Cockfight Club

Cockfight Club is the twisted brainchild of Kenneth Niles Calloway: musician, Mac enthusiast, sci-fi & horror movie buff, and all-around loose cannon. After spending years honing his programming and sequencing skills on various techno projects, sometime in 2003 Ken decided it was time to rock and dusted off his trusty Gibson Flying V. Cockfight Club was born. Drawing from a vast pool of musical influences including industrial rock, punk, metal, techno, electro, new-wave, 80s synth-pop, and all points in between, Ken descended into Area 52, his newly-built basement studio, and spent the next two years cooking up a witches brew of absinthe-fueled musical misanthropy. The first Cockfight Club album, über güber, was finally released in 2005 on Weapons-Grade Records, and just in time for Halloween! There was much rejoicing. Their 2007 release, Acockalypse Now, finds the band expanding upon the themes and sounds of the first album and veering into a new, beautifully terrifying musical territory.

Like Elvis, Cockfight Club's mission is to start a rock and roll revolution, to gyrate their pelvises in front of as many women as possible, and to strike a staggering blow below the Bible Belt. Stay tuned.

-taken from the Cockfight Club Myspace

Be Sure to visit: Cockfight Club Myspace and Cockfight Club Website for more information.

Can you give us a brief history of “Cockfight Club” and how you guys started?

Cockfight Club started out back in 2003 as my personal recording project. There was no band back then, just me, a guitar, a Mac, and a midi controller. As I continued to write and record more songs, I invested more and more into my studio set-up and became more and more obsessed. The next thing I knew, I had recorded an album. The first Cockfight Club album, über güber, was released in 2005, and I immediately started putting together a live band. To my surprise, the early live shows went over very well, so we started playing as many shows as possible and released our second album, Acockalypse Now, in 2007. We've had a few line-up changes since the beginning (myself and Graceless Lacy are the only remaining original members), but the band has endured, improved, and continued to evolve.

What are some of your influences?

Far too many to list, but a few of the biggies would include Nine Inch Nails, Gary Numan, Ministry, David Bowie, Skinny Puppy, Marilyn Manson, My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, and lots of eighties new wave stuff. Non-musical influences include H.P. Lovecraft, absinthe, and anything horror or sci-fi.

What's your creative process like and how do you write your songs?

It usually starts with a bottle of absinthe! I still handle most of the songwriting duties, so typically I'll start out by programming the basic song structure in a sequencer. Then I'll go ahead and record any parts I want to play myself and start laying down vocal tracks. At some point I turn the rest of the band loose on it and just let them see what they can come up with. More often than not, they'll come up with something I never would have thought of that transforms the song into something better.


What's a live “Cockfight Club” show like, what do you guys do to get ready for a show?

We're always so busy before a show just getting everything set up that there's not a lot of time to "get ready", but fortunately it doesn't take much to get any of us in the mood to play. We've always gotten a great response from our live shows, and I think part of that is due to our enthusiasm. We all just love to play music, and when we hit the stage, we'll do whatever it takes to entertain you. Also I think people respond to our music because it's different. We're definitely not some cookie-cutter band that sounds just like everybody else.


When is the new album coming out?

We are currently working on our third release, entitled Green Fairy Tales, which will be released on Corkscrew Records later this year. We don't have a release date as of yet, but we have just completed mixing down the first few tracks so we should have something new online for your listening pleasure shortly. I'm really excited about the new material. I think it's some of the best stuff we've done.

What's a day off like for you guys, what do you like to do to relax?

What's a day off? We all stay pretty busy with one thing or another. Everyone but me plays in at least one other band on the side, and we all have day jobs. I work with an area film production company as a sound engineer, video editor, and 3D animator, and I do a lot of work with independent films. For me the best way to relax is working on music. That's when I'm happiest.

Any upcoming projects or events that you'd like to tell us about?

North American tour with our awesome labelmates, Otto's Daughter, later this year! Watch for us!

Being a magazine about movies as well as music what are some of your favorite horror movies or movies in general?

This is another list that could go on for days, but just a few of my favorite horror movies are the Evil Dead films, In The Mouth of Madness, Dagon, The Exorcist, The Exorcist 3, Silent Hill, Night of the Living Dead, The Hunger, and many, many more. I prefer a good genuine creep-out over gratuitous gore most of the time. I love lots of foreign horror too, but usually don't care too much for the American remakes.

Anything else you want to say to the fans out there reading this?

Most of all, we'd like to say thank you! It's only because of your support and encouragement that we've been able to continue playing music, and I hope we can continue to do so for a long time to come. We sincerely appreciate each and every one of you more than you know!

-Interview by Shaun and Chris