Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 938 - Lee Harrison (Monstrosity) on "Screams From Beneath The Surface"

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 938 - Lee Harrison (Monstrosity) on "Screams From Beneath The Surface" · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  Always the newest album because that's the one I, you know,
• 0:03
  learned all the lessons from the previous albums and and put it
• 0:06
  into this album. So to me, this is the best
• 0:09
  album. You know, I know everybody's got
• 0:11
  their quirks and their their likes and dislikes about the
• 0:14
  previous lineups or this lineup versus that lineup or this era
• 0:18
  versus another era. To me, you know the the latest
• 0:20
  album is always the best. What's up everybody, it's Kifi
• 0:30
  of ghostcultmag.com. I am super stoked today to be
• 0:33
  joined by Lee of Monstrosity. How are you doing today, Sir?
• 0:37
  Doing good bro. Good to be here, man.
• 0:39
  So good to see you, first time interviewing you ever.
• 0:42
  I've been a fan for ages. Really one of the best and and
• 0:45
  you know, greatest legacy death metal bands.
• 0:47
  You are the sole founding member and you know, I just want to say
• 0:52
  First off, this new record screams beneath the surface
• 0:55
  that's coming out soon from metal Blade is absolutely
• 0:58
  crushing. And just thank you for always
• 1:00
  sticking to your guns. And and you know, it's hard to
• 1:03
  do something over a long period of time consistently well, but I
• 1:07
  feel like Monstrosity is one of those bands.
• 1:09
  Yeah, I've always tried to, you know, keep things up to a
• 1:11
  certain standard, and this one's no different.
• 1:16
  People always say, you know, what's your favorite album?
• 1:17
  And it's always the newest album because that's the one I, you
• 1:21
  know, learned all the lessons from the previous albums and,
• 1:24
  and put it into this album. So to me, this is the best
• 1:27
  album. You know, I know everybody's got
• 1:29
  their quirks and their their likes and dislikes about the
• 1:32
  previous lineups or this lineup versus that lineup or this era
• 1:36
  versus another era. To me, you know, the latest
• 1:39
  album is always the best. Fun, I love that.
• 1:41
  And I always wonder, like, I get that, like making a record is
• 1:45
  also work. And some people like, I'm so
• 1:47
  tired of this or I had such an unfavorable experience.
• 1:50
  I hate the new record or I it's done and I'm relieved and sick
• 1:54
  of it. Like I feel so bad because like,
• 1:56
  I want to hear these songs live. I'm jazzed about new music from
• 1:59
  my favorite bands. But I've also been on the side
• 2:02
  where I've made music and recorded and produced music.
• 2:04
  And I know that struggle. So I hope I'm glad you don't
• 2:07
  have that problem. Yeah.
• 2:08
  What? It comes in waves, you know,
• 2:10
  like hearing, you know, hearing it in the studio for the first
• 2:14
  time, you know, gives, always gives like a fresh wave of
• 2:17
  inspiration, you know, so, and then, you know, yeah, playing it
• 2:22
  over and over and over, you know, and hearing the same song,
• 2:24
  you know, does get repetitive. But, you know, kind of like
• 2:27
  after an album's done, you get away from it for a while.
• 2:30
  And then like, you know, I did it recently where I listened to
• 2:32
  Rise to Power for the first time in a long time.
• 2:34
  And it's, you know, it's just kind of like almost like a, a
• 2:38
  new album that I, you know, obviously I've heard it, but
• 2:41
  it's been a been a minute. So it was kind of like hearing
• 2:43
  it for a first time almost, you know, so that that's always
• 2:46
  cool. It's just kind of taking a break
• 2:47
  from it after you get, after you finish.
• 2:49
  Right on. And I know you, by the way, I
• 2:51
  think you're sitting at the drum kit, right?
• 2:53
  That's the beer behind you and you have drumsticks in your
• 2:55
  hands. So we've got you in your
• 2:57
  element, the drummer at the drum throne.
• 2:59
  I don't think I've had always, sometimes guitarist and bassist
• 3:02
  show up with, you know, noodling away.
• 3:04
  But we recently interviewed Mark Mangy of Metal Allegiance and
• 3:08
  King Ultra Mega, and he was like basing the whole time because
• 3:10
  he's in between recording and interviews.
• 3:12
  And so I love that you're at the drums with your sticks.
• 3:15
  That's killer. You know, you mentioned the
• 3:17
  lineup. I think this is a fantastic
• 3:19
  lineup. Obviously Matt has been with you
• 3:21
  a long time and and, and Mark is back, which is great.
• 3:25
  And Ed man, Ed Webb, shout out to Ed for the just incredible
• 3:29
  job. And I know a lot of people know
• 3:31
  Ed from his time in Massacre, but I'm a huge Diabolic fan and
• 3:35
  that's where I love Ed's work. We played bass and sang right
• 3:38
  and vocal at vocals and he's so good on this record.
• 3:42
  He really is like the special sauce on top of all these brutal
• 3:45
  songs. Yeah, he did great then.
• 3:47
  You know, I'm just, you know, fortunate to have him.
• 3:50
  We were placed in the situation where our previous singer didn't
• 3:54
  want to tour anymore and so we we had to find somebody new and
• 3:57
  we were working with some younger guys from local and you
• 4:00
  know, they just didn't have the high screams.
