Zimmers Hole relaunches classic series
Scrape Records — The Label gets behind vintage local rockers to revisit their first three albums
Scrape Records closed its doors in April 2016 after nearly 20 years in business. The outlet owned and operated by J.J. Caithcart at the original Broadway location near Ontario and a second spot later on was Western Canada’s largest retailer devoted exclusively to heavy metal and hard rock. When it closed down, the globally celebrated local scene lost its storefront hangout.
Proving you can’t keep a good headbanger down for long, Caithcart is launching a new imprint at scraperecords. com.
Scrape Records — The Label, is launching with a reissue series of Vancouver’s very own long-running act Zimmers Hole. The first three albums by the band, featuring former members of such acts as Strapping Young Lad and Devin Townsend, will get vinyl and CD releases. Plus, the group is also looking toward a new release coming down the pipe.
“It’s the return of the Hole, who have technically been on hiatus for about two years but never really went away,” said Caithcart. “Even before I closed the store down, Byron Stroud (bass) and I had discussed doing something, but we weren’t really sure what that would be. Then I asked about the back catalogue, particularly the first three albums that were out of print and had never seen release on vinyl with deluxe packaging and so on.”
Stroud hinted that Zimmers Hole possibly had another album in the works and thought it would be pretty cool if Caithcart put it and the reissues out.
So much for retirement. “The idea wasn’t to close down the store to start a label, the only thing I’d put out before was a western Canadian compilation in 1991 and the fourth album from a local group called Empyria.” he said. “There was no real monetary reason for shutting down, but I felt it was the right time to do something different musically at a time when the shelves were stocked with new product, bands were still coming by for signings and we hadn’t started moving into
that closing stage of a final year where it gets kind of sad at any kind of retailer when they are ending.”
As for Zimmers Hole, the band formed in 1991 featuring bassist Stroud, guitarist Jed Simon, drummer Ash Pearson and vocalist Chris “E.Val” Valagao hadn’t released an album since 2008’s When You Were Shouting at the Devil … We Were in League with Satan, and its live performances were few over the past few years. As ever, everyone in the group is busy with other projects, but Valagao said they keep coming back to the project.
The group began as a side project for members and colleagues of Strapping Young Lad and is supposedly named after the sphincter of a late mutual friend named Dean Zimmer. Not surprisingly, the music it makes, the narratives assigned to its songs and the influences heard on albums such as Bound By Fire and Legion of Flames were more than a bit tongue-in-groove. Valagao is known for his stage makeup, a warring Devil with battle axe and longsword ready to engage his enemies.
“Initially, the band started as a joke, but it’s evolved after we kept getting such great responses from people right from our first show,” said Valagao. “We’ve been accused of being a heavy metal joke band, a parody making fun of Satan, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. At the core, Zimmers Hole is a black metal band with a solid sense of humour.”
Referencing everything from Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest to new school stuff such as Dimmu Borgir, Behemoth and Cradle of Filth, songs such as This Is Metal (Bound By Fire) or That’s How Drunks Drink (Legion of Flames) can hold their own with any of those aforementioned acts. And with the talents of the assembled players, the band can go any number of other directions.
So Zimmers Hole straddles a number of worlds, but maintains a clear connection to the legions of dedicated metal fans out there who are the lifeblood of offbeat bands such as this group. Valagao said his character is a sort of extension of him with a pre-Christian demonic possession of sorts taking place. It’s kept the project interesting over the years and served as something of an outlet for all the members.
Valagao has his other project West Of Hell, Simon and Stroud are always working and Pearson has Revocation, so it’s not surprising that Zimmers Hole hasn’t been performing that often. Valagao promises that this show will boast one of the more sizable stage set-ups the band has had and they are looking forward to performing Bound By Fire and Legion of Flames in their entirety without any of the “edits” that were required by the previous label to issue the albums.
“Everything was legally defensible as fair-use satire, but they still balked,” he said. “So this should be really fun. It’s great to have the albums coming out in a partnership with someone who is such as dedicated supporter of the music.”
The music biz is difficult for artists in any genre, but no matter what the popularity of metal at the time, there is always a strong fan base following the noise and loving the loudness.