Ben McCrow first cut his teeth on the live circuit at the tender age of 18 with the now infamous Death Metal band Gorerotted!
Gorerotted’s lyrics and song titles were largely inspired by horror films and serial killers, and their song titles often incorporated rhymes or puns such as ‘Cut, Gut, Beaten, Eaten’, ‘Put Your Bits in a Concrete Mix’, and ‘Only Tools and Corpses’. During their time together, the band toured the UK and Europe extensively with acts such as Nile, Decapitated, Cryptopsy, Vomitory and Pungent Stench, visited the US to play at Maryland Deathfest in 2007, and (regrettably) appeared in an advert for The Sun newspaper, as well as being on the soundtrack to films, including ‘The Incredibly Strange People Show’.
Living (or unliving) to their reputation here is the grotesque single ‘Only Tools And Corpses’.
In 2008, Ben along with founding guitarist Tim Carley and bassist Phil Wilson laid Gorerotted respectfully to rest when their new material took on more of a Punk/D-Beat vibe alongside the Death Metal elements. They continued to tour and record as The Rotted, which also featured former Cradle Of Filth guitarist Gian Pyres and former Screamin’ Daemon drummer Nate Gould. During their time together, The Rotted continued to tour everywhere in the UK, Europe and Israel, appeared at such prestigious festivals as Wacken, Dynamo, Summer Breeze, Bloodstock and Hammerfest, and toured with bands as diverse as Misery Index, Grave and Alestorm.
In August 2014, the band announced that their performance at the Camden Underworld on 20 September would be their last, and Ben quit music “for good”. Two weeks later, he had joined legendary Crust Punk/Grindcore pioneers Extreme Noise Terror, a band he had been listening to since he was a teenager, and who since 1985 had been well known for doing four sessions for the late great Radio 1 DJ John Peel, teaming up with The KLF to play The Brit Awards in 1992, getting band from Top Of The Pops and releasing various albums, singles, EPs and splits with bands as diverse as The Dwarves, Chaos UK and Trap Them. Ben’s first show with the band was in California for their US tour, and since then he has also toured Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Canada, Europe, the UK, played 2 sets at Glastonbury and made a one off weekend visit to Colombia to perform at Manizales GritaRock.
Ben McCrow with Extreme Noise Terror performing ‘Dogma, Intolerance,Control’ in all its chaotic glory! see for yourself!
The bands Ben has been involved with have all received positive reviews in magazines such as Kerrang, Metal Hammer, Terrorizer, Rock Hard, Zero Tolerance, Decibel, Bizarre and The Guardian. Ben’s vocal style is definitely what you’d describe as ‘extreme’, and he puts his ability to perform in such an intense manner every night down to technique, warming up properly and using Vocalzone to keep it in good condition.
Let’s see what Ben McCrow has to say about Vocalzone!
| My vocal style is what you’d describe as ‘extreme’ and to help keep it that way I have been using Vocalzone since I first discovered them about 10 years ago or so. I’m often asked how I can do it night after night, and I tell people it’s down to technique, warming up properly and using products such as Vocalzone to keep it in good condition. |
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