• 4:02
  And so it was going to take a minute to for them to get the
• 4:05
  high screams and we were willing to do that.
• 4:07
  But in the end it worked out with Terry Butler from Obituary.
• 4:11
  You know, he brought up Ed's name.
• 4:12
  You know, it was kind of like, Oh yeah, I didn't even think of
• 4:15
  him. You know, I've known Ed forever.
• 4:17
  You know, he, he was on the 1st eyeball like that.
• 4:19
  You know, I released on my record label once I thought of
• 4:21
  him and it just perfect sense. So like, I contacted him and
• 4:25
  pretty much ever since he's been been in the band and he's been
• 4:27
  doing great. And yeah, I think he fits the
• 4:30
  band a little better. You know, as far as compared to
• 4:33
  the old, you know, he can do the old stuff.
• 4:34
  He kind of has more of a similar style to, you know, the George
• 4:38
  era and even the Jason Avery era.
• 4:40
  He can really pull it off. I'm so stoked.
• 4:43
  They can't wait to see this lineup live.
• 4:45
  You know, you made a good point. We're all getting kind of older
• 4:48
  and it's just hard. The music industry is harder
• 4:50
  than ever. Touring is not easy.
• 4:52
  There's a lot of little sunken costs that you can't avoid and
• 4:56
  you know, I can imagine a guy who's been out there slogging
• 4:58
  away for 20 or 30 years. Nobody.
• 5:00
  I always say nobody's in death metal casually.
• 5:03
  If you're in death metal, either as a musician or a fan, you were
• 5:06
  a lifer. Nobody is like I was into death
• 5:08
  metal 1 summer nobody, nobody. Maybe black metal has the
• 5:11
  hipsters that are casuals. Nothing personal, love a lot of
• 5:14
  black metal, but I'm just saying like, you know, so I'm glad you
• 5:18
  have a group of people who want to do this, who can do this.
• 5:20
  You know how hard it is to keep a band together after all these?
• 5:23
  Yeah, and, you know, I'm here for life for the most part.
• 5:27
  And, you know, that's why, you know, should I stop because
• 5:30
  somebody else wants to go have a family?
• 5:33
  Or should I stop because Cannibal Corpse takes my singer?
• 5:36
  You know? No, you know, I'm just, this is
• 5:39
  what I do and I put too much work into it to to just let it
• 5:42
  go like that. And, you know, this is kind of
• 5:45
  my baby. You know, I've been keeping it
• 5:47
  going for all these years and it's an outlet for me to kind
• 5:50
  of, you know, let my creative spark ignite, so to speak.
• 5:54
  So, you know, this is what I do. This is, you know, and I'm, you
• 5:58
  know, it may shift again, you know, who knows?
• 6:00
  Because you know, it's a tough business, like you said, or
• 6:03
  they're just life happens, somebody make it, you know, who
• 6:07
  knows what can happen. No one could blame you, it is
• 6:10
  your baby and you have been the sole lone member for the
• 6:14
  entirety. So like you know when it when
• 6:16
  you have ownership of something and if people don't understand
• 6:19
  why your particular or precious about it, that's not your
• 6:23
  problem, that's for you, right? Yeah, definitely.
• 6:28
  And you know, I'm just fortunate, you know, right now.
• 6:30
  I got a good group of guys that I'm working with.
• 6:32
  Everybody's on the same page, everybody's pushing in the same
• 6:35
  direction, which, you know, I've worked in the past with guys,
• 6:39
  you know, that they have their own ideas and things that they
• 6:42
  want to do, you know, or like their vision of the band or
• 6:45
  whatever. And you know, it's not always
• 6:48
  everybody push in the same direction.
• 6:49
  So it's nice right now that, you know, everything's moving
• 6:53
  forward and everybody's on the same page.
• 6:56
  Right on. I think just just for one
• 6:58
  second, I don't want a sidebar too long about this, but since
• 7:01
  you bet you mentioned George and the George era, I think a lot of
• 7:04
  people have positively discovered monstrosity because
• 7:08
  of George, because of Cannibal Corpse.
• 7:10
  He's he's never talked negatively about the time in the
• 7:12
  band that I know of. And I, you know, I don't know if
• 7:16
  it's hard to not be resentful to see the guy you helped build.
• 7:21
  Hey, you know, I just, you know, kudos to him and I love George,
• 7:26
  you know, there's no problem. I think, you know, like in
• 7:29
  particular, our second album Millennium kind of kind of went
• 7:32
  under people's radar, you know, And then when it was featured on
• 7:35
  the Centuries of Torment DVD, we actually had a lot of people
• 7:38
  discover that album because of that.
• 7:41
  So yes, you're exactly right. You know, that the cannibal
• 7:43
  connection has made it to where people have discovered us.
• 7:47
  You know, you could sort of liken it to the Megadeth
• 7:49
  situation where Metallica Megadeth, you know, and that
• 7:52
  whole thing. But, you know, we just do what
• 7:55
  we do. I don't, I don't really see, you
• 7:56
  know, there's no animosity. So we're good with it, you know,
• 8:00
  and there's no point of holding any grudges on anybody, you
• 8:03
  know, And you know, we're all, we're adults, you know, things
• 8:07
  happen. And, you know, look, he's, he's
• 8:09
  in the number one death metal band right now.
