Forget love – as the Mandarin name for Want A.S.S. says. Sure, forget love, but never forget fun. Say what you will about pornogrind and goregrind, the genres are fundamentally about bringing people together for nights of depraved, groovy, noisy fun. At least that’s the way it is in China. Guitarist Cook Hor has been throwing extreme metal shows in the country since his days in Cave Have Rod, in which Filthy Parties brought together bands, fans and blow up dolls. His efforts in China brought the band to 2013’s Obscene Extreme Festival, showing that there was such a scene in the country.
Since Cave Have Rod’s disbandment, Cook Hor has been involved with several projects that steered away from the original “fun” atmosphere of pornogrind, though has brought back the fun with his new project Want A.S.S. This “Dirty Freaky Extreme Metal Rock Punk Grindcore Band from Beijing China” has just released their first album, I Wanted to Fuck Her, But I Farted. Cook Hor talks about the album, his days in Cave Have Rod and future Obscene Extreme plans.
I will always remember the first concert I saw in Beijing was with you wearing a maxi pad on your face for Cave Have Rod back in 2013 during the Gore Feast. What do you remember about this time?
Cook: Oh yeah, those were good times. The Gore Feast was our idea. Cave Have Rod and Rectal Wench founded the Gore Feast together. We gathered lots of Chinese death metal bands and grindcore bands and even made some bands come back after being inactive. We tried to do something like this every year, but sadly it didn’t last long.
Cave Have Rod, Rectal Wench and The Dark Prison Massacre were the main bands in this scene at the time. Were there other bands in China before you that were doing goregrind/pornogrind?
Cook: Complicated Torture and Vagina Ripper are all I know. But I’m sure there were some more.
Soon after, you went to perform at the Obscene Extreme Festival. I’m surprised that no other Chinese bands have really played there since. How was this experience and why haven’t they invited any more, visa complications?
Cook: Actually, after OEF13, we received emails every year from them and people from all over the world asked us when will we perform at OEF again. But it was not about visa complications at all, it was about:
1: Our vocalist Der got divorced and lost his job at the same time and it made him almost broke.
2: I started a full time music composition job, and that job almost made me quit every band I was in.
3: We had some conflicts between band members that time which were was pretty intense. But after all, OEF is a heaven for weird and crazy bands, so we do see us going there again sooner or later.
When did you decide to form Want A.S.S.? Who else is in the band?
Cook: After I quit my job at 2018, I tried to resurrect my bands, so I gathered some old friends and formed a new progressive rock band called Mentism, and reformed my doom metal project Homless, but I still felt something was lost. I needed another “fun” band, and since Cave Have Rod was totally split up at that time, I tried to find some new friends. I finally found a bass player, Hazard, at a Filthy Party in 2021, and the drummer from Mentism introduced me to his friend, DD. They were still young and new at that time, and I liked that. After a year of preparing with them, I paid my price – Hazard totally sucked on bass. So he introduced his friend Hate who was a very experienced bassist, and Hazard devoted his attention to doing vocals.
About Mentism, what is the feeling you get with writing and performing with them?
Cook: Yeah, that’s a serious band. It’s more like trying to achieve something serious together – it’s less fun, honestly. But I’ve always said that every musician needs two bands – one to achieve some goals and another one for having fun.
Is A.S.S. an acronym for something or does it just mean a nice juicy ass?
Cook: Good question, but I’m not going to answer.
For this project, the band wear different costumes – ski masks, a dress on stage, and also have blow up dolls. I thought Rectal Wench would be the only band to do this live for a while in China…
Cook: Maybe it’s the porno grind culture – we have to respect the culture. That blow up doll is not ours, though, some fans brought that there.
You had a guy wearing a costume throwing candies into the audience for a live show. What else goes on?
Cook: It was Halloween! So we arranged a friend to come on stage and throw candies. We try to throw in some different things for every gig.
I Wanted to Fuck Her, But I Farted is the title of your album. Has this happened in real life?
Cook: Nothing really happened like that to any of us, but we believe that does happen every minute on earth, so respect your sexual partner and don’t fart.
You have a few other interesting song titles – “The Pussy-Hair Eater.” What is this about?
Cook: It’s about a monster that likes to eat pussy hair. So scary…
“1000T Cowgirl Sitting On Me” sounds kind of pleasurable but more painful…
Cook: Actually, this is based on a real story. A friend of mine – fat girls are always attracted to him. His girlfriends and his wives are all fat. The funny thing is he doesn’t like fat girls and he is a very thin guy. I feel so bad for him.
Gore Geng (of Impure Injection) joins you on a track (“Geng’s Big Adventure of Butcher Whores and Pigs”). How long have you known him? Have you thought of doing a project together?
Cook: Mr. Geng is a truly an old friend of mine. We played together so many times when was in Cave Have Rod. I never considered doing a project with him, but we have some other future project that does involve him. Let’s wait and see…
What is in the works for all of your bands in 2024?
Cook: Mentism is going to release our first album next month and then we’ll start to totally rock out. Homless just released our new EP – <EVEN> and we’ll have some rest this year. Homless are not going to play live for now. Want A.S.S. is already finished all of our new songs for the next album. We’re going to release it later this year, and we have some plans for the OEF in 2025.
