Metal666 PDF

PRECIOUS METAL
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PRECIOUS
METAL
ø
DECIBEL Presents
the Stories Behind
25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces
Edited by
ALBERT MUDRIAN
DA CAPO PRESS
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
Copyright © 2009 by Decibel magazine
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United
States of America. For information, address Da Capo Press, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge,
MA 02142.
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Set in 11 point Adobe Caslon by the Perseus Books Group
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Precious metal : Decibel magazine presents the oral histories of 25 extreme metal essentials /
edited by Albert Mudrian.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-306-81806-6 (alk. paper)
1. Extreme metal (Music)—History and criticism. 2. Death metal (Music)—History and
criticism. 3. Heavy metal (Music)—History and criticism. 4. Rock musicians—Interviews.
I. Mudrian, Albert, 1975– II. Decibel (Philadelphia, Pa.)
ML3534.P73 2009
781.66--dc22
2009007835
Published by Da Capo Press
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
www.dacapopress.com
Da Capo Press books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corpo-
rations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special
Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadel-
phia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail
special.markets@perseusbooks.com.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FOR JENNIFER AND GROB OF SONIC RELIEF PROMOTIONS
Ø
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
1 Ø HOLY HELL
The Making of Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell, by Adem Tepedelen 1
2 Ø A RARE GEM
The Making of Diamond Head’s Lightning to the Nations, by Adem Tepedelen 15
3 Ø PROCREATION OF THE WICKED
The Making of Celtic Frost’s Morbid Tales, by J. Bennett 31
4 Ø WHO’LL STOP THE REIGN?
The Making of Slayer’s Reign in Blood, by J. Bennett 48
5 Ø SLAVES TO THE GRIND
The Making of Napalm Death’s Scum, by Kory Grow 56
6 Ø SCARED TO DEATH
The Making of Repulsion’s Horrified, by Matthew Widener 73
7 Ø IMMORTAL RIGHTS
The Making of Morbid Angel’s Altars of Madness, by J. Bennett 85
8 Ø MEMORIES REMAIN
The Making of Obituary’s Cause of Death, by Kory Grow 96
9 Ø LEFT HAND LEGACY
The Making of Entombed’s Left Hand Path, by J. Bennett 109
10 Ø AN ETERNAL CLASSIC
The Making of Paradise Lost’s Gothic, by Scott Koerber 120
vii
11 Ø ROTTEN TO THE GORE
The Making of Carcass’ Necroticism—Descanting the Insalubrious, by J. Bennett 130
12 Ø THE CRYPTIC STENCH
The Making of Cannibal Corpse’s Tomb of the Mutilated, by Chris Dick 142
13 Ø HAZARDOUS PRESCRIPTION
The Making of Eyehategod’s Take as Needed for Pain, by J. Bennett 165
14 Ø HUNGER STRIKES
The Making of Darkthrone’s Transilvanian Hunger, by Albert Mudrian 179
15 Ø 1993: A DESERT ODYSSEY
The Making of Kyuss’ Welcome to Sky Valley, by J. Bennett 196
16 Ø ALTERING THE FUTURE
The Making of Meshuggah’s Destroy Erase Improve, by Kevin Stewart-Panko 213
17 Ø MASTERBURNER & THE INFINITE BADNESS
The Making of Monster Magnet’s Dopes to Infinity, by J. Bennett 223
18 Ø AT THE GATES OF IMMORTALITY
The Making of At the Gates’ Slaughter of the Soul, by J. Bennett 237
19 Ø FLOWER POWER
The Making of Opeth’s Orchid, by Chris Dick 245
20 Ø PILLAR OF ETERNITY
The Making of Down’s NOLA, by J. Bennett 267
21 Ø TOTAL ECLIPSE: METAL, MAYHEM & MURDER
The Making of Emperor’s In the Nightside Eclipse, by J. Bennett 280
22 Ø HIGH TIMES
The Making of Sleep’s Jerusalem, by J. Bennett 292
23 Ø 100% CLASSIC
The Making of the Dillinger Escape Plan’s Calculating Infinity,
by Kevin Stewart-Panko 304
24 Ø FALLEN EMPIRE
The Making of Botch’s We Are the Romans, by J. Bennett 318
25 Ø WHO’S THAT GIRL?
The Making of Converge’s Jane Doe, by J. Bennett 331
Photo Credits 349

Index 351
viii Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Decibel ’s Managing Editor Andrew Bonazelli, who tirelessly edited each Hall of
Fame in this anthology at least five goddamn times. Senior Editor Patty Moran,
who’s also copyedited more of these stories than she likely cares to remember.
Decibel Publisher Alex Mulcahy, who still doesn’t understand why there’s no
Hall of Fame on Sepultura’s Arise album. Gordon Conrad, who waits in vain for
a Judge Hall of Fame. Decibel Art Director Jamie Leary, who would still rather
listen to You Fail Me instead of Jane Doe. Decibel designers Bruno Guerreiro and
Jon Loudon, who’ve somehow made 6,000-word features look awesome—even
over seven-page spreads in the magazine. Mark Evans, who remains cautiously
optimistic about the possibility of a Fudge Tunnel Hall of Fame. Scott Hun-
garter and Lucas Hardison, who are secretly bummed that both Katatonia and
Mastodon didn’t make the cut for this volume of the book. J. Bennett, who has
written half of these Hall of Fame pieces and turned in less than 10 percent of
them under word count. Michaelangelo Matos, who has been talking peoples’
ears off about us for years. Ben Schafer, who was smart enough to listen. Nick
Green, who is still waiting for Refused, Suicidal Tendencies and Rage Against
the Machine to return a few emails. Adem Tepedelen, who has obviously been
metal longer than any of us. Kory Grow, who is still splicing that Bill Steer in-
terview tape back together. Matt Widener, who owns the corresponding t-shirts
for half of these Hall of Fame records. Kevin Stewart-Panko, who owns the
other half. Scott Koerber, who’d rather bridge a scene if he could. Chris Dick,
who is currently working on a Moog-less mix of Tales from the Thousand Lakes.
The dB online forum, which has created over a dozen unique threads dedicated
to just the Hall of Fame. And all the band members who agreed to be inter-
viewed for these pieces—we literally couldn’t have done it without you. Every-
one mentioned here rules. Thank you.
ix
INTRODUCTION
“What’s gonna be the next Hall of Fame album?” As Decibel ’s Editor in Chief,
that’s the question I’m asked more than any other by our readers. “What the
fuck were you thinking running a cover story on Trivium?” is probably the
second-most-asked (though it’s clearly the most often posed by Jeff Walker of
Carcass).
I conceived the Hall of Fame as a nice excuse for us to revisit our favorite
records in the magazine. I’m a pretty nostalgic guy (um, I actually collect CD
long-boxes) and still regularly spin dozens of LPs that I worshipped in high
school. So, the success of the Hall of Fame series suggests that there are actu-
ally plenty more dorks just like me who can’t really “grow out” of certain albums.
If you don’t already know the dB HOF deal, it goes a little something like this:
Take a classic extreme metal record (as determined by our staff ) released at least
five years ago, track down and interview every band member who played on it,
and present them questions exclusively about the writing, recording, touring and
overall impact of said album. Sounds easy enough, right? I even often wondered
why other publications never pursued similar features until I discovered first-
hand what a complete bitch it is to assemble every month. Whether it’s track-
ing down old, long-forgotten-about metal bones or convincing bands to talk at
length about past records universally considered more relevant than their current
release, it’s always a unique challenge to make every Hall of Fame installment a
reality.
In fact, I could write another book about all of the HOFs that didn’t happen.
For starters, there’s the piece on Faith No More’s Angel Dust, where we con-
vinced everyone except pumpkin-farming former guitarist Jim Martin to par-
ticipate. Or the story on Helmet’s Meantime record—a perpetual source of
discontent for dB Managing Editor Andrew Bonazelli—that was scrapped after
it was revealed that ex-drummer John Stanier made some midnight blood pact
with guitarist Peter Mengede and bassist Henry Bogdan to never speak of their
xi
time in Helmet again. Henry Rollins won’t do a Black Flag one (but Greg Ginn
is totally available!). Neurosis have refused to partake in HOF stories for Souls
at Zero, Enemy of the Sun, Through Silver in Blood and Times of Grace (but they’re
always really nice about it when they shoot us down). And features on records
from the first Danzig LP (guess who isn’t into talking for that one?) to Bolt
Thrower’s Realm of Chaos (I honestly think this is due to sheer laziness disguised
as “punk as fuck” attitude on the band’s part) have been aborted prior to their
completion. So, the next time you wonder, “Why isn’t such-and-such record in
the Hall of Fame?” just remember, there’s an excellent chance we tried to get it
together.
The “interview every band member who played on it” rule—which is strictly
enforced—raises another obstacle. As they say, dead men tell no tales, which
sadly precludes the likes of Master of Puppets, Vulgar Display of Power, Scream
Bloody Gore and several other indisputable metallic classics from induction in
the Hall. But—let’s be honest—without Cliff, Dimebag or Chuck to weigh in,
they would be incomplete portraits at best.
However, the following 160,000 or so words are all about those that did make
it. As of January 2009, we’ve inducted 50 records into the dB Hall of Fame, so
whittling those down to our 25 favorites contained in Precious Metal was no
small task. Editing and expanding each piece—in some cases, nearly doubling
their original running lengths—was perhaps an even greater challenge. So, after
five years of countless cold calls, innumerable bounced emails and literally hun-
dreds of hours spent transcribing interview tapes, we bring you this definitive
collection of untold stories from these genre-defining landmarks. Now go get
your dork on.
ALBERT MUDRIAN
Editor in Chief, Decibel Magazine
January 2009
xii Introduction
CHAPTER 1
HOLY HELL
THE MAKING OF BLACK SABBATH’S HEAVEN AND HELL

by Adem Tepedelen
Release Date: 1980
Label: Warner Bros.
Summary: Metal godfathers reborn
Induction Date: September 2008/Issue #47
A
s far as Hall of Fame inductees go, the making of Black Sabbath’s ninth
album, and first with former Rainbow vocalist Ronnie James Dio, eas-
ily ranks as one of the most drama-filled. Though the title Heaven and
Hell was lifted from one of the record’s more epic songs, it also accurately sums
up the highs and lows the band experienced while making it.
The original Sabbath foursome—vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, bassist Terry
“Geezer” Butler, drummer Bill Ward and guitarist Tony Iommi—nearly snuffed
the band’s already diminishing career in the fall of 1978 with the horrendous,
and ironically titled, Never Say Die album. Osbourne, who had already left the
1
band once prior to recording Never Say Die, was in bad shape and when it came
time to do a follow-up in 1979, he simply wasn’t up to the task. The band, liv-
ing together in a house in Bel Air, CA, reluctantly fired their longtime friend and
hired Dio.
In retrospect, Dio’s hiring seems like a stroke of genius—his melodic, pow-
erful voice and mystical lyrics were a perfect match for Iommi’s crushing riffs.
Yet, at the time, the change in frontmen would also help further splinter the re-
maining original trio as they struggled to come to terms with continuing Black
Sabbath without Ozzy. One member would leave shortly after Dio was hired
and another was so incapacitated by drugs and alcohol he has no memory of
recording the album.
Once Heaven and Hell dropped in the spring of 1980, however, the “new”
Black Sabbath—more melodic, more dynamic, yet still decidedly heavy—was
embraced by a younger generation of metal fans who had little knowledge of
the band’s Ozzy-led past. The plodding dinosaur Sabbath had become in the late
’70s was reinvented as a modern metallic juggernaut on Dio’s Sabbath debut,
still one of the most beloved and influential albums in their entire catalogue.
Though he went on to record two other studio and one live album with the band
(Mob Rules, Dehumanizer and Live Evil, respectively, which, along with Heaven
and Hell, have been remastered for The Rules of Hell box set on Rhino), Dio’s
first effort, sparkling with a newfound chemistry and creativity, is clearly that in-
carnation of Sabbath’s finest.
Ø
PART I: EXIT OZZY, ENTER DIO
The original Black Sabbath lineup has its last hurrah in a Bel Air mansion and the three
remaining original members welcome an American into the fold.
What were the circumstances of Ozzy’s departure and was there any question at the
time that you’d carry on as Black Sabbath without him?
Tony Iommi: It got to the stage where we were all living in a house in Bev-
erly Hills to write [a new] album with Ozzy. And it just really wasn’t happen-
ing at all. Ozzy wasn’t in a fine state at that time and, to be honest, we weren’t
too far behind him. We were coming up with the music, but Ozzy just couldn’t
put his head around getting into doing anything on it. I used to deal with the
record company at that time and they’d be asking me, “How’s the album going?”
and I’d say, “Oh, fine.” But it wasn’t. Nothing was coming up. Riffs were com-
ing up, but there weren’t a lot of vocals on it. So, basically it came to the crunch
where we decided that we either had to break up or replace Ozzy.
2 HOLY HELL
Bill Ward: There were conversations about getting a new vocalist. On one of
the walks I had with Tony, I can remember talking about such things. In one
sense I felt extremely uncomfortable, and in another sense I thought that this
was the right thing to do. The bottom line was that we weren’t getting a lot of
work done at all. And I’m not putting that all on Ozzy, either.
Geezer Butler: None of us were happy about Ozzy going. It destroyed me for
a bit. We were all unhappy about it. We all grew up together. The whole thing was
really hard to do, to part company. It had been coming for four years before that,
but none of us could face it. When we finally faced it, we knew that that partic-
ular era of Sabbath had to come to an end and Ozzy had to get himself together.
How did Ronnie enter the picture?

Iommi: I met Ronnie at a do that I was at and we talked. I got in touch with
him and told him what was happening and asked if he was interested in com-
ing up and having a go with us. Which is more or less what he did. He came over
to the house and we did one song with [Ronnie] and knew that this was the
way we wanted to go.
Butler: We just thought, let’s give Sabbath one last go. We owed Warner
Bros. one more album. At that particular moment, we’d been working on a song
called “Children of the Sea,” though it wasn’t actually called that at the time, so
we played that to him and he came out with a great vocal straight away.
Ronnie James Dio: I met them at the house that they were using to rehearse
in and I purely went up to say hello and get to know them. I had no thoughts
whatsoever of being in the band. As far as I knew, Ozzy was still in the band.
During the conversation, Tony asked me if I’d like to see the studio they were
doing their things in. He, Geezer and Bill picked up their instruments and
started to play [what became] “Children of the Sea” and I liked it very much.
Tony asked me if I could do anything with it. I said, “Give me a few minutes, I
think I can knock something out.” We pretty well wrote the song that quickly.
I think that’s when Tony decided he wanted to make some music with me.
At the time, how well did you know each other’s music?
Iommi: I really loved Ronnie’s voice when I first heard it with Rainbow. I
was well aware of what he’d done before.
Butler: I may have a heard a [bit] of it, but I didn’t have any of the albums. I
think I’d heard one track, or something.
Ward: The two songs I’d heard by Ronnie, one was called “Love Is All (But-
terfly Ball),” which is a bit of a pop song, but I thought Ronnie’s voice sounded
very nice. And then I’d heard “Stargazer,” with Rainbow, and I thought Ronnie
had done an unbelievably good piece of work. I love the song.
The Making of Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell 3

Dio: Of course I knew the singles [Black Sabbath] had—“Paranoid,” “Iron
Man,” “War Pigs”—all these songs got played on the radio stations I was lis-
tening to. So I knew of the music, but I hadn’t rushed out and bought the albums
and listened to Sabbath. It was a little bit foreign at the time for me. I think
maybe because the music I was making certainly wasn’t that heavy. And I was
involved perhaps in a lot more melodic writing, too.
Ronnie, did they ever play you any demo/studio recordings of versions they may
have rehearsed with Ozzy?
Dio: I think a lot of the ideas they had were things that they had instrumen-
tally put down as backing tracks. How many of them Ozzy did, I have no idea.
I’m assuming none of them and that’s probably why Tony was a bit dissatisfied.
I’m sure that some of those things were ideas they’d had, but didn’t come to
fruition during the writing process [with Ozzy]. But of them, the only one that
I’m definitely sure of is “Children of the Sea,” because it’s the first thing I heard
and I know it was something that they had been working on. From there every-
thing seemed like it was starting from scratch.
Butler: We’d had about five or six ideas already done that Ozzy hadn’t both-
ered to sing on. And as soon as we played them to Ronnie, he was able to come
out with ideas straight away for them. It was just exactly what we were missing—
somebody with enthusiasm. He was really into what we were doing and just felt
like part of the band.
Since Ronnie’s voice and style are so distinctive, was there ever consideration as to
how he would fit in with Black Sabbath?
Butler: Well, we didn’t even [initially] think about it being called Black Sab-
bath. Personally, I was hoping that we would come out with a total change from
then on, because we’d always said if any one of the original [members] leaves,
we’d change the name of the band. And I was all for changing the name of the
band. Ronnie didn’t care one way or the other. But we owed Warner Bros. an
album and Warner Bros. convinced us to do a Black Sabbath album.
Iommi: What we did originally was deal with what we had in front of us:
making a really good album. Because if we didn’t do that, we weren’t going to
be doing anything. So, that was our major thing, to do the album. We thought
we’d deal with the rest when it comes. Ronnie’s such a totally different singer to
Ozzy, of course, which was good in a lot of ways. I’d looked to find somebody
with a different approach and a different voice. I think it was good to go with
somebody different. And, of course, it was good for us for writing the music be-
cause it gave us somewhere else to go.
4 HOLY HELL
Dio: When you have to replace someone who’s been some kind of an icon, it
can be very difficult. But knowing that Ozzy and I were completely different
people, completely different artists, there was never, in my case, any [pressure]
to be what he was or make this band anything other than what it became.
Ronnie, did you at the time consider the scrutiny you’d face when the album was ul-
timately released and you went out on tour?
Dio: It wasn’t like that for me; it never has been. It’s like, “Here’s a challenge,
let’s have a go at this.” So, we just began songs and I wasn’t overwhelmed or
overawed by any of that at all. It’s just not in my nature. For a start, I’d just got-
ten done playing with one of the greatest guitarists and musicians [Ritchie
Blackmore] I’d ever known. Rainbow was huge, especially in Europe. I thought
I was coming from a very good place.
When you began writing together in Bel Air, how involved was everyone in the
process?
Iommi: We had a studio put onto the side of the house, in what was origi-
nally the garage, where we had all the gear set up. Inside the house we had a
small set-up in one of the rooms, with little amps, and we used to sit in there
with Ronnie and play fairly quietly with a little kit of drums. And we’d sort of
jam around. We had a few ideas of riffs to play Ronnie from the off and that’s
what we’d do. We’d play something and he’d sort of chip in and we’d build the
song from around that. Like “Heaven and Hell,” that sort of came from noth-
ing—just sitting in the house jamming along.
Dio: When the decision was made that Ozzy was not going to be in the band
and I was, a few days after that, Geezer went back to England. So the writing
process became myself and Tony, with Bill. Bill did have a few musical ideas,
but Tony and I were certainly going in a different direction than Bill had been
before.
Ward: I felt like I had less to do in the band as a helper, or as a lyricist, or
wherever I could help—not only with drums. I tried to be helpful wherever I
could. But Ronnie was very strong in the sense that when he got together with
Tony, they were able to write very well together.
Butler: At first I was quite involved. We both were, me and Bill. Well, the
whole band was, because we carried on the way we had always written. We
jammed around, came up with some stuff and then we’d carried on with that
idea. About three or four songs into it, I had some traumatic personal problems
back in England and, on top of all the change with Ozzy [leaving], I had to get
out of there to clear my mind. So I went back to England for a few months.

Did the new writing arrangement provide a spark of inspiration, because Heaven
and Hell saw Sabbath go off in a whole new direction?
Iommi: Oh, absolutely. It opened me up more, because it pushed me more.
It gave me a lot more opportunity to try different things because of the differ-
ent way that Ronnie works with his vocals and also the way the writing had
changed. Where with Ozzy we’d write a riff and Ozzy would sing the riff—like
“Iron Man,” where he’d sing the sounds that I’m playing—but Ronnie’s approach
was different. He wouldn’t sing so much over the riff; he would sing in separate
places.
Dio: I always wanted to make music that was so incredibly heavy with a lot
of melody in it. And what better place could you find to do that in than [a band]
with Tony and Geezer and Bill? Especially with Tony, whose riffs are sometimes
scary. [In Sabbath] you get this giant block of sound coming at you and space
to do what you have to do. For me, it was the perfect scenario, absolutely
perfect.
Did the addition of a vocalist who wrote all his own lyrics alter the chemistry of
the band?
Butler: It was definitely a relief for me when Ronnie came in and could write
lyrics because I was sick of writing lyrics at the time. And it was good to have
expanded by bringing in keyboard player [Geoff Nicholls], as well, from the very
start of writing. That sort of gave an extra dimension. It freed a lot of space up
for me as a bass player.
Dio: It was always understood right from the get-go that I would write the
lyrics. Geezer said, “Thank god you’ve got to do this now.” I think he was just
so absolutely relieved that that was a chore that he didn’t have to deal with
anymore.
Ronnie’s lyrics were a marked change from previous albums. Was that ever a con-
cern with any of the original members?
Dio: I was never questioned about what I was going to write or what I did
write. I questioned more than they. Sometimes I would say, “That’s a bit jolly,
isn’t it?” But no, there was never a problem on that album, not one question at
all.
Butler: No, not at all. He took [the lyrics] more in the fantasy theme, but
the song “Heaven and Hell” was still very Sabbath. It wasn’t about falling in love
or going down to the disco, or anything like that. It stayed on that same sort of
mystical theme. I was more political, and he stayed away from politics. I always
liked listening to Ronnie’s lyrics. They were so different than what I could do.
6 HOLY HELL
Ward: Ronnie was a new energy that came into the picture. He came to the
band with a very strong energy. He’s very direct. He knows what he likes to
put together, which is very good. He’s very confident in that sense. I saw that
whatever [Sabbath was], I saw [us] kind of moving away [from that] a bit. For
me, there were some lyrics that were absolutely brilliant, and there were some
lyrics that [I was] kind of like, “Oh, I can’t believe I’m participating in that.”
That’s been a focal point for me throughout the years. I’ve always had a little
bit of a red flag with some of the lyrical content that Ronnie uses. And I’m only
saying that in the context of when I’m playing with him. It’s not a put-down
on Ronnie.
Was there a conscious effort, or perhaps even subconscious, to make Sabbath Mk II

a different beast to differentiate it from the Ozzy era?
Iommi: I think it becomes different because you bring somebody in with a
different voice and a different look. Everything was different about Ronnie. It
pushed us into a different look and sound altogether.
Ø
PART II: AND THEN THERE WERE TWO . . .
Butler departs to sort out his personal problems, leaving only two original Sabbath members, Ward
and Iommi. Guitarist/keyboardist and fellow Brit, Geoff Nicholls of Quartz (a NWOBHM band
Iommi had produced) is brought in and the band continues writing.
How did Geoff Nicholls, who became the band’s longtime keyboardist, get involved
during the making of the album?
Iommi: [After Geezer left] we needed someone to come and play bass, but
we didn’t want anybody coming in that we [didn’t] know, because it wasn’t a
permanent situation bass-wise. We just wanted someone that would understand
that and come in and just jam along with us.
Dio: Well, I think there’s a couple of things probably. I’m sure a lot of this was
really traumatic for Tony, as his life had been turned upside down. He was start-
ing over in a new band without a manager. It was a really volatile time for him.
He was in L.A. and he needed some companionship as well. Someone who he
was comfortable with, familiar with, who was also a musician, who might even
be able to come and play a bit—play parts when Tony was soloing. Geoff was a
really good guitar player, too—so much like Tony it was unbelievable. It really
helped Tony a lot, and Geoff had a lot of ideas and he was very positive to the
whole project, which made the rest of us feel positive as well.

Ward: Geoff Nicholls was very much a bonus, and very much a prominent
part of Heaven and Hell. I don’t know whether he’s gotten any credit yet, but the
guy needs to be credited. He was very much a big part at that point. He was
there in the initial writing of the song “Heaven and Hell.”
So, did Geoff Nicholls play bass until Geezer came back?
Iommi: Actually we had somebody Ronnie played with before in Rainbow,
[Craig Gruber]. He came in and played bass for a while and Geoff went on to
play keyboards.
Dio: I had suggested [Craig] and he was in L.A. He came up and started to
play with us. He obviously wasn’t Geezer, but he was a great bass player, so we
decided we would use him for what we were going to do.
Did you have all the songs pretty well arranged and finished before going to Cri-
teria Studio in Miami?
Iommi: We were still writing in Miami. “Die Young” came up in Miami and
one or two others. It was an ongoing thing. When we moved from L.A. to
Miami, we moved into a house and did the same thing [as in the Bel Air house]
basically.
Dio: The [songs] were pretty well set by the time we got down there. I think
we wrote a couple of tracks, or perhaps just one. But most of the things were
[ready].
Why bring in producer Martin Birch after recent Sabbath albums had been self-
produced?
Iommi: Ronnie had worked with Martin before and I thought it would be
good to have somebody else to come in that [we] could work with. And it was
a big relief for me, too, as with Geezer and the lyrics. I used to have to sit there
to the death doing the producing side of it. I had no option; I was sort of pushed
in the deep end. But once Martin came in, I could relieve myself a bit [of that
responsibility] and sort of think about what I’m playing, instead of thinking
about the other side as well.
Dio: I think it was actually Tony’s suggestion to call Martin. He just asked
me, “What was Martin Birch like?” and I started going off on Martin. He’s a
brilliant engineer, a great guy—the kind of person I knew they would love. But
I wanted to make sure that I handled this all with kid gloves, because once you
start bringing in all your own people, no matter how much you believe in them,
it makes it look like you’re trying to take control, and god knows I’ve been ac-
cused of that enough times.
8 HOLY HELL
What kind of producer was Martin? Was he hands-on with everything and very
heavily involved?
Iommi: Oh no. It would have been fairly difficult to come in and try to con-
trol this lot. [Laughs] At the same time, he could suggest stuff. It was like hav-
ing another mind on it. We’d done all the arrangement side of it and I don’t
remember him getting involved with that at all. He was more involved with the
technical side and pushing you a bit: “Do another solo, or do this or do that.” It
all seemed to flow very well. We all got on well and any ideas or advice, we wel-
comed. If he did have a suggestion, we would try it.
Dio: Martin is a brilliant engineer. That’s what he does. He’s not stupid mu-
sically, but he’s also smart enough to know that when it’s working, you don’t fix
it. And it was working. You don’t tell people who have done this so well for so
long how to change something that they’ve been busting their asses on. It just
doesn’t work with this band.
Butler: Well, it was great to be able to sit in with somebody apart from the
band and work on my sounds. Before that, we used to bore each other, all sit-
ting in the studio waiting for each one of us to get our sounds and everything.
So it was great to work with just one other person and not having like three or
four people suggesting doing this and doing that.
Ward: I can just remember him laughing. I can’t remember anything else.
This is where my part in this interview gets real rocky. I really was a real mess.
Ø
PART III: THE DAMAGE DONE
Already dealing with alcoholism and drug addiction, Bill Ward loses his mother during the mak-
ing of Heaven and Hell, further continuing his descent. He continues on, but alcohol-induced
blackouts virtually erase his memory of this time.
What were your recollections of how Bill performed in the studio?

Iommi: I think on Heaven and Hell, Bill was OK. Yes, he did have problems
with drugs and alcohol, but I think playing-wise he was fine. He used to have
his moments, of course, like any alcoholic, I suppose. But I thought he held it
all together well.
Dio: Well, Bill was Bill. Bill has always been Bill, sober or not sober. He’s
always been a really special person. He’s one of the sweetest guys on earth, such
a caring person, big heart. He was always that. He had some problems with
doing too many illicit things, so that’s the only Bill that I ever knew until
[about] 10 years ago when I saw him again and realized that he was clean and

sober. [During the recording] he was conscientious, he played really well on
the album. When it came time to play, he didn’t mess around.
Butler: Ronnie was probably the straightest one, but we were all heavily into
various substances at the time. Bill had the worst drinking problem. He used to
do a lot of drink and drugs, but at least he could still function. He’d still be ca-
pable of playing his drums. So we didn’t give it that much notice, I suppose. It
was just Bill; he’d been like that for years.
Ward: I don’t think I did a very good job. It’s not bad. Looking back and lis-
tening, there are a lot of areas where my energy did not function. I listen back
to the sound and I know that I could have opened up my drums much wider and
gotten better sounds, like I do now. I have to give all the credit to Tony, and my
loyalty and respect to the man. Just his strength kept me going. There were a lot
of times when he would give me the nod, you know, the famous nod, because
there was a lot of times when I was just in blackouts. I didn’t know that I’d played
on certain things. When I eventually got sobered up, which was three years later,
I listened to Heaven and Hell, and, to this day, I cannot remember doing some
of the songs. I can’t remember what studio it was. I can’t remember playing it at
all. I have no memory.
At the time did you get the sense that Bill was unhappy with the direction or
personnel?
Dio: I didn’t. I really, really didn’t get any idea about that. I don’t think he ever
broached the subject. You know, he and Ozzy were very, very close and I’m sure
[Ozzy being gone] was somewhat of a problem for him. It was a band that the
four had created and suddenly there was an interloper in there. Luckily we got
along very, very well. I can understand any feelings that he would have had that
way, but he never broached them to me. He may have to Geezer or Tony, but
never to me.
Iommi: Not at the time, no. [Ozzy’s departure] hit us all, because Ozzy was
the only singer we’d had and it’s not something you’re all eager to get rid of. We
all felt bad about it. We really didn’t have any choice. We couldn’t have carried on
as the way it was—even Ozzy would admit that. Bill half-accepted that and I
think later he thought about it, and I think he went through some different stages
in his life as far as not liking the way it was going. But, at first, he certainly did.
Ward: I really, really missed [Ozzy] and I didn’t know how much I missed
him at the time. I had a mixture [of emotions]; it was both heaven and hell, really.
I had a lot of mixed feelings, but I felt very transient myself. With Sabbath—the
original band—I felt like that was my home, that’s where I belonged, that’s where
I lived. And there was a change going on and I still felt very transient with it. I
was trying to get used to everything. I didn’t realize that my addiction to alcohol
10 HOLY HELL
and drugs was ripping me away from myself, let alone from the band. I didn’t
even realize what was going on until much later, to be honest with you.
How much recording did the band do in Miami when Geezer was away?
Iommi: I can’t remember. We did a fair bit there, quite a bit there.
Dio: Everything was done in Miami except for “Neon Knights.”
Was Craig Gruber still playing bass then?

Dio: We started recording with Craig, and then, when Geezer came back, he
put a whole different slant on those songs. It became something totally differ-
ent, in such a positive, good way. When [Geezer] played the parts, they came so
much more alive.
What was involved in getting Geezer back?

Iommi: You just have to let people sort out their personal problems. He had
to sort them out himself and he needed the time to do that. When he was ready
to come back, we had a phone call—I called him—and we got him back, which
I was very glad about. We didn’t see carrying on too much without him. We
knew he’d be back at some point.
Dio: Tony asked me what I thought and I said, “Absolutely, I think it’s very,
very smart if we’re still going to be Black Sabbath. Obviously we’ll be a whole
lot stronger with three-fourths of the band still intact.”
Butler: Tony and I kept in touch and I’d gotten myself sorted out and I said,
“If you want me back, then I’ll come back.” Everybody wanted me back, so I
came back over. They’d already recorded quite a bit of the songs in Miami and
I just came in and completely redid all the bass on them.
Geezer, what were your impressions of hearing Heaven and Hell in the studio
upon your return?
Butler: It was incredible. I loved it. It was the first time I’d ever heard a Sab-
bath album with fresh ears. As soon as I heard [the songs], I knew exactly what
to do with them.
Ø
PART IV: BLACK SABBATH: THE NEXT GENERATION
Before the album is completed, the band attempts to return to England for “tax purposes,” only
to find that they have returned too soon. They quickly leave the country and decamp to the Chan-
nel Islands, where “Neon Knights” is written, and shortly thereafter recorded at Studio Ferber in
Paris. Heaven and Hell is then mixed by Birch and the band in London at Town House Studios.

After it was mixed, but before it was released, was there any trepidation as to how
the album would be received by longtime Sabbath fans?
Ward: I definitely know I had that fear. I didn’t know which way it was gonna
turn. I didn’t know that it was a good album. I was concerned a little bit about
the soft edge on it, coming from some of the vocals, some of the lyrics. I was just
wondering how it might be received.
Iommi: I felt pretty confident with it, because I thought what we were doing
was great and I just really hoped that the fans were going to stick by me. There’s
always gonna be somebody who’s not going to like it as much. You’re gonna lose
some and you’re gonna gain some, which is what happened. We gained a lot
more people that ordinarily wouldn’t have listened to us in the past.
Dio: We knew that it was a good album, but there was some trepidation:
What are [people] going to think about it being Black Sabbath without Ozzy?
Like any artist who has just delivered a baby and has to chuck it out on the street
and let it grow up really quickly, we were certainly concerned about what was
going to happen to it.
What song or songs that you recorded for Heaven and Hell did you really feel dis-
tinguished this version of Sabbath from the Ozzy era?
Iommi: I thought “Heaven and Hell” itself was great. I like “Neon
Knights”—a lot of them on that album.
Dio: “Heaven and Hell” without a doubt. That’s the bulwark of that album
and it’s the title for a reason. That album is just packed with so many good songs.
“Children of the Sea” is a great example of what people wanted to hear from
that band at that point. “Lady Evil,” another one. “Die Young,” a great, great
song that went in so many different directions. They’re all wonderful, but cer-
tainly those four stand out.
Ward: I loved “Heaven and Hell.” [It] was and still is a classic metal song. I
thought that song was absolutely brilliant. I love that song.
The song “Heaven and Hell” feels iconic because it’s the title track and because it
seems so particular to this lineup.
Iommi: Exactly, yeah. We would never have done it with Ozzy. It would have
been a terribly different approach. It wouldn’t have worked like that. It was writ-
ten as it was for those members. None of those songs would have worked with
Ozzy.
Dio: It’s a big epic kind of song—something that you didn’t hear from Sab-
bath before—with a lot of melody in it and a lot of wonderful choral and or-
chestral changes inside of it. I think right away that divorced us from what had
come before.
12 HOLY HELL
Ronnie has been quoted as saying that this is his favorite of all the albums he’s
played on—how does it rate with you?
Iommi: Yeah, I think it’s a great album. It’s difficult for me to say if this is the
best album or some other [Sabbath] album is the best. I think it’s a great album,
I think Mob Rules is a great album as well.
Dio: It was the entire process. It took such a long time to get from writing
“Children of the Sea” to fulfilling that ambition by releasing the album and hav-
ing it be as good as it was, despite all the pitfalls. To me that will always be why
this album was the best one for me. The songs to me are second nature; they’re
great songs. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t be talking about this album.
Were you aware that Heaven and Hell was the first Sabbath album for a new
generation of metal fans?
Dio: So many people of that generation have said, “That’s the Black Sab-
bath that I grew up with.” I think it was just at a very good, fortunate time. That
album was released when a new generation of fans were coming along [who]
embraced [it] for the good album that it was and didn’t make any judgments
about it, like, “Where’s Ozzy?”
Iommi: Oh, absolutely. 90 percent of the bands out there mentioned that it
was the first Sabbath album they got into. It certainly got people like David
Grohl and Nirvana into those albums.
Butler: None of us knew that at the time, but today so many people have
come up to us and said that they love the Heaven and Hell album and that era
of Sabbath. It’s amazing.
Ward: One of the things I never realized about it until I started talking to
guys in some of the newer bands like In Flames, is that they actually used Heaven
and Hell as a sounding board, a jumping off place. They don’t really mention the
years of Sabbath before that. But they certainly mention Heaven and Hell as
being the early stuff that they listened to, and how influential it was in their
music.

Ø Ø
RAINBOW CONNECTION
Q&A with bassist Craig Gruber
Had Geezer Butler not opted to rejoin Black Sabbath in the middle of recording Heaven and Hell, Craig Gruber,
a longtime friend and bandmate of Dio from his Elf and Rainbow days, would have been his replacement. We
offered Gruber, who now crafts custom-made basses for his company Infinite Metal Werkz, the chance to share
his brief experience in the band during the making of Heaven and Hell.
—Adem Tepedelen
How did you find out Sabbath needed a bassist?

Craig Gruber: Ronnie had called me about it. At that point I wasn’t really enthused about it, because [Black
Sabbath] hadn’t done well in a long time.
How did they audition you?
Gruber: We met and spent a day together at the [Bel Air] house. They had a studio set up in the garage,
but we played in the house with the smaller [set-up]. They showed me a couple of songs and then we went
out to the garage with the full gear and had a full blow. It was awesome. We locked right in. It felt right.
Did they at that point ask you to join?
Gruber: Tony was the first one to come forward and ask me to join the band based on how quickly I
learned the music. I was a studio musician at the time, so you could show me something and I would play it
right back to you. Tony and Ronnie offered me the position in the band as the bassist, and then we worked out
a financial arrangement. I was paid from like the second week on. I was on a salary.
How far along were they in the writing process?
Gruber: When I came into the picture, I think there were about five songs already written. The first song
they showed me was “Wishing Well” and the second song they showed me was “Children of the Sea” and we
worked those up pretty fast.
How much recording did you do before Geezer returned?
Gruber: Tony, Bill and I went in and laid down the rhythm tracks. We had them really well rehearsed and
we worked very, very well together. We were in there for two weeks, that I remember, and literally had five or
six tracks down that we were gonna keep. Then we took a week off and I think that’s when Geezer had got-
ten back in contact with the band. I didn’t think he was going to be gone forever. I had no intention of staying
with Black Sabbath forever; that was always Geezer’s position. I didn’t look at it like [I was] Geezer’s replace-
ment. Anyway, we had a meeting and there was a discussion that Geezer may be interested in coming back.
And then the recording stopped. They said, “There’s no sense going forward with the recording if Geezer’s going
to come back.”
14 HOLY HELL
CHAPTER 2
A RARE GEM
THE MAKING OF DIAMOND HEAD’S LIGHTNING TO THE NATIONS
by Adem Tepedelen
Release Date: 1980
Label: Happy Face
Summary: A NWOBHM/proto-thrash cornerstone
Induction Date: December 2007/Issue #33
I
t’s a stretch to call Diamond Head’s 1980 debut, Lightning to the Nations,
“extreme” metal. In their era, the über-influential New Wave of British
Heavy Metal, Diamond Head—four teenage mates from Stourbridge,
England—were well-respected practitioners of a burgeoning new form of metal
that was brash, raw and relatively fast. But extreme? Hardly. Diamond Head are
being inducted as much for their ultimate impact and influence as the quality of
15
Lightning, a self-released effort which featured a meager original vinyl pressing
of just 2,000 copies.
If metal’s Book of Genesis begins with the creation of Black Sabbath, who
then begat (and still continue to) many other influential and important bands,
Diamond Head—admitted Sabbath disciples themselves—begat a couple of
bands, Metallica and Megadeth, that eventually became two of the major play-
ers in metal’s New Testament: the extreme era. And since it has been well es-
tablished that Decibel won’t enshrine any of the first three Metallica albums in
the Hall of Fame because bassist Cliff Burton isn’t alive to participate in the dis-
cussion, the importance of Diamond Head’s Lightning to the Nations—four of
its seven songs having been recorded by Metallica—to the extreme metal pan-
theon becomes that much more crucial.
Further adding to the mystique of this nearly 30-year-old album is the fact
that, despite the hype that surrounded the band when Lightning was released—
they were being touted by the U.K. press as the next Led Zeppelin before they
even had a record deal—Diamond Head ultimately sold very few records and
were plagued by bad luck and ineffective management. In 1980, what seemed
like the promising debut of an ambitious young band that was destined for great
things ultimately turned out to be their most consistent and solid effort. Two
subsequent major label releases on MCA—Borrowed Time and Canterbury, both
now out of print—were scattered and probably overly ambitious, and by 1984,
the original foursome of guitarist Brian Tatler, vocalist Sean Harris, bassist Colin
Kimberley and drummer Duncan Scott had split up.
Lightning to the Nations, originally recorded in one week as simply a demo to
get a record deal, however, remains the band’s finest moment and an essential
proto-thrash classic.
People look back at the NWOBHM and connect the dots between all the bands that
came from the U.K. during the late ’70s and early ’80s, but did you feel at the time
like something special was happening?
Brian Tatler: I did think something special was happening. There were a lot
of young bands around our age—19, 20, 21. I can remember when Def Leppard
were on the front cover of Sounds. Once they got noticed and signed, that really
gave us a kick start. We already thought we were good, but once another young
band like Def Leppard got signed it gave us an even bigger boost. Growing up
watching the gods like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, you kind of aspire to be
like them, but you almost think, “I’ll never be that good and play to 100,000
people and have an album at the top of the charts.” But once Def Leppard got
signed, it was almost like a light bulb went on and we thought that we could take
[it] the whole way.
16 A RARE GEM
Duncan Scott: There were a lot of kids forming bands at that time, getting
up there and giving it their all. I always kind of wondered what I was doing in
Diamond Head. But I figured, if I can do this, any kid on the street can get up
there and do [it].
Colin Kimberley: There was definitely a feeling of a movement. We’d had
three or four years of punk rock and new wave in the late ’70s, and there was sort
of a resurgence of bands like us who had grown up listening to metal, and we
were sort of influenced by punk to an extent. But we still wanted to play heavy
metal. There were a lot of bands coming up of the same age as us, doing the
same thing. Perhaps it was manufactured by the music press, who like to create
the idea that there’s a scene happening, but, yeah, we felt there was a movement
at the time.
Sean Harris: We followed Def Leppard and Saxon early on and bought all
the Samson, Witchfynde and Angelwitch singles. We’d get a hold of one and
give it a listen. But although we felt a scene happening, I suppose, it was like
part of the post-punk revolution going on. We thought we were more in the tra-
dition of Sabbath, Priest, Zeppelin and Purple. We thought we were just a rock
band. We did relate to what was going on, but we didn’t see ourselves as part
of it.
Were there bands from that era you looked up to at all?

Tatler: I don’t think we were particularly inspired musically by the other
bands from the NWOBHM. We were maybe looking to bands like Sabbath,
Judas Priest, AC/DC.
Kimberley: The already established bands from the ’70s—Sabbath, Zeppe-
lin, Deep Purple—that influenced us. Also more contemporary bands [at the
time] like AC/DC, Judas Priest and UFO. We were big on all those at the time.
What was happening musically in the area where you lived?

Tatler: There were other bands around our age that have all disappeared long
ago. Witchfinder General were one of our main rivals. There was also Zeitgeist,
Split Image, Effigy—we’d go check them out. We’d stand at the front with our
arms folded and see if they’ve got any good riffs. Stourbridge did have probably
half a dozen bands, but Diamond Head made it the biggest. We were the only
band that signed to a major label and played odeons and things like that.
How old were you when Lightning was recorded?

Tatler: 19.
Scott: 19. We were just four kids that got together and said, “Let’s form a
band.” And to actually come up with an album like that . . .
The Making of Diamond Head’s Lightning to the Nations 17

Kimberley: I was 20. The oldest at the time. I turned 20 in November 1979
and we recorded the album in March 1980.
Harris: 19. We didn’t know shit.
The songs on Lightning seem very well developed and complex for such a young
band.
Tatler: We didn’t have a rule book for how to write a song. We just kind of
went on instinct. We decided that if we wanted to have a song that’s nine min-
utes long like “Sucking My Love,” then nobody’s going to say—we didn’t have
a manager at that point—“You can’t do that” or “You can’t put that on a single.”
We’d just do these songs that felt right to us, and it didn’t matter if they had five
verses or they changed time signatures or there was a little bit in the middle that
was really tricky to play. We just kind of did what felt right. We were trying to
do something new. There also did seem to be a race to be the fastest around that
time. I can remember when I first heard “Exciter” by Judas Priest and thought,
“Wow, that’s fast,” and we wrote “Helpless” not long after that. We thought we
should write something as fast as [“Exciter”] or even faster if possible. We defi-
nitely wanted to write something that was the fastest.
Kimberley: Sean and Brian wrote all the songs, and originally our songs
would be one guitar riff all the way through the song. We sort of realized that
we needed to be a little bit more interesting than that. And I think we’ve prob-
ably taken the influence of Black Sabbath more than anybody. We also listened
to bands like Rush as well, who were pretty complex. We just found [writing
longer songs] interesting. Why just do a two-minute song, when you can do a
seven-minute song with lots of changes in it? We didn’t have the musicianship
or skills of a Rush or Led Zeppelin, so we sort of did it in our own crude way
and, I suppose, came up with something that was original.
Harris: It was just what felt right at the time. The songs sort of followed the
lyrics a lot of the time and I was usually dreaming, [laughs] so the song would
sort of have to dream and evolve and weave. Which is what they did. They took
a long time [to write], some of them.
How much recording had the band done before you recorded Lightning?
Harris: We’d done demo tapes at little four-track demo facility in Kidder-
minster.
Tatler: We always did a lot of home recording. We did stuff in my bedroom,
from pretty much when we started, with a cassette recorder. But in 1979 we
went and did a proper demo at the four-track studio at a place in Kiddermin-
ster. That was like five pound an hour and we managed to record five songs in
five hours, and we thought that was pretty efficient. We did that twice. We al-
18 A RARE GEM
ready had “Am I Evil?,” “Shoot Out the Lights,” “The Prince” and “Helpless,”
and probably did demo versions of those songs before anyone was actually in-
terested in us. We probably paid for that ourselves. We were making demos and
constantly trying to record songs and learn the art. I was as interested in learn-
ing how to write songs as much as anything else. We didn’t understand what
production meant, but we knew we liked good songs and we had some great
bands to influence us, so we wanted to be great if we could.
You’d already put out a couple of self-released singles in ’79 and ’80, so what was the
impetus at this point to record an album? How did that come about?
Harris: I think it was originally to try and get an album deal. It was sug-
gested to our manager at the time, Reg Fellows [who passed away at the age of
62 in 2005], by my mother, Linda, who was his secretary. Being a businessman,
I think he thought, best to just do it ourselves. He either knew of, or had been
in contact with, Muff Murphy, who was the owner of the Old Smithy Studio in
Worcester. We’d done a few demos at that point, a few different things. And I
think he just thought that they didn’t pay off really.
Tatler: They thought if we recorded [a] whole album, then [Reg] could go to
the labels and say, “Here’s the album, do you want to sign the band?”
Kimberley: I think we thought that if the recording was good enough, a label
may release it as it was. It would save the label from having to fork out loads of
money for us to record an album. As it happens, it didn’t really work out like that.
Who paid for the recording?

Kimberley: Reg put up all the money for that. I have no idea how much it
must have cost.
Tatler: For some reason, the sum of 4,000 pounds has been bandied about a
couple of times over the years.
After having previously just done demos in a small four-track facility, what was
your impression of the 24-track Old Smithy?
Tatler: It was pretty impressive. It had big monitors that made everything
sound fantastic. It was the first time I’d heard stereo guitars. I’d do the track and
[engineer Paul Robins] would say, “Now do another track exactly the same.”
When I heard it back panned left and right, I thought it sounded fantastic. I’d
never heard anything like it in my life. So, that was the way forward for me.
Scott: I just found myself in this claustrophobic drum booth that was a bit
like a big phone booth. I could just about get the kit in. You didn’t want to breathe
too deeply because it seemed to be airtight and it was carpeted wall to wall. There
was a little window to look out. I just remember it as being claustrophobic and

scary, but I think at that time I was happy just to get the tracks down. It was a
very strange situation to be in because my mum and dad always said that I had
to get a proper job and to find myself in a studio actually recording an album was
quite scary. There’s so much of it that I listen to now and go, “Oh, I’d never play
that like that now.” I’ve always thought that things could have been played bet-
ter on my part.
Kimberley: It was our first time in what I would say was a real recording stu-
dio, a decent-quality studio. It was exciting and certainly intimidating. You get
to hear what you really sound like. There’s no chance to bluff your way through.
Harris: I wasn’t intimidated by anything in those days. Not really. It was just
really exciting. I didn’t feel any fear. It was just an opportunity to strut your stuff.
Were the songs pretty well rehearsed?

Harris: Oh yeah. We didn’t have to write anything [in the studio]. The only
thing we wrote was the backing for the solo in “Am I Evil?” We rehearsed all the
time. Our manager had a factory and before that, Colin’s dad had a factory and
we used to just go there every time. On the weekends we’d go to Colin’s dad’s
factory and then, when Reg got involved, we’d go three nights a week. Because
the songs kept having to be fine-tuned all the time and rearranged.
Scott: I think the rehearsals paid off. For however twee or unacceptable or
whatever we are considered in certain places, we were well rehearsed. It’s easier
when you go in to record your first album because you’ve been doing those num-
bers for so long—you have years to rehearse and 18 months on the road. So, you
get into the studio and you know what you’re doing.
You were recording fairly complex and longer-than-average songs. Did this re-
quire multiple takes?
Tatler: Most of the stuff was done pretty much live. We didn’t require very
many retakes. The drums, bass and guitar went down at the same time and I
think we double-tracked the guitar and Sean would do the vocal. Even some of
Sean’s vocals were done in one take. We didn’t spend a long time laboring over
details.
Kimberley: There weren’t a lot of takes. We only had a week to do it. So it
was pretty much just a case of going there and laying it down as quickly as we
could.
Sean played rhythm guitar onstage in the early days. Did he also play on the
album?
Tatler: I don’t remember. He used to play the intro to “Am I Evil?” [live] and
then I would play the lead. On the album, I may have played both parts just for
20 A RARE GEM
ease. It was always recognized that I was a better player, so he always left it up
to me, I think.
Kimberley: I don’t think so. At the time he played guitar onstage a little bit,
but my instinct is to say no, he didn’t play anything. He’s a pretty decent guitar
player now, but at the time I don’t think he really played much.
Harris: We laid it down together. I used to play guitar in them days on all the
early stuff. Brian probably overdubbed some of the stuff, but I’d be playing on
“Am I Evil?” and “The Prince” and “Lightning to the Nations.” It was only later
on that I dropped the guitar when I wanted to run around and be a rock star.
Did you only record the songs that ended up on the album, or were there leftovers?
Tatler: We just recorded those seven songs. There was nothing extra. We had
written a lot of songs and it seemed to me that those seven songs were the best
that we’d done up to that point.
So you recorded and mixed all seven songs in a week?

Kimberley: We actually went back and recorded “It’s Electric” again. I can’t
remember if we recorded it [the first time] and didn’t like it, so we went back and
did it again, or if we didn’t have time [in the first session]. But I seem to re-
member that we went back a couple of weeks later for one or two days. I think
the production on it sounds a little bit different.
Your former manager Reg is listed as the producer on the reissues of Lightning.
Was he actually involved with the recording?
Kimberley: He was a businessman, so he’d be running his business during
the day and then coming down in the evenings, or whenever he could get time.
He certainly wasn’t involved musically.
How involved was the engineer, Paul Robins, in the production?

Tatler: He would get the drum sound and mix it and stuff like that. I don’t
remember him being that creative.
Kimberley: He was a very laid-back guy and I don’t think he was particularly
into heavy metal. Some of the time I can definitely recall him sitting back and
reading the newspaper while we were playing. In all fairness to him, we didn’t
really know what we were doing in the studio. He probably added more to it
than we remember. He did come up with suggestions and ideas.
“Am I Evil?” is the song from this album that most people know, thanks in no
small part to Metallica’s version. What are your recollections of writing and
recording it?

Tatler: That song’s got fabulous dynamics. Something I’ve realized over the
years—it’s very hard to write songs with dynamics like that. Even now I don’t
really know how to do it. It’s just something that came naturally at the time. It’s
just something that occurred back then and we managed to record it. Somebody
once said to me, “What you ought to do is write another 10 ‘Am I Evil?’s.” And
I thought, that’s easy for you to say. I simply can’t rewrite “Am I Evil?” You can
take it apart and put it back together, but it’s what it is and you’ve just got to leave
it be. There’s magic occasionally in the air. And the bit in the solo when I finally
worked out the finger-tapping bit and how the track moved underneath it, going
from A to F to A-sharp to F-sharp and back to B, was [written] in the studio.
Probably with Paul Robins’ help, if I remember correctly. I was probably still
messing with that solo right up until we recorded the actual track. I was so proud
of that solo, and I still am. I play it exactly the same now as I did then.
Scott: Brian came up with the [main] riff; at the same time I was sitting at
home listening to some Black Sabbath, and I noticed the way that Bill Ward
played a riff back to front and then switched it back into time and then turned
it back to front again. We kind of put those two things together. I think it’s just
by chance that my idea and Brian’s worked together like that. And what a gift,
getting Metallica to pick up on that.
Kimberley: It’s one of the few tracks I specifically remember recording. The
bass was slightly out of tune when we first recorded it, so I needed to redo it. I
distinctly remember sitting in the control room with the bass plugged into the
mixing desk, and I played it all the way through in one take, which was quite a
feat, I thought.
Harris: It’s such a benchmark. I still think for what it is, there ain’t many
songs better. The lyric is amazingly demonic, isn’t it? It’s probably a bit like the
“Stairway to Heaven” thing. Somebody on your shoulder telling you what to
write.
Was “Am I Evil?” written in one session or did it evolve?

Kimberley: I can think of various different versions that we did, even after the
album had been released. We probably even changed it slightly then.
Harris: It [originally] had a different introduction and different parts. It
wasn’t really until the lyric was done that it took real shape. It took about a year
before we put the “Mars” intro on there. We had this awful intro for a while. It
was really bad. We were sort of peddling that for six months until we realized
how shit it was.
Tatler: I don’t know why I thought of [using Gustav Holst’s “Mars” as an
intro]. I just thought it would make a great start. It’s dramatic. It draws you in.
22 A RARE GEM
Did Sean write all of the lyrics? There seems to be a difference between songs that
are more fantasy-based, like “Am I Evil?,” and those that have more typical rock ’n’
roll subject matter.
Tatler: He did write all the lyrics. “It’s Electric” is the oldest song on the
album. That was maybe where he was at in his head at that time, maybe ’78 or
something. Some of the early songs, he was thinking about being a rock star
and being onstage. A lot of the lyrics seem to be about that. And then later songs
like “Lightning to the Nations,” he started to discover sci-fi, at the end of ’79.
Harris: Yeah, I wrote the lyrics. It was about arriving, you know. Being some-
thing, hopefully something sparkling, something new. The fantasy aspect was
just sort of trying to reach beyond. I used to like Ronnie James Dio’s fantasy
lyrics, thought they were quite cool. And Milton, stuff like that. It’s the two
sides of me, I suppose, battling it out for supremacy! [Laughs]
Did it this “demo album,” once it was finished, then get shopped around to labels?
Harris: As far as I’m aware, yes. But for some reason, we had lukewarm re-
ceptions to it. I don’t think they got it. When we spoke to people, they always
seemed to want to make us something that we weren’t. There was always some-
body that seemed to want to meddle.
Tatler: [Our management] just made some acetates to take around to record
labels, but nobody was biting. Nobody was particularly interested. They didn’t
see the potential in it.
Kimberley: Possibly it wasn’t being presented to the [labels] in a professional
way. In a way that they wanted to be approached. Partly they maybe just didn’t
get it. With hindsight, it’s easy to look back and say, “Yeah, it’s a classic album,”
but at the time it was just another New Wave of British Heavy Metal album.
Some new band was coming out with a new album every week. But record com-
panies weren’t in tune with what was going on in the grassroots heavy metal
scene. It wasn’t a scene that was that popular with the music business. A lot of
this was sort of dealt with by management, so we didn’t have direct dealings
with the labels. Certainly [management] would be saying such-and-such a label
is interested, or we’ve heard so-and-so is interested, but it never seemed to lead
to anything. It was very frustrating. I can’t put my finger on what the problem
was, whether we were too amateurish or not good enough, or they didn’t like the
music. It baffles me to this day, really.
So, without any serious interest from a major label, you just decided to self-release it?
Tatler: Because we were gigging a lot, it was decided that we’d press a thou-
sand copies and sell them at gigs and through mail order. There was an ad in

Sounds that ran for four weeks. [Our mail order] was run out of Sean’s house.
Lars Ulrich ordered one. That’s how he got his.
Was it common to self-release an album on your own label at the time?

Tatler: We’d just had punk rock, which was kind of “do it yourself, back to ba-
sics,” but it wasn’t common for [NWOBHM] bands to do their own album. A lot
of bands did their own singles. I don’t know why we did it; I think it was just be-
cause we had the opportunity to. It probably wasn’t going to cost much. There
was no artwork or anything to pay for. Just press a thousand copies, sell them at
gigs and Bob’s your uncle. We sold all of the first thousand and then printed an-
other thousand, this time with a printed label on, so it actually identified the songs.
Kimberley: There were other bands that were releasing stuff on their own la-
bels. Mainly singles, more than albums. This is something that came from the
punk rock movement. Suddenly you didn’t have to have a major label to go out
and record a single or an album and have it pressed yourself and promote it your-
self. This was very much the “do it yourself ” attitude. Get off your ass and do it,
rather than wait for some record label to do it for you. It was definitely the at-
titude at the time.
The fact that it had absolutely no info on the plain white sleeve—just the band’s sig-
natures—probably added to the mystique.
Harris: I agree. We didn’t intend to do that. It was a budget thing. The fans
were allowed to interpret it. It was open to interpretation—like a book without
a cover. I think that worked toward the mystique.
Kimberley: I think that’s true. But if it hadn’t been for Metallica, it might
have disappeared into obscurity. Nobody might ever have heard of it, apart from
the people who were there at the time.
How quickly did you sell through the first pressing of a thousand?
Tatler: Not long, I don’t think. Maybe a few months. Something like that.
What was the critical reaction at the time?

Harris: That was great. Paul Suter’s review [in Sounds] was pretty good. And
the public loved it. We were sort of a bit overawed by it; we didn’t realize what
we had. Because we were ambitious, we were always looking ahead instead of
looking behind. We’d lit the fuse and it was burning.
Tatler: I can only remember Sounds reviewing it. It was a pretty good review
as a whole. We sent one off to Geoff Barton [at Sounds] and he loved it, espe-
cially “Am I Evil?” On the whole, it was very well received. The fans thought it
was great. We thought it was great. We just had trouble convincing the record
24 A RARE GEM
labels to sign us. I think there was a couple of labels interested, but they wanted
to make changes and they wanted to do a single deal or two singles. We didn’t
want to do singles. We wanted to be like Zeppelin and not do singles and just
be a big album band. We were sort of forced into doing singles. It never really
felt natural.
Kimberley: We always got very positive press, actually. There were a few writ-
ers that latched onto us. It always frustrated us, in that respect, that it took us
so long to get a record deal.
Scott: I was the member of the band that, when the criticisms came out, was
always getting the barracking. There was a time when I was sort of labeled the
weakest link. Which I can understand listening back. I accept their criticism. I
just wasn’t a studio drummer. I liked it out there live, giving it hell and deliver-
ing the goods.
When you started getting the Led Zeppelin comparisons at the time, did that put
extra pressure on the band?
Harris: It wasn’t good. It seemed for some reason that we were being hyped.
It didn’t feel too good at the time. People always wanted to typecast you, even
back then.
Tatler: Unfortunately, we didn’t live up to that expectation. That’s a bit of a
high yardstick, isn’t it? We were flattered that journalists thought that highly of
us, but I couldn’t see [the comparisons] myself. We might have been good, but
I didn’t think we were going to eclipse Led Zeppelin’s legacy.
Explain the situation with Woolfe Records, who released Lightning in Germany.
Was this authorized by the band?
Kimberley: I think that came out in 1980 or ’81, pretty much contemporary
with the original release. It did have a cover, with a really cheap photograph of
a map on fire. That was certainly one of the first versions of the album that
came out.
Tatler: As far as I know, our manager just sent the tape off to this guy in Ger-
many who ran Woolfe Records. And we never saw them again. They just dis-
appeared. And, according to Reg, he never received any royalties or statements
or anything. It was a bit of strange move, if you asked me.
Who first started referring to this record in a plain white sleeve as Lightning to the
Nations?
Tatler: I think it was originally known as Lightning to the Nations, but it was
also known as the White Album, as well, because it was just in a white cardboard
sleeve. I think on the second pressing it said Lightning to the Nations.

Kimberley: If it was picked up by a label and released properly, it was going
to be called Lightning to the Nations. That was always the intention. And then
afterwards it got referred to either as Lightning to the Nations or the White Label
Album. I tend to refer to it as the “demo album” a lot, as well, because it was a
demo album. That’s what it was meant to be: a demo for the record companies.
Harris: I think the title came about when Reg had interest from Woolfe
Records. He did this dodgy deal, one of many dodgy deals. They sort of needed
a title for it. I think Lightning to the Nations sort of summed up what it was
about. It was about arriving like a bolt out of the blue. I think that’s how it got
the title.
Why has Lightning been so sporadically in and out of print and in so many differ-
ent configurations?
Tatler: I don’t know really. If Diamond Head had been properly managed
and not dropped by MCA, it could have stayed in circulation. Or it could have
been licensed properly. Once Reg was [no longer managing Diamond Head], it
was probably his decision to recoup some of the money he initially put into the
band. So he was just doing any deal he could and it ended up on small labels like
FM Revolver, Metal Blade. Any deal he could get around the world, it seemed
like he would do a version of that album, with maybe a different title. It’s come
out as Am I Evil?, To Heaven From Hell, Behold the Beginning, all with different
covers. It wasn’t our property, so we couldn’t look after it and give it the care
that a band deserves. It was just licensed to whomever wanted it. We used to go
around [to Reg] and say, “We want that album.” But he would say, “Well, I paid
for it, it’s mine.” And once you look into copyright law, it says that if you pay for
the recording, you own it. It seemed weird that we’d done all the work and wrote
the songs and recorded it, but because he paid for it, he owned. But that’s the
way of the world.
Kimberley: I don’t feel too happy about it. It’s been very exploitative. Lots of
little record labels that I’ve never heard of are releasing the album almost on a
continual basis. We’ve never been consulted about it and I think it’s a great
shame. There’s one or two that were done a little better than others—with sleeve
notes and stuff—but I generally feel pretty pissed off about it. It’s pretty sad,
really, when you think that there are other people making money off of it that
had nothing to do and weren’t there at the time, who don’t respect it or any-
thing. It sours it all a little bit.
Harris: It was who owns the rights. There was some sort of thing going on
with Woolfe Records, who says he’s got the rights. Between him and Reg, they’d
conjured up all these different ways of exploiting it. And, of course, other people
26 A RARE GEM
have seen the loopholes and exploited it as well. We weren’t very good at our
business in the early days. It’s been a shame, because it’s taken the shine off it.
Behold the Beginning [Metal Blade, 1987] was one of the first reissues of Light-
ning, and it was critically hammered for its altered sound. What happened with
that?
Kimberley: I think Brian worked on that remixing it. I can’t remember how
different the mixes are, to be honest. When these things come out, even if I’m
given one, I tend to not listen to them.
Tatler: Because Reg had sent off the quarter-inch masters to Woolfe Records
and never got them back, it was decided that we would remix the 24-track album
at the Old Smithy and put it out as Behold the Beginning. So, I went along to try
and keep my eye on it. But it kind of got messed around with, rather than trying
to make it exactly the same as the original. It was almost like we were trying to
make it better than the original. So a few little things were done to it. And it does
to me sound a bit naff. In a way, I wish we hadn’t done that, because the tapes did
come back eventually. Lars Ulrich tracked them down. He got someone at Phono-
gram Records in Germany to knock on the guy’s door and get the tapes off him,
and they eventually found their way back to me. I’ve got the tapes now. The orig-
inal survived and it’s still in existence. It’s just that back then in 1985, Reg thought
that the tapes had been lost forever and that it would be a good idea to remix the
originals—soup them up a bit. But, of course, people don’t want that. It would be
like remixing the first Metallica album. It wouldn’t be right, would it?
Have you been happy at all with any of the reissues?

Harris: They’ve all been messed with. I’m not quite sure what I’m listening
to these days.
Are you ever consulted with the new versions?

Kimberley: No. It’s just a case of whoever’s got the tapes. I never know if it’s
the ex-manager who’s got the tapes simply relicensing them. Who does it? I
have no idea. Who makes the money from it? I don’t know.
Is it strange that an album that initially had such a limited release has ultimately
had such a huge impact?
Harris: You stop thinking about it as the “demo album” and you start think-
ing of it as a precursor to something else. And you get to realize that it was what
it was. A fuse had been lit. Over time you learn to appreciate what you were
doing. The sheer raw energy, enthusiasm—it was just on fire.

Kimberley: We didn’t realize at the time that if we’d have churned out al-
bums similar to this one that it would have been a great thing. Thrash metal
didn’t exist at the time and we didn’t feel that we’d created a new sort of style
of heavy metal; it was just sort of the best album we could do at the time.
[Later] we just wanted to do what we thought of as being better albums. We
kind of moved away from [Lightning]. Many of the songs on the album we
stopped doing live because we were sort of bored with them. It’s only with
hindsight that it’s been regarded as a classic album. We look back on it with
an understanding of how influential it was, but it’s weird being influential
on other bands without having sold millions of copies of the record. It’s very
surreal.
The story goes that a young Lars Ulrich—pre Metallica—was so impressed with
the copy of Lightning he ordered from you that he flew to England to hang out
with the band in 1981. What did you think of him at the time?
Harris: We thought he was a weirdo, of course. [Laughs] But he was nice
enough. He got on with us all. He stayed here for a week at the foot of my bed,
playing “It’s Electric” every night, keeping us up. It was that sort of thing that
made us realize that maybe we had done something a little bit extraordinary.
When were you first aware that he was in a band that was heavily influenced by
Diamond Head?
Harris: I don’t remember anything much until he sent us a copy of the
“Creeping Death” single. He used to keep us informed by sending us stuff. I did
have a word with his management once when they wanted to cover the songs.
They had to get permission to do the lyrics and stuff.
Tatler: He sent me the “Creeping Death” EP in ’84, but it was only on Music
for Nations Records and I presumed at the time that they were still quite a small
band. They were part of the thrash movement. I probably still looked down on
them and thought, “They’re coming along, they’ve made a record; I’m flattered
that they covered one of our songs.” But the penny hadn’t dropped that they
were gonna conquer the world.
Kimberley: I remember seeing Brian after I’d left Diamond Head in maybe
1983 or ’84 and he said, “Hey, do you remember Lars Ulrich, who came over?
He’s in a band and they’ve recorded ‘Am I Evil?’” When Lars came over and
stayed with Brian and Sean and came to a few gigs, I never remember him men-
tioning that he played drums or was in a band.
What did you think of their version of “Am I Evil?”?
28 A RARE GEM
Harris: I thought it seemed quite different than what we were doing. I always
thought our version was better. It seemed like they were taking what we were
doing and inventing something new from it.
Kimberley: I thought it was pretty cool. It was quite flattering. I heard sto-
ries secondhand that much of their set in the early days consisted of Diamond
Head songs. It’s weird to think of a band in California playing these songs that
we’d been playing to an audience that didn’t know who Diamond Head was, but
just got off on the songs because they were good songs. It’s quite nice, really.
When you first heard their originals, did you hear your influence? What specifically
did you hear that you thought they got from Diamond Head?
Harris: I can hear it on the albums. It shows in the arrangements. They go
under the skin of what we did. There’s a lot of it in there. There’s even a bit of
me in there at times. They just kind of turned some of our riffs upside down,
stuff like that.
Tatler: I think bits of it were obvious. “Seek and Destroy” was a little bit like
“Dead Reckoning” or “Sucking My Love.” But it didn’t annoy me or anything.
I knew they were influenced by Diamond Head, so I presumed they might sound
a little bit like us. But James was such a different singer than Sean that they
didn’t really sound that much like us anyway, because they didn’t have that kind
of vocal. It was much more aggressive and angry, and less melodic. They sounded
tight and powerful, but they seemed to lack the melody that we had at that stage.
Scott: I’m very, very flattered that [Lars has] said that I was his favorite drum-
mer. When he came over and visited, he used to come to the rehearsals and
songwriting sessions and that. So I think that’s perhaps where our songwriting
style rubbed off on him.
Kimberley: I don’t think we can take all the credit for who Metallica are.
Probably my favorite Metallica track is “Master of Puppets” and I’ve always
thought of that as their “Am I Evil?” to an extent. I don’t know if anyone else
would think that, but I sort of feel an influence there. If I see early photographs
of Metallica, they almost even look like Diamond Head with their Flying V
guitars and the hairstyles. Apart from the fact that they’ve covered so many
songs, the influence is undeniable.
After Garage Inc. came out in 1998 with the four Diamond Head covers, that
must have been pretty amazing.
Scott: I was flattered. It was very complimentary. It was quite a tribute to
have a band of that size actually covering our numbers. It was very strange. One
minute he was this little guy from America taking up all of my legroom in the

back of the car on a way to a gig, and then, years later, he’s a multi-millionaire.
Metallica has been very much a life-support system for Diamond Head. They’ve
kept Diamond Head in the press for all those years Diamond Head was gone.
Harris: They couldn’t have paid us a bigger compliment. They got it and they
were carrying on and giving us the legacy that we deserved. I thought that was
amazing. They were giants by then. It was good to be remembered in the right way.
Does it bother you, though, that a lot of younger metal fans simply know you as the
band that influenced Metallica?
Tatler: We influenced them and you can’t get away from that. We didn’t sell
that many records in our day, whereas they have. We’re always going to be tied in
as an influence on Metallica. You never see a write-up on Diamond Head with-
out Metallica being mentioned; it’s the hook line. You can’t get away from it.
Kimberley: If it hadn’t been for Metallica, and Megadeth to a lesser extent
after them, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We would have just been
another band that was around 20-odd years ago who disappeared, and that
would be the end of it. I think it’s cool that [Lightning] is still remembered. If
nothing else, we have the satisfaction of knowing we did something that’s lasted
and people still enjoy. I’d rather it was remembered in some way than being
buried and forgotten.
30 A RARE GEM
CHAPTER 3
PROCREATION OF THE WICKED
THE MAKING OF CELTIC FROST’S MORBID TALES

by J. Bennett
Release Date: 1984
Label: Metal Blade
Summary: Black/death metal genre touchstone
Induction Date: February 2007/Issue #28
O
f all the classic albums inducted into Decibel ’s Hall of Fame thus far,
none has had a greater influence on the death metal and black metal
that succeeded it than Celtic Frost’s Morbid Tales. Recorded and mixed
in a single week in October 1984 at Caet Studio in West Berlin, Germany, dur-
ing the waning years of the Cold War, the album was the work of vocalist/gui-
tarist Tom Gabriel Fischer (a.k.a. Tom G. Warrior), bassist Martin Eric Stricker
(a.k.a. Martin Eric Ain) and session drummer Stephen Priestly, all three of
whom had done time in the Swiss proto-black/death outfit Hellhammer. Within
days of Hellhammer’s self-induced demise, Warrior and Ain formed Celtic Frost
31
and immediately plotted the musical and aesthetic trajectory for the fledgling
band’s first three albums. Produced by Horst Müller (who had also engineered
Hellhammer’s Apocalyptic Raids EP), Frost’s debut featured such merciless clas-
sics as “Procreation (of the Wicked)” (later covered by both Sepultura and En-
slaved), “Into the Crypts of Rays” (later covered by Marduk, the song detailed
the sordid exploits of serial child murderer/rapist Gilles de Rais, who also fought
alongside Joan of Arc in the Hundred Years’ War), and “Nocturnal Fear” (a
Lovecraftian night-terror later covered by Dimmu Borgir, the song’s lyrics were
perhaps influential on the likes of future Swedish goth-mongers Tiamat and
Morbid Angel guitarist George Emmanuel III). With the Celtic Frost power-
axis of Warrior and Ain reunited and storming stages with a combination of
new and vintage extremities, we figure it’s about fucking time we gave Morbid
Tales some props.
How did you make the transition from Hellhammer to Celtic Frost?
Martin Ain: When Hellhammer started out, it was pretty much a local proj-
ect with people who had just started to play their instruments. It wasn’t a real
band with skilled musicians. When I joined for the Satanic Rites demo, I was 15,
and the lineup was always changing. It’s not like we were known for our skilled
musicianship or accomplished songwriting, but we were working hard. We were
working like five days a week on our music, rehearsing our asses off to get to a
point where we could master our instruments and get out of them what we
wanted to. When we did the Apocalyptic Raids album, we realized that we were
sort of stuck with the abysmal name we had made for ourselves as musicians
with the first couple demos. This was very much in the tape-trading days, when
thrash metal became popular through tape-trading, which was an underground
thing. We realized that if we wanted to be taken seriously, it would probably be
helpful if we used a different name, because a lot of people were like, “Oh, it’s
Hellhammer—they can’t play.” We wanted to disassociate ourselves from that.
The other reason was that the black metal scene was rising at that time with
Venom’s Welcome to Hell and Black Metal, and there were a lot of die-hard fanatics
jumping on the bandwagon who didn’t have a clue about Satanism, but they
were completely dedicated. They were you know, “totally evil,” so that was some-
thing that bothered us. And other bands that were using the term “Satan” or
had evil-sounding album titles because that’s what was selling at the time, like
Mötley Crüe’s Shout at the Devil, for example. They were about as Satanic as
Stryper was Christian. It just seemed like an American showbiz thing to us. So
we disbanded Hellhammer and formed Celtic Frost.
Stephen Priestly: It couldn’t go any further with Hellhammer, music-wise. To
be honest, none of us could really play an instrument. [Laughs] That’s the truth.
32 PROCREATION OF THE WICKED

Martin and I had a band before called Schizo, and we didn’t have any instruments
at all. We were just like a poser band, looking as hard and as aggressive as possi-
ble. We made pictures before we could even play instruments. I only started play-
ing drums about a year before we recorded Morbid Tales. On “Into the Crypts of
Rays,” I had the double-bass thing, and I worked my ass off to be able to do that.
As you can hear at the end, I have some problems at the end with the timing, and
that’s just because I couldn’t play at all back then. Even Tom, he had a wah-wah
pedal, and that was the way he made his guitar solos. We couldn’t really play—
it was more about the image. I was 17, just a kid, and back then, I was more into
music like Journey and Boston and stuff like that—even though I liked Venom
and all this New Wave of British Heavy Metal stuff a lot. And as you can hear
on the record, it was definitely influenced by bands like Venom and Cirith Ungol.
Tom went to London and came back with some records, some of that British
heavy metal stuff, including the very first Def Leppard seven-inch and the very
first Venom single—and said he wanted to do something like that, but even heav-
ier. He wanted it to be the most brutal stuff people had ever heard. When he
played me the first demos from Celtic Frost, I was blown away, so we made the
first songs, like “Into the Crypts of Rays” and stuff like that. The amazing thing
was that Martin and Tom had the vision for the first three records already in
their minds. They knew exactly what they wanted to do, and to be honest, I was
just a drummer—even on the record sleeve, it says “session drummer.” I couldn’t
do anything to put myself into it, because it was their vision.
Tom Warrior: To this day, people say that Celtic Frost was just Hellhammer
renamed, but this is not true. Every detail about Celtic Frost was different. Mar-
tin and I were so shocked at how the Hellhammer EP came out and, given our
ambitions to become better musicians, we knew there was a lack of quality in the
vehicle called Hellhammer. The night we formed Celtic Frost, we approached
everything differently than the band Hellhammer had done, and we set out to
form a new band in accordance with these targets we had set. So it was much
more complex than two guys just changing the band name. We really wanted to
form a different band. Hellhammer was all about extremity; Celtic Frost only
had extremity as a basis. Our ambitions had outrun Hellhammer—we wanted
to be able to do whatever came into our minds. We wrote down all the things
we hated about Hellhammer and changed everything around.
The approach of Hellhammer and early Celtic Frost was similar to that of punk
rock. Were you listening to much punk music at the time?
Warrior: I loathed those bands, to be quite honest. There was only a very
small group of punk bands that I had respect for at the time—for example, Dis-
charge, which to me, was a revolution, much like Venom. When I heard the first
The Making of Celtic Frost’s Morbid Tales 33

two Discharge records, I was blown away. I was just starting to play an instru-
ment and I had no idea that you could go so far. Discharge totally opened my
eyes. And to me, they were unlike other punk bands—they sounded more like
metal. But I’m a music lover, and at that time, punk was extremely raw as far as
songwriting was concerned, and I always missed the music component in punk.
Metal at least had a melody and a song structure—a lot of the punk at that time
didn’t have any melody. Although early Celtic Frost has been compared to punk
many times, I personally was not into punk at all.
How did you choose your stage name?

Ain: Yes, my real name is not Martin Eric Ain; it’s Martin Eric Stricker. In
Hellhammer, I wasn’t only Martin Eric Ain; I was also “Slayed Necros.” Tom was
not only “Tom G. Warrior”; he was “Satanic Slaughter.” We dropped those
names because we started to think of them as ludicrous, but to pick up such a
name in the first place was of course trying to become a different personality
than we were in daily life. The name Martin Eric Stricker was defined and cho-
sen by my parents, my family, and this was exactly what I was trying to get away
from. At the time, I was starting to read about occultism, religion, philosophy
and systems of practical magic, like the Golden Dawn as taught by Aleister
Crowley. I also came across Kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism that deals
with how to decipher the Bible through numerology. And of course, the Hebrew
alphabet is different than the Western alphabet; every letter can be a word in it-
self, or can change its meaning, but every letter has a number to it. So the way
the letters are used, they have different numbers and different meanings. This
was used to make sense out of the word of God, the Torah, and the Pentateuch,
the word of God given to Moses. I realized that the numerological meaning to
“Ain” was zero—it didn’t have a clearly defined meaning, and zero could mean
everything as a whole, as a circle, or as something that has been accomplished,
but at the same time it could also mean that something has been nullified—and
I really liked that, because you couldn’t put a proper meaning to it. It was exactly
what I was looking for—something that I could put myself into and make into
my own, rather than a name predefined by somebody else.
Warrior: The night Steve Warrior and I formed Hellhammer, we were on one
of our typical nightly hikes through the forest in the farmlands surrounding the
city of Zurich. We used to spend all night hiking the forest together hatching
out plans. We already knew we were going to call the band Hellhammer, and we
wanted to have radical names. We were basically kids, so we didn’t have much
self-confidence because we hadn’t achieved anything yet in our lives. We felt
embarrassed about our last names; we thought we couldn’t possibly play radical
music with household Swiss names. Bands like Venom had adopted radical stage

names, so we thought we had to do that to in order to be fully radical. Steve
Warrior’s English teacher’s name was actually Warrior, and we thought it was
such a great last name that we both adopted it.
What do you remember most about the recording sessions for Morbid Tales?
Priestly: We had no money at all. We were driving from Switzerland to
Berlin in a green, loaned VW bus with all our stuff in it—the drum kit, the Mar-
shall stacks, the whole thing. I guess it was Martin, Tom, me and Rick “Lights,”
the driver. Back then, East Germany was still the DDR [Deutsche Demokrat-
ische Republik], and you had to drive through the Wall to get to Berlin, which
was a strange feeling. When we got there, we recorded and mixed the whole
album within a week. I remember that the studio was very small, with very cheap
equipment and the record company was a pain in the ass. They would come
down, like, “What sound is that? You can’t do that like that.” As you know, we
had this horror song on the album called “Danse Macabre,” and they said, “No
way—you can’t do that! It’s not a song!” But that was actually the most fun song
to do on the whole record. [Laughs] That’s about all I remember. As you know,
it was a long time ago. The whole thing happened so fast. They made the Hell-
hammer record with Bruce Day on drums and within half a year, we recorded
the first Celtic Frost record.
Warrior: It was a very difficult and liberating time all at once. It was difficult
because the only proper record we had, not counting demos, was of course the
Hellhammer EP, which had been ripped apart in the media at the time. Hell-
hammer was nowhere near the myth it is now—the band was loathed by the
media and the record company as well. They told us that we could not ever
record anything like that again. So we knew we had to prove ourselves once and
for all with Celtic Frost, or that would be it. Nobody would give us a third
chance. It was already a miracle that they gave us a chance with Celtic Frost
after the Hellhammer EP. At the same time, we were aware that we had made
a huge jump forward as far as songwriting. We knew this was a completely new
project, which filled us with optimism and tons of energy. Above everything was
the lack of funding—we had only six days to record and mix the whole album.
Ain: I remember we had about four days to record Apocalyptic Raids, but for
Morbid Tales we had an entire week, so we were like, “Wow!” We went to the
same studio in Berlin that we had recorded Apocalyptic Raids in, with the same
engineer who knew our basic approach to music at that point, which made it
easier. We were well prepared, because we had really analyzed the recording
process and the mistakes we had made with Apocalyptic Raids. We already had
the first three Celtic albums worked out by that point—what they would be
called, what they would be about, even a couple of the songs. We even already

knew that we would have the rights to the Giger painting for the cover of To
Mega Therion.
What was it like being in Berlin while half the city—and half of Germany—was
under Communist rule?
Warrior: We were in West Berlin; there was of course the wall dividing Berlin
at the time. In order to get there from Switzerland, you had to drive through
what was Communist East Germany, the DDR. It was just like you’ve seen in
the Cold War movies—there were guards with machine guns, Russian tanks,
barbed wire—and they would take your passport for like 20 minutes and scru-
tinize them. We had already done that trip by train when we did the Hellham-
mer EP, but we drove in a van for Morbid Tales. It was a fitting background for
what we were doing, I think, because it was very unreal and very serious. In the
early ’80s, everybody talked about the possibility of nuclear war between East
and West, and we were in that scenario. If war broke out, the part of the earth
we were in would be obliterated. We could actually see the Wall from the stu-
dio, and if you turned on the radio, you could hear Russian broadcasts. It’s a sce-
nario that’s hard to imagine nowadays, but it was very real and very intimidating
at the time. West Berlin was an island in the middle of East Germany, and in
that little island is where we recorded this album.
Ain: It was a completely different place than it is right now. At that time,
Berlin was a one-of-a-kind place. You couldn’t compare it to anywhere else in
the world. We already knew the experience of traveling through Eastern Ger-
many—which was basically a military dictatorship—when we recorded Apoca-
lyptic Raids. Every time I went to Berlin in those days was a unique experience.
Everything was open 24 hours, there was a big underground and alternative art
and music scene—Einstürzende Neubauten was basically starting their career at
that time. And I think some of that stuff sort of inspired us later on for Into the
Pandemonium. But of course, the most intense experience we had in Berlin was
during the recording of Vanity/Nemesis, because we were actually there when the
Wall came down and the Iron Curtain fell in 1989. History was literally hap-
pening—you could grasp the feeling in the air. It was an entire nation in eu-
phoria, and the whole world realizing that the Cold War was basically over.
Was it understood from the beginning that Stephen would be a session drummer on
the album?
Priestly: Not really. They wanted me to play on the record, and then after
the record was finished they wanted to do some touring and stuff like that.
Back then, I was more into Boston and Journey, like I said, I didn’t really want
to play music like the Morbid Tales stuff. That’s why I quit and then Reed

[St. Mark] came. I didn’t tour with them until later on, during the horrible
Cold Lake times. [Laughs]
Warrior: We hoped he would join us on a permanent basis, but he didn’t
want to. His dream was to do something really commercial, like House of
Lords—keyboard-oriented heavy metal. But he was the only option we had at
the time, and he was a friend, so he agreed to do the album as a session drum-
mer. We of course hoped that the music and the album, and the possibility to
actually record in an international studio and have an international record deal
with us, would convince him to join. When we went back to Switzerland after
recording, to our astonishment, he said that he wasn’t going to join. So we were
left standing there without a drummer after finally having made a mark with
something that was at the time better than Hellhammer. It totally ruined every-
thing. We had a huge tour offer for Europe and we had to turn it down because
we had no drummer. It took us maybe six or seven months to find a drummer
because Switzerland had no heavy metal scene to begin with, and especially no
extreme metal scene.
What was it like working with Horst Müller?

Warrior: At that time, it was sensational. He had worked with funk bands
and all kind of things. His father was a conductor in an orchestra, so he had
grown up with serious music. There was at the time a dance/disco band called
Supermax that combined disco music with reggae, and they eventually got more
serious and became one of the early world music bands. They were quite big at
the time—they did platinum albums in Europe—and Horst had worked with
them. He had also already engineered the Hellhammer EP. We came in there as
little kids, totally radical, and told Horst, “You have no idea what Hellhammer
is supposed to sound like; we’re producing this ourselves.” Of course, we had
never been in a professional recording studio, and we had never produced any-
thing. And the results went accordingly; even we realized that the production of
Hellhammer’s EP was awful. But we realized that Horst had a lot of capability,
so when it came time to record Celtic Frost, we called him up and said, “We’ve
learned our lesson. We’re not stupid—we want to give you a chance and we want
to actually listen to what you proposed during Hellhammer. We want to let you
produce the album.” Horst was great—he was at that time very easy to get along
with, very professional, very experienced. He had built the studio, so he knew it
inside out. It was just a perfect situation.
Priestly: Horst did some backup vocals, too [on “Dethroned Emperor” and
“Procreation (of the Wicked)”]. The funniest thing about him was that he was
famous in the ’60s and ’70s for working with bands like Can. I didn’t know that
back then—I didn’t even know those bands back then—but I found out later on.

I guess he was on drugs the whole time, but back then we were so naïve and en-
thusiastic that we didn’t see that.
Was the intro, “Human,” something you had conceived of before you went into
the studio?
Ain: Yes, we had the idea before we went into the studio—we wanted to loop
a scream and make it perpetual. We also wanted to use it as an intro for the live
shows. A regular human scream would never last that long, so we wanted to
loop it and make it sound like a scream from hell, like how you would scream if
the pain was everlasting.
Warrior: We had talked about it, but we were basically still laymen, so we
had no idea how we could put it together. So we told Horst what we wanted to
do, and he proposed how to do it. But as I said, we only had six days to do every-
thing. If one thing had failed, we would’ve gone over budget or had to go home.
So, in hindsight, it’s a miracle that tracks like “Human” or “Danse Macabre”
came out the way we wanted them to. We couldn’t rehearse some of those parts,
you know? I have no idea how we did that in just a few days, especially given our
lack of experience. But therein lies one of the strengths of Celtic Frost to this
day: Martin and I usually visualize certain pieces of music down to the last de-
tail without even touching an instrument.
Priestly: It’s basically just Martin and Tom yelling and we put on a whole
bunch of reverb and distortion. I remember them both in the vocal booth to-
gether, and it was fun to watch, because Tom had to sing later on and his voice
was already gone.
You had two guest musicians on Morbid Tales—vocalist Hertha Ohling and vi-
olinist Oswald Spengler. Did you know them beforehand?
Warrior: We had absolutely no connection at the time. I mean, you have to
realize we were absolute nobodies, and we weren’t familiar with Germany, either.
We told Horst on the first day that we wanted to record with a female singer and
a violinist, and of course he had a lot of connections, so it proved relatively easy
for him to get these musicians. But nobody knew what we were gonna do, be-
cause it wasn’t really known in metal to use musicians like that—especially not
in extreme metal, a fledgling area of metal that hadn’t even been defined yet. So
Horst hired these people and we tried to explain to them what we wanted. None
of us could write scores, so we just had to describe it. We weren’t even good
enough on our instruments to be able to play, in detail, what we wanted them
to do. And everything had to happen rather quickly, because we didn’t have a lot
of time.

Ain: I think the violinist was related to Horst Müller, and I think we got
the female singer through [executive producer] Karl Walterbach; she was either
the sister of a girlfriend he once had, or even maybe the girlfriend he had at the
time.
Priestly: I guess Hertha was a singer from the Deutsch Opera Choir. The
funny thing was that we couldn’t write [musical] notes or anything, so we had
to hum the melodies for her. She was a professional musician, and we were
standing there like idiots, humming the notes for her. We had to do the same
thing for the violin player [Oswald Springer] on “Danse Macabre” and “Noc-
turnal Fear.” As you probably know, Tom and Martin did that later on almost
every record, with a female singer who spoke on the Frost vocals. I guess we
were the first band to do that in that genre. And now you see Lacuna Coil and
bands like that, with female vocals.
Warrior: On all Celtic Frost albums, except for the brand-new one, it was
extremely difficult to work with classical musicians. At that time, extreme metal
was something totally fresh. Heavy metal in general was totally disrespected in
classical circles, and all these musicians came into the studio with huge preju-
dice, looking down their noses at us. And of course [the fact that we were not]
experienced musicians at the time made it even more pronounced. Most classi-
cal musicians would say, “You cannot do that,” or “I cannot play that” or “You
cannot overdub that”—just every possible denial. It was always a huge struggle
to get them to do what we wanted to do, but at the end of the day, everybody
was always fascinated that it actually worked. And as I said, we were totally un-
trained. There was even a moment when Horst, who was very open-minded,
said, “You cannot do this overdub,” but I was very stubborn about it, so we did
it and it came out fantastic.
Who had the idea to do a song about Gilles de Rais [“Into the Crypts of Rays”]?
Ain: I had read this book about the relationship between Gilles de Rais and
Joan d’Arc. As you might know, Gilles de Rais was the Marshal of France, ba-
sically the military leader of France when they were at war with England dur-
ing the Hundred Years’ War. I had read stories about Gilles de Rais—I knew
he was burned at the stake and that he had raped and killed children—but I
didn’t know how much of a mass murderer he was, or that he was basically the
role model for the Big Bad Wolf or for Bluebeard. It was really interesting, so
I gave that book to Tom, and I think that was his inspiration for “Into the
Crypts of Rays.”
Warrior: Even though I wrote the lyrics for that song, we discussed the con-
tent in detail, and Martin was actually the one who pointed out the story to me,

which totally fascinated me. Researching things like that back then was a huge
undertaking, because it was pre-Internet. You really had to be a fanatic to get into
all that stuff; you had to raid libraries and go to secondhand bookstores to find
it. You couldn’t go to Wikipedia or something like that. And we both loved the
irony and the sarcasm in the story of Gilles de Rais, which is why we put it into
a song.
What was the lyrical inspiration for the song “Morbid Tales”?
Ain: That song was inspired by one of those pulp-fiction short stories—
I can’t recall the name or the author—but it was about Nitocrys, an Egyptian
empress who was dabbling in the black arts and witchery. It might’ve been in
Weird Tales, which was one of the first publications to release the writings of
H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, who both were really, really inspira-
tional to the lyrics we did at the time of Morbid Tales and To Mega Therion.
Tom and I were both very big Robert E. Howard fans—Kull the [Fabulous]
Warrior [King], Conan the Barbarian. And I was a huge H.P. Lovecraft fan—
he was my favorite fictional author at that time. I liked the supernatural
horror, and I liked the philosophical and religious concepts he made up—
this entire universe of gods and demons, the writings of The Necronomicon,
and that kind of thing. I really loved his approach and his style. “Nocturnal
Fear,” for example, was very much inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and The
Necronomicon.
In “Nocturnal Fear,” there’s a reference to the Babylonian goddess Tiamat and

Lovecraft’s demon, Azag-thoth, which were later adopted by the Swedish band
Tiamat and Morbid Angel guitarist George Emmanuel III (a.k.a. Trey Azag-
thoth), respectively.
Ain: I know . . . you have the album Morbid Tales, and the band Morbid
Angel. Septultura’s first album was called Morbid Visions; our first album was
Morbid Tales, with the song “Visions of Mortality” on it. This album of course
became quite influential to a lot of musicians that came after us. Of course, we
didn’t know that at the time. We did what we did because we believed in it.
Warrior: “Nocturnal Fear,” to me, is the ultimate expression of the Martin I
met two years earlier—the Martin I met at a heavy metal party in a farm village.
I sat down to talk to him, and he had all this occult knowledge, and I had all the
historical knowledge, and we just bonded and spent nights talking about these
topics. I would tell him what I had read, and he would tell me what he had read,
and we just had endless material. This song is exactly like Martin at the time—
it’s exactly half of Celtic Frost.

What was the lyrical inspiration for “Return to the Eve”?
Warrior: “Return to the Eve” was very much about some of the teenage angst
I had due to a very difficult youth, due to a feeling of entrapment, and my only
escape being desperate daydreams. I know that sounds pathetically cliché, but
that’s what it was. My youth was hell. As a kid, I was totally dependent on a
mother who basically drifted into insanity and had me live in circumstances that
you would not even believe if I would tell you. My only means of escape was to
shape my own world in daydreams and dreams, and a very tiny expression of
that is the song “Return to the Eve.”
What about “Visions of Mortality”?

Warrior: “Visions of Mortality” expressed our view of all the people hiding
behind magic or religion or sermons or church brunches on Sunday and claim-
ing they had the better answer for the world when the reality was that they were
failing just like everybody else. And yet they all think they have the formula,
while abusing certain aspects of religion that they arbitrarily pick out of a larger
picture. It’s no different if you go into Satanism or a church mass—it’s always
the same. “Visions of Mortality” is a very sarcastic expression of that, and inci-
dentally, it was the last song ever written in Hellhammer; in fact, Martin had
written a completely different set of lyrics. That was when we realized we were
reaching a musical standard that did not fit into Hellhammer anymore. That
song was the catalyst that made us dissolve Hellhammer and form Celtic Frost.
We played it for Stephen Priestly, and that’s the song that convinced him to ac-
tually give it a shot.
How important was the corpsepaint to the overall concept of Celtic Frost?
Ain: The imagery was just as important as the music. Of course, we weren’t
the only band that had makeup at the time—early Slayer had makeup, King
Diamond had makeup. The corpsepaint, the black clothes, the leather, the gun
belts, using occult imagery—it was all trying to get away from where I came
from, which was a stern Catholic family. My mother was a religious teacher—
she taught the catechism to kids in school, including me; I was an altar boy as
well. I had to go to the Boy Scouts when I was young, too, and I have fond
memories it, but one of the things I really disliked was the fact that it was kind
of like a paramilitary organization, but with the same organizational structure.
You have officers giving orders that you have to fulfill; everybody’s dressed in
uniform with symbols of rank, and this is something I really disliked. I realized
pretty early on that this is how society structures itself in extreme. So we were
trying to structure ourselves in a different way, but also using uniform and

imagery. It was really important to have that, to give ourselves a sense of be-
longing, of being a group or a unit—and of course separating ourselves from the
rest at the same time.
Warrior: The corpsepaint was an overblown expression of where we were at
a certain point in our career. It’s very much an expression of our rebellion and
our then-current state of mind. As you know, our image on each Celtic Frost
album is radically different. That’s because we were aging and progressing and
changing as people, and were weren’t one of those bands that wanted to hide
that. We actually wanted to show we were changing. The corpsepaint was very
honest—it was exactly where we were at that time. And we didn’t use it to hide
our identity; it was done to underline the kind of people we were. We wanted
to enhance the feelings we carried inside. But it was like theater makeup, which
is usually very over-the-top, so that even the people in the last row can recog-
nize what’s going on.
Priestly: We had it on Cold Lake, too, but in a different way. [Laughs] For
Morbid Tales, we were just trying to look evil. The corpsepaint that we had back
then, I guess only Mercyful Fate had it at that time, so we were one of the first.
I guess it was Martin’s idea—he thought it was so aggressive. I didn’t really like
it, but I went along with it because I thought it belonged with the music. You
can’t really see my face on the album sleeve, though. When I see the Norwegian
or Swedish bands that do that now, I understand that it has to be like that.
Where did the cover art come from?

Ain: I designed the heptagram. If you look at the back of Apocalyptic Raids,
the heptagram is already in place; that’s the original drawing. We wanted to a
full-cover-size version for Morbid Tales, so we went to a graphic artist, a person
we knew back in Switzerland, to make it bigger and cleaner. It was of course in-
spired by the Crowley heptagram, and also by the Crowley tarot. You have the
symbol of the swords in tarot, and there was this artist, this lover and friend of
Crowley’s who painted this amazing tarot following the way that Crowley taught
the tarot. And so the daggers make a pentagram, each one meaning like anger,
failure, triumph, success—all things that were shown with daggers. So I com-
bined the heptagram, Crowley’s seal for the whore of Babylon, with the penta-
gram made by the daggers. And of course in the center is the skull, as a symbol
of Memento mori. In the realization of death, we are not eternal. We are des-
tined to fail as beings no matter what we do.
The swords make a pentagram in the upright version, but on the skull you
have the pentagram in the inverted version, sort of like yin and yang. In the
writing [on the original cover, not the reissue] where Crowley would have put,
“Babylon,” I put “Pazuzu,” who is like an ancient Assyrian demon who also sur-

faces in the Necronomicon, who also comes up in the film The Exorcist. When Fa-
ther Karras is doing the archaeological dig in Mesopotamia, in modern-day Iraq,
he finds this devil head, and there’s a silhouette of the demon Pazuzu, who was
actually a demon that was used to ward off even more evil spirits. The way that
I experienced Satanism was a liberating experience, so I realized quite early on
that the devil is kind of like a scapegoat for Christians in the New Testament.
Their god is supposed to be all about good, but how can you explain everything
that is evil? You need some other figure. Hence, you get this Prince of Darkness,
this counter-figure.
Did you consider yourself a Satanist at the time?

