In concert they shred and roar like madmen. At In-N-Out, they smile and shake my hand. Local band Paroxysmal Butchering are gaining popularity in the world of extreme metal, and enjoying some burgers.

In 2007, singer/guitarist Tim Bee and his friend started messing around with music, buying their own instruments to start. His friend later got him in touch with guitarist Josh Alvarado in Carlsbad, and in 2011, they began performing seriously as a band.

“In the beginning, we were playing shows nonstop,” Alvarado said. “There was one weekend where our drummer was in the studio for nine hours straight. Then that same night he had to play a show. Next morning he showed up in the studio, played for two hours, and then physically could not play anymore. We were playing shows frequently for about a year, and this year we started calming down a bit, mostly being a studio band.”

In these early years, they played all across California, in every type of show.

“[We’ve played] really bad venues to really good venues,” Bee said. “The venues could be dive-bars or professionally setup stages. Or houses.”

Paroxysmal Butchering describes their sound as a mixture of many styles of extreme metal, also implementing elements of jazz and other popular music.

“I think that makes it easier for people to listen to us,” Bee said. “A lot of these genres [of metal] are really alienating. So the fact that we do everything in moderation keeps people from being too against us. It’s nice where people either like us, or think ‘eh, it’s not for me.’ We don’t force too much on anybody.”

The band has recently expanded creatively, to a sound beyond the the common grind of some metal bands. They’re current CD (still in production) will encompass their evolved style. Still, they remain true to the distinctive personality of their music.

“It’s gone from that simple ‘be heavy, be brutal, thump thump,’ to seeing what I could create that’s still us, but as far away from us as possible,” Bee said. “You never want to be one of those bands that flip-flops from sound to sound. Explore your range, see what else there is, but there’s no continuing quality to a band with eight CD’s and eight different sounds. You may as well listen to eight different bands. I think any healthy band does that.”

Many view metal as demonic, angry or violent in nature, but this doesn’t seem to reflect the musicians themselves. They note that musical preference transcends morality and even personality.

“You see pop divas or people who play R&B, and they could be crazy and treat people like garbage,” Bee said. “I think you’re either going to be a jerk or you’re not, and the style of music that you like is neither here nor there.”

With their recent success and years of experience, their most important advice to up-and-coming bands, is don’t let it go to your head.

“There’s enough of it already,” Bee said. “Obviously don’t get pushed around, but don’t get the head on your shoulders. Because the sooner you start to act like a [jerk], the sooner you start to expect more and realize that you’re never going to get what you’re expecting, the sooner you get sour on the idea, and ultimately, the sooner you start taking it out on the people around you. And that’s really evident with some of the bands we’ve played with where they are bitter, angry human-beings. On the other side, there are huge bands that we’ve opened for, and they are still the nicest guys. It’s just such a pleasure to play with musicians who still enjoy making music.”