UNLEASHING ‘KARMA CASUALTY’: GUTTER KING SETS THE TONE FOR THE FUTURE OF CANADIAN METALCORE
Discovering the raw energy and relentless passion of Canada’s underground metal scene often leads to hidden gems that deserve a wider audience. Among these emerging acts is Gutter King, a metalcore band hailing from Calgary, Alberta that has been making significant waves over the past few years. With a sound that fuses aggressive riffs, emotional intensity, and a commanding stage presence, Gutter King has quickly established themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the Canadian metalcore landscape.
Since forming in 2018, Gutter King — founded by Bert Heatlie, Seth Shimp, and Alan Bremner — has steadily evolved through several releases, though their two latest EPs marked a turning point in refining their sound and reaching a broader audience. Their latest offering, Karma Casualty, highlights their ability to blend aggressive energy with thought-provoking themes, while delivering relatable, catchy lyrics that resonate with both longtime supporters and newcomers alike.
Their recent cross-Canada tour alongside pop-punk band Chilio marked a major milestone, allowing them to connect with audiences across the country and prove their versatility as performers, with support from session drummer Trevor Nourse. By consistently documenting the tour and leaning into self-promotion across social media, the band also built significant momentum online, helping expand their reach.
In this exclusive interview, we dive into the origins of Gutter King — how they came together, what drives their creative process, and what’s next on their journey. Whether you’re already a metalcore enthusiast or just discovering the genre, their story is one of passion, perseverance, and rising success that you won’t want to miss.
Jasmin: Hey guys! Thank you for taking time to talk to me today!
Gutter King (collectively): Of course! Happy to be here!
Jasmin: Do you guys mind introducing yourselves and your roles for those who may just be learning about you?
Bert: My name’s Bert. [clears throat] I’m sorry, I’m a little sick right now. I’m the frontman, so I do screaming and singing.
Seth: I’m Seth. I play guitar and I sing.
Alan: I’m Alan, I play guitar.
Jasmin: Now, Bert and Seth — you two met in grade school and you both met Alan in high school. Although Gutter King was formed in 2018, was there a certain amount of time prior to that where you guys collectively decided that this is what you wanted to pursue and on a more serious level?
Bert: Yeah, there was maybe a year or so of brainstorming, but we were all in university too, so… I feel like, for a bit there, it was kind of half-assed. We were like, ‘Yeah, we want to start a metalcore band. We have a logo now, no songs,’ and then Alan started making some demos. It took a little while, so I would say probably a year or two prior.
Alan: There was even a time when we were in other bands and we were theorizing about the idea of a band like Gutter King. So if you really trace the roots back, it goes quite far back in time.
Jasmin: I’m here for the lore! Speaking of which, while prepping for today’s interview, I learned that Alan mentioned in another interview that you guys are quite respectful of one another’s contributions to the band — offering a very collaborative experience when writing your music. You’ve mentioned the importance of setting egos aside and focusing on listening to everyone’s ideas and implementing a “no judgement, no wrong answers” approach. How do you feel that’s helped strengthen you guys as a band and do you think that stems from having known each other for so long?
Alan: Yeah, I definitely think that the attitude still rings true in our camp. We just hold the songs and the way they come out at the highest priority. Doesn’t really matter where you trace back, whose idea, whose contribution it was, as long as the best idea comes out on top. The majority of the great ideas come from Bert and Seth, especially these latest songs, but I chime in when I can and when I think it’s appropriate. So, yeah, that attitude goes through the songwriting, the visuals, and kind of the entire approach of the band is, no bad ideas — we’re willing to hear anyone out. But we’re going for the best option and then it’s kind of like ego aside, whoever’s got the best idea, that’s what we go for.
Jasmin: I love that, because you guys have known each other for so long that the friendship is already there underneath everything, so you're not just showing up to make music, there's an actual bond amongst all three of you.
When talking about your collaborative approach and creativity, you guys are kind of a force to be reckoned with as you bring a lot of various talents to the table. That said, I do have questions for each of you. Bert — your vocal range ability alone is a strength worth acknowledging.
Bert: Thank you!
Jasmin: Absolutely! Your flow between clean vocals and screams is something that I’ve heard many vocalists say can be challenging at times. Have you ever had any form of vocal training or have you learned throughout your journey what's worked best for your specific voice?