Ain: When I was reading the writings of Anton LaVey, we were approached
by a branch—or a grotto, as they call themselves—of the First Church of Satan.
I think it was the Dutch grotto. But I had just escaped the clutches of one form
of organized religion, so I didn’t want to run right into the clutches of the next
one, which seemed to be even more sectarian. And not all of the writings of
Anton LaVey seemed to be proper to me. Some of the stuff I wasn’t really cer-
tain about. I wasn’t agreeing with everything he had written, and some of the
stuff even seemed ludicrous to me at the time. Like for example, in Satanic Rit-
uals, he was using German, and of course German being my first language I re-
alized that a lot of things were misspelled. So here were these supposedly
powerful rituals, and he’s using words that have a clearly defined meaning in a
completely different way. And with English, he wasn’t doing it like that, so to
me, that seemed ludicrous. He was making mistakes. Also, the main theme of
Satanism was being an individual—trying to differentiate yourself from the rules
or the pressures of a group—so for us, Satan was about rebellion, but we didn’t
consider ourselves Satanists.
What were the reviews like when the album came out?
Priestly: Very shitty. I think Kerrang! magazine gave us just one “K” out of
five. Some German magazine wrote something about us like we were the shit-
tiest band and we could hardly play our instruments—which was true. [Laughs]
Almost all the reviews were really shitty. But Xavier Russell, who later did the
Cold Lake videos, was very into the band and he wrote for Sounds, the English
magazine, and also Kerrang! and he said he made a mistake on the first record
because it was really cult and influenced a lot of bands—but he didn’t realize
that until later on.
Ain: I would say they were mixed. We had absolute fantastic, enthusiastic re-
views, and at the same time people who were like really putting it down and
bashing. Some of that still had to do with our Hellhammer legacy; I remember

Kerrang! gave it one “K,” which stood for “compost,” utter dirt, utter shite, and
they said, “These are the guys who did Hellhammer, but it’s the same shit.” They
couldn’t believe we had the nerve to record another record. Of course, when Into
the Pandemonium came out, they reviewed all our old records again and they
gave Morbid Tales five “K’s,” officially excusing themselves for not realizing the
genius. [Laughs] But generally speaking, it was well received, and it did sell
enough for a record company to release another record for us.
At what point did you start to realize the influence that Morbid Tales had on
other bands?
Warrior: A few years ago. When Celtic Frost dissolved at the beginning of
’93, I really wanted a break because the band had been such a rollercoaster ride
in every way—musically, personality-wise and industry-wise especially. So I
left the music industry entirely and dealt with my Celtic Frost demons by writ-
ing the book [Are You Morbid?], and to me, that was the closing of a chapter.
I did not think about Celtic Frost anymore. Later on, I came back and formed
the electronic-industrial project, Apollyon Sun, and once again, that was a
completely different approach on every level. It was only when I began pro-
moting the second Apollyon Sun album in 2000—along with the Celtic Frost
book that also came out that year—was it first brought to my attention by so
many writers and bands that I met at that time that Celtic Frost had been an
influence. At first, I was extremely reluctant to hear that because it simply
seemed impossible to me. We started in such a humble manner and on such a
shoestring budget—we couldn’t even afford to buy guitar strings or guitar
[picks] when we did Morbid Tales—we had nothing. It was simply what was
inside of us, and it was on such a small scale that I never expected anybody to
ever pick up on that, never mind claim it as an influence. It seemed ludicrous
to me. There were bands I looked up to—bands that technically blew us
away—who said, “Yeah, we stole your riffs.” I thought this was impossible,
and I had this attitude until a short time ago. We played at Wacken this sum-
mer, and Mikael [Åkerfeldt] from Opeth said something like this, and I said,
“This cannot possibly be,” and I explained to him why I thought that way. So
to this day, it’s extremely difficult for me to take that seriously. I’m very close
to my roots—I have revisited the Hellhammer rehearsal room frequently over
the years—which is why it seems so incredible to me that anybody on this
planet, much less bands like Nirvana or Opeth, would claim us as an influence.
It just seems implausible.
Priestly: For me, it was quite cool because I could see it from the outside. At
the time, I was playing my own stuff with [guitarist] Curt Victor Bryant, who
later played on Cold Lake and Vanity/Nemesis, and you could see all those bands

like Sepultura, who were into Frost. At first, I didn’t realize they were so heav-
ily into Frost, but then they would talk about us in interviews, so later on, when
I was back in the band and [touring] for Cold Lake and Vanity/Nemesis, I’d meet
people from the supporting bands who would say that the first record changed
their lives. I thought, “Are you nuts? We could hardly play the instruments.” But
yeah, it seemed like a really big influence, especially on the Nordic scene. And I
have to say that Sepultura did a really good job covering “Procreation (of the
Wicked).” I also really appreciate those bands who did that tribute record [1995’s
In Memory of Celtic Frost].
Ain: I didn’t realize until maybe the mid ’90s how influential Hellhammer
and Celtic Frost were, or how important Morbid Tales had become. At the be-
ginning of the ’90s, I tried to get away from the Celtic Frost thing and find out
who I was as a person. While other people my age went to school or lived with
their parents and tried to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives, I
was working hard on a career in one of the most difficult businesses in the world.
Around the time of Vanity/Nemesis, I realized that that career, for me, was over.
I literally spent myself on the music, on everything, and business-wise, it hadn’t
come back to me. I wasn’t able to make my living off of it, because we were
ripped off just as many other bands were ripped off and still are ripped off nowa-
days. That’s just the way this business works. Certain businessmen know that
music is a young person’s dream, and they take absolute advantage of it. To this
day, the rights to Morbid Tales and the songs on there are fully owned by people
who will own them until 75 years after we will have died. Noise Records was sold
to the Sanctuary Group, and the Sanctuary Group has gone public on the stock
market, so there are people owning our creation who don’t even know that they
own it. They just look at it as another number on the stock market. This is the
way the music business works, which is why I didn’t do anything musically for
the last 15 years and why we did it differently this time around.
Are there any cover versions of songs from Morbid Tales that you particularly
enjoy?
Warrior: I’ve heard a million—from Anthrax to the two tribute albums that
were released—and I hate them all, except for when Sepultura did “Procreation
(of the Wicked).” They play it note-by-note, which I generally don’t like, but
they made it theirs by putting in an aggression that we didn’t possess at the time.
When I heard it, I called Martin and said, “Look, they’re playing it better than
we did. They’re blowing our version to bits.” And now, I think that’s the way that
song must sound. When we reformed Celtic Frost, that was the benchmark. We
thought if we could not play “Procreation (of the Wicked)” that way, we have no
business coming back as Celtic Frost.

What’s your favorite track on the album?
Warrior: Probably “Dethroned Emperor”—I like the tempo changes, and I
like the slow groove of it. I like slow, heavy music, probably because I grew up
with things like Black Sabbath. My favorite is when the riffs are huge and
crunchy and they have time to unfold. I don’t subscribe to hectic music, where
everything has to be hurried. I like music to be able to breathe. A lot of bands
mistake speed for heaviness, and they’re definitely not the same thing. The faster
band is less heavy, because you can not possibly play heavy as a drummer when
you have to have so many beats per minute. You have no time to actually beat
the drums. Slower songs are much more majestic and powerful. My second fa-
vorite track is probably “Danse Macabre” because it was very daring for the time,
and I totally enjoy the way it came out. I like to compare it to a theater play
done just with sounds.
Priestly: Definitely “Into the Crypts of Rays.” First, I like the lyrics a lot—
they’re really good. And I always loved to play that song live, because the crowd
goes mad. “Return to the Eve” was always a good one, too, because on the Cold
Lake tour, Tom would say “Return to the Steve” because I was back in the band.
[Laughs]
Ain: I think “Procreation (of the Wicked)” and “Dethroned Emperor” are my
two favorites. “Procreation” has such an organic feel to it; it’s genuinely heavy and
primitive. It was sort of like if Robert Johnson lived in our time and played heavy
metal, this is what he would’ve come up with. It just seems really timeless, and
I also like the lyrics. I think they’re some of the best lyrics we’ve written. “De-
throned Emperor” is one of Tom’s genius strokes, with these kind of fantasy
lyrics. You can obviously interpret it as us trying to reclaim our throne, like we’re
trying to do right now—maybe that’s why it’s one of my favorites right now. It’s
a metaphor I can relate to especially nowadays.
In retrospect, is there anything you’d change about Morbid Tales?

Priestly: No, not at all—because we were exactly like that at that time. That’s
what I really like about it. I was 17 or 18 when we did that, and it’s still a part
of my life. The only thing I would change would maybe be not quitting the
band. [Laughs]
Ain: It was only released as mini-album in Europe first—I wish it would have
been released as a full album. That’s maybe the only thing I’d do different. And
I’d make certain that the lyric sheet was included in every album—that was really
important to us, and it was only included in the first edition. It wasn’t even in-
cluded in the first CD version. But as far as the music and the recording, I
wouldn’t change anything.

Warrior: No. Morbid Tales is a milestone for us personally—even without all
the people who claim it as an influence. For example, the guitar sound on that
album is something we tried to reach again, and we never were able to until the
new album, 20 years later. In many other ways, it became an icon for us in our
career. The spontaneity, energy, authenticity and desperation of the album—we
knew if we failed, we would be out of the music industry for good—all these
things are captured, which makes it a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

CHAPTER 4
WHO’LL STOP THE REIGN?

THE MAKING OF SLAYER’S REIGN IN BLOOD
by J. Bennett
Release Date: 1986
Label: Def American
Summary: Rick Rubin finally does something good
Induction Date: November 2004/Issue #2
I
n the early ’80s, four L.A. boys in huge spiked wristbands and football grease-
paint terrorized the rouged-up glam queens trolling the Sunset Strip for fake
tits and lucrative recording contracts. Having already unleashed two merci-
less lo-fi shredding clinics via Show No Mercy and Hell Awaits, Slayer’s urban-
satanist lyrics and ultra-violent guitar acrobatics were far too inaccessible for West
Hollywood’s coke-metal scene and way too sketchy for the Bay Area’s newly
viable thrash contingency. But by 1985, the makeup was long gone, and Slayer
entered the studio with Def Jam Svengali Rick Rubin (at the time best known for
producing the Beastie Boys and LL Cool J) to record their third album, Reign in
Blood. Now widely regarded as thrash metal’s definitive 28 minutes, it is as relent-
48
less today as when it scared the shit out of everybody back in ’86. Nearly two
decades later, hesher classics like “Angel of Death” and “Raining Blood” still make
other metal bands sound like frail pussies. With original drummer Dave Lom-
bardo back at the pulpit and a 2004 DVD (Reign in Blood Live: Still Reigning)
documenting the band’s inclusion of the entire album in their live set, Decibel
hunted down all four members of Slayer for a romantic stroll down memory lane.
What was the general feeling just before you went into the studio to record Reign
in Blood?
Tom Araya: I remember coming back from the tour we had done in Europe
and really working on the new material. Jeff and Kerry had written a lot of it on
their own. They rehearsed it and taught it to Dave—they did it pretty quickly,
if I remember correctly. We recorded the songs ourselves, which we always did,
and took the tape to Brian [Slagel, Metal Blade Records CEO and early Slayer
producer/manager]. He got all excited when he heard the demos—and at that
point, there weren’t even any vocals on it. And then he didn’t hear it again until
Rubin put it out. [Laughs] That’s my fondest memory about that.
Jeff Hanneman: Basically, we were all pretty pumped because it was right
after we had met Rick Rubin, who wanted to sign us to his label. The overall
feeling was just that we were excited because we spent all those years on a shitty
label . . . what was it, Metal Blade? [Laughs] We didn’t have a bus or a tour man-
ager. It was fun, but after we hooked up with Rubin we had a manager and a real
record label, so we were just excited as hell.
Kerry King: To us, it was just the best 10 songs we had at that point. It wasn’t
like we sat there going, “We’re gonna change shit with this record.” We had a
new producer; we were excited about being on a new label, but other than that,
it was business as usual.
What was your first meeting with Rubin like?

Araya: The first time we met him, we were out touring on Hell Awaits. We
were playing at L’Amour in New York City, and Rubin came out to see the show.
He was a fan of the band, and he said he wanted to sign us. We told him to call
Brian, because Brian was our manager at the time. [Rubin] seemed like an in-
teresting person; a genuinely nice person. He had a big old grin on his face—he
usually does—but the only thing I knew about him was that he was with Def
Jam, you know? In the process of working with him on that record, and then
South of Heaven and Seasons in the Abyss, we heard some of the other things he
was working on, which was very impressive stuff.
Dave Lombardo: Then [Rubin] came over to my parents’ house. It was good
to have somebody interested who knew what they were doing. I remember Glen
The Making of Slayer’s Reign in Blood 49

E. Friedman—the photographer for Thrasher—came over, too. He was the local
punk scene photographer at the time.
Were you aware of Rubin before he came knocking?

King: Not at all. I think Hanneman might’ve been into some of the rap stuff,
but I wasn’t.
It must’ve been a big difference, production-wise, going from Slagel to Rubin.

Hanneman: Oh, yeah. Rubin is a real producer. [Laughs] He knows how to
get the sound he wants. Slagel was a kid like us—he was going through the mo-
tions, trying to figure out how to do it.
Lombardo: Absolutely. It sounded really good. Plus, we had Andy Wallace
engineering the sessions, and he captured the best of us at that point.
King: It was a different mentality. Right away, the first thing you notice is that
there’s no reverb on it. That allows it to be way more threatening—it hits you in
the forehead. Rubin really cleaned up our sound on that record, which drastically
changed what we sounded like and how people perceived us. It was like, “Wow—
you can hear everything, and those guys aren’t just playing fast; those notes are
on time.” It was what we needed to be. Before that, we were happy to sound
like Venom or Mercyful Fate. We played in Reverb Land, for lack of a better
term. And the reverb was the first thing Rubin took out. When we heard the mix
we were like, “Why didn’t we think of that before?”
Was the idea just to be the fastest, most evil band in the world?
Araya: That was about it. [Laughs] That’s what we planned to do. I remem-
ber when Brian first heard us and asked us to put a song together for one of
those Metal Massacre compilations. So we went and bought the Metal Massacre
he had out at the time. We listened to it and were like, “We can write something
heavier and faster than this.” So we wrote “Aggressive Perfector,” and just con-
tinued from there.
King: In the beginning, it was definitely about being the heaviest and the
fastest because, well, you gotta be something. But by [Reign in Blood], I think we
were just honing what we do, just looking through that window of what Slayer’s
gonna be forever.
Did you think of yourselves as being in competition with Metallica?

Lombardo: In my eyes, there was no competition—Slayer was an entity unto
itself, a band with its own style and its own name. Whatever anybody else did
was their business, and whatever success they had was strictly up to them. I just
minded my own business and played the best I could possibly play.
50 WHO’LL STOP THE REIGN?

King: Well, that was around [Master of ] Puppets, and we always knew they’d
be more popular than us because they sang about accessible stuff and we sang
about stuff that nobody wanted to talk about. We knew that from day one, and
I’m still happy with that today.
Master of Puppets is almost twice as long as Reign in Blood.

Hanneman: At that time, we always listened to Metallica and Megadeth to
see what they were doing, but one thing about me and Kerry is we get bored of
riffs really quick. We can’t drag the same thing over and over or do the same
verses six times in a song. If we do a verse two or three times, we’re already
bored with it. So we weren’t trying to make the songs shorter—that’s just what
we were into. When we finished Reign in Blood, we had this meeting with
Rubin, and he was like, “Do you realize how short this is?” And we’re going,
“Oh, fuck . . . ” And then we all collectively looked at each other and said,
“So what?”
King: I thought it was kinda neat that you had the whole record on one side
of a cassette. [Laughs] You could listen to it, flip it over, and play it again. We’d
never been about putting songs and music on our records that doesn’t need to
be there. Hour-long records seem to be the trend these days, but you know, you
listen and it’s like, “You could lose this part; you could cut this song completely—
and make a much more intense record,” which is what we’re all about.
The first time you heard the album played back, were you like, “Holy shit, we’re
the best!”?
Lombardo: [Laughs] No way. We put it out, and eventually it got the recog-
nition that it did, but we were in no way acting like that. That might sound like
other bands I probably know—when they put out a record, they think they’re the
greatest. Little do they know, they gotta live up to the expectation.
King: Yeah, we’re full of ourselves to an extent, but not blindly full of
ourselves.
At the time the album was recorded, there weren’t many bands doing what you
were doing. The first records from the original death metal and grindcore bands
had yet to be released.
King: Oh, yeah. I think we went fast to be intense. It’s been misconstrued
along the way, and bands are fast just to be fast. A lot of the blast beat bands—
you know, three straight minutes of blast beats in a song? It takes the intensity
out of it. I know a lot of people are into it, but it doesn’t work for me.
How soon after Reign in Blood came out did you realize the impact it had?

King: Probably not for a long time. I mean, we just kept on going—we put
out South of Heaven, we put out Seasons. So maybe around Divine Intervention
is when we’d get the interviewers asking us, “How does it feel to keep trying to
outdo Reign in Blood ? How does it feel to have made the best thrash metal
album of all time?” But you know, we didn’t really think about it. And we cer-
tainly don’t try to outdo it.
Some say you’ll never top Reign in Blood. Does that bother you?
King: Not really—because in a lot of people’s minds, we won’t. I think
[2001’s] God Hates Us All is a better record than Reign in Blood—not because it’s
the last one, but because it’s more mature. Not to take anything away from Reign
in Blood—it’s a great record.
Hanneman: No matter what we do in the future, it’s gonna be the album.
That’s why we did South of Heaven right after that. We knew we couldn’t top that
record, so we slowed down and changed our style just a tad.
Lombardo: That’s the nature of the business. One record is declared the ul-
timate record. But then again, I hear people say that Reign in Blood, South of
Heaven and Seasons in the Abyss are the classics. It’s just that one had an impact
because it was the first one—the masterpiece. Nobody had done anything like
it at the time.
When it came out, Reign in Blood was largely ignored by the mainstream media.
Lombardo: Yeah, we were ignored by everybody except the underground
magazines, but that was normal. Look at the music that was on MTV at the
time—Flock of Seagulls, Duran Duran—and here come these punks from
L.A. with long hair and kind of a demonic outlook. They didn’t want to ac-
knowledge our presence—they’d never heard music being played that way. I
think what really opened their eyes was that a well-known producer like Rick
Rubin gave it the time. So the recognition we got was, in part, because of
Rubin’s interest in us. By taking on the project, he was showing that there was
something there.
The first word uttered on the album is “Auschwitz.” Did you think that you would
attract controversy because of that at the time?
Hanneman: Oh, yeah—but I didn’t give a shit. We had just gotten off tour
for the last record, and since we didn’t have a tour bus, there was no music to lis-
ten to, no TV to watch—we were just sitting in Tom’s Camaro driving all over
the place. So I was buying books to read, and I remember stopping some place
where I bought two books on [Nazi “surgeon” Josef ] Mengele. I thought, “This

has gotta be some sick shit.” So when it came time to do the record, that stuff
was still in my head—that’s where those lyrics came from.
Lombardo: We got dropped by Columbia because of that. I mean,
“Auschwitz—the meaning of pain!” Any sympathizers with the Holocaust aren’t
gonna have any part of it. But they didn’t see the deep meaning of it—it’s just
documented musical awareness. It’s not necessarily for it—it’s just something
that Jeff discovered and wrote a song about.
So that must’ve been how all the “Jeff Hanneman is a Nazi” rumors started.
Hanneman: Yeah, probably that, and I collect medals and other Nazi stuff
that my dad got me started on because he gave me all this shit he got off of dead
Nazis. Next thing I know, we’re neo-Nazis. It was like, “Oh yeah—we’re racists.
We’ve got a Cuban and a Chilean in the band. Get real.”
King: Slayer are “Nazis,” “fascists,” “communists”—all that fun shit. And of
course we got the most flack for it in Germany. I was always like, “Read the
lyrics and tell me what’s offensive about it. Can you see it as a documentary, or
do you think Slayer’s preaching fucking World War II?” People get this thought
in their heads—especially in Europe—and you’ll never talk them out of it. They
try to talk you into what they’re thinking. When they ask you a question and
you give them an answer they don’t want, they’ll be like, “Well, don’t you
mean . . .” And I’m like, “No, dude, I don’t mean that.” It’s just like, wake up.
Lombardo: Jeff ’s best friend is black, so I don’t think that was a good way to
portray him—although it was kinda funny. It’s fine, though—it gives people
something to talk about. It’s better that they talk about something than not talk
about it at all.
Almost 20 years later, which song holds up best for you?

Hanneman: Probably “Raining Blood.” I still love playing that song live.
You’d think we’d be tired of it—I mean, I’d love to know how many times we’ve
played it live. That would be really interesting.
King: Yeah. The intro is big with the two-guitar harmony part, and then that
first beat that Dave does, that double-kick thing, and it’s like this backwards
gallop that gets the crowd going regardless of where you are. I mean, we could
be playing in front of Alanis Morissette, and the crowd loves that part.
Tom, how many takes did you need to nail the scream at the beginning of “Angel of
Death”?
Araya: [Laughs] It took two takes. On the first one, they were telling me
what they wanted to hear, and I just let it rip. After I did the initial scream, I

told them to rewind the tape. They looked at me, and I just said, “I’ve got a
better one.”
The most widely available version of Reign in Blood has “Aggressive Perfector”
and the remix of “Criminally Insane” tacked on the end—which I always thought
was weird, because the original album closes perfectly, with the rain sound effects
at the end of “Raining Blood.”
Araya: Yeah, it is weird, but that’s the record company’s way of sweetening the
deal—because it’s got two tracks you really can’t get anywhere unless you’ve got
that rare single that was released in Europe. It’s like them saying, “Here’s two
cookies. You’re gonna have to buy the milk with the money you’re saving.”
King: Our history of changing distributors—which certainly isn’t our fault—
means whoever gets the catalogue puts out a new one. Although, I know people
who’ve bought Reign in Blood twice because they wore out their first CD.
[Laughs] That’s the way it should be.
Hanneman: I think it was Rubin’s idea [to do the “Criminally Insane” remix].
We were getting ready to leave for a European tour, and Rubin wanted to fuck
with it. It was just me and Dave hanging around, and Rubin wanted to slow it
down just to fuck with people, I guess. I’m pretty sure Dave did the slow parts
on a drum machine. I think I did a new solo at the beginning, too. We took out
some of the lyrics and put a solo over the first verse.
Whose idea was it to use that Larry Carroll illustration on the cover?
King: That’s the artist, right? [Laughs] I’m guessing Rick Rubin, because we
certainly wouldn’t have known about him. We’ve actually been kicking around
the idea of having that guy do the next album, since the original lineup is back
together.
Larry Carroll: I met Rick Rubin in a coffee shop in New York—it must’ve
been 1986. He looked pretty much the same as he does now, with the big beard
and everything. I had heard Slayer, because I’m from California, but I’d never
seen them. At that time, I was doing a lot of political illustrations for The Pro-
gressive, the Village Voice, the New York Times op-ed page, stuff like that. If I re-
member correctly, the band didn’t like the cover I did for Reign in Blood at first.
Someone didn’t, anyway—I don’t remember if it was actually someone in the
band or their management. But then someone in the band showed it to their
mother, and their mother thought it was disgusting, so they knew they were
onto something.
Hanneman: Rubin knew the guy and was like, “This is sick. This should
work for us.” We ended up using him for three albums.

Araya: I thought it was amazing. I liked it immediately. I liked them all, ac-
tually—there were three variations, and they incorporated all three into the
cover. They did the same thing with South of Heaven and Seasons.
In hindsight, is there anything you’d change about Reign in Blood?

Lombardo: Absolutely not. What it was is what made it a classic, so you’d
never change it.
Araya: Someone asked me that same question the other day, but just in terms
of Slayer in general—what I’d do differently—and I just told him I’d bring a
video camera. [Laughs] People would not believe the shit we’ve gone through.

CHAPTER 5
SLAVES TO THE GRIND
THE MAKING OF NAPALM DEATH’S SCUM

by Kory Grow
Release Date: 1987
Label: Earache
Summary: The dawn of grindcore
Induction Date: May 2008/Issue #43
W
ithout Napalm Death’s Scum, you probably wouldn’t be holding this
magazine. This album—essentially a split LP between two almost
completely different lineups—defined grindcore with its growled
vocals, whirring, hardcore-influenced riffs and faster-than-a-locomotive blast
beats. Its fusion of anarcho-punk and death metal would inspire countless bands,
and every musician who played on it would go on to do something extraordi-
nary, musically.
Co-founded in Birmingham, England, in 1981 by vocalist/bassist Nic Bullen,
who would later play in Scorn and others, and drummer Miles “Rat” Ratledge,
Napalm Death began modestly as a Discharge-inspired, politically charged punk
band. The group would land a track on the Crass Records comp Bullshit Detec-
tor #3. After that, guitarist Justin Broadrick joined, and this lineup formed the
56
nucleus for grindcore. Broadrick came from an industrial-music background; he
would later form Godflesh and, more recently, Jesu. Finding a faster drummer
in Mick Harris, the group kicked Rat out, and with this lineup recorded the A
side of Scum. Harris would be the band’s linchpin, later playing in Painkiller,
Lull and also Scorn. Side B’s lineup would feature bassist Jim Whiteley (cur-
rently in Warprayer), vocalist Lee Dorrian, later of Cathedral fame, and gui-
tarist Bill Steer, who also played in Carcass concurrent with Napalm Death.
(Steer’s Carcass bandmate Jeff Walker would design the album art for Scum.) To
this day, Steer says people in the U.K. know him better for his work in Napalm
Death than anything he would do with the far-more-successful-outside-of-
England Carcass.
Fame came quickly to the group, thanks to repeated airplay on BBC DJ John
Peel’s popular Radio 1 program. With constant spins of “You Suffer,” which
found a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s shortest song,
Peel’s more eclectic audience started showing up to Napalm Death gigs, attracted
by Harris’ whirlwind drumming. Often located at dingy clubs, like Birming-
ham’s the Mermaid, the group scrambled to keep up with themselves, both in
terms of fame and musically. Shortly after the first tour for Scum, the lineup
would change again, as Whiteley left the group and new bassist Shane Embury
would join, performing on the follow-up to Scum, From Enslavement to Obliter-
ation. To this day, Embury remains the only consistent member of Napalm from
their breakthrough days. Through him, Scum’s legacy lives on.
Ø
PREAMBLE
When did Napalm Death form?
Nic Bullen: When we started Napalm Death, I was 12. Miles and I had been
playing and writing songs together for sort of a couple of years prior to that.
Because we’d been doing a fanzine together since I was 10 and Miles was 11.
How did you come up with the name Napalm Death?

Bullen: We were both interested in films like Apocalypse Now! and The Ninth
Configuration and films about the horrors of war. So that fell into it a little bit
as well. It was just a natural kind of movement.
What did your parents think of the band?

Bullen: They weren’t very impressed . . . I suppose they’d rather I was doing
that than going out smashing windows and hanging around doing nothing.
The Making of Napalm Death’s Scum 57

How did Justin Broadrick come to join Napalm Death?
Bullen: In the center of Birmingham, where we lived, there was a big, old
market. It’s called the Rag Market. And it had clothing stores and general stores,
a typical big market. And it had a stall that sold cassette tapes, mainly bootlegs.
Justin Broadrick: Obviously, being at such a tender age, anyone who was of
a similar age and who was interested in similar music, you would converse with.
It was just obvious. Nic Bullen happened to be one of those people. One of the
first things that he mentioned was that this band he was in had recorded a song
released on one of the Crass Records compilations, Bullshit Detector Vol. 3. As
soon as he told me that, I was really excited about it.
Bullen: We both just started talking about how we liked similar music, be-
cause we would see each other there every week.
Broadrick: He came over to where I lived with my mom and stepfather at the
time in a really shitty part of Birmingham. We did a session of just jamming
complete noise and stuff—one of those tracks is an edit on the Final 1 CD.
Bullen: Justin played the last-ever concert with his group Final, and we played
at that. He asked us to play. It was a free concert at the Mermaid in Birming-
ham in 1985.
Broadrick: I made some demo of Final that was a bit more structured, with
drum machine and quite abstract guitar. It was really remedial, really naïve-
sounding and fairly shit. [Nic and Miles Ratledge] heard this demo I did with
the guitar outside of the noise stuff as Final, and they were really excited some-
how by my guitar playing.
Bullen: We had reached the point where it was just Miles and myself, so we
asked Justin if he wanted to play with us, and he said yeah.
What were your musical influences around this time?

Bullen: Mainly Discharge. And groups that were inspired by Discharge, so
that would have been Chaos U.K. in Britain and Disorder, and then also Euro-
pean groups from Finland and Sweden like Anti Cimex, Chaos, Recession—
those kinds of groups. And we also combined them with slower songs, which
were probably more resembling of the post-punk influence we had—all of us,
Miles, Justin and myself.
Broadrick: When we first heard Siege, it was exciting to hear a version of
hardcore that wasn’t just based around melodicism. We were enamored with the
speed thing. The speed sounded extreme. It sounded like a machine.
How did the songs that would eventually become Scum on your Hatred Surge
demo develop?
58 SLAVES TO THE GRIND

Bullen: The songs are strange because a lot of them date from 1985, from the
lineup with Justin and Miles. And of those songs, a couple were updated versions
of songs that Justin had done in Final back in 1983.
Broadrick: I think at the time there was something in [the Final demo] that
Nic and Rat found refreshing, something weird. It was actually inspired by the
bands in the anarcho-punk scene like Amebix and Killing Joke. But it had this
bleak feeling, [a] very naïve but quite nihilistic sound.
When did you begin playing fast?

Broadrick: Every song we had at the time we sped up. We wanted to make
them more brutal. Unfortunately, Rat—Miles—he couldn’t drum so fast. He
couldn’t drum at the speed that Nic and I wanted to get up to.
How did Mick Harris come into the picture?

Broadrick: Mick came up to me at one of these Napalm Death shows and
when he first [came] up, I’m like, “Who is this guy?” This little tattooed guy. No-
body had tattoos at the time. The tattoos, a psychobilly haircut—which is like
an old rockabilly haircut—and he looked pretty aggressive. He’s like, “I’m a
drummer and I play in this psychobilly band that’s really fast.”
Bullen: [I remember] hearing the band he was in called Anorexia—they
weren’t a very great group, but they did play very, very fast.
Broadrick: Like an opportunistic little kid, I remember saying to Nic, “I met
this guy over there. I’m gonna go down to his rehearsal and check his drum-
ming out.” Obviously, without Miles I had this conversation . . . They started
playing, and immediately I couldn’t believe the speed of the stuff. Musically it
was shit, straight up. But the drummer, Mickey, straight away I was thinking,
“Fucking hell, this guy’s fucking great.”
Bullen: A hell of a lot of people, even in the underground music scene, did
not like thrash. They hated it. Even within a minority subculture, you were a mi-
nority. So it was really good to meet other people who did like the same kind of
music.
Mick Harris: When I joined Napalm Death, the whole idea of me getting
in and being asked was they wanted to go a bit more thrash, and it was Justin
who turned me on to metal basically. I’d never ever listened to metal. I believe
the first record [I heard] was Seven Churches by Possessed, and I quite liked it.
They wanted to bring those elements into Napalm, and the drummer that was
playing with them didn’t want to, and they knew that I wanted to play fast.
Mick, how did you develop such a fast drumming style?

Harris: I’ve always listened for the extreme end of music, whatever it be. And
for me, I was always looking for the faster band. And Siege and Deep Wound
from Boston were always someone that I looked up to. It was fast and, yes,
Heresy took that even further. I guess I just wanted to play even faster. It just
comes from what I call the hardcore beat—the Chaos U.K./Disorder beat. I just
wanted to take it as far as you could go, and that was it. There’s nothing techni-
cal about that beat. There’s only one way to play the blast beat. As much as a crap
drummer I am, I’m sorry, I played it the right way, and the only way there is to
play it.
How did the changeover between Miles and Mick happen?

Broadrick: I went down to Mickey Harris’ mom and dad’s house and he had
his drum kit set up in his bedroom; I plugged the guitar into some fucking stereo
or something and we rehearsed all the existing Napalm Death songs at hyper-
speed. Basically we went into his bedroom, and I said, “So, how fast can you
play these songs?” We were listening to Siege, and he said, “I can play faster than
that, I think.” And he would do the blast beat, which was still not that fast. And
I would just say to him, “Faster!” And he would just keep speeding up. And then
we would get together with me and Nic and Mick and rehearse. We were doing
this quite nastily behind Miles’ back . . . [Miles] didn’t want to go in the direc-
tion that Mick and I were going anyway. He wanted to do what the Final demo
was doing.
Bullen: I think, at the time, instead of being sensible and saying, “Oh look,
we really want to play some fast music, and you don’t; why don’t we have two
groups and carry Napalm Death like this and start a new group?,” we decided
we wouldn’t do that, and that we would basically kind of throw him out, which
is really bad.
Broadrick: Nic and Miles were next-door neighbors, so it was a bigger per-
sonal thing for Nic, really. And Miles obviously is a fantastic person as well, so
it was quite sad.
Bullen: It’s one thing I would regret, really. I mean, it hasn’t come between
us. But it could have been a lot better.
Harris: At the time, I was playing in a local punk/hardcore band. And all I
wanted to do was play fast, and they just wanted to play slow songs. So I was sort
of getting a bit bored of that. I got the opportunity to join Napalm, so it all came
together.
What were you listening to at the time?

Harris: Japanese hardcore. Stuff like Gay Akura, SOB, Gold, Geza, Sys-
tematic Death, then the American side of hardcore: Septic Death, Siege was

huge, [they] obviously were and still are fast and brutal and pushing the bound-
aries. Deep Wound. Negative Effects. All the stuff. Washington, DC, hardcore.
Minor Threat. Obviously, still British stuff like early Discharge, and Disorder,
Chaos U.K., and then a hell of a lot of indie stuff, alternative. Killing Joke, Birth-
day Party, Test Dept., Neubauten, Throbbing Gristle—there’s a whole mix of
things. Dub reggae. Really all sorts. Membrane. And then, obviously, Justin
turned me onto thrash, death metal, which I gave you a list of earlier—the more
underground [stuff ] started when I remember meeting Shane Embury. I have
to say thanks to Shane because [of ] the tape-trading scene, which Shane was one
of the first persons [involved]; because of meeting him up at the Mermaid in mid
’86, I started to discover things like Genocide, which is pre-Repulsion. And that
was it. It was like, “Whoa, listen to this band.” Super-fast, super-heavy riffs.
They were doing the blast beat with two kick drums, but whatever. Super-heavy
riffs like a super-fast Slayer. And that just went on. Master, Death Strike and all
these others. From the tape-trading days, we were all just trading certain re-
hearsals—live, demos, Massacre, Death and Obituary when they were called
Executioner—and all these classics, basically. Early Morbid Angel and Incubus.
Loads and loads of things. The underground death metal scene was basically
heavy and brutal; it’s what I wanted. It sort of had the punk ethic. And the DIY
and the raw sound, this metal sound—this underground metal thing, which I can
totally relate to.
Ø
SIDE A
After Mick joined, you recorded the From Enslavement to Obliteration demo.
Bullen: With the From Enslavement to Obliteration demo, there were a few
songs that were written in the studio on the spot: “You Suffer,” “The Kill” and
“Death by Manipulation.” “Death by Manipulation” was only ever played at that
recording. [It] was essentially modeled on early Swans, predominantly the Cop
album. That’s where the origins of “grindcore,” the word, comes from. Because
Mick Harris would use the term “grind.” And we’d say things like “do a Swans
grind” on the bass.
What about “ You Suffer”?

Broadrick: “You Suffer” was largely a comedy thing, one-second song. Utterly
retarded. It’s ridiculous, but it was hilarious. We played that song in front of 30
local kids, like, every weekend. We played that song 30 times. It was a laugh.
Harris: There is a bit of novelty. Let’s do the shortest, fastest thing you can
do. And yeah, there are notes there. People think we just go, “Blllp” and that’s

it. And I believe there’s, like, four notes or something. There’s a lyric, “You suf-
fer, but why?” And it’s played quick, fast and sharp and as tight as we could. We
had a bit of reverb on there. It probably makes it even longer.
Bullen: Wehrmacht, on their “Night of Pain” demo, ’85, did a song called
“E!” which was just the phrase “E!” So, there were already precedents, and we just
did our own take on that.
The Scum recording of “ You Suffer” is in the Guinness World Records book as
the world’s shortest song at 1.316 seconds.
Bullen: Yeah, I’ve been told that. It’s quite amusing. [Laughs] I wish it had
been for the first human to be able to breathe underwater, but that’s quite good.
Harris: We didn’t ask for it. It just got put in there. We were told, “You’ve made
the Guinness Book of World Records.” And we were like, “Nah, get out of here,” and
yes, there it is. It’s sort of funny, isn’t it? A bit of an achievement, I guess.
Were audiences receptive to Napalm Death?

Bullen: I think at first people were either very dismissive or felt we were a
laughingstock. And that all changed from my memory when we played a thrash
festival at the Mermaid in Birmingham on, I believe, March 15, 1986. And I re-
member pretty much the whole of a capacity crowd went really crazy for what
we were doing while we were playing, and I really remember at the time think-
ing, “Gosh, this is unusual.” It was interesting what we did in Newcastle with the
group Anti Cimex. There’s a recording of it. And if you listen to it, it starts off
with complete silence after every song, then laughter, then at the end people
screaming for more. Really strange. In the space of 20 minutes, it’s like you’re to-
tally winning over a whole audience.
How did you come to record the A side of Scum?

Harris: The A side of Scum was gonna be a 12-inch for the promoter of the
Mermaid Pub in Birmingham, which was the promoter for all the hardcore and
punk events.
Bullen: When it was recorded, there wasn’t any specific intent for its record-
ing. There was talk floating around of, “Oh, we could do a record and this could
happen and that could happen,” but it was more of a case of just recording again.
Broadrick: I remember how silly it was, how childish it was. By then, every-
body had their own pockets of friends. It had already become quite clique-y
within the whole circle. There was about 20 dudes in the studio when we did it.
We had Head of David in there.
Harris: Justin was very much into Sacrilege—we all were, really—and
Damian [Thompson] from Sacrilege was really good to us. He let Justin borrow

his guitar pedal. Justin at the time didn’t have very good distortion. He was aware
that this MXR Distortion would give him a real warm sound and more of the
tone he was looking for. We went to Rich Bitch because you got a good dis-
count doing the overnight sessions. I believe it was from midnight to eight in the
morning. You got a good discount to use the eight-track there.
Broadrick: I remember lying under the mixing desk. Stuff like that. We put
all the money for the session together from dole money, which was like social se-
curity money. It probably cost us 60 pounds to record it, like 120 bucks to record
the whole of the A side.
Harris: I think it was 80 pounds. Ten pounds an hour, I believe. And then you
paid for your master tape. Which, then, it was Betamax, believe it or not. That
was sort of the first digital-style recording. I remember asking the engineer,
“What the hell is that?” And he explained, “Well, it’s binary code, 0’s and 1’s, and
it’s a better quality than analog.”
Bullen: I remember it being quite brief. We were very tight then. We played
a lot of concerts locally, sometimes three times a week. I remember thinking as
it was being mixed that it sounded really good. And I still do like its production
because the use of reverb, it bleeds at the edges. It doesn’t have defined, sharp,
crisp edges. And that bleeding gives it a certain element of kinetic energy, and
of danger, which I really like in recordings in general, so I still like it in that
recording.
What were your intentions with the recording?

Harris: Something happened, communications with Daz Russell from the
Mermaid. We were like, we’re not gonna give him the master because we feel
we’re getting a bit ripped off here . . . The reason why we kept hold of the mas-
ter was [we’ve] never ever been paid by Daz Russell for all the shows. We never
ever got paid. So we felt no guilt.
Bullen: The initial talk was with a group called Atavistic from the south of
Britain who were playing in fast thrash style, perhaps to do a split record with
them on a label from another part of the south of England, a label called Manic
Ears. But as far as I know, they passed on that.
Harris: We sent it to [punk underground artist/legend] Pushead, who showed
interest. He’d been writing scene reports in Maximumrocknroll, and he heard
about Napalm, this super-fast band. So we thought we’d send Pushead a copy,
and never heard back from Pushead.
Broadrick: We took that demo to Earache Records, who had only released a
Heresy record at the time, who were nothing. They were just run out of Dig
[Pearson]’s bedroom. They were sort of interested, but didn’t really go through
it straightaway. I think Nic had lost interest and even Mickey, I think to some

extent, for a little while. Mick had gone down a different avenue socially, and to
some extent musically as well, and Mickey had become more involved in the
culture that Napalm Death had become not only a part of, but had also started,
I guess, too. Had also become a big part of the thrash metal tape-trading scene
as well, so Mickey got involved with a whole other group of people. I promptly
left the scene.
Jim Whiteley joined on bass around this time, right?

Broadrick: I did a couple of rehearsals without Nic Bullen there, actually, be-
cause Nic had become not even interested in rehearsing at the time. At Nic’s
request, he didn’t play bass again. And that was basically how we drafted in
Jimmy Whiteley, who was the bass player on the B side of Scum.
Jim Whiteley: Mick and Justin visited me telling me that Nic had quit the
band; they needed a bassist. I was into what they were doing, even though I
couldn’t play for shit. I’d only acquired a bass two months prior. I was more ner-
vous than excited.
Broadrick: Jimmy couldn’t even play bass. I would go to Jimmy’s flat and I
taught him both to play bass and play the Napalm Death songs simultaneously.
Which is ridiculous. We obviously were also a punk band, so we could do any-
thing rather badly with passion.
Why did Justin leave Napalm Death?

Whiteley: Justin was a long-standing friend of the Head of David chaps, hence
them also being crammed into the studio the night the first side of Scum was laid
down. He was already drumming in Fall of Because. It was no surprise when he
left Napalm Death to concentrate his other efforts; after all, [Head of David] were
already recording sessions for John Peel and playing gigs where they’d [come] away
with more than the price of a pint as remuneration for their efforts. I don’t re-
member there being any resultant hostility towards his leaving the band.
Broadrick: I was playing with Fall of Because and Napalm Death on the
same nights at the Mermaid Pub. I started to feel again that I didn’t want to
just be making this music that was this hyper-speed thing we’d come across. I
think me, Nic and Mick were all quite extreme personalities and kids; I think
that makes it even worse. We were kids, really. Just mad kids. Everyone was quite
an extreme personality. I knew I didn’t want to be in an environment that was
based on confrontation on a weekly basis in rehearsals.
Harris: October ’86, Justin had totally lost interest in Napalm. And he got the
offer to play drums with Head of David, a local Birmingham band. So Head of
David was gonna be touring, they were going abroad. And that’s what Justin
wanted to do.

Broadrick: They said, “You pretty much have to leave Napalm Death, be-
cause you won’t be able to put the time into it because we’ve got a couple tours
with Head of David and we want to record a new album.” And I was totally ex-
cited by that. I wanted to record a record. As I said before, when we recorded
Scum, we weren’t recording an album; we were recording a demo to try and get
an album.
Bullen: We played a concert with Justin just before he left in Leeds with Sac-
rilege, and after every song, all the people did was shout, “Play faster! Play faster!”
And I felt we were like performing bears in a zoo. And that nobody was listen-
ing to the content of the songs in terms of the politics. Nobody was listening to
the conceptual reasons for creating the songs. All they wanted was a rollercoaster
ride, a fairground ride. And then I was thinking, “Why do I want to be doing
this, be somebody’s performing seal?” And so, when Justin left, it was getting to
a crisis point for me.
Broadrick: The last thing I did for Napalm Death, literally, was give that
demo to Earache Records. Because they were the only people that would take
it. I just gave it to Dig. He said [he] might be able to do something with it, and
I just said, “Have it.” I think I just sent him the master cassette and left it there.
When I joined Napalm Death, I didn’t think anything would come of it. I didn’t
think they were gonna continue on, to be honest. Because when I left, Nic wasn’t
interested in doing it either, and Mick didn’t want Nic in the group anymore ei-
ther because they’d have such conflicts already. I don’t think any of us expected
Mick Harris to continue on with it.
After Justin left, who was in the band?

Bullen: It was really just me and Mick Harris and Jimmy Whiteley, who later
went on to be in Ripchord and various other groups. And we tried a couple of
guitarists.
Harris: We went through a few different guitarists that didn’t really work;
Frank [Healy], who plays bass in Benediction, tried out. He just didn’t click.
Bullen: So we asked Shane Embury if he would like to play the guitar, but I
think he was just a bit too nervous to do it, so he said no. It was still with Frank
Healy when I left. And it was only afterwards that Bill Steer joined. But again,
as far as I was concerned, they really weren’t my kind of people.
Nic, why did you leave?

Bullen: Because I didn’t get on with any of them. And I didn’t really want to
be in a heavy metal band or just a rock ’n’ roll band making a career. I’d been get-
ting pretty dissatisfied through the later months of 1986. I really didn’t get on
with Mick Harris at all. And at the time he had a group of cronies who hung

around him, who whatever he’d do they’d just kind of applaud and laugh and
think he was brilliant. And I didn’t really get on with any of them. So I tended
to talk more to Justin. When Justin left, I really felt isolated in my own group.
I was weak. I should have said to them, “It’s really not for me. I’m gonna leave.”
But I find that hard to do because I actually don’t really like conflict. And so I
stayed on, hoping it would get better. And it wouldn’t. And then I started not
turning up to the practices, because I’d travel to go to the practice and I’d nearly
get there and I just couldn’t face it. I couldn’t face going in and spending time
with those people. I remember getting into the city center and going and buy-
ing a bottle of drink and sitting on a park bench and drinking the drink and
thinking, “I’m not going back.” And so I didn’t contact them, and then I sort of
found out at some point they were doing concerts with a new singer and a new
guitarist. So that was it, really. There wasn’t really any big argument or bust-up
or anything like that; it just sort of disappeared, really.
Harris: I just remember one day, it was like March ’87, I said to Nic, “Look,
you’re turning up drunk. You’re not into this new material, and you’re not really
into it no more; what do you want to do?” And that was it. Nic took off. That
was the last I ever saw of Nic. OK, Nic’s gone.
Ø
SIDE B
How did Lee [Dorrian] come to join as the vocalist?
Whiteley: Lee was a good friend of mine. He arranged gigs for underground
punk/hardcore bands in his home city of Coventry, mostly at a pub called the
Hand & Heart. In fact, it was whilst passing a secondhand goods shop on the
way to the Hand & Heart that I spied the bass guitar that I ended up buying and
subsequently using on Scum. I frequently traveled over there to gigs that he’d
arranged, as there wasn’t much activity in Birmingham at the time. Again, we
had a similar musical interest; we were both from poor sub–working class neigh-
borhoods and had a fair bit in common.
Harris: I was friends with Lee. Jimmy was friends with Lee. We knew him
coming to the Mermaid, and also he was a local promoter in Coventry. He put
Napalm Death on in Coventry.
Lee Dorrian: We were all in the scene, which was a very small scene. We
used to converge at the Mermaid on Friday and Saturday nights in Birmingham.
Harris: I asked Lee, “Do you want to do vocals?” He sort of didn’t really feel
he could do it. I said, “Look, it’s quite easy. Give it a go.”
Dorrian: I had no preparation whatsoever to go into the studio. All I’d done
before that is I had a bedroom band with a friend. We didn’t even have any

equipment. He had a small amp. I used to scream into a screwdriver, never mind
a mic. The first-ever gig [I did with Napalm Death], I actually promoted the
show myself. Antisect were headlining and Heresy, and then Napalm Death
opened. So I was on the door one minute and on the stage for the first time the
next. I was quite nervous that night.
Did it seem weird that you were in a band with no original members?
Dorrian: It felt weird, but on reflection it didn’t, really. It seemed the other
guys moved on and did something else that they wanted to do. Napalm had al-
ready established itself in the underground. In many ways, you could say it
should have changed its name, because it was Napalm Death Mark II, really,
but in hindsight it just seemed natural the way it happened. Look at the band
now. Even since then, there’s not one original member off that album that’s in
the band now. The only surviving member from that period is Shane, who is on
the second album.
At what point did the idea to record a second side come up?
Harris: Dig had shown some interest towards the end of ’86. He’d been com-
ing to some of the Mermaid hardcore matinees, which were all-day punk/hard-
core affairs, and just about everyone was playing them. He’d started to take an
interest. I remember him phoning me up one day and saying, “You recorded this
A side; how about coming to Nottingham? I’ll buy the master tape off you, and
I’ll get you into the studio again, and you’ll record a B side.” So I went along to
Nottingham, took the master tape. He was adamant that I took this master, and
there was no contract or anything. It was just a gentleman’s handshake. He said,
“Do you want to go back to Rich Bitch?” I said, “Yeah!” He said, “Do you want
to do one of those evening sessions?” I said, “Yeah, it’s not a problem.”
How did the songs on Side B come together?

Harris: I’d written what became the B side of Scum. I’d had this two-string
guitar—I couldn’t play a guitar. I couldn’t hold a chord. I have little fingers, lit-
tle monkey hands. I just couldn’t hold a chord. I’d get that chord, but as soon as
my fingers moved, the chord was gone. I just discovered this way of taking all the
strings off and leaving the E and the A and sort of messing with this tuning, like,
“Well, hang on, that sounds like a bar chord.” I just thought, “Well, someone’s got
to do some writing here.”
How did Bill [Steer] come to join?

Bill Steer: I’d been playing with this punk/metal band or something—it was
like a really weak version of Discharge. One day [a friend] showed up and said,

“You’re not playing that tour; some band called Napalm Death’s got it.” And I
[was] thinking, “I wonder who they are?” A bit later, a friend of mine who lived
somewhere in the midlands got to know them and then he sent me what turned
out to be Side A of Scum. And that point, I just thought it was fantastic. And
it was really good when I saw it. To me, it was really obviously something that
stood out in that scene. Mostly because there was nobody like Mick in
that world.
Harris: Come February of ’87, I ended up asking Bill Steer [to join], who at
that time had just started university and had got Carcass together. I went down
to Liverpool twice to rehearse at his house. The Carcass drum kit was there. He
was only 16 and his parents didn’t want him coming up to Birmingham. So I
went down and he picked the songs up in no time. I said, “I’m gonna have to get
you to Birmingham, Bill, because obviously we’re gonna have to record this
B side.”
Bill, you had Carcass at the same time as this, right?

Steer: Yeah, I think so in some form. But I think it was the early form before
we had Ken, actually. That’s just a feeling, but I could be wrong. I think things
fell apart fairly shortly after that, because that side of Scum, at the time, no one
knew what it was gonna be—a split album or what.
What were the Side B sessions like?

Whiteley: The original Rich Bitch was a damp basement in an abandoned
building right next to Selly Oak railway station. Rob Bruce, the owner—he
played in a band called Rich Bitch—had a good ear for the sounds that punk
bands were trying to achieve; most local punk bands recorded there at some
point in their existence.
Harris: Bill came up. We rehearsed the evening before and just went over it.
Lyrics were still being written as we were recording overnight.
Whiteley: Bill, Mick and I had only had a minimal amount of time trying to
thrash out ideas in Bill’s parents’ house some weeks prior to that. It was pretty
desperate . . .
Harris: It was just a matter of [turning] up at the studio. Shane [Embury] and
Mitch [Dickinson] came along from Unseen Terror. At that time Shane was a
huge fan of Napalm.
Whiteley: I remember primarily being nervous of the fact that we had only
rehearsed once as a unit merely hours the previous night before we were com-
mitting all of the B side to tape.
Harris: I had to cue Lee for the lyrics every time—where it should drop in,
where it should drop out.

Dorrian: That was the first time I’d been in a studio. I’d done one gig previ-
ous to that, and that was kind of a guessing game. There was like no rehearsals
whatsoever. And a lot of it was just instinct, really.
Harris: The vocals were a lot more extreme with, obviously, Lee doing more
growling and me doing the screaming, “influenced from Japanese hardcore” stuff.
Mick, other than the lineups, how would you say the sides are different?
Harris: I’d say it’s a lot dirtier, the B side to the A side, as much as it’s the same
studio and same engineer. I think that’s just down to the tuning. It’s a lot more
down-tuned. It’s concert pitch for the A side. I think Bill tuned down to, I be-
lieve, C-sharp or B.
Was that it for recording?

Harris: We did have to go back to do another mixdown. We knocked it out,
but there was something that was still not quite right. So Dig was sort of, “Oh,
I don’t want to spend any more money.” I said, “I’m not happy, Dig; the drums
just aren’t fitting.” He said, “OK, let me call them up.” We managed to get a
four-hour session.
Why did Jim eventually leave?

Whiteley: That old chestnut, “differences of personality.”
Harris: Several months later, it was released and we went on tour, with record;
we shared a van, shared all the costs and we went through Europe. Come back
and Jimmy decided he wanted to quit over really nothing, as far as I’m con-
cerned. A little argument over next to nothing. And that was it. I called up
Shane.
Much of Scum’s success is owed to BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel. What does that
mean to you?
Harris: I’d grown up with John Peel. He educated me musically, because he
was the only one that was playing music that pushed boundaries and let us all
discover new music, which would go onto other things . . . I think on a Wednes-
day night, Peel had said, “And tomorrow night I’m going to be playing some
records by so and so,” and I thought, “Oh yes!” Just to hear Napalm Death men-
tioned. And I went down to Jim’s and I said, “He’s gonna play it tonight.” And
he did. He played “You Suffer” three times.
Broadrick: Head of David did a Peel session with me on drums. The night
it was broadcast, John Peel followed the first Head of David song with Napalm
Death, one of the songs I was on on Scum. And my jaw just hit the fucking floor.
I couldn’t believe it. In one night, my hero that I’d been listening to as a little

kid—I was played twice in two different groups in one night on John Peel. Na-
palm Death blew up then in the U.K.
Dorrian: From my personal point of view, he didn’t play a track from side
two until a week after he’d been playing side one to death. So I’d listen to it
every single day, taping it and stuff, and then I think it might have been “Para-
sites” or “C.S.” And then we got asked to do a session, and it just got better from
there. Just to get asked to do a John Peel session was a dream come true.
Harris: Basically, he played “You Suffer” and there was a bit of silence, I re-
member, and he was like, “Wow. Oh, hang on, I’m just gonna have to put that
on again.” And he did! He did it three times. And he just said, “Wow. We’ll,
we’re gonna hear some more from them in the show.”
Steer: A lot of the attention we were receiving was just down to John Peel—
because he brought us in really quickly and we did a session—and then, obvi-
ously, at that point, I was listening to John Peel because either a band I was in
was on his show, or a friend’s band was on there, and it was very exciting.
Dorrian: To this day, Napalm Death is a name that probably one out of five
of the average people in the street would have heard. Back in those days and
after I left the group, there was Radio 1 in the afternoons and there was this
asshole DJ named Steve Wright. And it got so notorious that he used to have
this competition like “open the box,” or something like that, and if you got the
question wrong, you were submitted to a two-second dose of punishment, which
was, I think he played “Dead” or “You Suffer” by Napalm Death as your pun-
ishment. It was a really hot summer and that thing on Radio 1 was on all the
time. And I was delivering furniture around really pissed off.
Harris: What was I—19, 20—and there you are, your idol and your record
music teacher [Peel] plays a record that you played on, and not playing it [not]
once but four times, and saying those words that you would never expect to hear:
“I’m gonna have to get these guys in for a session.” And he did.
Whiteley: He left a void larger than the imagination and will never be for-
gotten by those whom had the good fortune to be touched by his wisdom and
humility. R.I.P.
Justin and Nic, since you weren’t in the band when the album came out, what did
you think of it?
Broadrick: I remember thinking, “Wow, my first record.” What was the weird-
est shit for me was when John Peel had caught onto it. John Peel was a fucking
hero to me. It was like going to a council-estate school where very few people
could connect with what I was into; for me, my solace was listening to John Peel
every night.

Bullen: What I resented was the way the group tried to paint Justin and my-
self out of the history of the group by a kind of brief mention of us, as if we had
merely been session musicians who happened to play instruments on the first
side, whereas we were the writers of the songs. Mick Harris and no one else but
Justin and myself wrote all of the songs on Side A.
Do you like any of the Napalm Death recordings after you left?
Bullen: Um, no. I find it very staid, very conservative. I like danger and ex-
perimentation and mystery and excitement and the unknown, and they don’t
give me any of that. Putting it in context, I didn’t buy records by any of their
peers, either. I didn’t buy albums by Heresy or Hellbastard or the Electro Hip-
pies or any of those groups.
Broadrick: The first John Peel session with that lineup that replaced Nic and
I is, for me, the best stuff Napalm Death ever did, in my own personal taste. It
was way beyond what Napalm Death began as on Scum, and I think it was fuck-
ing incredible, and I think Napalm Death were incredible after I’d left the group
as well.
Harris: The raw element’s gone. I’ve always said it. And I’m not slagging
them. I would love to produce Napalm Death. I’d do it for free. I’d love to give
them that rawness back.

Ø Ø
BLEEDING WORKS OF ART
How Jeff Walker came to do the cover art for Napalm Death’s Scum
Having met Napalm Death while playing in his own group, thrash-influenced crust-punks Electro Hippies, Jeff
Walker formed a friendship with the band. In addition to playing music, he designed several album covers around
that time, including Carcass’ LPs and Axegrinder’s Rise of the Serpent Men, and he recently designed Liver-
pudlian death metallers Diamanthian’s logo. Shortly after Nic Bullen quit Napalm Death, Mick Harris asked
Walker to design the cover of what would become Scum, and subsequently the logo the band would use on fu-
ture releases. Walker used cheap, fine felt-tip pens, suitable for a draftsman, to create the black-and-white
image. Walker would later join Napalm Death guitarist Bill Steer’s band Carcass as vocalist/bassist.
—Kory Grow
How did you come to do the Scum album sleeve?

Jeff Walker: Mick gave me a general idea of what the record sleeve should be. It was pretty brief, but
it was pretty punk rock. I just tried to put my spin on what their influences were, which was Siege and Celtic
Frost. It’s got the skull from Siege flyers at the bottom . . . and then it’s got the wings off a Celtic Frost flyer.
In a way, I was kind of taking a piss, because they wanted it to be really punk rock, anarcho-punk the way it
was described. It was kind of difficult. They were like, “Yeah, we want skulls at the bottom and all these cor-
porate logos and businessmen.” I tried to bring something a bit more interesting to it.
Sounds like you’re not entirely happy with it.
Walker: Like I said, the brief they gave me was kind of lame. The whole sleeve is peppered with clichés.
The skulls are from Siege flyers or Dead Kennedys records or Reagan Youth. It’s typical punk rock.
What do you remember about designing the logo?
Walker: It’s a take on the logo that they had anyway. It’s kind of inspired by the old t-shirt. It’s out of pro-
portion. If you look at the “N” and the “M” on the end, they’re not the same size.
Was this an easy cover to create for you?
Walker: Back then I was very lazy. Mick kept hassling me to do the sleeve and I started it. For a long time,
it didn’t get beyond two inches on bottom of the big paper I was doing it on. All I can say is I’m really happy I
finished it. I’m actually surprised I still got it. I don’t have the Carcass artwork. If anyone wants to buy it, just
get in touch with Albert and make an offer.

CHAPTER 6
SCARED TO DEATH
THE MAKING OF REPULSION’S HORRIFIED
by Matthew Widener
Release Date: 1989
Label: Necrosis
Summary: Unkind grind pioneers
Induction Date: August 2008/Issue #46
H
orrified. It’s both Repulsion’s genre-sparking album and the way en-
lightened metal fans will look at you should you admit ignorance of
the fact—which is very well possible, seeing as how Repulsion have
always been a band that your favorite bands worshipped, but were somehow
other wise criminally unheard of. But make no mistake, evangelizers like Napalm
Death, Carcass, Entombed, Terrorizer, At the Gates and others will tell you—one
listen to Horrified—to the thrashing riffs and buzz-saw bass, the desperately
screamed vocals and the incessant pounding (that legitimized a new drumbeat)—
and you’ll see how it all started. You’ll visit the haunted cobwebbed attic of the
genre we call grindcore.
73
Recorded in ’86, tape-traded for three years—beyond Repulsion’s demise—
and released posthumously on Earache sub-label Necrosis in ’89, Horrified in-
fected the burgeoning underground with an unheralded blend of hardcore and
death metal, appealing to disparate scenes and transcending genre boundaries,
effectively blurring them into a frenetic mess. It was a singularity, a leap in the
evolution. Unpolished and unapologetic, its legacy of primitivism is just as rel-
evant now in this digital age of perfection as it was back in the ’80s, when it was
shocking enough to make tape decks tremble and listeners utter, “What the fuck
is that?”
Decibel interrogated Scott Carlson, Matt Olivo, Aaron Freeman and Dave
“Grave” Hollingshead for the story of Horrified: how it came to be and what it
infamously went on to do.
Ø
PART I: BIRTH OF THE BLAST
Genocide—later to become Repulsion—changed my life. No other band mattered to me after
that. They destroyed every other band around at that period and were everything I was looking
for at that point. I was 18 at the time; this may sound a little cliché, but I don’t give a shit—
to me they were and still are gods!
—SHANE EMBURY, NAPALM DEATH
I just remember hearing that first record in demo form way back in the mid ’80s and going, “Holy
shit, that’s fast! What the fuck are those guys snorting?”
—DANNY LILKER, BRUTAL TRUTH
Horrified was originally recorded as the Slaughter of the Innocent demo three
years before its release. What was the songwriting process like?
Aaron Freeman: At that time, most of the songs on the album were already
written. Scott and I collaborated on “Acid Bath” and “Crematorium”—we were
tossing a few things back and forth.
Matt Olivo: Scott and I had maybe 75–80 percent of the songs written al-
ready in the band Genocide. Essentially, Repulsion was just a—not even an evo-
lution of Genocide—it was Genocide, but noticeably faster. We dropped a few
Genocide songs, we changed the name and then we added a few more Repul-
sion songs. It was a seamless transition, let’s put it that way. As far as the song-
writing goes, there were a couple of different modes that we were in back in
those days—sometimes Scott would come over with pretty much a whole song,
which I would contribute a riff to. And then sometimes I would come to Scott
with a couple ideas, and then he would add a couple ideas to it. I think our best
74 SCARED TO DEATH
songs were written that way: “Black Breath” and “Radiation Sickness” come to
mind as two songs that we both had an equal amount of musical ideas, and it lit-
erally came together almost instantly—like coca powder and milk. [Laughs] And
then there were times where I would seriously spend a weekend to myself and
come to him with two whole songs.
Scott Carlson: For the most part, I think it was a dictatorship on the part of
Matt and I, as far as how we rehearsed and put songs together. I’m not sure ex-
actly how much Dave enjoyed the way we did things—probably not very much.
At that point, Matt and I were extremely driven to get our stuff out of the garage
or the basement. Everything was written between January of ’86 and June when
we recorded. We had already established the blast beat, so those songs were writ-
ten with that style in mind, so they’re a little less manic, I’d say, than the ones
that were written to sound like Slayer and then just got sped up by the “acci-
dental” discovery of the blast beat. “Maggots in Your Coffin,” for instance, and
“Crematorium”—those riffs were written around the blast beat. So we had that
in mind. We were just basically trying to flesh out the album. We needed 30
minutes, we figured—we were really into punk bands—and Discharge albums
were 30 minutes long, so we figured “18 songs” and that’s what we were shoot-
ing for. And I think “Maggots in Your Coffin,” “Crematorium” and “Black
Breath” were the last three songs we wrote. And “Crematorium” was probably
finished, like, a couple days before we recorded it.
Olivo: Now Scott was the lyricist. There were a few open forums where he
would say [the lyrics] out loud and we would all laugh and throw in a word or
two to add a little spice to it. The lyrics are pretty much Scott Carlson, and
they’re still amazing to me—some of them are just so good.
At that point, what were your major influences? What was Horrified hatched
from?
Carlson: We grew up in the ’70s and we listened to rock music, you know;
there was no death metal, and there wasn’t even that much heavy metal aside
from heavy metal/rock bands, like UFO and the Scorpions and Judas Priest,
bands that all had block structure. Most of them were four-on-the-floor, pretty
straightforward, meaty riffs and catchy choruses, and we loved all that stuff. I’m
sure that had an influence on us. We were big Aerosmith fans, KISS and all that
stuff.
Dave “Grave” Hollingshead: My influences come from funk back in the
’70s—shit my sister used to listen to. My mother listened to the Rolling Stones
and Queen, Olivia Newton John and shit like that. And then I got into new
wave. At that time [of the recording] I was all into death metal, anything fast—
Slayer, Metallica, Sodom, COC, D.R.I., GBH, Black Flag.
The Making of Repulsion’s Horrified 75

Had you rehearsed much going into the studio? Did you know what sound you were
after?
Carlson: If you listen to the rehearsal we did the night before we went into
the studio, we were probably 10 times tighter than we are on the album. Back
then, our live shows were always a mess, but when we rehearsed we were in-
credibly tight. We had that material nailed. But you know, recording—that was
the first time any of us had been in a studio where we were isolated from one an-
other, and that threw everybody off.
Olivo: We pretty much knew what it was going to sound like. I mean, the
drumbeats in Repulsion—there are only, like, maybe three or four drumbeats
that we use over and over and over again. We kind of ended up using Dave as a
drum machine, practically. Of course, he put his own things in there, but we
would come to him with well-fleshed-out ideas of what we wanted out of the
drums.
And the drums at that point had been pushed faster than any other band had pre-
viously seen. That was probably the first album comprised mostly of blast beats.
What made you go that fast?
Hollingshead: Well, Scott kept pushing me. [Laughs] Every practice: “Could
you, uh, play a little faster?” And as far as doing a one-two beat, like the classic
Slayer thing, I hated going any faster because I couldn’t double time with my
right hand, my hand on the ride, and it was like . . . cheating, until we got so fast
it was just, you know, ridiculous. I didn’t like it at first because of the cheating
factor. But I can still do it. Not very long, but I can still do it.
Freeman: Scott was always pushing Dave. And sometimes it was hard for
Dave to keep up. [Laughs] I mean, I don’t know how it evolved—it just did. The
songs just progressed—it wasn’t something conscious, I think, and as far as the
blasting stuff, I just don’t think Dave could play a straight beat, so somehow it
evolved into the blast. And the swing beat—like on “Bodily Dismemberment”
or “Slaughter of the Innocent”—that was just something that Dave pulled from
playing in the hardcore bands or the funk bands he was in.
Olivo: Dave was kind of pushed to do what Scott and I really wanted him to
do. I mean, he did end up putting a few of his own trademark things on it that
Scott and I didn’t anticipate, like that one thing in particular—when Dave plays
a blast beat, we didn’t anticipate that leaning on the downbeat, that accent where
it’s like DUH duh DUH duh DUH duh. People just don’t do that. People just
go DUH DUH DUH DUH. As he got faster, I think he sort of needed his own
technique to keep the time and to get a groove going so that he could physically
pull it off. I mean, if you’ve seen him after we finish a song, the blood would
drain from his face and he looked like he would pass out. Because nobody played
76 SCARED TO DEATH
like that in those days, you know? I guess it pushed him to do some remarkable
things, and it pushed him to do something that people regard as pioneering or
original.
Ø
PART II: FROM THE GARAGE TO THE STUDIO (AND BACK)
When I finally met those guys in 1990, I was pissing my pants with excitement. It was weird,
because they were all absolute sweethearts and it truly didn’t register to them what a beast of
a demo/album they’d originally made. Dave Grave found a dead duck on a stick, though, in-
sisted on waving it around, and he turned out to be a bit mad in the end.
—MARK “BARNEY” GREENWAY, NAPALM DEATH
I find it amazing when something as simple as a beat or tone defines a genre. With punk, the
Ramones riffing, thrash metal had Lombardo’s Reign in Blood beat, and grind had the Scott Carl-
son bass tone.
—KEVIN SHARP, BRUTAL TRUTH
What role did Doug Earp play in the album?

Carlson: Basically he gave us the money to record it. He gave me a couple
hundred dollars to put on a hall show. I rented a hall, booked a bunch of punk
bands, including Repulsion, and put on a show. I paid the bands each a hundred
bucks, and I took what was left and gave it to the studio, which was, like, $300
or something like that. Doug never got paid back his money until Earache put
the record out.
Freeman: He was a local guy with a record store. Anything obscure, just
anything—he had. So Scott ended up hanging out there, working there, too.
Doug was always the guy who would front the money for the hall shows.
Olivo: Doug was in his late 20s at that time. I think his mom passed away
and left him some money, so he very smartly purchased a home and purchased
a small storefront and started Wyatt Earp Records. It was a very small room, and
he didn’t keep lots of inventory. What he would do, though, is special order
things for you. Scott was already a complete vinyl junkie, and when he found out
about Wyatt Earp Records, that’s pretty much where we spent all our time, be-
cause we could read about something in a magazine or fanzine and go, “Doug,
can you get it?” and he would get on the phone to his distributors, and we would
have it within a week. That was amazing. It was like that for years. And Doug
naturally became involved in the underground music scene in Flint, and every-
one went to Doug to get their punk, their metal and their underground this and
that. So when we went to do our album, he’d always liked us as, you know,

people, and liked Repulsion because of its uniqueness and bizarreness, and so
when we asked him . . . uh, I’m not sure if we asked him or if he offered it up.
But he readily offered up money.
What are your most vivid memories of the studio?

Hollingshead: I was stuck in this little room, and trying to watch Matt play
through this little window so I could try to keep time with what was going on.
Freeman: When we initially went over to [engineer] Larry Hennessey’s
house, and we were sitting in his living room and he was really pushing a drum
machine. I don’t know if he thought he could program these drums or some-
thing—he was basically the only engineer with a studio within our budget. I re-
member Scott doing his vocals screaming into a PCM mic stuck to a piece of
glass, making all these retarded faces, and Dave sitting in this other room blast-
ing his heart out. We were all pretty excited.
Carlson: When I started to cut the vocals, the engineer fell out of his chair
laughing. I think the first song that I did was “Black Breath,” and he was sitting
in there with Olivo and he literally fell off his chair and was rolling around
laughing when I started singing. So that didn’t really make me feel all that com-
fortable, but luckily Matt and Aaron were there, so I just looked at them and
went for it.
Olivo: When Scott did his vocals for Horrified, he really pulled out all the
stops and came to do something special, because I’d never heard him scream
like that. I mean, he just went off. If you were in the studio, you would’ve seen
someone singing the lyrics to their songs as if their life depended on it. It was
very remarkable to me, and I’d been his friend for years. It was amazing.
Carlson: Leading up to the recording of the record, I had been sort of work-
ing on my vocal style. I was always really self-conscious of how deep my voice
is when I was younger, so I was always trying to raise it up. My favorite singer
back then was Jeff Becerra from Possessed—that was the guy that I was really
into, him and Cronos. But not long before we went into the studio, I got strep
throat. And I kept practicing. As soon as I got well enough to sing again, we just
kept practicing, and I didn’t really let my voice heal properly. And it just kind of
changed after that, and I was able to get into a higher register. I definitely pushed
it further in the studio, but my voice sounded different—forever—after that.
Who recorded the album?

Freeman: His name was Larry Hennessey and he was a friend of a friend
who had a home studio, working in radio, doing commercials—and I think he
was a DJ or something, too.
78 SCARED TO DEATH
Olivo: We went into this guy’s basement studio, Larry Hennessey, which
nowadays would probably be perceived as a really great rapper name. He was
this stoned-out dude with long hair. You think we’d all get along, but he was
kind of a snob for some reason. He was a total burnout, but he was snobbish the
whole time and laughed at Scott’s vocals, and was made ill by his bass sound, and
didn’t understand the drums. He just threw up the mics on everything and we
got in and got out. Three to four days, total. I seem to remember one to two
days tracking drums, one to two days on guitars and vocals. It was very, very
quick.
Carlson: The drums were in the utility room, and I think Matt was standing
in the control room, and I was in the little room in between where Dave was and
Matt was. And we tracked everything—bass, drums and guitar—like that. And
then we went back and I know we re-recorded all the guitars from the scratch
tracks. And the bass was re-recorded, but lost.
Olivo: Scott made a scratch bass track by plugging his bass into a Boss dis-
tortion pedal directly into the recording console, and then we went right to tape
with it, and it was supposed to be scratch—why we bothered to do that, I don’t
know. Maybe Larry read in Mix Magazine that it was a good idea or something.
Anyway, the sound that came out was this . . . insane fuzz; we ended up keep-
ing it on some of the songs and I can’t remember why. So the bass that you hear
before “Festering Boils” is a direct-to-console recording. That’s why it sounds so
fuzzy and gnarly—because it was a direct signal.
Carlson: I don’t want to incriminate [Larry], but he was doing a little smok-
ing when we were recording the album, and I’m not exactly sure how experienced
he was, but he blew over some of the bass tracks when we were overdubbing
guitar solos, so the rough mix that got circulated back in ’86 has a different bass
track on it than the one that’s on the finished product. The bass that’s on the
album is the scratch track, which is basically just a distortion pedal plugged di-
rectly into a DI [direct in] box that went straight into the board. Luckily, I
recorded it with distortion or else we’d have no bass on the album.
What gear did you play?

Hollingshead: Tama Rockstar, from the early ’80s, brandy wine color, beat to
hell.
Olivo: Vantage Flying V guitar with DiMarzio Power Plus pickup; Marshall
Mark II 100-watt head; a total no-name 4x12 cabinet; an Ibanez Tube Screamer,
one of the original ones.
Freeman: Sunn Beta Lead 100-watt head; a homemade 4x12 cabinet; Gib-
son Flying V; Boss Super OverDrive.

Carlson: I never owned a bass cabinet in Repulsion—borrowed from a friend;
Acoustic bass head; Squier P Bass.
Ø
PART III: INFECTING THE SCENE
Me and the guitarist of Dishonorable Discharge/ex–After the Bombs decided to get our Horri-
fied tattoos. I took the logo and he took the face. So when we meet, we can actually be the
Horrified album cover! When we met Dave Grave at the Skitsystem gig at Garage Oslo last year,
we could actually show him this “circus trick.” What a fuckin’ freak I am.
—FENRIZ, DARKTHRONE
My fondest memory about Horrified is blasting the album in my walkman on the way to school.
It efficiently blocked out the noise of other kids on the bus and eventually blew my ears to hell!
Alongside early Napalm Death and Carcass, Horrified remains a grindcore milestone and, to me,
a true classic I’ll forever enjoy.
—DIRK VERBEUREN, SOILWORK
You circulated the recording, but labels were unresponsive. In that frustrating
three-year interim, how did you not give up?
Olivo: We did give up! We recorded it and said, “OK, this is our demo, this
is the Slaughter of the Innocent demo.” We made a cassette demo and we traded
it and sold it, and our friends, Shane [Embury of Napalm Death] and people like
that, eventually got it. We had critical acclaim from people we respected, and we
were really happy with that. But back then, labels were way more interested in
bands that sounded like Exodus and Death and stuff like that. So, yeah, we
weren’t going to get a record deal. [Laughs] I think we probably hung around for
another year or so after it was recorded, and then we started going our separate
ways. Scott became more interested in playing a different kind of music, I started
thinking about joining the service, Dave actually joined the Army, Aaron had a
kid, so it fell apart pretty quickly. Repulsion was only together for like a year, you
know. And then it was done.
Freeman: At that point, Matt had already joined the Army, Dave was in the
Army, Scott and I were working together at some factory; so at the time the
band was pretty much done. We sent it out and didn’t really get a response—
got a few rejection letters—and we were just getting burned out on it. It wasn’t
going anywhere, no one was picking it up and we couldn’t figure out why. I don’t
know if we were just too far out there or what—there weren’t too many bands
doing that back then.
80 SCARED TO DEATH
Then the album was finally picked up after Repulsion had disbanded. How did
that happen?
Carlson: Around the time we recorded it, I had done so much groundwork,
like sending out demos and making contacts—I was obsessed with that whole
scene, that’s all I did. I used to run my parents’ phone bill up calling people in
California to talk about music.
Freeman: We’d be hanging out at a friend’s house and Scott would have to
run home to flip the tape over of a demo he was duping, start a new tape.
[Laughs]
Carlson: At one point the mail that was coming back to us just got to be so
overwhelming that I couldn’t deal with it anymore. And one day I took a garbage
bag full of unanswered letters over to Aaron’s house and said, “Here, you can do
the mail now.” And at the time he was enthusiastic about doing it, so I was really
happy to put it off on somebody else. Because back then it wasn’t about shoot-
ing an email off to somebody; it was opening letters and handwriting a reply and
stamping them and taking them to the post office. So I think all that mail sort
of snowballed into those guys in England getting their hands on the demo. I re-
member Shane [Embury] writing me a letter when he was a kid, and it was very
naïve where he just kind of honestly said, “Hey, we just heard you guys and we’re
totally changing the sound of the band.” I completely forgot about it until the day
when I was working at a record store and this kid I was working with slapped on
the first Napalm Death record and I heard that intro—what’s that song?—and
my first thought was that it was just a bizarre coincidence that somebody came
up with the same riff, and then I heard the duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-
duh, and I ran over and grabbed the sleeve and started examining it, and I was
calling all the guys in the band and saying, “You’re not going to believe this!”
Freeman: Initially, Digby [Pearson] from Earache called me, and Shane and
I were corresponding a lot back then. I got a letter from Shane and he said he
was pushing Dig to put out Horrified; I really didn’t think anything of it. So,
sometime in early ’89, I got a call from Dig and he wanted to put it out. I didn’t
know what to think, so I passed it by Scott and Scott said, “Yeah, let’s do it.”
Carlson: At the same time, Bill [Steer] and Jeff [Walker of Carcass] were
starting a label and they wanted to put it out. Jeff was trying to get this label off
the ground, and he went to Dig and they both agreed to put it out on Necrosis.
Freeman: I got back with Dig and he was willing to send over some cash to
remix it. So initially we had a guy, the engineer who did the Slaughter of the In-
nocent demo, we were going to have him do it, and he agreed to do it, and then
once we got the cash from Dig, the original engineer was nowhere to be found.
So Scott hooked up with a guy named Jonas—how he got hooked up with him,
I don’t know. Scott and I went down there and did the best we could on it.

Olivo: I went to Germany in the Army. I was just hanging out one day and
I got a package that looked like a record from Aaron, and I opened it up and I
could not believe my eyes. It was on Earache Records, too—a label I thought
would be perfect for us. And I was, like, “Wow, this is amazing.”
And they changed the name of the album from Slaughter of the Innocent to
Horrified?
Carlson: Oh, that was my idea. The concept I had for the cover, initially, was
different. It was supposed to be a kind of comic book, and I just thought that the
Horrified title fit it better. The lettering on the cover I did myself, and it’s sup-
posed to look like an old E.C. comic.
Olivo: As far as I know, the original Horrified cover art, the head, was an
homage drawing that Scott had done to an old, I think, E.C. comic book—there
was a panel in a comic book of a kid that was all burned up or something like
that.
Freeman: Initially the cover art wasn’t that head. We let another guy do the
cover for us—his name was Mike Grossklaus; he also did some of the layout
stuff on the album, too—and I don’t know if Necrosis didn’t think it was good
enough or if the head was a better choice, which looking back I think it was.
Carlson: I drew the original illustration. I believe Jeff Walker is the artist
who did the cover, even though he didn’t take credit for it. It looks like he just
took a Xerox of the sticker and blew it up and painted over it. I don’t think he
realized my idea was for it to be a burned-up kid, and he made it look like a rot-
ten, green zombie. [Laughs] I took it mostly from a comic book called Twisted
Tales, you know, I just redid it and changed a few things. There was a story in a
Twisted Tales comic book about a burned-up kid who comes back from the dead
on Halloween and goes trick-or-treating.
Freeman: That’s our Eddie, I guess.
Ø
PART IV: THE AFTERMATH
Taking Slayer and Death to the next level was what Genocide [later to become Repulsion] did.
Two thumbs-up for what was a big influence for me and early Napalm Death— Horrified!
—MICK HARRIS, NAPALM DEATH
My first experience with Repulsion’s Horrified was at Tomas [Lindberg]’s house almost 20 years
ago. That was also my first contact with grindcore/death metal in general. I instantly liked the
rawness it offered—almost like punk, but way more brutal. A classic band that will always be
safe in my future record collection.
—ANDERS BJÖRLER, THE HAUNTED/AT THE GATES
82 SCARED TO DEATH
What was the response to the album after its release?
Freeman: I really didn’t hear too much about it. I’m sure in Europe it might
have done better than here in the U.S. We really didn’t get any reports on how
good or bad it was doing. Always seemed to get a good review, though. At that
time I think I was drifting away from that style of music, too.
Olivo: It was pretty positive. We had friends like Chuck Schuldiner, and
our friends in Slaughter up in Toronto—I’m not quite sure if those guys got it.
[Laughs] The sound that people were so into in that day was Death and
Possessed—very metallic and theatrical and thrashy—but what we were doing
sounded like a chainsaw and an anvil. And it wasn’t really musical—it wasn’t ap-
parent that it was musical to some people. But the people who got it, loved it;
they just loved the shit out of it. It just wasn’t very wide.
But it was only a matter of time—at what point did you realize the influence it
would have on extreme metal?
Hollingshead: That would’ve been the ’90s when Relapse picked it up.
Olivo: That came after we would read in interviews with Napalm and Car-
cass and Entombed. It was a delayed reaction—it wasn’t immediate. I think one
of the reasons was that it influenced people who were influential—and because
we weren’t around anymore. It was like a secret people could have, like, “Man,
these guys were around for one fucking album.”
Freeman: I think when we initially got back together, which was 1990, we
started getting a little mail, and the show that we did in Buffalo—that was our
first really big show outside of Flint. The place was just packed and, of course,
everybody was going apeshit, wanting to meet us, wanting to talk to us. It was
really strange. [Laughs] From playing little hall shows in Flint where you know
everybody to somewhere where you don’t know everybody and they’re coming
up to you.
Carlson: As much as Napalm Death walk around professing Repulsion—if
it wasn’t for Repulsion—we could say the same thing about them. You know, if
it wasn’t for Napalm Death and Entombed, nobody would know about Repul-
sion; it would’ve been completely obscure. They definitely put us on the map.
Only musicians and a few tape-traders knew about us. Whatever Napalm Death
and Carcass and Entombed and all these bands took from us, they gave back to
us in spades.
In retrospect, how do you think Horrified holds up? Would you change anything?
Freeman: No, I don’t think I would change anything. It’s good the way it is.
It shows the raw intensity of the band as a whole. And looking back, I think we
maybe should have left the feedback in on the vinyl mix, I don’t know.

Carlson: I think the fact that it’s such a basic recording, and the songs are so
simple, it gives it a sort of timeless quality that triggered drums and seven-string
guitars can’t really—not to knock that stuff, it’s just very of the moment. I don’t
think you listen to Horrified and go, “Oh, it’s an ’80s record!” The idea was to
make the ultimate death metal album of the time. And that has something to
do with it—at the time it was the ultimate death metal album. It was recorded
around the time of Reign in Blood and some other amazing records, but it’s far
more extreme. Obviously, the recording isn’t as good. If Rick Rubin had recorded
Horrified, I dare say it would be a lot more influential than it is now.
Hollingshead: I don’t know—I mean there are some mess-ups on there that
Scott had to cover with a scream or something like that. If I could do it over—
like, the whole album, with what I can do now on a drum set—I’d probably be
more pleased with it. For what it is, it’s—well, it is what it is. [Laughs]
Olivo: I don’t think any of [the songs] hold up in terms of sounding modern
then or sounding modern now. It all sounds pretty dated. We were really influ-
enced by punk music, like the chorus would just be a repetition of the name of
the song over and over. We love that. That was our punk influence and our rock
’n’ roll influence. So I think when you listen to Repulsion songs, some of them
are really, really catchy. When you hear “You are rotting, maggots in your cof-
fin,” it has a certain rhythmic punchiness to it—it still feels like a song as op-
posed to some of the bands of those times, and it’s such a general thing to say.
There’s just a lot of bands when you listen to them many years later, if they’re
not Slayer or the others—real leaders—that sound really derivative.
Carlson: Most of the recordings I’ve done over the years, I don’t go back and
listen to. But every once in a while, I can listen to Horrified.
Olivo: It’s still amazing to me. You only spend a year of your life on some-
thing, and it’s still hanging around.
84 SCARED TO DEATH
CHAPTER 7
IMMORTAL RIGHTS
THE MAKING OF MORBID ANGEL’S ALTARS OF MADNESS

by J. Bennett
Release Date: 1989
Label: Earache
Summary: Death metal game-changer
Induction Date: April 2006/Issue #18
T
he sweltering heat and merciless humidity of mid-to-late ’80s Florida
proved a fertile breeding ground for a burgeoning genre that would an-
nounce itself to the world as death metal. Led by Chuck Schuldiner and
Death, the DM Army proliferated quickly, as bands like Obituary, Deicide and
Morbid Angel emerged full-grown from the Floridian swamplands to compete
for the title of Fastest, Heaviest or Most Technical Band on Earth. Morbid
Angel guitarist and mastermind Trey Azagthoth would settle for no less than all
three on his band’s 1989 debut, Altars of Madness. After recording—and shelv-
ing—the Abominations of Desolation LP in 1986 with Altars guitarist Richard
85
Brunelle and an assortment of other musicians who were summarily fired,
Azagthoth and Brunelle hooked up with bassist/vocalist David Vincent and
Terrorizer drummer Pete Sandoval, and prepared to tear death metal a steam-
ing new asshole with unorthodox time signatures, dizzying arrangements and
hallucinogenic shredding. Forgoing the gore-bore lyrical style favored by many
of their peers, Vincent and Azagthoth pored over the Necronomicon (“The Book
of Dead Names”)—an allegedly ancient occult text that H.P. Lovecraft (who
probably authored the book himself in the late 1920s) claimed was written in
730 AD by “the Mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred—while Sandoval honed his
double-bass chops. In early 1989, Morbid Angel entered Morrisound Studios in
Tampa to record Altars of Madness, an album that would turn death metal both
upside down and inside out.
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the recording sessions
for Altars?
Richard Brunelle: The first thing that pops into my mind is probably that it
was one of the most awesome times of my life. I was living the life of a blessed
musician, and I was making my dreams come true. I loved being around the
guys—they were probably the sickest bunch of guys around, especially in Tampa.
We were playing music that, at that time, there were a few bands around doing
it, but it hadn’t reached the whole world yet.
Pete Sandoval: It was my first experience in a professional studio, and I didn’t
know what to expect. But we had a plan, you know? We practiced, and we were
ready, but I was still very young—like my early 20s, I would say—and I didn’t
know the other guys too well. I was new in the band, so I was still pretty shy. I
would do just about anything they would tell me to do in order to make the
music better. But the studio is a challenge, physically and mentally, because
recording is a lot different than live performances. There was a lot of pressure be-
cause I knew I had to deliver.
David Vincent: I don’t wanna say it was a trial run, but it kinda was. It wasn’t
a super-high budget, and as prepared as you think you might be, you never are.
But I feel really good about that album. We worked real, real hard to get to that
point, and we were definitely ready to do a record. I’m really pleased that every-
thing came together when it finally did. I mean, we got rejected by so many la-
bels. It was always, “Slow it down—it’s too fast,” or “You should have more
melodic leads, more melodic vocals,” or it was a problem with the subject mat-
ter—it was just one excuse after the other. In fact, one label sent us a rejection
letter—and I still have it—that said, “After listening to your tape, all we can say
is that you do for music what King Herod did for babysitting.”
86 IMMORTAL RIGHTS
With so many bands emerging at the same time—Morbid Angel, Obituary, Death,
Deicide, Cannibal Corpse—the Floridian death metal scene seemed like a compet-
itive atmosphere. Were you concerned about being the fastest, the heaviest?
Trey Azagthoth: Back then, I really wanted to destroy everybody. I wanted
people to have to work a lot harder after the fans witnessed what we had going
on. I wanted to smoke people. I really believed that bands were challenging each
other, trying to outdo each other and make each other quit—almost like the ri-
valries with East Coast and West Coast rappers. I really kind of thought people
wanted to write parts that would engulf the whole world. I wanted to get on-
stage and have people go, “Holy shit—what the fuck is going on?” I wanted to
write stuff that would make other bands run and hide. It’s not really very nice,
but that’s what drove me. [Laughs] I never wanted to shoot anybody, though.
Brunelle: It was frustrating in a way, because we were playing stuff that was
so fast and intricate, yet the tempo patterns made it sound slower than it actu-
ally was. We were really doing stuff that nobody else was doing at that time, but
some songs didn’t sound as fast as they really were because they were in 3/4 tim-
ing instead of 4/4 timing. When you start getting into double time as opposed
to 1-2-3, 1-2-3-time, it has a whole different feel. A lot of the grindcore bands
were doing real fast 4/4, and it was frustrating because we really wanted to be
the fastest.
Vincent: You have to remember that this was back before death metal was
even something that would be dreamed of having any validity whatsoever. It
was really a groundbreaking thing. In all fairness, we were very confident that we
would do well with it, just because we had the strength and the focus within the
band to marshal this thing through. You get told “No” so many times, and some
people take rejection as, you know, maybe that makes people start questioning
themselves—but we were empowered by that. It strengthened our resolve to
push things further. And there were a lot of people who said no, who, once they
saw what Altars and the subsequent recordings did, probably wish they would’ve
said yes.
Trey and Richard recorded the Abominations of Desolation album with differ-
ent band members prior to Altars, but they weren’t very happy with it, so it didn’t
come out until years later. When you went in to do Altars, was there anything spe-
cific you were trying to avoid, based on your Abominations experience?
Brunelle: Well, with that kind of music, it’s really difficult to hear everybody
while you’re playing. Trey envisioned the music a certain way, and when we got
in there for Abominations, it wasn’t quite coming out like he had envisioned it—
including my parts. I had to go back after that and relearn all my picking; I had
The Making of Morbid Angel’s Altars of Madness 87

to basically go relearn guitar. It was like that way for everyone after Abominations,
actually—except Trey. He had his parts down. He knew exactly what he wanted.
Azagthoth: Most of the songs [on Altars] were recorded on Abominations of
Desolation—I think we did that in like ’86 or something, so certainly some riffs
changed and stuff, but mostly it was just timings and drumbeats. We were able
to get more out of Pete than we had on the earlier thing, but everybody grew and
expanded, too.
Brunelle: We recorded Abominations with another drummer, Mike Brown-
ing, and we went through a couple other bass players. Then we met David Vin-
cent, and he invited Trey up to North Carolina to continue Morbid Angel with
him. I got invited, too, so Trey and I went up there, and that’s where our musi-
cal foundation really took place. When we were in Tampa, it wasn’t really pos-
sible for Trey’s vision to come true. By moving to Charlotte, it was able to take
shape, because that’s when David and eventually Pete came into our lives.
You recorded Altars at Morrisound, which would eventually become a legendary

studio for death metal.
Vincent: We went to Morrisound because we lived in Tampa, you know? It
was the preeminent studio at the time, and it still is. The staff there was very
helpful, too, but you know, people latch onto things—whether it’s producers, or
labels or studios. Yeah, Obituary recorded there, but they also live in Florida.
Deicide recorded there, but they also live in Florida. But then next thing you
know, there were a lot of bands coming because Morrisound had the reputation
as the place you wanted to go to record this type of music. I’ve always believed
that any competent engineer with good equipment could do it, but, you know,
reputation goes a long way. And good for them—they made a lot of money off
of it over the years.
Brunelle: It was really professional, you know, but time is money in that place.
You’re paying a lot of money to go in there, so you had to just go in and bust out
your stuff. There wasn’t really any partying or visiting or anything like that going
on. Occasionally, we’d have a magazine come down for a photo session or some-
thing, but it was pretty much right down to business. The people there were
very helpful and easy to work with, and they were good at hearing stuff and
knowing what was right and what was wrong, even though they didn’t have a
great understanding of death metal at that time.
Were you well rehearsed before you went into the studio?
Sandoval: Yeah, but it was hard for me, because I had to learn to play like a
death metal drummer. Before that, it was all grind—with one foot. I was in L.A.,
jamming with Jesse Pintado and Oscar Garcia in Terrorizer, but not doing much
88 IMMORTAL RIGHTS
because grindcore didn’t really exist and death metal was just being born. I’d
never played double-bass before I joined Morbid Angel in 1988, so that was a
learning experience before we went into the studio. I only had like two and a half
months to learn double-bass and how to play all the songs—like “Blasphemy,”
“Maze of Torment” . . . so to learn double-bass like that, in that amount of time,
was a big challenge. In the first month and a half, I think I quit like three times,
because I thought I couldn’t do it. But those guys pushed me, like, “C’mon—we
know you can do it.” And one day, after like a month and a half, the magic hap-
pened. I guess practice makes perfect.
Brunelle: I was pretty much along for the ride. I was just in awe of Trey. He
was a god, and I was doing everything I could to keep up with him at that time.
I could have [kept up] if I had lived my life differently, but it was almost like
being a running back for an NFL team, you know? You gotta totally work out
every day. Trey has muscles in his arms that I couldn’t even begin to describe. In
the time it’d take me to learn one song that he wrote, he’d write three more
songs.
Azagthoth: That record has so many riffs, and the way they’re played today
has a little more fullness. Back then, everything was kinda rushed and fast, so it
didn’t really come together as well, I guess, as far as the atmosphere and trippi-
ness. I really wanted a feeling of like going backward or playing sideways and
dragging—just all these weird feelings that I wanted to put in the music that I
think later albums have. But I think that record had more cool riffs than any
other record anyone’s ever done, if you count ’em. There’s probably, I don’t know,
50 or 100 riffs on that record, it seems like to me. I didn’t want just a couple of
cool riffs and a bunch of filler in each song—I wanted parts where there’s actu-
ally singing over complicated riffs rather than an easy riff for the vocals.
The credits say “Produced by Dig and Morbid Angel.” What did [Earache Records
founder] Digby Pearson do to earn a production credit?
Azagthoth: As far as I remember, he gave input about different things, but I
think he just wanted to be there because we were one of his earlier bands, and I
guess he was just excited to come to America and hang out.
Vincent: I’d say Digby executive-produced it. He paid for it. He fronted the
money.
Sandoval: Digby was there, and I think he had something to do with the
production, but I’m not sure. Back then, he had bands like Napalm Death, Car-
cass and Bolt Thrower, you know . . . but a lot of those bands didn’t go too far.
I mean, what can I say?
Brunelle: He was in the studio the whole time, and he’d give advice or some-
thing on stuff that he thought sounded good. If I had a lick or something that

I was unsure of, he’d give it the thumbs-up—stuff like that. If we were spend-
ing too much time on something because it wasn’t coming out the way we
wanted it to, he would sorta say, “That’s good enough for me,” you know? We
would sometimes get carried away with wanting things to be too perfect, so he
helped out a lot. We respected the fact that he was the record company helping
us out, so we respected his opinion.
Where did the lyrical ideas come from?

Vincent: Mostly [H.P.] Lovecraft-type stuff—Necronomicon, definitely—and
in some ways adding a little bit of real-world things just to tie it in for reference.
“Lord of All Fevers & Plague,” for example, is straight Necronomicon incanta-
tions. I was really super into Lovecraft at the time, and a lot of people attribute
the Necronomicon to him, but his whole doctrine of the Cthulhu mythos is, you
know, some of the names are spelled or pronounced a little differently, but it’s the
same “Unspeakable Ones, the Ancient Ones, the Old Ones”—there’s a lot of
parallelism there. I read a lot, and I’d always been into the occult, even from an
early age. Everybody in the band was. The type of inter-band humor that we’d
have was often like, we’d get a rejection letter and go, “Oh, the Ancient Ones are
just challenging us.” We’d find a way to bring it back to something that we could
rally around.
Azagthoth: The Necronomicon was really interesting—I got a lot of inspiration
from it at the time. I wanted the songs to be like incantations, like a ceremony
with the music setting the mood and the lyrics invoking the energy of a spirit or
something. Rather than narrating the situation, I wanted it to actually be the sit-
uation in real time. I thought that would be the most dramatic, powerful ap-
proach. “Bleed for the Devil,” for example, was mostly invoking as opposed to
narrating. But some songs tell stories, and others are actual real-time rituals. I
was into real-time rituals, rather than just talking about people having rituals.
Sandoval: I’ve never been a lyric type of guy—I’ve always just been concerned
with the drums and the melody. But when I heard songs like “Maze of Tor-
ment,” “Immortal Rites,” “Suffocation,” “Damnation”—all those fucking classic
songs, who gives a damn what the lyrics are about? The lyrics were powerful no
matter what, but I didn’t pay too much attention, to be honest with you. I know
the first couple of albums were very, very satanic, though.
Brunelle: I loved the lyrics—I thought they were great. They gave me power;
they gave me energy. And I loved that there were foreign words in there—words
that only we understood unless somebody happened to look into the Necronom-
icon. That book was really twisted and sick, and it really appealed to me and
Trey. It was so foul and anti-life. It was against everything that had to do with
this world. To us, it seemed like the ultimate in rebellion, because the Satanic
90 IMMORTAL RIGHTS
Bible and stuff like that still kinda cherished life somewhat, but the Necronomi-
con just wanted death to everything.
Did you have all the guitar solos worked out beforehand, or did you improvise cer-
tain parts?
Brunelle: Everything was pretty much worked out. I’d write a basic lead, but
I wouldn’t write an exact lead as much as Trey would. I’d always kinda just play
until I found something that I liked and that everybody agreed on.
Azagthoth: I had a few patterns worked out, but you know, back then I didn’t
really have a lot of time to spend on my soloing. I’d actually like to go back and
have more time to do better solos, because they’re a little too painful for what I
would’ve liked them to be. But that’s just the way it goes. Some people like them
the way they are—all atonal and painful-sounding and all that—but I’m more
into flowing solos, like on our last record, Heretic. There’re some painful ele-
ments to those solos, but then there’s still a lot of nice flowing going on. It’s just
a different approach to the guitar, I guess—different scales, matching certain
types of riffs to rhythms and stuff. I’ve got much better solos for all those songs
now, anyway—at least for the ones we play live. Like for instance, the solo on
“Chapel of Ghouls”; on the record it’s one way, but live it’s completely different.
It has a lot more cool parts. Nowadays, “Lord of All Fevers & Plague” has one
solo with all this really cool tapping across a big three-octave scale. Back then,
Richard actually played that solo spot on the record.
How did you end up choosing Dan Seagrave’s art for the album cover?
Vincent: When I flew over to England to deliver the masters, Dan had sub-
mitted that piece. I can’t remember if it was completely finished, but it was already
in his portfolio. I saw it and I was like, “That’s it. That’s what we need.” I can’t re-
member if we just ran with it, or if we discussed it afterwards, but it really seemed
like a no-brainer. It’s this heaving earth with a billion different personalities.
Azagthoth: I don’t know—I guess it looked cool. I thought some of the faces
looked stupid, but overall I thought it was pretty cool for the time.
Sandoval: I think it was perfect—it’s the earth, but it’s full of faces. It made
an impact, and I think most people liked it. A lot of people have even got tat-
toos on their body of those faces on the cover.
What’s your favorite song on the album?

Sandoval: That’s hard, but I would say “Maze of Torment,” back then, had
a very nice feeling to me. I like “Visions From the Dark Side,” too—that song
had some pretty cool riffs. Favorite song, though? I can’t tell you. The thing is,
that album is full of hits.

