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INDEX
INTERVIEWS
GUESTBOOK
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\\\SICKENING
EROTIC FRUSTRADDICTION///
20. This is time for the most interesting questions of all... It's time to
introduce MORTAL DECAY to our readers! (If some do not happen to know you...).
I'll also ask you to do a biographical summary to underline the most important
points of the band's existence... Please do that in an original way (if
possible) to avoid the usual cut and paste boredom.
We started in late 1991, released "Dawn of Misery" demo in 1992, "Grisly
Aftermath" demo in 1993, "Brutalizing Creations" demo in 1995, "Sickening Erotic
Fanaticism" in 1997, "A Gathering of Human Artifacts" (remastered demo's) in
1999, "Forensic" in 2002, and now we have our "Cadaver Art" album that came out
in September of 2005. A lot of member changes, too many to list here. Our line
up features: Kevin McClintock-vocals, John Hartman and myself on guitars, Ed
Drozdowsky-bass, and Justin DiPinto-drums.
19. Some of your riffs sound quite "funny", in the cool meaning of the word. While most of brutal death metal bands focus only on the hyperbrutal and most suffocating hatred possible, you don't hesitate to bring some cool riffs! (That sound almost positive for some). Some of your guitar parts seem to have little progressive music touches and stuffs... It seems you're more open-minded than most of brutal death metal bands. Tell us about your musical tastes, and what kind of green weed you smoke during rehearsals! (Because your music seems like you smoke, or eat heavy food a lot, until you feel fucking heavy as hell and near of the mighty ventral explosion! héhé)
We are very open minded, not more or less than any other band, but we like
to keep things interesting for us. We've been doing this a long time, so to find
ways to keep it fresh for us is the key. John and I have been writing together
for a long time, almost 13 years, and we like to take a few risks here and
there. Good observation with the prog music touches. I've been listening to prog
rock my whole life, as long as I can remember. My father had records by Rush,
Genesis, Pink Floyd, Yes, Kansas, the Allman's, Led Zeppelin, etc. that I cut my
teeth on when I was younger. So those are definite influences, at least with the
stuff that I contribute. Then there are the obvious Death and Thrash Metal
influences. Like Morbid Angel, Carcass, Suffocation, Obituary, Gorguts,
Incantation, Slayer, Megadeth, Testament, things that we all grew up listening
to, along with what the newer bands bring to the table. Some awesome stuff has
been coming out the last 5 years or so. It makes it easier to be a fan of Death
Metal. We do also like to have the "occassional" smoke, hahaha. It makes for
great writing sessions, and it helps with some of the weirdness that people hear
within our musical structure.
18. Do you know the SINISTER album entitled "Hate"? I think some of the riffs have kind of the same cool feeling than you do...
Yes, I'm very familiar with that album, as it's my favorite Sinister
record. I didn't think that it was a direct influence of ours, but thanks for
the comparison.
17. I had the opportunity to listen to your first demos, and the style was more simple, rather somekind of old school death. What do you think influenced you evolution towards something more brutal, varied and technical? How do you see the evolution of MORTAL DECAY through the years?
Well, all the demo stuff was written before I was in the band. My first writing credits don't come into play until the newer stuff from the "Sickening..." album. The evolution was there, and with each song they wrote for the demos, the arrangements became more complex. Then with me coming in and helping write songs like the title track, Decomposed with Nitric Acid, Meditating Through Mayhem, and Columbian Necktie, the more weirder or progressive aspects started to come out, and the songs started to become much darker, and held a little more substance. "Forensic" touched on all that as well, but was put together so much better, and was way more cohesive in the structuring. People seemed to like that approach. And then with "Cadaver Art" we tried to make the songs a little more compact, and not so much trying to find as many ways to play one riff as we could. The result was shorter songs, more brutal and to the point structures, something we were overall happier with, and continue to do now, as we are writing for the next cd already. We're hoping to get back into the studio by the end of the year.