Bert: Well, screaming is self-taught. I started when I was 14, you know, blowing up my voice and like, freaking out my parents. [laughs] And then, I actually learned how to sing very late in life. I consider myself still a student of the whole thing. Like, I, much to the chagrin of my bandmates, I’m still learning as we go. So sometimes we have some tricky studio sessions, sometimes it flows really well. But it’s certainly a very ongoing process — still finding my own voice as a singer.
Jasmin: That’s not a bad thing! I think that speaks for everything in life — we’re constantly growing.
Jasmin: Seth — you are the primary producer for the band, bringing an impressive skillset as your mixes are on par with some of the leading bands out there in the genre right now. What are some of the most important lessons you’ve learned so far through producing for Gutter King?
Seth: Hmm. Lessons learned. Wow. I think, you know, sometimes I have a tendency to get in my own world and in my own head. I’ll produce a whole idea and think it’s amazing and then bring it to the guys and they’re like, ‘No, this is not it.’ I think it’s taught me to lean into the collaborative nature of it a lot more and just trust other people’s opinions and take them as valuable as I would take my own. Even if sometimes I don’t see it at the start.
Bert: Kind of built on that, like, one of the paradoxes of the no judgement thing is that we’re also willing to tell each other when something just isn’t it.
Jasmin: So again, that friendship being the underlying foundation for the band definitely helps in that case, because you can be real with each other.
Bert: Yeah, absolutely.
Jasmin: Now this one’s for Alan — as a photographer first and foremost, myself, I have to hand it to you — you being a photographer and videographer gives you an inside upper hand when it comes to creating compelling content for the band. When did you first discover your passion for capturing the action and do you feel that getting to understand both sides of the lens as a musician has helped the way that you capture things?
Alan: I feel like I could trace that back to grade school when I was first interested in photo and video stuff. Every time I had an opportunity to make a project where I could do it with a camera, I would. And then when the band started, we needed photos done and it was like, ‘You know what? I can do it! Sure, let’s get my camera that I’m getting from university and set up a tripod and see what we can do!’
Jasmin: The good ol’ self- timer trick.
Alan: [laughs] Yeah, exactly! I’m just running back and forth between the camera and trying to act cool. But I think my experience as a musician and a photographer has really helped me learn on both ends. As a photographer, when I’m working for a band, I know what they want because I’ve been in their position before. So it kind of tells me what I need to capture. And then vice versa, when I’m the artist and maybe it’s a photographer that we’ve hired, I can give them feedback or an idea of the way that I think I would approach it. So, it’s actually such a great harmony of things to give a shit about.
Jasmin: Yeah, I can totally understand that — great answer! So, in the days of social media being such an essential for furthering your growth and success, you guys tend to keep up quite well with your social media presence. Do you feel that’s helped you stay connected to and even relate more to your supporters by managing these platforms yourselves?
Alan: I think it’s definitely a way to connect with people and seeing people that comment all the time or say like ‘I listen to your music all the time!’ It’s nice to see those names pop up, especially if we get to make that connection in person. But I also think it’s an avenue to become overwhelmed. Sometimes it’s after a show and I’m looking at our Instagram — we get tagged in 50 things. It’s like, ‘I don't know if I’ve got the energy to go through all this,’ but at the same time, I want to interact and be able to reply to everyone — to every comment.
Jasmin: I definitely think social media can feel that way in general, so having that weight as a band can feel like a lot at times. Now, I do want to dig into the Karma Funeral Tour that you guys just wrapped with Chilio. I was fortunate enough to see you guys perform together at your Niagara show — you both did amazing! I couldn’t help but notice how your senses of humour and personalities seemed to mesh really well with theirs. How was it touring with them and have you guys actually known each other for a while or was this a more recent connection?
Seth: Yeah, I mean, they’re from our home city, so we knew about them already and we’d been to their shows, and sort of like — you know, acquainted ourselves with them. But the tour was kind of the first opportunity we all had to like, actually hang out and get to know each other. And even on the tour, it feels like there’s just such little time to socialize, but it was amazing. They’re great guys. They share the same mentality that we have and sense of humour like you mentioned, so we all got along super well. Nothing but good things to say!
Bert: Yeah, truly!
