The SmashUp Massacred By Sea Serpent in New Video

With a name like 'The Sea and the Serpent,' you'd be right to assume the SmashUp's forthcoming LP is a concept piece. Due on March 16, guitarist Vin Alfieri says his band doesn't drive the concept "up your ass too much," leaving it open to interpretation, the album "sort of revolves around going out to sea, escaping from a collapsing society and finding yourself trapped in a purgatory type of scenario."

While it may not be as obvious on tape, the concept will be much more present in the band's first video for 'The Sea and the Serpent,' which they recently shot with director Dave Brodsky.

"We battle a serpent and half the band gets gruesomely destroyed," Alfieri explains to Noisecreep. "We're doing a lot of stuff in post but at one point, our drummer's eyeballs get squeezed out and our other guitarist, he gets smashed and his guts shoot out of his feet so ... it should be good. Four-fifths of the band dies in the video, so if you don't like the new disc, you can at least see us get murdered by a sea beast."

For fans of the SmashUp's first LP, 'Serpent' is nothing like "what we did five years ago. We've got big, nasty guitar sounds, big drums ... it's heavier overall and sounds more progressive. It's a heavier record. We always try to keep it a collage of a lot of different styles, so each song has a splattering of different influences. You can't pin this band down to one genre we sound like. This record follows in that tradition, but its definitely not the SmashUp of old."

That may have something to do with the fact that the band's undergone some lineup shifts, including a new singer. "We were touring pretty heavily from 2005 to 2007, and I just think, with the original singer, I think we really weren't on the same playing field as far as what we wanted to do," he says. "Once you start going out touring, you see who's really passionate about it and who isn't.

"People often fantasize about getting a van and touring, but once you're out there doing it, the reality of what it is changes for some people. Now, we have the right guys, in it for the right reasons, and everyone is passionate about it and doing it for the love of music. No one expects to walk away with platinum-lined pockets, and that's the expectation you have to have."