Brunelle: I’d say “Immortal Rites,” because it has a classical feel to it, a
bigger-than-life feeling. It makes me feel like there’s more than just music, like
it’s an expression of the heavens.
Azagthoth: I like all those songs, but I think they’re all done so much better
now when we play them live. As far as songs and riffing and the ideas, I thought
they were all good songs. When I wrote them, I wanted stuff that was really ag-
gressive and extreme, but I wanted to have really trippy timings—stuff that was
swinging and offbeat. But on that record, everything pretty much had a straight-
line aggression, because that was the type of drummer Pete was. Later on, we got
a lot more grooving, so later albums were more balanced. Altars had those parts,
but they just weren’t played like that. Now those songs have more contrast. But
we did the best we could. It was some pretty rough stuff, and it was pretty unique
for that time. I think it’s still unique, actually—I think the riffing and the
arrangements are still unique to the genre.
Vincent: I like all the songs. There’re some we haven’t played for a long, long
time—you can’t play every song from every album when you do a live set. People
would be bleeding after four or five hours of music. I like “Visions From the
Dark Side” and “Immortal Rites” a lot, though. Actually, “Immortal Rites” may
be one of my favorite tracks on the record. There was tons of pot smoking dur-
ing the writing of that song. I can’t say that I really smoke that much anymore,
but when we were doing these records, we were all constantly smoking pot.
It seems like there’s always been a psychedelic element to Morbid Angel—was that
something you were thinking about when you were writing the Altars songs?
Azagthoth: Oh yeah, I think about psychedelic stuff all the time when I’m
writing. I was really into Pink Floyd, but what I enjoyed about it was proba-
bly different than what most people liked about it. I was drawn to the feeling
of things—like a guitar player using some effect and not even playing some
proper scale. That would make me see things in a different way—it was some-
thing that transcended a bunch of notes on a piece of paper. When I write
riffs and rhythms, it just turns out differently, you know? In a lot of ways, it
goes to back to why I even wanted to play guitar. When I was a fan, I had an
idea that certain guitar players were the best, and the riffs on their records
were ones that no one could play but them. I know it’s not really like that—
the reality is that when someone can’t tour, there’s 20 people waiting to fill
their shoes. I don’t think anyone can play my stuff right, but maybe they can.
I’ll put it this way, though: When Randy Rhoads died, I thought there was no
way they’d get anyone as cool as that to replace him, and then they got that
Bernie Tormé guy, and he supposedly played all the solos fine. I thought that
92 IMMORTAL RIGHTS
was weird—I thought Randy was the only guy who could play those solos. I
know that’s not right, but I was a kid then, and I’m still kind of a kid at heart,
so that’s how I look at stuff. Back in the day, I’d listen to music and think the
guitar player was doing way more than he really was. What I thought was the
guitar was really the guitar, bass and drums all together. That sounds silly, but
it was actually very useful, because it made me become a very percussive gui-
tar player. I guess I just think about things differently than most people, but
I’m just being me.
In the liner notes on the Altars reissue, you mention that you had already aban-
doned traditional musical scales by the time you wrote those songs.
Azagthoth: Oh, totally—there’s hardly any kind of scales going on in that
record. I just didn’t have enough time to get the best out of me for the solos. I like
to have an environment where I’m just there by myself, and it doesn’t happen
when people are bothering me or looking at me or whatever. I could’ve done a lot
better, even with what I knew on guitar back then. A lot of people take a scale,
put some theory behind it and that’s their lead, whereas I would just pick an area
on the guitar and play it without really looking at it. I’d connect it in a different
way. I think a lot of the solos on that record were pretty jagged-sounding—they
weren’t as flowing as I would have liked them to be, but I think that’s because I
just wasn’t able to get in the right state of mind.
Why did you decide to do remixes of “Blasphemy,” “Maze of Torment” and “Chapel
of Ghouls”?
Vincent: They’re not really remixes—they’re more like alternate mixes. It’s
not the easiest music in the world to mix, you know? Everything is on 10, and
it’s all at once. To try and pull out articulation in and amongst the different in-
struments is a challenge, so when it came to the mixdown, we tried a few dif-
ferent things. Dig felt like maybe he wanted to have some extra stuff for the CD
version, because this was right when CDs were coming out on the market, and
they were more expensive than cassettes. “Lord of All Fevers & Plague” is not
on the vinyl or the cassette, either.
Brunelle: I think we had the opportunity to see if we could make it better, so
we tried it, and decided to leave it to the listeners to decide. It was also an op-
portunity for me to improve some of my leads, and I think a couple of them
came out a little bit better on the remixes.
Sandoval: I think the drums were a little bit louder on the remixes. That was
the only difference, I think. It doesn’t really do anything for me, though, be-
cause I play those songs differently now, and they’re much faster live.

When did you start to notice the influence or impact Altars had on other bands?
Vincent: I don’t know that I was tuned into it. We kinda did our own thing—
we were off in left field. Prior to the record coming out, we were kinda into the
whole underground scene, the tape-trading and stuff, but once things started
rolling for us, we just didn’t have the time to do that anymore. So I don’t know
that we spent a lot of time thinking about what other people were doing. But
taking all of our stuff as a package—not just this record—and thinking about
what kind of impact Morbid Angel had, I probably didn’t even really consider
or realize it until I rejoined the band [in 2004]. We just did what felt good to us,
so we didn’t consider a lot of things. If somebody ever said, “Well, I wonder
what somebody’s gonna think about this,” one of us would always go, “I don’t
give a shit.” We just wanted to play music. It’s not like we could say we were
part of such-and-such a club. There wasn’t one. That came later. But if I listen
to different bands, I can hear Morbid Angel, and it’s kind of a compliment.
Sandoval: Well, not just Altars of Madness, but the whole Morbid Angel thing,
you know? And a lot of people will tell me that if it wasn’t for me, they would
not be playing drums. I don’t know why they say that, but the only thing I saw
is that death metal became popular in 1990, and that’s when it started to get
ruined. A lot of the bands just sounded the same. That’s why I don’t even listen
to death metal.
Azagthoth: I don’t know—I think by the time that Blessed [Are the Sick] came
out, there were some bands that expressed that they were motivated by some of
the things on Altars, or even the Thy Kingdom Come demo that came out in ’87
or ’88. Some people think Altars of Madness is our best record, and they love
everything the way it is, and probably wish that we’d play it exactly the way it is
on the record—which we don’t.
Brunelle: There was a lot of competition back then, and everything was hap-
pening pretty fast. We were struggling to make a name for ourselves and find our
niche. I personally didn’t realize at the time what was happening. It was fun; we
were doing what I wanted to do, there were a lot of people praising us for it and
I was really enjoying it.
In retrospect, is there anything you’d change about the album?

Sandoval: If we recorded the album over again, the songs would be tighter.
Back then, I wasn’t very experienced, but now I know what it takes to get a good
sound. I don’t think I’d change anything, though. Back then, you know, there
were none of these computers that could fix drums. On Altars and the first Ter-
rorizer album, everything you hear is what I hit. There wasn’t any cheating going
on. Nowadays, you can take a part of a song, and use the same drums on another
94 IMMORTAL RIGHTS
part. Back then, it wasn’t just about playing fast; it was about having the stam-
ina to last.
Brunelle: Well, one thing that I’d definitely change is that I would’ve worked
a lot harder to stay with those guys. Those were some of the best times of my life,
and sometimes people don’t realize what they’ve got until it’s too late. I am so
honored to have been in that situation. I was given an opportunity to be a part
of history, and I am so thankful to Morbid Angel for giving me that opportunity.
Azagthoth: I’m always so critical of stuff—I always want it to be better. And
that goes for every album, including Altars. It’s hard to find a comfort zone, but
I think that’s part of my nature. It’s tougher as it goes on, too. On the first record,
the sky was the limit, because we hadn’t done anything. At this point, I’ve writ-
ten 80 or 100 songs, and every time I do something, I want it to be unique, so
I’ve had to dig really deep. It gets tougher and tougher to come up with some-
thing that’s gonna outdo it. I want everything in my life to be over-the-top, or
I can’t bother with it. But once you’ve already done stuff over-the-top, it’s hard
to be over-the-top yet again.
Vincent: I don’t even wanna answer that question, because it would be rewrit-
ing history. Yeah, if we re-recorded the album, it would come out better sonically,
but everything’s an experiment, you know? That’s the beauty of art. We did it,
we made it happen and it opened up a lot of doors and opportunities for us, as
well as a lot of other bands. I think it was the kindling that started the forest fire.
It’s an important record. When we saw the finished package, we were elated.
We knew chumps would be silenced.

CHAPTER 8
MEMORIES REMAIN
THE MAKING OF OBITUARY’S CAUSE OF DEATH
by Kory Grow
Release Date: 1990
Label: Roadrunner
Summary: Guttural incoherence + wild solos = DM classic
Induction Date: May 2007/Issue #31
W
hen Obituary’s 1989 debut, Slowly We Rot, infected record stores,
death metal had never sounded so guttural and primal. Having
only previously released a few songs on demos and comps under
the names Executioner and Xecutioner, the group fulfilled the potential Road-
runner A&R Monte Conner had seen in them with their debut. John Tardy’s
bass-heavy, nonsensical lyrics—kind of a collage of grunts and occasionally
coherent horrific-sounding words—combined with the rest of the Tampa-area
band’s relentless, pounding riffs had taken what fellow Floridians Death had
released two years earlier on their debut and mixed it with a near-European
Hellhammer-like delivery. Without even touring, the band—then compris-
96
ing singer John, drummer Donald Tardy, lead guitarist Allen West, rhythm
guitarist Trevor Peres and bassist Daniel Tucker—inspired reverent chatter
among death metal’s burgeoning literati. All this, and they’d only just gradu-
ated high school.
After Roadrunner asked them to record a follow-up, 1990’s unfuckwithable
Cause of Death, everything changed. Bassist Tucker disappeared, found months
later as a victim of partial amnesia from a car crash. In the meantime, Obituary
drafted new bassist Frank Watkins, who quickly learned the group’s repertoire,
and would play on every album since. Soon after, guitarist Allen West left the
band to pursue family life, prompting the group to enlist ex-Death member
James Murphy, who’d later become recognized as the closest thing death metal
had to a guitar hero. When Obituary finally entered Tampa’s Morrisound
Recording to work with producer Scott Burns, they had no idea they’d leave
with a death metal masterpiece.
Ø
TURNED INSIDE OUT
What stands out to you about the time between Slowly We Rot and Cause of
Death?
Donald Tardy: That’s all when it started moving quickly. We were 20 years
old, and I was allowed to go write more music and write another album. Slowly
was where we just basically learned what we were doing and kind of became the
band that we were, but Cause of Death was a true focus on writing an album. It
was an exciting time.
What do you remember about Daniel Tucker disappearing?

Donald Tardy: I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. It was probably more
confusing for band members than most people around Brandon, or around
Tampa, FL, because we never really looked for him.
John Tardy: [Laughs] He wasn’t in the band for very long. He really was just
with us long enough. I don’t think we even got the copies of [Slowly We Rot] be-
fore he just disappeared.
Trevor Peres: Daniel was a friend of mine. At a party or two I’d jammed with
him just for fun or whatever. So I called him up and he came in, learned the
songs, played on the album and he played a couple shows with us locally and he
just kind of vanished.
Frank Watkins: I actually met Daniel like in 1997 or 1996 at a show in
Tampa, and he just walked up to me like, “Hey, what’s happening? I’m Daniel
Tucker.” And when he said that, the name was familiar, but it didn’t click. That
The Making of Obituary’s Cause of Death 97

sounds so familiar, Daniel Tucker? I go, “And you are?” And he goes, “Oh, I’m
the guy who played bass on Slowly We Rot.”
How did you meet Frank?

J. Tardy: Frank found us.
Watkins: I went on a road trip with a bunch of my friends to see Morbid
Angel play in Tampa, and Obituary was opening. And I was watching them
play and I was like, “Wow this band is like the heaviest thing I’ve seen in my life.”
My jaw hit the floor. While I’m standing there watching them, the guy that was
playing in Cynic back then, Tony Choy, just out of nowhere he comes up to me
and says, “Bro, you need to be playing bass for this band.” And I was like, “No
way.” And 10 minutes later when Obituary was done, I walked to the front of
the stage. John Tardy was standing there handing out autographs to people and,
I’m like, “Yo, I heard you need a bass player.”
D. Tardy: We met him and just instantly got along with him real well and just
kind of set up some jam time after that.
Peres: Actually the first day I met Frank, we bonded pretty good. Me and
him hung out and partied and I think we tripped on acid together. [Laughs]
Did you do a lot of drugs back then?

Peres: Pretty much just drinking beer and smoking pot. Every once in a while,
we used to trip a little bit here and there. But like I said, that was when we were
young. We were 19, 20 years old, experimenting with whatever the hell. Did
mushrooms a little back then. Hell, in Florida you could pick ’em yourself.
Did you guys play often while stoned?

Peres: Yeah. Even today, still. It’s almost like a ritual. [Laughs] We always get
one rolled before the show and burn one and go onstage and after, during, be-
fore. Writing music. Recording. [Laughs] You’ll see me and Frank with a bottle
of Jack half the time onstage. [Laughs] As long as we got one on the rider that
night, we’ll have one.
What do you remember about your first rehearsal?

Watkins: We were gonna meet them in their garage and jam and kind of
teach me songs. One of the songs we did, ’cause they were like, “All right. This
is a new one that we’re just working on,” it was the song “Cause of Death.” So
they start playing it and I learned it right off the bat and they were like, “Damn,
you know that even better than we have it down.”
D. Tardy: Allen wrote the song “Cause of Death.” He didn’t end up record-
ing the album with us. But yeah, he wrote half of those songs.
98 MEMORIES REMAIN
Watkins: When I drove back to Fort Lauderdale, I mulled it over for a few
days and I called up Trevor to see when they were jamming again. I went up
there and we jammed again. And I said, “You know what? You guys never said
to me yes or no if I’m in the band.” And they’re like, “Well, you’re here. You’re
in.” And shortly after that, Allen was gone.
Why did Allen leave the band?

D. Tardy: His wife at the time was having a baby and he was young and he
was afraid of money and paying for a child, so he kind of freaked out for a little
bit.
J. Tardy: We were together, wrote all the songs and stuff like that, but he just
had some issues he had to work out and stuff like that, so he was really just un-
available for us to get in the studio with him.
Peres: And he had to work and stuff. We were all kind of working, but he
wasn’t prepared to be able to tour or do all kinds of stuff that we needed to.
Watkins: I just remember [Allen] and Donald arguing about something and
Al just stormed off. And I remember it was a couple more weeks before we had
to go to Mexico. And I remember Donald looks at me and goes, “Well, it looks
like we’re going to Mexico as a four-piece.”
Peres: I pretty much finished up the writing of the music. And we went in and
recorded it. I guess we didn’t really think about another guitarist until we were
in the middle of the studio.
Ø
CIRCLE OF THE TYRANTS
What was the songwriting for this album like?
Peres: We don’t really think about it. It just kind of comes out of you. You just
sit around and sometimes I’ll have an idea and I’ll bring it to Donald and we’ll
start jamming . . . It’s really an unconscious decision to write, really.
How did you come up with the lyrics that you have?
Peres: To be honest, still to this day, I have not seen a lyric sheet of a whole
entire song. No one ever has. Not even his brother. So we never will know.
Maybe the day he dies we’ll find a folder with a bunch of notes in it.
J. Tardy: [Laughs] No, he probably hasn’t. They’re few and far between . . . I
don’t know if I just get to the points in songs where instead of trying to make
up some words or write down something that means something, I’m more con-
cerned with the way it just sounds. So I have to just put something together that
I have to make up as I go along.

D. Tardy: And when a signer says that, he’s actually progressing.
J. Tardy: Yeah. I’m working on it. [Laughs] Get off our backs!
Peres: You’ll hear in “Cause of Death,” he says “cause of death” in there. But
lyrically, we never did have a concept like, “Let’s sing about world peace.”
Watkins: I never really cared what he was saying. I loved the concept that it
was just so guttural and you couldn’t even understand it, and I remember talk-
ing to Donald way back then. And Donald was like, “Yeah, we came up with
that. One day our dad came down to the garage yellin’ and screamin’ at us say-
ing, ‘God, I can’t even understand what the hell you’re saying,’ to John. ‘What
kind of stuff you singing? I can’t even understand a goddamn word you’re say-
ing.’” So they were like, “You know what? Maybe I should sing where you can’t
even understand what I’m saying.” So that developed him into singing even
more brutal. If you know their dad, Jim Tardy, he’s a crazy old redneck guy and
I can totally see him yellin’ and screamin’.
When did James Murphy enter the picture?

J. Tardy: Scott Burns was like, “You know James Murphy? He might play
some solos.”
Watkins: I wanted to call up Trey from Morbid Angel, because he was a good
friend of mine, and I was like, “Man, he would be perfect. He would just really
shred on this album.” But the rest of the guys were like, “Yeah, but Morbid
Angel’s a big band. We want somebody that’s not in a band.”
James Murphy: I was on the road supporting [Spiritual Healing] with Death,
when I came to realize near the end of the tour that I wasn’t gonna be sticking
around in the band. So I left with my money and my amp head and my clothes, and
as I was waiting for the bus, I happened to call Scott Burns, ’cause he was a buddy
of mine at the time. He was like, “Wow, man. That’s crazy. Well, I happen to be in
the studio with Obituary right now and they need a lead guitarist.” And I was like,
“Wow, really? They’re pretty cool. What’s their new stuff like?” And he said, “It’s
really great stuff. We started recording. Let me talk to the guys and call me back.”
Peres: I guess we were pretty much halfway done with the recording of the
album and James Murphy called me one day. We knew he was a good guitarist
and we knew whatever he did would be good, so we just let him go for it. John
already had his vocals finished, and he was like, “Here’s spots here and there.”
Murphy: I came off the road with Death. Got home. Unpacked my stuff, and
next day I was in the studio meeting those guys and that night I was recording—
that night or the next day. It was bang, bang, bang—right off the road with Death
into the studio with Obituary. No time to hear the material prior, other than [a]
quick cursory listen, and then I was in.
100 MEMORIES REMAIN

Watkins: When I first was listening to his style and the way he plays, it just
seemed to me, I hope this doesn’t turn into like a guitar masturbation kind of
album, like a Marty Friedman record or something crazy with death metal be-
hind it.
Peres: As far as James goes, we kind of threw him to the wolves. He came in,
did the album. I went to the beach with him a couple of times, and we drank
some beers before we all really knew him.
Murphy: One of the first things they ever said to me when we sat down in
the lounge at Morrisound to get to know each other, I don’t remember if it was
Trevor or Donald, but one of them said to me, “You know, Allen is our bro. And
you’ve got to understand if he decides to come back, we’d like to take him back.”
I was like, “OK, fair enough.”
Peres: It was kind of a weird situation, because we just kind of threw him in
and recorded him. And shit, I think we recorded that album in March or April,
and in June we were on tour doing the Slowly We Rot tour.
Did you write any songs with them, James?

Murphy: What happened was, at some rehearsals I tried to introduce my
riffs. They were so not Obituary-like. Pretty much all the riffs that I ever showed
to Obituary that they were kind of like “eh” about ended up on my Disincarnate
album.
What was Morrisound like at the time?

Watkins: When we were at Morrisound, it was like a bunch of our buddies
got together and snuck in there and recorded a record; meanwhile Jim Morris,
the bosses and the guys that were there, were kind of like our parents that would
show up every once in a while, like at five o’clock or something. “Hey, what’s
going on guys?” “Oh, hey. How ya doin’?” We’d have to hide the bong and every-
thing. And then they’d check it out and then they’d leave. And it’s like, “OK,
mom and dad’s gone.”
Ø
CHOPPED IN HALF
What do you remember about recording the album?
Watkins: Back then we were real into cassettes. When I bought Reign in
Blood, you’d put your cassette in your car or your truck and Reign in Blood would
play the whole album through and when the cassette would flip, it would play
the whole album again. And we wanted Roadrunner to do that for Cause of

Death, and they were like, it’s too long to keep it on one side, and we thought,
maybe we’ll shorten it.
Peres: When I was getting ready to do my final takes of the guitar parts, Scott
was like, “You ever thought about tuning down to D? I think you should. You’d
sound sick.” It didn’t make a damn difference to me. So we did. We tuned down
and I got some fatter strings and recorded it that way. And it sounded cool.
D. Tardy: It was also the album that started a lot of what is going on now,
which is sound replacement and triggered bass drums and snare drums and stuff.
I don’t think that was ever even heard of for bands to do that at any time earlier
than that. That was the one thing about that album that still bothers me.
Watkins: I used to always mess with the dudes. We’re real physical guys. And
I think me and Trevor were wrestlin’ or something and he kind of threw me
back and I tripped over myself. And they always call me Goofy because I’m kind
of a big dude, but I’m always, like, always fallin’ over everything. And boom, I
fell right on the tape machine.
Murphy: You hit a tape reel when it’s spinning on that flange, those things
are balanced really well. It made the machine just lock up, totally stretched a
piece of tape like it was Stretch Armstrong. It took that tape and warped it to
hell.
Watkins: And the whole place was like, “Whoa! What the fuck?” They
thought I ruined the whole freakin’ thing.
Murphy: Scott, with a razor blade and some creative editing, was able to save
it. It was certainly a frightening moment for all of us. We were all trippin’.
D. Tardy: One time with Scott, John did the craziest, heaviest built-up scream
thing, and when he was done with it, John’s look was so proud. He knew it
sounded so good, and Scott was like, “So, did you want me to record that?” And
John said, “You’re gonna die.”
Monte Connor: Something very curious about the sound of the album, the
actual mix of the record and the sonics—I believe the rhythm guitar tracks on
that record are recorded out of phase. A way that you can tell something’s out
of phase usually is that something sounds very, very stereo, like more stereo than
it should. It wasn’t until we were remastering the record in 1997 with George
Marino, the mastering engineer, and he’s the one that pointed it out. Scott Burns,
to this day, will deny it, because it’s the type of thing a producer’s not gonna
want to admit, because it’s basically a glitch in the recording.
Watkins: They had this guy at Morrisound [Kent Smith], he would make
commercial jingles and stuff. And we needed some ambient music or ambient
shit behind our stuff. We wanted our record to go from the beginning of an intro
into the second and first song, and all the songs kind of mesh, so it plays one con-
tinuous way. This guy is like a 40-, 50-year-old guy and he had no clue what
102 MEMORIES REMAIN

death metal was. And I just told him, “Just think evil. Just think horror and scary
movies and that kind of stuff.” And the whole time he’s doing these keyboard
parts, he’s giving us these crazy, evil looks and he’s going, “Yeah, I feel it. I feel
it, I feel it.” And we were like, yeah, this is perfect.
How did your cover of Celtic Frost’s “Circle of the Tyrants” come about?
Peres: Donald and I were still in the studio room and I started playing the first
riff off “Circle of the Tyrants,” and Donald kicked in. He knew what it was be-
cause we used to play it live, as well as other Celtic Frost songs we used to play.
We didn’t know it and Scotty hit record, just playing around, and we came in the
console room after we were done just playing around and Scotty said, “Check
this out,” and he hit play and we said, “Oh shit, that sounds sick.” Everybody was
like, “Damn dude, we should do that on the album.”
Did you ever hear from Tom G. Warrior about your cover?
J. Tardy: I talked to him. We were in a hotel, down at the bar and, for some
reason, he and one of the other guys in the band, they walked in and we started
talking to him. He had heard the cover and did say he liked the cover. I bet he
got some four or five dollars in royalties from us playing his song.
D. Tardy: He got to buy a six-pack of beer, probably, at least.
Ø
INFECTED
Did you notice a big difference between Slowly We Rot and Cause of Death?
Murphy: Oh yeah. It was very evident. And I was very happy that I had been
able to add something. And all the guys commented on it at the time. Later on,
they made public comments that Allen’s [style] was theirs. And I can’t really
disagree. I think I added something unique and special to Cause of Death that
made that a very special record.
Connor: I think Cause of Death is by far the band’s best record. It’s definitely
the most creative thing that the band has ever done. Even though Slowly We Rot
has an amazing brutality and raw edge to it, I really think Cause of Death is the
best of both worlds.
How did you get the artwork for Cause of Death?

Peres: It’s something we didn’t really know about, really. I personally had
found some artwork we wanted to buy from Time-Life. I was in the library
looking at books and stuff, and I found this piece of artwork. It was an old Civil
War scene in the woods and all these ghosts of dead Civil War veterans were

walking around. It was kind of creepy. We tried hard to get that piece, but Time-
Life would not release it without selling it. So I basically told Monte, on a whim,
I said, “Hey, do you have any artwork laying around that no one’s using yet?” He
said, “Yeah, we got this piece by Michael Whelan, it’s pretty sick. Let me send
it to you.”
Connor: When Sepultura was first signed and when we were recording the
Beneath the Remains album, Max sent me a copy of the artwork that eventually
got used on Cause of Death as the cover that Sepultura wanted for Beneath the Re-
mains. Michael wound up sending us a book of other artwork in it besides this
Obituary painting. We wound up seeing the [Beneath the Remains cover] and
we wound up thinking that “Wow, this would be a better-looking cover for
Beneath the Remains.” So we wound up pretty much just convincing Sepultura
that the skull would be a better painting for them. We ended up using the other
cover as the cover for Cause of Death.
Peres: I opened up the FedEx envelope and pulled it out and it was the Cause
of Death cover, and I looked at it and I was like, “Holy crap, this is our cover. I
don’t care what anybody thinks . . . ”
Watkins: As soon as I saw that eyeball, I was like, “Man, that’s different.
That’s really fuckin’ different.” And it was a big discussion between us because
some of us liked it and some of us were like, “You know what? I could live with
it, but . . . ” There was a big cockroach on it. We were like, maybe if you took that
off, moved this here . . . Finally, we decided that’s the one we wanted to use.
Connor: That’s not the full painting. The other section of that cover was sold
to another band, that band Demolition Hammer [for Epidemic of Violence].
Peres: Later we found out Sepultura was planning on using that artwork and
none of us had a clue. I kind of felt bad in a way. It had nothing to do with us.
It was Monte. Monte did it. It was really his mistake in a way by giving it to us.
Connor: It was definitely me that sent the artwork to Obituary. At the time,
they didn’t know that Sepultura wanted it for Beneath the Remains. Neither band
knew what was going on until the albums came out.
D. Tardy: [Sepultura] knew it had nothing to do with us. There’s never been
any bad words, and I don’t think there’s really any bad feelings ’cause it was our
record label’s mistake, not necessarily band members fighting over something. I
wish I would have talked to ’em about it, but obviously it was much more fun
moving on and touring with each other like we did.
Connor: For years later, Igor [Cavalera] from Sepultura was upset with me,
really pissed off about that whole incident because he wanted the cover of Cause
of Death to be the cover of Beneath the Remains.
Peres: Later on we found out Igor had part of the thing tattooed on his arm.
104 MEMORIES REMAIN

As you were finishing recording the album, you took your promo photos. What do
you remember about the coffin pic?
J. Tardy: Not wanting to do it.
D. Tardy: Not wanting to do it and that Scott Burns built those coffins.
J. Tardy: [Scott and photographer Tim Hubbard] concocted this whole idea
and we all looked at it like, “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard in my life.”
And they all worked so hard and they were so proud of it. “Just try it. Please!”
And we try it and of course it was just dumb, and of course Roadrunner will use
anything you give ’em.
Murphy: They looked pretty cheesy in the picture, but they looked really
cheesy in person. They were like the thinnest plywood you could get, spray-
painted black and tacked together. I was like, “Wow, are these things going to
break if I lay in it?” We were very, very skinny kids at that time.
D. Tardy: We were so young that we a) got talked into it, b) realized how
stupid it looked and c) actually gave it to a record label thinking they might not
use it. That’s what you call 18 years old.
J. Tardy: Don’t fart onstage and give it to a record company, because it will be
used.
Peres: I think those photos are kind of silly of us laying in ’em. Even today
when I look at it, ’cause we’re all just wearing jeans and freakin’ t-shirts and
freakin’ Vans tennis shoes, lying in this frickin’ coffin. It looked silly as hell. A
lot of people think it’s cool. But, you know . . .
Watkins: I think Trevor and I took one of them home and we used it as a cof-
fee table in our apartment.
Ø
GATES TO HELL
Almost immediately after you finished recording Cause of Death, you went on the
first Slowly We Rot tour with Sacred Reich and Forced Entry. What do you recall
about your first national tour?
Peres: I remember even Sacred Reich, they were like “Oh, what’s this shit? A
death metal band touring with us?” They were like old thrash metal guys, think-
ing we were gonna suck. By the middle of the tour, we had their respect. They
were like hanging out with us, partying with us and loved us to death. The crowd
loved us. Everywhere we played, we crushed and sold tons of merchandise.
Murphy: One day, it was at the Eagles Hall at [Milwaukee Metalfest]. I think
we had been told not to do pyro, and so [Big Daddy, our roadie] was just like,
“The hell with that,” gonna do it anyway. This was a place that had huge ceilings.

We had 30 feet to the ceiling. And we were 20 feet to any wall. This stage
was huge.
Watkins: What we didn’t really calculate on was that some of the people
that we brought to put it all together, some of Big Daddy’s buddies, were
drunks and idiots, and they left some of the gaffer tape on top of the pipes that
shot the flames up. So when Big Daddy ignited everything, everything instead
of shooting up imploded down, and the stage completely blew up and stuff
went flying.
Murphy: I think it knocked Donald off his drum stool. It threw wood out
into the crowd, like jagged, sharp pieces of wood everywhere. I saw a piece fly
over the crowd’s head and land behind the soundboard. I got shoved forward,
and I thought it was just a concussion at first, but it hurt really bad. And I turned
around and there was a piece of wood laying right behind me. And it was com-
pletely sharp and pointed on one end. And someone said, “That piece of wood
hit you flat across your back, dude. I thought you were going down.” It hurt
really bad and I was deafened, but we actually continued playing and finished the
set. If that piece of wood had spun around, that sharp point certainly could have
killed me.
How was your first European tour—the first official Cause of Death tour—with
Morgoth and Demolition Hammer?
D. Tardy: That was our first time in Europe. We flew the day Stevie Ray
[Vaughan] died.
Murphy: I remember we had to stay an extra day, and the airline put us up
in hotel rooms and gave us meal tickets at this cafeteria. And we were in line get-
ting our food at this cafeteria, and the radio playing over the PA announced that
Stevie Ray Vaughan had died in a crash after this concert in a big mountain
somewhere. His helicopter had crashed. I don’t think any of us finished our food.
D. Tardy: I thought, “Damn, I just got out of the air and Stevie just died try-
ing to fly, and he’s been doing it for a decade and this is my first tour.” I was like,
“I hope I get to live for at least as long as he did.”
Murphy: I think we just picked at [our food] and were just blown away, and
our hearts were sunk to our feet and it was one of the most tasteless, bland meals
that we’ve ever had.
D. Tardy: It affected John and I, because we were some of the biggest Stevie
Ray fans ever. We saw him that year, live, with Steve Vai or someone opened
for him.
106 MEMORIES REMAIN

THE END COMPLETE
How did everyone get along on the tour?

Murphy: I was a little set apart from the other guys in that I didn’t partake
in all the “party utensils.” That wasn’t my thing, and still isn’t to this day. They
did enjoy quite a bit. So that put a bit of a distance between us a bit. I certainly
never complained openly. At the same time I realized, hey, I’m in a metal band.
And this is par for the course.
Watkins: That tour kind of showed us the demise of James. Because when we
first met James, he was a really cool guy. He was outgoing. He was talking with
us. We just really got along. We got on tour and we finished the record and we
started doing shows, and he started coming out to us. And he would always
complain about everything. I was like, “It’s gotta stop, man. We can’t handle it.”
It got to the point where it embarrassed us a few times with other guys in some
of the other bands, he embarrassed us. And it got to the point where we were
like, “I don’t think we’ll be able to hang with this guy anymore.” He [had] turned
into a separate person in the band.
What do you remember about returning home from Europe?

Watkins: When I got home from that tour, I had a military duffel bag that I
kept all my clothes in and all my stuff. I get to the front door of my mom’s house
and she wouldn’t let me in the door. She made me put my bag in the yard.
[Laughs] And she hosed me off because I stunk so bad. Because we wouldn’t
shower; we were just going crazy, man.
What lead to Murphy’s departure?

Watkins: We did a U.S. tour with him, with Sepultura and Sadus; it was like
immediately after that European tour with Morgoth. Right when we got home,
I drove up with the guy from Roadrunner, this guy “Psycho” came to visit me. I
pull into the Tardys’ parking lot and I see Allen West’s truck sitting there. I walk
in and Al’s playing guitar. And I’m like, “What are you doing, Al?” And he’s
like, “What do you mean, what am I doing? I’m playing my fucking guitar.” And
I was like, “Killer!” And I turn around and here comes James pullin’ up in the
driveway. And I was like, “Oh shit. I wonder what’s gonna happen here.” And
me and the guy from Roadrunner kind of walked outside and walked around and
waiting and James went in there.
J. Tardy: James went and did the European shows with us and then we came
home and Al just kind of hung out. It wasn’t like we never talked to Allen or he
quit kind of thing; he just had what he had to do at the time.

Peres: We had never wanted Allen to leave the band, obviously. After we got
back from those tours, it was ironic. Allen called us and was like, “Hey.” His
baby was born and he was mentally stable and ready to jam again. Right after
that, we wanted him back in the band, because he was a big part of the band at
that point.
D. Tardy: It probably sucked for James. It probably hurt him a little bit, but
he had to have seen it coming, only because it was obvious to us that Allen was
Obituary. He was the beginning of it and he’s been on every album with us.
Murphy: I was agitated, obviously, to show up at what I thought was going
to be a rehearsal and Allen was there. I was like, “Oh, what’s going on?” And
then that’s when I think it was Donald came out and told me, “We’re getting
Allen back.” At that time, I think I was like, “Whatever. Let me get my stuff.”
Watkins: James walked out and said, “I’ll see you later, Frankie. I’m out.” And
that was the last time I saw him.
Murphy: Definitely moving on from that band was the right thing for me
and it was the right thing for them.
Watkins: It’s unfortunate because I really did think of him as the guitar player
in the band. Musically, he was amazing. It fit like a glove. And we could have
done some really crazy shit in the future as far as the leads, but it kind of brings
us back to what Obituary was and still is, which is we’re just in-your-face death
metal. And that definitely prolonged us to make The End Complete and the rest
of the records we did.
Looking back at Cause of Death, what are you proudest of?

D. Tardy: It was the album that really started kids to realize what the two
words mean when they say “death metal.” With Venom and Hellhammer and
Slayer back in the day, to us that was death metal. That was metal. We didn’t
know what it was. So as a band we just started writing music that our heroes
would probably want to write. Cause of Death was the album that really made the
idea that, “You want to see a death metal record? You want to hear it? Go get
Cause of Death!”
108 MEMORIES REMAIN

CHAPTER 9
LEFT HAND LEGACY

THE MAKING OF ENTOMBED’S LEFT HAND PATH
by J. Bennett
Release Date: 1990
Label: Earache
Summary: Swedish death metal starts here
Induction Date: August 2005/Issue #10
D
eath metal was still in its infancy when Left Hand Path came roaring
out of Stockholm like Satan’s official theme music—a deafening cav-
alcade of impossibly thick guitars, guttural vocal incantations and gore-
drenched lyrics that struck a considerable contrast—well, the guitars anyway—to
the burgeoning Floridian death-swarm (Obituary, Death, Morbid Angel) of the
day. Entombed began as Nihilist, which was in itself the product of two other
Swedish bands: Singer L.G. Petrov and guitarist Ulf “Uffe” Cederlund were
refugees from Morbid (Petrov played drums), a group that also sacrificed its
109
infamous vocalist Per Ohlin, a.k.a. Dead, to Norway’s burgeoning black metal
insurgency, while future Entombed members Nicke Andersson (drums), Alex
Hellid (guitar) and Leif “Leffe” Cuzner (guitar/bass) played in hardcore outfit
Brainwarp. (Before Cederlund’s official involvement, Nihilist enlisted bassist
Johnny Hedlund, who would go on to form Unleashed.) Nihilist recorded three
demos—recently released on CD via Entombed’s Threeman Recordings—
before Cuzner moved to Canada (and was replaced by Cederlund). Shortly
thereafter, the group kicked Hedlund to the curb and changed their name to
Entombed. By the time the new band’s demo appeared in late 1989, the
teenaged Swedes already had an offer on the table from Earache Records. Upon
its release in early 1990, Left Hand Path became Sweden’s first “proper” death
metal album, the primary influence for countless death rock commandos, and the
world’s official introduction to the savage guitar tone that would become the
legendary “Entombed sound.”
Ø
PART I: SUNLIGHT SYMPHONY
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the making of
Left Hand Path?
Nicke Andersson: We did it really fast—it couldn’t have been more than a
week. I think we actually recorded it in late ’89, maybe December or something
like that. I know we did the first Entombed demo in September. I must’ve
been 18.
Uffe Cederlund: I think I was 18 or 19, and I remember we were really happy
that we got a record deal. Earache wanted to sign Nihilist, but we told them we
had a new band called Entombed, and sent them the But Life Goes On demo.
Alex Hellid: We had a budget of a thousand British pounds, which was about
10,000 Swedish crowns or something. It was a cheap album—and now it’s ex-
tremely cheap—but at the time it was more money than we had spent on any-
thing. I think the But Life Goes On demo cost the equivalent of a hundred bucks
or something. The album was more time, too—with the demos, you recorded
and mixed everything in the same day and you were outta there. I think I was
15 at the time. That whole period—’89–’90—felt like 10 years, but it was actu-
ally quite a short time.
L.G. Petrov: We were very young—I was 17, I think. The songs went with
us from the Nihilist days, so we had most of the songs. We didn’t think about it
too much—you just went in and recorded the stuff. [Laughs] I didn’t think about
it, anyway. When we were recording, if it sounded good, we just went on to the
next song.
110 LEFT HAND LEGACY

How was working with Tomas Skogsberg at Sunlight Studio?
Andersson: The first time we went there was for the second Nihilist demo.
We went because Morbid—well, the mark II lineup of Morbid, when Dead
wasn’t in the band anymore and they were more like a Testament thrash band—
had recorded there. The singer lived in the same apartment building; Sunlight
was in the basement. But we weren’t satisfied at all, so for the third Nihilist
demo, we went somewhere else. Then we heard the Treblinka demo [the band
that would become Tiamat]—they had just been in Sunlight, and we thought
their demo sounded awesome. So we went back to do the But Life Goes On demo.
We got along with Tomas really well, even though he didn’t really seem to know
what the hell we were doing. If you think back, though, it makes sense. Every-
one was like, “What are these guys doing?” But people probably thought that
about Metallica at some point. Still, he made us feel really good about every-
thing. And by the time we did Left Hand Path, he seemed to know how to make
our guitar sound even better.
Petrov: It was great. Good old Tomas was sitting there with a cigarette in his
mouth all the time—and I mean all the time. We were one of the first bands to
do an album there—Tomas was still a little bit new to that kind of music. I guess
we were a bit lucky, because the sound turned out to be so in-your-face. We were
very excited—and nervous, of course. But as time went on in the studio, it got
more comfortable.
Hellid: I remember it being very, very small. People would be surprised that
he made it sound like it sounds coming from that studio. The first Sunlight Stu-
dio was a really small demo studio—he didn’t even have real drums because the
room was so small you couldn’t fit a drum kit, a drummer and another person.
It was the ’80s, too, so he had digital drums, and we actually used them for like
half the kit on the first two albums. It wasn’t until the third album that we used
all real drums. On Left Hand Path, I think the snare is real and the toms are real,
but the kick drums are d-drums. And it’s hard to play on those things—there’s
no skin, you know? It’s like hitting a wall.
Cederlund: I think the entire kit except the snare and the cymbals were
d-drums. Tomas didn’t want to use real drums because he thought it took too
much time. I remember Nicke had a hard time playing on them. It took a while
to get used to them, because the drum sticks bounce differently. We never really
questioned Tomas, because we thought he knew better—we figured he was the
studio guy. But you know, when I listen to the album, I don’t think about it. If I
listen to the But Life Goes On demo, I can hear [the difference], because on that,
we used the d-drum for the snare also, which sounds really bizarre. Bands these
days do the same thing, pretty much, but with triggers. It’s the same thing, only
with real drums.
The Making of Entombed’s Left Hand Path 111

Hellid: It was a very primitive studio, but we hadn’t been to a lot of studios,
so we didn’t know. The mixing board didn’t even have VU meters. I don’t know
how Tomas decided when the levels were right. Mixing Left Hand Path, Clan-
destine and even Wolverine Blues was a three-man job, because you needed more
than two hands to mix. There were no computers or anything, and there were
only so many effects you could put on things. If you wanted, say, two reverbs,
you’d have to unplug cables, put them into other inputs, and raise faders during
the mixdown. So we’d have it split up three ways, and if somebody fucked up,
we’d have to do it over again.
In Choosing Death, the Entombed guitar sound is attributed to Nihilist

bassist/guitarist Leif “Leffe” Cuzner’s Boss Heavy Metal pedal.
Andersson: Yeah, there’re four knobs on it. One of them is all mids, and if you
put that on 10, that’s how you get the sound. If you just have the regular Boss
distortion [pedal]—the orange one—there’s only high and low. But this one had
the “mid” setting. First we thought the sound was his guitar or his speaker, but
it was the pedal. When we found that out, Uffe started using one, too. Then
Dismember bought the same pedals. [Laughs]
Cederlund: Everybody had that pedal, but Leffe was the guy who cranked
everything to 10 first. That pedal is a really bad distortion pedal, but everybody
had it because it was the cheap pedal to buy back then. Leffe was playing
through a Swedish amplifier on the Only Shreds Remain demo [1988]. Nicke
had a Peavey combo, and I also had a Peavey combo. Then Leffe moved to
Canada.
Hellid: Uffe inherited that sound; I go with the Boss DS-1 distortion pedal.
His whole sound is very overdriven—I’ve always had a little less distortion to try
to balance it out a bit. On the early albums, we’d always have four guitars. I re-
member Tomas would put down two or three really distorted guitars—like a
wall of guitars—and then we’d put one down so you could actually hear what the
guitar was playing.
Andersson: Alex had the more—well, traditional is not the word—but a
sound that we’d blend with Uffe’s sound. Alex is great, but Uffe is probably the
best guitar player I’ve ever played with. We’d double-track his guitars—always—
so you’d have him on the left and the right, with Alex in the middle. [Laughs] I
don’t think Dismember did that.
You didn’t have much time in the studio, so you must’ve been pretty well rehearsed.
Anderssson: We must’ve rehearsed at least two times a week at that point.
How these rehearsal places in Sweden work is that they get funds from the
government—like a cultural fund, you know? And you enlist, I guess you would

say—it’s almost like being in a club. We hadn’t played a lot of shows, because this
music was not considered acceptable. If you wanted to play shows, you had to
promote them yourself. So it was just shows here and there that we put together,
or friends put together. We didn’t play outside of Sweden at all until the album
came out.
Petrov: I remember some lyrics were changed in the studio. Nicke was stand-
ing beside me with the lyric sheet, and he would point at what I was supposed
to sing.
Cederlund: We didn’t have [all the songs] ready when Dig [Pearson, Earache
founder] said, “Let’s make an album.” So I think there are three songs we wrote
a couple of days before we went into the studio—“Left Hand Path,” “Drowned”
and “Bitter Loss.” When I listen to the album, I think those are the three that
don’t sound finished. We knew what we were gonna do with the others, because
we had recorded them before—it was just about trying to make them better
than the demos. I think those three are really sloppy, though.
You didn’t have a bass player at the time, so Nicke and Uffe played bass. Do you re-
member who played on which songs? The liner notes don’t say.
Andersson: I don’t remember who did which songs, but I think we were
pretty good. I have to pat ourselves on the back, because we’d never played bass
before. But we knew the riffs. I mean, I wrote a lot of them.
Cederlund: I think we played every second song. He’s playing on “Left Hand
Path”; I play on “Drowned” and “Revel in Flesh” . . . fuck, I can’t remember.
When we did the bass in the studio, it took an hour, tops. It was more like, “Do
you wanna do this, or shall I do it?” We worked pretty fast back then.
Ø
PART II: KNIGHTS IN SATAN’S SERVICE
Whose idea was the album title?
Cederlund: Alex came up with it, I think, but it was Nicke who decided it
would be the title—he was the big boss. Before Left Hand Path came out, we
wanted to call the second album Left for Dead, but we skipped that.
Andersson: I think it was an Anton LaVey thing. It could’ve been Alex—he
actually read that book [The Satanic Bible]—I just looked at the pictures. Al-
though, maybe there were no pictures. [Laughs] I just thought the idea of it was
cool. I guess I was never a real Satanist—it was just a pose. It’s like the Norwe-
gians told us: We were “life metal”—and I guess they were right.
Hellid: I think it was from The Satanic Bible, because I was reading that a
lot at the time—but you know, I’ve gone back over the years, and I can never

find the part where I took the actual line from. I wanted to call the song “Left
Hand Path” first, but when Nicke saw the title, he said we should call the
album that, too.
Did you specifically request Dan Seagrave to do the cover art, or did Earache sug-
gest him because he had already done Morbid Angel’s Altars of Madness?
Hellid: I guess when Digby or someone at Earache suggested Dan, we
thought, well, of course. We loved the Morbid Angel artwork, so we thought if
we could get this guy to do it, then great. I remember Nicke doing a sketch and
sending it over—when it came back, we were so happy with it.
Andersson: I really wish I still had the sketch—his artwork is almost exactly
like my sketch. The grave is exactly where it was in my sketch, and I drew some
trees and a path or whatever. It’s really close—and I specifically told him what
kind of colors we wanted. Looking back, I like the Morbid Angel art he did, but
it was kind of comic-like. It was kinda funny—and we didn’t want that.
Petrov: It’s really great artwork. If you look closely on the left of the path,
there’s a little happy frog there. There are a lot of faces there, but I like the frog.
What about the inscription on the tombstone: “Rest in Festering Slime: Here Burns
the Souls of a Thousand Generations”?
Andersson: Dan did that. It had nothing to do with us, but it was great.
[Laughs] I like the “Rest in festering slime” part.
Hellid: We still don’t know what it means—it was just something he put on
there. But I remember we were pissed about the back sleeve—we had nothing
to do with that. I don’t know if Dig had some friend in art school or something.
We had a back [cover] that we thought was perfect—just the photo [from the
inside], it looked like the back cover of Slayer or Autopsy or something. But
when it was done, it came back with that weird photo. It’s kinda funny now,
though. I still have no idea what it is. It feels like the old days when bands didn’t
even get to choose their own covers. I’m not comparing us to Black Sabbath, but
it’s the same thing they had with the inverted cross. [Unbeknownst to the
band—until its release—the gatefold of Black Sabbath’s first LP contained an
inverted cross.] Nowadays you have more control.
Andersson: Yeah, it’s got some teeth and some plants going on. [Laughs] We
didn’t like that, because it interfered with the colors on the front. I looked at it
the other week, actually, and I kinda like it now—’cause it’s weird—but it still
doesn’t fit. I think it was the same guy who did the first Hellbastard cover.
[Laughs] We didn’t get anything to approve, you know—and nobody liked it. We
were probably a bit pissed off.

Petrov: We were like, “What the hell is this?” But you didn’t complain much
back then—first record and all. To get a record deal was the greatest thing that
ever happened to us. Nowadays, people just spit out records, but back then you’d
show it to your mom, like, “Oh, is that you?”
Cederlund: The back of the album is really ugly. We hated it—I still hate it.
We told them what we wanted, but they just didn’t respect us. That band Hell-
bastard got the guy who did our back cover to do their front cover—so at least
we got Dan Seagrave on the front. Another thing that’s weird is that the album
was supposed to be called The Left Hand Path, but we didn’t seen anything of it
until it came out, and when we did, the “The” was gone.
What’s the story behind the band photo inside, with the giant cross?
Andersson: Oh, that’s a really nice cemetery in the suburbs of Stockholm
[Enskede]—it’s called Skogskyrkogården. It means “the forest cemetery.” The
whole place is really beautiful. Obviously, it was the perfect place. There’s no
graves in that area—just a big cross. It’s kind of majestic.
Hellid: We met the photographer [Micke Lundstrom] in the studio. The
local newspaper had just sent a guy down to take pictures while we were record-
ing. We liked him—and the way his pictures came out—so when it came time
to do a photo for the album, we asked him. He suggested the graveyard—we had
no idea where he was taking us. None of us had even seen the place before. It
turned out to be kind of a classic. It’s kind of hard to find those places nowadays,
where nobody’s been before. The place is huge, and in the middle is this big
cross.
Cederlund: We were really lucky, because it had just started snowing—that’s
why the shot is a bit blurry. Young kids trying to look tough, you know?
In the liner notes, you thank Fred Estby of Carnage/Dismember for a riff, and you
refer to him as “Milli-Vanilli Fred.”
Andersson: Yeah, he did something with his hair at one point—like a braid,
or cornrows, you know? It was some kind of fake dreadlock, which is why we
called him that. He didn’t have that for a long while, though. [Laughs] Now it’s
been so long that he’s not gonna get offended—he doesn’t even have hair any-
more. We were probably trading riffs back then. He’s still one of my best friends,
you know, and we were really close at that time.
Cederlund: I got pissed off at Nicke because he gave away lots of riffs to Dis-
member, and I was like, “Why are you giving these riffs away? They’re great
riffs.” So when Nicke and I wrote “But Life Goes On,” we stole a Dismember
riff for the slow part. It was on one of their rehearsal tapes, I think.

How did Uffe get stuck putting his home address on the album?
Petrov: We did a lot of tape-trading back then, so that was just a thing among
friends. I don’t think we would do that nowadays. I don’t think he got millions
of letters or anything, but it was cool, you know? It was underground—you’d
give your address and exchange letters with people. I don’t have a problem giv-
ing my address out to people, you know. Some people who play music are scared,
but I don’t care.
Hellid: I think we had put mine and Nicke’s on the demos, so it was Uffe’s
turn. [Laughs] He lived there for a few years afterwards, and people would come
and knock on his door—people from Germany and places like that would want
to see if he was home.
Cederlund: I liked to write letters back then and stay involved in the scene.
Nobody else wanted to put their address on the album, I think, so I agreed to put
mine. All the bands we liked—Napalm Death, Carcass—had their addresses on
their albums, so we thought we should have one of our addresses, too. That was
my mom and dad’s place, that address, and during the summer, people from
Spain would come knocking on the door. It was pretty weird—they expect you
to be their pal. There were a lot of bands sleeping at my house back then, like
Disharmonic Orchestra and stuff. Whoever we played with ended up staying on
the floor. My parents must’ve wondered what was going on, because I’d get 20
or 30 letters a day. The mailman must’ve wondered also. But I was only able to
keep up [with the correspondence] for maybe six months after the album was re-
leased. It got to be too much, so I just stopped.
Ø
PART III: GUIDED BY GORE
Alex and Nicke are credited with the lyrics—who wrote for which songs?
Hellid: I wrote “Left Hand Path” and “The Truth Beyond”—they’re both
about being your own master, which I guess is what we still write about. The
Satanic Bible is about thinking for yourself, so a few of the lyrics are from that.
A lot of Nicke’s lyrics had more of a gore/horror movie thing.
Andersson: I know I did “Revel in Flesh.” I think I did “Abnormally De-
ceased.” I did “Supposed to Rot,” too—that’s from Evil Dead 2. It’s about some-
body burying someone in a fruit cellar or something [laughs]—I guess that was
a big influence on the lyrics. I mean, I laugh a little bit about it now, but at the
time it seemed like the right thing to write about. I can still watch Evil Dead 2,
you know? It’s when the listener starts taking things too seriously—that’s when
you’re in trouble. Part of me was very serious when I wrote that stuff, but it was
kind of ironic, too. I mean, when you’re 18 years old, what the hell do you know

about the world? You’re thinking about a hundred things at once, and your music
taste changed every week. Such and such a band was too wimpy, but at the same
time, you’d listen to the Ramones. It was a weird time. Within this genre, we had
very strict rules—even down to which chord progressions were cool. It was like
a scale that we thought we made up. If there was a band that was fast and had
the energy, but had lousy chord progressions, they were out the window. The
blueprints were Autopsy and Repulsion. Like, you couldn’t play A, D and E next
to each other—that’d be a pop song. Almost all our riffs were in E—but it’s not
really E, because we tuned down to C or B. So you’d consider your B to be an
E. So E to F to G-sharp—that’s great. And you can also have a G in there—with
those four chords you can make killer riffs. But if you had E, F-sharp, G and A,
that was totally fucking gay. It would never happen. But by the third album,
we’d loosened those rules up a bit.
What other things were influences?

Andersson: Hellraiser. The first two, actually. The third one hadn’t come out
yet, I don’t think. It was definitely my favorite, because it had the Cenobites and
the other realms. H.P. Lovecraft was a great influence, too—although I proba-
bly didn’t read that much. I’d read maybe three novels or short stories, even.
They were a drag reading, because they weren’t translated into Swedish. But the
biggest influence was the dictionary, obviously. If you look at the lyrics, there’s
no way that a Swedish-speaking person would know what any word means.
Did you ever consider writing a song in Swedish, or was that against the rules, too?
Andersson: Never. That wasn’t even talked about. It’s like if Hellraiser had
been a Swedish movie—with Pinhead speaking Swedish. It’s hard to explain, but
Swedes would know what I’m talking about. Then again, some of the black metal
bands sing in Norwegian, and that totally cracks me up. To a Swede, a Norwe-
gian accent sounds really happy—and I think they think the same thing about
Swedes. Then again, accents don’t come across very often in these growls, except
in the mispronunciations. But some English-speaking people I know love the
mispronunciations in the lyrics. Then again, you’re not really listening to the
words. But it’s great when you hear someone yell, “Die!”
Half the songs on Left Hand Path are from Nihilist demos; Leffe has writing cred-
its, but not Johnny Hedlund.
Andersson: He never wrote a single riff—not one. [Laughs] Well, he wrote
a few, but he never had that chord-progression rule down. Eventually he got it,
though, with Unleashed—there’s stuff on there that could’ve been Entombed
stuff. He wrote some really good stuff with Unleashed, but with us he never did.

Ø
PART IV: LEFT HANDED LEGACY
Do you remember when you first received a copy of the finished album?
Andersson: I remember when Uffe and I went to the post office to pick up
the test pressing—that was the first time we were on actual plastic, you know?
I remember it was a sunny day and it was kinda magical. I mean, there was no
plan to make an album. If you made a demo, and people in fanzines mentioned
it, that was success. None of the bands we liked made albums. There was
[Death’s] Scream Bloody Gore and [Slayer’s] Reign in Blood, and that’s it. Even
Repulsion didn’t have an album until later.
Petrov: I have my test press right here. It’s black and “Entombed” is written
on it with just a regular pen. It’s the kind of thing you want to keep for the rest
of your life. Just holding it and seeing yourself on a record was like, “Yes! We did
it!” Every time you put out a record, you have a little bit of that feeling, that you
accomplished something new again.
How soon after it came out did you realize the influence it had?
Hellid: I think it took a long time. We didn’t really feel like we were doing
something so different from what other people were doing. We felt more like we
were ripping off all these other bands—which we were. Repulsion was out there,
Autopsy, Morbid Angel, Obituary—or Xecutioner, as they were called at the
time. I mean, we just took the Phantasm theme and used it for the end of “Left
Hand Path” without even asking anybody for permission. It was total ignorance.
But I think we took the pieces and made it into something of our own. Still, it
was a little bit of a surprise when people said it was so influential.
Andersson: Well, we thought it kicked ass, obviously, because there was noth-
ing else around that sounded like that. So we were all content with it, but I don’t
know . . . it was so strictly underground at the time. I grew up on punk rock be-
fore I started listening to metal—and I think Uffe did the same—so there was
no aim to be a star. We wanted to play the music that we liked—if nobody else
does, we didn’t care. The goal was to be mentioned in the same sentence as Re-
pulsion and Autopsy. If somebody was asked in an interview what they were lis-
tening to, and they mentioned us together with other great bands, that was cool.
But if they liked us and bad bands, that was terrible.
Petrov: People would be like, “Oh—how did you get that sound?” That hap-
pened straight after the album came out. Still people ask what we used to get that
sound. It was just a little Peavey amplifier and a Heavy Metal pedal—all at max-
imum. The guitar sound—that’s the main thing. Everyone says it rules. We’re
just grateful that Tomas was there and we had an opportunity to do it with him.

You can hear some other records that are pretty similar—I don’t know if it’s the
studio, or if they used the same amplifiers, but it was great for Tomas, too.
Hellid: It was one of those things where you’re so into what you’re doing that
you don’t even realize what it is you’re doing. In a lot of ways, the album was no
different for us than doing the demos. When the reviews came out, I was sur-
prised they were so good. I don’t think we realized how well it would be received.
In retrospect, is there anything you’d change about it?

Petrov: No, I’m happy with it. It’s so in-your-face, that thick guitar sound. If
there was anything negative I could come up with, I would tell you right away.
But I can’t.
Andersson: No. I’m proud of it. We were really young, and without knowing
it, we did something that nobody had really done. I mean, we thought people
had done it before, but no one had heard of Autopsy or Repulsion—it was weird.
It never became that fun again, you know? Those goals were reached on a really
low level. We never even thought about making an album. Of all the Entombed
albums, Left Hand Path and the last one I was on [1997’s To Ride, Shoot Straight
and Speak the Truth] are my favorites.
Cederlund: Dig didn’t give us too much money to record. If we had maybe
one more weekend in the studio, so we didn’t have to rush things so much, the
album would’ve been a bit better. The entire thing was recorded and mixed in
eight days—four weekends in a row. But I’m proud of it—it’s probably the best
we could’ve done back then.
Hellid: I don’t think we could even do it nowadays. To create that thing now
would be impossible for us. It was then and there.

C H A P T E R 10
AN ETERNAL CLASSIC
THE MAKING OF PARADISE LOST’S GOTHIC

by Scott Koerber
Release Date: 1991
Label: Peaceville
Summary: Gothic metal benchmark
Induction Date: June 2005/Issue #8
N
orthern England, 1990. Amid the cacophony of blast beats echoing
from the speed-obsessed world of U.K. death metal and grindcore, five
lads from the grim North were feverishly gathering songs and ideas
for the follow-up to their doom-laden debut album, Lost Paradise. Marrying the
grittier sound of the down-tuned, death-doom heaviness of their 1989 demo
Frozen Illusion with the icy majesty of the early ’80s U.K. gothic scene, the band
emerged with a monolithic slab of metal unlike anything the underground had
ever heard. Gothic, released through Peaceville Records in 1991, stunned head-
bangers everywhere with a dark, innovative sound that seized listeners within
120
seconds of dropping the needle onto the opening track. The album became an
absolute cult classic, approaching religious stature by countless underground fans
and bands alike. In its wake, the Gothic album single-handedly opened the gates
for countless trends within the metal world, which sought to incorporate melan-
choly and—above all—melody within heavier sounds. We gathered the band’s
original five members—vocalist Nick Holmes, bassist Steve Edmondson, drum-
mer Matt Archer and guitarists Greg Mackintosh and Aaron Aedy—to reflect
on all things Gothic.
What was the general feeling within the band around the time you were writing
and recording for Gothic?
Greg Mackintosh: In those days it was the grind scene, so we were playing
with bands like Extreme Noise Terror and Napalm Death and Carcass, and we
were the only slow band around from that scene. We’d play gigs and people
would shout, “Play a fast one” and so, of course, we’d play an even slower one.
Our first album, Lost Paradise, didn’t really sound how we wanted it to sound. We
thought the Frozen Illusion demo was better than the first album. So, with Gothic
we wanted to make it sound more like the demo, but we’d also been listening
to the Reptile House–era Sisters of Mercy stuff, and bands like Trouble, as well
as all the tape-trading death metal stuff, and wanted to bring in some new
elements.
Nick Holmes: Around the time of Lost Paradise, the Sisters of Mercy were
pretty big in England, and I liked the sound they were doing. On the early
records, they kind of captured a real sort of depressive gothic sound, and we
really liked that. We thought we could try and capture that element and put it
in with the kind of noise stuff that we did. Plus, at that time, Matt, our drum-
mer couldn’t play fast anyway, so we were kind of restricted even if we wanted
to play fast. I think we tried playing fast and it was just a disaster and so we said,
“OK, we’ll just go the opposite and play as slow as we can.” [Laughs] First and
foremost, though, we were totally obsessed with death metal and doom metal.
We were such big fans of it. Just like today, I see teenagers totally into it. We were
no different.
Aaron Aedy: I think what we were trying to do with Gothic was combine the
majesty of gothic music with the miserableness of doom music. We heard Celtic
Frost’s Into the Pandemonium and Morbid Tales, and they were using orches-
trations on metal music, and we thought that was cool to take it in another
direction.
Matt Archer: In those days, we listened to so much death metal and all the
bands we played with were death metal bands. On tour, we’d put on our old com-
pilation tapes and stuff just to hear something different. So, when we did Gothic,
The Making of Paradise Lost’s Gothic 121

we wanted to do something that was heavy and somewhat in line with Lost Par-
adise, but we wanted to expand the sound into other genres of music that we were
listening to: Celtic Frost, Trouble. We were young enough and naïve enough to
have that sort of “let’s just do it and see what happens” attitude.
All of that aside, Gothic was certainly something much larger than the sum of its
parts. Where were your heads at back then to be able to create such intense atmo-
spheres with your music?
Mackintosh: Part of it comes from the area where we grew up. Not sure why,
but all the other bands that also came out of the Bradford/Halifax/Leeds area
also made very depressing music: the Sisters of Mercy, the Cult, New Model
Army, My Dying Bride. Lots of bands from that area went for a sort of bitter-
sweet tinge to their music. I think it’s because we’re all just miserable. We’ve all
got this quite dark sense of humor where you can laugh at everything, but the
area has still got this grim, miserable edge to it. There’s a saying around here
that goes “It’s grim up north,” and it was very true for us. We were always pretty
miserable about stuff. We’ve lightened up a bit now, I think. I think it’s an ac-
ceptance that life is a bit shit. [Laughs]
Aedy: Leeds is where gothic music came from really, so there was quite a
strong following for darker music in our area, and a lot of the pubs and clubs sort
of reflected that. In Bradford we used to go to a number of clubs where one
minute they’d be playing serious gothic music, and the next minute they would
have Kreator on or something. Between that and the Frog & Toad, which was the
venue where we played our first-ever concert, they really mixed everything up,
which kind of helped because you were hearing these things in the clubs as well.
Holmes: I had a friend at school who gave me the Sisters of Mercy Reptile
House vinyl, and I remember going back and listening to tracks like “Black
Planet” off the first Sisters’ album First and Last and Always. I did like that sort
of music very much, but outside of the Sisters, there really weren’t too many
other gothic bands that we knew of. We were also into the Melvins at the time
and they played really slow. I remember an album they did called Gluey Porch
Treatments. It was so slow. We liked the idea of combining the sort of Sabbath
riffage, but making it even slower and getting the whole doom thing going. But
honestly, we were so obsessed with the death metal stuff in those days that we
didn’t really venture that far outside our own musical field.
Who came up with the album title?

Mackintosh: The title for the album had come about because I had seen the
Ken Russell film Gothic and I remember saying to Nick, “Hey, what about call-
ing it that?” And he sort of went back and forth because he didn’t want people
122 AN ETERNAL CLASSIC

thinking we were a gothic band rather than a doom whatever band, but eventu-
ally we agreed on using it.
Holmes: It was more to do with gothic literature and gothic architecture.
That was more in our minds than any actual musical movement. Greg’s very
much into grandiose titles. He came up with [1995’s] Draconian Times as well.
For Gothic, it had more to do with architecture. We just like looking at gargoyles.
Even now, I still like looking at gargoyles. It’s kind of like the ultimate heavy
metal thing, really. [Laughs]
How much of the record’s sound did you have down prior to going into the studio?
Mackintosh: We had all the songs down beforehand. As far as sound, we
knew what we wanted the record to sound like, but we didn’t know how to cap-
ture sounds in those days. The only thing we had down beforehand was my gui-
tar sound, because I had all the effects that I wanted to use ready to go before
we went in to record. Aaron had a lot of trouble when we went in to record
Gothic. He was trying out a lot of different guitars and different amps and he
never really got the sound he wanted, so I ended up playing some of the rhythm
stuff as well, until he sorted out his sound. I think Keith [Appleton], who owned
Academy Studios where we recorded Gothic, was instrumental because he played
the keyboards on Gothic. He had this Proteus rack thing that we used, and we
were like, “Oh my god, that sounds amazing! Yeah, use that!”
Holmes: Songwriting in those days was just a case of gluing riffs together. A
lot of the old metal stuff is like that anyway. It’s like eight minutes of riffs glued
together, which is cool. One after the next, after the next, and then come back
to the original riff right at the end there. And then for the studio, we’d just buy
a bottle of bourbon, plug in and see what happened. It was all very kind of rock
’n’ roll. I mean, when you’re a kid, you just think about being in a band and just
getting drunk and having a good time, and that’s all we really did in the first
few years. Even Hammy [founder of Peaceville Records], who had done some
production for us on Lost Paradise, all I can remember during Gothic is him buy-
ing a bottle of whiskey and sitting there smoking spliffs. There was no massive
sort of sterile recording environment like there is now. With the song “Rapture,”
Matt couldn’t get the timing right on a certain drum fill. We were under tight
time constraints, and in those days drummers didn’t have a click track. So in
order to wrap up the song, I remember pushing a key on the keyboard right at
the time when the drum fill was supposed to come in. It was the sound of a
bomb going off, or a nuclear explosion or something, and it covered up the drum
fill perfectly. If you listen back you’ll hear it.
Aedy: I seem to recall back when we did Lost Paradise, Hammy was actually
reading a book called How to Be a Producer, which I’ve never forgotten. But he

did seem to know more about it than we did. Basically, he just sort of sat there
with a bottle of whiskey and some marijuana and just headbanged. The great
thing about Hammy was he was really into music.
Steve Edmondson: As for the time spent in the studio, it was hard work. I
mean, we weren’t brilliant musicians then. It was only the second time we were
in the studio, and I just remember it being hard to nail the parts. Looking back,
I can say it was genuinely innocent times, really. We were having a lot of fun.
In addition to the orchestrations, the presence of a female vocalist complementing

the death growl was also more apparent on Gothic than Lost Paradise. How did
you meet vocalist Sarah Marrion and what was her reaction to the music she was
asked to sing on?
Mackintosh: We got Sarah through an advertisement we placed in NME.
She was from Manchester. I remember seeing a surprised look on her face when
we played some stuff back for her. She had never heard anything like it in her
life!
Archer: I’m not sure the band sold itself extremely well in that instance.
[Laughs] Here we were, a death metal band on a small independent label, and
here was this quite prim and proper young lady. I don’t think she knew what she
was getting into, but she went in and when we heard her vocals with the rest of
the music, we just thought it sounded absolutely fantastic.
Aedy: I think she got what we were trying to do, but it wasn’t her thing. She
was more into house and dance music. But I think she kind of got it because she
had a bit of classical training. If you take away the guitar sound and Nick’s vo-
cals, we were just playing chords and melodies in minor keys, so she was able to
catch on to the atmosphere we were going for.
Edmondson: We used her again on our next album, [1992’s] Shades of God,
so she must have liked it somewhat since she came back to the studio with us to
do it again a year or so later.
The lyrics on Gothic were a mature departure from those on your first album.
What were you going for?
Holmes: I always felt that psychological subject matter sort of gave you more
space to work with. Back then, lots of bands were discussing evil or the devil. I’ve
always tried to avoid the satanic stuff because once you do that it’s hard to get
out of that. Back then, it was just death metal growling, so I could write the
lyrics at the same time or even before the music was written and just make the
words fit. Basically just like writing down poetry or something, because you don’t
have to make it fit to a melody. It’s actually easier to write lyrics like that. You
can be as pretentious as you want if you’re growling lyrics. If you’re writing in the

context of a melody, you have to think about words you’re using and syllables, but
in the old days you could be the Poet Laureate—you could be the death metal
Poet Laureate if you wanted to. [Laughs]
Do you remember your reaction to the playback of the finished album while you
were in the studio?
Mackintosh: Oh, we were loving it. We were all very young at the time and
as soon as we played any of it back we were all going mental and headbanging
along to it and saying, “Oh, this is ace. We’ve got another record out!” As far as
the sound, there’s a phrase that Nick always uses: “Weep openly at the sea of
pomposity.” It’s the whole over-the-top thing. There’s a fine line between sound-
ing majestic and being pure cheese, and it’s a line that we’ve always been very
aware of and been very conscious of not crossing, which is unfortunate for a lot
of other gothic metal acts today because they seem to err on the cheese side of
the line.
Holmes: I think because it came through the huge speakers we were more
impressed with the fact that we could play it so loud; plus, we had had a few
drinks, so yeah, it just sounded phenomenal.
Archer: Rehearsals for the record were held in this shitty little room, which
was noisy and distorted, so we really didn’t know what the finished product
would sound like. Listening to the playback, the album definitely had a sort of
raw sound to it that added to the overall feel of what we were going for. Today
most metal bands opt for a strictly regimented sound, but we loved the raw feel
of what we had with Gothic and we felt that any overdubs or re-mastering would
have killed some of the magic we had managed to create.
Edmondson: The ultimate reaction came when we actually got a tape of it
and you put it in your car stereo and went somewhere quiet. We went to the
rocks in Halifax, which is sort of a local beauty spot, and we sat there playing the
album; that’s when it hit us all.
Prior to the release of Gothic, there were no death-doom or gothic metal scenes,
but there were some bands [Cathedral, Winter] that picked up on what you guys
had done with the Frozen Illusion demo and Lost Paradise. Were you paying
much attention to any of these bands?
Mackintosh: When we were doing Frozen Illusion and our first album, bands
like Cathedral weren’t in existence yet. Lee Dorrian was still in Napalm Death
before Barney [Greenway] had joined. Back then I hadn’t heard of bands like
Winter or Cathedral or any others. The death metal stuff that we knew of was
just the early Earache stuff and the early Peaceville stuff, and all the stuff from
our tape-trading days from death metal bands. After Gothic, I remember we fast

became a band’s band. I remember Lee Dorrian and bands like Bolt Thrower
were into it, and we got letters from bands like Entombed who were writing to
say that they were really into it.
Holmes: In those days we didn’t know of any other bands pursuing the sort
of sound we were doing. Most of the bands we played with during our demo
days and around the time of our first album were bands from the U.K. hard-
core/grindcore scene—bands like Doom, Concrete Sox, Extreme Noise Terror
and Napalm Death. Around the Gothic-era, the scene had sort of fractured into
divisions of punk and metal. For Gothic, the concerts were reasonably turned
out, but still very underground. It was like 50 guys from each town; death metal
tape-traders who came to all the shows. We were tape-traders ourselves so we’d
all just sit around and try to name bands that no one else knew and see if you
were better than the next guy because you knew this really obscure band. I mean,
we didn’t think about girlfriends or anything back then. It was just guys and hair
and tapes.
Early Peaceville bands like My Dying Bride and Anathema quickly picked up on
the sound of the Gothic album, and subgenres like death-doom/gothic metal/fu-
neral doom largely owe their existence to the Gothic album. In many ways, Gothic
single-handedly spawned an underground metal movement.
Archer: On tour people used to hand us demos, and we started seeing bands
with names taken from tracks from the Gothic album. While touring Europe, I
remember suddenly we started hearing bands with that same sort of death metal
sound, with orchestrations and female vocals. Here in the U.K., I remember
Aaron [Stainthorpe] from My Dying Bride telling me that My Dying Bride
was formed after seeing Paradise Lost play live at a gig in Bradford in 1990 or
1991.
Mackintosh: Over the years we had a lot of bands saying they liked Gothic,
and it’s really flattering. I remember Anathema at the time, I think they were
supporting us for their first-ever gig. They were a bit younger than us, maybe 14
or 15 years old at the time. During their set they did a cover of our song “Eter-
nal,” and then we had to go on and play that song as well! We hadn’t ever heard
of Anathema because they weren’t on record at the time, but afterwards we
talked to them and we were like, “Oh yeah, really good. I think you’re version was
better than ours.” The same thing happened with the Gathering when we played
Holland. The Gathering opened for us and they also played a cover of “Eternal”
before we went onstage, and it was like, “Crass, can these bands stop doing it,
because their versions sound better than ours!”
Aedy: After Lost Paradise, we noticed some bands were picking up on the
sound we were after, so what we tried to do with Gothic was to up the ante by

putting all the orchestration and female vocals on. When we did Gothic, it wasn’t
like a massive commercial success, but there seemed to be a whole explosion of
bands that were inspired by the Gothic album, so I think we sort of reacted to that
when we went to do Shades of God by dropping the female vocals and having no
orchestrations. In a lot of ways, Gothic was the answer to people copying Lost
Paradise, really.
So was the influx of bands that were trying to capture your sound an impetus to
change your style and move in a different direction on subsequent albums?
Holmes: For us, when everyone else starts to do it, we really set out to change
what we’re doing. It’s the same now as it was then. Once everything starts to
sound the same and you can’t differentiate one band from the other, it’s time to
move on. We’ve always wanted to be on our own little island. The thing with
growling is that it is so one-dimensional. You can only go so far with it, because
you can’t get any melody in there, so it’s hard to get across what you want to.
When we did tracks like “Shattered” on Gothic, I remember doing the sort of
cleaner voice just to try to slightly break away from the total growl. We went on
to do the Shades of God album, and it was kind of like “growling in key” as op-
posed to “just growling.” And then we moved on from there. Not to say there’s
anything wrong with the straight-on death metal sound. I mean, even today, I
like good death metal bands, and I can still totally appreciate that sound; but for
us, we wanted to sort of expand out of that, but still keep it heavy.
Mackintosh: At the time when Gothic came out and when we did some gigs
after it and went on to write more stuff, there wasn’t that big thing surrounding
Gothic where loads of bands were copying it. That came maybe a couple of years
later. So, by the time Shades of God came out, there were bands starting to copy
Gothic, but at the time we weren’t really aware of any of that. We get bored
quickly, I think that’s what it is. We do a record and then sort of say to our-
selves, “OK, we’ve done that, so what are we going to do now?”
So what is that image on the cover anyway?

Edmondson: It’s literally Matt Archer’s pocket. It’s a close-up picture of his
chest pocket with a bit of Greg’s arm. It was Nick’s idea. We had taken some
band photographs and we blew a few of them up to bigger sizes. The section
between Greg and Matt looked really weird when we had the big photograph,
so we turned it upside down and chopped it out and blew it up larger. Nice and
cheap! It fit what we were going for much more than the cover on our first
album did.
Aedy: We wanted to stay away from the typical “heavy metal painting.”
Around that time, we were seeing a number of album covers with some sort of

Viking warrior holding a Flying V in his hands or something. So, with the Gothic
cover, it was a reaction against what other bands seemed to be doing back then.
It worked; I mean, the Gothic cover stood out because it looked different and had
a dark feel to it. I remember at the time getting letters from fans asking what the
cover was. People thought it was a picture inside some cave or inside a tomb or
the inside of a coffin lid that had been scratched apart.
Holmes: I did the cover. If you look on the inside sleeve of the gatefold and
look at the cardigan that Matt is wearing, I saw a picture within the cardigan. I
saw a stream with molten lava coming out of it. It sounds like some kind of
fucking schizophrenic thing or as if I’d been smoking some weed or something,
but I saw this image within the picture. I don’t think anyone else can see it, but
I just thought it would be great on the cover. Now when I look at it, I can still
see the image, but it wasn’t elaborated on. It was supposed to be more elaborated
on to make it look more like what was in my mind, but that never happened. We
just took the film and blew the image up larger and that was it.
Mackintosh: Yeah, it’s ludicrous when you hear the story behind the cover,
but it all seems to fit into place now. A lot of people think it was some big plan,
but really it was just a bunch of young kids just fiddling around in the dark. Back
then we didn’t have any art direction or anyone saying yes or no to us. Hammy
just let us do whatever we wanted. Same thing goes with the Christ image on
the back of the Gothic album. My brother did that. He came up to me and said,
“Why don’t you put this on the back of the record?” And I said “Yeah, OK.”
Archer: When we had the completed cover, we all thought it looked pretty
cool and pretty dark. It took on a whole atmosphere of its own. I’ve seen the
cover hung up on people’s walls and we used to get comments like, “That’s such
an amazing piece of art,” and so at the time we didn’t want to advertise that it
was a lock of my hair and a bit of a jacket. We didn’t want to shatter the illusion
or anything. Everything from the cover to the songs to the sound of the record—
it all sort of fell into place for us.

Ø DOOM OVER MY HAMMY
Ø
Q&A with the Peaceville Records founder
The singularly named enigma Hammy not only discovered Paradise Lost way back in 1988, he also produced
the band’s early demos and their debut album, Lost Paradise. But PL’s Gothic album was the breakthrough re-
lease for his now legendary Peaceville Records. —Scott Koerber
How much input did you give the band on Gothic?
Hammy: Paradise Lost evolved very quickly from the days of the demos to the second album, Gothic.
With Gothic they felt extremely confident when they were going into the studio. The songwriting was really down.
It was extremely precise. They didn’t need me to produce or anything. I didn’t really feel the need to help any-
more. Gothic was the last record they were contracted to record for Peaceville, and the band knew damn well
that the world was their bloody oyster afterwards. They felt the big label stardom coming. It was absolutely a
concrete thing, and that was such an exciting time for those guys. They were buzzing around like mad at the
time. They knew they were flying off to major label-dom!
The record was really experimental at the time of its release. What was the vibe in the
studio like?
Hammy: Not all of the bands sat too well with Keith Appleton [owner of Academy Studios] because he was
quite uneducated in metal and rock and punk. Keith was coming from a pop background, and sometimes the two
worlds just collided. But with Gothic, we just hit it right that time. It was the first really well-recorded album at
Academy Studios. Being a studio-based guy, Keith had the technical knowledge to be able to pull off a lot of the
experimental stuff that Paradise Lost were intending to do. The marriage between Greg’s songwriting and musi-
cianship and Keith’s technical ability really came to the front, and the pair of them worked together extremely well
to create the whole event and atmosphere that is the Gothic album. I remember running into Keith and Greg
while out doing some Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve during the time when they were mixing Gothic. They
both seemed really happy. I just felt that was a brilliant sign. Peaceville didn’t really have the funds to re-record
albums or go for endless remixes or anything like that. It was pretty much a one-take sort of thing.
What did Gothic do for Peaceville Records?
Hammy: Gothic made Peaceville. It had a massive influence on the scene full stop. It made a lot of waves.
Even from the white label promos going out to radio stations and the press, people were just really turning their
heads because you could just feel the shockwaves. It affected tons of bands in terms of how bands were writ-
ing and how they wanted to sound. Soon you started to see a “Paradise Lost effect” on the new bands. Lots
of bands started to say they wanted to sound like Gothic. Same sort of thing that happened after Slayer’s Reign
in Blood. After Gothic, there was a massive flood of bands that went to Academy Studios for the Gothic sound.
Cradle of Filth and everybody else started turning up after that.
Do you have a favorite track from Gothic?
Hammy: Definitely “Eternal.” “Eternal” was the first time Peaceville had sort of what we could class as
a single. We put “Eternal” on a flexi disc on the cover of Metal Forces magazine in 1991. As a song, it stood
out as the first really big song from Gothic.

C H A P T E R 11
ROTTEN TO THE GORE

THE MAKING OF CARCASS’ NECROTICISM—
DESCANTING THE INSALUBRIOUS
by J. Bennett
Release Date: 1991
Label: Earache
Summary: Deathgrind comes of age
Induction Date: September 2005/Issue #11
130
L
iverpudlian grind titans Carcass may not have invented grindcore with
1991’s Necroticism—Descanting the Insalubrious, but they certainly opened
it up to a magnitude of previously unfathomed possibilities. After re-
leasing two well-received but sonically blurry (and visually controversial) grind
shitstorms in Reek of Putrefaction (1988) and Symphonies of Sickness (1989), gui-
tarist/vocalist Bill Steer, bassist/vocalist Jeff Walker and drummer Ken Owen
began writing longer, infinitely more complex and compelling songs before re-
cruiting future Arch Enemy guitarist Michael Amott (then of Carnage) from
Sweden and entering Amazon Studios in Simonswood, England, with producer
Colin Richardson. The result was an eight-song psychedelic metal colossus with
song titles like “Lavaging Expectorate of Lysergide Composition” and “Corpo-
ral Jigsore Quandary,” bizarre samples culled from British TV programming,
and medically/disease-themed lyrics (penned by Walker) that cleft a fine line
between morbid obsession and rarefied genius. But Necroticism isn’t just the cru-
cial transitional album between Carcass’ muffled past and their highly refined
death-rock future—it also happens to be the latest inductee into Decibel ’s Hall
of Fame.
Ø
PART I: NECROTIC CONCEPTION
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the making of
Necroticism?
Bill Steer: I guess the studio where we recorded it—in those days it was
known as Amazon. We’d been there before; we did a track for a compilation
there. We really liked the place and it was relatively local for us, on the outskirts
of Liverpool. It was in a really weird neighborhood, though—not a particularly
pleasant area. It was almost on the edge of an industrial estate. The studio itself
didn’t look like much from the outside, but once you went in, it was really nice.
It later moved to the center of Liverpool and became Parr Street Studios, where
we recorded Heartwork. Later it became well known for Coldplay and stuff like
that.
Michael Amott: It’s the first time I was in a professional studio. The first
record I did, we spent five days recording and mixing it in Sweden, so that wasn’t
really professional. The Carcass thing was a bit more; it was spending quite a lot
of money—for back then especially. I just knew that the other guys in Carcass,
they definitely wanted to step it up on that record.
Jeff Walker: I remember Amott drew a swastika on a tiny Polish flag he had
on his Charvel for a laugh—taking the piss out of Jeff Hanneman’s guitar that
The Making of Carcass’ Necroticism—Descanting the Insalubrious 131

had an S.S. death’s head insignia on it at the time—which pissed off the engi-
neer, ’cause his wife was black. [Laughs]
Steer: There was a weird sense of humor in the band—people were into say-
ing and doing things they didn’t actually believe just to get a reaction. [Laughs]
That Amott story might have been one example—I can’t say I remember it, but
something about it sounds familiar. It was mostly good-natured ribbing,
though—people just making fun of each other, as they do.
Walker: The first thing I thought when the album was finished was that it
wasn’t fully realized. At the time, a few things happened that I wasn’t happy
about. But then, I’m the lazy bastard who should’ve spent more time in the stu-
dio. A couple of things got changed, or edited, that should’ve remained. [Laughs]
For me, that album was our . . . And Justice for All. It’s the calm before the storm.
You’d worked with Colin Richardson previously on Symphonies of Sickness.

What was it like this time?
Ken Owen: For me personally, it was quite a struggle because Colin was a real
stickler for getting it precise. I had to do my tracks several times—like 10 or 15
times per song, probably. He certainly put me through the wringer, but if he
hadn’t, we wouldn’t have been able to come up with the goods. It was very im-
portant to have someone there who could sit back and analyze everything.
Colin’s extremely patient, because listening to the same track over and over again
can really wear you down and make you wanna give up. But the amount of en-
ergy he put into it was incredible. He’s an amazing producer; he had a good
sense of humor as well, which Carcass always had.
Steer: To me, Colin wasn’t a taskmaster—he was an incredibly patient per-
son. He had an almost autistic obsession with the details of a recording. To me,
he was more obsessed with the sonic picture rather than the actual performances.
I mean, he’d react if there was an obvious mistake, but—beyond that—he was
usually listening for sonic quality. From what I can remember, that’s the way he
always operated in the studio. He had so much patience that he’d go for hours
or days to achieve whatever result he was after—budget permitting, obviously.
For that record, somehow or other we ended up with a little more money—not
a huge amount, but we definitely had more time to nail certain sounds or what-
ever we wanted.
Amott: It was exciting because I obviously knew he produced some bands that
I was into and stuff, and I’d heard a lot about him through the Carcass guys. I was
just excited; it was kind of, I don’t know . . . I was surprised how down to earth
he was; he didn’t have this big-shot producer-type attitude at all. He was very laid
back and almost shy in a way, but he took us seriously. I was, I don’t know, I guess
I was 20 years old then, and to be taken seriously, that was amazing.
132 ROTTEN TO THE GORE

Walker: When we brought Colin in to produce, I think he felt being a pro-
ducer meant sticking your bloody nose in and convincing people to change
things. Some of the songs got cut up when I wasn’t there. For example, “Car-
neous Cacoffiny” would’ve been even longer. [Laughs] But probably it was for the
best. I was 21 when we did that album, and when you’re a kid, you think you’re
always right. Some of the samples as well—there should’ve been more between
the tracks, but they got cut because I wasn’t there. But that’s what you get for
having a girlfriend and going to the pub.
Where did all the samples between the songs come from?
Walker: They’re all off TV shows. One was from a pathology program. The
main guy, the pathologist, still lectures at [the University of ] Sheffield, and I
wish I could remember his name. He’s quite a humorous guy; I still see him on
TV. One’s from John Waters—the one about “you can hear people puking” [intro
to “Pedigree Butchery”]. Another one’s [Herschell] Gordon Lewis—he’s the
one who says “prepare to die” [intro to “Symposium of Sickness”]—he directed
Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs!, these gory 1960s exploitation drive-in
movies. That quote is from an interview he did that I taped off the TV. He’s
talking about the arty, pretentious bullshit he’s being asked to justify, but he’s
saying it’s just exploitation. It was the same thing with us—compared to Reek of
Putrefaction and Symphonies of Sickness, Necroticism is pretty mainstream. It’s kind
of a more accessible version of Carcass.
Necroticism is the first Carcass album that doesn’t have a bizarre medical/gore
collage on the cover. You used photos of the band members instead.
Walker: To be honest, we wanted something we could get into the shops. It
was getting a bit boring that people couldn’t buy our records in Germany. After
Symphonies, we realized we couldn’t just churn out the same shit.
Steer: By that time, Jeff had made that side of the band his own—the lyrics
and the imagery. It was very much in his hands. I’m guessing what he had on his
mind was a way to move forward. We couldn’t just stick a collage on every cover,
you know? We had those black-and-white photos taken. I’m not entirely sure of
the circumstances, but I think they were taken at my parents’ house. Later, Jeff
had the big prints done and tore them up a bit to use as part of that picture that
Ian Tilton took. That was what you see on the front of the album. It was actu-
ally shot in Ken’s dad’s veterinary surgery. That’s Ken holding the hammer.
Walker: I feel like I’m trying to take all the glory, but I’ve got to be honest—
it was me. I got a photographer, Ian Tilton, who used to work for Sounds. It was
all sort of cobbled together. We went to Bill’s house to do [the band photos], and
I only had a basic idea in me head. The only thing I knew I wanted to do was

shoot somebody in the bathtub, which Amott, the poor sod, ended up doing. But
they’re killer photographs. I think nowadays people would assume the [album
cover] was done with Photoshop, but it was four actual photographs laid on
Ken’s dad’s veterinary gurney, and then another photograph was taken. The
hammer belonged to Griff from Cathedral—we lived together and I nicked it
from under the kitchen sink. And that’s my hand coming out of the bin.
Ø
PART II: TOOLS OF THE TRADE
Whose idea was the album title?
Owen: Jeff did. I thought it was a really clever play on words. Jeff ’s real in-
ventive with language, though.
Walker: “Descanting the Insalubrious” was Ken. “Necroticism” was me. Bill
and Ken wanted to add the “Descanting the Insalubrious” part, but I thought it
was too middle-class. But mine was poor grammar—it should’ve been “Necrot-
ica” or something.
On previous Carcass albums, Jeff used his sister’s medical dictionary for lyrical
ideas. It seems like he did the same thing here, only he took more liberties with the
terminology.
Walker: Yeah, I think that book was probably my first choice for getting
clever words. But that’s another reason why I think the album is half-baked—
there’s so many typos in the liner notes. I remember being at our manager’s
house, and literally the artwork had to go off the next day. I was forced into a cor-
ner with a lot of the stuff, even song titles. I still can’t get past the fact that that
song came out as “Incarnated Solvent Abuse.” It’s supposed to be “Incarnate
Solvent Abuse.” I won’t take the blame for typos—I swear it’s not me. It hap-
pened all the time—I mean, even with Heartwork; it makes me cringe. Ameri-
cans are terrible with their grammar anyway, and I hate to think I’m responsible
for making your literacy even worse.
Amott: [There were songs about] making dog food out of humans . . . I just
thought it was turning things upside down. A lot of the death metal that we
were listening to or had been listening to was about zombies or mutilating
women and stuff like that, and he kind of turned that thing around. I don’t know
if it was on that album or the previous album, but he had a song about a sort of
male rape—just, like, horrific situations for men or young boys. I thought that
was cool, just to fuck with people. I think it was deliberate in that way. I thought
the words that he was using—or sometimes even making up on his own—I
thought it was kind of psychedelic at times. I think [ Jeff ] went through a pe-

riod where he was very, very creative for a few years, and he was definitely tak-
ing it to the next level all the time. I think that’s probably his best record.
Steer: The lyrical direction of the band was actually kicked off by Ken in the
beginning. When we were kids, he started writing all these weird lyrics, and I
thought they were hysterical. Once we put a band together, those lyrics became
the foundation of what we were doing. Later on, Jeff just completely took over
and twisted it into all kinds of new directions. Things were kind of compart-
mentalized that way. Besides the lyrics and visual atmosphere, he was the driv-
ing force in a lot of the practical matters like gigs and various business-related
matters. By [Necroticism], I was purely interested in the music. I don’t have a lot
of patience for the other stuff—I’m just not that kind of person.
Owen: I helped come up with the lyrics on Reek of Putrefaction, so I was in-
volved with the lyrical content from day one. We didn’t take ourselves too seri-
ously, though—our tongues were firmly in our cheeks.
In the liner notes, all the guitar solos have names. One of Bill’s solos on “Inpropa-
gation” is called “Humanure,” which Cattle Decapitation used for an album title.
Steer: [Laughs] That was Jeff ’s idea. He was wacky in that sense—he’d throw
in any kind of spice he could think of that would make things weirder.
Walker: Obviously, I’d like to take credit for everything, but honestly, yeah—
again—it was probably me. I think maybe we named the solos on Symphonies,
too. It was sort of . . . what’s the word? Pretentious.
Necroticism was the first Carcass record with Michael in the band—how did that
change the dynamics?
Steer: Becoming a four-piece was part of our development. With two guitars
in the band, we could do harmonies, solos . . . you know, widen our scope a bit.
That turned out to be the case, because he came up with a lot of ideas, some great
riffs . . . he helped the spirit of the band along. I just loved it in the beginning,
because all of a sudden there was another guitar coming from the other side of
the stage and, you know, [laughs] I like guitars. He played well in the band, so
it just immediately made us sound better.
Amott: I contributed a little bit on one song, “Incarnated Solvent Abuse,”
and I think one more riff in another song. They had most of the album already
written when I joined the band. I guess I’ve always had a . . . maybe they were
still a little bit more caught up in just being more sort of, I don’t know . . . you
know, sick. Just sick-sounding riffs; we used to call it “sick” then. I don’t know
what it’s called now, but just odd stuff, you know, like random combinations of
notes that just sounded really twisted. I think I brought in more of the wimpy
stuff. [Laughs]

Walker: It’s funny, because most of the album was written before Amott
joined, but the two tracks that save the album are obviously “Incarnate Solvent
Abuse” and “Corporal Jigsore Quandary,” which he helped write. They’re mostly
Bill’s songs, but I played him Arch Enemy’s version [of “Incarnate Solvent
Abuse,” on Dead Eyes See No Future] and Bill’s only comments were, “I forgot
how much input he had in those songs.” But it was good, because they started
to write together. And without those two songs, the album wouldn’t be as pop-
ular as it was. They’re quite good, catchy songs.
Did you have all the songs finished and rehearsed before you went into the
studio?
Steer: Well, I could be wrong, but as far as I remember, everything was writ-
ten before we went in. We got to eight songs, and we knew they were kind of
lengthy, so we figured we had an album, and we just went in. I think seven of
them had been demoed at home. Ken and I definitely had access to a four-track
at that point. We’d play in a spare room at my parents’ house and put down a
really rough four-track. Then I’d maybe put down some extra guitars and Jeff
would stick a vocal on there—just to get a feel for how the track was going to
turn out. I guess at that stage we were getting to the point where we were a lit-
tle more organized as a band.
Owen: I remember I wrote “Symposium of Sickness” at home on an acoustic
guitar using only single notes. Then I’d pass it over to Bill and he’d transpose it
to guitar chords. Then we’d play the original melody in chords.
Steer: I remember this was the last record where Ken contributed any riffs.
He’d write very odd-sounding riffs, and I always had a lot of fun playing any-
thing he came up with. They were just warped—I don’t know anybody who
could come up with stuff like that. He wasn’t really playing guitar per se; he’d just
pick up an acoustic, find these bizarre finger patterns and put them down on
cassette. I’d take the tape home and try to transcribe it, which was really diffi-
cult because he was doing things you wouldn’t naturally want to do. But that
was part of the fun. Sometimes I’d alter it to make it a bit more playable for us.
Ken was a funny guy in those days. Even before Carcass, he’d do these bedroom
recordings—I think one of them was called “Torn Arteries” and the other was
called “Despicable”—and they had those really sick note combinations that you
hear in early Carcass.
Walker: Yeah, the music was done, and most of the lyrics. But we’d never re-
hearsed the vocals, so that was all done on the spot. When it came to the bass,
I quickly realized I hadn’t learned half the bass lines. The beauty of Carcass is
that, with the exception of Bill, we were pretty sloppy—but we could get our shit
together when we needed to.

It probably took me a day and a half to do the bass, because Colin was really
putting everything under the microscope. I don’t know why we bothered, ’cause
you can’t hear the bass, anyway—that’s another reason it’s our . . . And Justice for
All. I remember Ken got flustered ’cause the money and time ran out, and we
only had the basic tracks done, but what are you gonna do?
You ran out of money?

Walker: When we started doing this record, we were doing it with our own
money. We had like 16 or 18,000 pounds, and after about two weeks we ran out
of money and time. We’d done the drums, the rhythm guitars and about half
the bass. We weren’t signed to Earache at the time; our contract was up, so we
were doing this off our own backs. We were negotiating with Earache and Road-
runner at the time—in fact, I’ve still got the offers that Roadrunner sent us. I re-
member Roadrunner asked us, “Do you want to make money, or sell records and
be famous? You can’t have both.”
Ø
PART III: INEVITABLE PROGRESSION OF SONIC MALFEASANCE
It seems like there was a point in Carcass where the band was more concerned with
being sick and fast, but by Necroticism, it seems like that attitude had faded a
bit—it was more like you wanted to shape something.
Amott: That’s definitely something I noticed when I joined the band—how
progressive they were in the true sense of that word. I was trying to learn as
much as I could, especially from Bill Steer, who was my mentor at the time. I
mean, I guess I liked bringing in more sort of classic metal–sounding riffs and
melodies for the guitar. The song that I did write, “Incarnate Solvent Abuse,” was
also the most straightforward song on the record.
Steer: Yeah, in the early days, we definitely wanted to push it as far as we could.
But I guess we suddenly realized a couple of years down the road that it wasn’t
really a goal worth pursuing. Where can you go when you get to that point? When
we first started doing this kind of music, there were a handful of bands doing it,
and at some point you realize that there isn’t any particular reason to spend your
musical career chasing that one dream. It’s something that can’t be quantified, any-
way. Who’s to say which group is fastest or heaviest? You can’t really measure. So,
yeah, third album onwards, we were looking for new things. We were trying to get
more musical, really. Half of it was listening to other music. Our days of being
bigoted about the stuff we listened to, that died out with the first record. Even by
the second record we were listening to Thin Lizzy and Guns N’ Roses—which
people might find shocking if they’ve heard that record, but that was the case.

It seems like Necroticism was the first Carcass album that had a certain degree of
clarity and focus to it.
Owen: Certainly, yeah. I think it was because we’d been playing live quite
often, and that really tightens you up and pushes you to the limit, playing-wise.
If you can play it live, you can play it in the studio. You only get one chance live.
Steer: I suppose we were restless in a way, because we didn’t want to make
the same record twice. The first one just disappeared in a load of mud; with the
second one, we had gotten a little more proficient, but it was still a noisy
record, with a load of fast parts and a lot of distortion going on. By the third
one, I suppose we got more into in playing riffs on strings other than the bot-
tom one.
Amott: The first time Carcass asked me [to join the band], they only had
their first album out and I didn’t really rate that. I didn’t think it was worth leav-
ing whatever I was doing at the time for. When they came out with Symphonies
of Sickness, they became my favorite band overnight. But I wasn’t actually pre-
pared . . . the music that they’d written for Necroticism was so far beyond that.
The band was really making huge steps. It was quite exciting because, I mean,
back then everybody was making such big leaps forward as musicians in be-
tween recording sessions. A year passes and you think, “Wow, this guy’s become
really, really good.” Those things slow down after a few years, you know, actu-
ally learning to play. I guess Carcass was definitely an example of a band that
grew up in public.
Is there any one song that you think holds up particularly well?
Owen: “Corporal Jigsore Quandary” is excellent. Bill came up with the riff,
showed it to me, and we worked out the drumbeat. The drums fit exactly with the
guitar riff, so it was quite a precise track to write. Most of the songs worked that
way; we’d rehearse at Bill’s parents’ place until we felt we’d achieved something.
Steer: To be honest, I’ve hardly heard that record since we did it. Of course,
you’re in the studio and straight after you get home, you listen to the album a bit
just to check it, but none of us tended to listen to it much after the fact—except
for Ken. I lived with Ken for about half a year in Liverpool, and I actually heard
him listening to [Necroticism] just before we were supposed to go in to do the
next record. I was a bit freaked out, because I’ve always had a bit of a phobia
about listening to our own stuff once it was done and dusted. I just doesn’t seem
healthy to me. But it’d be very funny to hear it, actually, after all these years.

PART IV: PROPAGATION
How soon after it came out did you realize the impact it had?
Walker: Pretty straight off—probably because people figured we’d spent a
fortune on the production. Back then, a lot of the recordings were still primitive,
for death metal bands or whatever. Immediately, it had quite an impact, because
things started to take off for us. We were playing more, and more people would
turn up at the gigs. It’s weird that you’re doing this piece on Necroticism, because
a lot of people would consider the classic album to be Heartwork, but purists
would probably say it’s Reek or Symphonies. Nobody’s gonna say it’s the last
album [Swansong], but that album was very misunderstood. If there’s one thing
you can say, it’s that no two Carcass albums sound the same. Not many bands
can say that.
Steer: I don’t really recall meeting anyone who had much to say about that
record—certainly not at the time. That’s my general memory of being in the
band, actually. We’d do records, and they’d sell well enough that we could tour
and maybe get a tiny bit of press, but didn’t really feel like we were getting any-
where with our career in that scene. There was a load of bands, and we just got
carried along with the wave. It enabled us to do things and travel, but we never
felt like the band was any more significant than it was. I don’t know . . . occa-
sionally, once or twice a year, I’ll be somewhere on my own and I’ll run into
someone who mentions that stuff. It’s quite a rare occasion, though. The im-
pression I’ve got is that it’s looked upon more fondly now. To be really honest,
the two records that seem to be big now—this one and Heartwork—weren’t
rated very highly by people. A lot of people said we’d sold out. People were very
conscious of anything creeping in that was too musical or too mainstream. But
we’d got to the stage where we wanted to do something different—we didn’t
care if people thought it was wimpy. Looking back, it wasn’t particularly wimpy,
but those were extreme days, I guess.
Amott: We were very young at the time, so we were very big-headed and we
thought a lot of ourselves, I think. We had that cockiness and we basically de-
spised everybody that wasn’t trying to push boundaries. There were a lot of real
sort of bog-standard death metal bands at the time. There were a lot of people
just happy to imitate Death or Obituary or Morbid Angel. I didn’t really notice
that we influenced anybody, really, but I knew that we had a breakthrough with
the media, especially in England. We got some people behind the band, like
Malcolm Dome and, you know, serious music writers, and we would actually be
featured in these kinds of magazines—that was kind of a new beginning in a way.
I think that was the beginning of Carcass becoming media darlings.