Jasmin: I know that there were quite a few comedic moments during some of your shows along with pranks back and forth. Were than any standout funny moments or stories from the tour that you’d like to share?
Gutter King (collectively): [laughing]
Seth: Man, yeah, that prank kind of fell into our lap, to be honest, because we were like trying to figure out what are we going to do? We knew we had to prank them at the end — that was the agreement at the start that each band is going to do something. And we were just banging our heads against the wall trying to figure out what to do. Then one night, Rick decided of his own volition to moon us from side stage, and we just happened to have a 360 camera right there. So we were like, ‘Yo, we could use that!’ It worked out perfectly, so that was definitely a standout moment — seeing their reaction to that!
Jasmin: And for people that don’t know what happened or haven’t seen the video, you took that screen grab of him mooning you and had it turned into stickers, to then sticker-bomb their entire tour van.
Seth: Yes!
All participants: [laughing]
Bert: It was thematically on par with like the Karma Funeral thing, like, that ended up being Rick’s karma funeral.
Alan: [laughs] Yeah.
Seth: We’re so proud of him.
Jasmin: He looks so proud of himself in the video too. Someone’s got to tell him he’s got to start charging for that though.
Alan and Jasmin: Can’t be putting that stuff out there for free.
All participants: [laughing]
Jasmin: What’s the most unexpected thing that happened on this tour and how did you guys handle it?
Alan: Unexpected in a good way, was people singing along to the end of ‘Limbo’ and a few other parts. But I think the first time it really clicked for us was in Edmonton, which was I think just the second show. There’s a chorus that’s stripped back and the whole crowd would — it seemed like the whole crowd — was singing along with us. To the point where we kind of all looked at each other on stage and took our in-ears out like, ‘Is this actually happening?’ And sure enough, you know, it’s loud as hell — people are screaming along with the words, which we haven’t had, like, in such a loud way before. So that was, like, really unexpected, and I mean, it was obviously very welcomed. It was kind of game changing for us.
Jasmin: I’m proud of you guys, it’s gotta feel surreal, for sure. When it comes to touring though, what are each of your tour essentials while on tour? Whether that be must-have items, snacks, routines, etc.
Bert: For me, it’s something to read. I’m also big on supplements, so any sort of vitamins or anything to help me feel a little bit better on the road. Also — I meant to bring it, I actually have it sitting right here. [pulls out a massage gun] But I meant to bring this guy, because the van is so uncomfortable, but I forgot it, so I was very cramped up.
Jasmin: Plot twist, that’s why he got sick.
Bert: [laughs] Yeah, I didn’t have my massage gun!
Jasmin: Alan, Seth — what about you guys?
Seth: Something I discovered I need next time is noise-cancelling headphones. I have my AirPods, but they don’t have the noise-cancelling. The van is very loud, and I found after one night of blasting my audiobook and in the hotel room, my ears were just ringing. I was like, ‘Oh, this is like not good!’ So yeah, investing in those for next time for sure.
Alan: I mean, for me, it would have to be our Jackery, mobile battery station.
Bert: Right, yeah!
Alan: Before this tour, we didn’t have anything like that. My laptop is just draws too much power so I can’t plug it into the van to power it. So I would run my laptop for like 40 minutes and then run out of battery and then have to wait to charge it. But this little battery station really changed a lot of things for me because I was on there clicking away, editing for hours at a time while we were driving.
Jasmin: Yeah, because you were taking a bunch of photos and everything during the tour yourself, weren’t you?
Alan: Yeah, the best I could! And that was like the only time for me to edit anything was during the drives. So that’s been an essential and will never go anywhere without that thing now!
Jasmin: Okay, we’re going to redirect a for a moment here and dig into your EP, Karma Casualty a little bit. As we know, metalcore has evolved in many ways over the years — to the point where it’s become a broad spectrum of pop beats and vocals mixed with heavier metal instrumentals and screams, and even sometimes experimental electronic elements. When it comes to where you guys fall on the metalcore spectrum, where do you draw your inspiration from?
Seth: For me, it’s all over the place. I mean, I feel like we all have our own pretty diverse range of music influences. Mine isn’t often very metalcore — it’s very much everything else — country, pop, hip hop, R&B. And I feel like I try to bring as many like of those electronic elements as I can get away with into our music.
