing breed of metal. “It was amazing to be on a tour like that,” Caleb says. “It was so much fun, the crowd were super-receptive and understood the whole point of it – to be as involved as we are.” And it’s that involvement that makes the Ohian metalcorers such an exciting prospect. While it might all be coming from the heart of just one man still at a young age, this is music that’s extremely relatable for his fans, and that’s what’s important.

“I don’t want to be a doll performing for you on stage,” concludes Caleb. “I want you to feel what I’m feeling.”

Disgusting is out 9th June via Red Bull Records. Pre-order it from iTunes here.

Luke Morton joined Metal Hammer as Online Editor in 2014, having previously worked as News Editor at popular (but now sadly defunct) alternative lifestyle magazine, Front. As well as helming the Metal Hammer website for the four years that followed, Luke also helped relaunch the Metal Hammer podcast in early 2018, producing, scripting and presenting the relaunched show during its early days. He also wrote regular features for the magazine, including a 2018 cover feature for his very favourite band in the world, Slipknot, discussing their turbulent 2008 album, All Hope Is Gone.