Do you think about the album differently now than you did back then?
Owen: Yeah, especially with what happened to me. Six years ago, I had a
cerebral hemorrhage, which changed my life. It was very close to being the end
of my life, to be honest. I was in a coma for a long time. There was no warning
whatsoever. I bent over to stroke my cat, and I passed out. It was caused by an
aneurysm. I had to go in for surgery a year after the initial hemorrhage because
the aneurysm was still there, and I was told I wouldn’t survive another one. Of
course, that kind of surgery is like a massive head wound. I wasn’t able to walk
after that, so I was just struggling to get on my own feet for a while. But the doc-
tors are really happy with my progress. I’m playing drums again live—with a
blues band in Nottingham—but it’s not quite as intense as Carcass.
Walker: Yeah, because at the time I was kind of, well, not disappointed, but I
was kind of on a downer about it. I like it for what it is now, but at the time, I
had more emotion wrapped up in it. For me, it was half-focused, half-envisaged.
Not literally half, but there were things in there that were taken away, and that
left a bad taste in me mouth. But I’ve only got meself to blame. Colin, Ken and
Bill made these decisions when I wasn’t around. Which isn’t to say I wasn’t
wrong . . . if you put the stuff back in now, I don’t think it’d necessarily make it
a better album.
Amott: I think it sounds kind of tame now today, actually. But it surprises me
now . . . I heard it a while ago, and it surprised me how long the songs are. There
was a complete disregard for the listener back then. [Laughs] There really was.
I can’t even remember that ever coming up in conversation—what people would
think about it. It was all about keeping ourselves happy, and also trying to im-
press other bands at the time. I think there was quite a competitive spirit, like,
“Wait ’til Morbid Angel hear this,” you know, that kind of attitude.
Steer: Well, I couldn’t comment directly because it’s been so long and I
couldn’t even count the years it’s been since I’ve heard the thing. Like I said,
every once in a while I’ll run into someone who seems to rate it very highly, and
for me, that makes it all worthwhile. I distinctly remember the talk in the band—
even in the studio when we were recording this album—we thought, “Oh, this
scene hasn’t got long.” We felt it was way past saturation point already and there
really was no future for it. I guess we were completely wrong about that.
Is there anything you’d change about it?

Steer: [Laughs] No, definitely not. It was all part of our learning curve. It
was definitely a transitional phase, you know, going from that really muddy-
sounding three-piece grindcore act to something more musical. I think [Necroti-
cism] was where we realized we had six strings on our guitars, not two. Ken got
into some super-developed drum stuff, too, which is why the recording took so

long. When you get into a studio, those things suddenly become a lot harder to
play.
Amott: I’d like to remix the album. [Laughs] I can understand that people
are interested in it, but I’m not really that interested in it myself because I was
there and . . . [laughs] I don’t know, I guess maybe when I retire, that’s when I’ll
just sort of look at everything I’ve done. I think it’s too early to look back now;
I mean, you know, I can’t really rate what we did with Carcass as classic or any-
thing like that, you know what I mean?
Walker: Nothing. There’s no point. It is what it is, and people enjoy it for
what it is. There’s nothing that offends me after all this time. I’ve got no beef
with it. I don’t have to listen to it, and I didn’t pay for it, so . . . [laughs] It was a
good time doing it, and that’s the bottom line. Maybe I’d make it longer, though.
[Laughs]
Owen: No, I personally don’t think it’d be right to change anything. You can’t
take away any part of your history without changing who you are today, and I’m
very happy with the person I am these days.

C H A P T E R 12
THE CRYPTIC STENCH
THE MAKING OF CANNIBAL CORPSE’S TOMB OF THE MUTILATED

by Chris Dick
Release Date: 1992
Label: Metal Blade
Summary: Indecent death metal exposure
“T
o crush your enemies, see them driven before you and to hear the
lamentation of the women,” so said a sword-wielding Arnold
Schwarzenegger as Conan in 1982’s Conan the Barbarian. The
aforementioned quote could’ve come from Buffalo’s Cannibal Corpse after they
released the all-powerful, superlatively offensive Tomb of the Mutilated 10 years
later. See, Tomb of the Mutilated, as lauded and reviled as it was, altered death
metal. It was the future, immediate and long-term, and nobody saw it. To be
fair, Cannibal Corpse weren’t the first to use horror movies, serial killers, the
evening news and an overactive imagination to power music and image. That
142
honor goes, in part, to Repulsion, Autopsy, Impetigo, Macabre and pre-Heartwork
Carcass. What Cannibal Corpse unwittingly did, specifically on Tomb of the
Mutilated, is take disparate concepts (music, lyrics, art, touring, merchandise, dis-
tribution) and roll them into one gigantic, pus/bile-gushing machine that every-
one from the record-buying public to idea-starved bands wanted a piece of.
As a record, Cannibal Corpse’s third splatter-platter runs like a no-no high-
light reel at PMRC and 700 Club meetings. Musically, it’s jarring, alien and
nearly incomprehensible. Lyrically, well, the Germans, who enjoy scat porn and
strap-on sex with animatronic dinosaurs, felt it was verboten. And artistically, as
in Vincent Locke’s gut-wrenchingly good cover, it proved the Germans weren’t
the only ones getting kinky in candlelight. Basically, Tomb of the Mutilated was
the most grotesque yet commercially viable death metal album ever. It made
soccer moms run screaming—Birkenstocks smacking like machine gun fire
against expensively massaged heels—back to their Volvos and kids like impres-
sionable high schoolers, wonder if sheer possession alone could lead marathon
family counseling sessions. I mean, if songs like “Entrails Ripped From a Vir-
gin’s Cunt,” “I Cum Blood,” “Addicted to Vaginal Skin” and “Necropedophile”
don’t offend, then pinch your balls really hard. If you yelp in agony, then you’re
not one of us. Your senses haven’t been whittled down to bloody nubs. And you
should just go home now.
Of course, for every mention of “Entrails Ripped From a Virgin’s Cunt” what
really set Cannibal Corpse apart was album-opener “Hammer Smashed Face.”
Heavy, heavy, heavy. And catchy, too. As in H5N1 catchy. This is one of those
songs you can’t forget. It’s death metal equivalent of “Stayin’ Alive,” with less
Gibb and more giblets. And then there’s the movie deal. While Slayer jammed
in front of Giza, the Corpse landed an appearance in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective—
the movie with future supercalifragilistic star Jim Carrey. They only got a few
frames in the theatrical release, but “Hammer Smashed Face” was given world-
wide exposure. Big-time stuff for a small-time band. This alone is Hall of Fame–
worthy, but we must be judicious. Tomb of the Mutilated is this month’s inductee
simply because it ruled. Cannibal fuckin’ Corpse, dudes!
I remember a friend of mine slamming the audio cassette of Tomb on my desk in

high school saying, “Dude, this makes your Bolt Thrower sound gay.” That was my
first memory of the record. What are yours?
Jack Owen: The main thing I remember was putting the album together—
the final touches, seeing the song title “Entrails Ripped From a Virgin’s Cunt”
and saying, “Dudes, we’ve finally gone too far!” When we got the artwork back,
which was a male zombie going down on a female zombie, it’s like, “Oh, man!
We’ve really gone too far!” I remember writing it in Buffalo. It went smoothly. I
The Making of Cannibal Corpse’s Tomb of the Mutilated 143

don’t remember [Bob] Rusay contributing much. Well, not as much as he had
on Eaten Back to Life and Butchered at Birth. By then we were a machine. We
didn’t have jobs. I think it was after the first European tour in 1991, we thought,
“Why go back to work? Let’s keep writing albums!” We’d practice every week-
day. Me and Alex lived about 45 minutes from the practice room, so we’d car-
pool in every day.
Alex Webster: For Tomb, we wrote more on our own than on previous
records. The one thing for me is that the bass is more prominent. I had started
practicing a lot more after the first tour for Butchered. I was hanging out with a
friend of mine, Greg St. John, who was friends with Cynic. He was in the band
Solstice with Rob [Barrett]. Well, Greg had moved back up to Buffalo from
Florida and was like, “Listen to Atheist, listen to this Cynic!” He was getting me
into that stuff. I was very much into brutality, but it was around this time I
started getting into the more technical side of music. Some of the stuff I ended
up writing, like “Hammer Smashed Face,” was the result of me practicing. That
was where I was at. I wanted to improve as a bass player.
Chris Barnes: From working on the album [and] being in the rehearsal space
to putting together the artwork and going back to Morrisound to record, I had
a lot of good memories of that time. It was a blast. It was an important album
for me at the time. The band was finding its particular style and nailing that
down.
Paul Mazurkiewicz: Fond memories, really. It was a critical point in the
band’s career. We took it to the next level on Tomb of the Mutilated. It was a good
time for the band. It pushed us forward. We were a young band, too. We were
formed in December ’88 and signed our contract with Metal Blade in July of ’89.
We were together seven or eight months. It was overwhelming. We were just
kids playing music. We never set goals higher than playing a few shows. By the
end of ’89, we were down in Florida recording Eaten Back to Life. Those three
records came together pretty quickly. Most of the touring started on Tomb of the
Mutilated. It was our last album during what I call the “innocent times.” We got
more serious with everything on Tomb of the Mutilated.
Bob Rusay: It was the last album I appeared on. It was a pretty stressful
time in the band. We were on the outs at the time. At least with me. It wasn’t
a happy time for me, but the scene was exploding. It was taking off. We were
having a lot of fun on tours. The European tours were huge. Writing the actual
album was a little different from the first two. On the first two, everything was
new and fresh. By Tomb, for me, things were a little tense. We weren’t getting
along. Some of the guys wanted to get technical with it. Sadus was really pop-
ular at the time, and they were great musicians. None of us were anywhere near
their level of playing. Alex wanted to write all these goofy guitar parts and Paul
144 THE CRYPTIC STENCH

was coming up with some pretty simple parts. They sounded good. Alex was
like, “No, you’re a drummer. Stay behind the drums.” There was always pres-
sure to write music. I remember when Alex came up with the intro to “Ham-
mer Smashed Face.” It was really intricate. It was a scale broken down and
mixed. The whole direction of the album went in that way. On the first two al-
bums, I wrote a lot of music. With Tomb, I hit a wall. I wasn’t coming up with
fresh ideas. I couldn’t get inspired.
Your first two albums were intense, but Tomb of the Mutilated took all things
Cannibal Corpse one step further. Why do you think the album was so strong in
comparison to its predecessors?
Rusay: It was a much better collaboration from the group. It’s a much better
album, as far as the material. Everyone had a hand in it. It was a good direction
to go in. Everyone wanted to have a say. It was more stressful, but it made for a
better product.
Owen: I remember making the band more refined. Finding our identity.
Eaten and Butchered are so different. Eaten is more thrashy and Butchered is just
riff after riff. Some of the stuff doesn’t make much sense. With Tomb we took
our time. Some of the songs took a week to write and some other songs took five.
You know, to rot. Tomb was more song-oriented. Chris had taken over the lyrics,
so we could concentrate on the music. We really wanted to write music that
made sense, in the end.
Webster: It’s more song-like. To me, if you have interesting and brutal riffs
that were put together in a memorable way, then it’s OK. During Butchered at
Birth, we were convinced the more unorthodox the music, the less mainstream
it was. It was heavier to be off-the-wall as far as arrangements go. When you
look at some of the records that really inspired us, like Reign in Blood, they’re
heavy records, but they’re conventionally arranged. That was how we approached
Tomb. There’s still some weird stuff, like on “Post Mortal Ejaculation.” That’s
pretty far from being a mainstream arrangement.
Barnes: It was a natural progression. You learned more as you went. Tomb of
the Mutilated was no different. Jack and Alex started getting more interested in
the technical aspects of writing, excelling in each of their instruments. We’d al-
ways been into bands like Sadus and Possessed. Cynic was also a big-time in-
fluence. It was a natural extension from Butchered at Birth. For me, it’s hard to
lyrically or vocally decide if Butchered or Tomb is the most intense. Both are lyri-
cally obscene. And vocally they’re on the verge of alien. Either one of those
records is about as heavy as we ever were going to get. Some like to say Tomb is
the pinnacle death metal release of the time. That’s an honor when people hold
the album in such high regards.

Mazurkiewicz: It was the next step forward. It was more technical. A song
like “Hammer Smashed Face,” with the bass line, was new to us. When you look
back on that song, that part was considered tech. It was a little primitive. Back
in ’92, it was pretty cool. The writing was still brutal, but we never wanted to
write the same album over and over. That was the start of things getting more
and more technical. And catchier.
One of the Tomb’s signature traits is its groove. It’s heavy, fast, but insanely catchy.
Groove wasn’t even a factor on Eaten Back to Life, and Butchered at Birth had
a few booty-shakin’ moments. Where’d it come from?
Rusay: Well, the first couple of albums, it was all about speed. We wanted to
slow things down a little bit—get more groove parts in there and change up the
tempo a little more. Speed was still a primary thing, but we wanted to see the
pit explode. You want to see the pit grow. You want a couple of circles forming
around the primary circle. You had that in Europe. Like three circle pits.
Owen: Not sure where it came from. I don’t think more influences came
into the picture. We were into Exodus and Bay Area thrash, at least on my part.
Autopsy was a big influence. The low tuning and doom element. We were still
playing six-string guitars, so we were limited in tuning. But we didn’t know
that back then. We were better musically, had better gear and better practice fa-
cilities. Everything kind of came together. You can hear we finally found our
identity.
Webster: That was the goal from the beginning. We had some pretty ob-
scure stuff early on. “Living Dissection” on Butchered at Birth goes all over the
place. More unorthodox. On Tomb, things started get more song-like. For sure
“Hammer Smashed Face” is a song. I wouldn’t call Tomb catchy by mainstream
standards, but it definitely was put together in a way you could remember the
songs.
Barnes: It is very catchy and heavy. We were inspired. We were just trying to
make it interesting for ourselves while making things as heavy as possible. It just
worked out that way, the way those guys wrote. They’re talented musicians. It’s
orchestrated and echoes back to bands we listened to growing up. More verse-
chorus-type stuff. We put that whole idea into hyper-motion, with a thousand
things going on at once. We wanted to have it rhythm-based, though—a catchy-
type of groove going on, especially in the middle parts of songs. Tomb of the Mu-
tilated is filled with groove tangents.
Mazurkiewicz: It took things to a whole new level. It was technical, heavy,
but it had a groove. We were starting to groove out a little more. The song-
writing was getting better and better. “Hammer” is a pretty catchy song. I can’t

say how or why it happened; it just did. I mean, why is Slayer popular? You can
think of almost any reason, but the fact is they wrote amazing riffs. They’re
catchy. Memorable. I think things really took off on The Bleeding when we fo-
cused as individuals on writing actual songs. With Tomb of the Mutilated, it
was the last album where the songs were written as a collaborative effort.
At the time, most bass players in death metal were basically underperforming gui-
tarists with four strings. A few guys stand out, like Steve DiGiorgio, the late Roger
Patterson, Scott Carino and Tony Choy. On Tomb, Alex made the following state-
ment: “Hey, I’m not a guitarist! I’m a bass player!”
Webster: I definitely didn’t play guitar very much before I picked up the bass.
It didn’t grab me. I started playing bass around 13 or 14. I thought, “Oh yeah!
This is it!” It felt good. Bass was the right instrument for me. I could tell right
away. By the time I was good enough to play in a band, bass was the only in-
strument I knew. I was completely fingers by the time Cannibal got going. I
fooled around with a pick in my old band, Beyond Death, but it always seemed
more natural to play with fingers. The finger bass players are always going to
sound less guitar-like. The right hand approach is entirely different. A pick-
playing bass player is more like a guitar player. I definitely wanted to be a bass
player.
Mazurkiewicz: When you listen to it, he stands out. He was becoming a bet-
ter bass player. If you look back on videos of yourself you think, “What the heck?
Look how far we’ve come.” Alex was always a good bass player, but over the last
20 years he’s become a monster. A great bass player. Tomb of the Mutilated was
his stepping-stone. He wanted to be heard.
Owen: Alex became better and more unique out of necessity. Before then, it
was just guitar players who were given a bass and forced to keep up. He came
from a traditional school, so he developed finger patterns in order to keep up
with us. We all wanted to be heard, but the bass pokes out on that album. You
can actually hear him.
Barnes: Alex has always been 100 percent tech, using his fingers trying to
get all five going. He was driven as a musician. I’ve never met anyone as driven
as Alex when it comes to trying to learn an instrument. That’s for real, man. He
was always trying to outdo guys he thought were amazing. He pushed himself.
On Tomb, Alex became more vocal, as far as being a songwriter and being in-
volved in the recording process. He really got on Scott [Burns]’s nerves. He
wanted the bass turned up. Scott walked out of the room a couple of times. Alex
was pushing Scott to the limit as far as how loud the bass should go. That went
on into the next album, The Bleeding, too.

I think it’s a given you were influenced by Slayer, Possessed, the Bay Area bands,
Death—the usual suspects. Were there more contemporary influences coming into
Cannibal around the time you started writing Tomb of the Mutilated? The
arrangements on Tomb of the Mutilated are way more advanced than on
Butchered at Birth.
Rusay: I remember Chuck [Schuldiner] did some interesting things. We did
five shows with Death in Europe. It was fun hanging out with those guys. Apart
from that, I don’t remember anything new. Death metal is something that’s still
developing.
Webster: I started listening to Atheist a lot. We toured with Atheist. We also
toured with Pestilence and Death. Getting to see Scott Carino and Tony [Choy]
play every night was very inspiring. Those guys were fucking awesome. Then,
right after that we toured with Atheist and Gorguts. Éric Giguère was a great
bass player and Darren McFarland, who was with Atheist at the time, was fan-
tastic. I listened to DiGiorgio and Roger Patterson a lot as well. Roger unfor-
tunately, as we know, passed away by that time, so I never got to see him play.
But, boy, he was a big influence. The playing on Piece of Time is phenomenal.
This was more or less during the writing of the album.
Barnes: I was never influenced by Sadus or Cynic, but I’ll say Cynic influ-
enced a whole bunch of bands from the death metal scene. Around ’93 or ’94.
They were the silent influence in a lot of players. Paul [Masvidal] and Sean [Rei-
nert] were such amazing musicians. If you were a musician in death metal at that
time, you were just in awe—with your jaw to the floor. I remember watching
those guys and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The guys were good friends.
The scene fed off itself. For me, I was influenced by how I was feeling inside and
how heavy and erratic the music was. The music was so groove-laden and tech-
nical. That’s what inspired me—to push myself—to come up with the sounds I
did. I liked Obituary, Death and Pestilence, but those bands didn’t really inspire
me vocally. I just wanted to destroy everything I thought was right. It was insanity
put to music. A madman’s brain on tape. I was really into true crime.
Mazurkiewicz: Not really. Nothing inspired me other than what we were
doing. We were narrow-minded in those days. If it wasn’t death metal, we weren’t
listening to it. The bands of the day that we were playing and growing with like
Deicide, Malevolent Creation and Suffocation were, like the fans, inspiring. The
band and scene were going great, and I couldn’t wait to get back in and tour,
write a new album, be with the guys.
One of the first reactions to Tomb of the Mutilated is that it’s shocking. From
cover to music. Were you trying to provoke?

Barnes: No, I don’t think so. I wasn’t trying to provoke. I was trying to in-
voke thought in some way. Hoping someone would see the twisted dichotomy.
To be sickened by it and yet entertained by it. Like watching a horror film.
There’s an underlying theme of paraphrasing society, people’s sickness, and put-
ting it to music. I was feeding off the music. I see words in the music. If I can
get through the first line, it pretty much writes itself.
Rusay: We definitely tried to push that. The name itself, Cannibal Corpse,
pushed the envelope. We wanted to be on the edge. The blood, the guts and the
gore—that’s what it’s all about. We always tried to translate a horror movie into
reality. If you do read the lyrics and pay attention to what’s going on, a lot of
it’s based on real-life events. There’s some really sick people in this world. Art
sometimes imitates life. It’s the media that’s hypocritical. I mean, it’s OK for
the evening news to show a kid going crazy, shooting people. Like in Virginia.
But they way they report it glorifies it. We had lyrics about Jeffrey Dahmer and
Ed Gein, real-life killers, and all of a sudden what we have to say is taboo. Why
is it OK for you to glorify a school shooting, when it’s not OK for us to tell a
story based on true events? From our view, the way we see it? This stuff is out
there.
Webster: I think it was more of the same. As far as provoking lyrically, that’s
all Chris. He gets the credit. We told him nothing was off-limits. Boy, he sure
took our word. We concentrated on the music. I’ve always been more focused on
that. For Tomb, I focused on writing and my instrument.
Mazurkiewicz: We were trying to be over-the-top. I don’t know if we were
trying to provoke. We thought we should have the same freedom to put out
whatever we feel. If people can’t understand it’s fiction, then I don’t know what
to tell them. It’s no different from movies out today like Saw, Hostel or some
crazy Stephen King novel. All the bands we were listening to, like Kreator’s
Pleasure to Kill and Slayer’s Hell Awaits, had similar subject matter. Well, we took
that to another level. It had to be as extreme as possible. Luckily, [Metal Blade
owner] Brian Slagel was cool enough to let us have that control.
Did you ever think Cannibal Corpse—or, more specifically, Tomb—was contro-
versial? This is different from provocation. Too much to take in one sitting.
Barnes: I never did anything for controversy. That was more a nuisance. I
wanted to just write something that was exciting to me. Controversy was sec-
ondary. I just thought it was cool I had fans who were into what I was writing
about. They thought it was well written. It wasn’t meaningless jargon written
down to fast music. I’ve always taken pride in writing a storyline. It is brutally
sickening, but there’s always a story in my lyrics.

Owen: I guess mainstream-wise, yes. As far as death metal, no. I mean
after people saw “Entrails,” I don’t even think they questioned “Post Mortal
Ejaculation.”
Webster: Not back then. It didn’t even cross our minds. Fuck it, we went for
it. We loved horror movies, heavy shit, extremities. We wanted everything as ex-
treme as possible. That was the mission back then. I guess you can’t make records
like Tomb of the Mutilated without people noticing. As the band got more and
more popular, do-gooders were bound to notice us.
Mazurkiewicz: Not then. We were doing what we wanted to do. When we
released Tomb of the Mutilated, we had only been together for four years. It was
all relatively new. We didn’t have many problems releasing Butchered at Birth, so
by the time Tomb came around, it’s like, “Well, it’s sick, but this is what we do.”
I don’t think there were any regrets. Looking back now, it’s like, “Whoa! This is
extreme!”
Lyrically, Cannibal Corpse were intense, but Tomb took the whole concept to ex-
tremes. I mean “Entrails Ripped From a Virgin’s Cunt” or “Addicted to Vaginal
Skin” aren’t exactly subtle. I remember reading the lyrics in Humanities class in
high school. Not only did they make me feel ill, I thought if I was caught with the
sleeve I’d be expelled or placed in some type of protective custody.
Barnes: I just felt the music was so extreme and the beats Paul was putting
down represented the sickness that kept creeping out of me. I had great song ti-
tles going. I was just living my life at the time. I was influenced by friends of
mine. A friend of mine had a lot of drug problems, so I’d go to unsavory neigh-
borhoods with him just to see how those types of people lived. I put myself in
weird situations just to get something out of it. I was working at a warehouse and
one of the delivery guys used to work at a prison. He knew I was into horror and
would start telling me stories about guys who were locked up for murder. “En-
trails Ripped From a Virgin’s Cunt” was based on two brothers, one of whom
was semi-retarded, who were serving life. They captured some girl and the semi-
retarded brother was talked into putting a coat hanger up her pussy to pull out
her intestines. That story freaked me out. I started to think about fear at that
point. To just shock someone doesn’t really work, but trying to write something
that invokes an emotion, like fear, is what interests me. I put it out there raw. I
felt it complemented the music, ’cause it was so far out there on all levels. “I
Cum Blood” is probably my most disturbing lyric though.
Mazurkiewicz: It was the most extreme album we had done. “Necrope-
dophile,” “Entrails,” “Post Mortal” and “I Cum Blood” were pretty extreme.
“Hammer Smashed Face” is pretty mild for this album in retrospect, isn’t it?
Lyrically, Barnes took over on Tomb. They were as crazy as possible. I don’t think

we did anything like those lyrics on albums after Tomb. I haven’t read the lyrics
in a long time, so if they still shock me then I know it’s a job well done. Vocally,
he was so guttural.
Rusay: Around that time, Silence of the Lambs was really popular. We were
really trying to push the envelope. Take things one step further. You wouldn’t
think of combining words to get “Hammer Smashed Face.” The following album
had song titles that people thought were too much. Like “Fucked With a Knife.”
It’s as blunt as you can get.
Owen: It kind of became a postcard for the band. “Entrails” isn’t even that
great. People were so floored by the song title. It was so over-the-top, but then
again I guess this is what we’re supposed to be doing. I just went with it.
Webster: Like I said, we held nothing back. Chris did the lyrics and we
helped come up with song titles. He went for it. He worked hard, reading books
about serial killers and doing research. He busted ass to take it to the limit. For
sure, our grossest lyrics are on Tomb. I mean, it’s pretty hard to beat “Necrope-
dophile” and “Entrails Ripped From a Virgin’s Cunt.” “Post Mortal Ejaculation”
isn’t too friendly either. If you wanted our most offensive album, lyrically, it’s
Tomb of the Mutilated.
The song titles made me cringe. I thought, at the time, nothing could top those song
titles. Did you guys just sit around and whiteboard gross shit?
Owen: Right, the titles either came from lines in the lyrics or brainstormed
in a smoke-filled room with poster board. I think all Chris needed was a song
title or a few words. He’d work from there.
Webster: Unless Chris had come up with something on his own, we’d sit
around the practice room and come up with titles. We still do that. We put a
piece of paper on the wall in the Cannibal practice room and think up titles.
Stuff that’s cool. It’s hard to remember who came up with what. I might’ve come
up with “Hammer Smashed Face.” It’s honestly hard to remember at this point.
Mazurkiewicz: We always brainstormed. There were definitely titles that
belonged to Chris or Alex or me. It was mostly us three that came up with
titles over the years. It was like the songwriting back then. Everything was
collaborative.
Do you remember much of your time with Scott Burns recording Tomb of the
Mutilated?
Rusay: Scott Burns is a really great guy, but I’ll tell you—the three albums I
worked on with him, I couldn’t find a guitar sound I liked. We got close on Tomb.
We used two heads—a Marshall Valvestate head and ran that through a Carbon
head. Everything was monotone. There was never enough crunch for me. I think

Scott did a great job on Morbid Angel and Deicide. Their guitar sound crunched.
It popped. For some reason, I was never really happy with my guitar sound. When
we were in our practice room, it was really crunchy. There was a lot of high end.
More tones involved. I like working with Marshalls, ’cause they’re really warm
sounding. I put a lot of effects in front of that to get the crunch and high end.
When we went into the studio, it seemed to go away. I mean, Chris’ vocals are so
deep—from his stomach—it drowns a lot of details, the tones, out.
Barnes: Scott was the man. From day one, I was the closest with him. I set
up things for us to go down from Buffalo to Morrisound. He was the coolest guy
in the world. On Tomb, it was really comfortable working with Scott. I think
people miss the sounds he put on tape.
Owen: Once we finished drums, I remember it being smooth. On Eaten we
didn’t get to punch anything in. This was the first time we could actually over-
dub and double-track the guitars. We simply had a bigger budget.
Webster: I remember it was the first album where I got to spend a lot more
time recording. I was afforded more time. On Eaten Back to Life, I did all the bass
tracks at the exactly same time as the drums. It was all one take. On the second
album it was like that except for one or two punches. I went back and redid “In-
nards Decay.” You can see the footage of that on our box set. For Tomb, I played
with the drums and then went back to re-record. We did scratch tracks for Paul.
It was the first time I got to re-record my parts on every single song. I got to go
back and make sure everything was right. We were just learning how to make
an album tight on Tomb of the Mutilated.
Mazurkiewicz: He was with the band since the beginning, watching us trans-
form. The time at Morrisound was great, apart from some of the stuff with Bob.
Scott worked overtime to finish Tomb. You went over your scheduled time. He
was like a sixth member of Cannibal. He looked after you guys.
Owen: He lived about maybe an hour from the studio. So, if he worked late,
he’d just stay in the studio. He was definitely a sixth member of the band back
then.
Webster: Scott did that with pretty much all of our records, but he spent the
most time with Tomb. We were supposed to be done at midnight, and he’d stay
until two or later. He wanted us to sound great. Everything he did and every-
thing he recommended for us to do was only to make the record sound good. He
was definitely a sixth member. It was clear he wasn’t punching the clock. He
wanted us to succeed.
Barnes: He an opinion about things. Scott was a very highly regarded person,
as far as how we wrote things. He pushed us. Not in a bad way. Scott wasn’t one
of those guys who’d yell and scream. He’s a really great guy. You didn’t mind lis-

tening to him, ’cause you couldn’t help but love the guy. That’s what his per-
sonality was like.
Mazurkiewicz: He was one of the guys. [We had] a lot of fun working all
those years with Scott. Looking back, yeah, he was the sixth member. He worked
a lot of overtime. We went over a couple of days and he fought for extra time.
He always worked for the band. I think we had three weeks on Tomb, but I think
it ended up taking like 21 days.
“Electronic Harmonizer was not used to create any vocals on Tomb of the Muti-
lated.” That was the statement on the inside sleeve. What was the purpose of that
statement? Was it important to tell people you didn’t pitch the vocals?
Barnes: It was out of frustration, something that stems back to Butchered at
Birth. I was coming into my own—my own sounds, my own tones and my own
vocal patterns. I’ve always got questions from people about my vocals. Like,
“What effects do you use to get the vocals to sound like that?” I’d tell them it was
natural and they wouldn’t believe me. Even my sound guy at the time got sick
of hearing it. I put it right on the record, so people who had the record knew
what the story was. My vocals were always raw. We’d do effects on accents and
intros, but never a broad spectrum of effects throughout. No flange or reverb on
a vocal throughout a song. I’ve been fighting that my whole career.
Rusay: The point was [that] he didn’t add anything to spice up the vocals.
When Chris went at it, he didn’t put anything on his vocals. He mic’ed in and
went for it. There wasn’t really anything added to get him to sound like that.
That’s what he sounds like. The stranger story is if you listen to our demos be-
fore Eaten, Chris sounds like Blaine [Cook] from the Accüsed. Apparently, the
singer for Morbid Angel was in the studio laying down tracks, so when he came
back with our sound and the Blaine vocal style, it didn’t sound right. He went
back the very next day and changed it to a barking death metal style. That
evolved. He was in his groove on Tomb of the Mutilated. So, there was a change
early on. A lot of people from Buffalo knew it. The biggest question we got after
we finished the first album was the change in Chris’ vocals. Eventually, we
wanted people to know that we don’t spice things up. If there’s reverb on there,
it’s to appease Scott Burns. Scott had to turn a knob somewhere.
Owen: It was important to him. To let people know those were his vocals. He
used a little on Tomb. Screw it! The guitars are good. Those are legit!
Webster: There were other bands that used harmonizers at the time. Chris
wanted to be clear it was just him singing. No studio trickery. If there’s one thing
where there was friction with Chris, [it’s] that the vocals are completely dry. He
never wanted any effects on the vocals. He was definitely subterranean on Tomb
of the Mutilated.

Mazurkiewicz: I think it was important. A lot of bands were using it at the
time. What you hear is natural. No question. He’s making the sound naturally
through a microphone. We knew Deicide used it, so we were well aware of the
statement we were making.
The songwriting is credited to Cannibal Corpse on Tomb of the Mutilated. Was

it really a collaborative effort where everyone was involved?
Owen: Yeah, there was a lot of camaraderie back then. If somebody was stuck
on a riff, somebody else would step in. Rusay wrote a lot of “Post Mortal Ejac-
ulation” and “Beyond the Cemetery.” Alex and Paul wrote “Hammer Smashed
Face,” which was about the mini break-up. You can imagine whose face they
wanted to smash. Barnes. I contributed a lot to “I Cum Blood,” “Addicted to
Vaginal Skin,” “Split Wide Open” and a lot of “Necropedophile.” “Necrope-
dophile” was a total rip-off of a Danish band called Invocator.
Webster: We were a band. We’d practice all the time in a room at a place
called Absolute Storage. It’s what we did after work. We’d drive to the room
and start working. Practice was from 6–6:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. five days a week.
We worked ’cause we loved it. It didn’t feel like work at the time. We’d come up
with riffs at home and bring them to the practice space. I remember Bob came
up with the intro for “Beyond the Cemetery” that way. “Hammer Smashed Face”
was mainly me and Paul. Jack did one riff on that. “Entrails” is mostly me.
“Cryptic Stench,” I think, is the same. Bob wrote most of “Post Mortal Ejacu-
lation.” That stuff was written in 1991 and 1992. That’s a long time ago. I
wanted to step up and be the best band we could be.
Barnes: The songwriting kicked ass. I guess it was like it always was. I don’t
remember it skipping a beat. Bob came up with a lot of riffs and those guys had
to take their time to figure them out.
Mazurkiewicz: The album came together naturally. We learned along the
way. We were taking things in a direction of being more aggressive and techni-
cal. The way the band needed to head. We never had any major lull in our cre-
ativity. We just wrote what was in our heads at the time. We’re always growing
as musicians and people.
Cannibal Corpse actually broke into two separate groups for a short while before
the writing of Tomb of the Mutilated commenced. It was never publicized at the
time, but what happened?
Owen: There were differing opinions in the band, so me, Rusay and Barnes
split for a while. Paul and Alex kept it together. They wrote “Hammer Smashed
Face” during that time. I was always in the middle. Like in Deicide, Steve is al-
ways between the Hoffmans and Glen. I didn’t really know what to do. I was

with Rusay and Chris, but I think I was trying to keep the whole thing together.
If I would’ve stuck with Alex and Paul, we probably would’ve gotten another
singer and guitar player. I think it was the recording contract and our tour ob-
ligations that eventually pushed us back together. It was too good to pass up.
Webster: We never publicized it. Chris was tour managing. It was the first
time he had ever managed a tour and there were questions about what was going
on with the money. We argued about that. I mean, our practice space was like
four rooms away from Cannibal’s practice space. We just moved down the hall.
There was a lot of friction. Me and Paul started writing “Hammer” during a
brief exodus from Cannibal Corpse. We were like, “Fuck this! We’re out.” We
were so pissed at each other. Who knows what it was about now? We were a
bunch of young guys doing things like touring for the first time. We were stuck
in a van for a month, and by the end of the month we were ready to quit. And
that’s what we did. It lasted less than a week.
Barnes: I have a hard time remembering that. I couldn’t even tell you what
it was about. There have always been speed bumps.
Mazurkiewicz: There was inner turmoil at the time. It was mainly Chris. We
had just got back from the road and all the issues from the road sort of came to
a head. We felt like we didn’t want to deal with it anymore. So, Alex and I quit
the band. We moved down the hall. Alex and I split the cost of the space. Offi-
cially, we quit the band. We moved our stuff out, we jammed, and like two or
three days later we had “Hammer.” It was written more out of anger. After a
few practices, we reconciled and moved on. We just wanted to get another album
out and move on.
The vocal cadence on Tomb is unique to Cannibal Corpse. Did you write lyrics or
music first?
Barnes: 99.9 percent of the time I wouldn’t have an idea of what to write
until I had a tape of the music. Then I could start writing lyrics and vocal parts.
Owen: It was piece by piece, but I think the music came first most of the
time. This was before the break-up.
Webster: The music came first. Almost always. When I look back on it, as a
lyric writer, I realize how hard we made it for Chris. Like on “Hammer Smashed
Face.” At no point is there a vocal part where you’re hearing the name of the song
title again and again. The hook is in the music and vocal patterns, not the lyrics.
He wasn’t writing standard verse-chorus-verse lyrics, ’cause we weren’t writing
like that. Well, most of the time. He reacted to the music rather than us react-
ing to the lyrics.
Mazurkiewicz: A lot of songs were written with the title first. Sometimes we
just had music and no title, but all the lyrical concepts came from Barnes.

How the hell did you guys get the Ace Ventura: Pet Detective gig? Do you re-
member much about the shoot? I can’t think of anything more random than Can-
nibal Corpse appearing in a Jim Carrey movie.
Barnes: It was awesome. I got a call from the record company. The Vice Pres-
ident of Metal Blade, Mike Faley, called me and said, “Chris, we have this crazy
offer from Morgan Creek for this movie with a comedian named Jim Carrey.”
They asked for us. Jim wanted Napalm Death to do it at first. I guess we were
his second-favorite band. I think Alex didn’t want to do it at first. He was con-
cerned we’d be taken as a joke, ’cause the movie was a comedy. We talked him
into it. It didn’t take much coaxing. The funnier story was, after we finished Ace
Ventura, we got another call from Mike two weeks later. He was like, “Hey, I
got another offer from a film called Airheads.” I was like, “Awesome, dude! We’re
there!” A few days later they had found out we did Ace. It worked against us, but
we picked the better movie.
Owen: Jim Carrey was a big fan. We didn’t believe it until we met him. I re-
member saying, “Who is Jim Carrey? Oh, the white guy from In Living Color.”
We had a choice between Airheads with Brendan Fraser and Ace Ventura. Airheads
sounded too cheesy and, of course, we couldn’t appear in two movies in the same
year for some reason, so we picked Ace Ventura. We were familiar with the
Cameo, the venue, in Miami. We had played there before. I remember meeting
Jim at sound check. He asked us to play “Rancid Amputation.” It’s like, “Dude,
we don’t even play that song anymore. We’ve forgotten it.” He then rambled off
a bunch of song titles. It showed how much of a fan he was. We shot for two and
half days, so there was a ton of footage. It was nice to see the NBC cut, with an
extra five minutes of us.
Webster: That was right after the whole Bob thing. Rob Barrett had just
joined. It was a great experience. I was visiting a friend in Dallas. I got a call on
the answering machine, “Hey, man, we’re gonna be in a movie. Give us a call.” I
called Chris and asked to be filled in. It was a movie called Ace Ventura, starring
Jim Carrey from In Living Color. I remember when I heard the full name of the
movie, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, I thought, “How is our music going to fit into
this movie? How in the world is this going to work?” We set some conditions for
ourselves. We shouldn’t be up there acting stupid. If they’re using Cannibal
Corpse in the movie and our music, then we should behave the way we normally
do onstage. If we’re representing ourselves in this movie, then it has to be as a se-
rious death metal band that happens to have very unserious things happening
nearby. Jim Carrey was so cool. He had a couple of our albums. He knew the
names of our songs. We had no idea he’d be more famous after that. He was to-
tally nice. The guys from Malevolent Creation are in the crowd. Jason Blachowicz

is in the slam pit. I can always spot him. Jimmy [Ferrovecchio] from Brutal Mas-
tication, a band from Fort Lauderdale, is also in there.
Mazurkiewicz: That was a huge thing. Surreal. We thought it could be really
cool or really bad. I mean, it’s a Jim Carrey comedy. It ended up being amazing.
We were portrayed as ourselves in the movie, which was important. It was sup-
posed to be funny seeing a band like us in the movie. The network version of Ace
Ventura was better, though. That’s when Jim gets up onstage and jumps around
with us. He didn’t know the lyrics, but it didn’t matter. I remember thinking, “Pay
attention. This has to look real.” It was so hard, ’cause Jim was going insane. I
couldn’t take my eyes off him.
Rusay: It was a bitter pill to swallow. I had no idea the shooting of that scene
was even going on. It’s good for the band and good for the music. I’m sure they
had fun doing it. Anything good for death metal is a good thing. I thought it was
great. There was a part that wasn’t in the movie, where Jim gets up onstage and
jumped around with the band.
Did Ace Ventura increase sales or profile for Cannibal?

Barnes: People asked us that at the time. I don’t know that it did. Our fans
were just blown away that we were in it. Not many people wait around for the
end credits to see who the bands are just to rush out and buy the albums. Until
it’s on, at that time, VHS, you didn’t have time to research that stuff. Our record
sales were going up on each release, so it’s hard to say how Ace impacted the
sales of Tomb of the Mutilated.
Webster: Definitely. I’ve met a lot of people who said it was the first time
they’d ever seen us. It surprised me. I take it for granted that people are as in-
terested in music as I am and they’re gonna look for the heavy stuff. Some
people need it in front of their faces to realize it’s there. That kind of mass
media and exposure is incredible. For a few seconds, whether they like it or not,
everyone is watching a really brutal death metal band. It was a good advertise-
ment. We weren’t that big back then. We weren’t Anthrax. They got on
Married With Children.
Mazurkiewicz: It definitely had to. There were kids who came up to us say-
ing, “I got into death metal from Ace Ventura !” A lot of people got into us from
that movie. The movie was huge, so I guess we were burned into their memo-
ries. I think The Bleeding benefitted the most from Ace, though.
Why did you choose Possessed and Black Sabbath covers for the Hammer Smashed
Face EP? Do you remember the selection process? There’s a lot of potentially cool
cover tunes out there.

Owen: It took forever to decide what songs to cover. The four of us decided
on “The Exorcist.” Chris wanted to do “Zero the Hero.” All of us were total
death metal heads at the time. It’s like, “What? You want to do a slow song?” It
worked out pretty good, ’cause people still ask for that song to this day.
Webster: It was pretty easy on the Possessed track. The Sabbath track, which
is from Born Again, is from an album my big brother had. I wasn’t totally into
Sabbath like I was Maiden. Sabbath was Chris’ suggestion. That song received
such a strong response. People loved “Zero the Hero.” Here we are busting our
asses playing all this fast stuff on Tomb, and “Zero the Hero” maybe got the best
reaction. It’s like, “Damn, there’s five notes in that song! And it’s super-slow.” It
didn’t surprise me that Chris eventually got into Six Feet Under.
Barnes: Me and Paul picked the Sabbath song. We liked Born Again. We
slept out for tickets when they toured for that record. It’s my favorite Black Sab-
bath album. It turned out awesome. The arrangement of it stood out to me. I’ve
done a lot of cover songs over the years, and that’s still my favorite. The Possessed
cover was a no-brainer. It was my most comfortable vocal session.
Mazurkiewicz: At that point, the record label wanted an EP. We loved it
when other bands did covers. Like Metallica. So, we did something new and
something old. Possessed was easy, but Black Sabbath was a little different. “Zero
the Hero” was pretty much the same, except for the vocals. Obviously, it doesn’t
sound like Ian Gillan on our version.
The photo on the back of Tomb is nuts. It’s totally typical of the time, but the statue
in the background gave it an eerie vibe. What was that thing?
Rusay: That was at the old Buffalo train station. It was a piece of art that
they tried to remove with a bulldozer. They just gave up on it. Left it there. All
the pictures in the album were from the Buffalo train station. It’s one of the bet-
ter pictures we had. It’s a little bizarre.
Owen: It was originally supposed to look like an angel holding a baby. The
train station had been shut down since the ’60s and everything was decrepit.
Once we got there, we thought, “Oh, man, we gotta get a picture of this!” It was
half-uprooted. There was rebar all over the place. I liked that we looked all
scummy.
Webster: Chris, Bob and Paul were from closer to that area. Me and Jack
weren’t from that area. They probably had gone there to party. There was graf-
fiti everywhere. It had this statue. It was a religious statue, but the eyes were
gouged out and it was tipped forward. It was an eerie thing. The suggestion was
great to go down there to take those pictures.
Barnes: It looked like a medical center inside. It was all run down.

Mazurkiewicz: At the time, it wasn’t being used anymore. It looked it was hit
with a bomb. We probably were trespassing, but it was our best photo session
ever. That statue was in the front near a roundabout. It was half tipped over. It
was an alien-looking, pentagram-like thing. Killer! We took pictures near it and
with the wind blowing our hair, it turned out kind of eerie. I love that photo. We
thought about going back and doing another photo shoot there, but I think it’s
being renovated now.
The cover is legendary. The imagery is so disgusting it begs to be looked at over and
over again. The detail is phenomenal. Since this was the third cover with Vincent
Locke, do you remember how it came together? What were your reactions like after
Vincent had finished it?
Barnes: Since day one, I’ve always been impressed with Vince. The way he
drew corpses, zombies and stuff spoke to me—his take on it artistically. I found
him like you found Bob. Just used the phone book. I remember suggesting a
corpse eating out another corpse. He’s like, “OK!” I think he was having problems
positioning the bodies, and that the perspective of it was a challenge for him. I
remember when I first opened up the artwork—to approve it before it went to the
record company. The blue-ish, slate gray tones. The white tones. It affected me.
It was creepy and cold. I didn’t think it was as shocking as Butchered at Birth. It’s
more zombie pornography. He portrayed death really well with that cover.
Rusay: The first version we sent to the label was sent back to us because it
wasn’t gory enough. That’s where all the slash and cut marks on the lady came
from. She was originally white. The label said it wasn’t bloody enough. Brian
Slagel is a really good guy. He knows how to put a product out there. Chris
worked with the label on the cover. We’d give Chris ideas and he’d relay those
ideas to Vincent. I think we had the same vision. We wanted the zombie to be
more sexually involved with the corpse. The way he pulled it off was perfect. I
mean, zombies have to eat and the best place to on any female is the pink taco.
It had to be more sexual. The first album, we didn’t even have a song title called
“Eaten Back to Life.” We just wanted a zombie tearing himself apart. And he’s
eating himself while he’s doing it. Butchered at Birth was totally Vincent’s cre-
ation. I love that album cover. When you look at her lying on the table and her
arm sliding off at the bone, it gets you.
Owen: It was so brutal it was comical. So over-the-top. I didn’t think we
could get away with it. It’s like, “I can’t show this to my mom! She’ll freak!”
Barnes hammered him a little more on Tomb, ’cause we needed two pieces of art.
We wanted it to be completely sick. Like zombies having sex. The censored
cover is like a beforehand shot.

Webster: We loved it. We had so much trouble with Butchered at Birth they
wanted a second piece. The regular version shows the zombie cunnilingus, but
the censored version shows the single zombie just standing there. I was never
sure if the girl was alive and enjoying it or just dead and the zombie was liter-
ally eating her. Either way, it’s a great piece of art. Vince was the perfect choice.
I’m also 100 percent sure it was Chris who got Vince in the first place.
Mazurkiewicz: I was like, “This is crazy!” Butchered was the sickest thing we’d
ever done. We wanted to keep it going. Barnes talked to Vince about it. He came
up with the title, Tomb of the Mutilated. Vince comes up with crazy stuff re-
gardless of us giving him ideas. He’s always done great art. Tomb was utter in-
sanity. Complete gore.
The voiceover on “Addicted to Vaginal Skin” is revolting. It’s rumored that it’s the
voice of Arthur Shawcross. Where’d you get that from? Also, what’s up with the
kids screaming on “Necropedophile”?
Barnes: I snuck that on the record. We’d get sued for that in this day and age.
I was reading a lot of true crime stuff. I was reading a book about Arthur Shaw-
cross, the Genesee River Killer in Rochester. It came with a cassette tape, an
audio confession of a killer. I was listening to his voice. It creeped me out. I
boosted it from the tape. It was icing on the cake. For “Necropedophile,” I’m a
late sleeper. I was living next to a church when I was writing Tomb of the Muti-
lated. Whenever I write lyrics it’s always late at night. Like at 4 a.m. Every morn-
ing around 11, the church let out the daycare for recess. I was getting woken up
by screaming kids. It was every day while I was writing that record. It was piss-
ing me off. So I put my boombox next to the window, pressed record and got
those fuckin’ kids on tape. I wrote a song about murdering the kids who were
waking me up every morning.
Webster: I’m not sure if we’re supposed to say who it was. It’s Arthur Shaw-
cross. Chris did all the research, trying to learn what was going on in these freaks’
minds. I honestly don’t know if we were supposed to use that. It was Chris’ idea.
It definitely fit the lyrics for “Addicted to Vaginal Skin.”
Mazurkiewicz: All that stuff was Barnes. It’s Arthur Shawcross from his con-
fessional tapes. It was cool to do intros and snippets like that in the old days.
I gather there’s a lot of bad blood with Bob.

Rusay: When we recorded Tomb of the Mutilated, there was a big argument
about the guitars being recorded. But it started before then. I think it was mainly
Paul. When we’d play live and he’d do his monitor checks, he’d always tell the
guy to turn my guitar down. So, we get into the studio and they all say, “We
want Jack to do both guitars on the album.” I was like, “Fuck that! This is a

band.” When they had Jack do both guitar parts, the whole thing broke. It was
the final straw. People need to know I wasn’t able to record my own fuckin’ music.
Shit I wrote. They did the same thing on the Hammer Smashed Face EP. After
about two weeks, I got the call that I was fired. I don’t think Chris had too much
to say about it. It took me by surprise. I was working a club, Chris showed up,
punched me in the arm, and then the next day I get a call, “We don’t wanna jam
with you anymore.” It’s like, “What? Do I have a choice here?” The way it was
handled was pretty bad. I called Paul and he was frantic. Like a little girl. That’s
how they got rid of me. I tell people it was a mutual break-up and we weren’t get-
ting along, but now that we’re talking about it I want to set the record straight.
Owen: I think his playing wasn’t tight enough to where we wanted to
progress with the band. We tried to be professional. We were under the micro-
scope. The budgets were getting bigger. He wasn’t tight. It’s not where we were
at. It goes back to Butchered. I played more than half of the rhythms on that
album, and on Tomb I did 95 percent of the rhythms. I don’t think he was re-
gressing. He just came from a punk background and wasn’t concerned with
tightness. It was all aggression. We wanted to be more focused. I think it was in
the middle of tracking the album, Alex told him I was going to do the rhythm
guitars. Next thing you know, Bob was back at the hotel, drinking beers and
getting sunburned. I remember Alex called Bob right after the Bills won the
AFC Championship game. They were going to the Super Bowl. Alex isn’t a
sports fan, so he didn’t know what was going on. So he called Bob. There’s a big
party going on in the background and Bob said, “We’re going to the Super
Bowl!” Alex responded, “Bob, you’re out of the band.” The Bills ended up los-
ing the Super Bowl, so it was a bad couple of weeks for Bob. I was in the mid-
dle. I wasn’t going to break the news to him. I really thought he’d kill me. Bob
was a badass.
Webster: He was a good friend of ours. And the fact that he hasn’t wanted
to communicate with us since that happened isn’t something we feel good about.
To this day, we feel it had to be done. Nobody wants to part ways with a friend
in that way. It’s not fun. He’s the guy I called up to start the band. Bob, me and
Jack were friends when we were in Beyond Death. We went out and partied and
shit. He was in Tirant Sin with Paul and Chris. Paul and Chris had steady girl-
friends, so Bob went out and partied with us. He was our buddy. So when things
didn’t go well, it wasn’t fun to deal with. Nobody else wanted to call Bob, but all
four of us agreed on the decision for him to go. So I called him and said, “Dude,
we don’t know what to say. You’re out. Sorry.” He hung up on me and that was
the end of it. I haven’t talked to him since then. It’s not a good memory for us,
but I’m sure it’s a really bad memory for Bob. He wasn’t asked to leave the band
until after we recorded the Hammer Smashed Face EP. The deal with that is we

went up to Niagara Falls—we lived in Buffalo until 1994—in January ’93. We
recorded the cover songs. Again, we were having problems with Bob. Shortly
after that is when we fired Bob. Bob was the tough guy in the band, for sure. He
was in great physical condition and was really into martial arts. When you’re
young, you tend to solve your problems that way instead of talking it out. That
was something to think about. He could’ve found us if he wanted.
Mazurkiewicz: It was really unfortunate. He was an original member. It’s
hard to kick a guy out of the band you grew up with. There was no easy way to
do it. We had a lot of problems on Tomb of the Mutilated. When it came down
to it, on the EP specifically, we needed a very melodic, Iommi-esque solo for
“Zero the Hero.” Bob came in and slopped through it. He left this bad solo for
“Zero the Hero.” We were distraught by it. Jack had to fix it and do it properly.
What you hear is all Jack. That was the last straw with Bob. Alex wasn’t watch-
ing football at that point. Alex is still the least interested in that. Myself and
Rusay were football and hockey guys. It didn’t make it any easier for Bob to
accept. From elation—“Yeah! We’re going to the Super Bowl!”—to, “Aw, man!”
Barnes: Things just started to decline. Alex had a specific vision for the band
progressing. He took it seriously. He put a lot into learning his instrument and
being a better songwriter. I think he felt Bob wasn’t working hard. I didn’t really
agree with the decision, but I was out-voted. I didn’t have much say in it. I was
just the lyric writer and vocalist. It wasn’t my favorite decision. We were such
good friends. It helped the band progress, but in a way something was lost when
Bob was let go. Bob was an awesome songwriter. He was unconventional in the
way he laid things out. A lot of the songs on Tomb of the Mutilated wouldn’t have
been written if it wasn’t for him. You can see a change in the band after Tomb of
the Mutilated. I guess it worked out on a different level, in the end.
Did you think Tomb of the Mutilated would go on to influence so many bands?
At the time, the media used a specific term, “Cannibal Clones,” for the glut of bands
aping your sound. It was insane. I used to get a lot of demos back then and nine out
of 10 bands clearly had listened to Tomb of the Mutilated.
Owen: I guess there was a confluence: the extremity of the band and how
much touring we were doing. We were the next new thing. I remember being the
same way. I was listening to Metallica, Venom and Motörhead, thinking how
sick they were. I can relate to where the kids were coming from. They were just
looking for the next extreme thing. We happened to be it. Scott Burns called us
Elvis.
Webster: I think Suffocation had a big influence on the death metal scene as
well. Give credit where it’s due. I think you can still hear it in American death
metal. You can hear Deicide, Suffocation and us. If anything pushed this album

over the top, it’s “Hammer Smashed Face.” I’m not saying the song is better
than any of the other songs on the album, but it became our most popular song.
Whenever I go to YouTube, I search for Cannibal Corpse. Half of it is people
covering “Hammer Smashed Face.” It’s only that song.
Rusay: We had no idea. We were playing what we wanted to play. We were
doing the things we felt would get the music recognized. One of the main rea-
sons death metal appealed to us is because not very many people were doing it.
We didn’t want a label that would say, “Hey, we need a couple of longer songs
and we need more solos.” We had no idea Tomb of the Mutilated would impact
the way it did. We didn’t go into it thinking the record would turn the industry
around. Our primary goal was: How can we better Butchered at Birth?
Mazurkiewicz: It’s a great feeling to know we’ve left a mark. Tomb took
things to the next level. When you talk to people in the scene they will tell you
Tomb is a pivotal album. To a lot of people, Tomb is their favorite album. It’s
awesome for us. We can be proud of knowing we inspired a bunch of people. It’s
flattering for people to follow the template we laid down. One day Cannibal
isn’t going to be here. We need young bands to keep it going. That way the fu-
ture of death metal is secure.
Barnes: Imitation is the highest form of flattery. Butchered at Birth and Tomb
of the Mutilated were the heaviest death metal records at the time. People started
using us as a template. I do think a lot of bands just liked the novelty of Canni-
bal Corpse and never did anything with it. As long as bands make it work and
grow from it, then that’s cool. A band like Chimaira was influenced by us, but
you can’t hear that influence now. I like that.

Ø ZOMBIEGEDDON Ø
Q&A with Tomb of the Mutilated artist Vincent Locke
Discourse on Cannibal Corpse wouldn’t be complete without descanting the group’s predilection for zombies
and their unfortunate victims in various states of duress. In fact, we’d be remiss not going to the source. So,
we did. Decibel talks to artist and Deadworld illustrator Vincent Locke. —Chris Dick
How did the idea of the zombie performing cunnilingus come about?
Vincent Locke: It was a long time ago, but I believe it was the band’s idea.
You worked closely with Chris Barnes. Was there anything that was considered no-go
territory as far as explicit material goes?
Locke: This cover was a little hard for me. Not because of the subject matter, but because it was another
victimized woman. We had gone pretty far with Butchered at Birth. I liked that cover a lot, but I wanted to do
something different. I didn’t want there to be a pattern of covers depicting violence against women. Around that
time, some female friends were beat up by a group of frat boys. [I was] sickened by their cowardly hatefulness.
I enjoyed painting horrific images, but it made me think that maybe not everyone was going to view these pic-
tures in the spirit intended. They are just little horror stories meant to shock. I was afraid that if the covers be-
came one-sided, some kids would get the wrong message. I tried to put the woman on the cover in some
position of power, with her sitting up, and the male zombie groveling on the floor. In the end, I was able to come
up with a cover that we all liked. The cover to Vile was meant to “round out” the subject matter. We had
showed self-mutilation, and the torture of women and children. With Vile, we attacked the men as well.
Did you use a model or photograph for the pose?
Locke: No. I rarely use a model. I do use a few good anatomy books and skeleton models.
What medium did you use for the artwork?
Locke: Watercolor, acrylic and colored pencil.
What was the most challenging aspect of Tomb of the Mutilated?
Locke: Trying to come up with two covers that worked together, and were both interesting.
What were some of Chris’ ideas you keyed off to get the scene, setting, blood, candles
and staring head?
Locke: The oral sex was Chris’ idea; beyond that I don’t remember. Chris would call me up with his idea
and a title for the album. Then I would do a few sketches. I would send them the sketches to get more input
from the band before I started the painting.
Brian Slagel originally rejected the cover. He wanted more blood. Do you recall that?
What did you change?
Locke: If the band wanted anything changed, it had usually been a call for more blood.
What kind of impact do you think the cover had?
Locke: I don’t have any idea. When I’m working on a cover, I’m just trying to please the band and my-
self. Trying to come up with something that will grab your attention and maybe shake you up a little bit. Hope-
fully, the artwork is as memorable as the music.

C H A P T E R 13
HAZARDOUS PRESCRIPTION
THE MAKING OF EYEHATEGOD’S TAKE AS NEEDED FOR PAIN
by J. Bennett
Release Date: 1993
Label: Century Media
Summary: Southern-fried sludge classic
D
rugs, disease, crime, abuse, poverty, paranoia, drugs, alcohol, alcohol, al-
cohol: Such are the cornerstones of Eyehategod’s time-honored New
Orleans aesthetic. The band’s first album, In the Name of Suffering—a
lo-fi, doom-ridden disturbance bashed out on a broken drum kit and cheap gui-
tars with missing strings—was originally released on the French label Intellec-
tual Convulsion in 1990. When Century Media re-released it two years later,
they also commissioned Eyehategod to make what would arguably become the
band’s defining album. A series of buzzing, lurching dirges steeped in feedback
and contempt, Take as Needed for Pain was released in 1993, spawning countless
imitators as vocalist Mike Williams, drummer Joey LaCaze, guitarist Jimmy
165
Bower (also of Down and Superjoint Ritual), guitarist Brian Patton (also of
Soilent Green) and then-bassist Marc Schultz lashed a Sabbathian groove to
the muck-ridden undertow of the Melvins’ Gluey Porch Treatments, drowned the
whole vicious slab in disorienting noise, and proceeded to give everybody the fin-
ger. Song titles like “Sister Fucker” (parts one and two), “White Nigger” and
“Kill Your Boss” may have launched the band headlong into a shitstorm of cul-
tural controversy and confusion that follows them to this day, but then again, that
was always kind of the idea.
It seems like Eyehategod didn’t really become what it is today until Take as Needed
for Pain. What happened in the five years between the original release of In the
Name of Suffering and Take as Needed for Pain?
Marc Schultz: I played guitar on In the Name of Suffering and then we got into
some shit on tour with the bass player at that time, Steve Dale, and when we got
home we couldn’t really find another bass player who could hang with us, so I
switched and for a while we were a four-piece band. We played a couple of shows
like that, but we didn’t really have a one-guitar sound. So we hooked up with
Brian from Soilent Green and I stayed on the bass. Back then, we were all about
no outsiders. We were very into preserving the unit. If you weren’t part of our
little gang, it was like, “Fuck you.” We all knew each other since we were little
kids.
Brian Patton: I didn’t play on In the Name of Suffering, but me, Jimmy and
Mike had played together in a band called Drip for a year or two. Eyehategod
was started as a way to piss people off. All the heavy music around here was fast,
thrashy stuff, so Eyehategod slowed it down as much as possible and made a
bunch of noise, basically. It was a way to say fuck you and make everyone hate
them. And it worked, man. People fuckin’ hated ’em. For the longest time, I was
one of the few guys who actually enjoyed the hell out of it. So they were still in
that frame of mind on the first record. It was just a thing to do. That’s why the
band’s relationship with Century Media turned into such an unfortunate thing.
They were young and naïve and didn’t really give a fuck. It was like, “Fuck yeah,
send us to Europe.” They took the music seriously, though. Obviously, the in-
fluences were there—they were ahead of their time. People just couldn’t grasp it.
Jimmy Bower: We were known to be like, “Fuck speed metal.” We’d open up
for like some big speed metal band like Exhorder or New Religion in front of
like a thousand people and Mike would make his own flyers that said, “Eye-
hategod with special guest A Very Nice, Talented Metal Band.” We were mak-
ing fun of these bands, but we were friends with them, too. We were kinda like
the class clowns of the whole scene. In New Orleans at that time, people still
thought of us as a joke band—even though we had an album out, people
166 HAZARDOUS PRESCRIPTION

wouldn’t give us a shot. I remember giving Phil [Anselmo] and Pepper [Keenan]
a tape, and they were like, “What the fuck, dude? We thought y’all were a joke
band.” They loved it, though.
Mike Williams: We had gotten into the Melvins, too. Gluey Porch Treatments
is still my favorite album by them. I mean, there’re a few fast parts on In the
Name of Suffering, but with Take as Needed, we started writing more structured,
mid-paced stuff. It wasn’t necessarily all slow. But our first live shows were like
that. That was the concept of Eyehategod in the beginning: To play as slow and
aggravating as possible and just destroy people.
You were into bumming people out.

Williams: Oh, fuck yeah. I mean, the people that got it liked it, but for us,
that was great. We were ecstatic that people hated us. We just wanted to hurt
people’s feelings—and it worked. I mean, I’d be lying if I said we wanted every-
one to hate it—that’s not true—but it got weird when people started liking it.
When we started getting recognition, we’d go up to Boston and play with Grief
and Anal Cunt—the two most extreme forms of that type of music—and fights
would always break out. Always. It was great.
Bower: Totally. You hit the nail on the head. Bumming ’em out, still to this
day. Sometimes we get onstage and feel miserable, and we wanna make every-
one else feel miserable. It’ll be real silent and Mike will be like, “I love this! Un-
comfortable silence is fuckin’ awesome!” He’d just verbally abuse people, and it
ruled. When we played Baltimore on the Take as Needed tour with Buzzov*en,
some dude in a Vitus t-shirt with, like, goggles on was spitting on us. I went up
to him after the show like, “What the fuck’s up, dude? You got a Vitus shirt on
and you’re spitting on us?” He was like, “That means I like you guys.” But where
we come from, you don’t spit on nobody. So I got in this big argument with him,
turned it around, and he ended up buying like two shirts and a CD.
Patton: We had toured with White Zombie before we did Take as Needed for
Pain—right before they got really big. That was pretty much one of our first
tours, along with another one we did with Buzzov*en, after it came out. Those
were some wild fucking tours, man. Jesus Christ. Take as Needed was kind of the
calm before the storm. Everyone was still rooted here at home, but then things
started getting out of control. No need to go into too many specifics, but we
made good and bad impressions on many people. [Laughs]
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the time period
around Take as Needed for Pain?
Patton: That was the first real album I had done. Soilent Green was around
then, but we hadn’t recorded anything yet. Eyehategod and Soilent played their
The Making of Eyehategod’s Take as Needed for Pain 167

first shows together, actually. We opened up for Exhorder. After a while, Soilent
was the only band that would play with Eyehategod.
Schultz: When we first started the band, I was living at Jimmy’s house with
him and his mom, ’cause my parents were gone since I was a little kid. From the
time I was like 16 or 17, I stayed with Jimmy and his mother. Miss Linda—
Jimmy’s mom—I love this woman, man. She’s the most beautiful woman in the
world. She totally took me in and took care of me like I was her own son. Then
Joey’s mother let me live with him and his family, too.
Joey LaCaze: I remember it was the first record we kinda wanted to take se-
rious. When we did the first record, we didn’t really know what the future of the
band was gonna be—we were just doing it for fun. But for Take as Needed, we
were like “OK, we’ve got a real fuckin’ record here.”
Bower: We had just gotten back from touring Europe with Crowbar, and then
we did four shows with White Zombie, which was a big deal for us. That was
right when Brian got into the band, so we showed him everything we already had
written, and then we started writing with him as well. We were practicing out at
the Soilent Green practice room in St. Bernard Parish, which doesn’t exist any-
more. It was just cool times, man—a lotta acid, any opiates we could find. [Laughs]
We were all like 23, 24 years old and out of our fuckin’ minds. We were burning
a ton of grass, too—obviously—and that really hooked it up for the record.
Williams: At that point, I had been kicked out my house by an ex-girlfriend,
and I was living in the French Quarter on the street. I was totally homeless while
we recorded that entire record. I would stay at people’s houses every now and
again, and sometimes I’d stay above this strip club on Bourbon Street called Big
Daddy’s. There were these horrible, horrible little apartments up there—me and
my friend, this girl Jessie, had like half of a room that was infested with fleas. The
cool thing was that the studio was like a block or two away, on Canal Street.
What was Studio 13 like?

Williams: It was on the 13th floor of the Maison Blanche building on Canal
Street, which used to be a department store, but it was totally closed down and
abandoned, so the only thing that was going on down there was this studio on
the bad-luck 13th floor. I’m sure the dude rented it really cheap ’cause no one
else wanted it, you know? It was a nice place, though.
LaCaze: I remember when we first went up there, you could see right over the
city.
During the ’20s and ’30s, Maison Blanche was the real popular department
store to go buy all your shit, you know? Most buildings don’t even have a 13th
floor, but it figures, in New Orleans, you know? It had a cool atmosphere,

though: It was all real lush and cozy and stuff, with all these old rugs, and when
I first saw it, I just knew we were gonna do something cool.
Bower: It was weird, because the dude who ran the studio, Robinson Mills,
was our age, and I guess his family had money because it was beautiful, man—
all old wood, like Victorian-looking. I think we gave him like three grand and
he let us have the studio for an entire month. So we had plenty of time to track
everything. I remember Brian and I did two guitar tracks apiece. I mean, it was
a magical period, man. I know that sounds stupid, but we were all so into it.
LaCaze: Robinson was used to recording all the jazz and blues bands that
are popular down here, and then we’d go in there and it was all feedback. He was
just blown away, but I think he was interested because it was something totally
different, though. But we kinda had to, like, teach him what we were going for.
I remember we brought in some Saint Vitus records and Gluey Porch Treatments
to kinda give him an idea of the heaviness. I don’t think he really understood it,
but he did a good job. He really captured the rawness of it. It was cool to do it
on two-inch tape, too, because that helped capture the full sound.
Williams: Robinson wasn’t familiar with our type of music at all. In fact, no-
body was at that time. People assumed we were death metal or like a punk rock
band—they couldn’t figure out that it was something totally different than ei-
ther of those. When we did the first album, it was impossible to explain to these
guys that we wanted the feedback, that it was part of the song. But Robinson was
open-minded. He didn’t know what was going on, but he tried to learn about it.
There were a few things he did that were strange—like sometimes he would
just let us have the mixing board and he would go take a nap or something. And
the very last song on the album, it says “Laugh It Off ”—that’s not one of my ti-
tles. He put that on there. It’s a sample of some crazy guy laughing, and he took
it upon himself to call the outro “Laugh It Off.” So after all these titles like
“Sister Fucker,” “White Nigger,” “Crimes Against Skin,” it’s like, oh, but “Laugh
It Off.” That’s fuckin’ stupid. I was pissed, but it doesn’t matter, you know?
So the drug situation hadn’t gotten out of control yet.

LaCaze: At the time, everybody was young and, you know, life hadn’t pro-
gressed too much then. We were in our early 20s, and everyone was in their prime
at that stuff. We were drinking and smoking, maybe doing a little acid, and that’s
about it. It was before various things got in the way of people’s vision of it.
Williams: At that point, we were just smoking pot and drinking, pretty
much—and maybe a couple lines here and there or a couple pills or something.
It wasn’t a big problem. I actually remember a big argument I got into with
Jimmy, because we totally scraped money off the advance to buy whatever we

needed. So they were getting all this band money together to go buy a bunch of
weed, but I wasn’t even really smoking then, so I was like, “Look, man—I need
some alcohol money.” But nobody else was really drinking, so Jimmy got pissed
and threw some money at me and goes, “Here—go buy your fuckin’ alcohol!” But
as far as the drugs go, that’s all that was going on.
Bower: We didn’t drop acid in the studio, but we smoked a lot of weed. We’d
go out at night and do acid, though. We jammed a couple times on acid, but
not in the studio, because we were trying to make a real good record. But we ate
Rohypnol and Xanax like candy back then. I’m off all of that shit now—all the
opiates. I was on methadone for like five years. We all quit—Brian even jogs
now. It makes me feel like a loser.
Patton: We dosed up on much coffee, smoked tons of dope in there, and
Robinson didn’t really give a fuck. We were in there having a good time. I think
when Mike did his vocals, some glass ended up getting smashed around up in
there, so [Robinson] had to do a little cleaning up. [Laughs] But beyond that, it
was all good. Back then, Mike was big on alcohol. He would get in that mode
when he was doing his vocals—he would need to get obliterated. Whenever we
played, he wanted to get obliterated, too. Obviously, we’ve all grown up now and
it’s not quite the same. It’s good to have fun now and again, but at the time, we’d
just get pissed and loaded.
Schultz: That was before any of the tragic shit started happening. That was
when we still used to have fun.
A few of the Cash Money rappers were recording at the same time, right?
Schultz: Those guys would be in another room down the hall, hanging out
and talking shit. I worked in production for a while, so I worked with the Cash
Money dudes on some of their videos. They’re all totally cool, but they were
fuckin’ scared of Eyehategod, dude. They didn’t know what to make of it. These
big ol’ tough, gold-teeth, tattooed rapper dudes thought we were going to hell.
LaCaze: Those dudes were funny, man. You know, they’re like totally
ghettoed-out motherfuckers. If they weren’t getting enough bass in the mix,
they’d pull a gun on the dude, you know? [Laughs] It’s funny, years later I read
[infamous New Orleans musician] Dr. John’s autobiography, Under a Hoodoo
Moon, and he’d explain how, back in the ’60s, they’d have to rob somebody at
gunpoint to get their money from some session, and then two weeks later, the
same dude would rob them at gunpoint because they owed him some master
tapes. In a way, that still goes on. It’s a New Orleans tradition, you know? We’ve
always been the murder capital. But now those New Orleans dudes are huge—
Juvenile and Lil Wayne have sold millions of records. They got the money for
their records from slingin’, you know? But they’ve totally got themselves out of

that rut, and they still come down here on the holidays and provide all the proj-
ects with turkeys on Thanksgiving.
Bower: They were total project dudes—I’m talking drug-slum, 75-bucks-a-
month-rent. They took all their coke money and look what they did. It rules. I
love it, man—it’s a New Orleans success story. Juvenile bought this house in a
rich white neighborhood and had all these strippers over. Some chick left the
sink on, and the water ran down onto his new carpet, so he beat her up in his
front yard. When we heard about it, we were like, “Dude—that rules!” I mean,
we didn’t want the girl to be hurt or nothing—we just thought it was a good
story. They had all kinds of problems with him in that neighborhood—he’d park
his tour bus out front, and you know he did it on purpose. Those dudes were
super-cool, though, man. They used to live in this place called the Magnolia
Housing Project, and they wanted to buy it from the city of New Orleans and
let everybody live there rent-free for the rest of their lives. It was kinda like their
payback. But it’s all state-run housing, so they wouldn’t sell it to a bunch of rap-
pers. Now they probably would, though, because it’s fuckin’ empty since the
storm hit. Weird, dude, weird.
Were all the songs written beforehand?

Patton: Me and Jimmy and Marc wrote most wrote of the songs. We had
played a bunch of them live, like the “Sister Fucker” songs, “Kill Your Boss” and
“White Nigger.” Those songs were written for months and months before we
went in. When it became crunch time, it turned into me and Jimmy sitting in
his room, because we had to put together like three songs, I think it was, right
before we went in. “Crimes Against Skin” was one, “Blank” was one and I think
“Take as Needed” was the third one. We wrote those in Jimmy’s apartment, ran
’em through like two or three times and then brought ’em into the studio. They
were thrown together, but it all worked out great. Sometimes when you’re
rushed, you come up with the best shit.
Bower: Me and Marc wrote “White Nigger” and “Sister Fucker” in like 10
minutes. I mean, those songs aren’t brain surgery, but for Eyehategod, they were
good songs compared to the first record, which was a lot more doomy. Joey
writes, too, so when Brian got in the band, we had four people in the band ac-
tively writing riffs.
Patton: We were determined to use every bit of tape that we possibly [could]
so we kept going ’til the tape ran out. That’s why “Who Gave Her the Roses”
gets cut off at the end—it was just a riff we had left over that we just ended up
jamming out.
Bower: When Mike came in and did vocals over that song, I thought it was
fucking genius. All I had heard him do before that was scream, but then he

comes out with, “I love her heart as well as her warm piss and the cuts and
bruises on her body . . . ”
What’s the story behind “White Nigger”?

Bower: “White Nigger” is about Marc. On tour, we’d get so baked and I’d
have to do all these like eight-hour drives because Mike and Marc didn’t have
licenses. And Marc would put N.W.A on like, 10, and just sit there like, “This
is the shit, bruh.” So that song’s about him. [Laughs] He’s a white nigger. When
we went to Europe, we actually caught a little flak for that. Even Century Media
was like, “Y’all sure you wanna put this on there?” But at the time, there was
this black dude down here—he actually came up with the name Crowbar—and
he called himself Adolf Nigger. He was this pissed-off black dude who grew up
in New Orleans—people like that were our friends. I mean, the high schools
here are like 75 percent black. When you see your black friends, it’s like, “Damn,
nigga, what’s up?” But it’s kinda hard to explain that to someone in Germany
who comes up to you at a show and goes, “Vat is the meaning of ‘White Nig-
ger’? Not gud, Not gud.” I’d be like, “Fuck you. Y’all killed six million Jews. We
ain’t killed nobody. All we did was say ‘nigger.’”
Williams: Honestly, the title was just meant to be offensive. It’d be bullshit
to say there was a deep meaning behind it. There’s this ’70s punk rock band
called the Avengers—I think they’re from San Francisco—and they had a song
called “White Nigger.” I totally took the title from them. We just liked the re-
action it got—of course you can see how people will take it wrong. I mean, Patti
Smith had a song called “Rock N’ Roll Nigger.” And Lester Bangs, the writer,
had a t-shirt that said “100% White Nigger.” Plus, the lyrics to the song don’t
have anything to do with the title of the song. You know, we are from the
South—and we’re proud to be from the South—so people just assume we’re
racists. But it’s not like we didn’t expect that to happen when we called the song
“White Nigger.” We enjoyed the negative publicity, of course, but honestly, I
have regretted that title. I stick by it, and I’m not gonna take stuff back, but
there’s times when I think it’s not worth all the bullshit. And I definitely don’t
want people to think I’m a racist—that’s horrible.
What about “Sister Fucker”?

Williams: Honestly, “Sister Fucker” has no meaning, either. I don’t even have
a sister. But then again, that’s in the third person, too. And it is offensive, but that
stuff does go on. But people think, “Oh, you’re from the South; you’re all in-
bred.” So we were like, “Let’s play that up. Who cares?” I know it’s terrible
humor, but at the same time people think that just because you give a song a cer-
tain title, that must be what you’re thinking about—like you can’t write some-

thing that’s outside your point of view. But people wanna attack you, and we
thrive on that. We still do.
LaCaze: The second part was so slow, you know, that we kinda figured that
if anyone was gonna play it on college radio or whatever, they wouldn’t go all the
way through. That was kinda Phil and Pepper’s deal, because they came up and
they were trying to put their two cents in—even though we ended up scratch-
ing most of what they did, anyway. [Laughs] But yeah, it was Phil’s idea to cut
it in half. I don’t think that really mattered, though, because I don’t think any-
one was gonna play our song, even on college radio, with a name like “Sister
Fucker.”
Who came up with the samples and the noise track, “Disturbance”?
Williams: The “Disturbance” thing is totally Joey. He’d go to thrift stores
and buy these crazy records, and he had one called Care of a Patient With a
Catheter, and that’s where “Disturbance” came from. I don’t know where he got
all the rest of that stuff, though. Jimmy would do that stuff, too, though—he’d
tape these crazy radio talk shows and just edit them together all crazy. I think
some of the seven-inches have that stuff on there.
Bower: We had done samples on the first record—the [Charles] Manson
thing. We used to take practice tapes and put cut-ups in ’em. Marc and Joey
made the one with that sample that just goes, “alcohol, alcohol, alcohol,” over and
over again. We put it over “Blank,” and it just worked out perfect.
LaCaze: At the time of that record, I was living at my mom’s place, and across
the canal are some really fucked-up areas, and every night we’d hear gunshots.
I mean, like, automatic weapons and shit. You could literally hear people shoot-
ing each other, and it was weird, because it’d be totally quiet and in the silence
of the nighttime, you’d just hear gunshots and you’d think, “Someone probably
just got fucking killed.” So “Disturbance” was inspired by that. I had these po-
lice scanners set up, so I’d hear the gunshots, and then I’d hear the cops on the
scanner responding to the call. At the time, I was into doing a lot of experi-
mental recording—like short-wave radios and shit like that, no instruments,
really. I even had a piece from this Volkswagen hood miked up in my room.
[Laughs] People would think I’m insane if they saw the shit I had in there. I’d
be sitting up at three in the morning, sitting in a box with all this shit miked up.
I was never a big person to go out or nothing, so I’d be up there recording every
night.
Where did the cover art come from?

Williams: The photo of the girl is by this guy Jan Saudek—he’s this really
great photographer/painter. I know Rorschach and Soul Asylum used some of

his stuff, too. But we didn’t get permission or anything, so I hope he doesn’t
come after us. I guess we kinda figured he’d never see it. When we submitted it,
Century Media freaked out because they thought it was Jodie Foster. The funny
thing is that, once they figured out that it wasn’t her, nobody worried about get-
ting the rights for it.
Bower: Mike and Joey basically did all the artwork, and they blew my mind.
I think it’s totally demented and totally original, but our label freaked on us. We
went out to California, and Oliver, the owner of Century Media, brought us
into his office and goes, “You trying to get me fucking sued?” We were like,
“What the fuck are you talking about, dude?” He goes, “How dare you put Jodie
Foster on the cover of your record?” [Laughs] You gotta be fucking kidding me.
That ain’t Jodie Foster. That picture is from the ’50s, and he fucking yelled at us,
dude. I remember he had, like, an air hockey machine, too, and he kicked it over.
[Laughs] I swear to god, man. We would fight with Century Media so much
back then, and I know we’ve given like 80,000 interviews where we say “Cen-
tury Media sucks,” but we were like a fucking degenerate kid giving their par-
ents problems. We probably started half that shit, but not that one.
Williams: The other pictures on the cover are from this insane medical man-
ual. I love old, black-and-white medical books. I got the idea from Discharge—
their stuff was all old war photos, but I wanted to do medical stuff. The old SPK
stuff, like Leichenschrei and Auto Da Fe—they had all that stark, black-and-white
stuff. I think it just hits you harder than color. I collected old photos like that for
years, and I did that type of art before I even had a band that I thought would
put out a record. I’d just go to the library for hours at a time and dig it all up.
The girl on the back cover, I don’t know where I got that photo, but she just
looks so sad, you know? And what I love about it is that it’s not even black and
white; it’s that sepia tone. She looks like she’s either at a horrible wedding or an
even worse funeral.
I like that the fan club is called Negative Action Group/Foundation for the
Retarded.
Bower: Joey and Mike used to drop acid and ride around in Joey’s car with
ski masks on just screaming at people—that was the Negative Action Group,
NAG. Fuckin’ weirdos, man—they were lucky they didn’t go to jail. Not even
jail—a fuckin’ mental institution.
Williams: We had these police scanner radios that we’d turn all the way up,
and we’d put ski masks on and drive around, pulling up next to people walking
on the street. They’d hear the static on the police scanner, and when they’d look
over and see us, they’d start running and shit. We called it the Negative Action
Group, so we thought NAG was a good name for the fan club. The Foundation

for the Retarded thing, though—we only used that once because I think there
actually is a Foundation for the Retarded. The funny thing is that Joey put his
mom’s phone number on the record, so he’d get all these calls from local pastors
asking us to accept God.
Bower: Joey’s mom’s phone number is on the fucking record. Dude put his
fucking home number on the album. I know his mom got fed up at one point—
it became one of those 867-5309 things.
Schultz: Joey’s mom used to get calls and threatening letters because people
thought we were making fun of retarded people—which we were. [Laughs] After
a while, I think she learned to go with the flow. She knew we weren’t bad kids—
we were just into some crazy shit.
LaCaze: Originally, you know, we were on such a small level that we would
put the phone number on there so people could call us to book shows. There
wasn’t no Internet back then—for years, I was writing people back by hand and
doing shit over the phone. This one woman called from Puerto Rico, and she was
fucking crazy, dude. I think she saw the pictures in the record of the people with
the skin diseases. At the time, my mom was working for a dermatologist, so we
had all these weird books at my house—that’s how we got into the medical shit.
So I think this woman must’ve been suffering from one of these skin situations,
and I mean . . . I could tell she had nothing to do with this kind of music. I think
she thought it was some kind of place to get treatment, and I’m on the phone
with this woman thinking how insane this is, like, “What the fuck are we cre-
ating?” People were taking all of our sick sense of humor for real. She’s asking
me about how to get flown over here for treatment, and I’m like, “No! Don’t call
back—I’ll relay the message.” I was trying to explain that it was a band, but she
didn’t understand.
Williams: After that, Joey was like, “We cannot put this number on here any-
more.” I mean, what band does that nowadays—puts their home phone num-
ber on their record? We actually did make a lot of friends by doing that, though.
Kids would call from the U.K. or Germany, and we’d end up going over there,
meeting them and staying at their houses. So it was good and bad, I guess.
What’s with all the text that’s mixed in with the lyrics in the CD booklet?
Williams: That’s just more confusion. People couldn’t figure out which
song each set of lyrics was to, and it drove them insane. Nobody could go
away from the form of, you know, “Here’s the title and here’s exactly what
the guy’s gonna sing.” I just like the idea of throwing something different
into the mix. I like making people think, though. It confuses them and prob-
ably frightens them a little bit, but I think it opens people’s minds to differ-
ent things, and I’m just glad that I could do that. Plus, Joey put that thing in

there about how “all followers of the path should make one hallucinogenic trip
per week and every day with marijuana.” People would come up to us at shows
and go, “We’re doing like you guys said—taking LSD once a week and smok-
ing pot every day.” [Laughs] We were totally corrupting everyone. Which is
great, though.
Do you have a favorite song on the record?

Patton: I’ve got a couple of favorites. “Blank” is a really good song, just be-
cause it’s really dense and I love playing it live. “Kill Your Boss” is a really good
one, too—I just love the riff at the end. That’s why we usually do medleys live.
We’ll break the songs into pieces, take our favorite parts and make our own new
song out of them. Sometimes we even add new riffs just for the fuck of it. We
don’t wanna bore the fuck out of everybody.
Williams: “Shoplift.” I just like what I came up with, I guess, and how it
starts off. It’s actually got a slight melody to it, too. I like “Sister Fucker Part 1”
and “30$ Bag,” too—that’s one of my favorites to play live. People love it. We ac-
tually still do a lot of stuff from this album live.
Schultz: I love ’em all, man, but “Who Gave Her the Roses” is cool. It’s not
even really a song—it’s just a piece of music, a jam, you know? I’m into shit like
that. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a fully constructed song with verses and
choruses and shit.
Bower: I like “Kill Your Boss” and “30$ Bag” the best, I think, but I really
like ’em all. Those two songs had what we called “the drops”—you know, we’re
playing one tempo, and then we slow it down and it makes your knees buckle.
LaCaze: I always liked “Take as Needed for Pain,” but I don’t know—every
Eyehategod song has a different meaning for me. Some we don’t even play live,
and others, like “Blank,” we play every show. Now that I think about it, that
record has a lot of songs that people wanna hear. I mean, I wouldn’t feel com-
plete doing an Eyehategod show without playing “Blank.”
When do you think you first started to notice the influence the record had on other
bands?
Williams: When the record came out, I think people were still confused about
what was going on, and we weren’t helping the situation, either. I think the first
time we went to Europe was after Take as Needed came out—we went with
Crowbar—and there were fans already. But we didn’t see all the bands that were
starting to sound like us yet. I think it was still very underground. But I guess I
didn’t really realize what was going on—and maybe that’s because of my alcohol
and drug abuse at the time—until Iron Monkey came out. And [Iron Monkey
guitarist] Dean [Berry, currently of Capricorns] is a great friend of mine, but

their artwork was similar, and their music is totally similar, but I never had any-
thing against it. It was flattery, to me. But people we know will get mad about
it. Like Seth from Anal Cunt used to call up Iron Monkey and threaten them.
[Laughs] I’d be like, “Dude, don’t do that.” I mean, I admit my influences—that’s
how things evolve.
Bower: The first American tour we ever did was with Buzzov*en, and I re-
member talking to Kirk [Fisher] and he’d be like, “Dude, we listen to your record
all the time.” I thought he was just being nice, but when we went up to Rich-
mond to meet them for the tour, we met all their friends and it seemed like every
dude had our album in his car. They were like, “Man, this is our Bible up here.”
It was cool because there were little pockets of people who were into that style—
you know, Witchfinder General and [Saint] Vitus, but to meet a whole other
group of people who were into it was killer.
Schultz: The people who said, “Eyehategod sucks,” are the same people who
are ripping our shit off today. It cracks me up. I laugh about it whenever I see
someone who used to talk shit and now they play in a band that sounds like a
terrible Eyehategod rip-off. I don’t wanna sit here and name bands—I mean,
I’m friends with some of these people—but almost every single fucking band in
New Orleans went through that whole deal back then. And they know who they
are and how I feel about them.
Williams: I’ll say it: There are a lot of bands that try to do what we do. There’s
a band called Sofa King Killer that even has samples about heroin in the mid-
dle of their songs, and there’s another band called Lickgoldensky—they don’t
sound anything like us, but the name of the band is taken from my lyrics. That’s
actually from Take as Needed for Pain, which brings me back to the point. I hate
to even say stuff like this, but it was obviously influenced by me. Shit, there’s
another band called 99 Miles of Bad Road. Another band wrote me a letter and
asked if they could call their band Ruptured Heart Theory. Even Grief and Cav-
ity, who came out around the same time as us, started having more groove parts
on their second records. We’ll play with one of these bands and somebody will
come up to me and go, “Listen to these motherfuckers,” but, you know, I can’t
be a dick about it because I support these kids, man. If they’re playing something
that we started, that’s just incredible.

Patton: Fuck no. I’m completely happy with it. I’m real critical about things,
you know—there might be a few transitions I would’ve done differently—but I
wouldn’t change a fuckin’ thing. The way you gotta look at it is that’s where you
were at the time. You grow as a person and as a musician, but why change the
feel, or a riff, or anything? To be honest, it’s my favorite record we did.

LaCaze: No. We never really gave any of our records much thought at the
time—I mean, we’d do ’em in a couple weeks, tops. Some songs we did in one
take. It ain’t nothing like these six-month, one-year recording situations where
it takes two months to get a guitar sound or something. And that’s what works
for us, because usually your first instincts are the best.
Williams: I don’t think I’d change anything about it. Maybe I’d make the
noise song a little shorter, but then again, we did that to irritate people. When
anybody asks what I think is the best Eyehategod record, I say this one.
Schultz: No, man. Nothing. It’s not perfect, but I wouldn’t change it. I’m to-
tally happy with it. I always have been and I always will be. I don’t care if I go
on to make 50 more records before I die. If Take as Needed remains the best one,
I am so totally cool with that because I love that record.
Bower: I’d leave that bitch the exact same way it is. It’s a trip, man—we wrote
that record so fast. And looking back on it now, it’s vocal-oriented, it’s verse-
chorus, and we weren’t even trying to do that. It’s ironic how it came out. I look
back at it now, and it’s funny—the lengths we would go to just to escalate our
ignorance.

C H A P T E R 14
HUNGER STRIKES
THE MAKING OF DARKTHRONE’S TRANSILVANIAN HUNGER

by Albert Mudrian
Release Date: 1994
Label: Peaceville
Summary: Isolationist black metal starts here
Induction Date: Previously Unreleased Bonus HOF
I
t was the fall of 1993 and the Norwegian black metal scene had formally
ratified the mystique that would forever surround it. But, musically, it was
now pretty much fucked. Burzum mastermind Varg “Count Grishnackh”
Vikernes had just been hauled off to the pokey for the fatal stabbing of Mayhem
guitarist and scene Svengali Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth. Within weeks,
Emperor’s Tomas “Samoth” Haugen and Bård “Faust” Eithun would each be ar-
rested for arson and murder, respectively. And although they weren’t involved in
any of the aforementioned criminal activities, Darkthrone were on the verge of
falling apart, too. Guitarist Ivar “Zephyrous” Enger had already begun drifting
179
away from the band following the 1992 recording of their Under a Funeral Moon
album. Vocalist/guitarist Ted “Nocturno Culto” Skjellum was still residing in a
remote area of the country—several hours from the band’s home base of Oslo—
and growing more emotionally distant from Darkthrone drummer/founder
Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell by the day. With free time on his hands and rehearsal
space in his living room, Fenriz rejoined his old doom metal band Valhall and
appeared—for all intents and purposes—dethroned.
Then it happened—a postal prophecy and a two-week whirlwind of inspira-
tion that saw Fenriz conceive and record the entire framework of what would be-
come ground zero for isolationist black metal. When it was finally released in
1994, however, Transilvanian Hunger was anything but an instant classic. In-
stead, it was derided for its raw, lo-fi, almost nonexistent production values, and
further disparaged for the inclusion of the phrase “Norsk Arisk Black Metal,”
which loosely translated to “Norwegian Aryan Black Metal” on its original back
cover. (Darkthrone maintain that they profess no white power ideologies, and in
response to the controversy, the band’s next album, 1995’s Panzerfaust, bore the
legend, “Darkthrone is certainly not a Nazi band, nor a political band. Those of
you who still might think so, you can lick Mother Mary’s asshole in eternity.”)
Fifteen years and nine more studio albums since its release, Transilvanian
Hunger is now the most emulated of Darkthrone’s seemingly endless canon. For
this Hall of Fame “bonus track,” Decibel corralled its architects to find out why
a new wave of black metal bellies will never be full.
What was the state of Darkthrone after you recorded Under a Funeral Moon
in 1992?
Fenriz: We weren’t huge on communication then. We didn’t really start re-
hearsing another album after we went to the studio to record Under a Funeral
Moon, which was in the summer of ’92. When we recorded Soulside Journey in
the summer of ’90, we started to make another album pretty soon. And in the
summer of ’91, when we recorded A Blaze in the Northern Sky, we quickly went
on to make a new album, but we didn’t in ’92. We’d been in the zone for two
years, partying hard and being, you know, maniacs like you wouldn’t believe.
There wasn’t really an established black metal scene until the mid ’90s, so I guess
we were all strange and freakish. We were having day jobs and living ghoulish
lives on the side, and I guess it took its toll. After Under a Funeral Moon was
recorded, everyone went on to do what they wanted.
So, you didn’t immediately start working on new material as a band for a while?
Nocturno Culto: I moved from Oslo in late ’91, and I never looked back, ac-
tually. What I did was, every week I was driving three hours to get to Oslo and
180 HUNGER STRIKES

rehearse, and that was during the rehearsals for Under a Funeral Moon. And
Zephyrous still [lived] just outside Oslo, so he was like a natural in the band. I
was the one that was weird, moving away and everything.
Fenriz: Yeah, we didn’t start making new material. It was also the fact that
Ted moved, so it would become impossible, and it was all a blur, really. As far as
I remember, in summer ’92 we recorded Under a Funeral Moon, and then I guess
I was hanging a lot at the Helvete store that Euronymous had. ’Cause that had
opened a year before in August ’91 with help from the few left in the scene. My
help would just be giving 60 records, so he had something to have on the shelf.
This was really low . . .
Low-budget, barebones?
Fenriz: Yeah, yeah. It wasn’t a fancy store—it was a freakish hangout. I was
thinking about it, and I just sat in the store and had a beer after work always. But
then, after Under a Funeral Moon, that store, it was open some months after, and
then Christmas ’92 it just shut down; that had sort of been a little center-point
for all of us, like, in this freakish time from August ’91 ’til Christmas ’92. And
then when that sort of fell apart, the store closed and you had sort of all the
problems that I didn’t know about that just perfectly led up to a lot of, well, you
know, the whole murder incident in ’93. I guess ’93 was extremely confusing for
everyone involved here, because we weren’t really that many people, but every-
one was really strange and weird, and then when ’93 came, then we just lost the
store and it was every man for himself. It was crazy. It was almost, you know, dif-
ferent unions for different bands, going and trying to keep contact and stuff like
that. But I guess in ’96, three years after, everyone was going their own direction
more or less. So, that was sort of the start of the total anarchy after the ’93
thing—when we didn’t have the record store of Euronymous anymore. Then it
was like back to normalcy, but everyone was like, “We were all crazy, so we just
fend for ourselves.” And then after the murder, then everyone suddenly knew
that, yeah, we’re really on our own now, and we did get more popular from that
in this neat little country.
Did you consider replacing Zephyrous before Transilvanian Hunger?

Fenriz: I guess I wasn’t used to Zephyrous because we were like different
guys. I’m this really gesticulating, typical Italian, hyper dude, while he’s really
calm and easy. I guess it was hard to handle my escapades. And I never really—
it’s not something I want to sit down and talk to any of them [about]. As far as
I remember, I was not hanging out with those others a lot, like Zephyrous—
we got a bit too close maybe. Just answering this is forcing me to try to remem-
ber something I haven’t remembered before. And, of course, at work today I was
The Making of Darkthrone’s Transilvanian Hunger 181

like, “What the hell happened in ’93?” I know what happened on a personal
level. I know that I had quit Valhall—we started Valhall in ’87. And after I got
the record deal with Peaceville in ’89/’90, I said, “Valhall, I don’t have time to do
both bands now; I have to really concentrate on Darkthrone.” And Valhall said,
“OK, that’s a shame.” And then in ’93, I realized that Darkthrone was not ac-
tive, and I probably didn’t want to make songs, and Zephyrous didn’t want to,
and Ted—I don’t know if Ted really wanted to make songs after Under a Funeral
Moon either. It felt like we made something really total, and that’s really our
most total black metal album, Under a Funeral Moon.
So, in ’93, I just joined Valhall again, and we had been rehearsing with Dark-
throne in my living room ever since we got the record deal—it was like ’90 to
’92 we were there—and then when Under a Funeral Moon was recorded, then
there was no music being made there anymore in the room, so now that I think
about it, it’s not strange that I was twiddling my thumbs there and thinking,
“Hmmm . . . maybe I should ask if Valhall needs a drummer again,” ’cause
they’ve always had problems with drummers. So, I was back, and that meant
also that they had their portable studio with them, so the portable studio now
was a part of my living room. And whenever we were not rehearsing, then I
could make everything I wanted with that studio, so it became that I continued
the Isengard project—that’s how I got started on that very same studio in the
summer of ’89. But . . . at that point Ted was living far away—we’re talking ’93
now—and I had gotten married, too, and he . . . I don’t know what Zephyrous . . .
I think he was still sort of, maybe he moved. I don’t remember when Zephyrous
moved away, but it’s clear that at one point he really did move away. They both
moved far away. They both just thought that the Helvete scene that I was sort
of in sucked because they were really into just being on their own, and I am also
a loner, but even the thing with me being there, it was just pissing them off, I
guess. So it was [that] they’re really die-hard loners.
Nocturno Culto: Zephyrous actually came to the same small village I was
living [in], and we would just basically have a good time, you know, usually just
partying. Also, when I moved, I was experiencing things that were kind of larger
than life, especially after the Under a Funeral Moon album. I was this dude drift-
ing around in mountains and woods and fishing, and there was the wilderness—
I kind of forgot everything else. I had this amazing time. Zephyrous did come
up, and we just continued partying and things like that. And you what? I don’t
think I even thought about Darkthrone that much, except for that Zephyrous
and I probably did have some slight plans for new material.
You mentioned in an earlier email correspondence that the music for Transilvanian
Hunger came to you in a vision while you were at your day job at the post office.
182 HUNGER STRIKES

Fenriz: Yeah, that’s how I remember it, and that’s how I remember it the year
after and the year after that, and every time I talked about the album, it’s the
same vision that came up at work. I had this really intense feeling, and with that
came the lyrics to the “Transilvanian Hunger” song. And as I told you . . . I’m
just going to put in some mouth tobacco here, one moment . . . oh yeah. I
stopped smoking. The first thing I did was mouth tobacco, then I started smok-
ing, then this. I have this stupid, incredibly rare lung disease, too, so I can’t
smoke. Not to worry, though—I can ski well, and hike.
So, how fully formed was the vision for the record at work?
Fenriz: So, I [should] mention now that we had lots of instruments in my liv-
ing room; it’s a rehearsal space, and it has been for years. And then, suddenly,
[the] Valhall guys took with them the whole studio that I knew how to work
from before, because I did the first Isengard demo on it in summer ’89, and then
I also did a Valhall demo on that studio, so I sort of knew the ropes for that lit-
tle piece of shit studio called Necrohell studio. So I was ready to go. I was com-
ing home after work and I started making the music, and the vision I had for the
music was to . . . I can only know this by thinking about the album now, so that’s
what I’m talking from, that sort of memory, because I haven’t listened to the en-
tire album in years, and I didn’t do that now before the interview. If I had the
album at work today, I would have listened to it, but I didn’t have it; I really
should have, I’m sorry about that. I sort of remember four or five of the songs
and the main things to talk about it.
OK, then what do you remember?

