It may have taken six long
years for Tampa (Florida) based death metal legends Obituary to get back together
and create music, but in the four years they've been back, they've more than made
up for their absence with a sting of releases, and plenty of touring across the
globe. Two years after the release of their highly acclaimed second post reformation
release 'Xecutioner's Return' (2007), the five piece act (comprising of vocalist
John Tardy, guitarists Trevor Peres and Ralph Santolla, bassist Frank Watkins
and drummer Donald Tardy) are back with their latest effort 'Darkest Day'. With
the album having only just been released, and the band preparing to head out on
the road once again, I caught up with vocalist John Tardy at home to talk about
the band's prolific output over the last few years, their recent revisit on a
past classic, their upcoming in the works projects and their latest release 'Darkest
Day'.
"You know, a lot of people seem to be really digging
'Darkest Day', and that's always a good thing! (Laughs) I think the album is great,
so it makes me feel good to hear people are really enjoying it. We worked really
hard on this album, and we're really happy with the way it came out. I mean, we
just pretty much do what we do. We just get together and start jamming. We approached
'Darkest Day' in the same way we have done for all of our albums. It's not like
we did anything out of the ordinary this time around. We do have our own studio
(RedNeck Studios) here at my house these days, and that's made a difference in
the way we do things I guess. But that's more a case of the ease at which we can
record our ideas now, and keep things arranged. When we start recording, at any
given time, we can keep anything we want. It's just been awesome to have that
at our fingertips. In terms of sitting down and writing this album, it's been
the same old thing. We just sat down and started jamming, and out came the songs
for 'Darkest Day'."
Not wanting to fool around too much
with what was obviously a winning formula for the band on 'Xecutioner's Return',
Santolla was once again involved in the making of 'Darkest Day', providing lead
guitar solos throughout the album's thirteen tracks.
"We
just treat Santolla like we would do ourselves. He's been a big part of what we've
been doing for a while now. He hasn't been contributing to the songs as far as
writing the songs. But don't get me wrong, he's been contributing on the guitar
leads, and that's a big part of our songs. So far, it's been working out great.
We learned during the making of our last album that Allen (West) wasn't going
to be able to help out, seeing as he went to jail and wasn't able to record with
us. So we got in touch with Santolla, not only because he lives fairly close to
us, but also because he had just finished with Deicide at the time. For the making
of 'Darkest Day', it just made sense to bring him in for that as well. On this
album, I think he's starting to get a feel of what we do a lot more, and his leads
really have come a long way for us. And being a part of Obituary has been great
for him as well."
Much like 'Xecutioner's Return', 'Darkest
Day' has plenty of stand out tracks, most of which will no doubt become a large
part of the band's live set on tour in the coming weeks. But if there's one track
that's sure to become a live favourite, it's 'Blood To Give' with its huge tribal
drum sound.
"I think we're going to play that live when
we do these next run of shows! (Laughs) We start rehearsals next weekend actually,
and I think that's one of those songs we're planning to play when we play these
festivals at the beginning of next week. In terms of being custom built to be
played live, I think that goes for a lot of our songs. I would go as far as to
say that our live shows are better than our C.D.'s. The different types of tempos
that we do with our music, whether it's the groovy, the fast or the slow; everything
we do works really well live. It's a real struggle these days to come up with
a set list of songs, because we now have so many to choose from! (Laughs) And
to try and cover everything that everybody wants to hear is near impossible these
days. But it's a lot of fun at the same time, so it's a good problem to have.
But in terms of new songs in the set list, 'Blood To Give' is sure to be on there
somewhere."
Despite the overwhelming success of 'Xecutioner's
Return', Tardy insists that the band felt they were under no pressure while making
'Darkest Day'.
"To be honest with you, it's been a long
time that we felt any real pressure to do anything. We just kind of go about what
we do. We're not the kind of band that feels like we have to make a new album
every other year, and have any particular timetable that needs to be stuck to.