• 8:11
  So it's hard to argue with, you know, And all the best for him.
• 8:14
  Yeah, of course. And Cannibal fans were lucky to
• 8:17
  get Barnes at his peak. And then George, who's been
• 8:20
  pretty consistent for 30 years, 30 years.
• 8:22
  It's 30 years ago. It's wild to me.
• 8:24
  A lot of time is crazy. Maybe they can take you guys out
• 8:27
  with them or, you know, something someday, because you
• 8:29
  will. Both are on Metal Blade and, you
• 8:31
  know, similar fan overlap and things.
• 8:33
  That'd be cool. Yeah, we'd definitely be open
• 8:36
  for it. Yeah.
• 8:38
  We played with Cannibal one time in Ybor City once, but that was
• 8:41
  the only time we've played with him since all that.
• 8:44
  But, you know, like Rob Barrett used to, I used to rent him a
• 8:46
  room, you know, and Pat O'Brien was in the band.
• 8:49
  He he actually, he did a tour with us right before Cannibal.
• 8:52
  And then even Rob Barrett was in the band back in 92 for, you
• 8:55
  know, he did some shows with us. So, you know, we've had a kind
• 8:58
  of a kindred connection with Cannibal for sure.
• 9:01
  So, and you know, all the best of those guys.
• 9:04
  Love Paul the drummer. Man, what a nice guy.
• 9:07
  You can't say enough good things about him, man.
• 9:08
  He's such a cool guy. I see him, you know, time to
• 9:12
  time to time around town, you know, and running to him.
• 9:14
  And it's like, man, you can't get any nicer of a guy than that
• 9:17
  guy. So true.
• 9:19
  I don't know if you've been able to check out Brian Slagle's
• 9:22
  Metal Blade Museum in Vegas, but they have the original Paul kit
• 9:27
  and a replica of the original Cannibal background banner I
• 9:31
  think from the second album. So I got to sit behind Paul's
• 9:34
  original so I'm set. I'm not a drummer, I'm a bassist
• 9:37
  and vocalist but like roughly semi active musician.
• 9:43
  And it was I got goose pimples sit like touching the drums,
• 9:48
  man, just like putting my hands on the drums that he touched and
• 9:50
  tuned. And you know, you are also a
• 9:52
  legend. Let's not take anything away
• 9:54
  from you. You're playing has been amazing.
• 9:56
  Again, I feel like you've always tried to improve.
• 9:59
  The drumming on this record is killer.
• 10:01
  You know, I don't know if you have a routine or a regimen that
• 10:04
  you work on to get better as a drummer or any rudiments or
• 10:07
  things that you know, keep you tight and going, not just making
• 10:10
  new music and recording it and touring.
• 10:11
  So like, if you've got any tips for younger drummers starting
• 10:14
  out, I love to hear him. Kind of what I'm doing at this
• 10:17
  point is like right now, like I have my drums, I leave them
• 10:22
  miked up at all times and I have a little machine kind of just
• 10:25
  across the room there. And basically like any practice
• 10:29
  that we do, I always record. I record everything that we do,
• 10:32
  all the rehearsals. And what I'll do too is I have,
• 10:35
  I like when I'm writing a song, you know, I'll just go, you
• 10:38
  know, press record on the machine and then I'll come up
• 10:41
  with like a drum skeleton. And then, you know, after I'm
• 10:45
  done practicing, I'll take that in the other room and write
• 10:47
  guitar riffs and stuff for that. So that's kind of how I work
• 10:51
  with the drums as far as that goes.
• 10:53
  I have a machine here that it's called a Roland SPD X.
• 10:57
  That is, it's like a sample sampler pad type thing.
• 11:01
  And what I'll do is I don't know if you're familiar with the
• 11:03
  Moises app, but basically you can separate the tracks.
• 11:07
  So I'll take like I'll take cover songs or I'll take
• 11:11
  whatever, whatever I'm working on.
• 11:12
  Like if if I don't have it separated already by something
• 11:16
  that we're working on, I'll separate it using that Moises
• 11:20
  app. And then I'll take, I'll make a,
• 11:23
  I'll make A1 file with which will just be the music.
• 11:26
  And then I'll make another file that'll be like the drums and
• 11:28
  the click. Anyway, you can import the two
• 11:30
  files into the sample pad and you chain them together where
• 11:34
  they play at the same time. But you can route the the drum
• 11:37
  in the click one to my headphones and then the other is
• 11:41
  routed throughout the PA. So it's coming like the music's
• 11:44
  coming out of my PA and then I'll just play.
• 11:46
  I can play along bass, but I can program our set into the the
• 11:50
  machine. And so I can, that's how I can
• 11:52
  practice, you know, when the band's not here and keep my
• 11:55
  chops up. And then also like I'll put in
• 11:57
  cover songs and stuff and I and you know, I'll practice like
• 12:00
  learning songs that are challenging for me and I'll put
• 12:03
  in whatever it is that I want to learn at the moment.
• 12:06
  And I can kind of, you know, I might not know it the first time
• 12:10
  I play it or the second time even.
• 12:11
  But, you know, after a month or two, like, you know, whatever a
• 12:15
  month or three of playing it every night or trying to go
• 12:19
  through it, you know, I'll finally get it down and
• 12:22
  accomplish it, you know, and, and get it done.
