Interviews

Duane’s World Issue 12: This Is Who The F#ck Black Rheno Are!

Duane James

May 15, 2024

7 min read

Who the f#ck are Black Rheno?Shame on you if you don’t already know. In just under a decade, this Sludge/Grind/Doom 3-piece from Sydney’s North Shore have built themselves a reputation as one of the Australian underground’s best live bands as both local headliners, whilst also landing supports on major international tours with the likes of Eyehategod, Phil Anselmo & The Illegals and the recent standalone Pantera show in Adelaide alongside King Parrot.Now things are on the up, after having recorded their upcoming album earlier this year with none other than Machine in the US, and currently making their way up the east coast of Australia on their Who the F#ck are Black Rheno? headline tour; it’s absolutely about time you found out just who the f#ck these legends are.I scored time to chat with frontman Ryan Miller from his recording and rehearsal facility Housefox Studios to reflect on recent events and talk about what’s next in the Black Rheno camp. But first, I had to ask what it was like getting that Pantera support slot in Adelaide.

“Yeah, it was pretty nuts. Like, it wasn’t even in the scope of something that could ever happen. We were super lucky. We got to play some shows with Phil back in 2019, when he came out with the Illegals. We did three or four shows with them. That was the first time he started doing the Pantera set with the Illegals. That was at Frankie's Pizza and that night was just insane.”

An iconic gig, one for the ages, and everyone who was there (yours truly included) will be bragging about witnessing that for life and remembering just how manic the whole evening was.

“Oh bro! So I remember just like pushing myself off the ceiling as I'm screaming at people below me as I was crowd surfing, and people just driving you into the roof. There’s cables and all this lighting and the wires and stuff that are up in the ceiling and I'm just like, just crawling through like a jungle vine. So that happened and that was really cool. We never thought that would happen."

Then when they (Pantera) teamed up with Charlie (Benante) and Zakk (Wylde). We were like, Oh this is sick. I hope they bring this to Australia. And hopefully we can, you know, wiggle our way into that and we managed to.

It's just wild. For all of us in the band, they're one of the most influential bands. We all didn't grow up together. Like Mariano (Nano), he’s from fucking Spain. So he's grown up completely different to me. Kieran’s up on Central Coast. I’m here on the northern beaches, and Kieran’s like 10 years younger than me. But all in our own little spaces, that’s what we were growing up listening to. It just means so much to us, that music, and then to get that offer to play that show, it was pretty surreal”.

To add to the occasion was also the opportunity for Black Rheno to play at The Adelaide Entertainment Centre, a somewhat different venue to what they’re generally accustomed to.

“That’s the biggest show we've ever played. Something at that scale with a stage that big in a room that big. You walk in there and it's empty before the gig. This massive stage, all this pyrotechnic stuff up on the stage, the Pantera thing, and you’re just like, what is going on?”

“It just felt fucking good. You look over at these people that you're in a band with, we've been doing this for a while now and you're like, this is why we stick together. This is why we keep doing this because you never know what's going to happen. It just means so much.”

[gallery type="square" ids="https://wallofsoundau.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/black_rehno_aec_daver_5.jpg|,https://wallofsoundau.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/black_rehno_aec_daver_3.jpg|,https://wallofsoundau.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/black_rehno_aec_daver_6.jpg|"]The good times continue to roll as Black Rheno embark on their own headline run on stages a bit smaller than they experienced in Adelaide. The whole thing takes on the Aussie east coast, including a Sydney Harbour boat cruise that took place on Mother's Day.

“Yeah Simo’s Dive Bar. The guys at Grindhead have put together this sick fucking heavy fucking raging boat gig thing that goes on. Like a bar afloat. We’ll bring along some floaties and snorkels and shit. It’ll be great”.