I think the only time we may have felt a little pressure was while making the
'Frozen In Time' (2005) album. And even then, I wouldn't call it pressure, but
more our own anticipation in terms of what we would sound like. Before making
that album, we hadn't even been together for six years. So before we headed into
the studio, I found myself asking, 'What am I going to sound like?' I mean, it
wasn't like I was jamming with other bands or doing anything like that. But once
we got back into it, it was kind of interesting to see what we all sounded like
together. So when we made that album, things were a little weird. But I think
in the last few years, we've put out so much in terms of music that we really
haven't thought that much about it. So really there wasn't any pressure. Now that
we have the studio, it's just so easy to write and record. And it's even a pleasure
just to hang out, because everything is there at your fingertips. It's just so
relaxing. You don't have to worry about calling somebody up and scheduling time
in the studio, or anything like that. It's just one of those things that makes
life so much easier."
In the lead up to the release of
'Darker Day', the band put together a taster E.P. entitled 'Left To Die' in September
2008. But while many would assume that the release's purpose was to test the waters,
Tardy insists it was simply put out for the fun of it.
"The
reason behind that release was after 'Xecutioner's Return' came out, and after
so much touring, we felt like we wanted to release something else, in a way, to
bridge the gap between the things that we might do in the future. It just goes
to show just how much fun we're having in our studio here! (Laughs) We'll just
keep pumping things out, because we also had the Tardy Brothers album (The collaboration
between John and Donald Tardy, and released in April 2009) recorded during that
time too. It's been like three albums, an E.P. and a D.V.D. in such a short span
of time. That says something. Plus we have another D.V.D. coming out soon too.
So it's just been one thing after another. It's just been so much fun. I'm not
sure there's much more to it than that. We did have people asking us if we though
the new album was coming out too soon, especially given that we had just released
the E.P. last year and the Tardy Brothers album recently released. We're just
like 'Whatever!' It's all good, and we're just having fun. We'll keep recording
and pumping stuff out while we're having a good time."
One
of the more interesting tracks on the 'Left To Die' E.P. was the band's re-recording
of 'Slowly We Rot' from their classic debut full-length album in 1989.
"We've
had a couple of new albums out at the time, and we wanted to do something that
was a little fun for ourselves. And doing that song was an easy choice, especially
given that we've been playing that song for so long. We've been playing that song
ever since we first started jamming together in my parent's garage. And it's something
that we play from time to time in the rehearsal room. So that song was fun. We
were kind of sitting back and thinking about the twenty year mark of our recording
career, and the album 'Slowly We Rot' is very much a defining album for us, and
still is to this day. And that song also is one of those songs that people expect
us to play every night. And out of all the songs that we do, we play that one
every single night. So I think we all thought that it would be interesting to
play. The original was recorded using eight tracks, and that was twenty years
ago. So we thought it would be interesting to re-record it, and to see what we
would sound like twenty years apart from each other. When we first thought about
doing it, I thought that we were really going to take our time with it and make
it really sound good. And then it turned out that we were jamming the song one
day, and we actually recorded Donald and Trevor together at the same time, while
we were practicing. Now Ralph and Frank were in there playing as well, but they
weren't miked up. You'll never hear it, but if you actually heard all the bleed
through in that recording, you can literally hear them playing at the same time,
as well as talking to one another in the background. But after they all did it,
we all sort of looked at each other and knew that it sounded cool. So we just
left it as it was. So it's almost a semi-live recording as it came out. We just
thought that it would be fun and an interesting song to do, and I think most people
accept it for what it is. We haven't got too much of those people saying, 'Leave
it alone!' It's pretty similar to the original, and it's really only been changed
a little bit. It's actually closer to the way we do it live these days."
As
mentioned earlier, Obituary has a new live D.V.D. slated for release in the near
future.
"It was recorded at the Party-Sans festival in
Germany that we did last year. It was at the end of our festival run, and we were
all kind of ready to get home. It was one of those nights where we were a little
more aware that it was the last night of the tour before heading home, so we were
all having a little better time than usual, if you know what I'm talking about!
(Laughs) So when they first came to us when they told us they had us filmed, and
would really like to release the show on D.V.D., my initial thought was, 'Oh boy!