16. Some of the riffs from your last album remind me of SUFFOCATION, especially from their last album: some kind of brutal death riffs that have a technical and quite "melodic" touch. What's your opinion about this last album of theirs and do you like their progression that went towards something a bit less brutal, but more technical/ "melodic" (If I could say so)? If you'd compare the SUFFOCATION comeback, to the returns of many old school death/ thrash metal bands (who seem asleep and quite uninterested by the way), what would be your conclusion? Should the old farts stay at home drinking beers? Ah Ah!
They're a huge influence on us, and countless others. When they first hit
the scene, they blew people's minds. How could anything be so brutal?!?!?! Just
the way their riffs sounded and how they structured songs was just amazing. I
liked their last record, but I'd listen to Effigy or Pierced before I'd put that
on. Their comeback has been awesome, just to be able to see them play again is a
great thing. But on the whole, I think that with the time they spent not doing
anything up until Souls to Deny came out I think they could've written better
songs. Some things came off to me as being rushed just to get something out.
Like I said, I liked it, but you definitely miss their old style when listening
to it. As far as the "old farts" are concerned, if they can still do it, and
kick fucking ass when they do then that's great. But if they look like they're
not having fun doing it, it'll show, and at that point they should just "stay at
home drinking beers!!!" HAHAHA
15. Do the musicians of MORTAL DECAY explore new musical horizons in unmetallic subprojects? I could imagine some of you playing some quite jazzy or progressive stuffs, with big heavy metal riffs in the middle! Ah Ah! What about flute? I'm sure it would rule (With a thousand of effects of course...) Ah Ah!
No, right now we're just focusing on Mortal. We have a bunch of new guys in the band and we've been writing new stuff as well as expanding our live set with older stuff. So other projects aren't in our minds. Although our singer and bassplayer are in Polterchrist as well. Check their stuff out on Season of Mist Records.
14. MORTAL DECAY features two previous members of INSATANITY. The fans who were close to US Brutal death metal around 96-98 are probably familiar with this name, as the band seemed like it would grow bigger and get a bit more attention... but nothing happened! Do you know what occured back then? Was it due to a bad deal or something? Are they still active?
Actually Ed, Kevin, and Justin were all in Insatanity at one point. Probably their best line up was when they were in it. They are still active, doing stuff locally as well as a tour of the states last summer. They should be putting out a new cd this year, then things should kick back up for them.
13. MORTAL DECAY was formed in 1991, and a whole lot of things have happend
since then.
The scene, the bands, the fans... most of the underground things
changed a lot! Tell us the way you view these things, what has changed both a
right or bad way in your opinion... Are you into the whole web-thing, or do you
think it's too much of everythings at the same time (while the real quality
might decrease a lot). I think it became too easy to blabber, send hate-mails,
create a shitty band-project and promote it as hell... 10 years ago, one really
to had to mean it when he would send you a threat of vengeance, one really had
to believe a little bit in his music to send tapes everywhere... Isn't it an
hidden curse?
I think that this is the best the scene is going to get. Not that there's going to be any kind of decline, but it's very hard to reach fans in other countries when they can't even get your cd's there. When people can figure out ways that everyone can get everything the scene will definitely get better. That's where distributors can't slack. They have to work almost harder than the labels do for that to happen. We've been pretty lucky, people have been able to find our stuff. But the scene is way better than it was in the mid 90's. The bands are way better now. There are still millions of them popping up all the time, haha, but at least the majority have something to offer the scene. Whereas in the 90's the scene became saturated with really bad bands and projects, with only a small percentage having anything real to bring to the table. I'd say it started really picking up again in '98-'99. As far as the whole internet thing, it's really helped the scene as well. Making it easier for contacting people, email is instantanious, whereas "snail mail" takes days and days to reach it's destination. It's easier for promotion, especially with sites like MySpace. There's so many ways for bands to be heard these days. I think it's been a plus.
