Gollum Make Scientific Discoveries When Not Making Scientific Music

If the sonic twists and turns in North Carolina progressive death/noise metal band Gollum make the band sound smart, the depiction is accurate. The reason guitarist Frank Stroehmer, his brother and bassist Serge and vocalist Shawn Corbett can only tour on select dates is because they all have serious day jobs working for environmental engineering consulting firms.

"I got my degree in Environmental Science from UNCW, and I work as an environmental scientist taking water and soil samples and analyzing all the data to try to make sense of it for our clients," guitarist Frank Stroehmer told Noisecreep. "And then I write reports for what we come up with."

Corbett works as an engineering technician at the same firm as Frank and his cousin, and spends much of his time in the field. "He makes sure construction supervisors follow the blueprints," Frank said. "He's quality control."

Serge is also an engineering tech but works for a competing company. And strangely, Frank helped hook him up with the job. "There's plenty of work, so it's not a cutthroat thing," Frank said. "And actually, I'd rather have him work for the competitor than work for my company, because if we worked at the same place it would be much harder to take off certain days for touring."