Bert: Yeah, I feel like we all kind of have different spheres of influence and it comes together in our music. Mine’s kind of weird, like, I’m a big fan of Sleep Token. But also bands like Black Tongue and I’m big into deathcore in certain, like, phases of my life. I like bands like Kublai Khan, Alpha Wolf. I’m really big into Tool these days. So it’s kind of an eclectic mix where my inspirations come from.
Alan: I think for me, I definitely listen to a lot of what you would get on a Download Festival circuit, like all the big bands in the scene — a bit of everything. But my number one artist on Spotify for the last, like, six or so years has been John Mayer. He’s just always there. No matter what mood. So a lot of my inspiration inadvertently comes from him.
Seth: Big John Mayer guy over here! I feel I’m very, like, whatever is coming out. I’ve got like the new Dermot Kennedy album, he’s really cool. The new Olivia Rodrigo song is dope, Noah Kahan, Charlie Puth. Mumford & Sons — they have a new album up that’s actually pretty dope.
Jasmin: Have you had any moments so far where you’ve caught the attention of any of the artists or bands that have inspired you, where you were kind of like ‘Holy shit, they know who we are?!’
Alan: I think we’ve had a couple instances of a few people following us on Instagram that we weren’t unexpecting. I think he still follows us but AJ from Issues. They were like my favourite band for a long time, and he gave us a follow at some point. Who knows if that was because he just saw a picture of Bert’s face and thought, ‘Wow, this guy’s so handsome! I have to follow his account.’ Or if that means he’s tapped in on anything that we do musically, but I’m gonna try and believe the latter.
Bert: [chuckles and gets seemingly flustered]
Seth: Yeah, that one’s pretty cool. I think at some point we had Jacoby from Papa Roach follow us, which was super random! He does still follow us, actually, I’m just checking right now!
Bert: When Alan was doing photo and video for Beartooth, he paid one of their members like 50 bucks or something to mention us on their story.
Alan: Okay, hold on! [laughs] Let’s get the records straight. I did not give anyone $50! I was just so charming and our music is so good that when Blood Rush came out, they shared it to their story. And I definitely spent a good amount of time punishing everyone in that camp. ‘Hey, come on! Check out my band, check out my band!’
Jasmin: I will say, I did listen to and genuinely enjoyed this EP! It gives a sense of familiarity while still being unique to you guys, which I love. It’s got me looking forward to what the future holds for you guys. Do you have any upcoming projects in the works at this time or have you been prioritizing focus around this latest EP and arranging touring?
Seth: We are full steam ahead on writing a new EP — starting like right now, so we’re kind of in the middle of it.
Bert: Yeah, we’re intending for a bit of a sonic shift. So maybe a newer sound that we haven’t done before, but it's unclear what that sound will be.
Seth: We have these, what I call, 30 second starters. We get a vibe — like a guitar or vocals and we just start with that, and then pick the ones we like and build out from there.
Jasmin: What’s the weirdest place you’ve ever gotten songwriting inspiration from? Whether that be when you were writing the songs for Karma Casualty or previous releases.
Seth: For Someone Else, we were inspired by the movie Annihilation. There’s this scene at the end, where there’s this like, alien thing, and there’s this sound effect playing — I don’t even know how to describe it, but it’s this crazy sci-fi sound. I took inspiration from that. There’s like a synth that plays in Someone Else at the start that’s kind of this fluttering sound. And I try to just mimic that sort of alien creepiness vibe directly from that movie.
Bert: I’ve had inspiration from dreams or something weird happened, like, it’s happened numerous times. In one of our really old songs, one of the opening lines is about tearing my veins from my arms or something. I had a dream where my arms opened up and my veins came out and shot out like tree roots. And when I woke up, I was like, ‘That was a very profound visual to generate!’ And I put it in that lyric — tried to make them work.
Seth: I didn’t even know that!
Jasmin: I’m glad I’m not the only one with messed up dreams! [laughs] Now, to start wrapping up here, I’ve got a few more questions for you. The first one being, what is the best piece of advice another musician ever gave you?
Alan: Hmm.
Seth: Tough question.