12. It's commonly known when some bands get bigger, have released more than 2-3 albums and do months long tours, they aren't able anymore to get in touch with the deep underground, check out the new demos and plunge in underrrotting paper zines... But what about you? Can you tell us about your new demo discoverings that kick the ass and might turn to something stronger in few years of work? Hope you didn't forget the sarcastic pleasures of underground suicide! Ah Ah!
I honestly get handfuls and handfuls of demos everytime we're out on the road and doing shows. Some stuff is great and other stuff not so great. It's hard to name anyone off hand. When I usually discover something cool it's when I'm at a fest or something and I get recommended something that a vendor has just gotten in or whatever. I'm always up on the new stuff coming out, because that's been part of how we write songs nowadays. Just checking out what newer bands are doing, and trying to find ways to rip them off!!! HAHAHA j/k. As far as the paper zines go, if some of them didn't take so much time in between issues they would be really popular. They know who they are.
11. Did you ever hear about the US band TIMEGHOUL(R.I.P)? A shame they split up... They could have record great songs if things turned good!!
I've heard the name before, but never really heard any of their stuff. Yeah, it's a shame when promising bands break up.
10. While I browsed the web to find infos about MORTAL DECAY, I noticed
both a mellowdick death band, a metal band, a grind/punk band, and a techno
project use the MORAL DECAY monicker.
Browse their sites:
http://www.myspace.com/moraldecay
http://www.moraldecayrocks.com
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pageartist.cfm?bandID=136479
What are your feelings about these soundalikes? Do you think it can create troubles and misunderstanding in the heads of the fans? In a way, one could think these musicians do not have a band name of their own... Now you're aware about it, will you launch your muscle-street-team to kick the ass of these usurpers?
For a long time we've heard of a Mortal Decay from Germany, that was all we were aware of. They sound nothing like us, and to tell you the truth, our logo is very recognizable so I don't think anyone would get confused. As for the others, let 'em be I guess. We'll just do what we do, and people that know and like us will know the difference.
9. What if the Spanish Brutal death band FORENSICK were calling their next album "Mortal decay"? Lol! And how would you react to this joke in a funny way? (Through an album cover or something, maybe?)
I think it would be kinda cool, hahaha.
8. What do you know of France? Do you know few good metal bands you could listen to on a quite regular basis? (Please, do not answer "LOUDFLASK" or "MISANCLOCK" ... these bands sold their underwears years ago...)
I really like Scarve. I think they're amazing. I could listen to them on a regular basis. I'm sure there are a lot of great bands from France, but it doesn't seem to me to be a hotbed for the scene. We played a show in Toulouse with a band called Infestation that have a lot of promise.
7. Some bands happen to rework their old songs as they keep on evolving and improving on a technical point of view. Sometimes, a song is very different from the way it was recorded years ago... Is it the case of MORTAL DECAY? Do you rework some old songs to make it sound better now? Do you think rerecording some totally reworked songs 10 years later would be a good idea?
We do rework songs to a point where it'd be fun to pull them out live again. For example we've been teaching older songs to the new guys and we've actually changed a lot of the tempos and things like that to make them fresh for us. But as far as re-recording older songs, I don't know if that's a possibility or not, only because we feel we need to release new material to keep people interested. Although the thought has crossed our minds quite a bit with certain songs from the first demo. Some of those songs sound awesome now, so we'll see how they go when we play them live.
6. And what about MORTAL DECAY remixed by some weird techno/ Industrial guys? (I don't really know why, but I think your music would sound better once remixed by a Jungle artist than some industrial masochist. (you know this kind of electronic music with rythms always changing everywhere... Could be nice as a japanese fuck!)).
I don't know how that would be. We would try anything once, but industrialized versions of our songs could be quite the chore. It's not like we record with a metronome running, so it'd be pretty hard to line things up. It might be kind of fun though, you never know.