Fenriz: Drums . . . let’s see, first I had to make song number one on the gui-
tar. And then I would know it in my head, and then I would sit down at the
drum kit and go “chick-chick-chick-chick” while usually humming the riffs in
my head, and that’s what a one-man band is. It always starts with the drums, but
you have to have made the song in advance so you can hum it in your head while
you play the drums. So, that’s how it works, OK? I figured out different ways to
record the drums, because when I had recorded the demos before in another
place, here I had, this is a portable studio—only four channels—so I can only use
one mic for the drums, and I had to put it high up, behind my back, in front of
the kit, and then do checks afterwards to see that it sounded good. And I ended
up having the mic—I was sitting next to the wall, you know, like usually drum-
mers do with their back to the wall—and I had the microphone lowered, sort of
like behind my head, and that would work best for the drums.
Then I had to find a guitar sound for the riffs, but I sort of found that when
I was making the first song. Let’s say that, in all probability, “Transilvanian

Hunger” was the song that I made first for [the] Transilvanian Hunger album,
with the finger-moving technique that had been started by Bathory on the Under
the Sign of the Black Mark album, and been used on the Blood Fire Death album.
This sort of technique was one of the styles that became known as Norwegian
black metal, but that particular style that I’m using is not a typical Norwegian
[style]; it is more that Quorthon started that style, and what I quickly found out
was that guitar sound that I had was working very good with those sorts of riffs.
And in retrospect, you can see that it was right; it sort of works because it gives
that exact sort of attack on the strings, and it totally worked. Also, it was a
strange kind of effect that I used, so when I turned off the effects pedal, the amp
would still be going “kkkkkssshhhhh” on a level of five out of 10 decibels. So, it
was sort of crazy. It was a special thing.
And then for the bass, I had to create a bass sound that would fit with the other
two guitars, so now we have established that Necro studio has four channels—
so number one on the drums, number two on the guitar, number three on the
second guitar, and then I had to find a bass sound that would match, to bring
out the magic in those finger movements that I use. Because I don’t really use
chords like Euronymous and Snorre [Ruch]. Euronymous from Mayhem and
Snorre from Thorns were the ones that made the typical Norwegian thing, you
see—they made chords, and they would play all the strings, like more than one
string in the chord, but would they be clean together? No, they would resound
together. That was their style, and that you can hear on Mayhem’s Live in
Leipzig, and Mayhem Deathcrush, and on the Thorns demo—and the Thorns
demo was really, really important. And I guess also Count Grishnackh or Varg,
we all [listened] to the early and new style of Mayhem and Thorns stuff. But I
am not a good guitarist, so instead I use the technique that Quorthon already did
in ’87 and ’88. OK?
The vision that I had was that this is winterish—this will be the “longing” that
I already knew from Burzum, and I will have that sort of trance, and [an] en-
trancing tempo that was monotone. A band that was important for both me and
Varg was called Von from the United States. Von was extremely important for
Burzum, but not for Darkthrone—only on the Transilvanian Hunger album was
Von important. Yeah, because we have to see the ’80s as a whole now. Would you
say the ’80s was a decade when metal was really monotone, or was it really hec-
tic? I mean, everyone knows it was damn hectic. You’d have like, riffs and riff
changes and tempo changes from the NWOBHM, until death metal and even
grindcore. What was the world ready for? More hectic stuff? I don’t think so! So,
when Von started doing their thing, we’re all clicking like, “Holy shit! They’re
doing the monotone thing!” That was the freshest thing [we’d] heard since we
184 HUNGER STRIKES

were born. Suddenly the monotone thing was allowed, and we would be like,
“Yep, we will open up to that.” And with all due respect, it was Count Grish-
nackh who understood this monotone thing first, and he understood it from
Von. And I thought, “This lyric I got in my head at work, and what I’m start-
ing to work at now will be this tempo, [these] sort of riffs, and it will be mono-
tone.” And it turns out I completely entered the sound, and that’s why I made
all the songs and made all the takes and laid everything down on tape in two
weeks—[it] must have been maximum two weeks. And you can also hear that
it’s a very monotone, very concept album, and usually that sort of music is made
by one person. Whether it’s electronic or not, when it’s really sounding a bit to-
talitarian, then you know it’s the work of one guy, one dictator.
Did Fenriz tell you about the vision he had at work, or did Transilvanian Hunger
just show up in the mail one day?
Nocturno Culto: The latter. Fenriz just sent a tape in the mail, and said this
could be our new Darkthrone album. To me, it was really strange, because I
hadn’t really thought about it, but when I heard the album, it was like an echo
of the things I was doing in the middle of nowhere. It was a weird sensation of,
“Well, this is exactly the sound—if I could create an atmosphere on tape of what
I’ve been doing for the last two years now, this is it.” Even though it sounds
strange that he did the album himself . . . who can blame him, you know? Every-
body was moving away, and he was just sitting there with all the equipment say-
ing, “What am I supposed to do now? Well, I have to play it.” It’s probably only
natural. And especially after the fact that this was in the day and age where there
were no cell phones. There was no email. I didn’t have a phone. I had to travel
for half an hour to get a phone box, so it was not easy. It was also difficult when
I’d go to the phone; it was not necessarily very easy to get a hold of Fenriz any-
ways, so the communication wasn’t really top-notch back then. But if all these
things that happened today, all the communication and stuff, it would probably
have been a different situation. Also, I think Zephyrous felt kind of very left
out. But he couldn’t do anything about it, because he was the guitarist really, you
know? Since I do the vocals anyway, I could do the vocals. I remember he was
not very pleased about it, but I don’t think this is the entire reason for him leav-
ing the band, actually. He was actually getting sick, and probably, I don’t know
why, but suddenly, I mean, he was driving a car one day, and everything went
black and then he woke up in the hospital with a lot of things attached. It was
kind of dramatic stuff going on. He recovered kind of slowly and moved to an-
other place where his relatives were living. But, yeah, he tried to cope with it—
I definitely understood then that he’s not going to play anymore.

I’ve heard the drums were done in one take?
Fenriz: Well, I couldn’t go in and stop myself or anything like that since this
was a very primitive studio. Of course, I made the next song; I don’t know what
song I made after that—it’s one of the seven others, I’m sure—but I learned that
song. I’d sit down and play it on guitar, and I’d decide for myself, this would go
eight times, this will go 12 times, because in the ’80s you would never play a riff
more than four, six or eight times. Burzum and Von were also experimenting
with playing stuff 12, 16, even 32 times before changing, and that would mean
the change would be of the essence, the change would be really noticeable. And
as I said, this was very fresh in the early ’90s. We’d had a decade where this was
not done. There was not a single album except the Bathory stuff that was doing
this sort of thing in the ’80s. So yeah, those who hadn’t heard Bathory were
really thrilled by the new stuff we were doing. So, of course, I had to do the
drums in one take. If I was doing a mistake, I would just go back and start again,
and that’s how we always work. I don’t stop in the middle of a song saying, “OK,
I finished part one now; I can do part two tomorrow.” That’s not how we roll.
That’s how the big guys roll, I imagine.
So, that’s not really impressive either. Because, as you know, the really special
thing with Transilvanian Hunger is that it’s the first metal album that has the
same pace on Side A, except for Von, of course, again—but that was not an album,
it was only demos. So, the first four songs, as far as I know, have the same tempo.
And that’s really extreme. That’s really, really extreme. But I have always decided
that the riffs I was doing were fitting these kind of riffs, and that’s where I was
going. And then the fifth song, finally [makes drumming noises with tempo
change], and of course when you listen to four and a half songs with one tempo,
then the tempo change is gonna make an impact—it’s the monotone over the
monotone. But it was only me, so there was no one there to argue or anything.
When we interviewed Grutle Kjellson from Enslaved for Decibel’s Darkthrone

cover story, he mentioned the idea of making “pure Norwegian music”—not in the
Aryan sense, but in the sense that all the lyrics [except the title track] are in your
native tongue. Was that something you were trying to accomplish with Transil-
vanian Hunger?
Nocturno Culto: No, definitely not. But it’s cold, and for us, we have to admit
that our country, and the feeling, and the cold weather—the autumn, the bleak
and gray light—sometimes, it all inspired us to do a lot of things. I think espe-
cially I was inspired by desolate places. Because it’s such [a] more powerful ex-
perience than being around where so-called things are happening. But today
it’s, of course, different.
186 HUNGER STRIKES

Fenriz: Yeah, it was the coldness and the nature and the winter forest walk
that we did a little of. Both me and Varg were into that—walking into the for-
est—but now I just laugh at it, because we didn’t really walk long distances or
anything like that, like I do now. But sadly, everyone thinks that. All the rich
white kids of the world think this is really exotic, and want to do it, too, and put
on a bit of corpsepaint and go back into the yard when it’s winter, but this is not
really wildlife. And then you’ve sort of had a distance to it and a little taste for
it, and that was enough to spawn that incredible sense for both Varg and me to
sort of play an ode to that, I guess. Yeah. Simply enough, it was candles in the
snow, man.
Now that you’re an experienced hiker, it’s kind of funny that you guys used to go on
some of those forest walks.
Fenriz: Not together, though! That would be really lame.
This was the first Darkthrone record to feature a guest lyricist. Why did you share
lyric responsibilities with Varg Virkernes on four of the tracks? Moreover, what
did Varg contribute, at the time, that you didn’t or couldn’t?
Fenriz: We should go into the whole ordeal about the murder [of Eurony-
mous]. We’d been getting threats from the Scandinavian North, though I assume
it was some Swedish person that went totally crazy, because just two weeks, or
three weeks, or a month before Euronymous’ murder, I got a letter from Swe-
den anonymously, like a tombstone that said “Euronymous” across it. So it was
logical that I would think that. You know, Varg wasn’t arrested for the murder
until weeks after, as far as I remember, and those weeks, man, I was nervous as
hell. I would arm myself with the Bonded by Blood album by Exodus playing on
my walkman, which got me through the battle it was to go to work and to go to
my house—even around in the city, you want to watch your back and have your
knife at hand and stuff like that. The situation for me, it was nerve-wracking;
and then, you know, Varg was even visiting me and we were trading. I got some
shirts and CDs, and he would get some Darkthrone merch for free from me,
even after the murder, and I would say, “Man, I got this letter from Sweden,” and
he would just say, “No, don’t show the cops that.” And he’d go off driving back
to Bergen, and a couple [of ] weeks later he was arrested for the murder, and I
was like, “What?!” thinking I don’t know if it’s true or not, I don’t know any of
the circumstances. I did the album, or had the album done. I don’t really re-
member when in ’93 I did this album—maybe it says on the album.
It says it was recorded in November and December of ’93.

Fenriz: OK. I had sent the album to Ted, also along with the lyrics. The thing
[was] when Varg was in prison, I was thinking more and more how he now could
not speak to the outside world. I thought, this is a very extreme situation—we’ve
never had anything like this in Norway before, or the metal world at all. So I was
writing [Varg] a letter, and I said, “Do you want to communicate via Darkthrone
in any way?” I offered him to write it in the lyrics, and then he sent the lyrics,
and then that was the lyrics. I don’t even know what the lyrics mean. I’m never
a curious person that asks why. I’ve had some people around me always asking
why, and it always bothers me. I don’t want to bother anyone. And I never
wanted [to] in my entire life. I don’t want to be a bother, so I don’t ask.
Ted got the lyrics and spent a long time to listening to the album, and I was
also sort of explaining to him to what this album was, and I was sure he would
find some great way of singing the stuff. Later, we would take the tape—
because now it was full, the four tracks were full—we had to take the tape to the
studio, get Ted down from where ever he lived at the time. I think he was defi-
nitely in the North somewhere, or in Trysil; he hadn’t moved maybe at that time,
which is an important place for us, Trysil. Up northeast. We record there and
[we’ve] rehearse[d] there since ’98. He’s been living there, his wife’s from there;
we have a lot of history with that place.
Did Peaceville have any objections having Varg contribute to the record?
Fenriz: I don’t remember that at all. I guess [Hammy, Peaceville founder] is
a people person—he has to do that, he has to be like that, and being from En-
gland it’s more like, you don’t have those hermits like we seem to be. They have
a lot of interaction and stuff like that. He probably knew we were going through
an extremely insane period in our lives, and he saw the shit hit the fan, I guess.
In retrospect, I see that happened as well. He didn’t want to tamper with that at
all. The album was under contract—see, we had signed a four-record deal. So the
album had to be done; it’s in the contract. Transilvanian Hunger was probably a
little bit doomed from the get-go. It was an extreme outing from extreme times.
Why is only the title track written in English?

Fenriz: Oh, it was? Oh shit . . . I guess I didn’t know what language Varg
would use, so that was of course out of my hands. I didn’t know, so that’s a co-
incidence. When it came to my stuff, we have to go back to a gig we did in ’89,
with Darkthrone. It was in the movie theater where we grew up, Kolbotn—a
good place for metalheads. I’m kidding, but there has been a whole lot of bands
from there, throughout, and it’s a really small place; it’s strange. But you know,
this area is where Mayhem is from, too, just a couple of miles down the road, and
we had another cool band in the ’80s that was really, really great called Vomit. I
188 HUNGER STRIKES

remember the first Mayhem rehearsal I attended was in October ’87, ’cause I’d
been in touch with Necrobutcher in ’87. So that was my first contact with any
other Norwegian band. So I went to see them, and at that time it was only
Necrobutcher and Euronymous, and there were two guys from Vomit that were
helping Mayhem out. That was before Ted joined [Darkthrone]. It was before
Jan [Axel Blomberg]—Hellhammer—joined [Mayhem]. And Mayhem’s old
drummer, Torben [Grue] went on to become an opera singer, a real character at
that, too—we were all weird. You had to be to make it though the ’80s metal
scene in Norway because there [were] none. We were the ones taking care of any
global activity.
So, at a gig in ’89 that we played, Torben—he was laughing, because he’s al-
ways been like that—would come up to us and say, “Hey, why don’t you extreme
metal acts start singing in Norwegian? Now that would be extreme.” And I was
mulling this over in my head for the rest of the ’80s then, and then in ’90 and in
’91. And then in ’91, when we’d finished A Blaze, I was writing the first lyric for
the next album, which was “Inn I De Dype Skogers Favn”—a song from Under
a Funeral Moon, obviously. And I felt it was really hard to crack that sort of code,
’cause even growing up with the rock ’n’ roll and the heavy blues-based stuff
from the ’70s, it was always “yeah, yeah, yeah” and “baby, baby.” Everything
was . . . let’s say that the international language for the postal system is French,
but the international language [for] rock ’n’ roll is English. So maybe that’s why
I went two years after receiving that idea from Torben. I finally thought, “Now
is the time, now I will do it, now I got the courage. I’ve been writing lyrics for
five years—I’ll do it now.” And I was very pleased with the result. It worked per-
fectly well with Ted’s vocals, and so I guess that’s why I did three more on the
Transilvanian Hunger album.
Where did the title come from? Is it a reference to former Mayhem vocalist Dead
and the “I ❤ Transylvania” shirt he was wearing when he committed suicide?
Fenriz: That would be very logical. You’d think that would be a really sound
way to try to figure out a reason for the title. However, I’m not sure that it was,
because I think it would come sooner after Dead’s suicide, like if that would be
a song on A Blaze in the Northern Sky or Under a Funeral Moon. I thought of it
with the whole concept of the icy and the cold landscape. Probably it must have
crossed my mind, obviously, about Dead, too, and his whole take on Transylva-
nia, and the real hunger he had for it. I don’t remember now, but I would actu-
ally prefer [if ] it was like a tribute to Dead, but I’m not sure that’s all of it. When
I make a title—or an album title, at least—there’s never just one meaning behind
it. There are several, because I mull it over in my head, and, what I’m good at
here in life is quick associations, so when I get a title, I quickly come up with a

lot of different ways out of the little box that the title is in. And then I stuff that
box full of different meanings—so it’s very potent for me. I never talk about
lyrics much, or not when I have the artistic side to myself anyway. Then it’s bet-
ter not to explain too much. Lately, I’ve been explaining a little bit about the
lyrics ’cause it’s no problem. I’ll just write about my feelings containing some
fucking topic or scene politics, but at that time it was all dark and serious, really.
You know, the simplest thing in the world is for white kids that are a little bit
troubled to go really pompous on it all—like you get a splinter in your finger and
suddenly you have a whole grindcore album. That’s how it is—adolescence and
early 20s. I guess people feel really strongly in their lives at the time. Most artists,
they make their most vital music early and spend the next 20 years sucking.
How did the cover art come together? The illustration is a bit different from
A Blaze in the Northern Sky and Under a Funeral Moon.
Fenriz: It was a continuation of it, though, and it was supposed to be a con-
tinuation. I was thinking, “Yeah, of course, what photo would be Blaze?”—just
having a photo as a cover at that time was also preposterous. No one did that. It
had to be some sort of Ed Repka painting or what have you. So I wanted to
take it really back to the ’80s when we did A Blaze and all the influences on the
album are of the ’80s, and so are the others really, except that when it comes to
Transilvanian Hunger, it was more of the same mood that Burzum had, and
then a mix of that, and then Von, and both those bands were like ’91, so that’s
how far we went into having inspirations; all of the rest of the way we play our
instruments, and I play drums, is ’70s.
OK, the cover. We chose the photo of Zephyrous for Blaze—immediate
shock value, I guess it had, or reminiscent for people going though vinyls in the
store, going like, “What the hell is this in the new section? That’s like from . . .
that’s from the ’80s.” And we continued with that with Under, and we didn’t
Photoshop away that little bush in front of Nocturno Culto there. And then fi-
nally it was time for one of the shots of me. And this was a photo session that
was done, I guess, in ’92, so now it was time to find a photo from that photo ses-
sion; but I had lost the original photo, like from when you deliver the film, and
then you get back the print and the negative, and I couldn’t find this either. But
what I had done in ’92, I had photocopied a lot of the photos, so I could send
[them] around to magazines and stuff, because we didn’t work on that, this was
beyond DIY. So there were photocopies, and that is all that was left. So I said,
“I got to search longer, I can’t just send a photocopy to England and imagine that
they’ll go with that for the cover.” So I searched and searched—nothing. Well,
then I just sent the photocopy, like have the logo up in the corner please, and put
Transilvanian Hunger on there—boom, it’s your cover. I don’t remember if they
190 HUNGER STRIKES

thought it was strange or if they tried to protest or anything. I think, again, they
sort of knew that everything was blown to hell over there in Norway. They just
said, “Yeah, whatever.”
So, no, that was it, and it wasn’t a normal thing to do, I know. It was just a
photocopy. No one would think that it would work or anything. Today, when I
send photos to magazines and stuff, they’re all like, “Oh, we need it better, we
can’t use this seriously, it’s too bad,” but they don’t know the whole icon, which
is from a photocopy of a paper copy. So that always freaks me out a little bit.
People often describe A Blaze in the Northern Sky, Under a Funeral Moon and
Transilvanian Hunger as the “black metal trilogy.” Do you view those albums as
linked in any way beyond the fact that they were all released one after another?
Fenriz: No, it’s just because human beings as a species are really visually led.
Like, you could put Anthrax and Celine Dion in a box with the same type of
album cover, and they’d go, “Yeah, this is a natural progression, sure; I can see
how these are linked,” ’cause the cover is clearly almost identical. No, the thing
is the three album covers are black-and-white photos, and that’s why it’s viewed
as a trilogy. If the Panzerfaust album also had that kind of cover—like the black
and white instead of black and gray—then they would have to say it’s a “four-
ology”! It’s so easy to think of it as a trilogy instead of this four thing, so every-
one’s going, “Oh yeah, that’s a trilogy.” But the thing is, those albums are really
far between, the productions are very different, the music is very, very different
on these albums. Ted’s vocals are [mostly] the same, but that’s always, that’s the
only thing that ties them together. Also that they were number two and three
and four in our chain of albums, but there’s nothing else combining these albums.
Different lineups, different studios—not the first two—but different engineers
and sound. And the thing with the first one, A Blaze in the Northern Sky, in this
so-called trilogy, is a mixture of death metal and black metal; and number two
of the so-called trilogy, Under a Funeral Moon, is basically pure black metal of the
’80s style; and then I did the Transilvanian Hunger—part three—which was just
me, so there again, it has really nothing to do with the vibe of the two other al-
bums. I see it as a very, very different album. Actually, there are so few things that
combine them and so many things that divide them.
Nocturno Culto: Yes, I do, actually. When it comes to being a musician and
being in a band, I don’t think those three albums connected to each other in any
way, really, but they’re connected in the sense of that time period. I would say
there was definitely a new era after Transilvanian Hunger, and we never looked
back. To me, [there were] very, very fruitful years between A Blaze in the North-
ern Sky and Transilvanian Hunger, because lots of things did happen, lots of
things in my life changed. Also, it was totally Darkthrone on the darkest day, but

that was a really important time also, because I think since Fenriz and me obvi-
ously are the only two left in the band since ’93, I think those years are without
the rehearsals, especially A Blaze in the Northern Sky and Under a Funeral Moon;
of course, [that] did get a solid platform for us to stand on in the future as well.
Musically, everything worked perfectly. We never really after that encountered
any problems playing together, because when you’re the only two left, you have
to rely on probably experiences from the past, and there’s less argument when
you’re the only two in the band, and you don’t have to stand in line to record.
Do you view it as a special time period for the entire Norwegian scene as well?
Nocturno Culto: Yeah, I would say so, because you have to remember that
people also like to call it the second wave of black metal, which pretty much
started off—and we were kind of early on in there—with A Blaze in the North-
ern Sky. It really did cause a stir. All kinds of reactions came. It was a time where
things were actually misanthropic and dark. The bands that did do stuff then had
a lot of attitude, and even though we never did see any of them as competitors,
it was cool. It was a great time, actually, because metal bands did have a lot of
attitude back then. There were, of course, a lot less bands back then as well, but
it was a great time. It’s a different time today. I don’t know. People are just lit-
erally killing everything they have just to have some news headlines. There’s a
lot of things going on today that are not misanthropic, to say the least. I mean,
I’m kind of living a misanthropic life, even though we realize that everything
today is more difficult—especially when it comes to spreading your music around
in a sea of bands. So we have to do more stuff—do interviews maybe, do some
fielding and do exclusive stuff and everything.
In the Decibel cover story, you state that 1994 was “a horrible year for black metal.”
To your credit, nothing else in the black metal scene that year sounded anything like
the Transilvanian Hunger record.
Fenriz: Well, there were other bands on the brink of doing this, probably. I
can see that if I didn’t make an album that was so hypnotic, other people would,
but then again the other bands were more like bands, and I was alone at that
time with that album. But I’ve always said that everyone in the Norwegian
scene of ’90, ’91, ’92, ’93, ’94—everyone was doing those kinds of riffs. Gor-
goroth was also doing them, Enslaved was doing them. Emperor was doing
them. Immortal was doing them. And I was making some sort of riffs like May-
hem and Burzum and those guys. All of us were listening to the same bands of
the ’80s. Of course, this was the early ’90s—there were no other bands to lis-
ten to. There was Master’s Hammer. Master’s Hammer was the first Norwegian
black metal album, but they were from Czechoslovakia, and we all listened to
192 HUNGER STRIKES

Master’s Hammer a lot, the Ritual album. So I don’t think there is much orig-
inality about the riffs on Transilvanian Hunger at all. The whole originality of
it is the production, the die-hard monotony of it, the whole execution, the thing
that it was an icon was that it was structured that way; it’s the structure and the
sound, and, I mean, I’m the executive chief on the album, so I had to make all
those choices, but to me they weren’t like choices at all. It was made, it had to
be that way—there was no other choice. I realized I had made an album that
was entirely in one tempo.
But I didn’t know, I thought maybe more of it like, “OK, I got the inspiration,
so I did the album. I am proud of it, but I am keeping Darkthrone afloat with
this album.” I was even considering, when I had done the first Neptune Towers
album, to release that as a Darkthrone album, just to keep Darkthrone afloat as
well, or just to confuse people, because I had started to detect in ’94 that it was
turning into a trend, and that was the thing that was [most] horrible about ’94—
it was the trend. You’d see people from other countries really tuning into what
we were doing and trying to do it, but misunderstanding it. And making it with
better sound, more synthesizers. Where before, the riff—and you would sort of
hear the riff so many times that you would sort of make the synthesizer sound
in your head, but then the other people from other places would take that tone
that you would get in your head while listening to a riff long enough—they
would put a synthesizer on top, and I was sort of like, “That wasn’t really the in-
tention.” And then the whole sad thing about it became inflated, too. There’s a
sadness in it; I don’t think Transilvanian Hunger is very extreme, but there’s a lot
of emotion there, and there’s also a sadness, and that’s why the whole thing
started to go a little bit haywire, because there was suddenly an emphasis on the
sadness; and that’s why Gezol [of Sabbat/Metalucifer fame] from Japan started
saying [in faux Japanese accent], “What is happening to black metal? It’s too
much black and not enough metal!” and this is what I am currently . . . I’m pay-
ing my debts. Every time I make a new song, I’m paying the debts, man. Because
I had to do Transilvanian Hunger, but realized I was veering into the “too much
black and not enough metal.” Although, on the third song—I think it’s called
“Skald Av Satans Sol”—that was a song with a very metal riff, which is what
Merciless would play. Merciless from Sweden had an album called The Awak-
ening, and this was the first album that Euronymous released. And the first
album that we released on the label Tyrant Syndicate was also a black-thrash
album, but when we released a black-thrash album, we [got] a whole lot of
people going, “Why aren’t you releasing standard ’90s black metal?” But do you
think Euronymous got the same reaction when he released Merciless? Of course
not. This again proves that the scene now is completely horrible compared to
when we grew up, because we didn’t have this attitude from people that were

locked in a trend. The last time I visited Euronymous, what were the bands he
was about to release? No, it wasn’t Gorgoroth; it was Sigh, and it was Mysticum,
which are both really not trendy bands. We were never locked in a trend, and
that’s why it was so horrible for us to see it all become a trend, and that really
kicked in in ’94 and ’95, and the last part of the ’90s were horrible for absolutely
every metal style on the planet. We’d been through seeing thrash metal die, and
then we saw death metal, which was once a part of thrash metal but branched
out. Death metal would be [at] first really great, and then would start to become
[a] trend, too. And then death metal just crumbled before our eyes; I think I
maybe had five death metal albums from 1990. It was just not something we
listened to in 1990. We had been stuffing our heads with death metal in ’88 and
’89, so it was time to take the old Sodom and Destruction albums again in 1990,
and then we started to listen to more Motörhead and Venom, too, of course—also
always Bathory and Celtic Frost, and Hellhammer as well. But those two were
always the most important bands for us: Bathory and Celtic Frost. Nowadays,
there’s not a lot of Bathory left in us; it’s a lot of Celtic Frost and Hellhammer,
though. We sort of changed Bathory with Motörhead—the spirit of Quorthon
lives on through us as we continuously refuse to play live.
How do you think Transilvanian Hunger holds up today?

Nocturno Culto: Well, it’s for those who are really fucked up, ’cause there’s
not really any entertainment there. And if you are going to like that album today,
you either would have heard it many years ago, or you are a complete misan-
thrope for liking this stuff. Because it does not have anything to do with “mod-
ern sound.” It’s monotone. It’s very misanthropic. It’s dark, and it’s an album
that’s not easy to get into, especially for kids today that are used to that sound
and a lot of things just going on, and “Oh, did you hear that? That was really
cool.” It’s not like that, so it’s for people that are especially interested in that
kind of far-out, distant kind of riffing. And even though I know a lot of people
have a hang-on to the Transilvanian Hunger stuff, I like to think that it’s—well,
not to be harsh, but nowadays I think it’s like . . . I think it’s a good album, by
all means, but you know, it’s more like emo-goth kid stuff. So, that album is ac-
tually the reason there’s emo kids. Just kidding!
Fenriz: Now something finally popped into my mind, like, why so many
bands copy that exact album. I’m thinking maybe because it’s damn easy. My
mother could play that. She couldn’t create it, but she could sure play it. I’ve
been a fan of many hundreds of thousands of acts throughout the years, and I
never really felt like I would copy one of them and send them a tape and say,
“What do you think?” That’s not me. I said earlier that I don’t wanna bother
people, but it seems like other people are not like me; they are perfectly willing
194 HUNGER STRIKES

to make me listen to themselves copying me! They sort of think that that’s the
thing I need to hear most in the entire world. It’s like, no, I made that, I don’t
sit around and listen to that all the time. I prefer to listen to Burzum. I don’t
know, that just makes me sort of lose the faith in humanity—not that I had
much from the get-go! But it’s really horrible, man.
To make something that sticks out like that—well, I’m sure not everyone can
do that. Usually it’s a coincidence that leads to someone making a punk album
that stands out or something like that, because it’s really difficult, right? But
there’s a time and place for everything. And suddenly I was thinking I was doing
what everyone else was doing when I made Transilvanian Hunger, but it turns
out now it’s really distinct; but as I told you, that really hurts when people copy
it, because then I find it truly loathsome. I’m really much more comfortable with
playing a varied style like we did on Blaze or Funeral Moon or later albums, ’cause
then [if ] you’d have people copy those albums, at least they will be playing three,
four or five metal styles instead of just that one type of album! It’s so limited,
what can I say? It hurts. It hurts my ears. I mean, it doesn’t hurt. It’s cool that
someone’s listening to what I was making—it was two weeks of my life, man.
I couldn’t have made that two weeks without having gone through my musi-
cal life up to that point, or the life in the scene and the creation of—or the con-
tinuation of—the ’80s black metal, but it’s still just two weeks of my life . . . that
is haunting me on a daily basis, mind you. I discovered MySpace through a co-
incidence two years and three months ago, so I quickly started surfing around,
and discovered how easy it was to find new crust bands I never heard about. I’d
find one crust band and then, suddenly, on their “top friends,” there were 12
others, and I’d heard about six of them, and then: “Yes, this is great!” But earlier
this year I was thinking, I was asking my girlfriend, maybe I should check into
our MySpace page, maybe see what people left—messages and stuff. And then
I sort of figured that it was really easy to answer a lot of people on a daily [basis],
but [the] result is that I got more and more bands that had played for a couple
of months and they choose Transilvanian Hunger style. It’s just more of what I
was bored of already in ’95 and ’96. I was bored then and now. Twelve years after
that, I still get it on a daily basis.

C H A P T E R 15
1993: A DESERT ODYSSEY
THE MAKING OF KYUSS’ WELCOME TO SKY VALLEY

by J. Bennett
Release Date: 1994
Label: Elektra
Summary: Sorta s/t stoner smash
R
olling from Los Angeles into the parched sandbox of the Mojave, any-
one familiar with Welcome to Sky Valley will see almost all the relevant
landmarks along the 10 East freeway. The rows of windmills with 20-
foot blades, the same ones that dominate the inside and back cover of the album;
the sign that lets you know you’re about to hit White Water, the unincorporated
territory with which Sky Valley’s final (listed) track shares its name. For Kyuss
die-hards, it’s like entering hallowed ground. For guitarist Josh Homme, vocal-
ist John Garcia, drummer Brant Bjork and bassist Scott Reeder, it’s the physi-
cal and psychological precipice of the proverbial High White Note, the
196
humming lifeforce of a hundred ultimate riffs and mountainous power grooves.
For still others—legions of weedians, longhairs and music critics, it’s the birth-
place of “stoner rock.” And Sky Valley is the album that perfected the then-
nonexistent form. (Full disclosure: It’s possibly my favorite album of all time.)
Recorded in early 1993 at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys—after Elektra
Records swept in and bought the band’s original label, Dali/Chameleon—it
wouldn’t be released until over a year later. Foreshadowing what would happen
in Queens of the Stone Age over a decade later, Homme and the band had re-
cently kicked perpetually wrecked bassist Nick Oliveri to the curb and poached
Reeder from the Obsessed. (Homme and Bjork had grown up watching the in-
sanely talented southpaw play in desert rock progenitors Across the River.) Sky
Valley also marked the departure of Bjork, who split the band immediately after
recording his drum tracks. What he left behind is one of the most deserving
Hall of Fame legacies in the history of forever.
How did Scott Reeder end up joining Kyuss?

John Garcia: When we were touring the West Coast with the Obsessed, Nick
wound up riding in the Obsessed’s van and Scott rode with us. I remember one
day Josh was driving, I was sitting in the middle and Scott was sitting in the
passenger seat. We had had it up to here with Nick at that point already—he was
just getting wasted all the time and being Nick. We had already decided, you
know? So Josh, without even consulting anyone, pretty much asked Scott right
then if he wanted to join. He dropped a huge hint, anyway. And I didn’t care, be-
cause I knew that Scott was badass. He’s just as sick as Nick, but in a different
style. As soon as Josh said it, I was thinking, “All right, I’m in.” Brant and Scott
were already friends because Brant was a big fan of Across the River. When we
were growing up, Across the River was the only band around that was badass.
Brant Bjork: For me, it was kind of a no-brainer that the only person who
could fill Nick’s shoes would be another desert legend, so to speak. We all grew
up knowing Scott Reeder as the bare-footed beast. Had Scott not been there,
who knows what would have happened?
Scott Reeder: With the Obsessed, things were great in one sense—Columbia
was getting ready to sign us. But Wino was on his way down. When Kyuss asked
me to join the first time, it was about five or six months before they kicked Nick
out. I politely declined and stayed with the Obsessed. But when they fired Nick,
Josh asked me to fill in for a couple of shows. I dug Kyuss—we’d toured to-
gether, and I liked those guys, so I was like, “Sure, I’ll do it.” The first show I did
was the record release party for Blues for the Red Sun. After that we did a thing
with Body Count. [Laughs] That was weird. Kyuss hadn’t really done much at
that point, so I felt like it was taking a step backwards because the Obsessed
The Making of Kyuss’ Welcome to Sky Valley 197

had been to Europe a couple of times and things were going really good. But
musically, it seemed like life was gonna be better for me back home in the desert.
So I left the Obsessed. It just felt right.
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Sky Valley and the
period leading up to it?
Josh Homme: I think of two worlds happening, and that somehow symbol-
ized the end of the three musketeers attitude I had when I was a kid, because
music was always like a religion for Kyuss. We rehearsed every day, but it wasn’t
so much a rehearsal as a chant or a mantra. By the end of the band, we were re-
hearsing for six hours, six days a week and it got to the point where we had all
these possibilities of where we could go. We could play each of the songs about
four or five different ways. And it was unspoken, all based on cues, like a pitcher
and a catcher. So when I think of Sky Valley, on one side it’s our moment of tri-
umph. The way we sounded live was exactly how we sounded on that record. But
I also think of feeling, like, how could it be so misunderstood within our own
band? Because Brant left.
Bjork: Probably conflict. I was already aware of the fact that the band was
devolving in a way that I couldn’t do anything about—on all levels. I used to be
bitter about it, like anyone would be in that situation, but as I get older I start
to understand that it was a natural de-evolution, a natural situation, when you’ve
got different personal and artistic backgrounds, different experiences or lack of
experience, different agendas or hang-ups. Kyuss was kind of a miracle to begin
with. It was a miracle that we even left the desert, so suddenly being involved
in big rock business was a lot to digest.
Garcia: We had a pretty tight rehearsal schedule. That was all we did. We
practiced four or five times a week leading up to that album. We generally re-
hearsed in someone’s garage—Josh’s parents’ garage, my parents’ garage. So I re-
member constantly rehearsing—especially “Demon Cleaner.” That song was
really hard to get together for some reason. Even in the studio, at Sound City, I
spent 14 hours in the booth singing that song because it was so hard to sing. Josh
was so meticulous. He’s very intelligent—one of the most intelligent guys I’ve
met in my entire life. And he’s a great songwriter. I loved all of his ideas, vocal-
wise, lyric-wise—but leading up to that, there was a lot of rehearsal, because he
was a perfectionist. I was, too, you know, because when you play in a band you
don’t wanna suck.
Reeder: After I officially joined, the first thing we did was a crappy tour
through sports bars and pizza parlors all over America. When we got home, we
got a call asking if we wanted to tour with Glenn Danzig and White Zombie.
Once that tour happened and we had an agency and things started rolling, we
198 1993: A DESERT ODYSSEY

got a Faith No More tour right after that. When that ended, we got a call ask-
ing if we wanted to go to Australia with Metallica in a week. Nobody had pass-
ports, but we somehow got them in time, got our laundry done and caught a
plane to Australia. That was when we stopped using set lists onstage, too. Not
to talk badly about anyone on that tour, but when you have explosions and stuff
going on during your show, it’s pretty important that you have the same set list
every night. So I think not having a set list was a rebellion against that. We
wouldn’t discuss it beforehand, either. We’d be in the middle of the stage, hud-
dling in front of 16,000 people going, “What do you want to play?” When we
got home from Australia, we pretty much went right into the studio to record
Sky Valley.
How did Scott’s presence affect the band?

Homme: We were getting so much better just from playing with Scott. I re-
member thinking, “Holy shit—this guy shreds me. I better play more.” He was
doing things that I didn’t yet understand were available. Scott is one of the best
bass players in the world, hands down. And he’s also extremely musical—we
never really reached the ceiling of his ability. He was older and had more expe-
rience, but he’s not the type of guy who would ever shove that up your ass.
There’s always been a real mutual respect there. In all honesty, I’ve never been a
huge fan of what he wrote, of the marble he would bring in to carve, but for
someone carving marble that someone else brought in, there’s almost no one
better.
Why did Brant eventually decide to leave?

Bjork: Josh and I were the creative force of Kyuss. We had a very deep un-
derstanding of the need for each other in getting the band to exist musically. At
the time of Sky Valley, I was smoking a lot of pot. I was young, probably about
18 or 19, and I certainly had a lot of artistic vision for Kyuss. I exercised that with
Blues for the Red Sun, but when it came time for Sky Valley, there was a conflict
in direction between Josh and I. That had never really happened before, and I
didn’t know how to handle it. And I was too exhausted to put up a fight. But mu-
sically, Sky Valley was more focused, and with the exception of the opening track
and the closing track and maybe a couple pieces within, it’s primarily Josh writ-
ing and arranging and really starting to exercise his power within the band at the
time. He made great music—he’s talented and he writes great songs—but it
wasn’t exactly where I was looking to go.
Homme: It was a complex situation, because it had always been Brant and I
writing everything, but I wanted to allow Scott and John to write with us. And
now Brant was saying that he was thinking about doing something else. I was

saying to him, “Well, what do you want to do? We can go in that direction.” Be-
cause from age eight until then, Brant and I were like that [crosses fingers]. So it
was the first time that I sorta felt shut out by someone close to me, where I was
like, “Explain it to me. We can sit down and figure it out.” It wasn’t that we
weren’t getting along—it was that he had this thing that was his that he wasn’t
sharing or explaining. But to me, being the masters of our own musical destiny,
we could go in whatever direction we wanted, and I was open to whatever. And
to be honest, one of the reasons Brant told me he wanted to leave was that he
didn’t like Scott as a person. He said, “I can’t stand Scott and his wife.” And I
didn’t know what to do about that. But it was true—when Brant and I were
around each other and Scott would come in, Brant would bail. And I knew there
were other things going on inside him that he wasn’t sharing. But he wasn’t will-
ing to. Making money didn’t matter, so it never came up, really. But not talking
about it also became a problem—I mean, that’s how secrets get their power. And
I think that’s where secrets were starting to take over. We’d always been a unit,
like us against the world, and now one of our people was against the world alone
and we were on the outside all of a sudden. So when Brant confided in me that
he didn’t know where we were headed, but didn’t know where he wanted to go
either, I didn’t know what to say.
Bjork: Josh and I had been jamming together since we were 12, so it was
known, even when Nick was in the band, that it was the Josh and Brant show.
Musically speaking, it never broke down. Josh and I have a very interesting re-
lationship to this day because he and I hold the keys to each other’s musical
hearts, which is an interesting position to be in. So the music always prevailed.
The hang-ups were always more political, more personality shit. And that had
been going on for a while—that wasn’t something new when Sky Valley came
along. But by then it got to the point that I was exhausted with it. I was bummed
for a long time that I probably wasn’t going to be involved making music at that
level—certainly not behind the drums—ever again. All due respect to Fu
Manchu—I just don’t want to play drums.
Garcia: Nobody really knows what it was like to have Josh and Brant in the
same room together. When they were together and their relationship was tits,
holy shit—talk about magic. It was like, “How the fuck do you guys do this
shit?” I remember thinking about how lucky I was to be in a band with those two
guys. I was completely blown away by them. Even when we were really young,
back in the Katzenjammer days, when it was me, Chris Cockrell, Josh and
Brant—they were fuckin’ animals, man. It was badass. They were each other’s
conduits. Looking back, I think nobody really knows what those two guys were
capable of together. They were un-fucking-believable.

Bjork: Josh and I just had that thing, man. I knew it the first day we jammed,
and I’ll never forget it. Two guys growing up, same small town, opposite sides
of the tracks, he had a guitar and I had drums. It was the process of elimination,
you know? There wasn’t any other dude. [Laughs] It’s fairy tale shit, man. But we
just couldn’t get it together on a personal level. We came from such different
backgrounds that it was hard. When you get older, you can create art with people
and put things into perspective, and you have more room for other people’s per-
sonalities. But when you’re at the age we were at, I didn’t understand that. When
you’ve got a dude you can rock with, but you can’t understand him on a personal
level, that’s a trippy thing.
Homme: During Sky Valley, I wasn’t living in the desert full-time. I moved to
Orange County for about half a year. I was living there with some friends—they
were going to school and I was playing guitar. I was experiencing all sorts of
things there, too. I was setting up lights and sound systems for raves—back when
raves were just ecstasy, loud music, girls and water. So I was experiencing all this
other stuff I’d never seen. In a way, I think I was looking for punk rock without
all the political screaming or guilt. The punk rock guilt thing of “Do well, but
don’t do too well” was so permeated through Kyuss. We had made a commitment
to originality and being different, and in my opinion, we almost took it too far.
Instead of a mantra and something to pay attention to, it became something
that was almost enforced. If we had a song that was kinda catchy, we had to
make sure to pervert it. By Sky Valley, there were certain rules. And I didn’t think
we should have rules.
What were the sessions themselves like?

Garcia: We went back to Sound City in Van Nuys to record with Chris Goss
and Joe Barresi. Fleetwood Mac did Rumors there; Nirvana did Nevermind
there—everybody and their mother recorded there. The Neve boards they have
in those rooms are unbelievable. No Pro Tools back then, just splicing two-inch
tape. When I saw fuckin’ Joe Barresi pull out a razor blade and make some of
those edits, I swear to god I had no more nails left on my fingers. It was like,
“How the fuck did you make that cut?” It was awesome.
Reeder: I remember I always had my jug of this really cheap burgundy wine
and a little can of EZ-Cheez sitting near my amp. We were like kids in a candy
shop—it was so fun. I’d been in a studio before, but the vibe for Sky Valley was just
so awesome. We had oil wheels on the wall, incense, candles all over the place, just
getting baked and going for it. We were giddy as fuck. It felt so good, and it all
went pretty fast. I’ve worked on records that take months and months, and it’s like
beating your head against a wall. But we blew Sky Valley out so fast—recorded and

mixed in under three weeks. That sounds like a long time to me now, but for a
major label record, that’s pretty incredible.
Homme: The sessions were amazing. I think it took something like 23 days
to do the record. The rehearsals we’d done beforehand at my parents’ house
were great because I was bringing in stuff like “Odyssey” and Scott was bring-
ing in the most monumental bass lines ever. Brant had changed the tempo to
a faster tempo, so it really felt like—to use that song as an example—yeah, I
brought in “Odyssey,” but they also changed the face of what it was. So we
were writing and working together in a way that was better than it had ever
been prior.
Bjork: We were in the same room we had done Blues in, but there was frus-
tration because things weren’t moving like they did with Blues. Blues was very
natural. With Sky Valley, I remember thinking, “It ain’t moving because you’re
choking it.” The only songs we had done when we went into the studio for Sky
Valley were “Gardenia,” “Whitewater,” “100°” and “Odyssey.” So there were two
of mine and two of Josh’s, so there was a good balance of creative input. But the
rest was written on the spot, pretty much, and Josh was just like, “All right, this
is gonna be the rest of the record. Let’s go.” And I was like, “Whoa, man—I’ve
got stuff, too. Let’s work this out. Let’s make the best record we can make.” But
it was clear—I’d already seen the disintegration out on the road with other mem-
bers. It was turning into a power struggle and I just didn’t wanna be involved.
I’d rather go home and rock out in the garage.
Reeder: Things were pretty loose going into the studio. It was actually kinda
scary. We got to the jam part on “Whitewater” and we really didn’t know what
was gonna happen. “Odyssey” was the same way—the studio version was actu-
ally a total accident. We’d been rehearsing it a different way, but someone spaced
out for a second, Brant kept going and that was that. Sometimes the best things
are accidents, though. One thing about Brant that was awesome was that he
made it so obvious when it was time to go to the next thing. He’d throw in some
fill that was really easy for dumb, drunk, stoned guys to pick up on, like, “Oh,
OK.” He was an awesome fucking drummer.
Homme: Kyuss always recorded everything live. Vocals were overdubbed only
if John didn’t get it in the take, but the rest of us did. Goss and Joe Barresi had
to talk us into punching in for little corrections, because we were against that.
That was one of the rules. It’s like, “No way—that’s fucking cheating.” Even
though no one would know, it didn’t matter, because we would know.
Bjork: When I did my drum tracks, there was so much anger. I was pissed,
because I knew it was the last thing I’d do with the band. I dropped my tracks,
shaved my head and we went out and played our last show with me in the band
out in the middle of the desert. I moved up to Humboldt for a year, and Josh sent

me a copy when it came out. I couldn’t even listen to the record for a while be-
cause it was so painful. It was probably a year before I heard it.
Homme: The show where he shaved his head was before we recorded Sky
Valley. In a lot of ways, I only made one more Kyuss record because of how Brant
left. He did his tracks and said, “I gotta go to the desert and see the dentist.” That
was the last time I saw him [for] two years.
Reeder: I didn’t realize there was any intent for Brant to leave, but as soon as
his tracks were done, he was gone. He was the main reason I joined the band. I
loved his drumming, and I think the other guys felt bad because I had burned
my bridges with something that was pretty cool. So I think everybody kinda
kept it hidden from me, because I was blindsided. That was a huge blow. We got
Pete Moffett from Government Issue to play drums on “Asteroid.” That one
hadn’t been recorded yet.
The lyrics aren’t printed anywhere in the booklet. What were they about?
Bjork: There were a lot of inside jokes. Josh is a funny dude, man. That’s
what a lot of people don’t realize about him. He’s fuckin’ hilarious. I always
thought he’d be a comedian, like Will Ferrell or something. But I always wrote
the lyrics for the songs I wrote musically, which on Sky Valley were “Gardenia”
and “Whitewater.” Josh wrote the rest. “Gardenia” is just named after my fa-
vorite flower. A lot of times I’d give songs titles that had nothing to do with the
lyrics. We were driving home from the studio with Chris Goss one night and we
had just gotten the basic track and I needed to write lyrics for a scratch vocal. I
saw some old bikers at a stoplight next to our car. Like real bikers, one-percenter
dudes. I don’t know what club they were, but this was before the helmet law.
Seeing them inspired me to write a “forever stoned on the road” kind of thing,
a total Motörhead vibe: Live for nothing, but “riding fast away from it all” kind
of vibe. “Whitewater” came from missing the desert whenever we toured, so
that’s just a song about home.
Homme: I like the lyrics for “Space Cadet” because they were kind of listless,
but at the same time the most confessional on the whole record. They were writ-
ten by all of us, with the understanding of what we were headed towards. Over-
all, I felt like there was starting to be good lyrics on Sky Valley. Not all of ’em,
though. I don’t want to harp on Brant, but the lyrics to “Gardenia” weren’t my
favorite because singing about cars and shit never really made sense to me. “Cro
mags / a million drags / it never lags” . . . I don’t know, I wanted to do things that
were more inward turning. Because, really, to have a great lyric, you have be vul-
nerable. You have to say it and let it fall wherever it’s supposed to fall. That’s why
I like the “Demon Cleaner” lyrics—the song is cryptic, but at the same time, it’s
admitting everything.

Garcia: Nobody knows that “Demon Cleaner” is about brushing your teeth.
I didn’t write that song; Josh wrote it, and it meant something totally different
to me. But when it goes, “You get the back ones . . .” he’s talking about brush-
ing your teeth.
Homme: I have a tooth obsession. I’ve had everything done to my teeth that
you could have done. I used to dream about teeth all the time—I’ve had night-
mares about them since I was a kid, like horrible night-terrors. I even went to
the doctor about it, and that’s why I hate going to sleep even to this day. I still
always have nightmares. So I’d have this recurring dream where I’m getting my
teeth pulled out and then I’d flash forward and I’d be in a giant mouth with
these teeth bleeding everywhere. And I’d be cleaning these giant teeth while the
blood was coming down and I’d be drowning in a sea of toothbrush foam and
blood. So “Demon Cleaner” was this metaphor for, you know, you gotta keep
yourself clean, you gotta keep yourself tight.
What about “Conan Troutman”?

Homme: Movies and books have always been as much if not more of an influ-
ence for me than music, because the idea of Kyuss was to not let yourself be in-
fluenced by any music. That’s why I never listened to Black Sabbath. People said
we sounded like Black Sabbath and I was like, “Fuck you—I never heard ’em.”
And it seemed important to not listen to them in order to maintain that wall, so
movies and books ended up being more influential. I watched Conan the Barbar-
ian and also the first Rambo movie, you know, First Blood? There was that char-
acter Colonel Troutman, played by Richard Crenna—he overacted more than
William Shatner. But both of those movies were badass in a weird way and the
song needed a title. It has nothing to do with the lyrics—the lyrics were about
taking things to get somewhere else, which is the subject of many, many songs by
many, many bands. It’s like trying to find the perfect potion to get lost. I’ve always
had what may be a bizarre fascination with the retarded in that they’re always
happy. I used to sometimes eat lunch with them at school, and it was awesome be-
cause they could get away with things that if I did, I would get in big trouble. But
the worst they got was a slap on the wrist. So I started thinking that maybe that
was why people drink or get high—to be retarded. In the hopes that they won’t
get called out on it, either—that they’ll just get a slap on the wrist. So there are a
lot of songs about the attempt to get retarded, to find the right elixir that takes you
to the right retarded place. [Laughs] That’s gonna read really interesting.
“Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoop”?

Homme: That song was actually about Brant. But moreover, it was about
anyone who thinks someone else can’t live without them. It’s also one of my

favorite riffs on the record. It felt so good to play live—it felt like you were killing
somebody. And the bass line was so fucking sick. Watching Scott play it, I’d
wanna high-five him if I had a free hand. We’ve played that song with Queens
before. The way the song ends, you know, that’s actually the kind of thing I’d do
in Queens now.
“Odyssey”?
Homme: I wrote that on my first ecstasy trip. I was walking through the back
alleys of Irvine—really glamorous—for hours, not knowing where I was, but
being totally stoked, and then ending up being chased by the police. There were
three of us, and we tried to walk into a garage party, but it was a bunch of people
who all knew each other, and they were like, “Who the fuck are you?” And we
were so fucked up, we were throwing stuff around in an alley, and I guess some-
one called the cops. So it was about that journey, that odyssey, and finally mak-
ing it after walking about 10 miles to my place. But then Brant and Scott altered
it forever by making it better. And when that happens, you don’t get in the way.
I’m guessing “100°” was literal.

Homme: Yeah, “100°” was very literal, like, it’s so fucked up to be out here in
the desert. I’ll do anything to get out of here. But how do you escape the in-
escapable? You can’t go anywhere.
“N.O.” was an Across the River song. You even brought Mario Lalli [from Across
the River and Fatso Jetson] in to play the solo. Whose idea was that?
Reeder: I think that was Brant’s idea. I guess Brant and Josh were into Across
the River back in the day, but they would’ve been pretty young. I think they were
at the gig that was on my 21st birthday in the Palm Desert with Saint Vitus
and D.R.I.—May 16, 1986. They had to be around 12 or 13 at the time, because
they’re about eight years younger than I am. Actually, come to think of it, Josh
turned 13 the very next day. We always had our birthdays back-to-back. When
I joined Kyuss, we’d pop into Denny’s just before midnight and get the free
birthday meal. You gotta do what you gotta do on the road.
Bjork: Because Kyuss got signed and left the desert, people think they’re the
premier desert rock band, but in actuality, the band that probably deserves that
title was Across the River. They influenced me a lot, and I definitely brought that
to Kyuss. They were insane, but they never recorded anything, you know? That was
another thing about the desert—no one recorded, there was no real focus or am-
bition. Across the River got close—they were talking to SST for a while. When
punk and metal crossed over, you got bands like Slayer and COC and DRI and
Metallica, but Across the River went straight to Sabbath and Mountain and Blue

Cheer. Saint Vitus was the only other band even doing anything close, and they
played a lot of shows with Across the River. In fact, Wino’s first show with Vitus
was in Palm Desert with Across the River. And Kyuss was on the next level of the
path that Across the River had already burned.
Homme: Every musician from the desert reveres Mario. He’s one of the few
guys I’ve ever ripped. I’ve taken one Hendrix thing that no one ever seems to no-
tice, a Billy Gibbons thing and a couple things from Mario. He was always so
original. Every single band Mario has ever been in is about two and half years
ahead of its time. Across the River is a great example—they broke up, and two
and half years later? Grunge. I got the whole idea of “Be original or be gone”
from Mario. And it’s not that he was so militant about that attitude—he just
was, and that was it. To him it was like there was no question that he would be
original. So it was total dumb luck that Brant and I—speaking for him—got
the start that we got. We both kind of got into the same thing separately and
came together over that common interest. Because we were standing next to
each other, we witnessed a lot of the same things together, and we both had the
same direction at the exact same age.
Reeder: At one point, I think Brant actually wanted to call the record Across
the River, but I would’ve been kind of uncomfortable with that. I wanted to call
it Pools of Mercury, and that was the working title for a while. We actually had a
couple of mock-ups done of artwork with pits of mercury shining. Years later, a
live bootleg [from a 1995 show in Texas] turned up called Mercurious Pools. But
Sky Valley is officially self-titled. That’s what it says on the spine. The words
“Welcome to Sky Valley” just appear on the sign on the cover.
What’s the story behind “Lick Doo,” the hidden song at the end of the album?
Homme: That little thing is a perfect example of what we learned in be-
tween Blues and Sky Valley. We used to have some songs that were almost like
jokes. We played that way because when words failed to express something,
music always worked—especially when we started playing in L.A. in the early
days. We had stuff like “Thong Song” or “Writhe,” where we were singing
about something that was almost ridiculous. And in truth, songs like that were
a total joke. But then you realize that it wasn’t working—the joke is on you, ac-
tually, because people are taking it seriously and you’re actually attracting the
kind of person that you’re trying to repel. Kyuss was trying to hand-pick its au-
dience and going, like, “It’s OK that there’s 10 people here. We’ll take our time.”
And if there were 10 people there, it really didn’t matter. It was full-on the same
thing no matter how many people showed up. So, Sky Valley was learning not
to pay for “Thong Song” by putting “Lick Doo” at the end. It was an impor-
tant lesson, too.

Bjork: I thought that was gay. I would’ve never put up with that shit, but I
had already left at that point. That’s all Josh and Chris Goss, man. They have
their little trippy sense of humor thing going on that I never really got into. You
know, Josh and I did a little acoustic thing that they omitted from the record that
I was really bummed about. For me, it was kinda like my goodbye to the band.
It was this rad acoustic thing that had kind of an Allman Brothers vibe. It prob-
ably had no business being in the batch of the songs, but we did it anyways. I
played the guitar and Josh played a lead over it. We called it “Juan’s Day Off ” and
it was just kind of an ode to John, because he liked to fish and stuff. But they
didn’t use it, and instead they put that goofball fuckin’ song at the tail end of the
record. I thought that was just kinda weak and lame.
How did suddenly being on Elektra affect the band?

Homme: We were 19 years old and none of us were happy about being on a
major label. The only thing we knew for sure was that there was no way off. We
signed a contract with Chameleon for six records when I was like a week out of
high school. All I knew is we got money to make six records from this label that
had John Lee Hooker, Ethyl Meatplow and Dramarama. I mean, we walked
into the President’s office the day we signed and he had all these squirt guns
around, so we picked ’em up and started shooting them. We were kids. And the
President of the label was like this billionaire’s son who was a kid, too. We’d go
into the office, they’d buy us booze and we’d hang out all day. So we signed to
that idea. But then Chameleon got crushed by Elektra and Elektra just took us,
basically. All of a sudden we’re on Elektra and it’s like, “How do we get out of
this?” We were told we couldn’t, unless they dropped us.
Bjork: We didn’t know what it meant to be employed by a record label, like,
“OK, guys—go write some songs.” That’s not how we worked. Kyuss was an ex-
tremely organic band, and not to toot my fuckin’ French horn—I’m not saying
I was more important to the band than anyone else—but I just felt that I had
become consciously aware of us being an organic band. That’s what made us
special. The more we tampered with the way things naturally evolved, the more
we would be at risk for ruining what was special about it. That’s just the pres-
sures of working for the man, and everyone reacts differently to that. I wasn’t
even gonna do the record at first; I was over it. I told Josh I wasn’t down with
the scene. I was brokenhearted, but I didn’t wanna go down with the ship. I felt
the spirit was gone. I was upset because I knew we were just inexperienced
enough not to know how to protect what we had. It’s tough when you’re a kid
and you’re touring with Metallica and you’ve got bigwigs telling you you’re gonna
be the next big thing. But those weren’t goals of mine, man. I was interested in
being what we were, which was a good band.

Reeder: Those guys were so young—they were probably 18 or 19 when I
joined the band. I’d been around the block a couple of times and realized that
they had it together pretty fucking good. But it was kinda confusing, because
they were doing this thing as a hobby—they had no intentions of becoming rock
stars—and all of a sudden they’ve got a record label telling them where they’re
gonna be, how long they’re gonna be there and sucking them into this life that
I don’t think anyone was asking for.
Who came up with the idea to arrange the album into three movements?
Garcia: Josh had that all planned beforehand. I remember him talking to me
about it before we went into the studio. I thought it was a little weird at the
time, but Kyuss wasn’t about rules, you know?
Reeder: I think it was right after Nevermind came out, and there was that
hidden bonus track. We thought, “What could we do to fuck things up?” At
first, we thought of having no track indexes at all, but that was a little too severe.
We actually spent more time sequencing than we did recording or mixing. We
put together these mix tapes and tried so many different combinations. It ended
up that three movements seemed like the right thing to do. It really flows the
way it was put together. I had a copy that the European branch of Elektra made
for radio, I guess, with each track indexed. I let some film director borrow it,
and he lost it. To him it was no big deal: “Oh, you’ve got another one, right?” And
I’m like, “Uh, no—not exactly.” Fucker.
Homme: When Elektra took over our contract, they asked for three singles.
[Laughs] I remember seeing their faces when we handed those three parts in. It
stemmed around fucking with them initially, but there’s also an instruction on
the record that says, “Listen without distraction.” I mean, there was radio and
all this stuff going on, but we’re not that, so it was like, “Since you’re already
over here, here’s our recommendation.” So the three movements ended up hav-
ing nothing to do with them. That was just a collateral benefit. Initially, the label
sent a whole movement—I think it was part three—to radio. But really, as far
as taking care of business, Kyuss’ theory was, “Ignorance is bliss.” And it truly
was. We did not give a fuck.
Did you ever play the entire record live, front-to-back?

Reeder: No. Not yet, anyway. [Laughs] Yeah, right. I think we only played
“Demon Cleaner” like twice. I think Tool has played it as much as Kyuss did. So
I’ve actually played it live four times. I remember I had a really shitty day at
work and I got home and there was a message on my machine from Adam Jones.
He was like, “We wanna do a Kyuss song live—you should come out and play
it with us. Just pick a song.” That was in like ’98, I think. So we did it twice—

in L.A. and San Diego. When I came out onstage, I think people were like,
“Who is this fuckin’ guy? Cousin It?” But you know, there are so many Tool nuts
out there who want to know every little bit of trivia, so I think those shows ac-
tually turned a lot of people onto Kyuss. It’s funny, though, because “Demon
Cleaner” never really had an ending—it just faded out—so Danny [Carey] from
Tool pretty much organized the end. He’s such an amazing drummer. It was
awesome being in the mix with those guys.
Were you consciously trying to conjure the feeling of the desert with Sky Valley?
Because that’s what it sounds like.
Reeder: No thought went into that—it just happened automatically. The
stereo in my car didn’t work at the time, so when I’d be driving around the desert,
I’d just have stuff going around in my head. We were products of our environ-
ment. We loved stuff like Helmet—it was so tense and wound up—they were
obviously a product of their environment as well.
Homme: The funny thing is, I’ve met a lot of people that have said, “I took
a pilgrimage to the desert and listened to the record there.” But I gotta say, I
didn’t listen to any of those records for years and years, actually. But some of the
only cassettes I have are Kyuss, and I was driving home from somewhere after
Kyuss had broken up and put in [And the] Circus [Leaves Town] and Sky Valley
and Blues and as I started to get into the desert, it totally made sense. Everything
worked right—it was the phase opposite of its environment—it filled in all the
gaps. It made sense to me there. Before that, I’d just assumed it worked. But I
got to step back and say, “Yeah, it works. It sounds like that place looks.”
Do you have a favorite song on the album?

Garcia: Probably “Supa Scoopa and the Mighty Scoop.” When you start
singing those lyrics, like, “By the lately / try to someone / we’ve been laughing
/ since you’ve been gone / and I wanna know / did you all enjoy the show?” It’s
like, what the fuck are you talking about? The way Josh wrote that song lyrically,
it was really fun to sing. But it was so high-pitched that I had to go down to a
lower register during the live shows because it was just killing my voice.
Reeder: Oooh, that’s tough . . . I’d say “Whitewater” was the most exciting
to play live. When we’d get to the jam section, it was anything goes. Sometimes
it would blow up in our faces, and sometimes it was the raddest thing. But you
never knew if it was gonna suck or if it was gonna be great. The jam sections
were always evolving.
Homme: “Asteroid” was my favorite because it reminded me of Wagner. I
started listening to classical music around this time and rediscovered marching
bands. I had marching band vinyl since I was a kid—and Celtic drum-and-fief

stuff, too. I loved that stuff, because the idea behind it was, “How do you inspire
an army to overcome their fear, jell as one and kill everybody?” They always use
music. No war has been fought without it, because it draws images in your head,
but doesn’t finish them. It demands that you paint the picture, but the picture is
getting fucking painted, and that’s all there is to it. Also, asteroids are what I’d
want to roll into battle with.
Bjork: I’ve got two favorites—“Gardenia” and “Whitewater”—because they’re
the ones I wrote.
In retrospect, is there anything you’d change about Sky Valley?

Homme: No. I haven’t made a record yet that I’d change anything about, and
I hope I never do. I put everything I have into every record I’ve ever made. I
think Blues was a classic record for Kyuss, too, but I think Sky Valley was a little
more understood in a way. To me, it stands the test of time a little bit better. But
when you’re done with a record and you agree to give it to the rest of the world,
no matter what happens—I don’t care if it’s downloading or critical failure or ac-
claim or sales or no sales—it’s not up to you and it’s not your fault. You don’t have
to feel anything about it. A good review or a bad review, I don’t feel anything
about. It’s nice to get one or the other, but it’s not that nice.
Garcia: I don’t think I’m happy with my vocals on a single song. I haven’t
heard that record in years, but anytime I hear Kyuss, I cringe, man, because I can
sing so much better now. It bugs the fuck out of me. My voice right now would
smoke all over that John. I hear it now and I wanna be like, “Step aside, kid. Let
me show you how it’s done.” But that’s where I was, you know? I was still learn-
ing how to sing.
Bjork: I’d get rid of “Lick Doo,” obviously. That was cheesy. But other than
that, I think it’s a good record. I wrote a lot more on Blues, but the irony is that
I don’t necessarily prefer Blues to Sky Valley. I just prefer to rock. I prefer to let
things naturally take their course. Blues was a very natural record, and I feel like
Sky Valley was a very calculated, fabricated record. And when I hear Circus, I
hear how it became even more calculated. Don’t get me wrong—still great songs,
great sounds—I love all the Kyuss records. But sometimes you have to sacrifice
a certain feeling when you’re being more calculated. Less feeling, more thinking.
Reeder: I wouldn’t change a thing. Somebody emailed me just a few weeks
ago, asking, “On the second chorus of ‘Gardenia,’ did you play a wrong note?”
Man, I don’t know! There are probably wrong notes all over the place on that
record. But I enjoyed that things weren’t taken too seriously. It wasn’t like a band
trying to make it big, careerists or whatever. We were just having a good time,
getting free beer and wondering who fucked up and let us through the door. It

seemed like a joke, like, “Uh, I think somebody made a mistake. We’re not sup-
posed to be here.” It always felt like that to me. Good times, though.
It seems like Sky Valley—and Kyuss in general—wasn’t widely appreciated until

a couple of years after the band broke up. Do you ever wish you’d gotten your due
while Kyuss was still around?
Homme: No way. I feel so lucky that no one gave a fuck, because until you’ve
learned to play for yourself, you haven’t learned to play at all. In my way of think-
ing, you don’t play for girls, money, fame or attention. You play for respect. It’s
the only gift you give yourself, and it can’t be taken away. If you pay respect to
yourself and those close to you, you’re untouchable, un-heckle-able. And that’s
all I’ve ever wanted to be—to have someone look and go, “I don’t like it, but I
know it’s real, so I’m just gonna shut up.” Nothing else really seems worth it.
And if people were into us, I might not feel that way. So, who cares? It’s also why
I’m not trying to milk the fuck out of it. I’ve never tried to dry-hump Kyuss’
good name. I’ve been the source of stopping it for years.
Reeder: I don’t know. I didn’t seem like a big deal or anything back then. We
were just shitting out the next batch of stuff. To have it still being talked about
14 or 15 years later just blows my mind. You know, I went to this thing a cou-
ple of weeks ago—it was Mike Watt improvising on bass and Raymond Petti-
bon improvising on canvas. Afterwards, there were these two 20-year-old kids
there who saw me and were like, “Scott Reeder!” They wanted to take their pic-
tures with me and stuff like that. I was like, “What the hell?” I haven’t exactly
been out there in the limelight, you know? It’s weird.
Bjork: I think everything happened in its appropriate way. Kyuss was what it
was because of where we came from and where rock music was at that time. We
weren’t from Seattle; we were too lowbrow for that. We were dope-smokers—
I was listening to Cypress Hill back then. Other than Monster Magnet, rock
bands weren’t talking about weed when we were around. A lot of that just had
to do with the time. Black Flag was what it was because punk rock wasn’t totally
into their trip. That’s what made them do the things that they did. I mean, if the
whole country is partying and smoking dope and you’re Led Zeppelin, you’re
playing sold-out arenas. Black Sabbath probably played to 10,000 people a night
after Master of Reality came out. Why isn’t High on Fire doing that shit now?
It’s just the way it is—it was a different time then. But we didn’t need it. That
was kind of my whole trip when I was in Kyuss.
Garcia: It’s weird, man. These days, people are like, “Kyuss this and Kyuss
that,” and it makes me wanna go, “Where the fuck were you when we were to-
gether?” Now that Kyuss is disbanded, it’s this legendary fucking band, but back

then, we just did what we did. I’ll tell you, though, when I hang out at the merch
table after Hermano gigs, some of the younger kids will have all this Kyuss stuff,
and it makes me feel pretty good about being 37. They’ll ask me to sign Sky Val-
ley and I’ll see Josh’s signature already on there—at the bottom, he’ll write some-
thing like “Kyuss lives.” So I started writing the same thing on the Kyuss records
that didn’t have his autograph on them, because I know that some of those kids
will bring those records to a Queens show for him to sign. [Laughs] So that’s
kind of my way of sending him a letter, like, “Hey, dude—it does live, just to let
you know.”

C H A P T E R 16
ALTERING THE FUTURE
THE MAKING OF MESHUGGAH’S DESTROY ERASE IMPROVE

by Kevin Stewart-Panko
Release Date: 1995
Label: Nuclear Blast
Summary: Modern metallic trailblazer
E
veryone remembers that one episode of The Osbournes some years ago
where Ozzy’s ungrateful male sprog took it upon himself to use Meshug-
gah’s Destroy Erase Improve as a thrust and parry in the suburban war
against his Beverly Hills neighbors. Considering how the Swedish (not Nor-
wegian, Jack!) quintet was suddenly on everyone’s lips following that one par-
ticular act of revenge, it’s hard to believe that upon the release of said album in
1995—an album that has come to be widely considered as one of the ’90s’ de-
finitive metallic works—Meshuggah were pretty much still an unknown quin-
tet hailing from Umeå, a small town in northern Sweden. However, once Fredrik
213
Thordendal and Mårten Hagström’s dissonant shots of staccato guitar deto-
nated album opener “Future Breed Machine” before locking in with Tomas
Haake’s polyrhythmic kick drum patterns, the silence was soon shattered, as was
the scope of metal’s boundaries. It also didn’t hurt that the band finally got their
mitts on a North American release and some decent label backing overseas.
Falling somewhere between incendiary tech-thrash, angular math rock and
brutal death metal—and accented by the slick fluidity of Thordendal’s fusion-
influenced leads—Destroy Erase Improve set a new metal watermark, and con-
tinues to immeasurably influence to this very day. Decibel tracked down Haake,
Thordendal, Hagström, vocalist Jens Kidman and former bassist Peter Nordin
to reminisce about our latest Hall of Fame induction.
What are your most vivid recollections from the time leading up to Destroy Erase
Improve?
Tomas Haake: Well, first of all, it’s really hard now, more than 10 years later,
to remember any specifics. I do, however, remember feeling we had something
cool going on, with somewhat of a shift in style, or maybe more of a shift in ap-
proach to our own music. Even though the style was still kind of similar to that
of the None EP, we still felt that we were treading on new ground with some of
the songs on Destroy Erase Improve. I remember feeling that we were creating
something—a style and a way of thinking—that was genuinely our own.
Peter Nordin: I agree with Tomas. We had struggled for many years and
things were finally beginning to go our way. I guess we all felt that something
was about to happen.
Mårten Hagström: Honestly, I really don’t remember all that much. I re-
member us being very excited about the songs and about going into the studio
with [engineer] Danne Bergstrand. As always [in the time] before an album,
most of one’s life revolves around the songwriting.
Was there anything you were deliberately striving for or attempting to accomplish
with the writing, recording and presentation of Destroy Erase Improve?
Haake: As far as the writing went, we always wanted to stand out from the
rest of the scene. We wanted to accomplish something people had not heard be-
fore. With the songs on Destroy Erase Improve, in combination with a pretty
tight and crisp production, we felt—and still feel—we managed to do so.
Hagström: Of course, we wanted to make the best album we could and make
it sound great. That’s always the ambition, but we tried not to have that ambi-
tion harness the writing process in any deliberate way. I know we wanted it to
be energetic and aggressive.
214 ALTERING THE FUTURE

Do you feel that being able to maintain a steady lineup in the couple of years after
your debut album [Contradictions Collapse] helped with focus and cohesion going
into Destroy Erase Improve?
Hagström: I don’t know. I joined after Contradictions Collapse, so it’s hard for
me to say. But no one left the band during that time, so maybe.
Haake: Absolutely! I don’t think this band would have existed for long if we
weren’t such a tightly knit bunch. You need to be true friends to have a good and
healthy working environment in a band, and such friendship and understand-
ing of each other is not usually something you can accomplish overnight.
Nordin: Yes, and this also explains our musical development. We were able
to focus on the music instead of members. Plus, at this time, we were doing
everything together.
Contradictions Collapse, while unique in its own right, was still comparatively
thrash-based as opposed to the more jagged, polyrhythmic approach of Destroy
Erase Improve, where the guitars were locking in with the bass drums and Jens
Kidman was able to focus more on his vocals because he wasn’t playing guitar any
longer. When did you stumble upon this style? What was influencing you at the
time and at what point did you realize you were onto something fairly unique?
Haake: We didn’t really stumble upon this certain style, but it was more like
we “oozed” on over to it over a period of many years. We’re still on that “slippery
surface,” going sideways in a lot of ways, and we all hope we never hit something
to stop that lateral motion. Around the time of Destroy Erase Improve, I was lis-
tening to a lot of different music, from things like jazz/rock fusion to industrial
and metal to softer things like Björk and Pink Floyd, as well as a lot of movie
scores. Whether this was actually influencing me or us much as far as our own
music went, I don’t know. There was probably no specific point in time where
we started feeling like a unique band. I think we always felt unique in the sense
that we were doing something we had never heard anyone else do before us.
Even as far back as Contradictions.
Fredrik Thordendal: I think it’s always been in the making. Even if you lis-
ten to the None mini-LP, you’ll hear us searching for the same things we’re still
searching for today.
Nordin: We always wanted to do something different. It takes a couple of
years to get it right and to go on from there.
Jens Kidman: The polyrhythmics already started to show on Contradictions
and None, but on a smaller scale. From there, they just developed and still are de-
veloping. I don’t know what made us go for this style more than the thrash, but
we like it like that. We’ve always tried to renew ourselves a bit on each album but
The Making of Meshuggah’s Destroy Erase Improve 215

still keep the essence of Meshuggah visible. Destroy Erase Improve was the next
step, but it still had a pretty wide mix of song styles since it has songs on it that
were written all the way back in 1991. I don’t think we reflected that we were
onto something unique, ’cause that’s what we try to do on every album. It’s nor-
mal for us to explore.
Hagström: To me, the first step toward that style was made between Con-
tradictions Collapse and None, although it was present on Contradictions as well.
So, Destroy Erase Improve was just moving even more in that direction. As far
as what influenced us, it’s hard to say. I can’t pinpoint any one or two things
that influenced us at the time; everything around us back then, I guess. Our
style has always felt like our own to us. Not that it’s music from Sirius or
anything.
Did the on-the-job injuries that Fredrik and Tomas suffered after the recording of
None play any role in your veering towards a more rhythmic playing approach?
[In 1994, while working as a carpenter, Thordendal cut the tip of his left middle
finger off and had it sewn back on, enabling him to continue playing. Soon after,
Haake had one of his hands mangled in a grinding machine.]
Haake: Absolutely none whatsoever! You play music, you hurt your hand,
you bleed, you stitch up, you heal up, you start playing music again!
Nordin: I agree 100 percent. Accidents happen and then you go on.
Thordendal: No, I think we already had that rhythmic playing approach even
before we suffered those accidents.
Was the band looking to explore any particular lyrical themes on Destroy Erase
Improve? What was going on in the world or in your lives at the time that may
have been impacting the lyrics you wrote?
Hagström: That’s a question for Tomas, really, but they were less metaphor-
ical and philosophical in nature. Even though they still were in a way [metaphor-
ical and philosophical], they were still dealing with more practical issues than
some of our later lyrics have.
Haake: There was no particular theme to the lyrics of Destroy Erase Improve.
In a way, I guess the lyrics were reflecting less of a personal view or standpoint
on things and leaning more towards the fictive and imaginary. And as such, they
were more open to interpretation.
Fredrik, how much of an influence did jazz and fusion musicians—in particular,
Allan Holdsworth—have on your lead work at the time, and what sort of ef-
fects/toys do you remember experimenting with?

Thordendal: Well, let’s just say it like this: Even if I took all the money I
could get my hands on while alive, took all the insurance money I got from cut-
ting off my finger and bought as much “Holdsworth tone equipment” I could,
I’d still be a complete moron [compared to him]! The only effects I was exper-
imenting with that are worth mentioning was my first breath controller proto-
type that I ended up using on “Future Breed Machine,” the outro to “Beneath”/
intro to “Soul Burn” and “Sublevels.”
Haake: I remember those “trippy” effects on the guitar and that part was done
almost like a conversation of sorts on Fredrik’s guitars.
What’s the significance of the album’s title? How does the artwork tie into this idea?
Haake: The significance of the title is only loosely tied in with the lyrics of
the album. The phrase “destroy erase improve” is a line from the lyrics to “Fu-
ture Breed Machine” and as that one became somewhat of the main track of
the album, and was the leadoff song, we just went with some artwork that some-
what reflected the theme of that song.
Kidman: It’s a strong title, and it fit the pictures we cut out and stole from ref-
erence books at the library.
Did the recording process go smoothly, or was it a nightmare? Were there any parts
that were improvised in the studio or was everything completely written before-
hand? What are some of the more memorable moments about your time in the stu-
dio recording Destroy Erase Improve?
Haake: As I remember it, it went pretty smoothly. We didn’t have all the
songs/parts completely done, but we had most of it down. The song “Sublevels”
was something we kind of jammed up while in the studio. That whole session
was kind of retarded; we rented a tiny cabin just outside of the city Uppsala on
camping grounds. We could barely fit inside the cabin! I also remember that we
were out on the town one night and this guy comes running up to me—for no
apparent reason—and puts a running speed, full-on, hard-hitting fist to the side
of my face! KNOCKOUT!!! The incident later turned into this court thing and
blah, blah, blah . . . The other guys kept laughing at me over the next few days
because my lips looked like two loafs of polished, red bread and I couldn’t eat
solid food for a week! Fun, fun, fun!
Nordin: Yes, the cabin was kind of weird. I worked at the time and missed a
lot of the guitar and drum sound-checking in the studio. I can tell you that
Tomas’ lips really looked bad and we surely had a laugh at his expense!
Kidman: I remember I got a really bad flu in the middle of recording the vo-
cals and had to get treatment for it. My tonsils were swollen like a horse’s testicles.

I think we did the song “Sublevels” during our eight-hour trip from home to the
studio. Our old blue Volvo from 1971 took us safely to the studio and to where we
slept every day. It was a real piece of shit car.
Thordendal: Apart from “Sublevels,” which we actually wrote in the car driv-
ing to Uppsala the evening before the first day of recording, we actually had time
to rehearse all the songs before we recorded them.
Hagström: Destroy Erase Improve was special in the way that the oldest songs
for that album were written back in ’91 and ’92, but some of the material was also
written in the studio. So, yes, on some level there was improvising, but there al-
ways is to some extent. I most clearly remember recording “Sublevels” and “Acrid
Placidity” because they were basically written in the studio and they went from
nothing to something really special in front of our eyes/ears just like that.
Speaking of the mellow, interlude track, “Acrid Placidity,” the original promo copies
of [follow-up album] Chaosphere has a similar interlude track entitled “Unany-
thing” that was reportedly taken off the final release in order to maintain a full-on
relentless and brutal assault. Was taking “Acrid Placidity” off Destroy Erase Im-
prove for similar reasons ever considered?
Thordendal: No, never.
Haake: No, not that I can recall. For Destroy Erase Improve, we definitely went
for a more diverse output with a lot more dynamics to the album. You’re right
about “Unanything,” though. As the rest of Chaosphere was really relentless and
intense, we felt that a soft track would kind of rid the album of that intent.
Kidman: No, it’s too groovy.
Hagström: Not that I remember. We thought “Acrid” was a real good way of
breaking the pace of the album.
In the few years after Destroy Erase Improve, you guys took to writing songs at
home via your computers and trading MP3s over the Internet. Was Destroy Erase
Improve created in the old-fashioned way of jamming in the rehearsal room? Was
there something about the Destroy Erase Improve writing sessions that made In-
ternet writing more attractive for future albums?
Haake: At that time we were still writing and recording on small four-track
porta-studios, as well as jamming and writing together in the rehearsal space. We
did not start using computers until ’96, so it was still “old-school” with us shar-
ing tapes, etc. The only thing special in the air would have been the sweat and
fart smells in the rehearsal space.
Kidman: I think we more or less sat at home separately with porta-studios
and drum machines most of the time. We’d then meet up every now and then

and show each other what we had done, whether it was good or bad. Then, when
the Internet came, we didn’t have to meet.
Thordendal: We wrote in the same style back then as we did those few years
after Destroy Erase Improve; the only difference was, instead of using a com-
puter, we used a porta-studio, and instead of sending the demo via Internet,
we played it for each other in the rehearsal room. I think what also made De-
stroy Erase Improve kind of special from the later albums was that we wrote the
songs over a longer period of time, and that made them sound a bit different
from each other. For instance, “Soul Burn” was already written when we
recorded None.
Hagström: No, not for Destroy Erase Improve in particular. I mean, we were
writing stuff on four-track portas at home as well as jamming on the first cou-
ple of albums, including Destroy Erase Improve. So I’d say the computer just re-
placed the four-track. Of course, the technical aspect made the computer
superior to the four-track, so I guess that steered us towards working in a little
bit of a different way. It’s a misconception that we switched from jamming songs
out 100 percent of the time to computer writing 100 percent. Destroy Erase Im-
prove was written, to a large extent, on four-track. We just changed gear after De-
stroy Erase Improve, but it’s true that the jamming part decreased a lot when we
started working with the PCs.
In ’95 Peter developed an inner-ear nerve problem that had him feeling constantly
nauseous and off-balance, forcing him out of the band mid-tour later that year.
Were there any signs of his illness previous to this, and was it ever an issue during
the creation of Destroy Erase Improve?
Kidman: No, those problems came up on the European tour we did with
Machine Head after we had recorded the album.
Nordin: It was on the tour that I became ill. It had nothing to do with the
album.
What’s being said in the double-tracked spoken-word part on “Inside What’s Within
Behind”?
Haake: Oh, I can’t really remember the exact words, but I remember we used
leftover lyrics for that song and just read the sentences in opposite order than
how they were written; i.e. the last word of a sentence first, and so on . . .
Kidman: The same lyrics I’m singing, but backwards. Neat.
What were the initial reactions to Destroy Erase Improve upon its release? Were
you surprised by any of the attention the album received?

Haake: The way I remember it, the reactions were all really positive. We got a
ton of really good press and reviews for that album. Even though we knew we had
done something cool with that album, we were still surprised with the reactions.
Nordin: We sort of knew the album was good, but the reactions overwhelmed
us.
Kidman: I don’t think it got a super-amount of attention. But at that time we
didn’t really have anything to compare to except for Contradictions, and it defi-
nitely got a better response than that album.
Hagström: I remember reviews being really good. It’s funny; Destroy Erase
Improve didn’t really do that much to begin with. Today, a lot of people speak to
us about Destroy Erase Improve and how influential it was when it came out and
so on, but in reality, it was a much slower process than that. We were glad it got
a good response, but it actually took some time for the album to creep into
people’s heads. It’s interesting, because the same thing has happened with Chaos-
phere and the rest of our albums as well, even though I personally think that De-
stroy Erase Improve is by far the most accessible album we’ve made so far.
The North American release of Destroy Erase Improve has both logos from Nu-
clear Blast and Relapse on it. Having those two labels co-release something these
days would be pretty . . . well, let’s just say it’d be unlikely. Can you offer any insight
into that association or what was going on at the time?
Kidman: I don’t remember. Mårten?
Hagström: I have no clue. We were never aware of what was happening with
us in the States at that time. We were going to tour Europe and hope for the
best. I was over in the States at the Relapse office in ’95 doing some press, but
I never got anything but good vibes from [owner] Matt [ Jacobson] and the guys
there. If anything, I think the split between Nuclear Blast and Relapse was more
of a turf thing than anything related to the band.
Haake: I believe that, because Nuclear Blast didn’t have an office in the States
at the time, they cooperated with Relapse for distro, etc. I could be wrong,
though.
Destroy Erase Improve is continually referred to as your best album by many fans
and critics. Do you agree and what are your thoughts on it being as praised as such,
especially since it’s been 11 years and six releases since?
Kidman: I definitely do not agree with that. Wake up.
Haake: Well, it’s cool if people think so and I think that it has a lot to do with
the fact that it was released at the right time, when there was nothing like it on
the market. Over the last decade and more, the whole metal genre as such has

diversified and become so immensely huge that, for every year that goes by, it’s
getting harder and harder to have that kind of impact on the scene. Personally,
I usually always consider whatever our latest release is to be the best, since we
all evolve and mature continuously. Looking back and listening to Destroy Erase
Improve now, it’s still cool and I’m still proud of it, but at the same time, some
parts of the album feel and sound “adolescent” in some ways.
Nordin: I agree. It was released at a time when this was something new. If you
compare it with a lot of other bands today, it’s not that different. But Meshug-
gah has continued to break new grounds with their music.
Hagström: Like I said earlier, it wasn’t like that when it came out. It’s great
that there is so much respect given to such an old album, but it’s still something
that was us in ’95. For every album, you add something to the whole of a band.
I think that with every album there is an aspect of Meshuggah that we explore,
and that’s why I like Destroy Erase Improve for some things and Nothing for some
things and so on. We haven’t made a “best” album, in my opinion; we’ve recorded
a bunch of pretty OK albums, each one with its individual benefits and draw-
backs. Destroy Erase Improve is, in my opinion, by far the most “commercial” of
our albums so far and represents a fairly small portion of Meshuggah as we are
today. But it’s still a cool album. I think Catch 33 is a more . . . complete album,
but you can’t compare ’95 to ’05.
What’s your overall assessment of Destroy Erase Improve? Have you ever stopped
to consider how influential the album is/was, not just on extreme music as a whole,
but for you as a band in the sense that your label seemed to finally be coming through
on their end in terms of promo, support and regular tours after its release?
Haake: I really don’t think in those terms and even though I believe it had an
impact on the scene at the time, there were so many other bands coming up and
growing with the scene as well. Nuclear Blast definitely did a good promo job
for the album, but I think that mainly it was just the right time for them and for
us, with changes going on in the music industry as well as general acceptance and
open-mindedness to new and different things.
Thordendal: For me, it’s one of the three Meshuggah albums I felt most sat-
isfied with as a whole when I heard it from start to finish for the first time; the
other two being I and Catch 33.
Hagström: It’s hard to say. I’m not sure we know how much or little it’s in-
fluenced anything. It’s not something I reflect over. We know it’s been a really
important album for some and that’s really gratifying to know.
Kidman: “Future Breed Machine” must be the three most spoken words at
our shows. What’s the problem?

With hindsight being 20/20, is there anything that you’d go back and change
about DEI?
Kidman: A lot! But that would be stupid.
Haake: My hairdo at that time!
Nordin: Ha! Yeah, your hairdo was very funny! If I could do it all over again,
I would have taken more time off from work and been there for the entire
recording.
Hagström: I don’t know. On one hand, there is always stuff you’d like to
change, but on the other, Destroy Erase Improve is what we were in ’95, so I guess
it’s just the way it’s supposed to be.
Thordendal: I don’t think any songs off Destroy Erase Improve would end up
on a new Meshuggah album if one of us wrote it today. But I wouldn’t wanna
go back and change anything either; I’m proud of what we accomplished.

C H A P T E R 17
MASTERBURNER &
THE INFINITE BADNESS
THE MAKING OF MONSTER MAGNET’S DOPES TO INFINITY
by J. Bennett
Release Date: 1995
Label: A&M
Summary: Dope-driven rock monolith
Induction Date: October 2006/Issue #24
A
fter Nirvana’s Nevermind tore the “alternative rock market” a seven-
figure asshole, every major label with easy access to a couple of guitar-
wielding longhairs was vying to shove its swollen corporate phallus into
the proverbial money-ring of brown fire. The A&M roster—buoyed by the likes
of Soundgarden, Paw (remember them?) and four dudes from Red Bank, NJ,
who called themselves Monster Magnet—was cocked, locked and ready to move
some serious units. When 1993’s Superjudge saw some light Headbangers Ball
223
action with the Sabbath-inspired video for “Twin Earth,” the label dumped even
more cash on vocalist/guitarist Dave Wyndorf, bassist Joe Calandra, drummer
Jon Kleiman and guitarist Ed Mundell for their 1995 follow-up. Recorded at the
Magic Shop in Manhattan, Dopes to Infinity thrust Monster Magnet headfirst
into the preliminary bright lights and big titties of international rock stardom via
the soaring flanged riffery and psychedelic double-talk of “Negasonic Teenage
Warhead.” Too bad they kinda hated each other by the time they got there. With
the status of the band still unknown as of press time (Kleiman and Calandra
split after 2002’s God Says No; Wyndorf is still recuperating from a February
2006 drug overdose), Decibel tracked down all four members—and lighting
guru/atomic propagandist/original member Tim Cronin—to find out why Dopes
will last forever, even if Monster Magnet doesn’t.
Ø
PART I: LOOK TO YOUR ORB FOR THE WARNING
What do you remember most about the recording sessions for Dopes?
Dave Wyndorf: We came off Superjudge, and I didn’t do anything except play
with my kid for at least a year. Then I actually got a visit from an A&R guy who
was like, “Look, you gotta write something.” I think the winter of early ’94 is
when I wrote the songs. I just dragged all my recording stuff into my room and
wrote a song every day until I was done. Then we’d all get together and practice.
We did a lot of work on that record—it was the first one I was completely anal
about. I remember tuning the drums to the guitars with a guitar tuner. It was in-
sane. I was hell-bent to make it the most in-tune record ever.
Ed Mundell: I was smoking a lot of pot and listening to a lot of Robin
Trower. We had played a lot in Europe for Superjudge, but if you listen to that
record, the production isn’t all that great. The songs are good, but the produc-
tion sounds like a good demo or something. So we definitely wanted Dopes to
sound better than Superjudge. We worked really hard in pre-production, and we
were really prepared by the time we got into the studio.
Joe Calandra: It was the most intense recording we ever did. Before Dopes,
we’d just go into the studio and just knock ’em out in two or three takes. But in
this situation, the engineer was a maniac. His name was Joe Warda, and he could
hear anything—even if it was just a hair out of tune or a 30th of a second off-
time. So the whole recording session was really slow because the guy had amaz-
ing ears. I’d be like, “How do you listen to music at home?” And he’d say, “Oh,
I can shut it off if I have to.” And I’d be like, “Then shut it off, already.”
Jon Kleiman: Joe Warda had amazing ears, and he was just doing his job.
This was before Pro Tools, so it was all done on two-inch tape. We used a click-
224 MASTERBURNER & THE INFINITE BADNESS

track, too, which I didn’t mind at all. So Joe Warda would roll the tape back, and
you’d hear the click and then my bass drum, and he’d go, “Hear that? It’s about
a 64th note off.” I was like, “No one fucking cares.” But he was amazing—he had
Pro Tools in his head. I feel like he must’ve cut his teeth recording jazz bands or
something, because he was obviously used to achieving a way higher level of fi-
delity than was required with us.
What kind of preparation had you done beforehand?

Calandra: Dave would come up with riffs. Sometimes he’d come in with
songs completely done—he’d bring in a tape, and there’d be a bass line, and a
basic drum pattern worked out on a Casio. Like “Negasonic” and “Dead Christ-
mas” came in completely done. But other songs, there’d just be a riff and we’d
figure out the song. I’d go home, write like three different bass lines and then
we’d pick which one we wanted. But it wasn’t like Dave walked in like, “Here’s
the next golden hit.”
Mundell: We were rehearsing for Dopes, and it was about a week before we
were gonna go into the studio when Dave was like, “I got these songs.” And
they were “Dopes to Infinity” and “Ego, the Living Planet.” We had just started
tuning down to C, and Dave wanted to experiment more with that because it
sounded like Sabbath, you know—heavy as shit. So “Dopes” and “Ego” are both
in C. Before “Dopes” came along, the centerpiece of the album was supposed to
be “King of Mars,” because it’s totally unlike any other song on the record. And
out of that came “Vertigo,” which is just part of “King of Mars” looped.
Calandra: We never played any of these songs live before we recorded them,
and I always thought that sucked. We’d be on tour for one album, come home,
write songs for another album, and then play those songs on tour mixed up with
some other stuff. And by the time you get done touring, the songs are totally dif-
ferent. You come up with parts, things happen, and you finally click. You’re not
nervous anymore. For me, Monster Magnet was a constant state of being ner-
vous about going into the studio. I never thought the songs were rehearsed
enough—whereas if we had played the songs on tour for three months, I could
just bust them out.
Mundell: With Superjudge, some of it was left to chance—we didn’t know
what we were gonna do here or there. But with Dopes and Powertrip, we knew
exactly what we were gonna do. It was just a matter of getting the tones down.
We worked our asses off—we’d rehearse like five-to-eight-hour days. By the
time we got to the studio, we even had the drum fills worked out.
Monster Magnet always used vintage musical equipment. Was that just part of
the band’s late ’60s/early ’70s aesthetic?
The Making of Monster Magnet’s Dopes to Infinity 225

Mundell: We’d listen to Sabbath and Zeppelin records and think, “What
gear did they use?” ’Cause that stuff sounded great. So we naturally gravitated
toward that stuff. We were fortunate that we were in New York City, and we
knew people who were willing to lend us or rent us really old, really good gear.
On this record, especially, we listened so closely to sounds. And the Magic Shop
had this vintage Neve board that Zeppelin had recorded on.
Tim Cronin: At one point, they were trying to rent a Mellotron, and they fig-
ured out that Lenny Kravitz had bought every Mellotron in New York City, and
they couldn’t find one.
Mundell: The big rock bands in New York at that time were Raging Slab,
Circus of Power and Blitzpear, which [current Monster Magnet guitarist] Phil
Caivano was in. He was driving a cab at the time, and had been in a bunch of
bands with Dave—they went to high school together. So Phil came in with all
these cool old Les Pauls and Marshalls and Tube Screamers.
Dave, what kind of things were you thinking about when you were writing the
lyrics?
Wyndorf: Oh, the usual [laughs], for me. There’re a lot of secret messages
going on that I couldn’t really let out, so I tend to write in metaphors. The songs
actually have very down-to-earth meanings, but when they come out, of course,
they’re as ambiguous as fuckin’ possible. It’s kind of an ersatz bullshit poetry
routine that I have going on, but it works for me. I write with my heart, and if
something sounds too boring or normal, I’ll just change the metaphors around
until it sounds cool. Songs last longer that way, I think—unless you’re Burt
Bacharach. For Monster Magnet, I thought it was best if I knew what was going
on and everybody else kinda half-knew what was going on.
Ø
PART II: KING OF MARS
What was the Magic Shop like?
Mundell: The Magic Shop is a great place. Andrew Loog Oldham went
there to re-master all the Stones records for CD. Lou Reed worked there a lot,
too. You never knew who was gonna walk in there. The guy who ran it, Steve
Rosenthal, knew everybody. We did Superjudge and Dopes there. It was in SoHo,
but we were staying in Times Square, so we’d take the subway downtown to the
studio every day and then we’d take it back again at night.
Wyndorf: People were dropping by all the time. Lenny Kaye, from Patti
Smith’s band, played on “Five Years Ahead of My Time,” which was a B side.
And what’s-his-face from Guns N’ Roses—Slash—wanted to record at the

Magic Shop while we were in there. I was like, “Damn, how can we get this guy
on the record?” But he was too high and then he left.
Kleiman: The Magic Shop was a great studio, and they had tons of good
gear. I remember wandering around and seeing that some shitty Ramones
record was recorded there—maybe the Phil Spector one. That was kinda cool.
I guess I didn’t have the best relationship with Steve Rosenthal, though. He
was the co-producer and main engineer, even though Dave got main produc-
tion credit. I liked Steve at first, but to people outside the band, it really be-
came apparent quickly that the only person they had to talk to and listen to
was Dave. No one else really mattered. So Steve could be sort of dismissive of
everyone else.
Tim Cronin is credited with “atomic propaganda” and “slave drum” on “Ego, the
Living Planet.”
Wyndorf: Tim has been a huge part of Monster Magnet from the very be-
ginning. He started out as our drummer, and then the singer, and then things
got pro and weird and of course I kicked him out. But you know, he really was
uncomfortable at that point, being lead singer. But he’s always been right there—
he’s like the guru—and he always played on the records in one way or another.
The “slave drum” was this one big giant drum that he beats the living fucking
out of. It ended up ridiculous, with us out in the street in SoHo at like four
o’clock in the morning with a giant cord from the studio banging on garbage
cans and Dumpsters. It was really cool.
Cronin: I went over there to hang out a few days while they were making the
record, and Dave asked me to play drums on “Ego, the Living Planet,” because
when the band first started, I was the drummer. But my drumming style made
Mo Tucker look like Carl Palmer. At best, it was like one of those wind-up mon-
keys that plays drums.
For all of the album’s psychedelic qualities, it’s not like you guys were dropping acid
or eating mushrooms while you were recording.
Wyndorf: No—not at all. You know what happens when you take psychedelic
drugs and you’re making psychedelic music? You get the Grateful Dead. The
best way to make psychedelic music is to have the memory of the experience
and drag it out of the music, instead of laying back all lazy and experiencing it.
That’s the problem with drug use and creating music. It’s great if you’re blow-
ing some Coltrane and you’re super-talented and everybody wants jamming. But
jamming gets boring—people wanna hear songs. I always thought it was better
to remember the experience or—even better—invent the experience that you
wanna have and fight like hell to try to get it.