• 12:25
  So that's kind of one of my main things is, is, you know, just
• 12:29
  doing that. But usually I get in a good hour
• 12:31
  a day, usually from 9:00 to 10:00 at night.
• 12:34
  And then sometimes like, you know, I'll start a little
• 12:36
  earlier, depending on, depending on what's happening with the
• 12:38
  band, if we're touring, if we're, if there's something
• 12:40
  coming up, I'll, I'll practice extra hard.
• 12:42
  Like when the band comes out, we usually practice, you know,
• 12:44
  between 7:00 and 10:00 at night, you know, so we'll get that, you
• 12:48
  know, that's kind of the main routine.
• 12:50
  And, and otherwise, you know, I may be, you know, during the day
• 12:53
  or like late at night or whatever, I'll be in there
• 12:55
  playing guitar, you know, playing arranging on the
• 12:58
  computer, you know, like do a lot of computer stuff because
• 13:02
  you know, just what, you know, I have to, you know, if I'm
• 13:04
  editing guitar parts or if I'm doing a graphic for a flyer or
• 13:09
  if I'm doing a T-shirt design or something, you know, or working
• 13:12
  on business or something. Pretty much everything revolves
• 13:15
  around music in my life for the most part.
• 13:17
  But as far as did, my advice is just, you know, you know, I, I
• 13:21
  can't speak enough good things about this machine being a
• 13:23
  drummer because it just, it's definitely more inspiring to
• 13:26
  play, have something to play along with And just playing
• 13:28
  alone and just kind of not really having anything to, you
• 13:31
  know, if you don't have someone there, it's it's a good thing to
• 13:35
  to keep, to keep you going. Right on.
• 13:37
  I appreciate all that. Thank you for breaking that all
• 13:39
  down for me, man. And again, like you're you know,
• 13:42
  we're going to talk about the record in a second.
• 13:43
  We're going to do a little track by track.
• 13:45
  Just kudos to all four of you on this record.
• 13:48
  Again, screams from beneath the surface from metal blade.
• 13:51
  So the first track on the album is vanished to the skies.
• 13:54
  A brutal banger of an opener is like a little little oral second
• 13:59
  pause and then it's just Road Raider.
• 14:03
  What is? What are some thoughts on Banish
• 14:05
  to disguise? That was a little deceiving.
• 14:08
  I've noticed from like the reviews that we've gotten so far
• 14:11
  and like some of the like doing some of these interviews or
• 14:15
  whatever that it's not like a full Rd. punching rager right
• 14:20
  out of the gate, which I think I think confuses people.
• 14:23
  And I really didn't think about, you know, it really didn't hit
• 14:26
  me until doing these interviews and that kind of thing.
• 14:28
  But, and to me, it's like, you know, maybe the beats, not like
• 14:32
  super fast, but there's so many little intricacies like on the
• 14:35
  high hat or the ride symbol and little things going on and like
• 14:38
  even the riffs, you know, the stuff, some of the stuff Matt's
• 14:41
  doing where it's like, you know, subtleties that you're not
• 14:46
  hearing. Maybe.
• 14:47
  So it's like it's still a fast song.
• 14:49
  It's just not fast in the way that you're used to hearing it,
• 14:52
  maybe as far as as that goes. So it's if you just kind of it's
• 14:56
  one of those things that it it's kind of what I've been saying
• 14:59
  about the the album title, you know, the screams from beneath
• 15:01
  the surface is that you kind of got to dig beneath the surface a
• 15:05
  little bit. You kind of got to go down below
• 15:07
  and and dig into some of those layers of the album.
• 15:10
  And that's a perfect example. That song, you know, like the
• 15:13
  bass track, it's you know, the bass parts where it's like it's
• 15:17
  doing, it's playing with the drums and it's not just playing
• 15:20
  a unison of what the guitars playing.
• 15:22
  There's little stops and starts, you know, bom bom bom bom bom
• 15:25
  bom bom bom bom bom whatever, you know what I mean?
• 15:28
  Those kind of things to where it's just a little bit deeper
• 15:32
  than just us just coming in here and bashing something out and
• 15:36
  like going with it. You know, it's it's it's a
• 15:39
  little bit deeper than that. So that's that's the whole
• 15:41
  screams from need to surface kind of concept there.
• 15:45
  But yeah, planet. It's it's it's kind of a cousin
• 15:48
  of angels venom. If you're familiar with that
• 15:50
  song, it kind of has some of the like the verse first parts kind
• 15:54
  of remind, even though they're nothing alike riff wise, it's
• 15:57
  kind of in that melodic vein a little bit.
• 16:00
  And you know, to me, I don't know, it just it came out of me
• 16:04
  naturally. So and I'm pretty close to it.
• 16:06
  So I can't really to me it's just another monstrosity song.
• 16:11
  But now that I think about it, now that people are telling me,
• 16:14
  you know, and reading the reviews to where they were like
• 16:17
  kind of confused when they first heard the album, they were
• 16:21
  expecting maybe something a little more faster and and out
• 16:24
  of the gate, you know, now I get it.
• 16:27
  But to me it's just, you know, it's an epic, has that epic
• 16:29
  punches in the beginning and you know, what can I say?
