Violent Marv

When I arrived at the “Big Metal production and management” headquarters, which houses local-metal act Violent Marv’s practice space, there was a particularly frustrated feeling going round, after news of an all too common act of serious ass-holeness had been committed against the label, and subsequently the bands on it. After five years of playing in a band, lead-screamer/guitar for Violent Marv, Sean Arsenian, has come to take these kinds of setbacks in stride, “there are always problems I think that’s what separates bands, what winds up being heard are the bands that manage to persist, despite many, many, many setbacks”.
Aside from these unavoidable problems along the way, Violent Marv have developed a pretty solid thing: they are backed 100% by their label and all of the bands on it, they’ve developed a wicked sound, they just got new drummer, Tommy MM, and they are just hitting stride.
Violent Marv started out as a prog.-Metal band playing ten minute songs while opening for ska-punk bands at the Jailhouse (doesn’t it read like a time capsule, right back to five years ago?), a long way from where they stand now in the local scene.
“When we started out, we didn’t know anybody and we didn’t know anything about playing music in Montreal, or anywhere for that matter.” Sean recounts, “We knew we wanted to rock, and that’s it. Five years is a really long time for a band to be playing in one city and…not be rock stars! We should be heroes by now, but when you know absolutely nothing about what to do, it’s been a learning process.” Goddam right they should be rock stars; these dudes are pure gold!
They’ve since grown out of the youthful idealism of prog-metal; these days they keep the rock and roll ethics close to heart. On the split-EP, Forecast, they released alongside label-mates Inveigh (for whom label-president “Big Metal” James sings), all of their songs clock in under a very listener friendly four minutes, aside from one, which just barely exceeds this.
As far as their sound goes, labels don’t really do Violent Marv justice, they just do what they do. They love all things rock and roll, and things just roll from there. “Me and Rob (bass-player, Rob Tontsch) hate the whole sub-genre thing,” Sean explains, “and I think metal is one of the worst genres for that”.
Their sound is sculpted by a million very different influences, as well as a response to the tendency of the mid-90’s Montreal metal scene to go extreme: fast drums, fast guitar and low-growly vocals. But their influences are by no means strictly metal, Sean describes, “We were like, yeah I wanna be in a metal band, but we decided that we wanted to incorporate all of our influences and not be afraid of saying that we don’t care that I like Black Flag and Slayer and Sonic Youth and I want to throw that all in.” This variety results in an entirely fresh sound, which constantly shifts, and doesn’t shy away from doing something a little different. If anything, they strive for this, as Rob states it matter of factly, “every time something gets done, we switch directions.”
Their work-ethic and musical ambition has begun to pay off in the form of a constantly growing fan-base, leading to two of their career highs, opening for the hugely famous Gwar, as well as gaining them a place last year on the Mirror’s annual Best OF Montreal “Montreal’s most outrageous musical acts” poll (one place behind Celin Dion).
But the bottom line is that it’s all about just rocking the fuck out of anything and everything they motherfucking can. Given the choice and the opportunity, Violent Marv would rock the shit right out of your ass. - The Link - Concordia University Paper

Continuing on with this review which is an unusual one compared to the ones I have previously written, I must mention Violent Marv.
Where do I start? I was completely and utterly disgusted, offended, disturbed, and emotionally ravaged by this group. The music was so incredibly bad that I actually felt some emotional pain listening to these ... these ... musicians?! At one point during the set, they were giving away free merch. The receiver of this merch had to destroy a balloon-woman-type thing. As I was watching this, I couldn't explain how offended I was. How can anyone initiate this type of act? How could they!?!?! How could anyone attempt to initiate fights over free merchandise?!
- TZMAGAZINE.com

Most Outrageous Musical Act:
#5 (of 10) Violent Marv

Wickedest Guitar Player
#2 (of 10) Sean Arsenian of VIOLENT MARV

Best Band
Honourable Mention VIOLENT MARV - Hour Magazine