5. How would you convince these peoples of listening to MORTAL DECAY, and
how would you describe your music to each one, so that he might have a pleasant
taster:
- A fan of electronic music (Hardcore techno, Gabber, Jungle...).
- A fan of Jazz.
- A fan of early Thrash metal and old school Death who don't like Brutal
death.
- A fan of Glam rock, Emocore, or symphonic 'n mellowdick black metal
(That's almost the same, if you ask me! Ah Ah!)
Firstly, I think it's obvious that it would be easiest to get the thrash head to listen to us. That kinda goes without saying. For him/her I'd explain our influences as being in the thrash/old school vein, which they'd probably notice by hearing us anyway. For the jazz enthusiest, I'd try to convince them of our musicianship, and that our stuff has different elements other than the speed and noisiness of metal. For the glam rocker/etc. it'd be a hard sell, because we don't write about sex, drugs, and rock n roll, or sound anything like Motley Crue and the like. I don't know if I'd want any emocore fans to listen to our stuff, lol. And for the Black Metal fan, that's a hard sell as well even though there are a lot of similarities. We were just at a show in Philly, and we brought our merch out to sell at the show. And there was this one guy there who listened to nothing but BM, it took me over an hour to convince him to buy our new one, hahaha. I told him to email me and let me know what he thought of it. I haven't heard back from the dude so I'm guessing he didn't like it, hahaha. As for the techno fan, I don't listen to their shit so I wouldn't pass my stuff on them. That would be like pulling teeth.
4. Do you consider MORTAL DECAY as Brutal death metal? I mean: it has real riffs and feeling contrary to most of the current hyper technical Brutal death sportmen who train hard to reach a new record of speed and technicity... but fail at writing decent songs with own ideas and diversity! While MORTAL DECAY isn't bad at it! So another natural question: do you feel close to the current US Brutal death scene? If that's not the case, which musical scene do you feel the closer?
I think we're very much a part of the US Brutal Death Metal scene. We may have much more to offer than just the hyper speed blasting all over the place style, but we don't shy away from it at all. So many have fallen into that and have painted themselves into a corner that they'll never be judged as anything other. Diversity has always been a reference point in our style, but that was, as I've said, to keep ourselves interested and try to be as original as we can. If other people have caught on to it and enjoyed it we really appreciate it. If not, we're going to keep on doing what we do, while still remaining true to the brutality and what made us love this music in the first place.
3. You might not have noticed that, but once pronounced by a black man, some bands' names sound quite funny. In the case of MORTAL DECAY, the monicker would sound like "NOWTALL DICK HEY!" or "Now tall dicks...hey!" Lol. Hope I didn't awake in you the fear of having too much black fans begging for more dicks during gigs... Ah Ah Ah! In erection we trust! Ah Ah!
HAHAHA!!! I never really put too much thought into it I guess, hahaha.
2. Allright, I think that's enough of interesting and stupid questions! But if you feel I forgot to ask you a stupid question, feel free to ask and then answer it!
No, I think you've pretty much covered everything. I had a blast answering your questions.
1. The final countdown is over! It's now time for a conclusion: use this opportunity to tell us about your available merchandise, future projects... and say what is needed to enclose the bag of words in a christmas appealing way. Thanx for the answers! Greetz.
Well, we have shirts, hoodies, beanies, girlie stuff, as well as all four of our releases. Please contact us at MDKmerchandise@aol.com, www.myspace.com/mortaldecayusa All of our personal pages can be accessed through there as well. Get in touch with us about anything, shows, merch, what we're listening to while sitting on the shitter, hahaha, anything. We're hard at work putting together our new album. We hope to be in the studio by the end of the year. We've got four songs in the can, and parts for five or six more at this point. I hope the readers enjoy this as much as I did. Hope to meet all of you one day on tour!!! Joe and Mortal DK '06
Website: www.myspace.com/mortaldecayusa
