First of all Phill, let’s get
back to the late ‘80s, I can assume some of our readers might not remember
those days back then in 1987.
OK. The band started in 1987,
we were still living in Buffalo, NY. We recorded our first three-song demo in
1987 and we moved from NY to Florida in ‘88 and recorded our second demo in
‘89. And our last demo, the third one, we recorded in 1990 and got the record
deal with Roadrunner Records. We released our first album “The Ten
Commandments” in 1991. The second album was called “Retribution” and came out
in 1992, the third album “Stillborn” came out in 1994. And our newest album
came out in 1997. It is called “In Cold Blood” and we are currently about to
record a new album in July - “Countdown To Murder”.
As far as I know your latest
album “In Cold Blood” came out in the States at the end of 1997 but in Europe
this spring the album was hardly available...
Yeah, there was a big problem
with the distributor. Our record company in the States was dealing with Bell
Music from Germany. And they turned out to be a big bunch of fucking assholes! They
didn’t promote our album, and did nothing for our tour. Luckily we brought like
five hundred copies with us that we were selling at the shows but they sold
well away and people couldn’t find the album. So our record company is working
now with System Shock, they re-released the album and too many people think
this is the brand new album, ha-ha!
Well, “In Cold Blood” still
sounds extremely and aggressive and MALEVOLENT CREATION still plays death
metal. How did you manage to retain your brutality and anger all these years?
I know what you mean! A lot of
bands changed their style completely, but I’ve never had intention to do that. I
love that kind of music so much, this is the only style of music that makes my
blood pumping. From my 16 years I have been so obsessed with the extreme music,
I haven’t seen myself playing some other stuff.
Hey, didn’t money attract you?
Less aggressive albums are known to gain more popularity nowadays.
Ha! If I wanted to do
something different I would do it with a different name. A lot of bands, I
don’t wanna sit here and slander bands, but they know who they are, ha-ha. They
started off being death metal bands, really heavy good bands, and they turned
to fucking rock’ n roll, some fucking shit!
And what do the fans in the
United States think about these turned-to-pop-music-bands?
They hate it! The most people
feel the same way as me. I can’t really talk for the whole country you know,
but most of my friends and stuff, they liked NAPALM DEATH and something like
that, but it doesn’t sound like the same band any longer! A lot of people would
never buy another NAPALM DEATH record, or PARADISE LOST record or even
ENTOBMED. They would not even think about buying it.
But don’t you think that death
metal has lost its popularity nowadays?
Well you know, back then in
the ‘80s there were not many bands releasing records, and it was kinda new
thing. And then there were so many bands coming out, so many small records companies
appeared, just too much man! And there were too much bad stuff thrown with a
good stuff. This kinda killed the excitement of the death metal, you know, got
many people bored, less interested! Because everything started sound the same,
and everybody started fucking singing like CANNIBAL CORPSE. So stuff like that
totally ruined the style. This no fun, but I know that a lot of death metal
bands are really good I think. OBITUARY is still around, CANNIBAL CORPSE still
around, MORBID ANGEL around, we still around and I think four these bands are
still kicking ass, ha-ha, and I think we are still at the top because we are
stuck to the guns, whatever you know! And there are not many new bands that
could knock us off the top!
Ain’t it difficult for you to
live in the same country with these monsters? Is there a competition between
all of you?
Not at all! I mean we were not
in any competition with any band. As far as I know all these bands mentioned
are all my friends, and lots of bands played together and stuff. Everybody has
its own style, so I think there wasn’t competition between us.
I guess Florida is the place
where the elderly people comprise the greatest part of the population...
Not really. I mean there are a
lot of elderly people, they live in Florida because of the nice weather. But
they are all in their communities, but bigger cities are big party places and
there ain’t no room for the old farts, ha-ha!
But I wonder why Florida has
become a sort of Mecca for the death metal?
That’s a good question, man. Many
people think that’s a good place, so why all these evil coming from it! But I
don’t know. I think it’s pretty much coincidental, I never knew about all that
stuff. I moved down to Florida just because I wanted to get hell out of New
York! And I had some family there. And when I found OBITUARY, DEATH, MORBID
ANGEL and some other bands there I said: “Man, this fucking place rule!” I
couldn’t believe there were so many cool bands!
Phill, you didn’t mention
DEICIDE among the bands you like...
Oh yeah!!! I totally forgot! They
are cool guys and good friends of mine. And they’ve been around just as long as
we have too... And they still fucking kick ass, he-he-he! And let’s not forget
about VADER! They kick ass too! They are my buddies! We did like three tours
with VADER. And actually they are on the same label as us now.
You know Phill, lots of people
consider Glen Benton to be an extremely evil person. Judging by his photos, he
is! But is he so evil and aggressive in the real life?
Definitely, he CAN be evil. Ha-ha,
you know what I mean? He can definitely be rough, kind of mean or something. But
he is pretty intelligent, smart guy. He is actually pretty cool. I have never
had any problems with him. And he is funny also! He is always cracking jokes,
always fucking aggravating somebody. He is a really cool guy!