Kleiman: By that point, I had definitely stopped taking psychedelics. I think
I took acid for the last time during my first year of college. I was too much of
an anxiety-ridden wreck to do that anymore. I think even Dave still drank at that
point, so there was a lot of drinking, but never in the studio. I think the Magic
Shop cost something like $750 or $1,000 a day, so if someone was fucked up, it
wouldn’t have been permissible. Dave was a super-alcoholic before that, and was
definitely still drinking at that point, but then he went clean and eventually
changed over to sleeping pills.
Mundell: Me and Jon were talking a lot of pills, like Xanax and time-release
morphine pills and stuff. We’d scrape off the time-release coating and snort ’em.
We’d get all fucked up, so our timing would always be a little slow. I remember
we could never play “Blow ’Em Off,” because I’d start off way too slow. Dave was
still drinking at this point—I think it was on this tour, actually, that he got sick
and quit. But the rest of us were mostly drinking beer and Jack Daniel’s. I was
still smoking pot; I don’t think Joe was, and Jon wasn’t a pot smoker, anyway.
Joe and Jon stuck around for two more albums, but there was tension in the band
even back then.
Kleiman: Just to put this in perspective, the first two Monster Magnet re-
leases, Spine of God and Tab—that was when [guitarist] John McBain was in
the band. John and Dave would write together, and everyone was into the music.
I was the youngest, and I was a fuck-up. I drank a lot, and did whatever I could,
so I kinda defined my position in the band way back then. So I didn’t really have
a say later on, because I was still considered the fuck-up, even though that didn’t
really translate later. By Superjudge, Dave was writing the music all by himself,
and that’s when, for me, the band really took a turn for the worst. I hated Su-
perjudge. I thought the music was really poorly written. It sounded like bad ’70s
cock rock. I liked Dopes better, but by then all the basic moods were set. There
was animosity between Dave and pretty much everyone.
Wyndorf: A bunch of weird stuff went down on Dopes, just like all Monster
Magnet records. Jon was playing great, but out of time, like all drummers do. We
had to punch in a lot of his takes, and he was not digging it. I heaved a lot of
songs on these guys at the last minute, as usual, so Jon was still getting used to
them, because we had only rehearsed for about a month before. But Jon never
liked anything in Monster Magnet. He lived his life in Monster Magnet con-
stantly putting everything down and saying it was corny and stupid. But I have
a hard time firing people. I didn’t need to fire him, though—I could do every-
thing myself. If people weren’t into it, but served a function, all I’d need them
there for was about four hours a day. I can do the rest myself. I was really into
being a band, but Jon was the type of guy who would write two songs in five

years and go, “How come you’re not publishing my songs?” Meanwhile, I’m writ-
ing 50 songs a year, and 49 of them suck. So you gotta write a lot of shit, you
know? And now that Jon is the leader of his own band, I think he realizes that.
Jon’s no dummy. He’s a really smart guy, but man, lazy as a box of fuckin’ hair.
Kleiman: I’ll just be honest. Fuck it—I’ve got nothing to lose. What sticks out
to me most about those sessions was the fact that Joe got kicked off the record.
He played bass on some of it, but he was having major personal problems at that
time. He’s married now, but he’s been with the same woman for, I don’t know,
300 years, and at the time he thought they might be splitting up. And he thought
he had cancer—he had some weird thing on his tongue. So he was really freaked
out and distracted. I don’t know that his playing was all that bad, but I remem-
ber a lot of arguing. And there was never any arguing except between someone
and Dave. So I ended up playing bass on two songs, and Ed probably played on
three or four. I guess Dave might’ve done one or two, and then Joe did the rest.
That was a major thing. Even one record prior, I would’ve never imagined that
happening.
Calandra: We were in the studio, and I was having some personal problems
at home, plus I thought I had some kind of disease that I was freaking out about.
I couldn’t concentrate in the studio, and I was playing like shit. And like I said,
that guy Joe Warda was on my case, and I was fucking up left and right. I went
home for the weekend, just to take a break. On Sunday, Dave called me and
goes, “You can stay home. I’m gonna take a couple passes at this, and Jon’s gonna
play some bass.” I was like, “Shit.” It wasn’t a band anymore, you know? All of
a sudden, we had to make this product, and I wasn’t holding up my end, so I was
out. It was like Dave had his sights set on bigger things and if you were in his
way it was like, “Fuck you—get off.” And that happened to Jon on the next
record. Dave wanted him to hit really hard, and Jon was like, “Look, I don’t play
that way.” So he got some douchebag to come in and play drums. And I had to
play bass with this guy. It sucked.
Wyndorf: I make these calls all the time, man. Joe was choking, and he wasn’t
ready to play those parts. I love Joe, and he’s a nice guy, but he didn’t know how
to play the songs. But I would never boot anybody out of the band for not being
able to play on a record. That happens more times in more situations than any-
body will ever admit. It happens all the fucking time. So we shared the bass
credits on that record, and the real hero was Ed—he played bass like a mother-
fucker on that album. We’d go through the track five times, and he would have
the part. Ed’s like this laid-back Leslie West character, and I’m in his ear, chain-
smoking and driving him nuts. He played most of the bass on the record.
Mundell: The hardest thing I ever did in my whole life was play bass on the
song “Dopes to Infinity.” It was the first time we had tuned down to C. It was

such hell getting everything in tune and on time. I remember going to the bath-
room after working on the bass line for like six hours. I was just leaning against
the wall thinking, “Please, let me get through this.”
Ø
PART III: SLUTS, COURAGE & AIRPLANES
Is it true that the album was originally going to be called Sluts to Infinity?
Wyndorf: Yes, but ultimately I didn’t think it sounded as cool as Dopes to In-
finity. For some reason, the word “dopes” sounded goofier and cooler to me—not
to mention that it probably wouldn’t get us into trouble with the record company.
For Christ’s sake, I wanted to call it Cunt Circus for a while. [Laughs] Can you
imagine that?
Kleiman: We hated the name. It’s just stupid and meaningless. His first idea
for it was Sluts to Infinity. It just sounded really sophomoric and stupid. It was
like, “Grow up.” But Dave is a comic book guy, you know? I think he was fat
when he was a kid or something. I don’t think he ever got out of the high school
thing—he wanted to relive it while he was thin and the lead singer of a semi-
popular band. He was obsessed with the whole groupie scene. Jesus, I couldn’t
count how many women he slept with, but they were always idiot groupies.
Wyndorf: The more I lay off the booze and drugs, the more sex I had. Finally,
I wasn’t drinking or getting high at all—it was all sex. I was just picking my pri-
orities. I’d get into arguments with Jon about it. He’d say, “This isn’t right, fuck-
ing around like this,” and I’d say, “You want to—you’re just too drunk and afraid.”
Look, there’s precious few reasons—besides the love of music—that you get into
a rock ’n’ roll band, and I can’t see getting high to the point of not being able to
think as one of them. But getting as much pussy as you possibly wanted when
you were 17? That’s actually something to go for.
What did you do to entertain yourselves when you weren’t in the studio?
Calandra: We were being spazzes in the hotel, because we were drinking a lot.
We were up on the 10th or 11th floor, and I remember we were throwing water
balloons out the window, and all of a sudden I hear Jon behind me going, “Look
out!” I turn around, and he’s got a garbage bag filled with water—I don’t even
know how he was carrying it—and he rolled it over the windowsill. When it hit
the ground, it sounded like a bomb went off. All the car alarms started going off
instantly. It was insane.
Kleiman: I think we were staying at the Gramercy Park Hotel. It was three
of us in one suite. We never threw out any of the beer cans or alcohol bottles we
consumed—we just stashed them in a closet to see how much we consumed.

Joe used to be really good at making paper airplanes—he’d throw them out the
window, and they’d go for blocks. Of course, when Ed or I tried to make ’em,
they’d just take a nosedive. Then I guess we started throwing water balloons.
We missed a guy on a bicycle by maybe five feet. I don’t think it would’ve have
killed the guy, but it definitely wouldn’t have felt good. And it would’ve ab-
solutely been a lawsuit.
In addition to bass and backing vocals, Joe is credited with “courage” and “air-
planes.” What’s the courage for?
Calandra: I had just woken up and went out for a cup of coffee, and I see Ed
bouncing across the street toward me. He goes, “Joe, there’s this dude right over
there with a gun, and he says he’s gonna shoot me if I don’t give him money.” I
had just rolled out of bed and was like, “Ed, that’s bullshit.” I can see the guy has
his hand under his shirt, and I tell him, “You’re full of shit.” The guy’s like, “I’m
not fuckin’ full of shit!” And I didn’t know if he had a gun or not, so we go into
this Popeye’s with this guy and I sit down with him at this two-seater booth. He
goes, “OK, we need to see your money.” So I took out a dollar. And he’s like, “No,
we need bigger currency than that—we need like 20s and 50s.” I finally stood
up and said, “Fuck you.” I grabbed Ed and we took off. Ed is the only person I
know who would get into a situation like that. He’s like a big pink target. People
see him on the street and they’re like, “Let’s get him.” And then of course I come
along and he sucks me into his drama. [Laughs]
Mundell: Well, you know, Times Square is kinda sketchy, and I was young
back then, still smoking pot, and this guy comes up to me on 48th Street, where
all the guitar shops are, and goes, “You better come in here—there’s a guy with
a gun trained on you out there.” I was like, “What are you talking about?” All of
a sudden, I saw Joe, and I was like, “Joe, I don’t know what’s going on, but I
guess some guy has a gun on me.” So this guy brought me and Joe into this
restaurant, and he’s trying to get us to give him 20 bucks to get us out of it. Joe
was like, “Fuck you—shoot us, then.” It was so retarded.
Ø
PART IV: NEGASONIC BREAKTHROUGH
“Negasonic Teenage Warhead” was Monster Magnet’s breakthrough song, but it
actually came out before Dopes to Infinity.
Wyndorf: Yeah, “Negasonic” was written in the spring of ’93, I think. The
business guys at A&M asked us to record a song for this lousy movie called
S.F.W., so I went up to my room with the purpose of writing a commercial rock
song. I figured if I could stick it on our record, too, they’d push our record more.

To make up for it, I put in lyrics that nobody could understand—I figured that
would get my integrity factor back into order. So we recorded it on a 16-track
here in Jersey with my sound guy, and we fucked it up—we thought the studio
was gonna be better than it was—and it was a shitty recording. I knew we had
to do it over again.
Kleiman: The movie, I thought, was, like, abysmally bad. I remember going
to see it with my girlfriend at the time, and we ended up walking out. But that
was our first song that had any sort of national impact. And not to put down
Dave or anything, but I think it was definitely written with the record company
in mind, because they really did want us to be the next Nirvana.
How did things change for the band when “Negasonic” started getting radio play?
Wyndorf: That song kinda upped the ante. It also got me the chance to make
a ridiculously huge video, which was really fun to do. They pretty much gave
me the keys to the kingdom, because I had no manager on that record. And
record companies hate that. When “Negasonic” became the single and started
doing OK, the record company was like, “Oh, it’s commercial!” So they wanted
a video, which turned out to be this ridiculously overpriced thing, in total Spinal
Tap fashion. The guy who directed it was Gore Verbinski, the guy who did Pi-
rates of the Caribbean. He was doing commercials and rock videos back then, and
he was a really nice guy. I was talking to him on the phone, explaining what I
wanted, and then I faxed him a storyboard that explained all the meteors, the
drugs, the stuff flying around. I had said that I wanted the meteors to be CGI,
because it would be cheaper and easier to do. But he thought I wanted him to
construct giant meteors. So we come back after a European tour and show up
at the soundstage and he had these fucking life-size meteors built on 60-foot
towers inside the biggest soundstage at Universal. The crazy thing is that nobody
stopped me from spending the money. I forget exactly how much it cost, but I
think it might’ve been like $250,000. It was typical Hollywood—and believe
me, rock ’n’ roll is Hollywood. Thank god it fucking worked. That video sold a
lot of records—especially in Europe.
Kleiman: It definitely took us to the next level. All of a sudden, we were play-
ing festivals and opening for bigger bands—but it wasn’t like one day we were
nothing and the next day we all had yachts. Nothing ever really changed that
much. Promoters would hire limos to take us between the hotel and the venue,
so that was pretty cool, but as soon as we got back from tour, we’d be off for two
months and Joe and I would go back to painting houses.
Cronin: When “Negasonic” came out, that completely caught everybody by
surprise. Everybody was psyched about it, and it made for more expectations
when Powertrip came out. But that was back when record companies would still

nurture a band along. They’d see a little bit of growth and stick with them. Now
it’s like, one record and out. I mean, nowadays, if Superjudge came out on a major
label, I don’t think there’d be a second major label record.
Calandra: That song was huge—it seemed like something was gonna happen.
We were on MTV, we would even go to MTV and do stuff on the air with them.
It was weird, because half the year, we’d be in the band, and the other half, I’d
be flipping hamburgers in a restaurant, just working a regular job. But then you
go on tour and there’s like thousands of people screaming at you. And then you’re
on TV. And the next day, you gotta go back to work, flipping hamburgers. It’s
like, “What world am I living in?”
Kleiman: There was a picture disc for “Negasonic,” and the picture is sup-
posed to be an atom bomb, but it looks like an orange piece of broccoli. Every
once in a while, when I’d get really poor, I’d go through my back catalogue of
seemingly rare Monster Magnet stuff and check on eBay to see if they were get-
ting any kind of good money. Inevitably, you’d go on and the opening bid would
be, like, 99 cents. It was like, “OK, guess I’m not getting rich this way.”
Calandra: The other “Negasonic” picture disc had Dave’s face on it. I think
at one point, me and Jon and Ed were gonna photocopy it and make Dave masks
for us to wear onstage at this warm-up gig at a local bar. That way, when Dave
walked onstage, it’d be like a whole band of Daves—which is the way he wanted
it to be. I’m so sorry we never did that, because it would’ve been hilarious.
Ø
PART V: EGO, THE LIVING PLANET
In Dopes’ back cover photo, the only band member’s face that is completely visible
is Dave’s. What were the circumstances there?
Wyndorf: I had seen this ad around New York when we were making the
record, and it was for the Sci-Fi Channel, when it was first stating out. It was
this really cool photo of a room, like an old Batman-type thing. I was like, “That
is so fucking cool—I’m gonna steal that.” So I ripped it out of a magazine and
showed it to the photographer, Michael Lavine, who was not into it. I finally
talked him into it, and he came up with the set. Of course, it looked nothing like
the Sci-Fi ad, but it still looked cool. We started taking pictures and I was like,
“OK, everybody throw themselves down on the ground like you’re dead.”
Kleiman: That was stupid. It looked like a fucking Romper Room set, with
bright red and yellow blocks. And that stupid engine in the middle of nowhere?
I remember giving Dave shit about it and he was like, “Shut the fuck up! We only
have to be here for 30 minutes, and I don’t wanna hear you bitch the whole
time.” So that was that. I don’t like what the photo implies—that Dave’s the

king or whatever—but I’m not gonna argue with not having my face on some-
thing. Every normal person hates seeing photographs of themselves.
Mundell: I just remember Dave going, “Pretend you’re dead,” and then some
stylist ran over to fix my hair. I hate taking band photos. The girl in the photo
on the inside, that’s Tim’s old girlfriend, Aryn, but people still come up to me
and ask me to sign it because they think it’s me in drag. Jon always busts my balls
about that.
Calandra: If you look at it, you can see exactly what Dave’s personality is. It’s
like, “This is my record, and these guys are my little puppets.” I don’t wanna
sound like sour grapes, but it was fucked. I’m sure Dave will have another take
on it, though.
The image definitely seems to suggest that Dave is the driving force of the band.
Wyndorf: Yeah, and I felt that way, too. I always feel like I’m on this super-
mission to finish something, and God bless ’em, everyone else is really cool, but
nobody actually gets it but me. And sometimes I’m right. And then sometimes
I’m not right, but who cares? Which makes you feel guilty. In the end, I felt like
I had killed everybody. That was the vibe I got, so I ran with it. It probably pissed
everybody off.
Did you ever feel like you were being a dictator?

Wyndorf: Sure. It didn’t make me feel good, but it felt right. I had to finish
the fuckin’ thing, you know? Nobody else was coming up with the vision for it.
I was what I would call a benevolent dictator. I never fired anyone, and I always
gave everybody the chance to contribute whatever they wanted, but it had to be
done within like two hours, you know? You couldn’t say, “I’m gonna go home and
mull over this part.” If somebody didn’t have their parts, I’d make ’em up for
’em. When you’re making an album, you can’t go back and forth and hope for
the best, you really have to lay out a plan. As sucky as it is, there’s not a lot of
room for experimentation once you’re paying the money to go in there.
Ø
PART VI: VERTIGO
What kind of influence do you think Dopes had on the legions of stoner rock bands
that came later?
Wyndorf: I never really saw any Monster Magnet influence beyond the “drug
rock” propaganda. I never saw it musically. I did see a lot of Kyuss influence
show up, though—I think they were probably more influential on stoner rock
than anybody else. I was totally flattered when anybody mentioned us, though.

There are always different camps, too, you know, as far as which record is the
best. You know, like, “First two records, great, and everything else sucks!” Which
I can totally get into because, being a record collector myself, I’ve been like that
my whole life. But Dopes and Spine of God seem to be people’s favorites.
Calandra: I’d notice little things here and there; some smaller bands would
take this tiny riff of ours and write a whole song around it. Dave and Tim and
Jon were all about, you know, “drug rock” and it was funny as hell in ’88/’89.
We’d hang up a big banner that said “Drug Rock” and we’d be playing in front
of like 14 kids at a youth center. I guess. But then all of a sudden the whole
stoner rock thing came, and all these bands started coming out of the wood-
work. I could never figure out if we started something, or if it was a collective
consciousness thing.
Kleiman: I think Monster Magnet was seminal in a way, but most of the time,
when you read about that kind of stuff, all you really hear about is Kyuss. So, even
though I think the Monster Magnet influence is genuine, I don’t think it lasted
as long in people’s minds. I never really thought other bands were ripping us off,
but I know we definitely influenced a handful of bands—like Nebula and Clutch.
We actually toured with Clutch after they put out their first record, and they were
pretty metal at that point. I think they smoked pot with us for the first time on
that tour, and their next record was a lot more psychedelic.

Kleiman: Well, I didn’t have the power to change anything. I always thought
that maybe “Negasonic” could’ve been a bigger hit if I didn’t put that weird
drumbeat to it. You know how it sorta skips a beat? Afterward, I thought it
might’ve done better if I had played it straight and made the song, dare I say,
danceable. But like I said, I didn’t have the power to change anything. So I guess
I would ask for renewed contract negotiations.
Calandra: It wasn’t my place to change anything. If you asked Dave, I’m sure
he’d go on for about half an hour about what he’d change, but I didn’t really have
a part to play in any decision making. Nobody did. It was all Dave. So would I
change anything? Maybe I’d record it better. I don’t know. I hate to say it, but
I’m pretty disconnected from this one. I’m glad I did this record, though, because
analog was about to die, and I got to see stuff like tape-splicing firsthand. No-
body’s gonna see that anymore. Who’s gonna sit there and cut tape when you can
do it in three seconds on Pro Tools?
Wyndorf: The one thing that that record was missing for me—and is still
missing—is emotive vocals. I don’t think I sang my best on that record, because
I was so into keeping everything in tune that when it came down to being an
animal on vocals, I was too into being on key. So I think some of the songs lost

their emotional edge because I didn’t know how to separate my producer self
from my performance self. That album was a lot of fun, but it was also a huge
pain in the ass. The people who worked on it and played on it were excellent,
though—they really were above and beyond—especially concerning me, be-
cause I tend to push people a lot.
Mundell: You know, I submitted so many songs to Dave for this record, and
he didn’t like any of them. But I listened back to them a couple of years ago,
and everything sounded like stoned-out Robin Trower guitar jams. I was like,
“Of course he didn’t use any of my songs. What the hell was I thinking?” So I
wish I would’ve written a song that didn’t sound like Robin Trower. I always
thought Dopes was a good record, though. I think this is my favorite record of
ours, so I’m glad you picked this one.

C H A P T E R 18
AT THE GATES OF IMMORTALITY

THE MAKING OF AT THE GATES’ SLAUGHTER OF THE SOUL
by J. Bennett
Release Date: 1995
Label: Earache
Summary: The most influential death metal album of the past decade
Induction Date: March 2005/Issue #5
We are blind to the worlds within us, waiting to be born.

—TOMAS LINDBERG, “BLINDED BY FEAR”
I
n May of 1995, At the Gates entered Studio Fredman in Gothenburg, Swe-
den, to record what would be their fourth and final full-length, Slaughter of
the Soul. Unbeknownst to the band’s members—not to mention heshers,
headbangers and mustache warriors worldwide—it would become the most
influential death metal album of the next decade. In the States, the now-
legendary “Blinded by Fear” video hit Headbangers Ball face-first, and Riki Racht-
man’s red-eyed disciples were stupefied. Milk shot from a veritable legion of hairy
237
nipples on the way to the record store, but the fallout wasn’t fully ascertainable
until many years later, when Shadows Fall, Killswitch Engage and countless other
metal/hardcore crossover bands began incorporating what became known as the
“Gothenburg Sound” into their sonic templates. Vocalist Tomas Lindberg’s im-
mortal command—“Go!”—in the opening seconds of Slaughter’s title track had
become the war cry for a generation of future hardcore heroes and metal merce-
naries. Unfortunately, during the seven consecutive months of touring that fol-
lowed Slaughter of the Soul ’s release, At the Gates went tits up in a blaze of alcohol
and bad blood. While Lindberg went on to front half the metal bands in Swe-
den (the Great Deceiver, Hide, Nightrage, the Crown, Lock Up, Disfear), broth-
ers Anders (guitar) and Jonas Björler (bass) formed the Haunted with drummer
Adrian Erlandsson (currently of Cradle of Filth); guitarist Martin Larsson faded
into the private sector (he still plays music, but not professionally). For the first
time since the band’s demise, Decibel tracked down all five members of At the
Gates to find out why Slaughter of the Soul is so fucking good.
Was Slaughter of the Soul a revenge album?

Adrian Erlandsson: Totally—it was written in pure desperation. Before we
recorded it, this promoter tricked us into going on a tour that had no real fi-
nancial backing, and we got stuck for four days without any food or drink or
anything in this parking lot outside a gig in Norwich [England]. We didn’t even
have a record deal at the time. Peaceville Records, who released Terminal Spirit
Disease, wouldn’t help us because we obviously didn’t have a deal with them.
[Patrick] Jensen’s band, Séance, managed to talk their record company [Black
Mark] into doing a deal over the phone with us in order to lend us money. They
faxed all the record contracts to a truck stop, and we had to sign the deal there
and then, and fax it back to be able to get the money to get back home. It was
absolutely horrible. We had to pay them back in 45 days or they would have the
rights to the next album.
Anders Björler: It was a really fucked-up situation. We only played two gigs
on that tour with Séance; it was supposed to be 40 dates. Two days in, the pro-
moter just left with the money. When we got in touch with Earache, we were
really sparked by that because back then it was a really good label. Of course, we
had all the old albums—Morbid Angel, Carcass, Bolt Thrower. It was a legendary
label, and we were really surprised that they were interested in At the Gates.
Was the band close to breaking up at that point?

Erlandsson: Oh yeah, totally. We were really insecure with what was going
to happen with the band. When we came back from that tour, it could’ve gone
238 AT THE GATES OF IMMORTALITY

either way. It didn’t have to do with any friction in the band at that point—it was
just the frustration with the business. But then we got the Earache deal—and
some royalties from Terminal Spirit Disease—so we managed to buy our way out
of the deal with Black Mark. Had that not happened, Slaughter of the Soul
would’ve ended up on Black Mark. I’m sure there wouldn’t have been the inspi-
ration for the band to continue.
Tomas Lindberg: So many things had gone wrong for us, organization-wise.
We pushed ourselves more than we would have if it hadn’t been bad times. We
felt it was now or never.
What’s the story behind “Blinded by Fear”?

A. Björler: It was the last track we wrote for the album. [Laughs] I actually
think it’s the worst track on the album. Everybody thinks it’s fantastic, I think
it’s boring. But we wrote it as an opening song—we had the whole album, but
not a real opener. I wrote it in maybe two or three hours, literally—a complete
stroke of luck. Sometimes you get the whole song in your head and just show the
other guys, sometimes it takes months.
Lindberg: People always mention “Blinded by Fear,” but it’s just the opener
for us. It was written that way, and it fills its purpose as the opener when it’s fol-
lowed by the title track. But alone, it’s not as strong as the others. As a single,
it’s always seemed out of context to me. I mean, when you hear a song from
Reign in Blood taken out of the context of the album, when it stops, you know
what song is supposed to come next. And when something else follows it on the
radio, you’re disappointed. It’s like, “Hey, where’s ‘Postmortem’?” I like that vibe,
one natural flow, and [Slaughter] is one of those albums for me.
What was the atmosphere like in the studio?

Lindberg: It was the most creative atmosphere I’ve ever felt. That album was
everything we lived and breathed for. You probably couldn’t talk to us about any-
thing else in those months. Adrian was so serious about getting his parts right
from the very start. You have to consider that the album was recorded before
digital. Nowadays, you can move around drumbeats, you can reproduce parts of
songs. All the songs [on Slaughter] were recorded start to finish on every take.
You also have to remember that Jonas and Anders are twins—they fight like
brothers, but even more so. There were a lot of compromises, a lot of disputes
over riffs, but everybody was focused on the final effort. We were all young—
between 21 and 23, and maybe not the best diplomats ever. [Laughs] Nowadays,
it’d probably go a bit smoother. I felt like I had the worst part in one way, be-
cause everyone else had pushed themselves so hard and done such great work—
The Making of At the Gates’ Slaughter of the Soul 239

but the singers are always [recorded] last. It was like, “OK, I’m gonna go in there
and ruin this now.” I hate that feeling. The expectations were already up there.
Martin Larsson: We were all pulling in the same direction. I wasn’t really
much part of the writing process, because I wasn’t living in Gothenburg. I lived
four hours away, near Stockholm. I had my whole life [there]—family, girlfriend,
all that—except for the band. I think I was in the studio for maybe a week or a
little bit more, but not the whole time.
Erlandsson: I went in on a Monday, and the following Monday, I was start-
ing a new job. So I had to finish all the drum tracks in one week. On that Sun-
day night, I finished the title track, and I still had to do “Blinded by Fear.” It was
really fucking late, but I managed, somehow, to get it done. I didn’t have any
energy left. A few days later, when I got back to the studio and heard the gui-
tars on it, it was like, “Yeah, cool.”
What did Fredrik Nordström bring to the table for the recording sessions?
Erlandsson: We did some demo tracks with him prior to With Fear I Kiss the
Burning Darkness. He’d just moved into new facilities, and was really keen to
make an impact. He had tons of ideas of how he wanted stuff to go. I had this
really, really crap drum kit that I recorded the album with, but he’s really good
at tuning—which at the time I had no clue about—and he mixed it with the top
end of the kick drum from [Pantera’s] Far Beyond Driven. It was just a tiny bit,
you can’t even tell. It’s quite a common trick these days, but I think Slaughter was
one of the first albums he attempted something like that on.
Lindberg: It’s about 80 percent live drums, and then about 20 percent of the
bass drum is from Far Beyond Driven; 20 percent of the snare drum is from Reign
in Blood. So most of it’s live, but we spiced it up a bit to get that extra “click.”
A. Björler: Slaughter of the Soul was an experiment on the guitar sound. I think
we tried different things for like two or three days before we were satisfied. We
went through a lot of pedals and tried all the amps we could get our hands on.
I think we mixed two distortion pedals, and I played [through] a home-built
cabinet that me and my dad built. I was maybe 21 or 22 at the time, and we
didn’t have any money, so we couldn’t afford to buy much equipment. The funny
thing is that Jesper [Strömblad] from In Flames wanted to borrow my stack on
their next record—he was impressed with the sound on Slaughter. [Laughs] I
had a cheap-ass guitar, too—it cost like $200 or something. But we had a spon-
sorship to study music from the government, and we used that to buy some
equipment—but in general, we didn’t have money. You’d have to report when you
had your meetings and what you were studying, but it’s basically a scam. You’d
just rehearse and write music. The economy is worse now, so it’s not as easy to
get government funds as it was in the middle ’90s.

Were all the lyrics written in advance?
Lindberg: I usually have most of the lyrics ready [beforehand]. Parts of the
first two At the Gates albums were written lyrics-first. I’d give them to Anders,
and he’d actually write songs around the lyrics. So we’d worked both ways be-
fore. I think about 90 percent of the lyrics were written [in advance], but you al-
ways have one lyric here and there that ends up being a last-minute thing.
There’s actually a line in “Suicide Nation” that’s stolen from the first Meathook
Seed album. We had one line that wasn’t really working rhythmically, and I al-
ways stress out about that—the vocal rhythms have to be perfect. We needed to
get the song done that day, and the Meathook Seed album was lying around. I
happened to flip through it, and found the line “brainwashed into submission.”
So Mitch Harris should probably have some copyright money from me.
Whose idea was it to bring in Andy LaRocque to play the solo on “Cold”?
A. Björler: I think it was my idea, actually. Fredrik knew Andy very well, so
we asked if he’d be interested in playing a solo. We’re all King Diamond fans—
and Mercyful Fate, of course. The funny thing was that we had given him a tape
of that track, and when he came to the studio, he had it transcribed all wrong.
So he had to rearrange all the notes, and he still did the whole thing in one hour
or something. It was impressive. He’s a very good musician.
Erlandsson: There’s this music shop in Gothenburg where Andy used to
work—just to be able to play guitar, I guess—and we all picked our gear up from
there. We actually tried to get him play on Terminal Spirit Disease and With Fear
I Kiss the Burning Darkness, but he listened to those albums when they were in
their final stages and said he had no idea what to do. So then we played him all
the tracks from Slaughter and he said he’d do one for “Cold.” He came in the next
day, sat down—he was really humble about it—and just played us his idea for the
solo. Luckily, Fredrik hit record. He played it back for Andy, who wanted to try
it again. So he rolled again, and Andy put this harmony on top of it, so it’s ac-
tually doubled. It was pretty fucking cool. We were all like, “Wow—Andy
LaRocque’s playing on our album.”
Lindberg: This was before we knew him, so we were not allowed in the same
room when he was actually laying down the solo. [Laughs] We had to hang out
in the recreation area of the studio. He said goodbye, and then we went in and
listened to it.
At what point did you realize the impact Slaughter had?

Erlandsson: That’s just been the last few years, to be honest, that new bands
will come out and cite us as an influence. It’s kind of difficult to say. At the time
the band broke up, I was bitter—I thought we did way better with the Haunted.

A. Björler: It’s really hard to say because bands like In Flames were influ-
enced by us, but we were influenced by them as well. Same with Dissection and
the whole Gothenburg scene—we kind of inspired each other. But the outside
influence? Maybe one or two years afterwards. We noticed that hardcore bands
in the U.S. would mix the Gothenburg style with New York hardcore. That was
around ’97 or something. I can’t remember all the bands, but we toured with
Hatebreed in ’96. It’s pretty weird, because when Fredrik and I mixed it, I was
pretty disappointed. I thought we’d made a very bad record. [Laughs]
Jonas Björler It was after the break-up—maybe late ’96 or early ’97—when
we began to realize the impact. When the album came out, we didn’t really get
many good reviews. I remember we got some really bad reviews from the Ger-
man magazines. They said it was too generic or something, but people are always
suspicious of new stuff.
Larsson: It was a gradual process—it wasn’t a particular point in time. Old
albums seem to fade into oblivion and become cult favorites for a limited few,
but people still talk about this album—even more so than when we were still
around. I didn’t think it would last this long, but I’m happy about it. Every once
in a while, someone will mention it to me, but not many people recognize me.
Not like Tomas—everybody recognizes Tomas. But there are a few guys at my
job who didn’t realize I was in At the Gates—when they did, it was awkward,
you know?
Lindberg: I can’t remember a particular day where it crossed my mind or
where people were getting into it on a wider scale. But the statements from Ear-
ache probably helped to make it clear for us. [Laughs] It’s funny when sales ac-
tually increase eight years after an album has been out. It allows you to
concentrate on what you’re doing today, because at least you’re getting paid.
Slaughter is as influential in hardcore and emo circles as it is with the metal crowd.
Even musicians who don’t necessarily play heavy music are into it. Why do you
think that is?
Erlandsson: On this Cradle [of Filth] tour I’m on right now, we’re with
Bleeding Through and Himsa, and they all swear by that album for some rea-
son. They’ve been telling me stories about how they came to see At the Gates
live when we toured with Morbid Angel and Napalm Death. I know when
[Slaughter] came out, Tomas was really into hardcore and he kept talking about
various bands during the interviews—so I’m not sure if that’s got anything to
do with it or not. It seems far-fetched actually, because that was like 10 years
ago. Without trying to sound cocky, some albums withstand the test of time, I
guess. And I think whatever genre of heavy music you’re into, that will come

through. I don’t wanna draw any comparisons to Reign in Blood, but that was
another album that hardcore kids, emo kids, anyone who’s into heavy music
will relate to it. So I’m really flattered that there are people from different
genres who are into it.
Lindberg: It’s amazing. Especially the hardcore kids getting into it means a lot
to me. I’ve always been 50 percent hardcore, 50 percent metal—that’s always been
my direction. Adrian played with me in my hardcore band, Skitsystem, while we
were still in At the Gates. Everyone in the band was into hardcore to one degree
or another, but maybe I was most into it. My lyrics were getting more—I wouldn’t
say political, but more hardcore-oriented. Also, the song structures we probably
fought over most back then—a lot of that was in the hardcore sense, you know,
thousands of riffs versus, like, three or four. For me, it’s rewarding that it came
across that we actually had a hardcore influence in the band. We even had some
gigs here in Gothenburg—parties and stuff—where we played some hardcore
covers. If you had been in Gothenburg around ’93 or ’94, you could’ve actually
seen At the Gates doing “Skins, Brains & Guts” by 7 Seconds.
How did you settle on the cover art?

A. Björler: I think Tomas had some ideas about the whole thing being
about . . . well, not really suicide, but the lyrical content is very dark. We did
some over-the-top things, too—we had a gun upside down as the Nike symbol
on [an At the Gates] t-shirt that said, “Just Do It.” We have that kind off stuff
with the Haunted as well—it’s a powerful image.
J. Björler: It’s not the best cover I’ve ever seen, but it fits the music. It’s pretty
good, but maybe it’s too brown. [Laughs] If you play metal music, guns are good
symbols for violence—and it fit the concept and lyrics as well.
Erlandsson: I was a bit shocked, actually. I wasn’t sure about having Jesus on
the front, with guns and stuff. At the time, I was more conservative than I am
now. We were really psyched about the music at the time, so just the fact that we
actually got to choose the album cover ourselves was pretty cool.
Lindberg: It was really fun to get Kristian [Wåhlin] to do the artwork for
what we felt was a big album for us. Kristian and me go back a long time—we’re
childhood friends. We had a band before At the Gates; he’s also playing with me
now in the Great Deceiver. I remember giving him mix tapes of songs that, for
me, portrayed the same atmosphere we wanted for the album—I know he likes
to paint with music in the background. Everything from hardcore to death metal
to noise music was on those tapes. Then we went to magazine shops looking for
copies of Guns & Ammo. [Laughs] We settled on guns and religious symbols—
but most of the actual ideas come from him.

The drunken band photo in the CD booklet was staged, wasn’t it?
Erlandsson: Yeah. We went to this friend’s house to snap some pictures, and
we had a few drinks. Pretty soon the night was over, and there were no pictures
taken. We went back there the next day and thought it’d make a pretty cool shot,
like Master of Puppets or something. We all grew up listening to that album, and
we wanted to show it somehow.
J. Björler: It was half-staged, maybe. The picture was taken in the photogra-
pher’s living room. We wanted a picture like Reign in Blood, you know?
Larsson: We put together all the empty bottles and brought out all the cool
albums to make it look right. And it does.

Lindberg: No, I don’t think so. There are always details—some words on the
album have a strong sound, but it’s stupid to change stuff like that afterward.
Yeah, there are misprints in the lyric sheet, but people already figured that out
10 years ago. It’s one of those albums I wouldn’t change too much on because
of the impact it had. It must’ve been right.
A. Björler: I think it’s very complete. I’m very satisfied with it, but my fa-
vorite is Terminal Spirit Disease.
Larsson: The songs are a bit samey to me. The ultimate album is a mixture
of Slaughter of the Soul and Terminal Spirit Disease, with the production of
Slaughter. I think the composition of songs is better on Terminal Spirit Disease—
I think Slaughter could’ve been more varied.
J. Björler: If you’d asked me that directly after we did it, there were probably
a lot of things I’d change. But now I’m pretty satisfied with it. I wouldn’t change
a thing.
Erlandsson: Had we done another album, I’m sure there would’ve been other
ideas for it, but as far as being our last album, I couldn’t wish for a better one.
That was actually one of the twins’ arguments for quitting the band—that we’d
never be able to come up with anything better. Then again, they’re really cyni-
cal. Had I gone with the feeling I had when Anders wanted to leave the band,
I would’ve pushed to do another album, to be honest. I didn’t want to let go at
the time that it happened, but it wasn’t really a choice for any of us. It had to be
that way. I’m obviously really fucking happy that I was part of it, but it’s kinda
hard to try to re-create that feeling that was there when that album was being
written. Everything surrounding it just had this aura about it, but we were sort
of magically unaware. Had we known that we were doing something good, it
would’ve been a bit more pretentious, I think.

C H A P T E R 19
FLOWER POWER
THE MAKING OF OPETH’S ORCHID

by Chris Dick
Release Date: 1995
Label: Candlelight
Summary: Death metal gets its prog on
Induction Date: February 2008/Issue #40
O
peth’s Orchid existed, either as a partial or full album with the songs cut
in random places, among tape-traders for almost a full year before
Candlelight ceremoniously unfurled it upon an unsuspecting public
in May 1995. The tapes—typically a Maxell XL-II 90 in most respectable
circles—with “Opeth” scrawled in pen on both sides, were for all intents and
purposes a mystery. Before the Internet, every road went uphill, so finding any-
thing (who they were, where they were from, etc.) on “Opeth” wasn’t as simple
as Googling the name. So, why trouble through endless flyers, sift fact from
rumor from like-minded metalheads at shows, or blindly send cold hard cash in
245
the mail to some far-flung country for a zine, a demo or god knows what else?
Quite honestly, it was the music. After ordering (yes, with cash) a copy of Dutch
zine Mortician from an old flyer advertising coverage of the enigmatic outfit,
“Opeth” became Opeth—they were Swedish, friends of Katatonia and were
being courted by Candlelight. Opeth were like nothing I, or anyone else for that
matter, had ever heard before. Sure, death metal, after its formative stages, wasn’t
averse to experimentation or the influence of other genres (like jazz, for exam-
ple), but it never sounded as powerful, fearless or skilled as on Orchid.
In reality, Orchid wasn’t death metal, for it was conceptually, structurally or
sonically analogous to no other. Rather it was something more. With five songs
traveling near and past the 10-minute mark, a piano piece (not an intro!), an
acoustic guitar/tabla raga and an album cover with a pink flower—an orchid,
obviously—on it, Opeth’s debut was, to quote frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt in
1993, a masterful hybrid of “Wishbone Ash, Black Sabbath and Bathory.” To
put it another way, Opeth weren’t too far from, say, Morbid Angel adapting
“Moonchild.” Songs like opener “In Mist She Was Standing,” “The Twilight Is
My Robe” and the anthemic closer “The Apostle in Triumph” destroyed the
verse-chorus-verse construct, un-mapping death metal into a genre of tangents
and limitless possibilities, whereas “Under the Weeping Moon” and “Forest of
October” were unheard-of great. “Under the Weeping Moon”’s sprawling,
psyche-satanic midsection is the blackest metal this side of Under a Funeral Moon
and “Forest of October”’s incessant fireworks (check out 5:46–6:27) and riffing
(everywhere) are countless reasons why the album is above and beyond awe-
some. Produced by Opeth and engineered by the ever-gifted Dan Swanö at
Unisound in March 1994, Orchid also sounded different from albums produced
there before and after. It was inviting, abrasive and full of subtlety. Despite Sym-
bolic, Slaughter of the Soul, Domination, The Gallery and Storm of the Light’s Bane
blowing minds in 1995, it was Opeth’s Orchid that changed death metal forever.
But in the early ’90s, nobody—not even Opeth themselves—knew that. Good
thing hindsight is 20/20.
Ø
PART I: SLEEP, TO WISH IMPOSSIBLE THINGS . . .
What are your memories of Orchid?
Mikael Åkerfeldt: When I think of the album, I think of the recording, ac-
tually. We had been playing those songs for years. We were tight. We rehearsed
the songs several times a week. We rehearsed in the dark, so we could play the
songs without looking, which is fucking stupid. The rehearsal room we bor-
rowed from a neighbor in Sörskogen, where me and Anders [Nordin, drum-
246 FLOWER POWER

mer] grew up. We had old Vox 8030 amplifiers with a Heavy Metal pedal
through it. We blew up a few speakers doing that.
Peter Lindgren: We really just wanted to get these songs on tape. We had
been rehearsing them for years. At the point when we recorded the album, the
songs were mature enough to be recorded. We were pretty serious about re-
hearsing. We rehearsed five or six times a week for a year. We were a three-piece.
We always recorded rehearsals. The idea wasn’t to spread the band’s music, but
to use it to improve the songs. Even though we didn’t do many gigs at the time,
we had a plan in mind. So, we decided to rehearse in darkness. We thought if
we could play the songs in total darkness, we could cope with anything onstage.
Anders Nordin: I remember I was quite anxious before the studio to hear
the final results. Orchid, to me, was like a receipt of years of rehearsals. Sweat,
blood and tears. Even though those sessions were fun, it’s always nice when you
get some kind of recognition for it. Being anxious, however, changed quickly
into stress when we finally started the recordings. Twelve total studio days di-
vided into four instruments isn’t exactly a huge amount of time.
Johan DeFarfalla: My overall memories of Orchid are good memories. It’s
musically quite cool. I don’t like the sound, ’cause it’s too noisy. It’s the wrong
sound on the bass and the wrong sound on the guitars. It’s full of errors as well.
We didn’t hear it at the time, so the engineer should’ve told us to do the re-
takes. I think we could’ve done better.
We had a lot of fun during the recording, though.
Åkerfeldt: I remember I was working in a guitar store when it was released.
It was delayed like a year or something, and I went up to my local post office to
ask them if they’d call me when I got a package from England. They called, so
I took off work and picked up the little box from Candlelight. A 25 box. I
thought, “Wow, this is my album!” It didn’t take long to see the horror of every-
thing that was wrong with it. It was pretty magical.
Do you remember what people thought of Orchid when it came out?

Åkerfeldt: It made a big impact, I remember. Most people, at least in the
Swedish scene, were recording at Unisound, and Opeth, before the album came
out, was considered a joke band. No one expected anything from us. The rumor
wasn’t great about us. Some of the early shows we did were awful and David
[Isberg], our singer who formed that band, wasn’t liked too much. We didn’t
have a good vibe going about the band. We didn’t have any friends in the scene.
I didn’t know anyone. We were total outsiders. When the album came out, I re-
member I got a call from Dan. Unanimated was in the studio after us, and he’s
like, “I just recorded this band from Stockholm called Opeth. Do you know
them?” They laughed and said we were a joke band. He’s like, “No, it’s pretty
The Making of Opeth’s Orchid 247

good. I can play it.” So, he played and they listened to a couple of songs, and, ac-
cording to Dan, they had to have a band meeting. Like, “What the fuck should
we do now?” I was a fan of Unanimated, so it’s like “Whoa! That’s great!” In the
underground of undergrounds in Sweden, it made an impact. We got a good re-
view from Close-Up, the big one in Sweden. I remember one bad review in a
French magazine called Metallian. It’s a free magazine, of course. The review
just said, “Boring and uneventful. 1/10.” Most people seemed to like it. My only
friends in the scene at the time were in Katatonia. They loved the album. Be-
fore it was released, I was a session guitar player for Katatonia and I would play
a tape of it in the dressing room hoping somebody would say, “What is this?
This sounds good.” Nobody really said anything.
Lindgren: We didn’t know what to expect. We thought something big would
happen, but it didn’t. We thought we’d get instant success, but I think we were a
little naïve. At the time, we were writing material for Morningrise, ’cause it was de-
layed for such a long time. People really seemed to like it. It’s cool to have people
you don’t know tell you they like your music. People could tell we stood out.
DeFarfalla: There are two answers. From the death metal scene, they
thought, “Wow! This is cool!” From the educated musicians I knew, they said,
“This sucks. The sound is bad. You should re-record this.” But I think people
really liked it, apart from the sound.
Why didn’t you ever record a demo?

Åkerfeldt: We didn’t have any money. For us, to go into the studio to record
a demo was as big a step as going in to record an album. We didn’t have any
money to spend on things like that. That would cost us, at least, a couple of hun-
dred bucks. I was living with my mom at the time. I was working, obviously, but
I didn’t make that kind of money. The other guys weren’t really rich or anything.
We didn’t know where to go to record a demo. We had planned it all along.
Then, out of the blue, we got an offer from Lee [Barrett] to do an album. It was
quite weird. I was sending out rehearsal tapes to all the usual labels, and I never
had a reply. I’m not sure if anyone listened to them. Then Anders [Nyström]
from Katatonia said Candlelight was interested based off a rumor from Em-
peror. Samoth, I think it was, sent out a tape of unsigned bands to Lee at Can-
dlelight. It only had a couple of seconds of “The Apostle in Triumph.” Lee liked
it so much he wanted to sign the band. I never heard anything, though. One
day when I was walking up to the apartment where me and my mother lived,
there was a letter taped to the board with all the names of people who lived in
the apartments. It said, “To Opeth . . . ” He didn’t know who the fuck we were.
It asked us to record a three-song EP. I was like, “Yeah, fuck, yeah!” I couldn’t
believe it. So, I went upstairs to read the letter again, and the phone rings. It’s
248 FLOWER POWER

Lee! He’s like, “Did you get my letter? I sent it weeks ago.” He then said, “For-
get what I said in the letter. I want to release a full-length album from you.”
And that was it.
Lindgren: Initially, we couldn’t afford it. Maybe that’s why we did rehearsal
tapes instead. We always wanted to be great, so maybe we thought it would be
better to keep practicing and rehearsing than to record a demo. Then we got a
record deal, so we never had to record a demo. I liked the idea of us not having
a demo. It was sort of a non-image image. Nobody knew who we were, so it was
a little more mysterious to not have a demo.
Nordin: I guess we never came to that point, as Candlelight offered us a deal
from a rehearsal tape. If we hadn’t got that deal, I think we would’ve recorded a
demo.
You signed a deal with Candlelight off a rehearsal song. Looking back on it, do you
think Opeth were lucky to have found a label willing to believe in the band?
Åkerfeldt: Yeah, I guess. We struggled like every other band. We just didn’t
have any demos. If we’d done a proper demo, we would’ve been signed from
that. We were a good band. Those rehearsal tapes were quite good, and there’s
no bass on them. We had been playing those songs forever. We were tighter than
most bands in Stockholm. I mean, Katatonia were sloppy. They could barely
play. It was only At the Gates we found to be our biggest competition.
Lindgren: Yeah, looking back it’s awkward. It’s cool, too. We got a record
deal from 20 seconds of a song on a rehearsal tape.
Nordin: I think Candlelight were lucky to find us. Yes, a little lucky, but
thanks to my mum’s Dixi radio-recorder, we got the deal.
What was your relationship with Sörskogen like?

Åkerfeldt: It’s a fake romance. It’s a beautiful place, but it’s a place for fam-
ilies with kids. Every house had kids my age. They were into metal, I think. But
there were no bands. Maybe a couple. It was kind of isolated in a way. It was a
suburb with three streets. It was almost like a little mountain. You have to drive
up a little slope. We didn’t really leave. We just hung out there. My dad was tak-
ing care of this house that people could rent for parties. I basically borrowed the
key. That became our rehearsal place. I rehearsed there with my other band,
Eruption, which was me, Anders and some other guys. I would say, in retro-
spect, it meant a lot. We never went into town. We just spent every day listen-
ing to music and, eventually, started playing in bands. Now, since we’re a
professional band, I always want to connect with that place.
Lindgren: Both me and Mike grew up in a suburb of Stockholm called
Huddinge. Both Sörskogen and Visättra, where I grew up, were situated near

this forest and a big lake. On the other side of the lake was Sörskogen. We
didn’t really hang out until we were about 14 or 16. We both grew up doing the
same things, but on different sides of this lake. We started hanging out together
’cause we both had the same interests: basically, metal. I wouldn’t consider mov-
ing back. Where I was from was a bad suburb. Where Mike was from, it’s like
this neat little suburb, with all these little nice houses.
Nordin: Sörskogen is the neighborhood where Mikael and I grew up. Sörsko-
gen played a big role in how the music came to develop, as we used to rehearse
here and we also got to know Charlie [a drummer], who later on helped us use
his rehearsal pad and equipment.
DeFarfalla: I had a girlfriend in Sörskogen. I was from more downtown
Stockholm. I met the guys in Crimson Cat in ’88, and then I met Mikael and
Anders. I didn’t know Peter before we played together.
Wasn’t the silhouette photo on the back of Orchid taken in Sörskogen?

Åkerfeldt: Yeah. The front cover of My Arms, Your Hearse is also from Sörsko-
gen. The band pictures from Deliverance and Damnation were also taken there.
The picture inside Damnation is from Sörskogen. Obviously, before we got
signed there were a lot of photo sessions there.
Ø
PART II: IN THE WILDERNESS,
EVEN FOES CLOSE THEIR EYES AND LEAVE . . .
How much time did you guys spend playing, rehearsing and writing back
then?
Mikael Åkerfeldt: All the time. There are parts to Orchid that go all the way
back to 1990. When I first joined the band, one of the first riffs I wrote was the
solo riff in “Forest of October.” It was the first riff I ever did for Opeth. It was
just me and David. The idea for Opeth was for it to be evil—satanic lyrics and
evil riffs. I chose my notes so they sounded evil. We eventually found a place to
rehearse and a little PA. I had a 20-watt Marshall amp that I lined through the
PA. The bass went right into the PA. Anders bought a drum kit later on, so we
had drums. It was the same kind of gear we used up to Morningrise.
Lindgren: As soon as you start playing an instrument, you have plans to form
a band. We had dreams. We tried to make plans out of those dreams. Writing
and rehearsing was important to me and Mikael. We were teenagers, trying to
find our identity. We took pride in writing our own material. We spent a lot of
time writing and rehearsing, ’cause we wanted to achieve something.
250 FLOWER POWER

Nordin: We rehearsed quite often, sometimes four to five times a week. But
I never saw it as rehearsals. It was more time spent being with friends and to have
fun.
DeFarfalla: I don’t remember us rehearsing a lot, but during the time I was
with them—maybe two months before we went in to record the album—things
started to heat up. I really liked playing those songs with those guys. They were
nice guys.
The playing style was a bit different for a death metal band. Were there specific
sounds or things you were going for?
Åkerfeldt: I was never a big fan of the bands we might relate to. I had the first
My Dying Bride EP [Symphonaire Infernus Et Spera Empyrium], and I didn’t
really like it. It was too slow. My favorite band was Morbid Angel. I couldn’t play
like Trey [Azagthoth] or write that stuff. I also liked ’80s heavy metal, and dur-
ing that time I started to listen to prog rock. I didn’t have a preference, really. I
just tried to come up with good riffs. I must say, At the Gates was a big influ-
ence on us. They were my favorite Swedish band. I didn’t want to sound like
them, but if there was one band I wanted to sound like, it would be At the Gates.
I got a rehearsal tape from [ATG drummer] Adrian [Erlandsson] at a gig with
them, and I was like, “Wow!” I worshipped them. I loved them. We became
friends early on. On top of that, I was also influenced by a lot of prog rock.
Lindgren: It was due to our influences. We were all into metal, except Johan.
He was more into glam rock. He knew different kinds of music we didn’t know
in the beginning. Both me and Mikael started to dig into other kinds of music,
like ’70s music. There’s a lot of freedom in ’70s music. You realized a song could
be textural and 14 minutes long. We learned a lot from listening to ’70s-style
music, ’cause metal bands didn’t really have those ideas or freedoms. We wanted
to incorporate that into our music. When Mikael started using his clean voice,
all hell broke loose. We realized not many other bands had clean vocals. Mikael
was pretty brave at the time. We always wanted to enhance what made us
different.
Nordin: We all had our influences. We always played and made music that
suited our own music tastes. We made the music for ourselves. We didn’t try to
find any sound. The sound ended up the way it did.
DeFarfalla: Well, since I didn’t know death metal too much, I didn’t try to
go for anything specific. I really just played in the best possible way. I think they
liked that I was a bass player who knew the bass. I wasn’t some guy who just
showed up, hoping to play something. I don’t think it mattered what kind of
music I was into.

What role did Mefisto play in the formative years?
Åkerfeldt: Mefisto was the first death metal band I really liked. I tried to fool
myself with bands like Celtic Frost, Venom and Bathory. They couldn’t play, in my
opinion. I was more into good guitar players from bands like Scorpions, Judas
Priest and Iron Maiden. There’s no comparison between Tom G. Warrior’s guitar
solos to Matthias Jabs’ solos. I was interested in aggression, but I didn’t like the fact
they couldn’t really play. Then David gave me a tape of Mefisto. The guitar player
could play classical guitar, interludes and shit like that. Even though the solos were
noisy, they had a ton of emotion in them. It was tight. I was like, “Fuck! This is
what I want to hear!” Then, a year later, I got to hear Morbid Angel. That was it.
I was lost. That’s when I started to really get into death metal. With that, I came
to realize Celtic Frost was actually quite musical. Like To Mega Therion and Into
the Pandemonium. They were interesting. Mefisto was the stepping-stone for me.
To this day, those two tapes they did are still very good. Very grim.
How did the band operate? Was the process democratic when it came down to
finalizing the songs?
Åkerfeldt: It was me and Peter. Peter came up with a few riffs. I wrote most
of them, but it was basically the two of us jamming. Anders also had a few riffs.
He had the piano thing. We had never heard it until he recorded it. He was very
musical. He could’ve done so much more. He helped with a couple of riffs on
“In Mist She Was Standing.” We were a democratic band, with me coming up
with most of the riffs.
Lindgren: We tried to be democratic. We gathered at my place one time. It
was me, Anders, Mikael and Johan. We had three acoustic guitars and Anders
was playing drums on pillows. We tried to write together. It didn’t really work.
Some people write better on their own. Anders was like that. He came up with
great stuff, but as soon as we were together, he’d not say anything.
DeFarfalla: In the beginning, it was democratic. There was lots of discus-
sion about everything. Everything was arranged with all the members, and we
talked a lot about how to do music. I really enjoyed that. But, I think, in the
end, it ended up not being so democratic.
How old were you when you when Orchid was recorded?
Åkerfeldt: I was 19 when we recorded the album. I turned 20 during the
recording. I was 21 by the time it was released.
Nordin: 22.
Lindgren: 21. Metallica were my heroes. Metallica were the same age when
they recorded Kill ’Em All.
DeFarfalla: 23, I think. I was born in 1971.
252 FLOWER POWER

Did your family support the idea of being in a band, touring and recording albums?
Åkerfeldt: I was convinced this is what I wanted to do. Peter was studying
at the time and went into the Army. My parents supported my interest in music,
but they didn’t believe I would make a living off it. Every parent worries about
that. A bum with a dream. It was only years later she said she was glad I went
for it. Originally, my mom tried to get me into studying. She’s like, “Look at
Peter. He’s studying. His hobby is second.” I would say, “It’s not a hobby for me,
mom. It’s what I want to do.” She didn’t believe in that, but she loved the fact I
was interested in music. So did my dad, but he never said anything. Johan was
the only other guy who was a musician. He was in other bands before. He
worked at a place that had rehearsal rooms, where we also later rehearsed. He
was in the scene in a way. He came from the sleaze rock scene. He was a proper
musician, whereas myself and Anders were just dreamers. Peter, who loved
music, was more realistic. He went for a strong education. Me and Anders, at the
time, didn’t have anything to fall back on if the band didn’t work out. That’s one
of the reasons why Anders left eventually. I remember going up to Anders’ house
and ringing the bell. I just wanted to hang out. His dad answers and is firm with
me. He’s like, “No, Anders isn’t interested in music anymore. He’s going to con-
centrate on his studies.” That kind of speech. I had a sour taste in my mouth after
that. I liked Anders’ dad. With him leaving the band, I was very disappointed.
When you’re young and friends, you say you’re going to play together forever. We
were really tight. I think eventually after the first tour, it was kind of fine. We still
didn’t have any money, but we started out with nothing and now we had an
album, fans overseas, and we toured. But we didn’t make any money. That was
the issue. If we would’ve come home from tour with a hundred grand saying,
“Look, mom!” they probably wouldn’t complain at all. It was still a dream. The
support from our parents was mixed, now that I think of it.
Lindgren: Yeah, my dad is a jazz enthusiast. He plays jazz guitar. On a Levin
acoustic. He was really supportive. My mom and sister were supportive, too, but
he was genuinely interested in what I was doing. He never told me to cut my hair
or anything like that. Even nowadays, he’ll buy magazines to get the reviews. He
saves them in a little book. He was encouraging all the time.
Nordin: My family was always supporting me and the band. My parents
often helped me transport drums when I didn’t have a driver’s license. And I
think they were never worried about us being in the wrong company or [what-
ever] because they kind of knew where we were all the time. In the rehearsal
pad!
DeFarfalla: Yes, absolutely. My family always supported my music. Music was,
at the time, was first and foremost. I started playing when I was nine years old. I
was playing in a punk band. It’s all I ever thought about and wanted. I remember

my mom said, “You can always study later. If you want to play music, then go play
music.” I appreciated that a lot. I met my wife during that time, so looking back I
think it was great for me.
’60s and ’70s progressive music was also important in defining Opeth. I remember
you talking a great deal about Wishbone Ash, Camel, King Crimson and, to a lesser
extent, Swedish artists like Bo Hansson, Kebnekajse and Huvva.
Åkerfeldt: We used to have parties on the weekend. There was one particu-
lar party by a classmate of mine where I got drunk and slept on the couch. The
next day, he’s like, “Here’s a band. You might like it.” It was Yes. I was blown
away. The odd thing is he was in a punk band. He only listened to punk, and I
didn’t like that. But he played me Yes and, at the time, we were really a standard
death metal band. When I heard Yes, I saw what we could do. To incorporate
that into death metal. It wasn’t long after I heard Dream Theater. They’re also
a big influence. I remember going to the secondhand store and picking every-
thing that looked cool. You know, a cool sleeve, if they looked cool in the band
photo. It was so cheap. Like a buck. I was working at the guitar store and I asked
the guy there if he knew any bands in the style of Yes and Genesis. He was like,
“Yeah, check out Camel, King Crimson and stuff like that.” So I did. Basically
every lunch break I’d go to the record store to buy secondhand vinyl. That be-
came my obsession. It is to this day. I was always a collector, and this was per-
fect. It was a new scene. I felt special. I felt extra cool, ’cause none of my friends
were into it. I was alone. Like, “Never heard of Wishbone Ash? What a tosser!”
My oldest friend got me into Wishbone Ash. He was more into the Beatles. He
played the Argus record. I was blown away by that. It made a big impact on me.
It was the guy from Mellontronen who really sent me over the edge. He would
recommend zillions of bands like Comus.
Lindgren: In the late ’80s, it was only metal. I only bought metal vinyl. But
after a while, you could hear a pretty good song that wasn’t metal. I wouldn’t
buy the album. Why? It’s not metal. Eventually, I bought something that wasn’t
metal, so once I crossed that line I realized I liked music that didn’t have any-
thing to do with Slayer or Metallica. We thought—and it was a pretty mature
idea—that we’d actually create something out of music that wasn’t metal. As
soon as we started listening to ’70s music, we realized there was so much to dis-
cover. Songs could be really long and have a lot of texture. A lot of those bands
were heavy for the day, but if you compare Wishbone Ash to Slayer, it’s hard to
hear how they connect to one another. But Black Sabbath must’ve turned the
world upside down when they started.
DeFarfalla: The cool thing about this was Mikael showed me bands I had
never heard of. Like Wishbone Ash. I still like them now. I listened to Led Zep-
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pelin and old Uriah Heep. Mikael is very musical, so when he hears good music,
he’ll listen to it. It doesn’t have to be metal. Me and Mikael are similar in that way.
Did you know Orchid was different from what was going on at the time? I re-
member everyone struggling to classify it. It was so new.
Åkerfeldt: I was pretty sure it was different. I didn’t know any bands that
sounded like us. I mean, I knew where we came from with bands like At the
Gates, Therion and Morbid Angel. I was the one who bought the most records.
It was bound to be different. I have always loved ballads. Like ballads from Judas
Priest and Scorpions. There’s a lot of acoustic parts and clean singing, so yeah,
it was different. The only thing we had in common, at the time, was that we
were melodic metal.
Lindgren: We knew it was different. Not only because we had different in-
fluences, but also we had been working on the songs for so long that we could
tell they weren’t part of any trend.
Nordin: I had a feeling it was different, but I never thought of it that much.
It never bothered me what other people thought, to be honest. Having said that,
of course, it’s nice if other people like it, too!
DeFarfalla: Yes, I think so. I didn’t come from the death metal scene, but I
knew it was different. It was musical. I think other death metal bands, at the
time, weren’t too musical. It was like noise. Opeth was different.
Didn’t Jonas [Renkse] jokingly call it “forest metal”? Foolish as it sounds, it’s
fitting.
Åkerfeldt: Yeah, he had all sorts of ideas. I was into the new wave of black
metal, like Darkthrone and Emperor. It was cool to come up with new descrip-
tions for music, even if it didn’t mean anything. We weren’t black metal. We
weren’t death metal. So why not come up with something completely ridicu-
lous? When I listen to it, I have an image or illusion that we wrote songs in the
woods, which wasn’t true, obviously.
Lindgren: I don’t know why we were called that. We had a song with “for-
est” in the title. They were forest-like tunes. Having all these people trying to
brand or tag you is kind of strange. It was a joke. We heard a rumor that In
Flames heard that we had gone forest metal, so they felt that they had to make
their music even more forest metal.
What is your favorite song from the album and why?

Åkerfeldt: There are parts in every song that are favorites. If there’s one song,
though, it’s “Under the Weeping Moon.” We’ve been playing it live and it’s the
one song that hasn’t aged as much. It’s got more in common with what we’re

doing today. At the time, it was “The Apostle in Triumph.” It had the volume
swells, which I stole from King Diamond.
Lindgren: I thought at the time “Twilight Is My Robe,” but “The Apostle in
Triumph” was also special. We played “The Apostle in Triumph” so much, it’s
actually quite boring. It’s dreadful to play. Same with “The Night and the Silent
Water” from the second album. Looking back, “Forest of October” is the best
song on the album.
Nordin: My favorite song is “The Apostle in Triumph.” It has many parts
that bring back old memories from older songs.
DeFarfalla: “Requiem,” for sure. I really like what we did on this song. It was
short, but it was so different for the time. More like a jam. I played the acoustic
bass.
The instrumental pieces “Silhouette” and “Requiem” were pretty different for a
death metal band.
Åkerfeldt: Yeah, Anders was a piano player. He and the friend who intro-
duced me to Wishbone Ash were piano players. They kind of showed each other
stuff. Anders was leaning more into classical stuff, while my other friend was
doing boogie-woogie. When we heard it, it was like “Wow!” That song made us
feel really small as musicians. He’s a fucking pro. Even Johan was like, “That’s
awesome!” I don’t remember the aim with “Requiem,” but we had no real plans
with the sequencing of the album. It was recorded in a different studio. It was
recorded by a guitar player who’s now in a band called the Poodles.
Lindgren: “Silhouette” was a song Anders had written on his own. He came
up with these things on his own. It’s like, “Fuck! What is he doing?” Anders
could only have three or four takes. He played on a synth-piano. The keys were
totally different. The whole thing is one take, I think. There’s a flaw, but it’s
great. I remember when Dan played it back, it was like, “Yes, this is great!” We
always prided ourselves on doing all the music ourselves. As opposed to cheat-
ing. We never did overdubs on the albums, especially on the first one. Everything
you hear, we can do it live. With “Requiem,” we had to record it at another stu-
dio. Opeth’s music has always been organized. There’s a piece at the end of “Re-
quiem” where the tension builds. We didn’t really plan it. So that was cool. It’s
mastered wrong. At the time, we didn’t know what mastering was. None of us
attended the mastering session. The guy, Peter In de Betou, cut the song in the
wrong place. It’s cut in half. “The Apostle in Triumph” has an acoustic intro it
was never supposed to have. I guess Peter thought it made sense. “Requiem” is
divided into two parts, but he got it wrong.
Nordin: “Requiem” was meant as a prologue to “Apostle,” so I think it really
fits in where it is. If I’m not mistaken, the gap between those two is too long. It
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should’ve been one song. But both “Requiem” and “Silhouette” were supposed
to calm down the other metal songs. Regarding “Silhouette,” it’s done. It’s there.
I’m trying to live on and forget about it.
DeFarfalla: Yes, I agree. They were not too death metal in concept. These
songs were more like proper music. They weren’t noise. “Requiem” was written
at Unisound, I think, but we recorded it at a different studio due to time issues.
I can’t remember which studio. The music is quite good. Mike had some guitar
parts and we basically jammed through them. Such good memories of that.
Ø
PART III: WHEN YOU ARE CALM INSIDE THE WILDERNESS,
THE BROTHERS ARE STILL SEEKING . . .
Why didn’t you change the band name after David left?
Åkerfeldt: First, I wanted to be in Opeth ’cause the name sounded cool. Sec-
ond, I loved the logo. It’s the reason I joined. It’s perfect. We decided to keep it.
We had done a few shows with the name, so some people recognized the name.
I redid the logo, ’cause I didn’t want us to be perceived as a satanic band. More
like metal minstrels.
Lindgren: We just got used to it. I joined the band as a bass player. Mike
joined the band as a bass player. Then, all of a sudden, the guy who came up
with the name left. Both me and Mike were guitar players, so we had an op-
portunity to change the direction of the band and take over the guitar player
roles. We did that. I remember when Mike joined the band, everyone else was
fired by David. Mike showed up at an Opeth rehearsal with David, and David
didn’t tell the bass player there’s another guy coming in. There was a big quar-
rel, so David fired everyone. He reformed the band with him and Mike. I joined
a little later. This guitar player, his name was Kim [Pettersson], was quite cool.
He had a lousy memory. He couldn’t remember the songs. Mike and him were
the guitar players and I was the bass player. So, as soon as he forgot the parts,
he’d solo over the riffs. It sounded pretty good, but it wouldn’t work in the long
run with a guitar player with no memory. We didn’t fire him, though, ’cause he
was in Crimson Cat. He thought of Opeth as an experiment. When Kim left, I
stepped up to guitars. When Mike and I started writing songs together, we
found that David had a specific personality. He could cause problems for us. He
was annoying people, basically. We thought David could fuck it—the dream—
up for us, but we couldn’t fire David from his own band. So, we thought of quit-
ting and forming a new band. But then when David and Mike were in Austria
on a skiing trip, he told Mike, “I quit the band.” Mike was like, “Yeah!” We liked
the name. It was mystical enough. It never occurred to us to get a new name.

At what point did the recording lineup for Orchid solidify? Johan was still
regarded as a session musician at the time, if I remember correctly.
Åkerfeldt: He did a gig with us in ’91 with At the Gates. The second guitar
player, at the time, was also from Johan’s band, Crimson Cat. We asked Kim if
he knew a bass player, and he recommended Johan. When we went to record the
album, we had fired our bass player Stefan [Guteklint], ’cause he was messing
around with another band on the side. It’s a classic dismissal of a band member.
We had just gotten three-way calling in Sweden, so me and Peter planned how
we were going to fire Stefan. So, I called Stefan, but Peter wasn’t there when I
hit the three-way button. It’s like, “Uh, fuck, can I call you back in a moment?”
So, we called him back and fired him. We asked Johan to play on the album, so
when he did it was at the point he joined the band. During the photo session
for it, he said, “From now on, I’m only going to work with professional musi-
cians.” Me and Peter were like, “Uh, does that mean us?” He was a terrific bass
player. He was a strong character. He had a strong musical mind. I was extremely
happy to have him in the band.
We had a proper bass player. Apart from Steve DiGiorgio, there were no
proper bass players. Most were guitar players who weren’t good enough, so they
had to play bass.
Lindgren: Mike joined the band in 1990. I joined the band in late 1991 just
for one show. Anders was in the band when I joined, so he must’ve joined
sometime after Mike. We were a three-piece for a long time, rehearsing heav-
ily. We recruited Johan for basically the recording of Orchid. He was two years
older than us. It was cool to have Johan in the band, even for the album. We
had a plan for him to stay with us. He was a funk/glam rock player. We had
broader ideas than most metal bands. I think he liked that. We didn’t want
him to be Jason Newsted. We wanted him to play cool stuff—to be a bass
player. He lifted us to a new level. He had a few cool ideas, and some weird
ones. All those bands never had good bass players. They were just guitar play-
ers who were forced to play bass. They played with a pick and held it like a gui-
tar. We wanted to take advantage of having a real bass player. He actually
carried a cell phone on his belt, I remember. When he joined the band, the cell
phone was a big thing for us.
DeFarfalla: That was during the recording. Well, I was never hired, so to
speak. Hiring would mean I got paid for something. And I didn’t. I remember
the reason I joined the band is because of Mikael. I really liked him. He was a
good musician, too. They were all good people, so I think that was the most im-
portant thing. I don’t think I would’ve agreed if I didn’t like them as people or
I didn’t like their music. I remember telling them I needed to continue devel-
oping my band and playing different kinds of music, and they were fine with it.
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How did you meet Dan Swanö, and how did he end up engineering Orchid?
Åkerfeldt: Katatonia had recorded their album there. They were my friends
and I didn’t know anywhere else. He was cheap and had a place to stay. It was
just two hours from Stockholm. He had done Dissection and Marduk. I knew
about Edge of Sanity and I knew about Dan. I thought the Katatonia record
sounded awesome. Now, it’s like, “God, this is fucking awful!” But I called him
up and that was it. We had never been in the studio before, so we figured it
would be like the old days. You know, everybody standing in a room, playing it
live. We could’ve done that. We were so well rehearsed. But we started with the
drums in one room. He didn’t really produce much, ’cause there wasn’t much to
produce. He coached me on the clean singing. I thought he was a great singer.
He didn’t come up with musical ideas, though. We were ready.
Lindgren: Mike came up with his name. He recorded Katatonia. Jonas and
Anders were fans of Opeth and came to our rehearsal room. I didn’t know them
at the time. Mike and Jonas became good friends. That’s how it went. Everyone
was recording in Sunlight at the time, and we wanted to do something differ-
ent. We also had the idea of leaving town with nothing and coming back with
something. Cowboy style.
Do you remember much about your time at Unisound?

Åkerfeldt: It was done in 12 days on 16-track with quarter-inch tapes. It was
really low-budget. For us, 16 was like, “Wow!” We had two before. I remember
having shivers all over when I was doing the vocals. It was just me and Dan in
the studio. Dan was screaming, “You’re the fucking best!” I recorded a guide gui-
tar with Anders drumming. We saved some of that. You can hear it on “Under
the Weeping Moon.”
Lindgren: The studio was in Finspång, a village in the middle of nowhere.
Dan had his studio there. We rented this one bedroom flat. You could walk down
to the studio. I remember when we mixed the album, we were really hung over.
We went out the night before and got really wasted. Nothing was digital back
then, so it was me, Dan and Mike trying to get this 14-minute song down on
tape. We had to write everything down. It was really hard when you have a split-
ting headache. We had a great time during those two weeks.
Nordin: I remember a lot of good things from the studio and around the stu-
dio, but also, of course, the stress that when you wake up and are about to go to
the studio, you know that when you come back to the apartment, almost half of
your parts have to be recorded—no matter what happens—as we basically had
two and a half days each to record.
DeFarfalla: I remember a lot about Unisound—some good and some bad.
I remember saying, “This is the studio?” It was so small. It wasn’t the most

professional studio, if you know what I mean. I thought the sound, and I’m
being honest here, was terrible.
How much input did Dan have on the recording process?

Åkerfeldt: I don’t remember him having much, actually.
Lindgren: Not much, really. The songs were done. But Dan is a musical guy.
It was easy for us to work with him. He was a mentor. He was stubborn, though.
He would refuse to listen to arguments. Then he’d turn around and say, “Yeah,
you’re right.” He’s not diplomatic about things. It’s no or yes. You can’t manip-
ulate him. Pretty often he’s right about things with music. Maybe Johan had a
little clash with him. Johan thought he was more musically experienced than
the rest of us. And he was. But I don’t think Dan liked him too much, ’cause he
was the guy with the funky bass.
Nordin: Dan was extremely important to the final results in all possible ways,
and he had huge input during the recordings. He made me relaxed, despite the
pressure that we had due to the short studio time. That was very important. He’s
a funny guy, so he kind of broke the ice.
DeFarfalla: I don’t remember that, but I do remember Dan being stubborn.
I worked in a studio as well, and we didn’t agree on [how to do] certain things.
The way he recorded things basically would end up as noise. He wasn’t diplo-
matic at all. I would say we didn’t have a clash. More like many disagreements.
Dan was not producing, so he had to listen to us. And this is important, we, the
band, produced Orchid. He was the engineer.
Ø
PART IV: THE SKY WILL FALL, THE EARTH WILL PRAY . . .
“In Mist She Was Standing”
Åkerfeldt: It’s the longest song on the album. The last one we completed. We
were excited about it to begin with. It’s still a good song, but I don’t remember
much about it. There’s one part where Johan’s playing bass over the acoustic gui-
tar. I don’t like that. Anders has a cool riff on it. Lyrically, it’s about a night-
mare. It’s inspired by a film called Lady in Black. I remember I forgot the book
with my lyrics, so we had to turn around and go get them. I ended up rewriting
them anyway. I didn’t have a clue about lyrics, though.
Lindgren: A great opening track. We probably should’ve rearranged the track
order. I thought “In Mist She Was Standing” would be a great opening track for
live shows. Never was, though.
Nordin: First song ever that I recorded in a real studio. I remember that for
a short period of time—just moments before I started to record this song—I
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wanted to back out of all this and go home when I saw all the microphones. But
as soon as Mike started to play and the recordings were under way, it proceeded
quite well, despite major rhythm changes and errors that I made. Mike helped
me a lot by showing up in the little window on the drum room door, which gave
me a lot of inspiration. I think he knew that I was nervous and stressed, espe-
cially from all the swearing between the takes.
DeFarfalla: It was really long, with lots of changes. I don’t remember much
else of this song, to be honest.
“Under the Weeping Moon”

Åkerfeldt: It’s my favorite song. It’s our attempt at black metal, I guess. It has
a simple riff. I really like it. The middle section is awesome. It was quite daring
at the time. That’s why I think it hasn’t aged as much. It’s quite fresh, to this day.
Lyrically, it was some kind of satanic worship of the moon. It doesn’t really deal
with anything. We didn’t record to a click-track, so it really goes out of tempo.
It gets faster and faster.
Lindgren: It’s the weirdest song in the middle. It’s the most evil song on the
album. We did this song a couple of times in 2006, and it’s the only song where
there’s room for experimentation. We didn’t experiment. Everything was fig-
ured out. It was really non-Opeth in that sense. Everything was worked out ex-
cept that part. The riffs are great.
Nordin: I don’t remember much of this song other than “In Mist She Was
Standing” and this one were made during the first day, as it took a while to get
going with the first song.
DeFarfalla: This is the song with the cool middle part. It was a bit different
for us, I think. If you listen back to bands like Jethro Tull and Wishbone Ash,
you could hear them doing stuff like this. Of course, it’s not death metal, but I
think that’s where Mike got the idea. It’s a cool song.
“Silhouette”
Åkerfeldt: Awesome! I’m still quite impressed. Some movements in that song
are stellar. Well played. I don’t like the sound. It’s a keyboard, so the sample
sound is dated.
Lindgren: Great! For Anders’ sake, I think he wanted another take. Consid-
ering we’re a metal band, it’s kind of cool. I remember the look on Dan’s face
when we said, “Our drummer can play the piano.” He didn’t believe a word we
were saying. Dan can play the piano. Most guys play like shit. When Anders
started playing, Dan was actually impressed. Most people thought our dad or
mom played it. At least that’s what people thought back then.

Nordin: This was recorded hours just before we were leaving the studio. I
didn’t feel good about it before, during and after the recordings.
DeFarfalla: I like this piece, but I remember the sound was not so good. It
was a keyboard with bad sample. I suggested we record this properly in a church
with a real piano and a lot of microphones to get the right ambiance, but sadly,
that never happened.
“Forest of October”
Åkerfeldt: Even though it goes in and out of all the movements, it’s still quite
coherent. The arrangements are quite cool. I still like the song. It’s the most
simple song to play, ’cause it’s one of the earliest songs. Some of the riffs go back
to 1990. Lyrically, I don’t remember what it’s about. Some cool lines. The lyrics
had to sound like the music.
Lindgren: The best song on the album. When you put out more and more
albums, especially with songs being 10 or 12 minutes, you have to pick certain
songs to play live. Eventually, you leave albums out. We played this song the
most until we abandoned it for “Under the Weeping Moon.”
Nordin: Second day, I wasn’t as nervous, but yet as stressed, even though
the first part of the song went pretty well until I managed to lose the sticks in
the middle of a drum roll. As I had covered a great part of it in one go, Dan
didn’t think we had time to waste to re-record all of that part, so it was decided
that I should retake the recording from the drum roll, which isn’t the easiest
thing. I remember this as it was yesterday because after the third retake, I heard
Dan in the headphones say, “We don’t have time for this. Whatever you do
now goes on the CD. Are you ready?” And I was like, “OK, no, I’m not ready,
but who cares?”
DeFarfalla: This was the older song. I think it was too death metal for me.
It was a bit simpler than the other songs. I didn’t like the growling too much, but
the music was great.
“The Twilight Is My Robe”

Åkerfeldt: It has calm parts with clean singing. You can hear how shy I was.
I didn’t dare sing more powerfully. You can tell it’s a teenager singing. It has
some of the strongest twin guitar leads on the album. But it doesn’t sound pow-
erful on the album. When we played it live, it’s a powerhouse. One part was
nicked from the Scorpions’ “Fly to the Rainbow.” A complete rip-off. It’s a sa-
tanic song. Like an oath to Satan. It used to be called “Oath.”
Lindgren: The start is kind of happy. There’s a lot of twin guitars playing the
different things to add heaviness. There’s counterpoint, too. Two melodies added
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together make something cool. This song has a lot of that in it. I like the acoustic
parts, too.
DeFarfalla: This song reminded me of Spinal Tap. You know, when the 18-
inch Stonehenge comes down onstage and they’re dancing around it. I think of
Spinal Tap when I hear this song. It’s a fantastic song, but the image of it now
sort of makes me laugh. Actually, a lot of things in Opeth were like Spinal Tap.
“Requiem”
Åkerfeldt: The sound is OK. I borrowed an awesome acoustic guitar from the
guitar store. A Spanish guitar called Trameleuc. I want to buy one, but you can’t
find them anywhere. The theme of the song is pretty good. Johan’s solo at the
end is fantastic. He had an acoustic bass. Anders was playing tablas. It’s a song
no death metal band would’ve done at the time. It was fucked up in the mas-
tering. I was insane when I heard it.
Lindgren: It was mastered wrong. It’s an acoustic epic. It builds tension for
a while. It turned out pretty good, even though it was cut wrong. If you listen to
the full album, you can’t really notice it.
“The Apostle in Triumph”

Åkerfeldt: The flagship song for us in the early days. Not many people hailed
it as the best song. It has a really nice melody. The guitar swells I was proud of.
Lyrically, it was a combination of nature and satanic worship. Peter has a great
solo in the end. Quite emotional. I kind of cringe when I hear the clean vocals.
I sound so insecure. Johan did the higher harmony vocals. On Martin Mendez’s
first gig, we played it. It was the last time we played it.
Lindgren: It was like a hit song for us. We did it on the Cradle of Filth tour
in ’96. The beginning is trademark Opeth. We played it too much, so it got bor-
ing. Those 10 or 20 seconds that got us the record deal were from this song. It’s
magical in that sense.
Nordin: This song was no doubt the most emotional one to record. When I
had the headphones on and Mikael—who played along with me for reference,
as the drums were the first instrument to be caught on tape—got started with
the recordings, it felt like my life was rewound and played for me right there in
the drum room at Dan’s studio. I don’t remember much of the actual drumming
other than Mikael was a great support for me during all the stress and pressure
when there’s no room for retakes. Once he was even inside the drum room just
to be present. It inspired me.
DeFarfalla: I remember having more freedom on the bass for this song. It’s
a song where the bass and guitars are playing different things together. The bass

doesn’t push away the guitars. More like a complement. I think it’s one of the
better songs on the album. I like this song a lot. It’s great.
Ø
PART V: HIDDEN IN THE FOG . . .
Did you have side projects at the time?
Åkerfeldt: Yeah, it had many names. Planet was a stoner thing. We had one
riff and two lyrics. In those days, you were quick to announce that, even if you
didn’t have material. Jonas and me had hundreds of projects. We had a hip-hop
band. El Triunfo de la Muerte. It was taken from the famous painting. Like
Black Sabbath’s Greatest Hits album. We had alias names. My name was Las
Vegas. Jonas was Paco. We sang in broken Latin-Swedish. We did a demo tape.
Jonas still has it. We did four or five demos with our country band. It was called
Black Horse, then Black Horse Experience, and then Slow Train Company. It
had many different names. We had a Meshuggah rip-off band called Erase. We
had a Popul Vuh rip-off band called Bruder Der Schatten. We did one 15-
minute song. It was like a mantra, but we got bored, deleted it and had coffee
and smokes instead.
Lindgren: I had a synth project with a friend of mine. I was more into
metal/industrial stuff. We needed a drummer, but he didn’t see my point since
the music he listened to didn’t have real drummers. It also didn’t help he lived
in a different city. I didn’t have many side projects. Most of it was for fun. Like
Steel. I remember when we were recording My Arms, Your Hearse and Fredrik
[Nordström] played us a band that sounded like Steel with a better production.
We thought it was pretty funny. Turned out it was HammerFall.
DeFarfalla: I had a lot of side projects. I was in Crimson Cat as a main band,
but I also had a jazz-fusion trio at the time. I was playing with a lot of other mu-
sicians that weren’t from the death metal scene. I really liked playing in Opeth,
though.
You’ve had some interesting photo sessions. The top hat photo is legendary.
Åkerfeldt: It was my idea. That was a bit of a fiasco. I wanted it to look like
an early 20th century photo. I rented the costume with white gloves. All that
shit. Johan didn’t want a suit. He wanted to be bare-chested with sunglasses. It’s
like, “Ah, well, that kind of spoils it.” Those pictures were taken for the Celtic
Frost tribute album. I sent them to Raul [Caballero] at Dwell and they were
meant to be in the booklet, but he ended up using a different picture. Now, I
think it’s awesome. We had lots of photos. We took a band picture outside the
studio in Finspång. There was a park there with a big old oak tree. Being that
264 FLOWER POWER

we were nature romantics, we took some pictures of the band there. We did it
on the way back from shopping. They came out great. They looked awesome. I
was standing in the tree. It sounds stupid, but it looked cool. But something was
wrong. As I looked closer, Anders was holding a big bag of apples. I was like,
“Fuck, we can’t use them now!”
Lindgren: We also had a photo session in Finspång, where we had a smoke
grenade. It was supposed to look like fog. You can’t see anything in the pictures.
Just smoke. We were laughing, ’cause we couldn’t see anything either. We had
all these ideas, but we didn’t know how to fulfill them. We were a little stupid.
Did you ever think Orchid would be remembered as a pivotal release? I remem-
ber some of the labels I was in contact with said Opeth wouldn’t amount to much.
The songs were too long and nobody knew who you were.
Åkerfeldt: We didn’t have any commercial value whatsoever. To be honest, I
expected once I got a record deal I’d be able to buy a Rolls-Royce. I expected to
be wealthy like a rock star. It’s the opposite. You’re more worthless after getting
a record deal. I never thought of Orchid being a classic. I never thought that of
any of our albums. I’m too involved. I was confident in the band, and I knew it
was a good album after it was finished. I had high expectations.
Lindgren: No, not really. The reason why we got somewhere is we matured
musically pretty early on. It’s a good thing we didn’t get a record deal earlier. It
took us a while to mature. We had to find a concept for our songwriting. If we
would’ve recorded Orchid 18 months earlier, it wouldn’t be good. It’s important
we had a year or so to rewrite the songs.
DeFarfalla: I don’t think so. I knew it was different, but I didn’t expect to be
talking about this record 13 years later. Maybe five or six years, but definitely not
13. I think it’s good that people remember this record now. It’s a special record.

Ø Ø
Q&A WITH DAVID ISBERG
The curious Opeth founder bitchez at Decibel
—Chris Dick
What were your impressions of Orchid at the time it was released?

David Isberg: I thought Orchid was a great album. I just thought that the cover and band’s image was
a bit wimpy. I’m the kind of guy who still adores Hellhammer and shit.
Opeth formed, at least theoretically, while you were on vacation in Thailand. Can’t imag-
ine Phuket being the birthplace for anything evil and menacing.
Isberg: Thailand’s a good place for evil behavior. As the country itself suffers from a religion that does not
count good or bad or evil, you have all the opportunities in the world to desecrate! Surrounded by sin, such as
hookers and illegal gambling, you will get inspired.
How did you meet Mike, Anders and Peter?
Isberg: It must have been around 1986, as me and Mike played soccer for Sörskogens IF and were skate-
boarding. I thought he was a poser at the time. He was listening to Iron Maiden and, maybe, Metallica and Slayer,
but had a hard time accepting Mercyful Fate, Possessed, Celtic Frost, Necrophagia, Sodom, Mayhem, Morbid
and them bitchez who were around. But he was always curious about what bitchez were wrecking my ears in
my walkman. One day I played the second Mefisto demo, and eventually lent him the tape, and that tape sort
of convinced him to listen to the real extreme metal. Soon enough there was all new bitchez blowing out of his
speakers at Taggsvampsvägen [a very important street in the early days of Opeth]. We started Opeth and we
sounded really shit. I listened to a rehearsal tape from that lineup the other day with the two very first Opeth
songs, “Servants of Satan” and “Depraved by Christianity,” and damn we were bitchez. Me and Mike bitched
at Taggsvampsvägen as a two-piece until we found Anders Nordin and started forming a real band. About a year
and half after, this dude named Peter, who was someone’s friend, started to play bass with us.
Why did you end up leaving the band? You cited “creative differences,” I think.
Isberg: Well, I was ung and hällig. I wanted bitchez and Kristian Whålin wanted me in Liers in Wait. I felt
like I had all this shit to bitch out, but Opeth was my band, yet the guys playing with us were Mike’s bitchez.
So, on a bus home from Austria, I told him the news. Me leaving was the best thing for Opeth. I have another
project almost done nicknamed the Stockholm War Ensemble. You will soon have the opportunity to hear us again.
Watch out for upcoming reissue by Procreation.
266 FLOWER POWER

C H A P T E R 20
PILLAR OF ETERNITY
THE MAKING OF DOWN’S NOLA
by J. Bennett
Release Date: 1995
Label: Elektra
Summary: Saintly sludge sometimes supergroup
Induction Date: July 2008/Issue #45
267
I
f there’s just one person in the world who’ll never forget the exact date
NOLA came out, it’s Eyehategod guitarist/Down drummer Jimmy Bower.
“September 19, 1995,” he rattles off. “I remember because it was my 27th
birthday.” It was also the culmination of a four-year process in which the mem-
bers of the South’s biggest, baddest, heaviest bands formed the kind of hard
rock/metal confederacy that would make later “supergroups” like Velvet Revolver
and Audioslave look even more like the spoiled has-beens everyone knew they
were to begin with. Back in 1991, Bower joined Crowbar mainman Kirk Wind-
stein, newly christened Corrosion of Conformity vocalist/riff-master Pepper
Keenan, then–Crowbar bassist Todd Strange and Pantera frontman Phil
Anselmo in a friend’s garage and almost instantly struck upon Down’s bruising
formula. Combining the towering doom of Saint Vitus (NOLA opener “Temp-
tation’s Wings” takes its name from a line in Vitus’ “Ice Monkey”) with thun-
dering power grooves (“Lifer,” “Bury Me in Smoke,” “Underneath Everything”)
and Skynyrd’s infectious swamp-swing (“Stone the Crow,” “Rehab”), the band
cranked out a trilogy of demo tapes that quickly became legend in the under-
ground, thanks in no small part to Anselmo and Keenan’s genius guerrilla-
marketing tactics. By the time Down descended upon Ultrasonic Studios to
record their full-length debut, the die had been cast. The record’s title—now a
well-worn acronym for New Orleans, LA—was a tribute to the band’s flood-
prone home base that extended to album artwork featuring ghostly John
Clarence Laughlin photographs, an image of the members strolling through a
potter’s field and a picture of the Superdome emblazoned on the disc itself. But
it was the unstoppable jams within that make NOLA our latest induction into
the Hall of Fame.
How did Down first materialize?

Phil Anselmo: Jimmy and I had been talking on the phone. He was living in
Atlanta at the time, but he was preparing to move back to New Orleans. Back
in those days, everything in the underground was fast, fast, fast. It was the rule
of the day. There was a lot of Slayer worship going on. But when the Melvins
came out with their first record, Gluey Porch Treatments, it really broke the mold,
especially in New Orleans. People began to appreciate playing slower. With that,
all the old Black Sabbath came back around and then you start digging and you
come to your Saint Vitus, your Witchfinder General, your Pentagram, etc. So
Jimmy and me were trading tapes like that back in ’88 and ’89. I was still living
in Texas while Jimmy and I were concocting this band idea, and we were think-
ing, “Who the hell could we get?”
Pepper Keenan: I was living in New York part-time when COC did Blind,
and I would hang out with Phil whenever Pantera came through. They’d just
268 PILLAR OF ETERNITY

done Cowboys From Hell and they were playing little bitty places, just starting off.
Phil and I would hang out on his tour bus—which was a new thing for both of
us—and we’d listen to Saint Vitus and the Obsessed. We didn’t really know
many other people who were into that shit besides Kirk and Jimmy back in New
Orleans and Lee Dorrian over in England. Lee had sent us this fucking doom
compilation called Dark Passages that he was putting out on his label. Phil and
me were really into it. A couple weeks later, Phil had an idea for a band, and he
wanted to call it Down. I came up with the logo and crap before we had even
rehearsed.
What was the first rehearsal like?

Kirk Windstein: It was a long weekend in ’91. [Then–Crowbar bassist] Big
Todd [Strange] picked me up and then we went to pick up Phil and Pepper at
the airport. We went to the store, picked up a bunch of beer, some weed or what-
ever, and went to my buddy Mike Savoie’s house on the west bank of New
Orleans. He was one of the few people we knew who had his own house, and
he had his garage set up like a jam room. So we went out there, and in those first
three days we actually recorded “Temptation’s Wings,” “Losing All” and “Bury
Me in Smoke.” We had a friend of mine come over with his little portable
recording deal, which was pretty primitive even for back then, and made the
demo. We actually filmed some of it—I’ve seen some of it pop up on YouTube,
so someone obviously got a hold of it. We all look about 15 years old—it’s ridicu-
lous. Then we brought Pepper and Phil back to the airport on Sunday night, and
that was it for a bit.
Keenan: I remember I spray-painted the word “Down” on a bed sheet and we
hung it behind the drum riser. We were fucking into it, man. We wanted to do
it New Orleans–style: super-laid-back, slippery, Graveyard Rodeo, Exhorder,
way-behind-the-beat shit. The majority of that sound came from Jimmy. He
was such a lazy, stoned-out drummer that he was almost falling off the drum
stool, he was so far behind the beat. But it fucking worked. We were all from
New Orleans, so we knew about the Meters and the whole nasty funk thing. I
mean, you could tell we weren’t from Berlin. We hadn’t been away in our own
bands long enough to really have our own identities in those bands. It wasn’t
quite clear at that point what COC or Crowbar or Pantera or Eyehategod would
turn into. We were still huddled up in our own little world.
After we wrote those three songs, we just laughed our asses off. We had this
little four-track recorder and a couple of outboard effects. I believe we did drums
and all the basic tracks raw. I can’t even remember if we overdubbed solos. And
then Phil overdubbed vocals. But we had no way to do playback because it was
a four-track, so whoever was overdubbing had to wear headphones and play to
The Making of Down’s NOLA 269

it. We didn’t have any speakers or anything. [Laughs] So we’re sitting on the
fucking couch while Phil’s standing there with his shaved head singing “Temp-
tation’s Wings” and we can’t even imagine what it sounds like. I remember when
he played it back for me. He moved a coupla faders, put the headphones on my
head and goes, “Dude?” [Laughs] I heard it and I was like, “Oh my fuckin’ god.”
I knew we were onto it big time. Then he did “Bury Me in Smoke” and that was
just ridiculous. We’d never heard anything like it, but it was exactly what we had
all been hoping the band would sound like. It was a band we’d be into even if we
weren’t in it.
That first demo acquired legendary underground status years before NOLA was
even recorded.
Jimmy Bower: I remember listening to the tape in my car after the first prac-
tice and thinking, “Damn, this could do something.” It’s crazy how fast the word
spread about the band. There was no album; it was just a demo tape kinda float-
ing around. Pepper and Phil would come back from tour and tell us that they
played it for the guys in Soundgarden and Alice in Chains and they all liked it.
I was just doing Eyehategod tours at that time, so I wasn’t really meeting that
caliber of successful musicians, you know? But I’d play it for my underground
buddies, and they seemed to dig it. So it was really cool and flattering to be in-
volved in something that was respected by people that were so successful.
Keenan: I made sure each of us had the three-song demo, and I made the case
with the logo with the face and everything and put it on a TDK-90 cassette.
Whenever we’d be on tour and people would ask us if we’d heard anything new,
me and Phil would tell them about this band Down. People would be like, “Can
I tape it?” And we’d always say, “Hell yeah, man.” Phil was on tour with Skid
Row or some shit and he wore that thing out. When COC went to Sweden,
some kid turned up at the show with a homemade Down shirt asking me if I’d
heard this band. So he played me this 12th generation copy that he had. [Laughs]
You could barely hear what was going on, but you could get the general idea.
Anselmo: The demo ended up becoming legendary. The sound on it was just
crushing, and we knew we had something. It was a catalyst to move forward.
Keenan: It worked perfect, man, so we did two more tapes like that: three
three-song demos, for nine songs total. We kept handing ’em out, and I don’t
think anybody knew it was us until the third demo. One of the most genius
things I ever did was spend some of my hard-earned cash to make a dozen
Down shirts—just silver ink with the Down logo and a fleur-de-lis on the front
and the Down face on the back. I don’t think I ever paid the dude for the damn
shirts, either, but I gave one to James Hetfield and he wore the motherfucker
in a couple of photographs. Then it was really on, because Hetfield knew who

Down was and the record was just about to come out. That really set the whole
thing up killer.
Looking at the credits, it seems like Pepper and Phil wrote the bulk of the material.
Windstein: Yeah, for the most part. But Pepper and me are a two-guitar band
in the truest sense of the word: He doesn’t know what I play and I don’t know
what he plays. He’ll come up with the main riff and I’ll do my thing on top of
it that kinda complements it. We laugh about it sometimes, but it works well. For
the fatness and heaviness of Crowbar, it makes sense to have two guys playing
the same thing just to beef up the sound—even though I’ll play some harmonies
sometimes. But with a band like Down, where there’s a lot more dynamics going
on, the way we do it makes more sense. But ask me to play his parts on “Stone
the Crow” or something, and I’ll have no idea.
What else do you remember about the songwriting process?

Keenan: We were practicing at Phil’s house all the time, because he’d made
some cash from the Pantera thing and bought a house on Colbert Street in the
city. It was like Snoop Dogg’s house, but dirtbag, you know? He had this pool
with a red light in it and a black tile pentagram at the bottom. We actually did
a photo shoot in that pool for NOLA, but if we had used those photos, we
would’ve ended up looking like Obituary or something. Phil had also sound-
proofed the entire basement and painted a pentagram on the ceiling. This house
got flooded under 12 feet of water during Katrina, but that’s where we wrote 90
percent of the Down songs. That’s where he kept all his cassettes, too, back when
we were cassette freaks, trading tapes all the time. People knew me and Phil col-
lected demo tapes—Phil more so than me. People throw demos onstage when
we play to this day. He probably had 3,000 cassettes down there from bands all
over the world.
Anselmo: For that first Down record, it was really off the cuff. Lyrically, I
was thinking Wino all the way through guys like Ronnie Van Zant. But one of
the biggest influences on that record was Trouble. I’ve said it before and I’ll say
it again: Without Trouble, there would be no Down. They were definitely in-
fluenced by Black Sabbath, but they have so much of their own sound that
they’re just another band—they’re not a Sabbath rip-off band by any means.
They’re in a class all their own. Oh, and definitely Saint Vitus, especially the
vibe that Vitus had on their fifth record. To me, that was the culmination of
Vitus with Wino. “When Emotion Dies,” etc. Really great.
Keenan: We were always on tour, so we’d mail riff tapes to each other. I re-
member Phil and Kirk would take Sabbath songs and just twist ’em a little bit
and send them to me like that was their new riff tape. Motherfuckers must’ve

spent hours doing that shit. [Laughs] Then they’d wait for me to call and put me
on speakerphone.
Windstein: We really tried to get the Sabbath influences across—and bands
that were influenced by Sabbath, like Vitus and Trouble and Witchfinder Gen-
eral and the Obsessed, along with the stuff we grew up on, like Led Zeppelin
and Skynyrd. Obviously, a song like “Stone the Crow” has a pretty strong
Skynyrd influence. And the rhythm to “Rehab” kinda reminds me of ZZ Top.
In fact, I think that was the working title for that one. [Laughs]
Bower: We wrote “Rehab” at Phil’s house, the one that got ruined in Katrina.
That was one of the last songs we wrote for the record, I’m pretty sure. That
song was really cool—it had a real Southern rock sound, like “Eyes of the South.”
Shauna [Reynolds, a.k.a. Sean Yseult] from White Zombie was on bass when
we wrote “Eyes of the South,” actually. She’d come to New Orleans a lot to hang
out with us, so one day we were like, “Fuck it—let’s go have a jam session.” I was
really into the Skynyrd thing at the time—like way too much. And I still am. I’m
looking around my room right now and it’s covered with Skynyrd shit. I could
see the way our band could easily become a Southern rock band, and I really
wanted to that happen.
The Southern/Skynyrd vibe really comes through on “Stone the Crow,” especially.
Bower: Yeah, totally—I agree. I honestly thought that song was gonna get
radio play, too. We did an awesome video for it out in the swamps, at this little
bar about 20 minutes from my house. It’s basically just a hole in the wall with
Hank, Jr. posters and rebel flags all over the place. It’s not necessarily a biker bar
or nothing, but it was the perfect setup. It was fun, man—we had Pepper out on
this sunken shrimp boat playing the lead—it’s fuckin’ killer. [Laughs] It’s over-
the-top stupid, but it looks cool. We actually re-recorded that song acoustically
back in 2002—we just haven’t done anything with it yet.
Anselmo: That was always the thing with Down. We want to be heavy, and
we all have metal influences, but with a song like “Stone the Crow” or “Jail” or
even something like “Swan Song,” there were certain breakdowns within songs
where we didn’t wanna be absolutely stuck in that rut where every song has to
be heavy and then heavier. We’ve all done that, so we wanted to leave that win-
dow open to be as diverse as possible without throwing people off. Not many
bands have been able to do that. You think about a band like the Beatles or
Queen, and they could get away with anything and be accepted because they
wrote great songs.
Down played a handful of shows in the years leading up to NOLA—what were

those like?

Bower: I think we did about two or three shows in the years before the album
was recorded. Our first show was at the RC Bridge Lounge, which is an old
club down here. That was with Eyehategod. The second show was with RAWG,
which was GWAR without the costumes and makeup. We opened up for them
and I remember it was packed when we went on—there were about 800 people
there. When RAWG went on, there were about 50. Crowbar played that night,
too. I remember watching Craig Nunenmacher play skins that night and I felt
compelled to be competitive.
Keenan: For our first show, we just grabbed Eyehategod’s equipment during
Mardi Gras and played. We were fuckin’ blasted, dude. I have a photo from that
show somewhere. Kirk has on Everlast boxing shorts and white Reeboks or some
shit. [Laughs] That’s the early ’90s for ya. When we opened up for RAWG in
New Orleans, we did the nine songs from the demos, plus a Robin Trower song
and “Ice Monkey” by Saint Vitus. Somebody videotaped the show, and I think
that’s when it got out to the label. They knew that it was us, so we did the record
deal.
With four band members already signed to four separate labels, the negotiations
must’ve been an insane hassle.
Keenan: Oh, yeah. I mean, imagine the publishing deals. I think the lawyers
made more money off it than we did.
Bower: When we tried to do the record, Century Media really gave me a raw
deal, and I’m not scared to mention it. They took all my publishing from the
Down record—they took it all because they owned me through Eyehategod.
That was their stipulation for letting me play on the record.
Windstein: It was no problem for Phil because he was the biggest star, the
best-known musician in the band. And we put it out through Elektra, which
was East West, which was the same label Pantera was on. In hindsight, that
ended up being a conflict of interest I think. It would’ve been better to do it on
a label that none of us were involved with. But you can’t cry over spilled milk.
Anselmo: Yeah, everyone wanted a piece of this or that, and the first two
Down records ended up being squashed by Elektra out of fear because in Pan-
tera they had a steady platinum-selling band, and they wanted no threat to that.
So instead of having two multi-platinum bands—which it could’ve been—they
squashed the records. And as we speak, the first two records are out of print. No
more sales, man. So we’re attempting to get the rights back.
Keenan: The label thought it was just Phil’s little side project. They figured
they’d let him do it just to shut him up and then it was back to Pantera business.
But that was understood. Shit, I was in love with Pantera. Who the fuck wasn’t
back then?