• 16:32
  But. Yeah, such a killer song.
• 16:34
  You know you want like a can opener, right?
• 16:37
  To peel open the listening experience.
• 16:40
  And this one arrives. With four, we didn't just want
• 16:43
  to do the same old thing, you know, like kind of, we got to
• 16:46
  mix it up a little bit. What you expect versus what you
• 16:49
  know, what you get. You know, we can't just, you
• 16:52
  know, without making like a dance record or something, you
• 16:54
  know, a reggae record. Yeah, I think it's safe to say
• 16:57
  it's not a straight ahead, just a plain old OSDM record, which
• 17:01
  by the way would be great, but like it's feeling fresh for 26,
• 17:06
  there's no question. Sounds like a band trying trying
• 17:09
  to do something modern and important.
• 17:11
  Right. And, you know, we love Florida
• 17:13
  death metal and that we don't classify us anything other than
• 17:16
  death metal. But at the same time, we're
• 17:18
  musicians, you know, and we play music and, and sometimes playing
• 17:22
  music involves other elements, you know.
• 17:25
  And so we just, you know, we want to continue doing what
• 17:28
  we've always done. Pretty much the same.
• 17:30
  You know, we haven't strayed too far from the original formula
• 17:34
  and if anything, we're just perfecting it and making it
• 17:37
  better. Hopefully.
• 17:38
  You know, there's plenty of like, you know, Colossal
• 17:41
  Atrophy, Spiral Vapors, Veil of disillusion, There's all those,
• 17:45
  you know, plenty of blast beats and all that kind of stuff that
• 17:49
  that our fans would love, you know, and double bass and all
• 17:52
  that stuff. So there's, but at the same time
• 17:54
  it's, there's peaks and valleys and it's going places, you know,
• 17:57
  that's, that's kind of 1 something we've always tried to
• 18:00
  do. We don't want to just make an
• 18:01
  album that's one direct, you know, 1 dynamic.
• 18:05
  Right on, right on. I love that.
• 18:06
  Let's let's try to whip through these so I'm respectful of your
• 18:09
  time. I'm sure you have other things
• 18:11
  to do. Then talk to me on a Friday.
• 18:13
  The Colossal Rage is the second track.
• 18:15
  Another beater. Right.
• 18:16
  And that's so that that's where the beating really begins.
• 18:20
  Umm, so that one's just a fast, you know, fast razor kind of you
• 18:23
  know, it's got a little bit of, you know, kind of a little
• 18:27
  little thrash here, I guess you could say with the downbeat,
• 18:32
  like just the crazy wrist, you know, little scaly kind of some
• 18:35
  naughty stuff going on there. And it's got the cool middle
• 18:39
  section with the blast beats and how that breaks down and Matt
• 18:42
  gets to extend with the lead work.
• 18:44
  And another guy that we haven't mentioned is Justin Walker.
• 18:47
  And he did, he did some, you know, we didn't.
• 18:50
  He's a younger guy that we've been working with kind of live
• 18:53
  since basically 2019. I met him in the Tardy Brothers
• 18:58
  project. I did with the obituary guys.
• 19:00
  He was involved with that. That's where I I met him back
• 19:03
  then. But he was, he was literally
• 19:05
  born on the month that the band formed.
• 19:07
  So if that's the thing, so, but you know, he's such a a very,
• 19:14
  you know, he's an amazing talent, killer player.
• 19:17
  And but he also plays like like a he plays in like a reggae rock
• 19:21
  band and they tour and they go and they're playing some pretty
• 19:25
  big places and he's busy with that.
• 19:27
  He plays locally here on Clearwater Beach.
• 19:30
  I I could, I actually saw him in his band last night and they
• 19:32
  were they're, you know, they're playing cover songs, But I mean,
• 19:35
  they're really good, like playing Rosanna and like these,
• 19:39
  you know, hard to play. You know, they got a piano
• 19:41
  player. This guy's amazing.
• 19:44
  He's a busy guy and so like he, he's not always available, you
• 19:48
  know, he's doing his other thing.
• 19:50
  And so we've been using Sam Molina, who is no stranger to
• 19:54
  Monstrosity. He was on the Rise to Power
• 19:56
  album and then he left the band after that.
• 19:58
  And then me and him did The Terrorizer with Pete Sandoval.
• 20:02
  So me and him have been buddies forever and we're good friends.
• 20:05
  So I've been using him for the Monstrosity live shows when
• 20:09
  Justin's not available and kind of as a as a group.
• 20:12
  Decision we we made the decision that, you know, since Justine
• 20:17
  not really 100% committed with that, we would just go ahead and
• 20:21
  promote this album as as a four piece and kind of, you know,
• 20:24
  solidify the four of us and and make that the focus as far as
• 20:28
  the pictures is not to, you know, trying to keep the
• 20:31
  confusion down for the fans as far as who's involved and what's
• 20:35
  going on. But I saying all that man,
• 20:37
  Justin, like he he laid, you know, like the the main songs
• 20:40
  were like mostly me and then Matt like took my songs and made
• 20:44
  them better. So it's me and Matt Barnes kind
• 20:47
  of are the main songwriters for this album, but Justin kind of
• 20:51
  came and put the icing on top with some killer solos, some
• 20:54
  killer theme parts, like theme lead type parts that he put on.
