1. Please tell us about the history of your band and its members.
One Step Beyond was originally founded in 1997 by Mad Matt Spencer and Jeremy Lammas, who were members of the band Sexual Intercorpse at the time. Feeling the need to express his creativity in a different way, Matt formed One Step Beyond with Jeremy on guitar, and with himself on bass, drum programming and vocals. I was the lead vocalist of a band I’d formed called Hatred Slave, which had been going well but found itself in need of a guitarist. I was introduced to Matt by mutual friend Jak Deathstrike and we began discussing our bands, at which point I mentioned I was looking for someone to play guitar, and Matt offered to join Hatred Slave. He then showed me the material that One Step Beyond was producing and asked if I’d like to join as lead vocalist, an opportunity I didn’t want to miss. Matt, Jeremy and I were the lineup of One Step Beyond for several years, until we recruited second guitarist Matt Davis. Shortly thereafter Jeremy was killed in a car accident; we continued with Matt Davis on guitar until circumstances forced us to part ways and we recruited local entity Pahl Hodgson to replace him. Pahl recorded the Out With The Old EP and played some live shows with us, including my personal live highlight of supporting Nile and Hate Eternal, but eventually he departed to pursue his numerous other projects. We have worked with a few session musicians as well, but Matt and myself have been the long-standing heart of One Step Beyond.
2. What’s the origin of the band’s name?
The origin of the name One Step Beyond is the song by the band Madness of the same name.
3. Where is the band based out of and what is your music scene like there? Are there any local bands you could recommend?
One Step Beyond is based in Adelaide, South Australia, our home town. Adelaide has had quite a decent music scene at times but unfortunately this can fluctuate quite drastically! Being a fairly small town with a limited quantity of metal musicians, people are often involved in multiple projects, and the scene can be quite cliquey. Apart from One Step Beyond I also have three other active bands, namely Brutaliate, Seminal Embalmment and Bukkake, also past projects Slaughter Thou, Mythyca, Hatred Slave and Sargothis; Matt has a hip hop project called The Link, but has also been a member of Raven Black Night, Lord of the Command, Son of Sam, Blindfold, Hatred Slave and Sexual Intercorpse; plus we did a semi-serious band together called Freak Fuck Fest with just the two of us and the drum machine, good fun!
As far as current bands to recommend, there is an extensive catalogue of local band footage on my pages for those who are interested - https://www.youtube.com/justin666hatredslave and for those who want vintage VHS rips https://www.facebook.com/AdelaideMetalArchive/ - I could name drop of course, but here you can see and hear them for yourself!
4. How would you describe your style?
The style of One Step Beyond is based in metal, but also aims to incorporate any number of other styles in a way that sounds natural. My own tastes are fairly limited to the fast and heavy with the odd exception, but Matt has much broader tastes and as the composer of our music, he incorporates those tastes in a way that many people would not even conceive. This also applies to the vocals; although largely in the extreme style, we endeavour to put forth a broad range within those styles. Personally I’ve put in a great deal of training to achieve not only as dynamic a death metal vocal sound as possible, but also a great deal of power and forcefulness in my voice.
5. What have you released so far and what can someone expect from your works?
Releases so far for us are as follows:
⦁ 1999 Demo – 5 track cassette
⦁ Life Imitates Art – debut full length CD independently released in 2002 & re-released on Grindhead Records in 2009
⦁ Beyond Good and Evil – full length CD independently released in 2007
⦁ Out With The Old – 7-9 track EP released in 2009 via burnt copies and free downloads
⦁ The Music of Chance – full length CD released on Metal Scrap Records in 2015
6. Do you have any new music in the works?
We have a new album in the works, entitled In the Shadow of the Beast, with songs based around the storylines of classic video games from our youth. This album is due for release via WormHoleDeath within the next month or two, along with a lyric video for the closing track Isolde.
7. How about playing shows and touring, have anything planned out?
As much as we would enjoy touring with One Step Beyond, it’s been difficult for us to find a solid lineup of permanent members who we could tour with. Of course if that were to happen and the opportunity were to arise, we would love to hit the road and play in some other places, so far we’ve only played here in South Australia.
8. What plans do you have for the future as a band?
At this point, due to the lack of a permanent lineup, the future for One Step Beyond is most probably the release of further studio albums. Matt has a great home studio setup where we recorded the last two albums, this allows us to really spend time on our recordings and get them sounding the way we want them to.
9. Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
Our Bandcamp page where all our current releases are available: https://onestepbeyond1.bandcamp.com
The teaser video for The Music of Chance album here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFWvaHkkVzI&t=2s
The Music Of Chance physical CD here: https://metalscraprecords.com/shop/en/store/product/view/1/4948
We also have some physical copies of our debut album Life Imitates Art for sale directly, please message us at our Facebook page if you are interested: https://www.facebook.com/One-Step-Beyond-120399988088662
10. What is it you’d like a listener to remember the most when hearing your music for the first time?
We would like a first time listener to hear something that grabs them, even though they may hear other things that they can’t quite fathom at first! We don’t expect everyone will like everything on our albums, but we do hope you find something there that keeps you coming back for more and more listens, and hopefully you end up hearing more and more things that you like. Our albums are great for those who love extreme metal but also enjoy other styles and don’t want to limit themselves to the one genre. One thing we don’t do is clean singing however, if that’s your main point of interest we possibly won’t fit your bill, but we do still encourage you to have a listen anyway!
Thanks to everyone who reads this interview, we hope you take the time to check out One Step Beyond and with any luck we may find ourselves in your regular rotation. Either way, we hope you find something positive in our music.
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