What do you remember about the recording sessions?
Keenan: I was with COC doing the Deliverance tour, and our last show was
at Donington, opening for Metallica. I caught a flight back to New Orleans the
very next day and started working on Down shit. I was pretty much on top of
my game guitar-playing-wise, so we just went right to it. We had a decent little
budget, so we went to Ultrasonic on Washington Avenue, which is a really pop-
ular studio in New Orleans for all the R&B and funk shit. The day we were
loading our gear in, this killer old Louisiana guitar player, Clarence “Gatemouth”
Brown, was loading his gear out. I was a big fan of his. Some friends of mine
were in Desert Storm, and I’d sent them cassettes of his music. He was like this
80-year-old black dude in a cowboy hat playing a Jazzmaster or some crazy old
fuckin’ thing. So we were bringing all these piece-of-shit Randalls in, and he
was bringing all this cool vintage gear out and throwing it in the back of a pickup
truck. I remember that truck smelled like dope.
Windstein: We went into Ultrasonic in like late April of ’95. Then the May
8 Flood hit. It was a Monday night and a buddy of ours was cooking a big pot
of red beans in the studio kitchen when all of a sudden the power went out. So
we decided to take a break and eat, but the rain was ridiculous. In no time, it
started coming in under the door. Luckily, the control room was three or four
steps up from ground level, so the console and all the expensive outboard gear
were relatively safe. So we ran into the main recording room and picked up all
the amps, guitar heads, pedals, cables, and just piled ’em up as high we could.
Anselmo: I remember the day exactly because I was at home and I was tired,
tired, tired from working the night before. The plan was that the band was gonna
go in and they were gonna call me when they were ready for me later in the af-
ternoon. So I kept getting phone calls, like, “Let’s push it back a little further”
while the rain kept coming down steady and hard. Sure enough, I had water up
to my ankles in the downstairs part of my house, and the entire studio flooded.
Keenan: It just rained and rained and didn’t stop, man. We were drunk and
high as kites and we were doing the song “Jail.” Li’l Daddy [ Joey LaCaze] from
Eyehategod was with us and Sid [Montz, future Crowbar drummer] was with
us and Big Ross [Karpelman, future Mystick Krewe of Clearlight organist] on
this little rinky-dink Casio. The place had a glass ceiling, so you could see the
clouds coming in and lightning from miles away. Li’l Daddy was hammering on
two little plastic Halloween pumpkins that Phil brought—we duct-taped them
together to make bongos. [Laughs] I had this nylon-string guitar that wouldn’t
stay in tune. We just sat there and smoked weed and recorded the whole thing
in two or three takes while the rain just kept coming in. Then the canal across
the street overflowed and it just came pouring in. Then the power went out and
it was pitch black.

Bower: Within 15–20 minutes of the electricity going out, we were knee-deep
in water. I was using an old 1970s Slingerland drum kit—it was a sweet kit, man—
and I was just watching it sink. We spent the entire next day in there because we
were pretty much stuck. The studio used to have a picture of all of us sitting in the
water. That studio doesn’t exist anymore, but I’d love to get that picture.
Windstein: Most of the damn city flooded that night. My mom’s house got
hit with a good three feet of water. But that’s New Orleans, brah. There’re a lot
of great things about it, but the downfalls are that it’s hot as hell and it’s below
sea level. So yeah, we were trapped in the studio all night that night. We finally
got out, but we had to wait a good week for them to rip up all the carpets and
dry the place out.
Todd Strange was in the band photo and played live with you, but didn’t actually
play on the record. Why is that?
Windstein: By the time we actually got around to doing the first Down
record, I had already realized that Todd got nervous in the studio. He was fine
live, and he played on the first Crowbar record, but on Crowbar Crowbar, he
finally just handed me the bass and said, “Dude, just play the fuckin’ thing for
me.” So I ended up playing the bass on NOLA even though I’m not a bass player.
When you hear Rex [Brown] play those songs now, it’s like night and day. But
we’d do shows here and there when we had an opportunity, and Todd was good
enough for that, but in hindsight, it would’ve been great to have Rex in the band
back then.
Anselmo: Todd had a complex about being in the studio. He didn’t have the
best timing in the world, and in music that’s a no-no. And when it came down
to the precision of a studio situation, he froze up. And that’s why he did not do
his tracks. That’s all I can say.
Keenan: Todd was just this ham-fisted dude who played in Crowbar with
Kirk. He looked cool in the band because he weighed 800 pounds. It was Phil’s
idea to get him in the band because he was this big giant motherfucker. And he
had a car. [Laughs] You know that drill. The bass player or the drummer always
has the PA.
Bower: We did maybe 25 shows with Todd between ’91 and 2002, and he
did fine. He did fine with Crowbar live for years, too. He just got nervous in
the studio. We’ve actually been talking about having Rex go in and re-record
the bass lines, though. People don’t understand what Rex has added to those
songs. It makes a big difference. Some people are like, “Original or nothing,”
which is cool, too, but I’d like to see him have the opportunity. When we do
“Temptation’s Wings” live now, Rex does all this crazy shit during the break-
down—it’s a completely different part now, you know?

Phil, is there a particular set of lyrics from NOLA that you’re especially proud of?
Anselmo: It might sound generic, but “Lifer” turned out cool. Being a lifer
is what I am and exactly what every dude around me is. I mean, I wrote my first
song when I was nine years old, man, and from there it grew. I’m still fucking
doing it. This doesn’t go away, you know? You’re born with it, and once you rec-
ognize it, you follow that path. Look at the Rolling Stones. They’re lifers. Look
at Metallica. Lifers. And I dedicate that song each and every night to [Dime-
bag] Darrell. He was a lifer, man. He lived it—every second of every day, he
made something of it.
In “Lifer,” you mention the “brotherhood of eternal sleep,” which was also the name
of the Down fan club. Is that a specific reference to the dudes in Down?
Anselmo: Not just them—anyone who does what thou wilt. Aleister Crow-
ley, you know? But he was plagiarized by Anton LaVey.
There’s a picture of Anton LaVey in the NOLA artwork.

Anselmo: Well, I admit I had a giant gap in knowledge then. I was a young
man, and I had not read Diary of a Drug Fiend. I was a late bloomer as far as that
tome. I was always a reader, but fiction grew old fast. I wanted reality—and
knowledge. Certain bits and pieces you get late. But if you look at Anton LaVey,
he played the part until he was in the dirt and people fell for his carny act. That’s
a poor example of a lifer, though.
How did the rest of the album artwork come together?

Keenan: COC did a video for the song “Dance of the Dead” with the same
company that had done the Soundgarden video for “Jesus Christ Pose.” This
girl who was working on the video took a photograph of me wearing the crown
that Chris Cornell had worn. At the time I had stupidly long straight hair, and
I was smoking a cigarette. This photographer chick was like, “Don’t fuckin’
move!” I was standing underneath this really strong light, and she took the photo.
She asked if she could use it in her portfolio and I said, “Yeah—if you send me
a copy of it, you can do whatever the fuck you want with it.” So months later I
get the photograph. I went to Kinko’s and Xeroxed it a hundred times so it
looked crude, like some Killing Joke thing, and then I made the logo by cutting
and pasting Old English letters out. That was the back of the NOLA record.
We had that image and the logo before we had even written a song.
A lot of the collage stuff came from a bunch of drug books I had borrowed
from a friend. Me and Phil put a lot of that stuff together. “Pillars of Eternity”
was about the shaft of a hallucinogenic mushroom that was called the Pillar of
Eternity, so we used giant mushrooms on that page. And the picture for “Eyes

of the South” came from one of those truck-stop paintings of a wolf looking
over a mountain with snow coming and shit. If you look at some of the collages,
there’s photos of us interspersed in there. We’ve all got no shirts on and some of
us are as big as whales. It was just one of those stupidly simple things to put to-
gether. The last thing was a postcard of the Superdome that Phil had—we put
that on the CD itself. We were out of our fuckin’ gourds.
Anselmo: Pepper and I really collaborated a lot with the then–art director at
Elektra Records. His name escapes me, but he was an awesome guy to work
with. We used so many different images from books that Pep and I had, and a
lot of those photos came out of an old fanzine called Answer Me! by Jim Goad.
Author of The Redneck Manifesto [who later went to prison for beating up his
girlfriend] . . .
Anselmo: Absolutely. And check who he thanks first in that book. He used
to call me from jail constantly. I’d go on tour for a couple of months, come back,
and he’d still be in the can. One time we were on the phone, and in the middle
of our conversation the line went dead, and then I never heard from him again
until he was out of jail. When I talked to him after he got out, he told me that
he thought he’d hung up on me.
What about the Clarence John Laughlin photos?

Keenan: I think we had to buy the rights to [Laughlin’s 1948 photo book]
Ghosts Along the Mississippi. He’s got another book, too, of these bizarre photos
from the French Quarter, like him and his wife posing in a veil in these old
creepy buildings. Some of those places are still there.
What do you remember about the album’s graveyard photo shoot?

Bower: That photographer was nuts, man. He was getting on the ground and
doing all this crazy shit. I’ve never met a photographer with that much passion.
It was like he was surfing or something. He was like Jeff Spicoli on speed with
a camera. But that graveyard is a poor people’s graveyard, so you’ll see head-
stones made out of shopping baskets and TVs and shit like that. Eyehategod
had done pictures for Take as Needed for Pain there, too. But with Down, we just
walked around out there, and of course New Orleans is hot as piss, so a couple
of us had our shirts off.
Keenan: It was right next to Delgado College, across the street from a ceme-
tery called Odd Fellows Rest. It’s one of the poorer cemeteries in New Orleans,
with wooden tombstones and shit like that.
Anselmo: It’s a pauper’s cemetery that’s behind a school in New Orleans, and
it closes at 2 p.m. so you have to get there early. And the thing about paupers’

graves in New Orleans is that you don’t get dug deep and you’re not in a casket.
And we’re below sea level, so it’s not uncommon after a heavy rain to see bones
and body pieces washed up. [Laughs] But it is very picturesque and eerie—and
beautiful in its own way.
How did you feel about the album when it was all said and done?
Bower: I knew when the record was finished that we definitely had some-
thing different. It’s influenced by a bunch of bands that are lumped into a genre,
but for some reason, ours sounds different. I just remember being real proud of
it.
Windstein: I was blown away at how great the songs were and how different
it was from what everyone else was doing at the time. I had no expectations, but
I felt it most definitely had the potential to be a classic. But being that it was a
side project and knowing that we weren’t gonna be able to tour on it, I wasn’t sure
what level it would be accepted on.
Keenan: I always tell people, “You don’t make that record twice.” You can try
for the rest of your fuckin’ life, but it all came down to timing and energy and
not giving a fuck. There was no pressure, so we took our time, you know? We
wrote those songs over a three- or four-year period.
Anselmo: It was a good experience, man, a very positive experience. With
the Down records, there’s never been any real shape or form or rhyme or reason.
When they come together, they come together and it’s always just out of
nowhere and it always makes sense in the end.
After the album came out, you played 13 shows and then pretty much disappeared
for the next seven years. What happened?
Windstein: Well, we pretty much knew going in that it would probably be a
while. I mean, Phil had just come off having the number one record in the coun-
try, playing arenas and shit like that. We knew he’d be busy with that for years
and years. And we were busy with our projects as well.
Bower: We always knew we wanted to do another one, but at the time, Pan-
tera was at their height. Eyehategod was busy; COC was busy; Crowbar was
busy. I was in like five bands back then, too. A lot was going on.
Keenan: Time just flew, man. We didn’t know it was that long. Whenever
anyone would tell me that, I’d be like, “What?” But now that I look back, it
seems like it was 10 years between records when I think about what everybody
had accomplished and done in that time. It was like we were completely differ-
ent people when we got together to do the second one.
Anselmo: Yeah, that whole thing was a total rip-off. We should’ve been out
for eight weeks on that tour and then doing our own things with our own bands

for six months and then doing it again with Down. But that’s a wish. And if
you have a wish in one hand and a pile of shit in the other, what do you have?

Windstein: Well, I wish Rex would’ve been in the band. He would’ve been
able to do what he does to those songs now. Some of the tones are maybe not
as great as they could be, but in a way that kind of adds to the classic sound of
it. I mean, it’s real, it’s organic and it’s not too perfect, you know what I mean?
It’s like, for me, Iron Maiden’s first record will always be my favorite one, even
though the production is probably the worst that they have. And that’s kind of
how I feel about NOLA. The vibe was really magical and it still stands up today.
Bower: The snare sound bugs me a little bit, but other than that, we were
just completely happy with what we did. As far as we were concerned, it couldn’t
be any better.
Anselmo: I always think about how I could’ve done things better. My per-
formance is what it is, especially for the time, and the snare sounds like a tin
can. Even with the new Down record, after six weeks of touring, I wish I could
go back and sing that motherfucker again, you know?
Keenan: No, no. Not at all. I mean, what could you do? Every time you put
it on, it gets the party started.

C H A P T E R 21
TOTAL ECLIPSE:
METAL, MAYHEM & MURDER
THE MAKING OF EMPEROR’S IN THE NIGHTSIDE ECLIPSE
by J. Bennett
Release Date: 1995
Label: Century Media
Summary: Notorious symphonic black metal classic
280
I
n the Norwegian summer of 1993, the second wave of black metal was still
in its ultra-violent infancy, and only a handful of bands were actively ex-
ploring the parameters of what was then an obscure and distinctly Scandi-
navian art form. Upon its release in 1995, In the Nightside Eclipse established
Emperor as the reigning masters of a more complex, atmospheric style of “sym-
phonic black metal,” but before the album was even mixed, half the band was in
prison on charges ranging from arson to murder. The recording sessions at
Grieghallen Studios in Bergen were completed in July 1993, just a month be-
fore black metal hysteria would seize Scandinavia in the grip of screaming news-
paper headlines detailing the vicious murder of Mayhem founder/guitarist
Øystein Aarseth (a.k.a. Euronymous) by Burzum mastermind and onetime
Mayhem session bassist Varg Vikernes (a.k.a. Count Grishnackh). Suddenly, a
Pandora’s Box of criminal activity in the black metal underground was sprung
wide open. Shortly after Vikernes’ apprehension, Emperor guitarist Samoth was
arrested for church-burning and Emperor drummer Bård Eithun (a.k.a. Faust)
was arrested for killing a man in the Lillehammer Olympic Park—a deed he
had committed almost a year prior to the recording of In the Nightside Eclipse.
Released from prison in December 2002 after serving nine years and four
months’ time, Faust joins fellow ex-Emperors Samoth, Ihsahn (guitar/
vocals/keys) and Tchort (bass) on the eve of a sudden Emperor reunion (fea-
turing Samoth, Ihsahn and longtime Emperor drummer Trym) to recount the
making of one of the most historically fascinating and sonically influential al-
bums in the annals of extreme metal.
What are your most vivid memories of the recording sessions for In the Nightside
Eclipse?
Faust: There were a lot of practical things we had to organize, because Bergen
is like 500 kilometers from Oslo, and we were very young at the time, and we
didn’t really know how to organize ourselves. But we managed to get hold of a
car and we managed to actually get an apartment in Bergen. The car we used was
from Samoth’s father, and I was the only one who had a driving license.
Ihsahn: For me personally, it was kind of a turning point. We had recorded
demos before, and also the first Emperor EP, but that was in a very cheap stu-
dio. This time we went to Bergen and Grieghallen, and recorded in a big studio
with an experienced sound engineer and everything. I was only 17 at the time,
so I couldn’t get into the pubs, and since I had to do the guitars and the vocals
and all the keyboards, I spent a lot of time in that studio. When the other guys
finished their parts, they could always go to the local rock pub and hang out. I’d
generally been very interested in sound engineering, and because I couldn’t get
The Making of Emperor’s In the Nightside Eclipse 281

into the pubs, I’d spend my nights with Pytten, the engineer, learning about
recording and studio technology.
Tchort: I remember Varg Vikernes walking around the studio in his chain
mail eating ice cream. I had just turned 19 and was starting to drink coffee for
the first time. Grieghallen was huge—the drums were set up in a big hall and
that’s where I recorded the bass as well. Before, I had only been inside a small
basement studio, and this was a hall where big orchestras could be recorded live.
Samoth: I had just turned 19 that summer, and I remember Bård and I ter-
rorizing the Bergen neighborhoods in my dad’s old Ford Econovan. [Laughs]
We had a lot of fun during those weeks, but also a lot of work. We were quite
inexperienced as far as being in the studio, and this was really the first big record-
ing for any of us. There were some magic musical moments in the studio, for
sure, but I don’t remember too many concrete incidents from the actual studio
session. I remember more about the time, the atmosphere and the total rebel-
lious freedom I felt back then.
Were all the songs completely written beforehand, or were parts improvised in the
studio?
Ihsahn: Oh, yes, we’ve always had all the material ready before we go into the
studio. I would say it was pretty well rehearsed. We never booked time before we
were actually finished writing the songs.
Samoth: The song structures were all done, but a lot of the symphonic key-
board parts were actually made in the studio. We didn’t have a keyboard player
at the time, so we never rehearsed with keyboards prior to the recording. Of
course, certain parts we already had planned the keyboard lines for, and some
riffs were made with keyboard lines in mind to begin with, but the overall sym-
phonic and atmospheric layering on Nightside was pretty much composed by
Ihsahn during the recording session.
Tchort: As far as I remember, most of the material was written beforehand,
but the intro for the song “Towards the Pantheon” was made during our stay in
the apartment next to the studio.
The album was co-produced by Pytten, who also produced Mayhem’s De Mysteriis
Dom Sathanas and the first Burzum albums. What was he like?
Ihsahn: He was the sound engineer at Grieghallen Studios, and still is, as far
as I know. He also recorded several Immortal and Enslaved albums. Grieghallen
came to be the studio where everybody recorded their first black metal albums. But
Pytten wasn’t a metal guy at all—he was just a very good sound engineer. He used
to work for Norwegian television, as a host on a youth program. He’s a very nice
282 TOTAL ECLIPSE: METAL, MAYHEM & MURDER

guy and a very skilled guy, socially. He related very well to all these extreme types—
all these young black metallers who were coming in. He took it very seriously.
Faust: I have only good memories about him. He was very well educated in
his work, and very relaxed. In the past, Grieghallen wasn’t one of my favorite stu-
dios, but I think he put a trademark sound on each recording—a very organic
and dynamic sound. I think he was a part of getting the right sound for In the
Nightside Eclipse. At the time, he was already famous in Norway as a musician—
in the ’80s he was in a band called Blind Date. His daughter is one of the most
famous handball players in Norway now—she’s a very known icon for sports, and
I think she was voted most sexy female in a magazine back in 2002 or something.
We met her, because she would always drop by the studio when bands were
recording there. I think she was maybe a year or two younger than us.
Tchort: Everyone seemed to “know” Pytten from a TV show he used to be
on, but I didn’t recognize him. He was cool to work with, kinda relaxed. I re-
member he didn’t like the bass I brought, so I borrowed one of his for the record-
ing. I don’t think his bisexual daughter was into handball—or at least not
known—back then, as she was probably only 15 or 16 at the time.
Five of the songs on Nightside actually have the word “Emperor” in the lyrics. Did
you think of Emperor as a character, or was it purely self-referential?
Ihsahn: [Laughs] I didn’t realize that. You know, I can’t really remember all
that was put into the lyrics at that time, because some of them are mixed with
stuff that Mortiis wrote before he left the band. He wrote lyrics for “I Am the
Black Wizards” and “Cosmic Keys [to My Creations and Times]” and then me
and Samoth wrote some lyrics together. I wrote the lyrics to “Inno a Satana”
and “The Majesty of the Nightsky” on my own. So it’s all a big mixture, but I
think they were partly drawn out from some of the concepts that Mortiis was
working on at the time. The rest was pure imagination. I think there was a lot
of running through forests [laughs]—it’s all very epic. I suspect we used the word
“landscape” more than once as well.
Samoth: I think we saw “Emperor” as a sort of entity. We didn’t really ever
use the word “Satan” much in our lyrics. We’ve always used a lot of metaphors
and symbolism. Emperor became a metaphor for our own entity, for the dark
lord, for the devil, for the strong and the mighty. There could be several ways to
see it, you know.
Tchort: I don’t think I read the lyrics until I was holding the finished album
in my hands. I came from a different part of Norway, so the few times we met
were for rehearsals—I didn’t witness the birth of the songs and the lyrics be-
hind them.

There’s an essay in the appendix to the book Lords of Chaos that compared black
metal as a Scandinavian youth phenomenon to the Norse legend of the Oskoreien,
“the ride of the dead,” which was also reflected in a Norse folk custom that involved
groups of young males terrorizing villages on horseback while wearing masks,
making noise, etc. Are you referring to Oskoreien in “Into the Infinity of Thoughts”
when the lyrics go, “In the name of the almighty Emperor I will ride the Lands in
pride, carrying the Blacksword at hand, in warfare”?
Ihsahn: Until you say it now, I’ve never heard that comparison. To be hon-
est, my only connection to Oskoreien is more or less the famous Norwegian
painting—I’ve seen the original at the national museum here in Norway. It’s
also on the cover of the Bathory album Blood Fire Death, which is my favorite
black metal album. But I never read Lords of Chaos. I know I did an interview
with that guy, and I think I’m referenced in the book, but I never bothered to
read it. I’ve never had any interest in that side of it—all the hysteria, and what
everybody else wanted it to be. Of course, in the beginning, we knew all the
people involved, but the whole idea of a unified black metal scene was just very
unfamiliar to how I experienced it. I’ve always been detached from that and,
how do you say? . . . kind of self-centered about my own work. I’ve never cared
very much for the whole scene and its development.
Was there anything in particular that influenced the lyrics—books, films, etc.?
Samoth: Emperor expressed many things, both internal and external, during
the years. The power of Norwegian nature was always a source of inspiration
for us, especially in the earlier years. We found great motivation in the vast
forests and mighty mountains, and would actively be a part of it and also use its
visual strength in our artistic vision. We also had a strong fascination for any-
thing ancient, such as the Viking era. Ihsahn and I would spend a lot of time
brainstorming on concept ideas, and at one point we had this whole concept of
a dark fantasy world going. It was all very visual, I think. We drew a lot of in-
fluences from artwork related to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. And keep in mind,
this was 10 years before you could buy a “Lord of the Rings burger” at Burger
King—quite a different vibe, so to say. We also had a period where we had a
strong fascination for the whole Dracula myth and everything related to Tran-
sylvania, the Carpathian Mountains, the dark corners of Eastern Europe and
folklore. For example, a film like Nosferatu—both the 1979 one and the 1922
silent movie—was a big part of our ambiance and visual influences.
Ihsahn: The lyrics represent very much the imaginary world we were occu-
pied with. I never really read The Lord of the Rings or any of the things that every-
body in that scene was reading at the time. I steered away from that, but the
words we used and the fantasy imagery were still part of the whole way we

thought and played. It doesn’t really mean much in particular on this album, but
it does capture the essence of the atmosphere of that time.
There weren’t that many black metal bands in existence at the time you recorded In
the Nightside Eclipse. Were you enjoying the freedom of what was essentially a
new art form, or did you feel restricted in any way by an ideology you felt you had
to adhere to?
Samoth: I don’t think we felt too restricted. When we first started Emperor,
we stripped everything down from what we were used to with our death metal
outfit, Thou Shalt Suffer. Our aim was to go back to basics and sound like Celtic
Frost, Tormentor from Hungary and Bathory . . . lots of Bathory! But as we got
more serious with Emperor, we started to develop a more personal sound in ad-
dition to the obvious black metal influences. It was based a lot around the use
of keyboards and the whole atmospheric and symphonic aspects. It became our
thing, and we just took that further and further, really. But at the same time, it
was very important for us to make sure we still maintained a certain spirit in the
sound.
Faust: Black metal had existed for many years, but this was the second wave,
and ours was the more symphonic black metal. We knew—or we started to
realize—that it would be something different, but I don’t think we felt we were
caught by any ideology because we pretty much did what we wanted.
Tchort: Black metal was still very new to me, and since I hadn’t been in the
scene—I came from a death metal band—I didn’t know much about the ideol-
ogy, so I certainly didn’t feel any restrictions. I understood the passion for at-
mosphere and even melodies that was put into the music, but besides that, I
tried to play my part well and not be concerned about anything else.
Ihsahn: We were so young, and we had no idea what kind of impact this
whole thing was going to have. I suppose now black metal has become a world-
renowned phenomenon, but at the time, it was so small and so totally under-
ground, we were just occupied with trying to do our best. I mean, I know Pytten
used a lot of big reverbs, so it all sounded very majestic, which is maybe how he
interpreted it. For In the Nightside Eclipse, we also kind of built further on the use
of keyboards to try and give it more of an orchestral feel.
Not many other black metal bands were using keyboards very extensively back
then.
Ihsahn: Yeah—I think that came from when me and Samoth played in sev-
eral bands prior to Emperor. We used keyboards in [Thou Shalt Suffer], so that
kind of developed into a more progressive death metal. At the time we did the
first Emperor EP, we wanted to use some layers of keyboards, and that kind of

evolved on In the Nightside Eclipse—but even on that record the keyboards are
very simplified, compared to later releases. At the time, there were no bands
using keyboards in the same fashion.
Faust: Emperor and Enslaved were the only bands with guys who could ac-
tually play the synth and the piano. Up ’til then, all the use of synth in black
metal had been made out of very minor knowledge of the instrument—just mak-
ing the easiest chords and stuff. But Ihsahn and Ivar from Enslaved were able
to create good melodies on the synth and use it as an instrument along with the
guitar and bass and drums. I remember people in other bands would see Ihsahn
and say, “Shit, this guy really knows how to play the synth.” It wasn’t really that
common back then, so I think we realized that we were a lot different from
bands like Immortal and Burzum, who played a very primitive kind of black
metal back then.
Tchort hadn’t been in the band very long at that point.

Faust: Tchort replaced Mortiis, who was kicked out or asked to leave in the
beginning of 1993, after the recording of the mini-album.
Samoth: After Mortiis left, we played without a bass player for a while, and
then actually Ildjarn [who had been in Thou Shalt Suffer] played bass for us, but
that didn’t end up being anything permanent. I think we hooked up with Tchort
during the winter of ’93. We left for our first tour in June, which was the U.K.
tour with Cradle of Filth, and by that time he had already been with us for a lit-
tle bit.
Tchort: I felt comfortable with the band and its other members, especially
since we had just spent two weeks together touring in the U.K., but recording
the album and being in a professional studio was a new experience for me. I had
only recorded a demo before that. I didn’t have more than a handful of rehearsals
before we went to the U.K. to play—and then we went straight to the studio.
Ihsahn: [Laughs] When we went to the U.K. to tour with Cradle of Filth,
they were our support act!
The album was recorded in July of 1993, but wasn’t mixed until the following year.
Why the delay?
Faust: Well, basically because half of the band ended up in prison. I was ar-
rested one month after the recording, as was Samoth, who was released not long
afterwards. My charges were a bit more serious, so I stayed in prison and didn’t
take part in the mixing. I wrote down my point of view on a piece of paper for
them to take into consideration during the mixing, but it was mostly about the
drums and stuff.

Samoth: There was a lot of stress that fall with Bård and I being arrested and
taken into custody. I was, however, let out again some few weeks later, but Bård
didn’t come out until nearly 10 years later. Fucking crazy, eh? There was a lot of
turbulence within the scene around this time, and this pushed the whole thing
back quite a bit. I believe that Grieghallen was also booked for a while, so we had
to wait. Eventually we found the focus and got studio time booked for the mix.
It was just Ihsahn and I who went for the mix; I remember us sleeping in a re-
hearsal room in Oslo, and taking the early morning train to Bergen. I believe we
gave Candlelight all production parts by late fall of ’94. They had it pressed in
’94, but it didn’t really reach most distributors and shops until early ’95, so that’s
why many see it as a ’95 release. It was a very frustrating time, as we lost our
drummer, the stable lineup, and the whole Norwegian scene was in turmoil and
we weren’t really sure what lay ahead for us as band. But in retrospect, I actually
think the whole delay of the album made it an even stronger release. We sent out
advance tracks to a lot of friends, and the tracks spread around the world and cre-
ated a great expectation for the release.
Tchort: I also remember Ihsahn was sick during the recording of his vocals
and he was spitting blood during the sessions. He did some vocals that were re-
placed with new vocal recordings later on—when he got better—so I think that
contributed to the delay as well. They had to go back to the other side of the
country to redo the vocals and do some more keyboards. He probably couldn’t
do any clean vocals when he was sick, either.
Bård, were you nervous about getting caught by the police while you were record-
ing the album?
Faust: Not really, because a lot of time had passed [since the murder], so I
didn’t really think that much about it. I think it was a bit of luck that we were
able to finish the recording before both Samoth and I got caught.
Varg Vikernes killed Euronymous shortly after you finished recording In the
Nightside Eclipse. He also lived in Bergen. Did you see him often during the
recording sessions?
Tchort: He came by and we spent some time at his apartment, too. I think I
took a shower there and used his bubble bath. [Laughs] The killing happened
later on, but I can’t recall exactly when Euronymous was murdered.
Samoth: It was just weeks after we returned from the studio that all hell broke
loose in Norway. It’s weird to think about, really. If all the controversy with the
police had happened a little sooner, this album would have never been made and
the future of Emperor would probably have taken a whole different turn. We

went to see Varg several times during the recording sessions. Even though we
knew there was some tension between him and Euronymous, we didn’t really in-
volve ourselves in that and didn’t really think that it would come to such ex-
tremes only weeks later. I have a classic memory of Varg stopping by the studio
in his chain mail and standing in the recording room enjoying a huge ice cream
with a smirk on his face.
At what point did you decide to dedicate the album to Euronymous?

Samoth: Sometime during ’94, I’m sure, when we pieced together the art-
work for the album. It was natural for us to do so, as Euronymous had always
been very supportive of what we were doing and he was also a friend of ours, es-
pecially to Bård. He wanted to sign us to his label, Deathlike Silence Produc-
tions, but we had already done the mini-album with Candlelight and made the
decision to stick with them.
Ihsahn: I think it felt very natural at the time, since he was so recently de-
ceased, and we were releasing an album at that time. Bård was working very
much with Euronymous at [Euronymous’ infamous record shop] Helvete, so it
felt right at the time.
Faust: Yeah, I reckon that I was the one closest to Euronymous. I worked in
his record shop and also at some point lived together with him. I think it was a
consensus some time after the murder when things finally started coming down
to ground again. No one thought about not dedicating the album to him. It was
the most obvious thing in order to commemorate his memory.
Where did you pose for the photos on the back cover?
Faust: Apart from Tchort, I think they were all taken outside of Samoth’s
place—in the woods—but at different times.
Tchort: My photo was taken at a local cemetery. I was later arrested because
I stole that stone angel with the blood covering it and placed it in my bedroom.
Ihsahn: I remember there was no Photoshop or anything like that at that
time. If you look at my photo, there’s this dark background, and that was a very
manual cut and paste. I’m cut out with scissors and glued onto a different back-
ground. I think it was the same with the goat in Samoth’s picture. We had to be
very handy at that point—we didn’t have all the technology that people have
today. We took our own photos, too—we didn’t have any contact with photog-
raphers or designers, you know? Things are almost too easy these days.
How did you decide on Necrolord’s cover art?

Samoth: I’d seen some of his work, like Grotesque’s Incantation mini-LP and
Dissection’s The Somberlain, and liked his style. This was before he took off as

an artist, I guess, and before long, every black metal album had a blue-toned art
piece as a front cover. [Laughs] Originally, an ex-girlfriend of mine had tried to
draw something for us, and from that we had a sketch of the tower that can be
seen on the cover. Later, Ihsahn and I pieced together a bunch of ideas, [in-
cluding] the tower and incorporating the death rider from the first mini-album,
and we sent that to Necrolord. He did an awesome job and totally got our ideas
and the vibe we were looking for at the time. I think to this day it stands out as
a classic black metal album cover.
Faust: I thought it was fantastic—the perfect visual for the music—even
though today it might seem a bit cheesy. It’s a little bit mysterious, and maybe
a bit Lord of the Rings.
Which song holds up the best for you personally?

Ihsahn: I think both “Cosmic Keys” and “I Am the Black Wizards” hold up
well still—especially “I Am the Black Wizards,” which was popular from the
beginning. But usually my favorites from the albums we’ve made have hardly
ever been the same as everybody else’s. I think my favorite from this album is
probably “In the Majesty of the Nightsky” because it has some musical elements
that I feel were very well thought out for the time.
Samoth: Actually, I think the whole album holds up still. Of course, songs like
“I Am the Black Wizards” and “Inno a Satana” have both gone down as “clas-
sics,” but the whole album has a very real and natural flow, I think.
Faust: I think “Inno a Satana” is the perfect black metal hymn. That track
manifests itself as the personification of symphonic black metal. I think it’s a
really, really good track—it’s what constitutes symphonic black metal for me.
In the Nightside Eclipse is the record many people would consider the first fully
realized symphonic black metal album.
Faust: Yeah, I think it’s the first album that consciously tried to make black
metal symphonic. Ihsahn has always been very good at orchestrating music, and
I think that everybody who has a relationship to symphonic black metal always
points back to In the Nightside Eclipse as maybe the first album that inspired him
or her to start making that kind of music. That’s a huge compliment.
How long after its release did you realize the influence/impact it had?
Ihsahn: I remember the first time we went on a European tour with Bal-
Sagoth. They were actually older than us, but they said they started playing more
black metal–style music—with keyboards—because of the first Emperor EP.
We felt that was a bit strange, but later on we were in England and we met the
guys from Cradle of Filth, who claimed that In the Nightside Eclipse was the

album that everybody had. But the impact Emperor, as a band, has had on this
black metal scene—and to some extent extreme metal—has been most notice-
able after we quit the band. But I haven’t given much thought to how influen-
tial we were, or how influenced we were by others, or any of the more superficial
aspects of it.
Tchort: I am still to this day overwhelmed by the impact the album seemed
to have on the scene. I travel more than ever now, with my bands [Green Car-
nation, Carpathian Forest], and in the darkest and most uncommon places of the
world, I meet with people who approach me and tell me how much that album
means to them.
Samoth: It wasn’t really until after [1997’s] Anthems [to the Welkin at Dusk]
was released that we started getting a lot of front covers and bigger media at-
tention, and then Emperor really started to become larger and taken more seri-
ously in general. Looking at Nightside, I think there was a lot of buzz and hype
about the album even before it came out—with advance tracks spreading around
the world, there was a lot of anticipation in the underground about the release.
When it finally came out, it quickly became an album that led to a lot of influ-
ences in the growing black metal scene—or black metal boom, rather.
Faust: I corresponded with Samoth while I was in prison, and I had access to
magazines and stuff, so I saw that black metal was growing bigger and bigger.
The album sold very well, and I saw that people were inspired by it, but I’m not
sure I realized how big Emperor were before I started to see the tours they did
and things like that. I was a little bit hidden from all that attention when I was
in prison, so I didn’t really see or understand it before I started to come out again
on weekends to meet people and go to gigs again. I think it was in 1998 that I
had the possibility of actually going out, but it wasn’t very often—maybe six
times a year or something for 12 to 24 hours. I was given that opportunity be-
cause it’s a part of the Norwegian prison rehabilitation program. I remember
going to a Dimmu Borgir gig in Oslo in 1998, and it was packed with a lot of
people and young girls who I wouldn’t really imagine going to a black metal
show.
That’s when I saw how big it had become.
Do you feel differently about the album now than you did at the time you recorded it?
Ihsahn: At the time we recorded it, I was of course very proud of it. By the
time we did a couple of more albums, it’s always like you wanna go back and
change things you think you could’ve done better. [Laughs] By now I feel like
that about all our albums. But I see it as a product of that time, where we were
musically, and how old we were. It makes me feel like an old man at times, be-
cause it’s such a long time ago, and there are so many kids coming up these days

that have the album, but were barely born when we recorded it. But I’ll be 30 in
October, so I guess I’m not that old.
Tchort: For a period of time, I didn’t like it so much, mostly because of the
production. But I’ve probably only heard it three or four times since it was
recorded. The last time I heard it was earlier this year, after a show I had done
with Carpathian Forest. There was an after-show party and I was lying on a
couch when they played the whole album, and it struck me that I really got a kick
out of the music. And I got that old vibe again . . .
Faust: Well, I do realize that if it was released today it would be a very cheesy
album, but that’s something you can’t take into consideration, because it was
recorded in 1993 and released one and a half years later. I don’t really listen to
the album anymore—it’s been many years since I actually put it on, but I can ap-
preciate the moods and atmospheres in the music and I can understand that a
lot of people like it because it was a very good album at the time. But for me,
today, there wouldn’t be any point in trying to re-create that album or to estab-
lish a band to continue in that vein.
Samoth: The album was something totally fresh for us when we were in the
middle of making it, but today I see it almost in a historical sense—as a part of
my life that also had great impact on how my life has become today, actually. We
didn’t really know that we had made a groundbreaking album. We knew it was
a good album that had something personal and unique to it in our genre, but we
never really saw it becoming one of the classic black metal albums of all time.
Even saying this now is weird, but it makes me really proud of what we man-
aged to put together. We took our music and everything around it very seriously.
Those times were very special. We were quite young and very active in a rather
obscure underground movement. It almost seems like another life looking back
at it now.

C H A P T E R 22
HIGH TIMES
THE MAKING OF SLEEP’S JERUSALEM
by J. Bennett
Release Date: 1999
Label: Rise Above
Summary: The best 52-minute song of all time
Induction Date: March 2006/Issue #17
T
he words “stoner epic” don’t even come close to describing the extreme
riff-hypnosis that Jerusalem visited upon the red-eyed legions of heshers,
grass pirates and acid casualties who genuflected at the altar of the leg-
endary San Jose power-trio known as Sleep. In 1995, after two albums—’91’s
Volume One (Tupelo/Very Small) and ’93’s Holy Mountain (Earache)—Sleep
bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros, guitarist Matt Pike and drummer Chris Hakius
were ready to record their masterpiece: a one-song, 52-minute album, with fi-
nancial assistance from their new corporate benefactors at London Records.
Jerusalem was Sabbath in slow motion, Earth 2 without track divisions and the
soundtrack for an eternal bong-huffing caravan to the heart of the Holy Land
rolled into a thick, hazy hour of thundering chords, booming vocals and termi-
292
nal battery. Little did its architects know that the album (originally entitled
Dopesmoker) would be shelved, and that Sleep would break up years before its
first official release in 1998. The legends and rumors surrounding the album’s
creation are as numerous as they are fantastic. Tales of the band’s staggering
weed intake, master tapes delivered in skull bongs and drug-related budgetary
indiscretion proliferated, despite (and probably due to) the fact that Pike (cur-
rently of High on Fire), Cisneros and Hakius (both currently of Om) never ac-
tually did promotional interviews when the album eventually came out. For our
latest Hall of Fame induction, Decibel talked to all three former members of
Sleep to find out what really happened on the road to Jerusalem.
Ø
PART I: SOME GRASS
What’s your most vivid memory of the Jerusalem recording sessions?
Matt Pike: Well, none of it’s vivid. I was smoking so much weed that every-
thing was kinda surreal at the time. [Laughs] But I remember a lot of loud amps
and trying to memorize all these crazy-ass combinations of parts. There was so
much to memorize for that album, and we had to do it in like three different sec-
tions, because a reel-to-reel only holds something like 22 minutes. It was really
cool, but it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. I was also try-
ing to make my bass player and my drummer get along, because they were hav-
ing a hard time with each other in the studio. And at the same time, my mom
was dying from cancer. It was tough.
Chris Hakius: I remember a lot of hard work and a lot of stress. We put in a
lot of hours to create that album. We had just got onto London Records and we
were all really broke, which made things difficult.
Al Cisneros: When we finished the tracking and all sat down together in the
studio to finally hear the song straight through, it was pretty special. It’s weird
when your entire life is coming back through the speakers in the control room,
and all three of you kind of mutually acknowledge that internally. But at the
same time, it was like somebody hoisting a flag on a sinking ship.
The popular legend is that Sleep got a big advance for Jerusalem from London
Records, smoked it all and then ended up having to rush through the recording ses-
sions. Is that what actually happened?
Hakius: I’ve heard that before, and it’s certainly not true, but you can’t argue
with a piece of paper when you read it, you know? Al was always kind of the
band leader, so I think an A&R guy contacted him first. At the time, London
said they’d give us full artistic freedom, so that’s what we did. But when it got
The Making of Sleep’s Jerusalem 293

down to the final stages of things, we were all really stressed out—and broke—
because the money we got from them initially pretty much covered how badly
in debt we were at the time that we signed. It wasn’t because of drugs or any-
thing like that, either—it was because we were trying do to this for a living, and
we had bills piled up from the time between Holy Mountain and Jerusalem. We
never really had real jobs, either. Matt and I worked on a plastering crew for a
while; Al worked in a bookstore—we all just did odd jobs so we could stay loose
and go on tour whenever we wanted. But the story that we smoked our budget
[laughs] is not true. I can’t say we didn’t spend a few dollars on it, but I mean, it
would have almost been literally impossible to spend it all on that.
Was London aware, before you signed, that your plan was to record a one-song
album?
Cisneros: Absolutely. We were actually talking to Elektra at the same time
as London, and one of the reasons we decided to go with London is because
they were OK with that idea. But within two or three weeks of signing with
London, the A&R guy who had been coming out to California to negotiate
with us got transferred and replaced. There was a new head of the A&R de-
partment, and a new representative for our band, both of whom didn’t have any
connection with the template that was laid down. So immediately—even before
we began tracking—we were nervous and uncomfortable about what they could
end up doing to the album, what they might demand in terms of a video, radio
edits and all the rest of it. The conditions of the entire deal changed right un-
derneath us. In a certain sense, all the horror stories we had heard from bands
that had gotten onto a major label came true. They told us, “Don’t do it; don’t
do it.” And it was too good to be true. When reality set in, it was like, “We heard
this story. We shouldn’t have done this.”
Pike: Yeah, that was weird because we let them know what we wanted to do
before we even signed with them. Both London and Elektra were biting at us,
and we went with London because they offered us more money for the record-
ing. Plus they didn’t have as many metal bands, so we thought they’d give us
special attention.
You’d been working on the song itself for quite some time before the London offer
came along.
Pike: Oh, fuck, we’d been working on it for like four years. We also had two
other songs that we were working on that were really long, too—like 15 and 20
minutes. But we never recorded them.
Cisneros: We toured Europe and the United States on Holy Mountain, and
we were really reaching the point where we had to have some new stuff. So the
294 HIGH TIMES

song formulated at sound checks, and then we’d work on it some more in motel
rooms or at friends’ houses. We’d just keep coming up with ideas, and the song
just started to assemble itself. At our last show before we decided to settle down
and make the record—it was here at Slim’s in San Francisco sometime in early
or mid ’94, and I think we played with the Melvins—we played a shorter, much
more up-tempo version of the song. But it was pretty much the same song that
you hear on the record. And it was long—the intention was to just keep cycling.
We had lots of riffs that kept answering each other in a series, so we said, “Shit,
if it’s a long song, it’s a long song.”
How crucial was your collective weed intake to the creative process?
Pike: We were smoking a lot. Between us all, we were probably smoking two
ounces a day or more.
Cisneros: Back then—from the time of Holy Mountain through Jerusalem—
it was definitely a ritual that got more and more frequent. Personally speaking, I
was really dependent on the space I got into when I was using it, and some of the
lyrics are about that. It was pretty integral to the scope of my life at the time. The
line, “Drop out of life [with bong in hand],” was kind of a creed at that point.
Hakius: I’d say it was crucial. It helped a lot, but at the same time, everyone
was having a rough time personally during and prior to the recording. There
was a lot of growing up and learning. We were all in our early 20s, and after the
Hawkwind tour we went on, everyone was pretty tore up. That’s when we were
really working on that song, and I can honestly say everyone wasn’t really tak-
ing care of themselves that well—and that snowballed into the recording process.
As far as the herb, that probably kept everyone more grounded, actually.
Ø
PART II: PROCEED THE WEEDIANS TO NAZARETH
When did you actually go into the studio?
Cisneros: We were ready to record it in ’95—we just wanted to go into a stu-
dio somewhere and just fuckin’ do it, but it didn’t happen until ’96. First we had
to get free from Earache Records. They would not let us go—they would not
budge for anything. [Earache Records owner] Digby [Pearson] was waiting . . .
I mean, London bought the guy out, but he waited to make the most prime
conditions for himself before he let our contract go. So there was about a year
and a half of legal wrangling between our manager and lawyers with Earache,
and then, once we signed to London, their team of lawyers and Earache. And
it took forever. At one point, we even asked a friend of ours to give us a couple
thousand bucks so we could put it out ourselves, but he feared that he’d get sued.

Pike: Earache sat on us forever, and London was trying to get us out of the
Earache deal. And then we finally got out of it and London took a shit on us,
too. It was tragic, man—I think it was a great album, and it was stupid that they
didn’t market it.
The waiting must’ve taken a toll on the band, mentally.

Cisneros: The waiting definitely affected all of us. The song demanded to be
recorded, and we couldn’t because of all these lawsuits. Comparing our collab-
orative creativity to having a child together or something, it was like we were
forced to watch the kid suffer. It was killing us. The song was begging to be
given food, and it was terrible. We worked from the time we had met—Chris
and I in eighth grade, and Matt and us in ninth grade—tunnel-visioned on that
moment, and we couldn’t record it. I don’t even know how to explain the way it
felt.
Hakius: When we finally went into the studio, the song was starting to take
on a different form for me personally than what we had originally envisioned.
We recorded it one way, and then we wanted to try it another way, and it turned
into a conflict. When you write a song that’s 50 minutes long, you get used to
playing it one way. We spent a couple of years working on the song, and then
when we went to record it, it started turning out a little differently and creating
a lot of anxiety. We could reasonably handle that, but as we were going along,
the record label wanted to hear what we were doing, and they were scoffing at
it from what I could tell. So that added more stress and anxiety, and it started
piling up. Then we had some equipment failure at some point, and the whole
thing just started to kind of feel like it was doomed. We’re still good brothers to
this day, but it made us fight about nothing.
Pike: Everyone was going insane from learning that song—it was really dra-
matic. The song was getting slower and slower and then it got weird. We started
tripping out and second-guessing ourselves. And then it was like we didn’t know
what we were doing anymore.
What do you remember about Record Two, the studio you recorded in?
Cisneros: It was really nice—it was up near Mendocino. It was this old stu-
dio, and the guy had this really old Neve board. Billy [Anderson], our engineer,
walked in there and was pretty impressed with the gear and the way it had been
maintained over the years. So that combined with the environment made it seem
like it was the place to do it. It was up in the mountains with this cabin vibe, and
being embedded there with London hovering over our heads made me feel like
I was in The Shining or something. But overall, the recording environment was
pretty decent.
296 HIGH TIMES

Hakius: It was awesome. I think either Al or Billy found the place. They had
top-of-the-line equipment, but the rate for being there for a long time was really
good. It was out in the woods on like 15 acres or something, and it was really se-
cluded. We were in the middle of nowhere, so when something went wrong,
we’d lose a day—or even two days. It started going by fast, even though we were
there for like a month. We got down to the wire, and the more the pressure built,
it got harder and harder. We tried to maintain the best quality control we could,
but it was getting to the point where we just wanted to get it done and go on va-
cation. [Laughs] Not that anyone had any money to go anywhere.
Pike: We were in the studio for a month, and then went home and re-
rehearsed it, and then we went in for another month. So it was about two
months altogether, I think, and I believe we ended up with two or three differ-
ent versions.
You originally wanted to call the song “Dopesmoker.” How did it become
“Jerusalem”?
Cisneros: When we played it live, it was announced as “Dopesmoker.” After
playing it live, and after lots of smoking and reflection, we started becoming in-
terested in more of a Middle Eastern desert theme. I remember one practice the
idea [of calling the song “Jerusalem”] came up, and we all started laughing really
hard. I just put my bass down and walked out. It was such a fucking good idea,
it was too much. But now there’s a couple different versions out—I think
Dopesmoker is the more up-tempo one, and Jerusalem is the slower one.
Was it difficult breaking the song up into sections to accommodate the reels?
Cisneros: Yeah, and part of that was inexperience. We were all around 23 or
24 at the time, I think, and being that it was only our third full-length—and not
really knowing anything about studio techniques—we had to learn along the
way. We’d always recorded live from day one, but we weren’t just making a good
live recording—we were in a studio making an album. But yeah, it was weird, be-
cause we’d only viewed the song as one continuous flowing piece.
Pike: We were rehearsing it one straight take, for the most part, but we also
broke it into sections to make sure we got the parts tight and down. We’d just
take one third of it, play it through, practice a little transfer part, play the sec-
ond part, practice another transfer, and then play the last part.
Jerusalem is often regarded as a kind of stoner spiritual—it seems to have strong

elements of transcendental meditation to it. Do you think of it that way?
Cisneros: Yeah, totally. There was a middle section in that song when we
were still doing it live, and the vocal line I put down called for these long, windy,

resonant notes over one continuous 12th fret note that just started to cycle.
When we’d play back our live tapes, we’d be like, “Whoa.” It definitely tapped
something. Again, it wasn’t intentional; it just started to happen, and we didn’t
fight it. Not knowing the formula that made that take place, but recognizing
that it had shown up through the speakers, we figured something was going on.
Then it became, “Keep your head down and your eyes shut.” [Laughs]
Hakius: We definitely wanted it to be something where you’d sit down to lis-
ten to it and not want to get up for an hour. I think that spilled over from our
tour with Hawkwind. A certain crowd of people who we began to associate with
and play to liked to just sit and listen, you know? We didn’t write the song for
them so much—we were becoming that way, too.
Pike: It’s not something we talked about all that much—it’s something we
just did. But you know, I just want people to enjoy it however they want to. It’s
definitely better loud and when you’re alone so you can meditate on it, but that’s
probably true for listening to any music.
Ø
PART III: THE DOPESMOKER CHRONICLES
There’s a story on Julian Cope’s website that says Sleep delivered Jerusalem to Lon-
don on a DAT tape inside a skull bong wearing a military helmet.
Cisneros: [Laughs] That’s very, very untrue. The only thing I remember about
marijuana at London Records was in Peter Koepke’s office. He was the president
of London Records, and one of the first times we went to the London build-
ing—which was in this big old high-rise in Manhattan—we went into his cor-
ner office overlooking Times Square. It was this totally surreal experience—three
stoner friends from high school walking around this building like, “Whoa—
look at that record on the wall!” And we asked if there was anyone there who had
some pot or could get us some pot. So we had this pipe, and we’re at Peter
Koepke’s desk, with our manager, and there’s this lawyer on the speakerphone—
like all official and business-like, right? And we put the whole quarter-ounce
into the pipe, smoked it and put the pipe on his desk. But I have absolutely no
idea about the military helmet and the skull.
Pike: We made something like that, but we didn’t send it to the label. We
had an aviator mask with a blower motor that you could hook up in your car.
You’d put the mask on, and smoke would pour out the back—it was pretty cool.
What finally happened when you sent the album to London?

Cisneros: We were told by our manager that they weren’t gonna release it as
is—they were gonna remix it. When I heard that, I considered getting our mas-
298 HIGH TIMES

ter reels and destroying them myself. I would rather have faced a lawsuit than
release something I wasn’t behind. But that plan wouldn’t work, because they had
backup DATs. So then we were like, “Well, seeing as how we’re the band and this
is all last-minute—and not part of the deal we signed—can we be in the room
when it’s being remixed? Can we say yes or no if something doesn’t sound right?”
Keep in mind, this is after we all thought it was over, and now we were in this
position where we were trying to keep it from getting worse. We spent 10
months going back and forth between studios in New York watching all these
major-label engineer types walk in and completely mutate the sound of the
album—it was bad.
Pike: They tried to make a bunch of radio edits out of it—which was nearly
impossible with that song—and the one that they came up with was ridiculous.
It didn’t make any sense. The record label had that dude David Sardy come in
and remix it, and we thought he lost a bunch of shit, and then he brought in my
throwaway guitar tracks, and that kinda pissed me off. So it isn’t exactly the way
we intended it.
In addition to Billy Anderson, there are four assistant engineers listed in the cred-
its. That seems like a lot.
Cisneros: That was all London—those were people we didn’t know. It’s like
the patient being strapped down and then four people come in and just start
fucking with veins and stuff.
Hakius: There’s another thing that made us all fight: At that point, we didn’t
even wanna listen to it anymore, but we didn’t wanna be in some kind of breach
of contract, and we owed them so much money that we just agreed to the remix.
At that point, Al and I weren’t getting along too good anymore [laughs], because . . .
well, no one was really living that well at that point. So we had to go in and tear
the song apart, and they kept making us bring in more and more people. We had
to get out the two-inch tape and splice another song out of the original—and then
listen to it 5,000 times in a way we didn’t want it. The thing is, if you listen to that
song more than once, it kind of puts you in a trance, and you can’t even remem-
ber what you were doing 10 minutes ago—especially if everybody in the room is
a total head. Then it turns into, “Oh, did we catch that? We better listen to it
again.” I didn’t even go to the last remix. I couldn’t take it anymore.
Pike: We went to four different studios to finish “the product,” you know?
London kept wanting us to change it. They thought if we changed this and
changed that, it’d make the record more marketable or something, but really
they were just nitpicking. The thing is, it was a marketable thing—just not to
mainstream people. But that’s not the kind of band we were. But even if it came
out, we would’ve broken up anyway.

Of the four CD versions that have surfaced—the rare London Records promo, the
[almost as rare] bootleg with Arik Roper cover art, the Rise Above/Music Cartel
version and the Dopesmoker version—not a single one has the cover you guys
wanted.
Hakius: That was politics between people at the label—it had nothing to do
with us—over the real cover that we wanted, which they originally said they
were gonna give us. There’re literally three or four versions out that I never OK’d;
I didn’t even know about half of them, and I think Al was the same way. Once
we were done recording, there was a lot we didn’t know about what happened
with it. It went into limbo—it was really strange. We knew what we wanted for
the cover, and we had already sent it to them. It was the picture on the inside
of . . . I think it was the Music Cartel version. It’s been licensed by like three dif-
ferent labels now, so I’m not sure, but it’s a photo of a coconut chalice. It was sup-
posed to be really simple, and it matched the time period for us personally. And
it was originally supposed to be on green vinyl, like the amplifiers we use. But
we pissed them off because they didn’t like it and we said we weren’t budging.
Pike: I think Tee Pee got sued over that first Roper bootleg. Then [the Music
Cartel] wasn’t doing anything to either sell it or promote it, and the guy wasn’t
paying us any royalties on it, because he wasn’t selling any. It was like, “Dude, you
gotta advertise it to sell it.” So I went over the dude’s head and told him he al-
ready had his chance.
Cisneros: From the time we sent London the band-approved mix—Billy’s
mix, produced by the band and Billy, engineered by Billy—we knew it was out
of our hands, and nothing from that point until today, really, has gone accord-
ing to the original plan. I remember seeing the London promos, and then the
Roper edition and then the Music Cartel one you mentioned. And then I walked
into a record store one day and saw the Dopesmoker version. I was like, “Oh,
that’s interesting.”
Hakius: I didn’t even know about the Arik Roper [bootleg] version until after
it came out. I’ll be straight up with you—Arik Roper is an extremely talented
artist, but the cover he did has nothing to do with our vision. Let me put it this
way: I meet people at shows who get all kinds of different messages out of that
album. Some are completely satanic and evil, some are completely spiritual, and
some are like they were sniffing glue at home. And that’s what happens when
other people decide what your album art is gonna be.
The Dopesmoker version is about 11 minutes longer than the Rise Above/Music
Cartel Jerusalem disc. Do you consider either one to be the definitive version?
Cisneros: I don’t think the Dopesmoker thing is the exact version that we sub-
mitted, but that’s the closest one that’s come out of the four. If I had to pick a
300 HIGH TIMES

favorite, that would be it. The reason that the song went from 45 minutes—
which was the way we practiced it—to somewhere around 63 [the Dopesmoker
version] was because after we stopped doing live stuff and just focused on record-
ing, we kept slowing the song down in rehearsals. We’d A/B it against our live
tapes and we’d be like, “You know what? This feels a little bit better.” I think the
original outtake was somewhere around 65 or 70 minutes—it was much longer.
I think the differing musical temperaments between Matt and myself . . . I mean,
we didn’t have a strained friendship or collaboration in any sense, but it may
have begun two different roads that may be more evident today.
Hakius: We all started to have a little bit of a different idea about what that
song was about. The beef was pretty much between Al and I, because we were
the rhythm section and we worked very closely together on everything—and
we obviously still do in Om. But because of how the song radically changed and
how the communication was so bad between us at the time, we didn’t see eye to
eye anymore. We both had to grow up and get over a few things. When we were
done with that album, it was literally the end. I didn’t talk to Al for a long time.
Matt stayed pretty neutral the whole time, but he was like, “I can’t wait around
for you guys to make up, so I’m gonna start a new band.” And we were like, “Do
it, man. Don’t work at a gas station—that’d be stupid.”
Pike: I tried to stay neutral, but I was also trying to keep my band together.
I wanted them to work things out—which they eventually did, and now they’re
playing together without me.
Ø
PART IV: NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S DREAM
Are you happy that the album finally came out, or is there part of you that wishes
it had stayed buried?
Cisneros: I definitely wish that it hadn’t. If you’re involved in something cre-
atively, to allow that to be exposed, you have to be emotionally supportive of it
in itself. But I feel like somewhere along that formation, it was taken from us,
painted with a different cover and just re-presented. It’d be like if you were writ-
ing a novel and you died before you finished the last two chapters and somebody
tried to put it together as the book you really wanted to publish. Only they had
no idea what was supposed to happen in those last two chapters, which could be
imperative to the whole flow of the novel. You’d be rolling in your grave, and the
outside world would have no idea.
Pike: I wanted it to come out anyway. We did all that work, so why leave it
sitting around? It’s taking its course the way it is, so I try not to second-guess it.
I figure it’s happening the way it’s supposed to.

Hakius: Being on a major label is not something that everybody can do. It
really depends on how much ass-kissing and giving in and changing things for
other people you wanna do, because those are the things that kind of determine
your success. That’s why there’s a lot of shitty music on the radio and TV. There
were like five or six reasons why we broke up, but one of them was that we were
on a major label and we owed them a lot of money. We couldn’t go to another
label or anything, so we were screwed. For a long time, I thought I couldn’t even
play music again without getting served papers or something. The funny thing
is that London Records isn’t even around anymore. I think Sony bought them
and flushed them.
Cisneros: I’ve had to accept it having happened, but it took a long time.
That’s why personally, out of all of us, I couldn’t play music for a while. I could
physically, but I absolutely refused to do it from a disingenuous point. It has to
be a necessity. And to get back to the healed point where my thoughts and
feelings—in terms of lyrics and riffs—started to naturally fill me again, it took
years. Honestly, it felt like I had died. I obviously was physically alive, but it felt
like I was gone—and there’s no reason to play music when you feel like that.
When did you start to realize Jerusalem’s influence on other bands?

Pike: Well, I started noticing the band’s influence right after the second
album, even. People were dressing the same and playing Sleep riffs—that was
going on for a while.
Cisneros: I didn’t really notice so much because I really closed off from the
whole thing. During that time I really kept my head down, and I wasn’t ob-
serving the outside. But Chris and I get tons of people who wanna talk about the
old band, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I know it’s strange to say that
after the horrible period that took place, but those guys are family, you know, and
we did what we did. What didn’t go right has to be accepted along with what
did go right. Those were some of the best years of my life, so it’s OK to talk
about it.
Hakius: That’s hard to explain, because when we finished the album, we all
went in different directions. It was like a divorce, but we still cared about each
other. We all took different jobs—I put my drums away for a couple of years and
drove a big rig to pay some bills. Al put his stuff away, too, and even sold some
of it—we both didn’t wanna play music ever again. Matt continued with High on
Fire, and we were stoked for him—we wanted him to run with his talent. But, to
answer the question, I didn’t listen to that type of music for a long time. But I did
start to notice [the influence] within a couple of years. I never felt anyone was rip-
ping us off, though. For me, Jerusalem was a low point in my life, and I’m not
302 HIGH TIMES

really satisfied with my playing on that record. But if it caused someone else to
be creative and write music, then it was a success in my opinion.

Cisneros: I don’t think I would. I’ve gotten to a place where I accept it for
what it is. And you know, despite all these things I’ve told you, I don’t regret it.
It’s really important, and we did our very best. That’s its own reward in a sense.
And that seven or eight years I took after our last band practice to just go for-
ward and go to school was important. I needed to live life for a little while and
just watch the world around me. It’s helped me a lot.
Hakius: I have a two-way answer for that, I guess. I wouldn’t change the parts
we’re playing or the length of it, but what I’d wanna change is how we were liv-
ing up to that point, because it had everything to do with what happened in the
studio. [Laughs] I don’t even know if that’s an answer. But I’ll tell you some-
thing, and this is the truth for me: I believe that when a song is finished, that’s
the way it’s supposed to be. When you capture something in time, that’s the way
it is. Whether you like it or not doesn’t matter. It’s like being dealt something in
life. If you’re in a car accident or end up with a disease, you have to deal with it.
[Laughs] And that’s kind of how I feel about that album. But if we were to play
that song tomorrow, it’d probably be just a little bit faster.
Pike: It’s been about a year since I’ve listened to it, but I’d probably change
the tempo. It’s so slow, but it’s not slow, you know? It’s weird. It might be the
fuckin’ weirdest song ever. I think it might’ve been better if we’d recorded it at
a faster tempo and hadn’t been so anal about it. We were just a bunch of mas-
sive stoners trying to do something that no one else had done—which I think
we accomplished.

CHAPTER 23
100% CLASSIC
THE MAKING OF THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN’S
CALCULATING INFINITY
by Kevin Stewart-Panko
Release Date: 1999
Label: Relapse
Summary: Soundtrack to the tech-metal revolution
T
his one’s a no-brainer. Regardless of what you think about Calculating
Infinity, you can’t deny that the 11 tracks on this album revolutionized
extreme music and raised the bar in terms of technicality, musicianship,
speed, dynamics—even visual presentation, album photography and design.
What’s also quite incredible is that this album was completed in any sort of
timely fashion, considering the 15-month rollercoaster preceding its September
1999 release. After the northern New Jersey quintet’s explosive three-song Under
the Running Board EP, things started toppling around guitarist Ben Weinman,
304
drummer Chris Pennie and vocalist Dimitri Minakakis like a losing game of
Jenga. Guitarist John Fulton walked out right around the same time bassist and
original member Adam Doll found himself paralyzed from the chest down with
limited use of his hands after a seemingly minor fender-bender. Former Jesuit
guitarist Brian Benoit was added to the mix, but so was an incalculable amount
of pressure in the form of record company deadlines, financial constraints, bad
business decisions, upcoming tours and a guitarist trying to play bass with “gay lit-
tle fingers.” With all of this piling ever-higher on their individual and collective
plates, Dillinger still somehow created the groundbreaking metallic hardcore
album they wanted to—one that has been often imitated, never duplicated and is
about as obvious an induction to Decibel ’s Hall of Fame as you could hope for.
Can you give a rundown of everything going at the time and where the band and
your heads were at going into Calculating Infinity?
Ben Weinman: It was a really weird time because so many exciting things
were happening, but so many challenges were also being presented. It was the
start of “nothing’s ever gonna be easy for the Dillinger Escape Plan.” We had put
out the Under the Running Board EP on Relapse and, in our small world, it was
getting a lot of attention. At that time, there weren’t a lot of middle-sized bands;
you didn’t have Shadows Fall or Lamb of God. Even the bands that were doing
well—bands like Poison the Well, who people thought were huge—weren’t that
huge, and Neurosis and Today Is the Day, then, were probably half the size of
what they are today. But that’s what we knew. Deadguy was the biggest band in
the world and Earth Crisis was huge and when I saw them play to 300 kids, it
was like Madison Square Garden to me.
So, in that little world, we started to do well; we could actually play a show
and people who knew our music would come. We got a few cool tours, and sign-
ing to Relapse was really exciting. We started to write this full-length that was
highly anticipated because people were saying that Running Board was different
and that we were on top of our game. At the same time, John Fulton, our other
guitar player on Running Board, got freaked out and was like, “Well, I never ex-
pected this to go anywhere.” To him, you didn’t do this for real; you did it after
school for fun, whereas I was very proactive and I had it all planned. I was like,
“All right, we have this show and some guys from Relapse are going to be there.
I’m going to tell them that Earache wants to sign us and piss them off and get
them to take our demo. And once that happens, I’m going to get them to an-
other show and we’re going to kick ass and get signed.” At that point, everything
was going as planned until John decided to quit and become a computer pro-
grammer. He was the sickest guitar player ever; he really inspired my playing and
introduced me to technical music. The writing situation at the time was one
The Making of the Dillinger Escape Plan’s Calculating Infinity 305

where he would come up with these crazy ideas and I would turn them into
songs. When he announced he wasn’t going to do this anymore, I shit myself be-
cause I didn’t know how I was going to write a full-length that destroys Run-
ning Board without the guy who’s been a big part of that progression.
On top of that, when we first started writing the record, Adam, who was also
a big part of that progression, got into a car accident and was paralyzed. I wanted
to do benefit shows to help him get the best health care and therapy and, at the
same time, figure out how we were going to move forward. In my mind, we were
going to get a fill-in until he got better, because there was no way this dude’s not
getting better and there’s no way he’s not going to walk. And even if he doesn’t
walk, he’s still gonna play in our band. Chris took that I would even be think-
ing about this kind of stuff as almost insulting; he just wanted to almost grieve.
He didn’t even want to play or talk about the band. To me, we had to play shows
[and] put out a sick record, and when Adam got back, the band would be this
developed thing instead of something that fell apart because of his accident.
There was definitely some tension because of that.
Chris Pennie: My head was in two places because of Adam’s accident—I was
really shaken up by that—and John quitting. Those were two people that I grew
up playing with; they were close and important to me and now, musically, they
were gone. On the other hand, I had all sorts of fire because things were starting
to happen for the band; we were finding our own sound and I was just really mo-
tivated. I remember writing a lot in the basement at my house. Ben and I would
get together, jam ideas and hammer them out. When we weren’t playing, I was
playing four or five hours a day, just working on my own to perfect the tunes. I
remember arguing with my mother about it, constantly. She didn’t understand
that this is what I wanted to do, that I loved it so much and all I wanted to do
was make this shit as awesome as possible. I had a lot of arguments with her;
now she understands, but back then, getting her to understand was hard. We just
wanted to make an awesome record, push the boundaries of what we could do.
Brian Benoit: Basically, I got in after the Jesuit/Botch/Dillinger tour. Ben
called me saying that Fulton was giving the vibe that he didn’t want to tour and
that they were looking for a touring guitar player. A couple weeks after that, he
got back to me saying that he didn’t even think Fulton wanted to do the band
at all. It worked out because I had just graduated college, Nate [Newton, also ex-
Jesuit] had already joined Converge and I had the option: a career or the band.
Dimitri Minakakis: We’d always had a “backs to the wall” thing going on. I
guess at the time we weren’t too worried about writing a record because, at any
time, Dillinger always has three songs written. I think we were really concerned
about getting a solid lineup together. But because I never really contributed mu-
sically, I never knew what was or wasn’t written until it was presented. For me,
306 100% CLASSIC

it wasn’t that stressful—it just wasn’t fun being impatient. In one sense, there was
frustration because I wasn’t able to map, or get help mapping out, my parts until
the songs were totally completed, and what was the point of fitting vocals into
something that might change tomorrow? In some ways, I felt like a slouch, but
I was fine with that.
Adam, can you tell us about your accident?

Adam Doll: My accident was August 13, 1998. We had been home for two
weeks or so from the Botch/Jesuit tour. I was driving home from picking my sis-
ter’s car up, and I wound up rear-ending somebody on a road nearby. I was prob-
ably going 35, 40 miles an hour. I don’t really remember exactly what happened,
but an eyewitness report said that someone stopped in front of me to make a left,
I went to go around them, missed someone in my blind spot, jerked the car back
and rear-ended someone. I never lost consciousness or anything—I didn’t even
have a scratch on my body—but with the type of impact it was, I ended up dis-
locating the vertebrae right where my neck meets my shoulder. Right after, I’m
sitting in the car and I try to get up to see what happened, and I basically couldn’t
stand up. I got to the hospital and they just thought I had severe whiplash. It
wasn’t until they did an MRI that they figured out what was wrong.
So, when all this was happening, how much of the album was written?
Weinman: Three songs and a couple of other parts. “4th Grade Dropout”
was on a split with Nora and “Jim Fear” was done as well. The EP was getting
great reviews, our peers liked it and all of a sudden we had to do this full-length
that, I felt, fell on my shoulders. Me and Chris would write together, but we
would also tour pretty actively while we were writing. That’s when we got Brian
in the band. There were a couple songs we started playing live that we taught
him before we went into the studio. My main concern was that nobody could tell
the difference and know that those other guys weren’t in the band anymore. It
was definitely a pressure situation; there were time restrictions because of every-
thing that happened and Relapse wanting to capitalize on the Running Board
buzz. All that pressure came out on the record.
Doll: We had recorded three of the songs that appeared on Calculating be-
fore we went on tour, but those were for splits with Drowningman and Nora, and
the other was supposed to wind up on a compilation that never happened.
Was there any thought of putting off the writing or the recording until Brian was
fully integrated into the band?
Weinman: We had so many deadlines and the idea was—and this is the way
we continue to work—for us to progress and build on what we had done. We

always used ourselves as a marker and our own competition. To me, there was no
point in stopping our progression waiting for someone else to catch up. There’s no
point in having someone who’s new in the band try and write a Dillinger-ish riff
when I can write a Dillinger-ish riff. This isn’t my first Dillinger riff; I did the first
Dillinger riff a couple years ago [laughs]—let’s do the next thing.
Benoit: Nah. I knew my role, which was getting up to par live. I moved up
to Jersey right after Thanksgiving in ’98, and our first tour was two and a half
weeks later with Cave In and Converge, so I had to cram my ass off and prepare
for that. I had just moved up to Jersey and it was a shock trying to adjust from
a beach environment in Virginia Beach. I’d be wearing a winter coat and they’d
be wearing t-shirts and laughing their asses off at me.
The credits say the album was recorded over three months in ’99. How broken up
over three months were the sessions?
Pennie: Ultimately, I think it was done in 13 or 14 days over the course of
March, April and June. We only had seven or eight songs written in March.
After that, we went back and wrote the three or four other songs. It was a com-
plete whirlwind and, looking back, it’s completely amazing to think we did that
in that amount of time.
What was the recording process like?

Doll: None of us had ever recorded a full-length before, so I don’t think any-
one knew what we were getting into. We did Running Board in two and a half
days; who were we kidding? [Laughs]
Weinman: It was awesome being able to spread it over time because Chris
really worked hard on the parts. Even as were writing new songs, he’d be working
on the other songs. My whole thing was that shit had to be ridiculously and in-
humanly fast. To me, the only way to get energy from technical stuff was to make
it like a machine gun hitting you in the chest. Whether you understood what was
going on or not, you felt that shit smack you in the face like you were a little bitch.
I came from the world of noisy rock and punk music, whereas Chris had a bit
more of a technical metal background. I remember writing songs and it was like:
Me: “This has to be louder! No, don’t play that on a bell; play that on a crash
cymbal.”
Chris: “But crash cymbals aren’t supposed to be hit like a ride.”
Me: “No, that crash cymbal is now a ride!”
Chris: “But I’ll break it. They’re only supposed to be hit a few times.”
Me: “Fuck it, we’ll buy another one. That china cymbal is now a ride.”
Shit like that, to me, is what brought the energy. I remember sitting there
with Chris saying, “This has to be faster, this has to be louder.” He’d be like, “I
308 100% CLASSIC

can’t. I’m getting tendonitis!” And I kept telling him it’s gotta be faster, and by
the next practice, he’d be playing it twice as fast. Then I’d tell him, “Faster!” He’d
be, “It’s not humanly possible!” but by next practice, it’d be faster. Then, by the
time we played it in the studio, it’d be twice as fast, then twice as fast as that by
the time we played live. Seeing Chris progress from being a light and precise hit-
ter like he was in [previous band] Arcane, to being able to beat the shit out of
his drum kit—play so fast, but also be so precise—was awesome. As far as me
being pretty much the only guitar player, I really enjoyed having control over
everything and having my whole vision realized with writing, but I was worried
about not being able to pull off some of the technical, lead-y stuff, because I
didn’t know if I had the ability or confidence in my playing to pull it off in the
studio. The idea was for me to step up to John’s plate and for Brian to be the guy
that I was initially in the band. So, I just started getting into a lot more jazz and
fusion and taking a lot of the stuff that John had shown me to the next level.
Anything that John had done on the EP, I wanted to do faster and crazier. It was
really competitive for me. This record had to fucking slay, and that’s all I cared
about. In the studio it was really hard, because at the time we didn’t use Pro
Tools and did everything to tape. It was insane being in the studio because I
was sitting with Chris doing scratch tracks while he did his drums, and he had
to nail all that shit. So, I’d be sitting there all day playing along with Chris, mak-
ing sure everything was right. After that, I was doing guitar tracks and [pro-
ducer] Steve Evetts was so brutal; everything had to be perfect. We did multiple,
multiple guitar tracks and I was just destroyed, and then, when it was time for
the bass, it was like, “Oh my God . . . ”
Pennie: It went smooth for me. We had rehearsed the songs so much that by
the time we got in there, we just flew through the drum tracks. We didn’t have
a lot of time and I just wanted to be efficient and make them as best as possible.
I wanted to get everything on the first take, and if I didn’t I’d just throw my
sticks across the room all pissed off and would be like, “Go! Again!”
Minakakis: For me, it depended on the day and how I was feeling. I’d have
to wait until at least the drum track and one guitar was done. Some days, it’d be
like, “Do you want to work on a song?” If we were working on something and
my voice was starting to feel a little weird or I wasn’t feeling confident about it,
they could always go and work on something else. There wasn’t really anything
set in stone; it was more mix and match. It worked out because I was able to go
back and do things over later on.
What were Brian’s contributions to the recording?

Weinman: He played parts. He would do another track on something I al-
ready did to thicken it up or get another feel. In most cases, it made more sense

to just have me do it. There were one or two other parts where we needed a sec-
ond guitar idea. In “Clip the Apex . . . Accept Instruction” he wrote a second gui-
tar part with a different vibe that I would have never written. He also helped with
vocal phrasing on “Variations on a Cocktail Dress.” I was drained and Dimitri
had no idea how to sing over it, but I couldn’t do it. Everything was done on the
whole record, I had been involved in every aspect of it, and we got to that song and
we didn’t have any phrasing for it—we just had a sheet of lyrics and a song. I just
gave it to Brian, passed out, and they ended up doing some awesome vocal phras-
ings on it that probably were a little bit different than what I would have done.
Benoit: That was the first time I had recorded with a full-on serious pro-
ducer. I was always used to recording with friends in punk rock situations. So,
when I sat down with Steve, I’d think I nailed a part and Steve would be like,
“No, that’s not right, do it again.” I’d be like, “What?! No way, I know I did it
right.” “No, this one note is slightly off.” So I’d go through it again and he’d be,
“It’s still a little off, you need to do it again.” Ben, Chris and Dimitri had worked
with him before, so they knew what to expect, whereas I took it personally. I
was like, “What, this dude doesn’t like me?” But, after I heard everything com-
ing together, what he was doing made sense. At the time, it was so intense. He
would have Ben doing guitar parts and he wouldn’t want anyone else in the con-
trol room. I took all that shit personally when I shouldn’t have, and Ben and
Chris were like, “Don’t worry about it, that’s just how he is.” It was definitely an
eye-opening experience.
As the story goes, Ben played bass on the record, but Adam coached him through the
writing and performance of the bass lines.
Weinman: He came into the studio a few times, but a lot of what happened
when I was writing the bass lines, he’d sit there and he’d yell at me saying, “No,
you have to do it more like this!” I studied what he did on Running Board. I re-
membered how he would just go for it; sometimes he’d just hold his breath, you’d
hear the [count in] clicks, he’d start wailing and nail it on the first take. In Adam,
I saw the importance of putting feeling and attitude into your playing; you can
hear him beating the shit out of his bass on Running Board, and he didn’t have
to do that. He was very proficient at playing delicately with his fingers. When
he first started playing, Flea was his favorite dude; he was very good at jazz and
funk, and when he played in a band with Chris previously, it was very tame. But
when he started playing with us, it was like, “Nope, this is how it is.”
But recording the bass sucked, man. I never realized how hard it was. I’d
played around on a bass, but I was still a guitar player playing a bass. Steve Evetts
is a bass player, and those two really worked me: “No, you have to hold your
hand like this! You have to let things breathe! You can’t play so staccato! Let the
310 100% CLASSIC

low end seep in.” My gay little fingers were bloodied and it made me respect
bass players a lot.
Doll: I was mostly involved in the first session, which were the songs I knew,
and a little of what we had worked on before my accident. Ben had demos of
those songs and we’d just kind of go through them to figure out what I would
do or what he should do. When they went in to record, they used my gear. Ba-
sically, playing bass is a lot more different than guitar players realize, and it was
the feel that Ben was struggling with. I was able to mentally approach it like a
musician, but it was hard to explain to him how to physically play. The songs that
I had already played, he basically did those note-for-note, because I remem-
bered everything that I played.
Pennie: Ben played most of it, but Steve played some parts as well. There
were parts where Steve would be like, “Let me try this or that; you guys punch
me in and press record.” I guess that was the introduction of Ben and I getting
into the engineering side of things. [Laughs]
Keeping in mind that you guys were still working on the songs right up to going
into the studio, that Calculating Infinity was your first full-length, then John
leaving and Adam’s accident, were you at all nervous about the whole thing not
coming together?
Weinman: Absolutely! I mean, every record I’m like that, but Calculating was
the first time of all the difficult times we’ve had. To this day, it seems like there’s
always an obstacle, but back then, it was like, “Whoa, we finally have this thing
that people actually seem to give a shit about.” We were so used to being in
bands that no one cared about, and after Under the Running Board came out,
suddenly there was this expectation within our small little subculture. We’re on
Relapse, in the Resound catalogue, we’re doing all these metal fests, hearing that
the dudes in Meshuggah think we’re awesome—it’s like, “Wow, what’s going
on?” Then, suddenly, there’s no guitar player and no bass player. I was never the
technical guy; I was like the hardcore punk, “let’s make shit noisy and loud” guy,
and Adam and Fulton were the musicians. I certainly wasn’t the guy sitting at
home shredding; I just wanted to break shit [laughs], but all of a sudden I had
to step up to the plate. I could visualize the songs and style in my head, and I
had to up my game. It was up to just Chris and I to come together, figure it out
and make it work. It was back and forth between “I can’t do this!” and “I have
to do this!” It’s always like that with me.
Was there any stumbling over recording the electronic parts in songs like “Weekend
Sex Change” and “*#..,” such as how to incorporate them, where to place them or
even how to do them?

Weinman: Well, Chris and I were so into that sort of stuff and we wanted to
do so much of it, but because there were time restraints, we ended up going to
Steve Evetts’ apartment, setting up a keyboard and just doing it there. It wasn’t
very planned out. Chris had this Roland keyboard with some cool stuff on it
and we’d just call up sounds and record. We had a loose idea of what we wanted
and Chris had a good idea of what was in his keyboard, so we’d just dial things
up. It was much less realized than the way we do things now, where we’re actu-
ally programming and doing electronic stuff on laptops.
What’s the craziest thing that happened in the studio?

Doll: I almost single-handedly destroyed an entire day’s worth of mixing.
You get the bunch of us in a room together and it’s like we’re seven years old.
Weinman: We had one day to mix the whole record. Adam was hanging out
in the studio with us and he didn’t have much control over his hands at all at the
time. He threw a packet of barbeque sauce from some fast food we ordered—
it flew across the room at lightning speed and the corner of the packet hit the
reset button on the computer. It shut down the entire computer, restarted it right
in the middle of the mixdown, and Steve didn’t know when he had saved last.
Dude, I almost rolled him into traffic. It turned out he saved about 15 minutes
before and we lost a little bit of work.
Minakakis: Yeah, it mysteriously made a right-angle turn in mid-air and
restarted the computer. Everyone just got quiet and looked at each other be-
cause Steve couldn’t remember when he saved last. Actually, it was me and
Adam fucking around. I was facing where he was in his wheelchair. I said some-
thing smart to him, he threw it, some magnetic force took the packet and it
made some sort of JFK mid-air bullet-turn, and it hit the computer. We both
knew what happened and I was kinda like, “Uhhhh . . . ” and Adam was just like,
“Yeah, it was me.” The coincidence was amazing, especially when you’d prob-
ably miss this button 999 times out of 1,000 if you were deliberately throwing
at it.
Benoit: Seriously, that was insane! How, especially with Adam throwing it,
did that thing hit a frickin’ button a quarter of an inch in diameter?! Evetts,
being Evetts, started freaking out: “What the fuck?! What the fuck was that?!”
That seriously took the cake.
Actually, I also remember doing some feedback part for “Clip the Apex” and
how serious I took it. I had just come out of Jesuit and being obnoxious with vol-
ume and feedback was what we were all about, so when the time came to do
something like that, I was jumping for joy. We had three amps on full volume
in this room and it looked like I was playing a show, throwing my guitar around
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and making an ass of myself while everyone looking at me through the glass
was laughing their asses off.
Weinman: Also, at the end of “The Running Board” there’s this little robot
sound and we have no idea where it came from or what it was, so we just raised
it in the mix and left it in there. We did a couple overdubs at Mike Romeo from
Symphony X’s home studio. We ran out of time and he has a little basement
studio, so we did some overdubs and guitar leads there. That was really intimi-
dating, because that dude is like the craziest shredder ever; he gives clinics, writes
for guitar magazines, people in Japan hire him to play their bar mitzvahs and
shit. [Laughs] It sucked having to do my leads in front of that guy.
Why? Did he hate the record?

Weinman: He was fucking way into it. He said he had never heard anything
like it and that it was insane. But I had no confidence going in there. I was like,
“Does this sound all right? Was it tight?” He’d be like, “Sounds good to me.” I’m
like, “No it’s not, it’s sloppy as fuck.” He’s like, “No, sounds all right.” Then, I’m
all, “I suck. I think I suck. I really suck, don’t I? Fuck, I’m a jerk. I’m an idiot!”
He’s like, “Dude. Relax. It’s awesome.”
Is it true that you ran out of money and traded your publishing rights to Relapse
for $2,000 to finish the record?
Weinman: Um, yeah. Pretty much. [Laughs] That’s pretty unheard of, but
we didn’t care. We weren’t thinking about the future, just the present and how
this record had to rule. That publishing bought us maybe backing vocals and
some keyboard sounds.
Benoit: [Laughs] Yep . . . that’s like the ongoing theme of the band, man.
Everything we do gets constantly put into the band; we don’t want to release
anything that we’re not 110 percent satisfied with. That’s probably still the rea-
son why we haven’t seen a royalty check for Calculating Infinity. Actually, I think
I got one royalty check back in 2000 for something like $75.
Minakakis: At that point, we just wanted to put out a good record, but we
had no money. So who comes swooping in with an offer to trade us our pub-
lishing? That decision wasn’t made by just one person, and we were all cool with
it at the time. We weren’t focused on what the record could possibly do; we just
wanted a record we were happy with.
Pennie: We were a bunch of kids who didn’t care and didn’t know any bet-
ter. We just wanted to make something awesome. Obviously, that’s a really,
really stupid thing to do, but at the time, we didn’t know the options. All we
knew was making this fucking record as best as we can, and if it takes a couple

more days and selling off our publishing, then that’s what we gotta do. Stupid!
[Laughs]
But even after that, you still wanted to remix the record?
Benoit: We weren’t totally happy with it. I remember we got a copy of it the
day we left for the Mr. Bungle tour. The tour started in California, so we had to
drive out there. We got the finished copy and I remember us driving, listening
to it and saying, “Holy shit, this doesn’t sound like it needs to!” I remember we
called Steve saying we had to remix it, but there was no money left.
Minakakis: It sounded horrible. It was mixed and mastered bad. At the time,
we were comparing the sound quality to 108’s Threefold Misery and the 108
recording just dwarfed Calculating Infinity. We drove out to California playing
no shows, and that whole time we were listening to it and getting mad and then
talking about it, then forgetting about it, then talking about it and getting mad
again.
Pennie: That was really disheartening at first, especially since we were so pas-
sionate about wanting everything to be perfect. But we’re not a major label band
who has the budget to take three months and go into Andy Wallace’s studio.
There’s always been a misunderstanding about what the title refers to. It has to do
with relationships, not mathematical metal, correct?
Minakakis: Yeah, whether it was with women or friends, any kind of human
relationship, actually. Most of my Dillinger lyrics were predicated on myself,
and people have no idea about that and always interpret them in weird ways. I
just had stupid relationships with idiotic people, and I’d just write a song about
it. Most of the lyrics on Calculating Infinity were based on human insecurity.
That’s where I got the best material.
Weinman: Brian came up with the title. There were a couple things that went
into it. Dimitri is a real sensitive guy and he was going through some girl things.
We kind of played on that; we’d always piss him off by putting pictures of ex-
girlfriends in front of him to get him to scream louder and all that. But we all
had relationship situations, and being that active in the band and being that into
what we were doing had an impact on those relationships. It’s just kind of a tes-
tament to the idea that nothing is forever and even things that you think you can
calculate and be so sure of in life are never the case; life is really unpredictable.
Benoit: Since so much of the material lyrically was about failing relation-
ships, I kind of took it as a “love not lasting forever” sort of thing. People are al-
ways like, “Oh, I’ll love you forever,” and that sort of thing. Obviously,
forever—or infinity—isn’t going to happen. Love isn’t going to last forever, so
314 100% CLASSIC

let’s see how long we can calculate before this blows up in our face. All the Re-
lapse dudes were into it because it sounded “mathematical.”
If all the songs are about relationships, I’m curious about what is probably the most
recognizable lyric on the album: “I smell that whore / Bring me back / Bring me a
brick” from “43% Burnt.”
Minakakis: That song originally started out at the fast part, and once we
started piecing the album together we discovered that they all started the same,
so Ben wanted to add a slow part. I had lyrics already done for it, and now that
they had the new part, I kind of had to add an intro. So, “I smell that whore”
came from me, but the rest was collaboration around a misunderstanding. This
sounds so stupid, but we were at a practice and I sang, “I smell that whore” and
mumbled something else I can’t remember. Ben’s eyes lit up and he was like,
“Did you just say, ‘Bring me back, bring me a brick’?” I was like, “No, but that
sounds awesome,” and that was the immaculate conception of that line. I think
the human sense of smell is the strongest sense we have and, for me, if I smell
something, it can take me back to an exact memory, almost like déjà vu; that’s
where I got that from.
Was the vintage gear pictured throughout the CD booklet equipment you actually
used to record the album?
Minakakis: We had an old shirt design with a radio tube on the back and we
wanted to keep going with that old recording look. My mom had this old record
player. It looks like a normal chest, but when you open the doors it’s a radio with
a record player. This guy who used to come on tour with us and do lights, Paul
Delia, took the photos. I took the tubes out, we set up the lighting, laid the tubes
out a certain way and he just took close-up photos of them.
Weinman: Some of it was stuff we used, some of it was an old radio or some-
thing. I don’t really remember, but we definitely wanted that vibe. We were al-
ways about the irony of things. People always said it was ironic that we played
this aggressive music and didn’t look “metal.” To us, having a really technical, pre-
cise record with pictures of vintage things on it made sense. We didn’t like the
whole metal look or the clichés that went along with heavy bands. We didn’t
feel like we were those people, and we wanted to make sure the record repre-
sented that.
What were the reactions like upon the album’s release?

Weinman: The reviews were pretty good. Obviously, people who weren’t used
to what we were doing were pretty freaked out. It was always one of those things

where people would talk trash on it, like, “This isn’t real music. This is just noise.”
But certain people thought it was something different and the next step in ex-
treme music. There were definitely things that were crazy, like how we got onto
Terrorizer’s “Best Albums of the ’90s” list, even though the album came out in
[September] of ’99. We never looked at the big picture; being in a magazine was
something we could show our parents, but to me it was just a piece of work in
the catalogue that we want to do as a whole.
Minakakis: It was shocking. I automatically think the worst in life, and if I
think the worst and people liked it, it was a pleasant surprise and we were pleas-
antly surprised. I also think that made people who didn’t like us from the be-
ginning hate us even more, which was awesome! We started that band not giving
a crap what people thought of us, so if you really hated us, we really liked that.
Pennie: It was really crazy. With Slipknot coming along with a heavier sound
and two million kids buying their album, it seemed like our little world and
scene was becoming an international thing, even if it wasn’t us specifically. But
I never really paid attention to that. People would say we did an awesome job
with the record, and that was flattering, but I never really perceived it as more
than that. I was like, “Cool, but what’s the next step?” When we went on tour
with Bungle, we played it for Mike Patton and he thought we were really onto
something. That was awesome, but I just wanted to step up to the next level and
just keep getting better.
Doll: It’s always really great to hear something you’ve been working on start
to come together, and in this case I got to hear on record a couple songs I
had heard them play in practice and it was crazy. But I’m kind of a perfection-
ist when it comes to sound and I was actually kind of bummed that it didn’t
sound as good as I would have liked it to. But at the end of the day, I was pretty
psyched, especially about the stuff I hadn’t taken a part in. I thought it was
pretty cool.
By your guess-timation, how many records has Calculating Infinity sold?

Weinman: I don’t really know, but I think in North America it’s at least
100,000. Worldwide? Who knows? There’s no SoundScan-type system for Eu-
rope and the U.K.; they just keep track of it by the numbers that get shipped out.
Still, selling 100,000 copies of anything was a big deal in our world; no bands
we knew had really done that and it was so foreign to everyone involved.
Looking back on the whole experience, is there anything you would have changed
about the recording, the recording process or the artwork?
Weinman: At the time, I had all kinds of ideas about how things could have
been better. I remember listening to it and freaking out over every detail—about
316 100% CLASSIC

how there wasn’t enough low end in the kick or whatever. I remember our friend
Brian Montouri, who did Miss Machine’s artwork, was supposed to do the art-
work for Calculating, but he had never really done a layout before. He was a
painter and he couldn’t get it together in time. He had this huge vision about
how it was going to be a 40-panel booklet and how he was going to paint every
picture, but that was kind of unrealistic and we didn’t have the time, so we ended
up using the pictures of the tubes and stuff and keeping the letterbox format of
Under the Running Board. It came together, but it wasn’t our initial vision of hav-
ing our friend do paintings with this insane packaging. Still, it ended up being
really cool and having its own kind of vibe, and now, you can’t picture it sound-
ing or looking or being any other way. The thing about Calculating Infinity is that
when I listen to it, it’s pretty clear that it’s got its own sound. I remember people
back then saying, almost disappointedly, that it didn’t sound like this or that fa-
vorite record of theirs. Which is cool; it didn’t sound like any other record back
then and it still doesn’t sound like any other record to this day.
What are your thoughts on CI’s impact and influence on extreme music seven years
down the line?
Weinman: I probably don’t think it was important or as influential as most
other people. Still, at the end of the day, we did something with this band that
was never supposed to happen. We’ve always thought we’ve gone way farther
than we ever could.
Minakakis: What’s pretty cool is not how Calculating became the new “some-
thing” and spawned a whole genre of bands—because there were bands before
us doing it great and a lot of terrible bands that followed—but that it motivated
and drove someone. That’s what’s cool; that someone recognizes your work so
much that they want to mimic it or be influenced by it.
Benoit: In the end, that we put out an awesome record we were all happy
with and people still look at as a benchmark is what ultimately counts. I’d rather
have something that stands the test of time rather than some gimmick, fly-by-
night record. It’s great to be able to look at that record and have it stand up; we
never thought it would.

CHAPTER 24
FALLEN EMPIRE
THE MAKING OF BOTCH’S WE ARE THE ROMANS
by J. Bennett
Release Date: 1999
Label: Hydra Head
Summary: Math-metal bellwether
1
999 was a transitional year for both underground music and America’s
most iconic freestanding structures. Seattle’s Space Needle was no longer
the world’s tallest metaphor for heroin abuse, and Tacoma/Seattle quar-
tet Botch were about to redefine a genre with the hyper-kinetic guitar squalls and
contortionist rhythms of We Are the Romans. On the other side of the country,
the Twin Towers were two years away from being annihilated in a terrorist
firestorm, but Botch guitarist Dave Knudson had already drawn a target over the
New York City skyline on the album’s unforgettable cover. By 2002, both the
Towers and Botch were gone: Chronic tension between Knudson (currently of
Minus the Bear) and drummer Tim Latona forced the band tits up before it
ever really got its due. Bassist Brian Cook and vocalist Dave Verellen went on
318
to form Roy (Cook is also a member of These Arms Are Snakes; Verellen is also
a Tacoma firefighter), and Botch released a posthumous EP, An Anthology of
Dead Ends, in late 2002. But We Are the Romans lives on as one of the most in-
fluential “hardcore” records of the last decade, its jagged grace and terminal dis-
cord revered by the likes of future noisemongers Norma Jean, the Used and
Every Time I Die—which is ironic when one considers that the album essen-
tially called bullshit on the prevailing hardcore aesthetics of its time. Produced
by Matt Bayles (who’d go on to record similarly lauded albums by the likes of
Isis and Mastodon) at Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard’s Studio Litho, We Are
the Romans is the electrifying epitaph of a band that quit while it was way ahead.
What do you remember best about the recording sessions for We Are the Romans?
Dave Verellen: Recording We Are the Romans was probably the most serious
we’d ever been in the studio. We’d worked with Matt [Bayles] before, and he
can be kinda hard-nosed about doing stuff right, but this was different for us in
terms of work ethic. We were always the kind of band that never really knew how
things were gonna sound until it was done.
Dave Knudson: We had maybe had a week or six days to track it, which was
way longer than the previous record [American Nervoso], but we still felt like we
were rushing to get everything done and do it as well as we wanted to. I think
Matt had heard most of the songs before, but we recorded some live demos with
him about two months before we did the actual album. We played five or six
songs, and then we did “Saint Matthew Returns to the Womb,” which he hadn’t
heard yet. So we ripped through the song, and it’s, you know, this thrasher that
ends kind of abruptly. He’s sitting in the control looking at us and goes, “Holy
shit.” I think he was kind of flabbergasted that that came out of us.
Brian Cook: I remember watching a lot of TV at the studio, and it was when
Limp Bizkit’s “Nookie” was on MTV every half hour. I was really intrigued by
it because obviously it’s a really terrible song, but it was this really terrible heavy
song that was super-popular. It was inspiring in a way, because it was so moronic,
so I thought that what we were doing could feasibly do really well.
Tim Latona: I was really proud of what we were doing, but I was also kind
of concerned. Maybe I’d call it cautious optimism. I was so stoked on what we
were writing and what we were doing, but I was really worried about how it was
gonna come out.
Were you all getting along with each other at that point?
Knudson: I don’t think there was that much fighting during the recording,
but on tour, we’d definitely butt heads, so maybe there was some of that energy
lingering when we were writing the songs for Romans. I don’t remember any
The Making of Botch’s We Are the Romans 319

specific fights during the recording process; it was more of an underlying thing.
It was Tim and I who would probably butt heads the most, but then again, I
think that helped create the tension in the music. If Tim and I never fought, it
would’ve made being in the band a lot easier, but I think it would’ve made the
band a lot more boring musically.
Verellen: Recording was a lot different for me than the other guys because I
didn’t have a lot of input as far as guitar tone or whatever, so I wasn’t the guy
going, “Hey, we need more 3Khz here” or some insane technical term. [Laughs]
So I just tried to keep a good attitude through the whole thing, ’cause it was
pretty taxing. It’s not like me to sit at a console and figure stuff out for hours and
hours and hours. But Studio Litho had a nice outside deck, and I spent a lot of
time out there so I wouldn’t feel drained or annoyed.
Latona: All four of us have very strong personalities—some of us more than
others. That said, Dave Knudson and I were the main writing force behind the
band, but we were also the main force that broke up the band. I didn’t really
want that to happen, but I’m sure when we were in the studio there were argu-
ments and pissing matches. We were all best friends, and who doesn’t fight with
their best friend? But as frustrating as the recording process was, we were really
proud of what we had written.
Did you have all the songs finished beforehand?

Knudson: Pretty much the whole record was written already, except for the
chanting part in “Man the Ramparts,” which was improvised in the studio, and
some of the guitar parts toward the end of “C. Thomas Howell [as the ‘Soul
Man.’].” At that point, I was living in Seattle, and everyone else was living in
Tacoma. I was going to school at the Art Institute and working at Kinko’s, so I
had my schedule arranged so I could go down to our crappy rehearsal space in
Tacoma on Fridays and Sundays or something like that. Sometimes it would
just be me and Tim, but for the most part, everybody was there. But a lot of the
riffs on “Transitions From Persona to Object” and “To Our Friends in the Great
White North” I actually wrote at Thanksgiving at my mom’s house on an
acoustic guitar. It was weird, ’cause I think I was watching like the Turkey Bowl
football game or something, but all that shit kinda flowed out. I think that’s
kinda where the record started building steam and getting interesting, because
those two songs helped us become a lot more focused, I think.
Latona: Throughout the course of recording, one of us would always go, “Oh,
fuck, dude! What if . . . ” and out would come these ideas that were retarded 80
percent of the time and amazing 20 percent of the time. Right up to the last
minute, there was always discussion about how things should go. Even during
mixing, we talked about changing things around.
320 FALLEN EMPIRE

Cook: We added “Frequency Ass Bandit” at the last minute, which was from
a split we did with the Murder City Devils. We rewrote it slightly and rerecorded
it, kind of as an afterthought.
Verellen: I’d usually go in with only a chorus or something ready, as far as
lyrics. I was such a procrastinator—it was terrible. But when I was in the studio
and forced to be in that mode, it was very productive for me.
You went into the studio without an album title, right?

Verellen: We had the song “Man the Ramparts,” and I had just written the
line, “We are the Romans.” Brian thought it’d make a great title, but I thought
it was a totally silly gladiator song. The riff is kinda huge, so I was thinking
about chariots and fire and stuff like that. It sounds like I pulled the words out
of Conan the Barbarian. But then we started talking about the social decline of
Western civilization, and how Americans are the new Romans—it’s all slaves
and Caesars. So we made it work.
Cook: Now that I look back on it, it seems like there are a lot of themes on
that record that I don’t think were necessarily intentional. “Man the Ramparts”
is a perfect example, because I don’t think Dave was originally trying to make
some grandiose statement—I think he was just singing about Romans and using
all this cheesy, medieval imagery. At the time, it seemed like sort of a joke, but
when we went into the studio and actually finalized everything, it actually kinda
worked as a metaphor for America as an empire in decline.
It seems like the song titles don’t have anything to do with the lyrics.
Verellen: That’s because I wrote most of the lyrics, but Brian actually came
up with most of the song titles. He’s got this knack for just coming up with ran-
dom, weird stuff that I’m not nearly clever enough to come up with. Most of
them had these really drawn out meanings. But we’d always have these running
jokes within the band that would turn up in the songs. “C. Thomas Howell as
the ‘Soul Man’” started because the song had all of those tapping parts Dave
would do, so we started calling it “Taps.” We thought C. Thomas Howell was
in the movie Taps, so we started calling it “C. Thomas Howell.” But then we re-
alized he wasn’t in Taps—he was in Soul Man. So it became “C. Thomas How-
ell as the ‘Soul Man.’” We thought it was hilarious, so we went with it, but I
think the kids who were used to a song being called “Lawnmower” because the
chorus is “Lawnmower, lawnmower, lawnmower” were like, “What the fuck?”
Cook: It’s funny, because some of the titles ended up having some relation
to the subject matter, which is what happened with “C. Thomas Howell as the
‘Soul Man.’” In the movie, that character takes a bunch of tanning pills so he
can get a scholarship for black college students. And the song was inadvertently

inspired by that band Race Traitor and other bands with these very lofty polit-
ical ideals that seemed like more of a marketing tool for the genre of political
hardcore rather than a sincere agenda. It was more about creating controversy
so people would pay attention to them, as opposed to actually saying some-
thing. So the title worked out, because the movie was also about pretending to
be something you’re not. But I don’t think we realized that until the record had
been out for several months.
Do you remember where any of the other titles came from?