• 21:00
  So a lot of the you know, even though Matt's playing the lead
• 21:03
  in the video, Justin's doing that first lead, for example, in
• 21:06
  colossal. So like, you know, and he's just
• 21:09
  killer and then they atrophied. He's all over the atrophied.
• 21:12
  You know, he's all over the album pretty much.
• 21:14
  And he's killer. And so we always try to include
• 21:17
  his name at the bottom, you know, additional guitars by
• 21:20
  Justin Walker because we do want to give him the credit because
• 21:22
  he killed it. That's.
• 21:24
  Amazing, and I appreciate you clarifying that and highlighting
• 21:28
  that. And we love Sam.
• 21:29
  Sam's incredible amazing. The next track is The Atrophied,
• 21:34
  probably my favorite song on the record, but let's talk about
• 21:37
  that one for. Okay, yeah, that ones kind of
• 21:40
  like everything monstrosity in one package.
• 21:42
  That was actually gonna be the first single.
• 21:45
  That was my idea to to do that one first.
• 21:48
  Metal blade kind of came up with the idea to do colossal rage.
• 21:51
  So that's kind of how that ended up happening.
• 21:53
  We went, you know, and it made say I was I was cool with it
• 21:56
  because it is faster. It's more of a punch, I guess,
• 22:00
  just speed wise, you know, the tempos quicker.
• 22:02
  But the atrophied is definitely got a little bit of everything
• 22:05
  all rolled into one and it it's it was one of the if not the
• 22:10
  first song that I came up with for the album.
• 22:12
  I was thinking Banished was the first, but I actually think
• 22:14
  Atrophied was the 1st. But those, there was 4 songs
• 22:18
  that I did kind of during the passage mixing session.
• 22:22
  It was Spanish Atrophied, Thorns and Dark Aura.
• 22:26
  So those first, those were the first 4 written for the album.
• 22:29
  Yeah, Atrophied. It's just kind of, you know, and
• 22:31
  it's an epic Ranger, you know, and it's a, it's a, it's a tough
• 22:34
  song to play. Actually, it's one of the harder
• 22:36
  ones on the new album to play. Right on.
• 22:39
  What about a spiral? I was like oh is this a SAW
• 22:41
  reference? I'm so I'm so messed up.
• 22:45
  But anyway, Spiral is the fourth track on the right.
• 22:48
  That was just a blast rager, you know, just a lot of blast beats.
• 22:51
  It's kind of short and sweet. Punching gets to the point and
• 22:55
  he kind of gets in and out. But there's, you know, some
• 22:57
  good, there's actually only really one verse part in that
• 23:01
  song. You know, it was kind of one
• 23:02
  thing I didn't really notice, but we left it like that instead
• 23:05
  of trying to drag out the song. And I think in, in, in our older
• 23:08
  age, you know, it's like the shorter songs are kind of
• 23:11
  better, you know, I think people with their attention spans are
• 23:15
  shorter, you know, so it's better to just get in and get
• 23:18
  out and kind of punch hard and then move on.
• 23:21
  And that's kind of. Boxer theory, right?
• 23:22
  Chess boxing, Yeah. That's kind of that's the theory
• 23:26
  on that song. Yeah, good shit, good shit.
• 23:28
  The next one is Fortunes Engraved in Blood.
• 23:31
  What a great title and song. So that was Matt Barnes's song.
• 23:36
  He came up with that, the majority of that and then we
• 23:39
  kind of batted it back and forth a little bit to tweak it and do
• 23:42
  some adjustments. But it's kind of A to me, that
• 23:46
  one's like a distant cousin of suffering to the concord.
• 23:48
  You know, it kind of has that kind of mid pace feel again,
• 23:51
  where it's like the double bass throughout the whole thing.
• 23:54
  And but it's got some really cool parts.
• 23:56
  And then like the lead section, that's you know, Matt kind of
• 23:59
  takes the first half of the lead section and Justin take does the
• 24:02
  second-half and you know, it's it's definitely it's a little
• 24:06
  more experimental. It's kind of 1, you know, one of
• 24:08
  those kind of things. But you know, it's like I said,
• 24:10
  it's a cousin to suffering of the concord.
• 24:12
  So it's not totally of the blue and different, you know, it's,
• 24:16
  it's definitely in our wheelhouse, so to speak.
• 24:19
  The next track, track number six is Vapors.
• 24:23
  All right. That one kind of is a nod to
• 24:25
  imperial doom. It has like the three cool
• 24:27
  3412312312 where it has that, you know, that kind of feel vibe
• 24:37
  and there's just some crazy rhythms.
• 24:40
  We we had a review in Decimal magazine and they kind of they
• 24:43
  kind of chapped us on the on some of the riffs on.
• 24:46
  I was like some of those riffs are like really hard to play.
• 24:48
  Like I would like to see that reviewer play those riffs, but
• 24:52
  whatever, you know, to me, it's you know, it's a great tune and
• 24:56
  it it's kind of one of those songs where, you know, comes in
• 24:59
  with the main riff, go into a verse riff, have like a pre
• 25:03
  chorus and then have the chorus and then kind of like, you know,
• 25:06
  there's a little transition and we go back around again.