OK, let’s get back to your
band. You have mentioned above that if you wanted to play a different music you
would have done it with a different name. You were talking about HATE PLOW,
weren’t you?
You can say that HATE PLOW is
death metal but for me it’s a lot different. Musically MALEVOLENT CREATION
sounds more metal. I mean HATE PLOW is more grind, more into hardcore style. It
has a lot harsher vocals. I put this band together four years ago and it was a
side project. But after getting the right people to the band, the album came
out so good that we decided to continue as a band. Now I have two bands.
And not so long ago you
released a new album, am I right?
Have you heard it?
Sure. I liked it very much!
Oh, all I can say is that I am
happy the album came out really good. And after I have done recording the new
MALEVOLENT CREATIN album we will start to work on the new HATE PLOW album which
is really less death metal. I mean we are going to make it even further from
death metal sound and though it still will be very heavy but it will have
nothing to do with MALEVOLENT CREATION.
OK Phill, let’s talk about
your forthcoming album “Countdown To Murder”.
With this album we are
experimenting a lot, doing things a little bit more different, things we
haven’t tried before. Some of the songs will be more melodic, like the guitar
riffs, or may be more some traditional heavy metal almost, not so complicated
or technical. We just want to write a heavy album, easy to get in to. There
will be twelve songs and a handful of songs is definitely a standard MALEVOLENT
CREATION songs, very fast, violent, ha-ha! And there are some songs a little
bit slower, and there’s actually one song which has an acoustic guitar through
out the song, you know! But to me it’s one of the heaviest songs on the album. It’s
not a ballad, no fucking gay stuff! We are experimenting and trying some more
things this time around as there is no sense in repeating ourselves, but it
will still sound as MALEVOLENT CREATION.
What is the concept of the
title “Countdown To Murder”?
This album is definitely based
around death. It’s murder, it’s war... Hey, by the way, I didn’t mention that
the original singer is back in the band!
Oh,
really?!
Brad
Hofmann. The first three albums were dedicated to death, or stories about death
and ways of death, whatever. And he is back in the band. We got rid of Jason
because he is a... it’s a long story man... but definitely personal conflicts,
and he is...a fucking total idiot! Anyway, we realized that the only way to
keep the band still interesting is to bring back Brad into the band because
many people always ask about him. It’s great! We are all looking forward to get
into the studio and do out new stuff.
Our
congratulations! So if you say that the “Countdown To Murder” album is
dedicated to death, then what did you sing about in “In Cold Blood”?
Oh,
I don’t really write the lyrics, but I know there are lots of songs about drug
addiction, there are songs about war and crime and punishment for crime. Jason
actually wrote a lot of them and I think there are some songs that lyrically
were not fitting to a death metal album. But since the vocal is so brutal and
stuff you probably can’t understand it, ha-ha! But it’s always about reality,
all our lyrics have always been about the real stuff. We don’t make believe in
gore, zombie shit. We always write stuff about real problems, real things that
happen.
But
judging by the title “The Ten Commandments” I can assume that you have got
something to say about religion as well?
No,
we don’t! It was a kind of a joke. We couldn’t think about the title of the
album. And we had ten songs. So I looked at them and looked at the lyrics and
songs’ titles and said “Fuck it! Let’s call it ‘The Ten Commandments’!!!”
Ha-ha. And then we had a cover for the album and it was pretty cool. I know the
record company sold a lot of copies as it was a great art work. A good debut
album.
Phill,
being an American, could you explain to me why death metal is so popular in the
States while black and gothic weren’t well accepted?
It’s
the best!
Yeah,
sure! But I am talking about the trends.
You know a lot of the black
metal stuff is hard to get here in the States. You can still get a big amount
of black metal in America, but over here in Europe the thing is going on for so
long now and it’s easy to be able to buy some black stuff. You must live in a
big city in the United States to get it. Mostly death metal stuff is on
American labels. So it’s easier for people to buy it. May be black metal and
gothic could be more popular here but... Actually more and more people are into
black metal now, I even like black metal. At first I didn’t like it, but I am a
fan of a real fast music so I liked MARDUK a lot as I think they are very good,
DARK FUNERAL, IMMORTAL, SATYRICON. These bands play really good, but some black
metal bands sound so horrible, terrible drumming! I’m in the speed so much,
like when I first heard MARDUK, I was like “Holy shit! All right! These guys
are good!” If the music is good, if it is from the heart, I like it. It’s not
like a bunch of guys with a make up playing black metal with a fucking black
metal vocal. It won’t work.
Now you are involved in two
bands. Do you get enough money playing music or do you have to work part time?
Oh no! If we toured all year
round we could have some. But we all have little kids and everyone’s got wives
and, whatever, families. I have a studio. I
am a burglar, I mug people for money...Ha-ha!
A
good joke Phill!
No,
we all got our separate lives, I dedicate most time to music because I am
always surrounded by music. I have a studio and record other bands. The other
guys have different jobs. But when it comes to time for us to get and rehearse
- we do it at night. Or when we need to get on tour, we drop everything and we
go on tour.
So
Phill finally, what would you like to say to all your Russian fans?
Keep
drinking vodka and save some for me because that’s to me a holy water!