Cook: I was reading The Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard, and I was really
into it. We came up with all the song titles in the studio, so I think I ended up
borrowing pretty heavily from that book for inspiration. Especially the idea of
the human body as a landscape, and the way that culture and environment sort
of dictates the human body and vice versa—that came out in things like “I
Wanna Be a Sex Symbol on My Own Terms” and “Transitions From Persona
to Object.” “Mondrian Was a Liar” was a reference to [Piet] Mondrian’s idea that
reducing art to its most simple elements—so that there’s no cultural iconogra-
phy or symbols involved in it whatsoever—would make it more universal, and
it would therefore bring everyone together and create a culture where every-
thing is art and everybody understands each other. It seemed really inflated and
naïve and hopelessly idealistic. But I think any Botch song could be refuting an
idea like that.
What were the lyrical influences?

Verellen: I don’t really read a whole heck of a lot, so stuff that I witnessed was
usually what had an impact on me. I’d look at a social situation or whatever was
going on in the world, and then just try to be creative with it. A lot of guys can
write songs about war or something like that, but I’d try to be a little less bla-
tant. People laugh when I tell them I was a Joan of Arc fan, because that band
is so weird and sounds nothing like Botch, but I totally loved them, and half the
reason was because the guy [Tim Kinsella] had such weird lyrics. I’ve always
been attracted to abstract stuff like that, so I think that’s where I drew most of
my lyrics from. The rest was just me, I guess. “C. Thomas Howell” probably had
the strongest meaning behind it. Most of the songs had pretty abstract lyrics. I’m
proud of them, but I don’t think they’re works of art or anything. The other guys
are a lot better at their crafts. I think I just kinda got away with a lot of stuff, to
tell you the truth.
I’ve always thought of “C. Thomas Howell as the ‘Soul Man’” as your epic, like
Botch’s “War Pigs” or something.
322 FALLEN EMPIRE

Verellen: Yeah, it’s such a big-sounding song, and there’s the line “worst music
I ever heard,” so people would always ask what it was about. I don’t think we told
people at the time, but that band Race Traitor had a huge impact on us because
we weren’t accepted into the hardcore scene when we first started. We were play-
ing catch-up with these kids we thought we had to impress so we could be a
band. Then all of a sudden we realized we were a band anyway, and that half
those kids were idiots and elitists. We thought bands like Race Traitor and Earth
Crisis were over-the-top. It was like, “You guys need to relax.” And that was
definitely an inspiration for “C. Thomas Howell.” We talked about that stuff all
the time—we couldn’t believe that these bands would have songs about hurting
people because they didn’t believe the same things as them. Let’s see, who else
did stuff like that? Hitler?
Latona: I don’t think I ever recognized that song for what it was until we
played it live and there would be like a hundred people up front screaming that
line about “worst music I ever heard.” I mean, I’ve read reviews of We Are the
Romans where people singled out that song, and I can see the allure that draws
people to it.
Knudson: Yeah, the ending—that big huge chord part—is just like triumph
over everything. Brian came up with that chord progression—he’s great at writ-
ing those things.
Cook: I guess that is a pretty big “fuck you” song. And it was definitely one
of our more anthemic songs. I’m not usually one for writing riffs—my contri-
butions tend to be thematic or dealing with song structure, but that’s one of the
few riffs I guess I brought to the table.
What’s the story with the hidden electronic track at the end?
Latona: That’s kind of a sore subject. It wasn’t really my thing. I think the
electronic thing was some of the members in Botch’s way of showing that we had
a whole lot more influencing us than metal. But when I listen to We Are the Ro-
mans now, I can fucking tell that there were more than metal influences. I mean,
when we were on tour, people would come up to me and say they could tell that
I’d played jazz before. So I didn’t think that was a necessary addition to the
record, and I don’t like it, to be honest with you. I think it sucks.
Knudson: You know, I kinda forgot about that. I haven’t listened to that song
in forever, but it was a friend of ours, Derek, who does all this electronic stuff and
he wanted to do a Botch remix. I think it had some riffs from “[Thank God for]
Worker Bees” from Nervoso. We thought it came out pretty cool, and we put it
on the record. On the vinyl, it’s on its own side at 45 rpm.
Verellen: I loved it. That guy DuRoc—Derek was his name—was my room-
mate for a long time. He actually did some of the enhanced stuff on An Anthology

of Dead Ends, too. And I think he’s a roadie for Modest Mouse now. He was
doing this thing called Logic Probe, and it was like the weirdest music I’ve ever
heard in my life. They did like nine-hour songs, but it was fun to listen to. So I
asked him to do a remix, and he spent like 20 hours in the basement with his
computer system.
Cook: Honestly, I don’t like electronic music. It’s a whole genre that just
doesn’t appeal to me. But our friend was interested in doing a remix. I didn’t
really think about it being good or bad at the time. We just figured someone did
it, so we’d put it on as a secret bonus track. I never really thought of it as part of
the album. I don’t wanna talk too much trash about it, but I never listen to it.
Dave’s guitar-playing style makes the album instantly recognizable. Did you in-
tend for it to be so different, or did it just come out that way?
Knudson: You know, it wasn’t necessarily like, “Oh, man—people are
gonna love this shit.” It was more like, “This is pretty cool what I wrote—I
really like this.” It was excitement with where the music was going. I re-
member one point right after Nervoso, I was talking to [Aaron] Turner about
how the songs for Romans were coming out, and at that point in hardcore,
there was just a lot of dumb chugga-chugga open-E shit. I liked that stuff be-
fore, but it was getting kinda boring. So I was telling Turner how there was
going to be hardly any palm-muting on the new record—it was going to be
all notes and pull-offs. At that point I was listening to a lot of Angel Hair and
[Drive Like] Jehu—stuff that was, for lack of a better term, just crazy and an-
gular. That music, along with Sepultura and Meshuggah, combined to really
influence my playing. After I wrote the acoustic parts for “Transitions,” I was
jamming down at the practice space with Tim, and I had this DOD sampler
pedal that had like a second and a half of memory. So I just started sampling
some of those parts and speeding them up, and that opened up a whole new
world of possibilities.
The sound on Romans really did turn the notion of “hardcore” on its ear. It was
heavy and graceful at the same time.
Knudson: Graceful—that’s a nice thing to say, man. Thank you. I know what
you mean, though—“C. Thomas” starts off all brutal and crazy and then to-
wards the middle it breaks into that nice tapped melody part. I think that’s prob-
ably what we were all subconsciously missing in hardcore, too. We loved
hardcore because it was so visceral and in-your-face, but at the same time there
were other bands that we liked that incorporated a lot more emotion and
melody—and we wanted to bring that to Romans as well.
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Cook: You know, I still like the idea of hardcore as something that’s supposed
to be independent and creative. I’m into the notion of it as a pure art form, but
in reality it ends up being pretty simplistic and moronic—and to me, pretty
uninspiring. I like the idea in a high-minded Fugazi respect. In fact, I feel bad
talking shit on hardcore, but Fugazi is kind of the exception to the rule. I think
hardcore should be constantly evolving, constantly challenging the notions of
what music is, something that has a lot of artistic integrity and doesn’t give a shit
if people like it or not. We wanted to do something creative and daring, and
maybe it was a “fuck you” to the Trustkill bands, but I never really considered
them to be hardcore. They were just ruining my good time.
It seems like Romans calls bullshit on hardcore, both philosophically and sonically.
Looking back, do you think you were severing yourselves from that kind of ideol-
ogy and aesthetic?
Latona: When we all started out in Tacoma, some of the guys who were a
couple years ahead of us in school would always go see Undertow and all these
hardcore bands, so we started going. That was our weekend thing. When we fi-
nally started playing some of these shows, we got fucking shit on by, like, the cool
Seattle kids. It was really disheartening, because we really thought we had some-
thing cool to share with people, and they were total assholes to us. To this day,
I don’t understand what their motivation was. So we were always distanced from
the hardcore community. I don’t think the lyrics in “C. Thomas Howell” or the
fact that we pushed the limits of what most bands were doing was what did it.
We were just four guys who liked playing metal and didn’t give a shit.
Cook: By that point, we were all getting burnt out on stereotypical hardcore—
especially because the metal/hardcore thing seemed so vacuous and uninterest-
ing. You had the bad Trustkill hardcore—which was strictly about the mosh—or
the really bad hardcore, where if you don’t spend at least as much [time] talking
about your songs as playing them, it’s not really hardcore. It was just people
preaching the same shit to the same choir, and it was sort of depressing.
Verellen: You know, reading the lyrics on a Floorpunch record, you’re like,
“What?” I never really paid attention to lyrics like that, but then again, to tell you
the truth, I didn’t listen to too many bands like that. The bands that were in-
spirational for me as far as lyrics were Deadguy and I’m Broken. The guy from
Deadguy has one of the best voices ever, and his lyrics were insightful. You had
to read it all and put it together. I’m Broken was a little darker and kind of de-
pressing, but they weren’t the kind of band that, you know, in trying to get point
A across, they’d repeat point A like a hundred times. We just wanted to do some-
thing different, and I think I got away with that, for sure.

A lot of bands can change members and still sound the same because it’s just one
dude writing all the songs, but it seems like We Are the Romans could only be the
product of exactly you four guys.
Latona: We all went to high school together, you know? Dave Knudson and
I started out playing Helmet covers on my back deck. We were playing together
when we were 14 or 15 years old. I’ve known Dave Verellen since fifth grade. So
bringing someone else in was never even an option. It really did take the four of
us to reach the end product.
Knudson: Oh, totally. Everyone brought something to the table that, if they
were replaced, would’ve never allowed the songs to develop the way they did. But
that’s why Botch never had any other members—no one ever quit or anything
like that. We always knew that whenever one person was gone, it’d be the end
of the band. It was that tight-knit group of people that had gone through the ex-
perience of starting a band, not knowing what we wanted it to sound like, being
a really shitty fuckin’ band for a long time, and then really maturing and grow-
ing and then, toward the end of our career, writing stuff that we’re actually proud
of. So I don’t think anyone could’ve come in and filled anyone else’s shoes—
either personality-wise or talent/musicianship-wise.
Cook: I think that’s pretty true. Each person definitely had a specific role in
the band, and because it was four very different people, there were a lot of checks
and balances. It was really hard to get anything done, because it was difficult to
come up with anything that everybody liked—which is also kind of what de-
stroyed the band. But it also meant that if we did come up with something that
everybody liked, it felt pretty incredible.
Verellen: I totally agree, and that’s exactly why we broke up. A couple guys
weren’t happy, so it was time to end it. There was no way we’d replace somebody
and try to pull it off. It had a lot of character that way. Outside of Tim and Dave,
Brian is pretty much a self-taught musician, and I’m not really much of a musi-
cian at all—I just kinda know what I like and dislike. All those components gave
us a uniqueness.
In retrospect, the title of the album and the cover art—a target over the New York
City skyline—seem oddly prophetic.
Knudson: I was going to art school, so I was always looking through old
books looking for random images and scanning every possible photo that would
lend itself to the artwork. I remember I was at Kinko’s operating the 1590 Xerox
copier [laughs], and I didn’t have anything to do while I was running some job,
so I started sketching ideas for the cover. I just started drawing targets and went
from there. I think the aerial photo was a picture of New York from the ’30s. I
remember after 9/11, we were like, “Man, I hope we don’t get arrested.”
326 FALLEN EMPIRE

Latona: It’s funny—I used to work at an airline, and there were a couple of
people there who were interested in what Botch was doing. After 9/11, I dis-
tinctly remember making an offhand joke about the record cover and how it was
so interesting because of what had happened. He said we called it.
Cook: We tried—unsuccessfully—to start a rumor that the record was
banned after 9/11. The fact that it hinted at things to come makes it all the more
appropriate.
You’d worked with Matt Bayles before on American Nervoso, but it wasn’t until
We Are the Romans came out that both Botch and Matt began getting the repu-
tations they have today. You made your names together, pretty much.
Knudson: I agree. I mean, listening to Nervoso, it sounds good, but in the
time between Nervoso and Romans, his production and engineering skills defi-
nitely took a step up the same way our songwriting did. He played an integral
role in getting the sounds and making sure the performances were really tight.
Anyone who’s worked with Matt will tell you that he doesn’t let you get away
with stupid shit. He’ll never say, “That part’s fine,” when it’s not. He’ll make
you do it again and again—which is why Romans came out so tight-sounding.
Latona: American Nervoso isn’t a record I’m terribly proud of, but with We Are
the Romans, I think we recognized we had written something that was great.
Apparently, a few other people noticed, too, which is pretty rad. But I don’t think
that album would be what it is if we had recorded with anyone else. Matt was
absolutely key to the way that record sounds.
Verellen: It’s funny because everyone who worked on that record talks about
the repercussions of it. My other band, Roy, just mastered our new record with
Ed Brooks, who also mastered We Are the Romans, and he was telling us how
much business they get because people like how that record sounded. And Matt’s
always saying how bands will want to get the guitar sound from some song off
of Romans.
Which song holds up the best for you personally?

Cook: I really like “Transitions From Persona to Object,” because it’s epic
and sort of all over the place, but there’re these little guitar parts and progressions
that keep resurfacing over the course of the song. So it’s never boring or repeti-
tious, but it also doesn’t seem like it was slapped together. It was experimental,
too, with the looping guitar parts that were sped up and slowed down. I don’t
think we ever played that song the same way twice.
Knudson: I feel like “Transitions” was the height of creativity in the band. I
don’t know why—I just feel like it has so many different parts and feels to it. It
had this herky-jerky motion to it when it would drop a beat and add a beat. And

then at the end it just sort of explodes in this way that was always really excit-
ing to me when we’d play it. But I think a lot of the songs hold up really well.
The only one that bums me out is “Mondrian Was a Liar,” because it starts out
with this kick-ass riff but by the end it loses all its energy. I don’t know; I don’t
think that song was fully realized.
Latona: That’s a tricky question for me, because on the last couple tours, we’d
link up “Transitions” into “Great White North” and make them into one awe-
some 12-minute song. But if I had to pick one directly off the record, I guess I’d
say “Transitions.” Especially Dave’s guitar playing and the polyrhythms on top—
I think that song’s well constructed, and it was fucking awesome to play live.
At what point did you realize the influence/impact the album had? These days,
there are Botch rip-off bands.
Verellen: Honestly, I didn’t have any idea people felt that way until right
around the time of our last show. I mean, being in Seattle kinda separates us
from the rest of the country geographically, and bands don’t come here as often.
So you have to keep up with the magazines and stuff, and I’ve always been hor-
rible with that. But Bayles is like my meter, and he’d play me tapes that bands
would send him and be like, “Dude, you gotta listen to this—this band is totally
biting you guys.” And then I’d be embarrassed because the band wouldn’t be
that good. So when I see bands on MTV2 or whatever, I get the feeling we
broke up at the perfect time.
Knudson: I think a year ago was probably the height of that craze, which is
kinda funny. I don’t really think we realized it was gonna mean that much to
people, until maybe right before we broke up. We would tour, and the tours
would go well, but it was never anything big. At the end, we went out with the
Murder City Devils and then did some West Coast dates with Dillinger [Escape
Plan], and it wasn’t until then that it seemed like people were picking up on it.
When it first came out, people said they liked it, but it didn’t feel that ground-
breaking, I don’t think.
Cook: Probably just in the last year more than anything. Everything that hap-
pened during the band’s existence happened in such slow increments that it just
seemed like the natural progression of things. The first time we ever actually
played a show where people sang along, we thought it was crazy, but I’m pretty
sure it didn’t make any of us think it was this big important thing that people
were gonna remember five years down the road. I never equated people buying
t-shirts with the longevity of the band. Earlier this year, [These Arms Are]
Snakes did a U.S. and European tour that started at the beginning in April and
lasted through mid-June. There wasn’t a single night on that tour when some-
one didn’t come up to me to ask about Botch. It’s crazy enough when that hap-
328 FALLEN EMPIRE

pens every night in America, but when you’re in Europe on a day off and some-
one is randomly like, “You were in that band,” it made me realize that this’ll ac-
tually be one of those bands people talk about. But I think we knew it would be
a short-term success. When you play music like we played, you eat a lot of shit
and you don’t make much money. It’s hard, so you at least want to think that
what you’re doing is important; that it’s not this fleeting thing. I mean, we
could’ve easily written a Snapcase record in two weeks—we would’ve been way
more popular and made way more money. But it was more rewarding to write
songs that would be interesting to us. And it worked, I guess.
Do you feel like Botch gets more props now than you did when you were together?
Latona: Sometimes. [Laughs] Every once in a while, I’ll look on eBay and
see what kind of Botch stuff is up there, and I’m floored by what people are will-
ing to pay for this shit. I don’t mean to sound like a dick, but it’s like, “Where
were you in 2001?” But I don’t really know, ’cause I don’t go to shows anymore,
and I don’t hang out with hardcore kids anymore. On the other hand, it’s flat-
tering to hear that people even give a shit about what we did, because I fucking
loved what we did.
Knudson: I never really sit around and think about that. But it’s weird to
watch Headbangers Ball and think, “Oh, man—I wrote that riff a couple years
ago, dude. Can I get some royalties?” [Laughs] On the other hand, maybe it’s be-
cause I don’t go out and try to find it, but there’s not really a whole lot of that
style of music that I’m interested in these days, because I feel like I’ve heard it
before or it’s been done. Then again, I can’t say that I didn’t rip off Soundgarden
or Sepultura—I ripped off a ton of bands, too, you know? That’s how you
progress as a musician—you play stuff you love. If it sounds like another band,
that sucks, but sometimes you can make that into your own thing and then own
it—which is how I feel we did it.

Latona: There are definitely a couple of spots in there where I could’ve played
better, but we didn’t have the budget or the desire to do a thousand takes of each
song. Doing that strips away the being of the songs, you know? Part of what
makes We Are the Romans good are the things that aren’t quite perfect. I love that
record, to be honest with you. People are so weird about pride and arrogance—
they think it’s the same thing. I don’t listen to that record because I’m arrogant;
I listen to it because I’m proud of what I did. The music you write should be
something that you want to listen to all the fucking time because it should be
the music that reflects you as a person. And We Are the Romans is something I
can listen to today from start to almost finish.

Knudson: I wouldn’t change anything. We’d probably just fuck it up, anyway.
It marks a period in time, and it still sounds good now. And for all the fight-
ing that we had on tour or in the studio—that’s the kind of energy that drives
you to make a record like that. That was our performance-enhancement drug—
when you get pissed off at someone, and you take it out on the song. It provides
the kind of energy you can’t quantify, but it influences your playing and your
writing.
Verellen: Whenever I hear something we did, I always think, “Aw, we shoulda
done this” or “We shoulda done that.” I’m happy with it, though. It’s weird to
think about it, because I’m not really in that game anymore. My musical tastes
have changed since then. You know, my girlfriend had never heard of Botch, so
I played her the Romans CD and she was like, “No way is that you. No way were
you in a band like that.”
330 FALLEN EMPIRE

CHAPTER 25
WHO’S THAT GIRL?

THE MAKING OF CONVERGE’S JANE DOE
by J. Bennett
Release Date: 2001
Label: Equal Vision
Summary: Freeform mathcore maelstrom
Induction Date: January 2008/Issue #39
C
all it the face that launched a thousand metalcore graphic designers (into
a rat-race of feverish mimicry). Call it the record that catapulted a cer-
tain Boston quartet (then quintet) into permanent cult status with a
slew of face-ripping live staples (“Concubine,” “The Broken Vow” and “Bitter
and Then Some”) and a soaring, epic title track. Call it Album of the Year, like
our esteemed British colleagues at Terrorizer magazine did. Any way you break
331
it down, Jane Doe was both a semi-melodic milestone (“Hell to Pay,” “Thaw,” the
title track) and a discordant landmark (everything else), far and away the most
crucial metallic hardcore record since fellow Massholes Cave In (who had since
stepped bravely onto the major label playing field) unleashed Until Your Heart
Stops three years earlier. Shit, it even had a song that was just drums and vocals
(the 42-second apocalypse of “Phoenix in Flames”). It was feral, it was fero-
cious, it was fucking unstoppable. And it’s still all those things today.
It was also 2001, and change was everywhere. Bassist Nate Newton, formerly
of Jesuit, had joined the band three years earlier and recorded on two split
releases—1999’s The Poacher Diaries (with Agoraphobic Nosebleed) and 2000’s
Deeper the Wound (with Japan’s Hellchild), the inaugural release from Converge
vocalist Jake Bannon’s label, Deathwish, Inc.—but had yet to track a full-length
with them. The band had also recently recruited local drum dervish Ben Koller,
formerly of grind outfit Force Fed Glass, to replace skinsman Jon DiGiorgio. By
the time the Jane Doe recording sessions—a three-month marathon spread
across as many studios and helmed by Converge guitarist/producer Kurt
Ballou—were complete, the band had kicked longtime second guitarist Aaron
Dalbec (also of Bane) to the curb. On September 1, Ballou was laid off from his
job as a medical engineer at Boston Scientific (“It was like the adult version of
playing with Legos”), thus freeing Converge to expand considerably upon their
annual one-month touring schedule. On September 4, Jane Doe was released to
considerable critical and popular acclaim. On September 11, the day the band
was to embark upon a two-week tour with Playing Enemy, the Twin Towers fell
and the world changed forever. Converge—now a sleek and furious four-piece—
drove into New York City under a blanket of ash, on the road to a silver future.
Ø
PART I: PHOENIX IN FLIGHT
What do you remember about the songwriting process for Jane Doe?
Kurt Ballou: It was the first batch of songs we wrote after Ben joined the
band, so we definitely had a new perspective and a new energy and a new means
of working. And Nate was also finally living in Boston—prior to that he was
commuting up from Virginia. And we were all on the same page musically. We
all had a lot of respect for each other as musicians and friends, so that was the
first record we wrote that was really a collaborative process. I’d always been a
control freak prior to that—in a way it was because of who I am, but in another
way, it was also because I’d had to because I didn’t have people in the band who
could contribute well until Jane Doe. Aaron was doing a lot of Bane stuff—they
were really busy that year. They were doing a record and a ton of touring, so he
332 WHO’S THAT GIRL?

wasn’t really around for much of the songwriting. It was pretty much just the four
of us hacking through the songs together.
Aaron Dalbec: I was on the road a lot with Bane at the time, so I would come
back to work on new songs with everyone, and when I would leave for a Bane
tour, I would be writing while I was on the road.
Nate Newton: I remember a lot of butting heads, between me and Kurt es-
pecially. That was the first record where I was really part of the songwriting
process. I played on The Poacher Diaries and the split with Hellchild, and I had
written a little bit on The Poacher Diaries, but that was a weird time, because Jon
[DiGiorgio] was only in the band for a really short time on drums and we never
really got acclimated to playing with him. I felt like a lot of those songs were
just kinda hammered together really quickly. So Jane Doe was the first time I
wrote full songs for Converge. And it was the first time Kurt had someone
telling him, “Hey—I don’t like what you’re playing.” I don’t think there was
much of a filter before, mostly because Converge wasn’t as busy of a band. One
of my focuses was that I wanted to write songs—I didn’t want just a shitload
of riffs piled on top of each other. I was really critical of what Kurt was writ-
ing, and ultimately I think that was a good thing for us—it taught all of us to
be more critical of ourselves.
Ballou: The other big shift that happened with that record is that for “Min-
nesota,” the last song on The Poacher Diaries, I had invented a new tuning that
I had used for all the lead guitar parts. I ended up being really inspired by that
tuning and used a lot of it to write a lot of the Jane Doe stuff. It gave me a to-
tally new perspective and new harmonic structures. All the happy accidents you
have on guitar when you’re tuned one way—even though they might be physi-
cally similar—they sound completely different when you start tuning a differ-
ent way.
Ben Koller: I remember being very impressed by Kurt’s demoing skills. He
demoed all the music himself for the song “Jane Doe.” It’s just such an epic,
memorable song and we didn’t deviate too much from that demo when we
recorded it. I remember being very impressed by that demo. “Phoenix in Flames”
was fun, too. I was half-joking one day at the studio, like, “We should just do a
song that’s drums and vocals only.” I can’t believe we actually put that on the
record. I love that song.
Jake Bannon: I can only speak for my own experiences with the album. Life
wasn’t going all that well for me and I saw writing and rehearsals as an escape
of sorts. I looked forward to that few hours a week more than anything at that
time in my life. It was also an odd time for the band. Getting to practice wasn’t
easy. It was a half-hour to an hour commute each way for all of us. Because of
that physical distance, it didn’t feel like there was all that much communication
The Making of Converge’s Jane Doe 333

between members. When we did get together to write, it felt like three of us—
Ben, Kurt and myself—bonded a bit more than we did with Aaron. That growth
between us as friends/family foreshadowed a great deal for all of us. As a band
and as people, we were evolving.
How did you meet Ben?

Ballou: I recorded two of his previous bands. The first one was called
Bastion—not too many people knew about them—and the second one was Force
Fed Glass, and they were somewhat known. He and I started playing together in
a thing called Blue/Green Heart that was kind of a short-lived side project. When
Jon DiGiorgio, the previous Converge drummer, quit, it happened really suddenly.
I think I actually found out about it at Blue/Green Heart practice. I was talking
to Ben about it and we just started jamming some Converge songs. At the time,
we weren’t really sure if he could do it because he couldn’t play double-bass, and
at that time Converge had a lot of double-bass stuff. So originally he played as a
fill-in and we tried out some other drummers, but it became pretty clear pretty
quickly that Ben was the guy.
Newton: Ben joining the band made Converge who we are now. I have no
doubt in my mind that we would’ve broken up if he hadn’t joined the band. His
drumming is such a big part of the direction that we went with this band, be-
cause songwriting-wise, we were never able to do what we wanted to do. He’s
got his own style, and it’s punk as fuck. We were so excited about him joining,
and you can hear it in the record. There’s such a huge difference between that
record and the ones that came before it. Sometimes when we’re onstage, I’ll turn
around to watch him play and just think, “Fuck—you are so much better at your
instrument than I am at mine.”
Jane Doe was your first recording with Ben on drums and your first full-length
with Nate on bass. Did you feel invigorated by the relatively new lineup? Were you
nervous about the potential results?
Bannon: Both of them brought a new energy to everything, and I am still
grateful to them for that. For Converge, it was the first time that there was a
“whole” band—or at least four of us—participating in the writing process. In
the past, it was Kurt as the chief songwriter, and I handled everything else for
the band. Though Kurt still was at the helm musically, with Jane Doe, Nate and
Ben played significant roles in shaping the music to the album. I also contributed
rough versions of the riffs in “Homewrecker” and “Phoenix in Flight” to the
album. Though I am a terrible guitarist, Kurt managed to make sense of my
mess and turn both of them into great songs. I know that all of us playing equal

roles was an reinvigorating experience for me. I felt excited and I had a second
wind of sorts creatively because of that.
Dalbec: I was not nervous about the lineup at all. We had been playing for a
while, and Ben was the first drummer since Damon [Bellorado] that really fit
with us. As far as Nate, I loved playing with him. He is a great dude, and a great
guitar/bass player. It added so much new energy to the band.
What were the recording sessions like?

Ballou: We did them at Q Division in Boston with Matt Ellard engineering.
I guess I was producing—you don’t really have producers when you’re doing hard-
core records. But I was the one who was there all the time presiding over stuff.
Q Division has two studios and we booked our time in Studio A at a certain rate
that was below their advertised rate. And then James Taylor came along and de-
cided that he wanted Studio A during our time period. He was willing to pay the
full rate, so they bumped us over to Studio B—which ended up being a blessing
in disguise because even though Studio B is a little smaller, the room is a little
brighter and the console is a lot more crisp-sounding. It’s a Trident ATB, which
I actually have in my studio now—and part of the reason I have it is because of the
drums we tracked on Jane Doe. But we went back over to Studio A after James
Taylor left, and then we did the guitars, bass and some vocals at my studio in Nor-
wood. We mixed it and did the rest of the vocals at Fort Apache in Cambridge.
Koller: I remember it being very laid-back. It was a comfortable environ-
ment and there wasn’t a lot of pressure. I also remember James Taylor recording
in one of the other studios and him being escorted in and out by his entourage.
Why did he need to be escorted? Who cares about James Taylor anyway?
Newton: James Taylor was across the hall from us and he kept sending his en-
gineer over to tell us to be quiet. “Mr. Taylor is trying to record vocal tracks and
you guys are goofing off and being way too loud over here.” [Laughs] He had al-
ready knocked us into the smaller room, too—but that’s fine. I don’t really care.
Bannon: For me, it was the first time that we were in a more formal studio
setting. Aside from the occasional weekend recording sessions at outside stu-
dios, we usually recorded on our own in some way. Even though the When For-
ever Comes Crashing album had Steve Austin at the helm, it was in a no-frills
studio in a basement in Allston. At Q Division we had engineers and assistants
helping during the initial tracking. We had an English engineer who worked
with Motörhead and George Michael giving us assistance and guidance. It all
felt “important” and “special” to me. We were all working together and I really
appreciated that.
Dalbec: I just remember it being the most well-organized recording we had
ever done. We made sure all the songs were 100 percent before we recorded

them. We had recorded the drums at Q Division, and we did most of the gui-
tars and vocals at Kurt’s old studio in Norwood. That way we had more time to
work on everything.
Newton: You know, I’ve never been a great bass player, and I’m well aware
of that. But this was the first time that I was in a studio for a long period of
time and someone was extremely critical of what I was doing. And I had a hell
of a time recording some of those songs—like “Thaw.” That song is fuckin’
hard to play, and I would get really frustrated. But Kurt really pushed me, and
I’m thankful for that, because I’ve learned a lot from playing with Kurt. He’s
a great guitarist. And I’m not taking credit for anything because I’m just some
douchebag who plays bass, but I will say that Kurt is so much better now than
he was then. I’ve never really said this to him, and maybe it’ll make it to print
and he’ll tear up a little bit, but I’m honored to play with him. I’m constantly
blown away by the things he does. But I don’t say that when we’re writing
songs, because I gotta show him who’s in charge. [Laughs] Which usually turns
out to not be me.
Ballou: I did most of the guitars at my studio, which was in Norwood, MA,
back then. It was really tough because I was recording myself and there was no
one else in the studio, and everything for that record was done on two-inch
[tape]. I sat with my shoes off and my feet up near the tape machine so every
time I screwed up and had to punch in, I could work the tape machine with my
toes while I played. And that machine would punch in, but it wouldn’t punch
out—or when it did punch out, it made a click. So you had to wait for some si-
lence to punch out or you had to play all the way to the end of the song. It was
really, really laborious. I think Matt Ellard actually came down for a day or two
to help me out with some of the more challenging punch-ins so I could be free
to just play. Between starting recording and mastering, the whole process prob-
ably spanned three months. But it’s not like we were working the whole time.
Jake lost his voice at one point and we had to wait a month to get another mix
session. I remember I couldn’t stay for all the mix sessions because I was doing
some Cave In recording—I think they were demos for RCA or something. After
that we went to West West Side to master it with Alan Douches, and I think we
actually banged that out in a day. Alan pushed it really hard. To this day when
I see him, he still talks about how loud that record is and how people always
come into his studio commenting on it or asking him to use it as a reference
when mastering their record. So that’s cool to hear.
Bannon: Recording vocals was a surreal experience. Most of my tracking was
done in the live room at Fort Apache. The studio used to host live recording
sessions with audiences in the room, [so] it’s set up much like a venue. I was
recording on an actual stage with no band behind me—I felt really exposed and

isolated by that. I also recorded most of the vocals in the dark. Not sure why,
really—I think I was just feeling shy, in a way. By doing that, I was able to just
lose control and get all my negative emotion out of me on that stage, and on tape.
I listen back now and I sound like a rabid animal in a lot of places. It’s definitely
vicious. You can hear that real anger and emotion in there for sure.
Ø
PART II: FAULT AND FRACTURE
What was Aaron Dalbec’s involvement in Jane Doe and what were the circum-
stances surrounding his departure?
Newton: Ah, the big question . . . Well, Aaron was around for some of the
writing process, but at that time, Bane was really taking off. They were way
busier than Converge at that point. It got to the point where he was gone so
much and we would have to turn down tours and show offers because he wasn’t
around. Basically, if we wanted to continue as a band and do the things we
wanted to do . . . Aaron just didn’t have time to be in Converge. To this day, I’m
still not happy about the way everything went down, because I love Aaron and
I think he’s a great dude.
Bannon: Aaron’s role in Jane Doe was quite minimal, as it was in all records.
In retrospect, he was primarily a live guitarist more than anything. Though he
would track on albums, his style of playing wasn’t that precise and didn’t come
off well in a recorded setting. My memory isn’t the best, but the only song I re-
member him ever bringing to the table for Converge was “High Cost of Play-
ing God,” which was released on the When Forever . . . album. He concentrated
his writing for his band, Bane, which was much more fitting for him.
Koller: He wrote a couple riffs here and there, but he was pretty disconnected
from the rest of us. We would have rehearsal without him from time to time—
then he would come back from a Bane tour and he would have to relearn cer-
tain riffs. It really dragged us down. He just couldn’t devote his full attention to
the band, and we wanted to push it to the next level.
Ballou: I’ll let him answer that however he wants to answer it. I mean, he
had talked about leaving Converge before, and it was always Bane-related. Bane
was his band and suits his taste in music. When he joined Converge, we were a
different band and a much less active band. We didn’t really have the talents or
tools to express ourselves how we wanted to. As we all progressed as musicians
and songwriters, we progressed in different directions. I think Aaron was a lit-
tle too stubborn to leave the band even though he knew it was right, so we kinda
told him, “We’re gonna do this now, and we just don’t think you’re able to do this
on the level that the rest of us wanna do it, and we don’t think you’re into this

on the level the rest of us are into it, so it’s probably time for you to just focus
on the band that you’re into.”
Dalbec: Well, pretty much the way it happened was I had just come back
from recording Bane’s Give Blood record, and we got together to “talk” about
our upcoming two-week tour when the record came out. At this point, it was
about two or three weeks away. I got there and [was told] pretty much that I had
to choose between Bane and Converge. Now, just for the record, Bane had never
gotten in the way of Converge. It was always Converge first, then Bane. If Con-
verge had a tour, Bane would not book anything—we would even wait for Con-
verge to make plans before we would decide what to do.
As far as when I left the band, it was about two weeks before Jane Doe got re-
leased. So all the recording for Jane Doe had been long done.
Bannon: Matt Ellard, our engineer at the time, had Kurt play most—if not
all—of the guitar tracks on the entire Jane Doe album. With that said, it was ev-
ident to the band and others around us, that [Aaron’s] role was becoming a larger
issue that couldn’t be ignored. After playing an unannounced show with Isis in
Cambridge, we called a meeting without Aaron and decided that it was best for
him to step down from the band. The next day, the five of us, along with [Death-
wish co-owner] Tre [McCarthy] and [former Converge roadie and current book-
ing agent] Matt Pike, sat down and broke the news to him. After that, we did
our first tour as a four-piece and loved it. We never had any drive to become a
five-piece again.
Newton: Oh, man . . . the way we did this was so shitty. It was the night be-
fore we were leaving for tour and we had a band meeting. Everybody kinda sat
down and explained stuff, and I think Kurt was the one who said, “Bane’s going
this way, Converge is going that way. Bane is busy—it’s obvious that Bane is
your band. A choice has gotta be made here, and we’re gonna make the choice
for you. You’re in Bane.” We all knew that it had to be done—and I’m sure Aaron
in his heart knew it, too—but it was really fuckin’ harsh. The whole situation
fuckin’ sucked and I’m not happy about the way it went down, but it had to hap-
pen sooner or later. We could’ve waited, and maybe he would’ve made the same
decision himself. Or maybe we could have posed the question to him. But it had
to happen eventually. I’d say it worked out better for everyone in the long run.
Dalbec: I was not happy at all about leaving Converge. I had dedicated over
eight years of my life to the band and gave as much as I could for that eight
years, and helped build the band up to where it was at that point. I had worked
through the thick and thin, through the times in the beginning when nobody
gave a shit about us, but we still worked our asses off. So I was not too happy
about it. Now looking back at it, though, for things to end the way they did, I
am happier to not be a part of that. I mean, I was ready to leave for tour and kill

it with Jane Doe coming out, and at the last minute before the record comes out,
they tell me I have to choose between Bane or Converge—and to quote Kurt,
“You need to choose between Bane and Converge, and I think you should pick
Bane.” For someone to say that, there would be no way I would want to continue
with them. Some people think I was stupid to say Bane, but when you are in that
position, there is no other choice. I felt totally betrayed and let down.
Ballou: Dalbec only played one show on Jane Doe, but it was about a week
before the album came out. We played a record release show upstairs at the
Worcester Palladium—I think we had about 20 copies of the record. I remem-
ber because the record came out on September 4 of 2001 and we were supposed
to start a tour with Playing Enemy on September 11, but we had a few shows
cancelled because of the attacks. We drove through New York when it was still
covered in dust. We were comfortable playing all the Jane Doe songs as a four-
piece because we had pretty much practiced them all as a four-piece. But I re-
member we weren’t sure if we were going to continue as a four-piece or get
another guitar player. After that tour, the benefits of the simplified lineup out-
weighed the benefits of a second guitar player. There’s more space onstage, more
space in the van, more money to go around, and even though the stage sound
might be a little less thick, a four-piece just seems more balanced. Live music can
sound like shit, so you can hear the guitar more clearly if there’s just one. Some
of the older songs ended up suffering, but when you’re the only guitar player, you
can be a lot more expressive in your guitar playing without worrying about con-
flicting with someone else.
Ø
PART III: THAW
“Hell to Pay” stands out as very different from the rest of the record and very dif-
ferent for Converge at that time in general.
Newton: I guess it kinda was. I remember when I was learning that song—
Kurt had written in it—it’s basically his Hoover “Warship” right there. I wasn’t
that into it at the time, but in retrospect, it is pretty good. I did four bass tracks
for that song. I had two amps and two basses and I played each amp with each
bass.
Ballou: It was out of character for Converge, but not for our taste in music.
You can hear in a lot of Converge records—going back to at least Petitioning the
Empty Sky era, maybe even earlier—you can hear the Hoover influence, the
Fugazi influence. You can hear me taking their ideas and trying to make them
sound more metal. “Hell to Pay,” for example, is a combination of that and . . .
I think I got into Jesus Lizard a few years before we did that record. So it was

our way of doing that, but not trying so hard to make it metal. It gets a little
doomy at the end. I think that song is one of the best vocal collaborations we’ve
ever done, actually—definitely the best vocals I’ve ever done on a Converge song.
Especially at the end, when it’s me, Nate and Jake switching off—it’s pretty cool.
It’s hard to imagine “Jane Doe” being anything other than the last song on that
record. Did you know that it’d be the closer right away?
Newton: Yeah. It was like, “This is the one.” We were all really excited
about it.
Dalbec: Yeah, when you listen to the record in all one piece it is very hard to
imagine that song anywhere else on the record. When we were writing it, I knew
it was going to be slow and brutal, but I was not too sure where on the record it
would go. At the time, I had no idea what the lyrics would be like.
Ballou: I think we knew before we recorded it that it would be the closer. I
can never remember how songs come to me. To me, songs are just gifts. I mean,
I know they’re not given to me, but after I’m done writing them I usually have
a hard time remembering how it came to me. I’m actually better at remember-
ing what happened with stuff that other people write. With that song, I think I
demoed it with a drum machine and showed it to the guys. It was much shorter
at the time, and it didn’t have the ending. I remember thinking it might not
even be a Converge song but they heard it and were like, “Oh, that’s awesome—
we should use that.” So we did.
Do you have a favorite song on the album?

Ballou: I don’t know . . . “Hell to Pay” might be my favorite, actually. Or
“Distance and Meaning”—two songs we never play. [Laughs] Stuff that sounds
good live is not always what sounds good on record and stuff that’s fun to play
live isn’t as much fun to listen to on a CD, unfortunately. I’ve kind of learned that
throughout my entire musical experience, going back to playing jazz and classi-
cal on saxophone and clarinet when I was a kid.
Bannon: “Phoenix in Flight” gives me goose bumps. “Jane Doe” as well.
Dalbec: I really like “Fault and Fracture” and “Jane Doe.” [Those songs] just
showed where the band was going, and it was totally new for us. I also really
like “Homewrecker.”
Koller: Listening back to the record, I really like the song “Distance and
Meaning.” It sounds very different than anything Converge had done previ-
ously. Some of the riffs were Huguenots riffs [a defunct Kurt Ballou side proj-
ect] and I was a big fan of the Huguenots/SevenPercentSolution 10-inch . . .
well, I liked the Huguenots side, at least.

Newton: I love “Jane Doe.” As far as the faster, more hardcore songs, I like
“The Broken Vow”—and not just because I wrote it. [Laughs] It’s just a live sta-
ple, and it’s fun to play. I still really like “Thaw,” too.
Tre McCarthy, Kevin Baker from the Hope Conspiracy and “Secret C” have back-
ing vocal credits. I’m assuming the last one is Caleb Scofield from Cave In.
Ballou: Yeah. He was under contract with RCA at the time. He didn’t think
there would be any problem, but we thought it would be better not to take any
chances. Isn’t his publishing company called Secret C? I think it might be. All
those guys were on “The Broken Vow”—I think that was the only song they
were on. On the last line, “I’ll take my love to the grave,” with each repetition of
the riff, we’d add another person. So it’s Jake, me, Nate and then those guys, one
at a time.
Ø
PART IV: UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VICTIM
There’s obviously a distinctly female theme dominating the album artwork. What
inspired it, and how does it tie into some of the lyrical concepts?
Bannon: At the time I was going through a great deal of negativity in my
life. When I was refining the lyrics, it was apparent that the album thematically
dealt with that relationship disintegrating. The album was my lyrical purging of
that experience. The artwork visually encapsulates that lyrical theme. The visu-
als attempted to capture the feeling of disintegration and rebirth. I spent a great
deal of time on that—building figures out of texture and acrylic, scanning mul-
tiple layers of imagery, etc. I spent close to a month creating large mixed media
pieces for each song on the album. I used a high-contrast approach to the art-
work, as it was a style I was growing towards at the time. I felt that the cold
iconographic feel was extremely fitting for the subject matter.
Was it your intention to obscure some of the lyrics in the layout, or did it just work
out best that way, visually speaking?
Bannon: I wanted to incorporate them into the pieces themselves, so yes, it
was intentional. I remember Equal Vision not being happy about it, as it broke
from the standard that was set for the time. I don’t care much for rules.
Did Jake discuss the lyrical themes with the rest of you?
Newton: Not really. On every record, we just let Jake do his thing. We had a
general idea, though. I actually thought of the name Jane Doe when we were on

our first European tour—I think I may have seen a pamphlet or a billboard about
violence against women or some shit. I just thought it was a cool name. If I re-
member correctly, we talked a little bit about the idea of a nameless, faceless vic-
tim. Jake sorta took the ball and ran with it.
Dalbec: Jake never really discussed any of the artwork or lyrics with any of us.
It was kind of always a surprise when the record was done.
Koller: Nate and Jake came up with the whole concept for the record, I guess.
I don’t tend to get too involved with the art concepts. I just focus on the skins.
Ballou: He’s pretty private about that, and we don’t pry too much. He’s be-
come more open with that over time, and at least with me, he’s gotten me more
involved with phrasing and stuff. But circa Jane Doe, we just recorded his ideas
the way he had it in his head and that’s just the way it was. There’s definitely a
lot of mutual trust and admiration between us as songwriters. And whenever
you have too many cooks in the kitchen, it tends to dilute the food. That’s how
it is with a lot of modern metallic hardcore, too—there’s just too many ingredi-
ents in the mix. You’ve got your guy who screams, your guy who growls, and
then you’ve got your melodic, Dashboard Confessional–style vocals here and
there. I’ve always been opposed to that—I like to have a cohesive direction
and a cohesive vision. So I don’t really get in Jake’s way too much and, in turn,
he doesn’t get in our way, either.
About a year after the record came out, I was walking down Cahuenga Boulevard
in Los Angeles with Juan Perez and saw a huge oil painting that someone had done
of the Jane Doe cover. At first we thought it was Jake’s original, but we later found
out that it wasn’t.
Bannon: Yeah, I heard about that. That painting was also a few blocks from
our lawyer’s office in L.A. It was definitely a rendition of our cover, but it was
meant to be an homage, not a lift, I guess. There have also been some other in-
cidents. One high-end clothing company chose to use the image on a variety of
t-shirts. They actually solicited my girlfriend’s old store to carry their items and
she brought it to my attention. When our lawyer contacted them, they claimed
they got the image from a poster they saw on a wall in Italy, to which I re-
sponded, “Yeah, our tour poster.” They later sent us their stock of apparel and I
destroyed it. I’ve had that happen with other images I’ve made for other bands
as well. The world is full of thieves. Since the release of the album, there have
also been countless attempts at emulating that style of artwork. The attempts are
both flattering and insulting. I feel that if you are putting that much effort into
creating something to represent your band visually, you should do something
original. Use your own artistic voice, not ours.

Newton: It’s interesting to me how the cover of that record—the Jane Doe
face—has become almost iconic in the hardcore scene. It’s almost like the new
Misfits skull or something—not that I’d compare us to that, but it blows my
mind that we still sell a shitload of Jane Doe shirts. Go to a hardcore show and
there’s a good chance you’ll see a kid wearing a Converge shirt, and there’s a
good chance it’ll be a Jane Doe shirt. The face doesn’t call to mind anything spe-
cific, but at the same time, it’s a strong image that you can put meaning into. I
think that’s what makes certain pieces of art powerful—you can look at it and
put your own meaning into it. It seemed like during that time period, Jake and
Aaron Turner really put the focus on fine art back into album artwork—at least
in this scene. It wasn’t just, “Here’s a picture of the band, here’s our lyrics, here’s
our logo.”
Ø
PART V: PHOENIX IN FLAMES
Do you remember reading any reviews of the album when it came out?
Ballou: I remember we got Album of the Year in Terrorizer. I was pretty
blown away that it was being received that way, actually. At that point in time,
we were a band that had had some moderate success—people liked us, and we
never really did support tours—we had been able to tour the U.S. a few times on
our own as headliners. But I didn’t really feel like we had done a record that was
a milestone in our genre. People consider Petitioning the Empty Sky that, but in
general, the people who revered that record highly, I didn’t revere their taste in
music all that highly, so it didn’t mean a lot to me. And it’s not even an album,
really—that originally came out on seven-inch. And then we recorded extra
songs and put it out on CD. There’s live tracks, too—it’s really just a collection
of stuff.
Newton: I remember the Terrorizer review that came out before they gave us
Album of the Year. I felt pretty good about the record, but when I read that I was
like, “Whoa!” Not that Terrorizer is the be-all, end-all musical judgment, but I
remember thinking of it as a magazine that tears everything to shreds. I think
they gave us a 9.5—it was a pretty big compliment.
How did things change for Converge after Jane Doe came out?
Ballou: Jane Doe was the first record where people I really respected re-
sponded positively to it—people my age and older than us actually started to
respect Converge. That meant a lot to me, because prior to that, I felt like we
hadn’t really come into our own yet. People definitely treat you differently when

you do something that they enjoy or respect musically. We got a lot of opportu-
nities from the record label, booking agents were more interested in us, other
bands were more interested in getting us to tour with them and other bands
were interested in touring with us. And a lot more bands were interested in com-
ing into my studio to record with me and getting Jake to design their records.
On a personal level, doing something that resonated with people greatly affected
my life outside of Converge in addition to inside Converge. Looking back on it,
it was a major turning point in my professional life.
Newton: Definitely more people started coming to shows. It was definitely a
gradual process, but it was happening. We suddenly got more attention from
the metal community, too, and I think that had to do with the Terrorizer review.
All of a sudden we were validated. People who had wanted nothing to do with
us before all of a sudden thought we were great and wanted to go on tour with
us. And because Terrorizer is based in the U.K., we noticed a vast difference
when we went back to Europe. But honestly, I think Petitioning and When For-
ever Comes Crashing are more metal than Jane Doe—at least as far as blatantly
playing metal riffs. The influence is certainly there on Jane Doe, but I feel like it’s
a much more punk record.
Bannon: I try not to pay attention to outside opinion to our band, so I’m not
really sure. My goal with the album was the same as any other—to create some-
thing that our band could collectively be moved by, challenged by and proud of.
Jane Doe was that for all of us, so that’s the only real success that matters for me.
Jane Doe was your last album on Equal Vision. Were you already planning on
moving to Epitaph at that point?
Ballou: No, we were planning on doing one more with EVR. They definitely
ride a lot of fences between being a hardcore label and a rock label, and we
couldn’t really get behind any of the stuff they had on the label. We did a few
Equal Vision showcase kinda shows, and we just wanted to align ourselves with
something that fit the spirit of Converge—not necessarily the sound of Con-
verge, but what we were about. We still like the EVR guys and we get along, but
we just felt like we didn’t have a lot in common with [their roster]. There were
assorted tensions with them, but Epitaph approached us—we didn’t approach
them. So we got this opportunity to work with a label that’s run by really good
people who come from a DIY punk background and who still have those ideals.
They run a successful business, but they still have that punk ethic that they had
when they were younger—they still put art ahead of profit. Their basic philos-
ophy is to work with established artists that are credible and have long-lasting
success rather than seeking out the next big thing and jumping on it. I mean,
they’ve made a few of those kinds of signings in recent history, but in general, I

mean . . . they’re working with Nick Cave and Tom Waits—they’ve got a clas-
sic catalogue.
Bannon: We were under the assumption that it was our last album for the
label, but we didn’t pay much attention to that. Our goal was just to write and
record the best album that we could at the time. The creative end of what we are
takes precedent over any business nonsense. After the album was released and
we did our first world touring in support of the album, we started discussing
what we wanted to do next as a band. That is when we first started experienc-
ing turbulence with Equal Vision. Our experience with Equal Vision was cer-
tainly not all negative. In hindsight, I feel that we simply grew apart from one
another. Their direction and our own didn’t follow the same road of under-
standing. It was best that it ended when it did.
Newton: To be honest with you, a lot of it I don’t even know. I sort of treated
it like, “Hey—whatever, man. I just play bass.” But I do remember thinking at
that point that EVR was kind of getting away from hardcore. But it’s kinda
weird, I guess. If we had stayed on EVR, I probably would’ve been fine with it.
I mean, it’s a record label—who cares? But when the idea of signing to Epitaph
came up, we were definitely really excited about it. They put out Tom Waits and
Solomon Burke, all this cool shit. Obviously, Epitaph has put out some duds
that I don’t want to have anything to do with, but for every record they put out
that I hate, they put out two that it’s obvious they put out because they think it’s
good.
Do you think of Jane Doe any differently now than you did when you recorded it?
Newton: Yes and no—no in the sense that I don’t really dwell on stuff that
we’ve already done. We did a record, we toured on it and I’m on to the next shit.
I’m proud of everything I’ve done, but I don’t sit around thinking, “Yeah—I
wrote Jane Doe!” In that respect, it feels like it’s just something else we did. It’s
history to me. But at the same time, I feel differently about it now that I’m able
to step back and see how that record might’ve affected the hardcore scene in
general.
Bannon: Not really. Each new album you write and release becomes the most
relevant, so it’s not on my immediate radar—No Heroes is. But I am still excited
by what the album accomplished creatively.
Koller: I like our new record No Heroes more than Jane Doe now. Maybe it’s
because the songs are fresher and more energetic live, or I’m just older and my
tastes have changed. I like how salty and heavy No Heroes is. It gets me pumped
up and makes me want to punch concrete walls.
Dalbec: I still think it’s a great record, but after what happened I cannot look
at it the same way.

Ballou: Every time we do a record now, I always have to prepare myself for
kids and reviewers to say it’s not as good as Jane Doe. Whenever any band does
a landmark kinda thing, they’ll never get past it. Metallica’s never gonna do an-
other Master of Puppets, you know? Slayer’s never gonna do another Reign in
Blood—or Pantera and Vulgar Display of Power. So I don’t let that stuff affect
me too much. Every once in a while I’ll read something or someone will say
something to me that will make me feel like I’ve peaked, but when we were
doing Jane Doe, we definitely weren’t of the mindset that we’d peaked. We weren’t
chasing our own shadow. Which is pretty much how we work now, but it’s al-
ways in the back of your head. Not “Are we still good enough?” But “Are people
gonna think we’re still good enough?” I don’t want my music to ever be driven
by people’s opinion of it, but, you know, it’s hard to go about life completely in-
dependent of other people’s opinions of you. So it was nice to be in a situation,
with Jane Doe, where I didn’t have to think about that at all.

Bannon: No, nothing.
Koller: No, because the imperfections and rough edges are what gives the
record so much character. A lot of my playing was really spur-of-the-moment
and improvisational, and what I play live for those songs now is so much differ-
ent than what’s on the record.
Newton: Oh, yeah. I’d rewrite a couple of the songs, for sure—like “Fault and
Fracture,” definitely. It has parts that don’t need to be there and parts that are too
long—same with “Heaven in Her Arms.” And I don’t like how the record sounds
overall—it’s so compressed and metal. It sounds like it’s cutting into your ears.
I guess that’s what some people love about it, but to me it sounds robotic. I like
records with dynamics, where it goes from quiet to loud, where you can hear the
guy breathing in the background when it gets quiet. But this record seems like
it’s one volume—really loud and in your face—all the way across the board. At
the time, I thought it was pretty cool, because there wasn’t another hardcore
record that sounded like it. But in retrospect, I’m not very happy with how it
sounds. And you can really hardly hear the bass on most of the songs—which
is OK, I guess, ’cause I wasn’t happy with my bass tone. Overall, I think the
songs on You Fail Me and No Heroes are much better, and I love the recordings
on those records. Pound for pound, I think both of those records are better than
Jane Doe.
It’s the time-and-place syndrome, though. People heard this record at a cer-
tain point in their lives and equate it with certain memories, so it holds a spe-
cial place for them. For us, it’s the record where we really started to change as a
band. We came out of our shells and said, “This is what we’re capable of.” With

certain bands, it’s always one record that sticks with people. Like Entombed’s
Wolverine Blues—that was the record where Entombed started to change, and it
grabbed people’s attention. And there’s no other record like that record. So I
can understand why people say that about Jane Doe, but it’s not my favorite
record, personally.
Ballou: I wouldn’t make it so loud. [Laughs] No, I don’t know if I really would.
But from an engineering perspective, I had to listen to Jane Doe while I was en-
gineering and mixing No Heroes, because I had to make sure the new record
sounded as least as good as that. And in the minds of some of the people in my
band and some of our listeners, sounding as good also means that it needs to be
as loud. Every stereo I’ve seen has a volume knob, but for some reason, people
seem to demand that their records be obscenely loud. There’s not really much
more space on a CD to make it louder than Jane Doe, so it’s getting challenging
to make records that have as much or more impact from a sonic perspective.
Other than that, I don’t particularly care for the chorus of “Fault and Fracture,”
but there’s really nothing on the record that gives me idiot shivers. Prior to Jane
Doe, there’s stuff in every song that we did that gave me idiot shivers.

PHOTO CREDITS
Black Sabbath © Fin Costello

Diamond Head © Simon Fowler
Celtic Frost, photographer unknown
Slayer © Joe Giron
Napalm Death reproduced courtesy of Earache Records
Repulsion reproduced courtesy of Relapse Records
Morbid Angel reproduced courtesy of Earache Records
Obituary © Tim Hubbard (both images)
Entombed, photographer unknown
Paradise Lost reproduced courtesy of Peaceville Records
Carcass reproduced courtesy of Earache Records
Cannibal Corpse reproduced courtesy of Metal Blade Records
Eyehategod reproduced courtesy of Century Media Records (both images)
Darkthrone, photographer unknown
Kyuss © Mike Anderson
Meshuggah reproduced courtesy of Nuclear Blast Records
Monster Magnet © Joe Giron
At the Gates reproduced courtesy of Earache Records (both images)
Opeth, photographer unknown
Down reproduced courtesy of East/West Records
Emperor, photographer unknown
Sleep, photographer unknown (all images)
The Dillinger Escape Plan © Paul D'elia
Botch © Jason Hellmann
Converge © Jason Hellmann (both images)
Every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders. If notified, the publisher
will be pleased to rectify any errors or omissions at the earliest opportunity.
349
INDEX
“*#..,,” 311–312 Alice in Chains, 270

Altars of Madness, 85–95, 114
Abominations of Desolation, 87 “Am I Evil?,” 19, 20–23, 24, 27–28
Academy Studios, 123, 129 A&M Records, 223
AC/DC, 17 Amazon Studios, 131
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (film), 143, American Nervoso, 323, 327
156–157 Amott, Michael, 131–132, 134, 135,
“Acid Bath,” 74 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 151
“Acrid Placidity,” 218 Anathema, 126
Across the River, 197, 205–206 [And the] Circus [Leaves Town], 209,
“Addicted to Vaginal Skin,” 150, 154, 210
160 Anderson, Billy, 296–297, 300
Aedy, Aaron, 121–124, 126–128 Andersson, Nicke, 110, 112–113, 114,
“Aggressive Perfector,” 50, 54 115, 116–117, 118, 119
Agoraphobic Nosebleed, 332 Angel Hair, 324
Ain, Martin Eric, 31–46 “Angel of Death,” 49, 53–54
Airheads (film), 156 Anorexia, 59
Åkerfeldt, Mikael, 44, 246–266 Anselmo, Phil, 268–279
Alcohol and drug use Anthems [to the Welkin at Dusk], 290
At the Gates, 238 An Anthology of Dead Ends, 319, 323–
Black Sabbath’s Bill Ward, 9–11 324
Eyehategod, 165–166, 169–170, Anti Cimex, 58, 62
175–176 Apocalyptic Raids, 32, 35–36, 42
Jerusalem, 292–293 Apollyon Sun, 44
Kyuss, 205, 211 “The Apostle in Triumph,” 246, 248,
Monster Magnet, 227–228, 230–231 256–257, 263–264
Obituary, 98, 107 Appleton, Keith, 123, 129
Sleep, 295, 298 Araya, Tom, 49, 50, 53–54, 55
351
Arch Enemy, 136 “Beyond the Cemetery,” 154
Archer, Matt, 121, 123, 124, 125, 126, Birch, Martin, 8–9, 11
127, 128 “Bitter Loss,” 113
Argus, 254 Björk, 215
Arson, 281 Bjork, Brant, 196–207, 210–212
Artwork. See Cover art Björler, Anders, 82, 238–244
“Asteroid,” 203, 209–210 Björler, Jonas, 238, 239, 242, 243–244
At the Gates, 237–244, 249, 251, 258 “Black Breath,” 75, 78
Atavistic, 63 Black metal
Atheist, 148 Celtic Frost, 31–47
Atomic propaganda, 227 Darkthrone, 179–195
The Atrocity Exhibition (Ballard), 322 Emperor, 280–291
Auschwitz, 52–53 “Under the Weeping Moon,” 261
Austin, Steve, 335 Black Sabbath, 1–14, 16, 17, 18, 157–
Autopsy, 118, 143 158, 204, 211, 226, 254, 271–272
Avengers, 172
Blackmore, Ritchie, 5
The Awakening, 193
Black-thrash music, 193–194
Azagthoth, Trey (George Emmanuel
“Blank,” 171, 173, 176
III), 32, 40, 85–95, 100
“Blasphemy,” 89, 93
A Blaze in the Northern Sky, 180, 189,
Baker, Kevin, 341
190, 191, 192, 195
Ballou, Kurt, 332–333, 336, 338–346
“Bleed for the Devil,” 90
Bal-Sagoth, 289
The Bleeding, 147
Bane, 332–333, 337, 338–339
Blessed [Are the Sick], 94
Bangs, Lester, 172
“Blinded by Fear,” 237, 239, 240
Bannon, Jake, 333–338, 341–346
Barnes, Chris, 144–150, 152–159, Blomberg, Axel, 189
161–164 Blood Fire Death, 184, 284
Barresi, Joe, 201, 202 “Blow ‘Em Off,” 228
Barrett, Lee, 248–249 Blue/Green Heart, 334
Barton, Geoff, 24 Blues for the Red Sun, 199, 202, 210
Bastion, 334 “Bodily Dismemberment,” 76
Bathory, 184, 186, 194, 252, 284, 285 Body Count, 197–198
Bayles, Matt, 319, 327, 328 Bolt Thrower, 126
Becerra, Jeff, 78 Bonded by Blood, 187
Behold the Beginning, 26, 27 Born Again, 158
Bellorado, Damon, 335 Borrowed Time, 16
Beneath the Remains, 104 Botch, 218–330
Benoit, Brian, 305–310, 312–315, 317 Bower, Jimmy, 165–178, 268, 269, 270,
Berlin, Germany, 35–36 272, 273, 275, 277, 278, 279
Beyond Death, 147 Brainwarp, 110
352 Index
Broadrick, Justin, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, Cause of Death, 96–108
63, 64–65, 69, 70, 71 “Cause of Death,” 98, 100
Brown, Clarence “Gatemouth,” 274 Cavalera, Igor, 104
Brown, Rex, 275, 279 Cave In, 308
Brunelle, Richard, 85–95 Cederlund, Ulf “Uffe,” 109–110, 111,
Bryant, Curt Victor, 44–45 112, 113, 115, 116, 118, 119
Bullen, Nic, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, Celtic Frost, 31–47, 103, 121, 122, 194,
64, 65, 66, 71 252, 264, 285
Bullshit Detector Vol. 3, 58 Century Media Records, 165, 172, 174,
Bungle, 316 273, 280
Burns, Scott, 97, 100, 102, 103, 105, Chameleon Records, 207
147, 151–153 Chaosphere, 218, 220
Burton, Cliff, 16 “Chapel of Ghouls,” 91, 93
“Bury Me in Smoke,” 268, 269, 270 “Children of the Sea,” 3, 4, 12, 13, 14
Burzum, 184, 186, 195, 286 Chimaira, 163
“But Life Goes On,” 111, 115 Choosing Death, 112
Butchered at Birth, 144, 145, 146, 148, Choy, Tony, 98, 148
150, 159, 161, 163 “Circle of the Tyrants,” 103
Butler, Terry “Geezer,” 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, Cisneros, Al, 292–303
10, 11, 13, 14 Classical music and musicians, 38–39,
Buzzov*en, 167, 177 124, 209–210, 252, 256, 340
“Clip the Apex . . . Accept Instruction,”
“C. Thomas Howell as the ‘Soul Man’,” 310, 312–313
320–323, 324 Close–Up magazine, 248
Caivano, Phil, 226 COC (Corrosion of Conformity), 75,
Calandra, Joe, 224, 225, 228, 230, 231, 205, 268, 269, 270, 274, 276, 278
233, 234, 235 Cockrell, Chris, 200
Calculating Infinity, 304–317 “Cold,” 241
Candlelight Records, 245, 246, 248– Cold Lake, 42, 44–45
249 Cold War, 35–36
Cannibal Corpse, 147–164 Coldplay, 131
Canterbury, 16 Columbia Records, 53
Carcass, 57, 68, 72, 116, 121, 130–141, Conan the Barbarian (film), 142, 204
143 “Conan Troutman,” 204
Carino, Scott, 148 Concrete Sox, 126
Carlson, Scott, 74–84 Connor, Monte, 102, 103, 104
“Carneous Cacoffiny,” 133 Contradictions Collapse, 215–216, 220
Carpathian Forest, 290 Converge, 308, 331–347
Carrey, Jim, 143, 156–157 Cook, Blaine, 153
Carroll, Larry, 54 Cook, Brian, 318–319, 321–322, 323–
Cash Money, 170 326, 327–329
Index 353
Cope, Julian, 298 Cuzner, Leif “Leffe,” 110, 112, 117
“Corporal Jigsore Quandary,” 136, 138 Cynic, 145, 148
Corpsepaint, 41–42
“Cosmic Keys,” 283, 289 Dalbec, Aaron, 332, 333, 335–340,
Count Grishnackh, 281 342, 345
Courage, 231 Dale, Steve, 166
Cover art Damnation, 250
Altars of Madness, 91–92 “Damnation,” 90
Calculating Infinity, 317 “Dance of the Dead,” 276
Cause of Death, 103–104 “Danse Macabre,” 35, 38, 39
Destroy Erase Improve, 217 Dark Passages, 269
Dopes to Infinity, 233–234 Darkness, rehearsing in, 246–247
Gothic, 127–128 Darkthrone, 80, 179–195, 255
Horrified, 82 “Dead Christmas,” 225
In the Nightside Eclipse, 288–289 Dead (Per Ohlin), 110, 111, 189–190
Jane Doe, 341–343 “Dead Reckoning,” 29
Jerusalem, 300 Deadguy, 305, 325
Left Hand Path, 114–115 Death, 100, 118, 148
Morbid Tales, 36, 42–43 Death and Pestilence, 148
Necroticism, 133–134 “Death by Manipulation,” 61
NOLA, 268, 276–278 Death metal
Opeth, 250, 264–265 At the Gates, 237–244
Orchid, 250 Cannibal Corpse, 147–164
Reign in Blood, 54–55, 243–244 Carcass, 130–141
Scum, 72 Celtic Frost, 31–47
Take as Needed for Pain, 173–174 Entombed, 109–119
Tomb of the Mutilated, 143–144, 158, “Forest of October,” 262
164 Meshuggah, 214
Transilvanian Hunger, 190–191 Morbid Angel, 85–95
We Are the Romans, 318, 326–327 Obituary, 96–108
Cradle of Filth, 238, 242–243, 286, Opeth, 245–266
289–290 Paradise Lost, 121–122
Crass Records, 58 Deathwish, Inc. Records, 332
“Creeping Death,” 28 Deep Purple, 16, 17
“Crematorium,” 74, 75 Deeper the Wound, 332
“Crimes Against Skin,” 169, 171 Def American Records, 48
“Criminally Insane,” 54 Def Jam, 49
Crimson Cat, 257, 258, 264 Def Leppard, 16, 33
Cronin, Tim, 224, 226, 227, 232–233 DeFarfalla, Johan, 247, 250–265
Crowbar, 176, 273, 275 Dehumanizer, 2
“Cryptic Stench,” 154 Deicide, 85, 88, 148, 152, 154, 162
354 Index
Delia, Paul, 315 Eithun, Bård. See Faust
Demolition Hammer, 106–107 El Triunfo de la Muerte, 264
“Demon Cleaner,” 198, 203–204, 208– Electronic music, 323–324
209 Elektra Records, 196, 197, 207, 208,
Destroy Erase Improve, 213–222 267, 273, 277, 294
“Dethroned Emperor,” 37, 46 Ellard, Matt, 335, 336, 338
Diamond Head, 15–30 Embury, Shane, 57, 61, 65, 67, 68, 69,
Diary of a Drug Fiend (Crowley), 276 74, 80, 81
Dickinson, Mitch, 68 Emmanuel, George, III. See
“Die Young,” 8, 12 Azagthoth, Trey
DiGiorgio, Jon, 332, 333, 334 Emo, 242–243
Dillinger Escape Plan, 304–317, 328 Emperor, 179, 248, 255, 280–291
Dimmu Borgir, 32, 290 Enslaved, 32, 286
Dio, Ronnie James, 1–14, 23 Entombed, 109–119, 126, 347
Discharge, 33–34, 58, 174 “Entrails Ripped From a Virgin’s
Dissection, 242 Cunt,” 143–144, 150, 151, 154
“Distance and Meaning,” 340 Epitaph Records, 344–345
“Disturbance,” 173 Equal Vision Records, 331, 341, 344–
Doll, Adam, 305, 306, 307, 308, 310, 345
311, 312, 316 Erlandsson, Adrian, 238–244, 251
Doom, 126 Eruption, 249
Dopes to Infinity, 223–236 Estby, Frank, 115–116
“Dopes to Infinity,” 225, 229–230 “Eternal,” 126, 129
Dopesmoker, 293, 297, 298, 300–301 Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth), 179,
Dorrian, Lee, 57, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 184, 187, 193–194, 281, 287–288
126, 269 Evetts, Steve, 309, 310–311, 312
Down, 267–279 “Exciter,” 18
Dream Theater, 254 Executioner, 96
“Drowned,” 113 Exodus, 187
Drug rock, 234–235 The Exorcist (film), 43
DuRoc, Derek, 323–324 Extreme Noise Terror, 121, 126
Eyehategod, 165–178, 268, 270, 273,
“E!,” 62 274
Earache Records, 56, 74, 82, 85, 109, “Eyes of the South,” 276–277
110, 130, 237, 238, 295–296, 305
Earp, Doug, 77–78 Faith No More, 199
Earth Crisis, 305, 323 Faley, Mike, 156
Eaten Back to Life, 144, 145, 146, 152 Fall of Because, 64
Edmonsdon, Steve, 121, 124, 125, 127 Far Beyond Driven, 240
Effigy, 17 Fascism, 52–53
“Ego, the Living Planet,” 225, 227 “Fault and Fracture,” 340, 346, 347
Index 355
Faust (Bård Eithun), 179, 281–283, Giguère, Éric, 148
285–291 Gluey Porch Treatments, 122, 166, 167
Fellows, Reg, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26–27 Goad, Jim, 277
Fenriz (Gylve Nagell), 80, 180–195 Godflesh, 57
“Festering Bells,” 79 Gorguts, 148
Final, 58 Goss, Chris, 201, 202, 207
Final 1, 58 Gothenburg Sound, 238, 242, 243
Fischer, Tom Gabriel. See Warrior, Gothic, 120–129
Tom G. Gothic (film), 122–123
Fisher, Kirk, 177 Government funding, 112–113, 240
“Five Years Ahead of My Time,” 226 “Great White North,” 328
Fleetwood Mac, 201 Green Carnation, 290
Flooding, 274–275 Greenway, Mark “Barney,” 77
“Fly to the Rainbow,” 262 Grief and Cavity, 177
Force Fed Glass, 332, 334 Grieghallen studio, 280–283, 287
Forest metal, 255 Grindcore
“Forest of October,” 246, 250, 256, 262 Carcass, 130–141
“43% Burnt,” 315 Napalm Death, 56–72
Foster, Jodie, 174 Repulsion, 73–84
Freeman, Aaron, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79–80, tempo patterns, 87
81, 82, 83, 123 Grohl, David, 13
“Frequency Ass Bandit,” 321 Grossklaus, Mike, 82
Friedman, Glen E., 49–50 Gruber, Craig, 8, 11, 14
From Enslavement to Obliteration, 61 Grue, Torben, 189
Frozen Illusion, 121, 125–126 Guinness Book of World Records, 57, 62
“Fucked With a Knife,” 151 Guns N’ Roses, 137, 226–227
Fugazi, 325 Guteklint, Stefan, 258
Fulton, John, 305, 306
Funk music, 75 Haake, Tomas, 214, 215, 216, 217, 220,
Fusion, 216–217 221, 222
“Future Breed Machine,” 214, 217, 221 Hagström, Mårten, 214, 215, 216, 218,
219, 220, 221, 222
Garage Inc., 29–30 Hakius, Chris, 292–303
Garcia, John, 196, 197, 198, 200, 201, “Hammer Smashed Face,” 143, 144,
204, 208, 210, 211–212 145, 146–147, 151, 154, 155, 163
“Gardenia,” 202, 203, 210 Hammer Smashed Face EP, 161–162
Gargoyles, 123 HammerFall, 264
The Gathering, 126 Hammy, 123, 124, 128, 129, 188
Genocide, 74 Hanneman, Jeff, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54,
Ghosts Along the Mississippi (Laughlin), 131–132
277 Happy Face Records, 15
356 Index
Hardcore, 242–243, 324–325 How to Be a Producer, 123–124
Harris, Mick, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, Howard, Robert E., 40
66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 82 Hubbard, Tim, 105
Harris, Mitch, 28, 30, 241 Huguenots, 340
Harris, Sean, 16–30 “Human,” 38
Hatebreed, 242 Hundred Years’ War, 32
Hatred Surge, 58–59 Hydra Head Records, 318
Haunted, 238
Head of David, 64–65, 69–70 “I Am the Black Wizards,” 283, 289
Headbangers Ball, 223–224, 237, 329 “I Cum Blood,” 150, 154
Healy, Frank, 65 “I Wanna Be a Sex Symbol on My
Heartwork, 131, 139 Own Terms,” 322
Heaven and Hell, 1–14 “Ice Monkey,” 268, 273
“Heaven and Hell,” 5, 6, 12 Ihsahn (Vegard Sverre Tveitan), 281–
“Heaven in Her Arms,” 346 291
Hedlund, Johnny, 110, 117 Ildjarn, 286
“Hell to Pay,” 339–340 I’m Broken, 325
Hellbastard, 115 Immortal, 286
Hellhammer (band), 31–33, 34–35, 37, “Immortal Rites,” 90, 92
41, 43–44, 45, 108, 194 Impetigo, 143
Hellhammer ( Jan Axel Blomberg), 189 In de Betou, Peter, 256
Hellid, Alex, 110–119 In Flames, 13, 242, 255
Hellraiser (film), 117 “In Mist She Was Standing,” 246, 252,
“Helpless,” 18, 19 260–261
Hennessey, Larry, 78–79 “In the Majesty of the Nightsky,” 283,
Heretic, 91 289
Hetfield, James, 270–271 In the Name of Suffering, 165, 166, 167
Hidden tracks, 206–207, 208, 323–324 In the Nightside Eclipse, 280–291
“High Cost of Playing God,” 337 “Incarnated Solvent Abuse,” 134, 135,
High on Fire, 302 136, 137
High White Note, 196–197 Injuries, 216
Holdsworth, Allan, 216–217 “Inn I De Dype Skogers Favn,” 189
Hollingshead, Dave “Grave,” 74, 75, “Innards Decay,” 152
76, 78, 79, 83, 84 “Inno a Satana,” 283, 289
Holmes, Nick, 121, 122, 123, 125, 126, “Inside What’s Within Behind,” 219
127, 128 “Into the Crypts of Rays,” 32, 33, 39–
Holocaust, 52–53 40, 46
Holst, Gustav, 22 “Into the Infinity of Thoughts,” 284
“Homewrecker,” 334–335, 340 Into the Pandemonium, 36, 44, 121,
Homme, Josh, 196–211 252
Horrified, 73–84 Invocator, 154
Index 357
Iommi, Tony, 1–14 Knudson, Dave, 318–320, 323–324,
Iron Maiden, 252, 279 326–330
“Iron Man,” 6 Koepke, Peter, 298
Iron Monkey, 176–177 Koller, Ben, 332, 333, 334, 335, 337–
Isberg, David, 247, 257, 266 338, 342, 345, 346
Isolationist black metal, 179–195 Kyuss, 196–212, 234
“It’s Electric,” 21, 23, 28
LaCaze, Joey “Li’l Daddy,” 165–166,
Jabs, Matthias, 252 168–169, 170, 173, 175, 178, 274
“Jail,” 272, 274 “Lady Evil,” 12
Jane Doe, 331–347 Lady in Black (film), 260
“Jane Doe,” 333, 340, 341 Lalli, Mario, 205, 206
Japan’s Hellchild, 332 LaRocque, Andy, 241
Jazz, 216–217, 253, 309, 310, 323, 340 Larsson, Martin, 238, 240, 242, 244
Jensen, Patrick, 238 Latona, Tim, 318–320, 323, 325–328
Jerusalem, 292–303 “Laugh It Off,” 169
Jesu, 57 Laughlin, John Clarence, 268, 277
Jesuit, 306 LaVey, Anton, 43, 113, 276
“Jesus Christ Pose,” 276 Lavine, Michael, 233
Jesus Lizard, 339–340 Led Zeppelin, 16, 17, 25, 254–255
Joan of Arc, 39–40 Left Hand Path, 109–119
Jones, Adam, 208–209 “Left Hand Path,” 113
“Juan’s Day Off,” 207 “Lick Doo,” 206–207, 210
Judas Priest, 17, 18, 75, 252, 255 Lickgoldensky, 177
Juvenile, 170–171 “Lifer,” 268, 276
Lifers, 276
Karpelman, Ross, 274 Lightning to the Nations, 15–30
Katatonia, 248, 249, 259 “Lightning to the Nations,” 20, 23
Kaye, Lenny, 226 Lil Wayne, 170–171
Keenan, Pepper, 268–279 Lilker, Danny, 74
Kerrang! magazine, 43 Limp Bizkit, 319
Kidman, Jens, 214, 215, 218, 219, 220, Lindberg, Tomas, 238–244
221, 222 Lindgren, Peter, 247–266
Kill ‘Em All, 252 Live Evil, 2
“Kill Your Boss,” 166, 171, 176 “Living Dissection,” 146
Kimberley, Colin, 16–30 Locke, Vincent, 159, 164
King, Kerry, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54 Logic Probe, 324
King, Stephen, 149 Lombardo, Dave, 49–50, 51, 52, 53, 55
“King of Mars,” 225 London Records, 293, 294, 295–296,
Kjellson, Grutle, 186 298–299, 302
Kleiman, Jon, 224–225, 227–235 Loog Oldham, Andrew, 226
358 Index
“Lord of All Fevers & Plague,” 90, 91, “Maggots in Your Coffin,” 75
93 Magic Shop, 226–227, 228
Lord of the Rings (Tolkien), 284–285 Makeup, 41–42
Lords of Chaos (Moynihan and “Man the Ramparts,” 320
Søderlind), 284 Marduk, 32
“Losing All,” 269 Marino, George, 102
Lost Paradise, 120, 121, 123–124, 125– Marrion, Sarah, 124
126 Massholes Cave In, 331
“Love Is All (Butterfly Ball),” 3 Master of Puppets, 51, 244
Lovecraft, H.P., 40, 86, 90, 117 “Master of Puppets,” 29
Lundstrom, Micke, 115 Master’s Hammer, 192–193
Lynyrd Skynyrd, 268, 272 Masvidal, Paul, 148
Lyrics Mathcore
Altars of Madness, 90–91 Destroy Erase Improve, 214
Calculating Infinity, 314–315 Jane Doe, 331–347
Cause of Death, 99–100 We Are the Romans, 218–330
Destroy Erase Improve, 216–217, 219 Mayhem, 184, 189, 281, 282
Dopes to Infinity, 226 “Maze of Torment,” 89, 90, 91, 93
Gothic, 124–125 Mazurkiewicz, Paul, 144–149, 151–
Heaven and Hell, 6–7 155, 157–163
In the Nightside Eclipse, 283–285 MCA Records, 16, 26
Jane Doe, 341 McBain, John, 228
Jerusalem, 295 McCarthy, Tre, 338, 341
Left Hand Path, 116–117 McFarland, Darren, 148
Lightning to the Nations, 23 Meathook Seed, 241
Morbid Tales, 32, 39–41 Mefisto, 252, 266
Necroticism, 131, 134–135 Megadeth, 16, 30
“Negasonic,” 231–232 Melvins, 122, 166, 167
NOLA, 276–277 Mengele, Josef, 52–53
Orchid, 250 Merciless, 193
Reign in Blood, 241 Mercyful Fate, 42, 50, 241, 266
Take as Needed for Pain, 172–173, Mermaid Pub, Birmingham, 57, 58, 61,
175–176 62, 63, 64, 67
Tomb of the Mutilated, 149–151, 155, Meshuggah, 213–222, 324
160 Metal Blade Records, 31, 142, 144
Transilvanian Hunger, 187–188 Metal Forces magazine, 129
We Are the Romans, 321 Metal Massacre, 50
Welcome to Sky Valley, 203–205, 209 Metallian magazine, 248
Metallica, 16, 22, 24, 28, 29–30, 50–51,
Macabre, 143 199, 252
Mackintosh, Greg, 121–129 Mills, Robinson, 169
Index 359
Milton, John, 23 Necrobutcher, 189
Minakakis, Dimitri, 305, 306–307, Necronomicon, 43, 86, 90–91
309, 310, 312, 313, 314, 315, 316, “Necropedophile,” 151, 154, 160
317 Necrosis Records, 73, 81
“Minnesota,” 333 Necroticism–Descanting the Insalubrious,
Mob Rules, 2, 13 130–141
Modern metal, 213–222 “Negasonic Teenage Warhead,” 224,
Moffett, Pete, 203 225, 231–233
“Mondrian Was a Liar,” 322 Negative Action Group/Foundation
Monster Magnet, 223–236 for the Retarded, 174–175
Montouri, Brian, 317 “Neon Knights,” 11, 12
Montz, Sid, 274 Never Say Die, 1–2
Morbid, 109–110, 111 Nevermind, 201
Morbid Angel, 32, 40, 85–95, 98, 100, New wave music, 75
114, 118, 152, 153, 246, 251 Newton, Nate, 306, 332–341, 343–347
Morbid Tales, 31–47, 121 Nicholls, Geoff, 6, 7–8
“Morbid Tales,” 40 “Night of Pain,” 62
Morgoth, 106–107 Nihilist, 109–110, 111, 117–118
Morningrise, 248 99 Miles of Bad Road, 177
Morris, Jim, 101 Nirvana, 13, 44, 201
Morrisound studio, 88, 101–103, 144, Nitocrys, 40
152 “N.O.,” 205
Mortiis (Håvard Ellefsen), 283, 286 No Heroes, 345, 346, 347
Mötley Crüe, 32 “Nocturnal Fear,” 32, 39, 40
Motörhead, 194 Nocturno Culto (Ted Skjellum), 180–
MTV, 52, 233, 319 181, 182, 185, 186, 188, 190–191,
Müller, Horst, 32, 37, 39 191–192, 194
Mundell, Ed, 224, 225, 226, 228, 229– Noise Records, 45
230, 231, 234, 236 NOLA, 267–279
Murder, 281, 287–288 “Nookie,” 319
Murder City Devils, 321, 328 Nordin, Anders, 215, 216, 217, 246–
Murphy, James, 97, 100, 101, 102, 103, 247, 249–253, 255–257, 259–266
105–106, 107, 108 Nordin, Peter, 214, 219, 220, 221, 222
Murphy, Muff, 19 Nordström, Fredrik, 240, 241, 264
Music Cartel Records, 300 Norse legends, 284
My Arms, Your Hearse, 264 “Norsk Arisk Black Metal,” 179
My Dying Bride, 126, 251 Norwegian black metal sound, 184
Mysticism, 34 Norwegian groups, 117
Darkthrone, 80, 179–195, 255
Napalm Death, 56–72, 81, 116, 121, Emperor, 179, 248, 255, 280–291
126, 156 Nosferatu (films), 284
360 Index
Nuclear Blast Records, 213, 220, 221 Peel, John, 57, 64, 69, 70, 71
Nunenmacher, Craig, 273 Pennie, Chris, 305, 306, 307, 308–309,
NWOBHM (New Wave of British 311, 313–314, 316
Heavy Metal), 7, 15–30, 33, 184 Peres, Trevor, 97–105, 108
Nyström, Anders, 248 Petitioning the Empty Sky, 343, 344
Petrov, L.G., 109–110, 111, 113, 114,
“Oath,” 262 115, 116, 118, 119
Obituary, 96–108, 118, 148 Pettersson, Kim, 257, 258
Obsessed, the, 197–198, 269, 272 Pettibon, Raymond, 211
Occult, 34, 40, 41, 86, 90 “Phoenix in Flames,” 332, 333
“Odyssey,” 202, 205 “Phoenix in Flight,” 334–335, 340
Ohling, Hertha, 38–39 Phone number, 175
Old Smithy, 19–20, 27 Piece of Time, 148
Oliveri, Nick, 197 Pike, Matt (agent), 338
Olivo, Matt, 74–80, 82, 83, 84 Pike, Matt (musician), 292–303
“100º,” 202, 205 “Pillars of Eternity,” 276
108, 314 Pink Floyd, 92–93, 215
Opeth, 44, 245–266 The Poacher Diaries, 332, 333
Orchid, 245–266 Pools of Mercury, 206
Osbourne, Ozzy, 1, 2–3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, Possessed, 59, 78, 148, 157–158
213 “Post Mortal Ejaculation,” 145, 150,
The Osbournes, 213 151, 154
Oskoreien (Norse ride of the dead), Powertrip, 225
284 Priestly, Stephen, 31–46
Owen, Jack, 143–147, 150–156, 159– Prison, 281, 286–287, 290
162 “Procreation (of the Wicked),” 32, 37,
Owen, Ken, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 45
138, 140, 151 Psychedelic themes, 92–93
Punk rock, 33–34, 201, 334
Pantera, 240, 273 Pushead, 63
Panzerfaust, 179–180, 191 Pytten (Eirik Hundvin), 282–283, 285
Paradise Lost, 120–129
Paralysis, 305, 306, 307 Quorthon, 184, 194
Patterson, Roger, 148
Patton, Brian, 166, 167–168, 170, 171, Race Traitor, 322, 323
176, 177 Rainbow, 3, 5
Patton, Mike, 316 “Raining Blood,” 49, 53, 54
Peaceville Records, 120, 129, 179, 188, de Rais, Gilles, 32, 39–40
238 Ramones, 227
Pearson, Digby, 81, 89–90, 113, 295 “Rancid Amputation,” 156
“Pedigree Butchery,” 133 Rappers, 170–171
Index 361
“Rapture,” 123
Ratledge, Miles “Rat,” 56, 58, 59, 60 Sacred Reich, 105
RAWG, 273 Sacrilege, 62–63, 65
Record Two studio, 296–297 Sadus, 107, 144, 148
The Redneck Manifesto (Goad), 277 St. Mark, Reed, 35–36
Reed, Lou, 226 “Saint Matthew Returns to the
Reeder, Scott, 196–203, 205, 206, 208, Womb,” 319
209–212 Saint Vitus, 177, 205, 206, 268, 269,
Reek of Putrefaction, 131, 133, 135, 139 271, 273
“Rehab,” 268, 272 Samoth (Tomas Haugen), 179, 248,
Reign in Blood, 48–55, 101–102, 118, 281–291
129, 145 Sanctuary Group, 45
Reinert, Sean, 148 Sandoval, Pete, 86, 88–89, 90, 91, 93,
Relapse Records, 220, 304, 305, 313, 94–95
315 Sardy, David, 299
Religion, 41–43 The Satanic Bible (LaVey), 113–114,
Renkse, Jonas, 255, 264 116
Repulsion, 73–84, 118, 143 Satanic Rites, 32
“Requiem,” 256–257 Satanism, 42–43, 90–91, 113–114,
“Return to the Eve,” 41, 46 124–125
“Revel in Flesh,” 113 Saudek, Jan, 173–174
Revenge albums, 238 Savoie, Mike, 269
Reynolds, Shauna, 272 Schizo, 33
Rhoads, Randy, 92 Schuldiner, Chuck, 83, 85, 148
Richardson, Colin, 131, 132–133, 137 Schultz, Marc, 166, 168, 170, 172, 175,
Rise Above Records, 292, 300 176, 177, 178
Roadrunner Records, 96, 97, 101–102 Scofield, Caleb, 341
Robins, Paul, 19, 21, 22 Scorpions, 75, 252, 255, 262
Roper, Arik, 300 Scott, Duncan, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 25,
Rosenthal, Steve, 226–227 29–30
Roy, 319, 327 Scum, 56–72
Rubin, Rick, 49–50, 54, 84 Seagrave, Dan, 91–92, 114–115
Ruch, Snorre, 184 Séance, 238
The Rules of Hell, 2 Seasons in the Abyss, 52, 55
Rusay, Bob, 144, 145, 146, 148, 149, Secret C, 341
151, 153, 155, 157, 158, 159, 160– “Seek and Destroy,” 29
162, 163 September 11, 2001, 318, 326–327,
Rush, 18 332, 339
Russell, Daz, 63 Sepultura, 32, 40, 45, 104, 107, 324
Russell, Ken, 122–123 Seven Churches, 59
Russell, Xavier, 43 7 Seconds, 243
362 Index
S.F.W. (film), 231–232 Spine of God, 228
Shades of God, 124, 127 Spiritual Healing, 100
Sharp, Kevin, 77 Split Image, 17
Shawcross, Arthur, 160 “Split Wide Open,” 154
“Shoot Out the Lights,” 19 Stage names, 34–35
“Shoplift,” 176 Stainthorpe, Aaron, 126
Siege, 58, 60 “Stairway to Heaven,” 22
Silence of the Lambs (film), 151 “Stargazer,” 3
“Silhouette,” 256–257, 261–262 Steer, Bill, 57, 65, 67–68, 70, 72, 81,
“Sister Fucker,” 166, 169, 171, 172– 131–141
173, 176 “Stone the Crow,” 268, 272
Sisters of Mercy, 121, 122 “Stonehenge,” 263
“Skald Av Satans Sol,” 193 Stoner metal
Skitsystem, 243 Kyuss, 196–212
Skogsberg, Tomas, 111, 118–119 Monster Magnet, 234–235
Skull bong, 293, 298 Sleep, 292–303
Slagel, Brian, 149, 159, 164 Strange, Todd, 268, 269, 275
Slash, 226–227 Stricker, Martin Eric. See Ain, Martin
Slaughter of the Innocent, 74, 82 Eric
“Slaughter of the Innocent,” 76 Strömblad, Jesper, 240
Slaughter of the Soul, 237–244 Studio 13, 168–169
Slave drum, 227 “Sublevels,” 217, 218
Slayer, 41, 48–55, 108, 118, 129, 148, “Sucking My Love,” 18, 29
254 “Suffocation,” 90
Sleep, 292–303 “Suicide Nation,” 241
Slipknot, 316 Sunlight, 111
Slowly We Rot, 96–97, 101, 103, 105 “Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoop,”
Sludge metal, 165–178, 267–279 204–205, 209
Sluts to Infinity, 230 Superjudge, 223–224, 225
Smith, Kent, 102–103 Supermax, 37
Sofa King Killer, 177 Suter, Paul, 24
Soilent Green, 167–168 “Swan Song,” 272
Soilwork, 80 Swanö, Dan, 246, 247–248, 259–260,
Sörskogen, Sweden, 249–250 261
“Soul Burn,” 219 Swans, 61
Sound City studio, 201–202 Swansong, 139
Soundgarden, 270, 276 Swedish groups
Sounds magazine, 24–25 At the Gates, 237–244, 249, 251,
South of Heaven, 52, 55 258
“Space Cadet,” 203 Entombed, 109–119, 126, 347
Spengler, Oswald, 38–39 Meshuggah, 213–222, 324
Index 363
Opeth, 44, 245–266 Thordendal, Fredrik, 213–219, 221,
Symphonic black metal, 280–291 222
Symphonies of Sickness, 131, 132, 138, Thrash metal, 15–30, 28, 48–55
139 Threefold Misery, 314
“Symposium of Sickness,” 133, 136 Tiamat, 32, 40, 111
Tilton, Ian, 133–134
Tab, 228 To Mega Therion, 36, 40, 252
“Take as Needed,” 171, 176 “To Our Friends in the Great White
Take as Needed for Pain, 165–178 North,” 320
Tardy, Donald, 97, 98, 99, 100, 102, Tolkien, J.R.R., 284–285
103, 104, 105, 106, 108 Tomb of the Mutilated, 147–164
Tardy, John, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 103, Tool, 208–209
105, 107 Tormé, Bernie, 92–93
Tatler, Brian, 16–30 Torson, Trym, 281
Taylor, James, 335 “Towards the Pantheon,” 282
Transcendental meditation, 297–298
Tchort (Terje Schei), 281, 282, 283,
Transilvanian Hunger, 179–195
285, 286, 287, 288, 290, 291
“Transilvanian Hunger,” 183–184
Tech metal, 214, 304–317
“Transitions From Persona to Object,”
Teeth, 204
320, 322, 327–328
“Temptation’s Wings,” 268, 269, 270,
Trouble, 122, 271
275
Trower, Robin, 224, 236, 273
Terminal Spirit Disease, 238, 241, 244
Trustkill Records, 325
Terrorizer magazine, 316, 332, 343
Tucker, Daniel, 97–98
Thailand, 266
Turner, Aaron, 324, 343
“[Thank God for] Worker Bees,” 323– “Twilight Is My Robe,” 256
324 “Twin Earth,” 224
“Thaw,” 336, 341 Twisted Tales comics, 82
“The Broken Vow,” 341 Tyrant Syndicate, 193–194
“The Exorcist,” 158
“The Kill,” 61 UFO, 75
“The Night and the Silent Water,” 256 Ulrich, Lars, 24, 27, 28, 29–30
“The Prince,” 20 Unanimated, 247–248
“The Running Board,” 313 “Unanything,” 218
“The Twilight Is My Robe,” 246, 262– Under a Funeral Moon, 180–181, 189,
263 190, 191, 192, 195
These Arms Are Snakes, 327–328 Under a Hoodoo Moon (Rebennack and
Thin Lizzy, 137 Rummel), 170
“30$ Bag,” 176 Under the Running Board, 304–305,
This is Spinal Tap (film), 263 310, 317
Thompson, Damian, 62–63 Under the Sign of the Black Mark, 184
364 Index
“Under the Weeping Moon,” 246, Weinman, Ben, 304–317
255–256, 259, 261 Welcome to Sky Valley, 196–212
“Underneath Everything,” 268 West, Allen, 97, 98, 99, 101, 107, 108
Unisound studio, 259–260 Whelan, Michael, 104
Unleashed, 110 When Forever Comes Crashing, 335,
Uriah Heep, 255 337, 344
White Album, 25–26
Valhall, 182, 183 “White Nigger,” 166, 169, 171, 172
Vanity/Nemesis, 36, 44–45 White Zombie, 167, 199, 272
“Variations on a Cocktail Dress,” 310 Whiteley, Jim, 57, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70
Vaughan, Stevie Ray, 106 “Whitewater,” 202, 203, 209, 210
Venom, 33, 34–35, 50, 108, 252 “Who Gave Her the Roses,” 176
Verbeuren, Dirk, 80 Williams, Mike, 165–178
Verbinski, Gore, 232 Windstein, Kirk, 268, 269, 271–272,
Verellen, Dave, 318–319, 322–328, 330 273, 274, 275, 278, 279
“Vertigo,” 225 Wino, 271
Vikernes, Varg, 179, 184, 187, 188,
Wishbone Ash, 254
281, 282, 287–288
“Wishing Well,” 14
Vincent, David, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91,
Witchfinder General, 17, 177
92, 93, 94, 95
With Fear I Kiss the Burning Darkness,
“Visions from the Dark Side,” 91, 92
241
“Visions of Mortality,” 41
Wolverine Blues, 347
Vomit, 188–189
Women, 124, 164, 230, 341–342
Von, 184, 186
Woolfe Records, 25, 26–27
Wright, Steve, 70
Walker, Jeff, 57, 72, 81, 82, 131–137,
139, 140, 151 Wyndorf, Dave, 224, 226–236
Wallace, Andy, 50
Ward, Bill, 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9–14, 22 Xecutioner, 96, 118
Warda, Joe, 224–225, 229
Warner Bros., 1, 4 Yes, 254
Warrior, Tom G., 31–47, 103, 252 You Fail Me, 346
Watkins, Frank, 97–102, 104–108 “You Suffer,” 57, 61–62, 69, 70
Watt, Mike, 211 Yseult, Sean, 272
We Are the Romans, 218–330
Webster, Alex, 144–149, 151–158, Zephyrous (Ivar Enger), 179–180,
160–163 181–182, 185, 190
“Weekend Sex Change,” 311–312 “Zero the Hero,” 158, 162
Wehrmacht, 62 Zombies, 82, 134, 143, 159–160, 164
Index 365

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PRECIOUS METAL

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Designed by Jeff Williams

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Photo Credits 349

THE MAKING OF BLACK SABBATH’S HEAVEN AND HELL

How did Ronnie enter the picture?

The Making of Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell 3

The Making of Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell 5

Was there a conscious effort, or perhaps even subconscious, to make Sabbath Mk II

The Making of Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell 7

What were your recollections of how Bill performed in the studio?

The Making of Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell 9

Was Craig Gruber still playing bass then?

What was involved in getting Geezer back?

The Making of Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell 11

The Making of Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell 13

How did you find out Sabbath needed a bassist?

Were there bands from that era you looked up to at all?

What was happening musically in the area where you lived?

How old were you when Lightning was recorded?

The Making of Diamond Head’s Lightning to the Nations 17

Who paid for the recording?

The Making of Diamond Head’s Lightning to the Nations 19

Were the songs pretty well rehearsed?

So you recorded and mixed all seven songs in a week?

How involved was the engineer, Paul Robins, in the production?

The Making of Diamond Head’s Lightning to the Nations 21

Was “Am I Evil?” written in one session or did it evolve?

The Making of Diamond Head’s Lightning to the Nations 23

Was it common to self-release an album on your own label at the time?

What was the critical reaction at the time?

The Making of Diamond Head’s Lightning to the Nations 25

Have you been happy at all with any of the reissues?

Are you ever consulted with the new versions?

The Making of Diamond Head’s Lightning to the Nations 27

What did you think of their version of “Am I Evil?”?

The Making of Diamond Head’s Lightning to the Nations 29

PROCREATION OF THE WICKED

THE MAKING OF CELTIC FROST’S MORBID TALES

32 PROCREATION OF THE WICKED

The Making of Celtic Frost’s Morbid Tales 33

How did you choose your stage name?

34 PROCREATION OF THE WICKED

The Making of Celtic Frost’s Morbid Tales 35

36 PROCREATION OF THE WICKED

What was it like working with Horst Müller?

The Making of Celtic Frost’s Morbid Tales 37

38 PROCREATION OF THE WICKED

The Making of Celtic Frost’s Morbid Tales 39

In “Nocturnal Fear,” there’s a reference to the Babylonian goddess Tiamat and

40 PROCREATION OF THE WICKED

What about “Visions of Mortality”?

The Making of Celtic Frost’s Morbid Tales 41

Where did the cover art come from?

42 PROCREATION OF THE WICKED

Did you consider yourself a Satanist at the time?

The Making of Celtic Frost’s Morbid Tales 43

44 PROCREATION OF THE WICKED

The Making of Celtic Frost’s Morbid Tales 45

In retrospect, is there anything you’d change about Morbid Tales?

46 PROCREATION OF THE WICKED

The Making of Celtic Frost’s Morbid Tales 47