“We’re doing the east coast. Wollongong. We’re hitting Geelong, Melbourne, Queensland and stuff, but yeah, more small stages. But I mean, small stages are fucking awesome too. We've played some big stages, maybe not quite as big as that (Adelaide), but we have played some big stages before, where there's a barrier, you’re on this fucking 10 metre wide stage, there’s a gap between you and the pit. It's not like people are just sweating on you as they're rocking out and leaning over your pedal boards and stuff, and that's cool. It's just a completely different thing. But being a small room with even like 100-200 people, where everyone's just climbing over each other. That's pretty awesome fun too. I love that because you're just in amongst it. One second you're on stage and the second you’re on a fucking table, screaming at people. It’s a licence to go fucking nuts.”

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It’s been five years since we were treated to new Black Rheno music, but at recent shows, the lads have slipped some new tunes into the set, including…“GOOD MORNING MOTHERFUCKER!!! It’s a pretty fun song. It’s got lyrics like ‘scrambled eggs’ and all sorts of shit. It's purely just a fun track. It's funny, we’d actually been playing it for about two years live. Some of these songs have been in the bank for a while because we took a long time demoing the album. Writing and rewriting and then trying things out and this song has had like three versions of lyrics. Like, one version of lyrics was fucking angry man or like really deep and reflective, and now it's the complete opposite. It's like sunshine and lollipops and a fucking heavy metal fucking meltdown. It's pretty funny in that way.”The song itself is so catchy that when it was played at the Pantera support show in Adelaide, a large subsection of fans that had never so much as heard a Black Rheno tune before were caught singing along toward the end of this absolute banger. It’s all part of a larger collection of songs that have been recorded by none other than iconic producer Machine, the man who has worked with the likes of Lamb Of God, White Zombie, Clutch, Fall Out Boy, Every Time I Die, Vision Of Disorder, King Crimson and Australia’s own 28 Days. But Miller is a producer himself with his own recording space Housefox Studios on Sydney’s North Shore. It has to be a huge learning opportunity for the frontman to not only learn from one of the best, not just as a musician, but also a music producer.“Totally. That was part of the attraction for me. I’ve had my studio for 11 years. That’s my job, I’m a music producer. I record bands and all that kind of jive and whilst I've got a great studio, we also spend so much time in there. It was just kind of good to go somewhere different and mix it up. Then it's kind of like, well, if we're gonna go somewhere different and mix it up, like I don't want to go to another studio in Sydney. There are a bunch of red hot studios in Sydney with really good producers, 100%. But I don't want to drive half an hour from where I am when I've got a great one myself. What’s point in that? So if we're going to do it, let's go do it with someone that's just a whole other level. Then also just for me to be a fly on the wall, like what’s this guy doing different to me? What can I learn from this guy. So it was really, really interesting in that respect.”So what was he like?“He's exactly what I thought he was, in the sense that he’s full mad scientists, which is why I wanted to go. I knew the guy had this crazy energy about him. I’d watch the making of some of the stuff he’d done with Clutch. Then there's the classic one, I think a lot of us have watched, of the making of Sacrament, which is the Lamb of God record. And he did 28 Days man that Everybody Rip It Up album. Fuckin BOOM. Chatting to him on Zoom, he’s just like a super down to earth guy as well. Easily relatable, easy to work with, just a cool dude.”[caption id="attachment_183894" align="aligncenter" width="572"]

Black Rheno drummer Kieran with The one and only Machine[/caption]Given that Black Rheno has an album's worth of new music at the ready, how much of it will we be treated to on this tour?“We've got a couple of songs that we're playing. That one you heard the other night (Good Morning Motherfucker) and then there's another one that I don't think we played at the Pantera show. So we're going to kick out two. One of them is a song called ‘Stereo From Chaos’. Well, it's kind of fun songs. Actually, the two songs were probably the two most lighthearted songs on the record.”And when can we hope to see this new record?

"Oh god knows, were just gunna talk about it for two years. That’s all we’ve done man. We started writing this like four years ago and we did a tour two years ago and we're like, ‘Yeah, so we've got this upcoming record…'"

Well whenever it hits, we’ll be waiting. But in the meantime, the tour is continuing this week and the new songs are getting a solid, if not bloody loud run. So now you know Who The F#ck Black Rheno Are!Interview by Duane James@duanejames666