• 25:09
  So it's like more songwriting. You know, it's kind of like
• 25:11
  really focuses in on classic songwriting arrangement, you
• 25:15
  know, of the verse chorus, you know, and and we'll discuss more
• 25:19
  about that later as we go on. Right on the next track is the
• 25:22
  aforementioned the Thorns. So the thorn, that's kind of
• 25:26
  like if you've seen like these sex predator guys that get
• 25:28
  busted on YouTube, that's what the thorn is the sting, you
• 25:32
  know, come. In and have a seat, Sir.
• 25:33
  Yeah, exactly. But there's all these like, you
• 25:36
  know, vigilante guys doing it now.
• 25:38
  You know, there's like a whole web of it.
• 25:40
  I don't know if you pay attention, but like the Alex
• 25:43
  Rosen guy, the Predator poachers, and there's, you know,
• 25:48
  the CCP, the Colorado Pet Patrol guys.
• 25:51
  But they catch these guys, you know, here's these these guys
• 25:54
  that think that, you know, I didn't do anything wrong.
• 25:56
  And next thing you know, they're going away for years and years,
• 25:58
  you know, and deservedly. But at the same time, you know,
• 26:02
  it's like not only is there downfall for, you know, real
• 26:06
  that they have to go to jail, but it's going to be televised
• 26:09
  on YouTube. And it's, you know, you're
• 26:11
  disgraced in front of your whole family for the world to see
• 26:14
  forever. You know, it's on YouTube
• 26:15
  forever. So that's kind of what the Thorn
• 26:17
  was about. Kill all pedos now.
• 26:19
  Some crimes are, you know, I'm a, I'm kind of, you know, I'm
• 26:23
  pretty liberal. So I want to see people who can
• 26:26
  be rehabilitated, rehabilitate them.
• 26:28
  People in jail for drugs, stupid.
• 26:31
  We're wasting money on that. But severe criminal serial
• 26:34
  killers, pet harassed, murder them all.
• 26:37
  The next song, Blood Works. This is kind of one of those
• 26:40
  songs where like not like Vapor where this kind of wanders a
• 26:44
  little bit and this goes different places.
• 26:46
  It has kind of a cool intro section, lots of little hi hat
• 26:50
  barks and ride altercation to go on, you know, different little
• 26:55
  alternative things going back and forth.
• 26:57
  You really got to listen to it and fine tune and kind of hone
• 27:00
  in on it. But it's just, you know, I love
• 27:03
  that beginning section for sure. That just came about naturally.
• 27:07
  It's just, you know, the whole I again, I wrote that during 2018
• 27:12
  during the mixing session for passage.
• 27:14
  And anyway, then it kind of goes into another like a double bass
• 27:18
  section. And then from there it kind of
• 27:19
  goes into like a really long blast section.
• 27:21
  And there's parts in seven and then there's kind of parts in
• 27:25
  eight where you're, it's kind of more duration blast beats kind
• 27:29
  of and whatnot. And I don't know if I really
• 27:32
  want to get into the lyrics, but I'll, I'll go ahead and, and
• 27:34
  give you a little hint of it. Basically the idea was, it was
• 27:37
  kind of like, you know, everybody knows the Manson
• 27:39
  story. And I, I've been kind of
• 27:41
  studying, you know, I listen to these programs on YouTube like
• 27:44
  the, the TLB radio, Ted Labiaco radio.
• 27:48
  And there's this Stoner Van Houten guy that he, you know,
• 27:51
  they basically their whole thing is, is discussing the case.
• 27:55
  And, you know, there's actually some really cool knowledge that
• 27:57
  I've gotten about the case. You know, I had no idea, you
• 28:00
  know, about Charles Manson and his whole that he never got a
• 28:03
  defense. You know, he was, he was wasn't
• 28:05
  allowed to put on his own defense.
• 28:07
  You know, he was basically railroaded into that.
• 28:10
  But that's not really the story of the of the thing that the
• 28:12
  idea was like the vibe of like after the after the killing and
• 28:17
  then before the maid found the bodies, you know, it was it was
• 28:20
  that period in between of just the silent, this dead silence.
• 28:24
  And, and here comes the, you know, the birds are chirping and
• 28:27
  it's that moment that the world changed, changed because from
• 28:30
  then on, like the world was exposed to this, you know,
• 28:33
  serial killer type thing and like this just all out brutality
• 28:38
  of, of these murders. And so that's kind of what that
• 28:41
  song's about. You know, that was just another
• 28:43
  one that we're like kind of I had the main riff originally and
• 28:46
  Matt Barnes took my ideas and really stepped them up and, and
• 28:49
  made them what they are. That's another, you know, kind
• 28:51
  of a short and sweet, you know, good song arrangement, but
• 28:56
  there's lots of little twists and avenues.
• 28:58
  And even like our the the engineer, Jason Sukhoff, who
• 29:02
  engineered the drums, you know, he gave me some ideas on that
• 29:05
  song too. So like, you know, it's kind of
• 29:07
  different inputs coming in on that one.
• 29:09
  Right on. Yeah, Sukhoff.
• 29:10
  Great production job. I know you we didn't really even
• 29:13
  talk about Morris sound and gym. Like so many things to go into
• 29:17
  the engineering so detailed. I really want to shout out the,
• 29:22
  you know, metal blade and and ear split, of course, for the
• 29:25
  great publicity work and informing us.
