Interview Maniac - Matt Bass

1) Can you present yourself?

My name is Matt. I'm 38 and I'm a music collector and front man for a couple of bands Witchclan Facebook Bandcamp Official Website and Deadman's Blood Facebook.

2) Can you describe your collection (How many pieces, format, etc…)?

I began collecting music in the 80's and at that time my choice of format was the cassette tape. I didn't get into vinyl until about 1990 and even later for CD's.

I suppose my collection is mainly heavy metal but my tastes range right across the board and ventures into the realms of electronic music, ambient and many others...so it's not all heavy stuff.

I've actually never counted my collection but I would hedge a bet that I have around 600 tapes, 2000 records, 200 CD'S. ..I'm not really much of a CD fan really - analogue or fuck off hahahaha.

3) Which bands or type of music do you collect?

It all depends on what I'm really into at the time. I go for weeks at a time just listening to Hardcore Punk for example... then the following weeks it will be Death Metal or whatever. So it does really vary - one week I might be buying The Varukers and the next it might be Moonblood.

4) How much do you estimate that your collection grows each month? And money do you spend by month?

I have a family to support, and have two autistic children which means that some months I may need to pay out for extra things for the kids or something but GENERALLY I get to spend around £100 per month on whatever I like. It's not always music, I also collect other things so arch month I have to decide what I'd like to buy most. So that £100 can be spent on one item, or lots of less expensive ones... and I usually go for the latter.

5) Have you interesting information or tracks on your collection?

There's a lot of interesting facts and information regarding many of the items in my collection. I suppose the most interesting piece would be a tape I have released by Darkness Shade records which is limited to only 8 copies, and I have #1 which is pretty cool.

6) What are your favorite pieces? Why?

My favourites in my collection are as follows....

Burzum debut first press vinyl on DSP. It amazes me how this record sells for hundreds of pounds these days. It's also in my opinion one of the finest old school black metal albums in existence.

Guns n 'Roses 'Appetite...' first press UK vinyl. This was THE album that got me into heavier music back in 1987. This is where it all started for me.

Hellbastard - both their demo tapes and Natural Order tape and LP - my favourite album of all time.

All my Autopsy discography - because Autopsy just fucking rule!

Ohhh fuck there's too many...

7) How and why did you promote your favorite bands?

I promote bands via my YouTube channel The Metal Reviews. It's a reviews channel where bands can send me their tapes or CD. Lots of bands over the years have sent me their material and some of these bands have become favourites of mine. Thunderwar are a prime example.

8) Why did you create the “METAL COLLECTORS SOCIETY” Facebook Group and the aim?  Do you have any ongoing project linked to collect Metal pieces?

The Metal Collectors Society began in 2009 as an appreciation group for the wave of new bands who were playing death metal in the style of the late 80's. The group stayed that way for a few months with just a handful of members but I wanted to make a group for collectors so I changed the name, and as soon as I'd done that there were loads of people requesting to join. We are now at almost 13k members with approximately 100 requests to join per week so the group is gradually getting bigger and bigger.

It's good to see other people's collections and share knowledge and so on. I guess the aim of the group was just to bring collectors together and have some fun, which I think we've achieved.

As far as other projects go, I also present a You Tube channel called the Metal reviews which has been running since around 2008 I think. It started out as just a bit of fun, with me showing some of the records and stuff I own, and then doing short reviews of them.

After a few months I had bands contacting me asking if they could post me their CD or tape to review. After a while I was getting loads of stuff mailed to me each month to review and it just kinda built itself up from there. There are over 100 episodes now although over the last year it's been on hold due to family commitments. It will however be back soon.

I also do an online zine called Crucifixion which I began in 1993 as a physical zine. This has also been on hold for a while for the same reason but there have been some good interviews with Master, Thanatos, Nocturnus, Hellbastard, etc etc...

Other than that I have two bands, Deadman's Blood which is old style death metal and Witchclan which is black metal established in 1990 which makes it the oldest UK black metal name - as I do not consider Venom black metal.