Alan: I think I’ve got one. I think it must have been like at the end of the first or second tour that I did with Beartooth. I was talking to Caleb (Shomo) and he was telling me that I had jumped so many steps to get to be touring with a band of the size of Beartooth. I didn’t do any bandwagon tours or van tours. I just kind of jumped to a bus tour with them. I had the gear that I had. And he told me that everyone that’s at this level of work — referring to photography and the bands, he’s like, ‘They invest in themselves.’ And I remember him just hammering down the idea that like, if I want to do this, I need to go all in on it. And he was kind of like ‘We just paid you all this money for the next tour — buy that lens that you need.’ But I’ve kind of taken that and ran with it and in so many ways, where I did buy that lens that I needed for the next tour, but just even for the band. There’s so many times I think we’ve just been so frugal or we’re waiting for the perfect moment. When we just really need to invest everything that we have — not necessarily only financially, but an all encompassing kind of way into this project, and that’s kind of always stuck with me.
Jasmin: I mean, honestly, that’s great advice! And that’s a pretty solid gig!
Alan: It was dope!
Bert: Mine is less philosophical. We were playing a show with, some friends, Opal In Sky, and we were talking about the way we scream, and someone asked me if I’d tried something called the tunnel scream. Which is basically where you position your tongue a certain way, so you create two tunnels on the side of your tongue, and the airflow causes an extra layer of distortion. And it basically changed the way I do some of my lower screams. I tried it at that show the first time and I was like, ‘Whoa! I should have been doing this the whole time!’ I’ve been doing it ever since, and it totally changed my vocal technique in like an instant.
Seth: I think I must have been 15 or 16 and I was in a band. And I had sent our demos to this really big producer who was leagues ahead of who we would have ever been working with at the time. I was a naive kid, and he got back to me and he basically gave me this huge list in an email of all the things that I could do better with my music. He was like, ‘Your songs need a verse and a chorus. They need structure. You need to look at bands like The Beatles. Look at what they do and how why they’re successful.’ And I remember that, I still have that email in my inbox actually like 15 years later, because it really stuck with me! That changed my perspective and my approach.
Jasmin: It’s a good thing to have and hold on to because you can look back at it when you do have those moments of, you know, self-doubt or you kind of need to hear those words again and be reminded of them.
Seth: Totally! It’ll be a cool social moment if I ever meet him.
Jasmin: This brings us to our final question for today. If you could now provide any advice to any newer bands that may just be starting out, what would you say?
Bert: My advice would be to stick with it. I have seen so many bands start up, get super excited about their first EP or album, put everything they have into it, and then they don’t become famous immediately, so they quit the band and start a new one. Just stick with it for a while. Please, give it some time. Because like anything you want to accomplish, it’s going to take an extra five years at the minimum, and it takes a very long time to get anywhere. And it’s tough just seeing so many people become disheartened and even publicly jaded about not getting the response they wanted. And so really just, give it some time, stick with it.
Seth: Yeah, I mean, our philosophy is we always come back to it. Like, we still feel like we’re in year one of this band. You know, we’ve been around for over 7 years now and with every release, I feel like we’re learning something new and being like, ‘Oh, that last step didn’t count.’ And that just kind of keeps repeating and repeating.
Alan: Yeah. I was going to say the same thing. It’s like, with a new band, you have that exciting start, and then once that first blow comes, that’s when they stop. But that’s the time to double down and go harder. I think we’ve run into that a lot of times where we have a release, we go on tour — like we just did, but even on this last tour — we’re telling ourselves, ‘When we get back, we’re gonna want to just kick back for weeks, months. But we’re gonna give ourselves a weekend, but come Monday, we have to like keep going.’
Jasmin: Now, if you’d like to take a moment to plug or promote any upcoming projects, the floor is yours!
Bert: We have more music coming this summer, and we have another tour announcement to end out the year!
Alan: Make sure you give us a follow @gutterkingband!
Seth: Yeah, and thank you again for having us! This has been awesome! We appreciate the platform and the opportunity to talk about it.
Alan: Yeah, thank you so much!
Bert: Thank you!
Jasmin: Absolutely! Thank you guys again for your time today, it’s been a pleasure!
If you haven’t listened to Gutter King, go check them out and show your support — you do not want to sleep on these guys!
Connect with the Band:
- Follow Gutter King on Instagram for the latest updates: https://www.instagram.com/gutterkingband
- Subscribe to their YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UCq1H8mL2D7pTS7tQOlQpWrQ
- Check out their merch on the Official Band Website: https://gutterkingband.com