I can't wait to hear this thing!' (Laughs) But it came out great. Everybody played
really good. There are some really good and bad things about filming the last
show of the tour. On the bad side of things, everybody is kind of worn out and
tired. Especially me, because your voice tends to get worn out after you've been
out on tour for that long. But the good thing is that you've played the songs
a whole bunch of times, and things are sounding pretty tight, despite the fact
that you're really tired! (Laughs) And when you combine that with a few drinks
in the daytime, you never know what you're going to come up with. But everyone
played really good. We didn't have to overdub or change anything in the studio.
All we did was give it a quick mix. And even that didn't take that long to get
together. It's just a very typical Obituary show - Nothing more, nothing less,
nothing staged and nothing planned. But it's really great footage in front of
a really great crowd, and just a lot of good songs. That should be out before
the end of the year. We have to be one of the last bands on the planet to be around
as long as we have to put together a D.V.D. for the first time (2006's 'Frozen
Alive'). And I think everyone enjoyed that. It came out really good too, and actually
better than I thought it would. So it's just nice to add a little more to that.
I think about all the places we have been, and there have been a lot of them.
But then I think of all the places we haven't been, and the people that haven't
seen us before. And it feels good to give them the opportunity to see what they've
been maybe hearing or reading about year after year. So D.V.D.'s are kind of cool
in that respect."
Given the band's lengthy twenty year
recording history, and their recent anniversary, it's surprising to find that
Obituary hasn't seized the opportunity to put together a documentary of their
influential past. But although one has yet to appear, that's not to say that one
isn't already in its planning stages.
"We have talked
about doing one. We have footage that we've been taking since day one, and for
about the last two years, I've been capturing and digitising all of those videos.
And let me tell you, there's a mountain of it here! But transferring that footage
has been a whole lot more time consuming than I expected it to be. Especially
given how I'm not here all the time to keeping messing with it. So yeah, we all
thought it would be a good time now given that it's our twentieth anniversary
thing to put something out, but we just got so busy with all these other things.
It looks like we'll only have it ready in time for our twenty-fifth anniversary!
(Laughs) But we would definitely like to put together a documentary at one point
in time. We need to gather up all this old footage and put it together. I think
it would be fun. I would like to sit down and watch all this stuff, looking at
the past and seeing all the things that we did, and marvel at how young and skinny
we once were! (Laughs) So I want to put together something that I would like to
sit down and watch, and of course give all our fans a crash course history of
what Obituary has been up to."
One release that the band
would rather forget about is last years 'The Best Of Obituary' release that came
out through their old label Roadrunner Records.
"One of
greatest things we ever did after 'Frozen In Time' was to turn that album in and
be done with that label. When they do things like this by using your name, and
your songs, and put them together in the way that they want to, it's just frustrating,
and just don't seem right. And they've done a lot of things that just aggravate
us, and we just don't know why. I mean they put together that 'Anthology' release
back in 2001, and that's something that we didn't really want to do at the time.
And then they put something out like this latest best of, which is something we
definitely didn't want to do. And they continue to do things like that. We don't
have anything to do with them. I don't talk to them any more. They just do what
they do, and there's not much I can do about it."
Onto
more relevant topics, it would seem that Obituary is gearing up for yet another
massive tour around the world, with the first stop being Europe.
"Our
first show on this tour is on the sixteenth of July, so we fly out a couple of
days beforehand. We're playing a couple of shows in Finland, Germany, Estonia
and Spain, or something like that. And then we come back home for a couple of
weeks, and then we have to fly back to Portugal. I don't think we've ever played
there before, so that should be really cool. It's a shame that we're only flying
over there for one show, but then that's how it goes I guess. As soon as we get
back, we're straight on the bus, and starting the U.S. tour, which as it stands
will run for six weeks starting in September. But looking further ahead, it looks
like we'll be back in Australia in November. I just got the e-mail today. Rest
assured, as soon as it's confirmed, it'll be up on the website."
I
would like to personally thank John Tardy for his generous time. I would also
like to thank Jeanna Sims at Stomp Records Distribution for making the interview
possible.
For more information on Obituary, check out -
http://www.obituary.cc
©
Justin Donnelly - justindonnelly@ozemail.com.au