• 29:28
  Actually, if writers get it wrong, first of all, don't pay
• 29:30
  too much attention to critics. We are them.
• 29:32
  But also like we shouldn't get it wrong because we're given all
• 29:36
  the information to get it right. But shout out to them.
• 29:39
  OK so that was blood works and now the dark aura.
• 29:41
  OK, so this one is again, this was written back during that
• 29:46
  session, the original session during the mixing of passage.
• 29:50
  But I actually on the 2019 European Tour, I kind of used, I
• 29:56
  used this, I put it into my pad, the pad that I was telling you
• 30:00
  about and I would play along with it.
• 30:02
  But like the guys would go off stage in the middle of the show
• 30:05
  and I would play that song and then kind of kind of ended it
• 30:09
  with my drum solo. Like we had like this whole
• 30:11
  build up. I had this build up thing that I
• 30:14
  that I did towards the end and that I use that as my drum solo.
• 30:17
  So I've actually played that personally live before, you
• 30:21
  know, when we did that one European Tour.
• 30:23
  But this one's definitely a slow.
• 30:25
  This is kind of like the experimental track on the album.
• 30:28
  That's like definitely a left turn from the rest of the album.
• 30:32
  But at the same time, it's, you know, it's kind of like a
• 30:35
  Harkins back to the Millennium album, fragments of resolution,
• 30:38
  the kind of slow doomy thing. And we've always kind of had
• 30:41
  some like elements of that, like Pillars of Drear from the third
• 30:45
  album as that slow, you know, even imperial doom, even though
• 30:49
  the song's mostly fast, there's that middle section in the song
• 30:52
  imperial doom where it kind of breaks down into the the doomy
• 30:54
  section. So it's just kind of like more
• 30:56
  exploring the doom aspect of of what we do.
• 31:01
  And, you know, there's there's different feels and atmospheric
• 31:05
  kind of vibes going on in that song.
• 31:07
  And you know, that was one of my babies too, where, you know, I
• 31:10
  just, you know, I wanted to make sure it got in there.
• 31:12
  You know, I didn't want to not put it in there just because it
• 31:15
  was too crazy, right on that song.
• 31:18
  Right on. And then the final track is Veil
• 31:20
  of Disillusion. So that's another one where we
• 31:24
  kind of like threw out the songwriting formula and just
• 31:28
  kind of let things wander and kind of go into different places
• 31:31
  kind of wherever it leads us. We it was kind of two different
• 31:35
  ideas. And the idea was, you know, I
• 31:38
  was going to have it originally the front half and then go into
• 31:42
  the middle section and kind of come back and what, you know,
• 31:46
  turn it back around to go back into the beginning section
• 31:48
  again. Hello anyway.
• 31:54
  The weed is getting delivered momentarily so my partner had to
• 31:56
  come down here for a second to get.
• 31:57
  The no, it's fine. I'm.
• 32:01
  Just so I'm sure you can relate. So anyway, the idea is of
• 32:04
  winding back. We were going to try to wind it
• 32:07
  back to the original half of the album, but then we were just
• 32:10
  like, you know, we kind of just threw out the rule book on that
• 32:12
  one and just said, you know what, let's just focus on this
• 32:14
  and expand it even more. And so that's kind of what we
• 32:17
  did. We came up, there's that whole,
• 32:20
  the little base fill towards the end and then it goes into like a
• 32:23
  part where it's like it's like 11/8.
• 32:27
  I guess it would be time signature.
• 32:30
  You know, where it's kind of a goofy time signature there at
• 32:33
  the end and and then the whole drum thing fade out, you know
• 32:36
  where it's but it's just more of an experimental thing in that
• 32:39
  respect where we threw out the rule book on this far as
• 32:42
  songwriting and and trying to come up with like just a first
• 32:46
  chorus, first chorus type arrangement, you know, and so
• 32:49
  that's pretty much that all. Right.
• 32:51
  Killer job man. Thank you so much for all that
• 32:53
  Intel on the record. I'm so excited about the new
• 32:57
  album Screams Beneath the Surface coming out on Friday the
• 33:00
  13th March, Friday the 13th on Metal Blade Records.
• 33:03
  Lee Man, first time interviewing you.
• 33:05
  It's been honestly a pleasure and an honor.
• 33:07
  Thank you so much for where you look.
• 33:10
  I'm from the East Coast originally but I live in San
• 33:12
  Francisco now so. But I will see you on tour,
• 33:15
  hopefully soon somewhere, me or one of our many stands.
• 33:18
  Yeah, I love San Fran, man. I was.
• 33:20
  Yeah, I sit around and watch like drone videos of like the
• 33:24
  and like sunset shots and stuff, you know, just fantasize about
• 33:28
  going out there again. So I well.
• 33:29
  We'll have, yeah, we have a lot of death metal locally at places
• 33:32
  like the DNA Lounge and neck of the woods.
• 33:34
  So we will, or Oakland or something.
• 33:37
  So we will catch you OK sometime soon.
• 33:40
  And maybe, like I said, cannibal, if you're listening,
• 33:42
  take these guys out. Pay, pay it forward.
• 33:45
  Thanks so much. Thanks man.
• 33:48
  We'll see you on the next one, man.