Grind Obsessed: An interview with TOMB WARDEN

The daily grind of death continues with Tomb Warden. These grindcore maniacs from Virginia released a split this week with Canada's Flash Out. 

Clocking in at only ten minutes, this split is a fast and furious banger of death metal D-beats, guttural filth, and of course, a barrage of blasting.  Fans of early DEATH albums, classic Swedish death metal like Nihilist, and the speedy bombardment of extreme noise pioneers like Carcass, Terrorize and Napalm Death will dig these Wardens of the GRIND. Listen below if you dare!

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I'm always curious to learn what makes metal musicians tick, especially when it comes to the twisted style of music that is grindcore, so I interrogated Tomb Warden's Tommy (guitars), John (vokills) and Paul (drums and vokills) about their latest assault. 

How did your alliance with Flash Out cum to fruition?TOMMY: It’s all thanks to that documentary Slave to the Grind actually. I saw Flash Out at Maryland Death Fest 2017 and they were sick as hell. Didn’t get to talk to them there though, but sometime later Slave to the Grind posted on Facebook asking folks to talk up their own bands and Anders from Flash Out posted. I reached out and let him know I dug the band a bunch, showed him Tomb Warden, and we just hit it off from there. Got art from their bassist for a shirt as well (shout out to rotting_reign on Instagram *wink wink*) Overall badass dudes!

What is your creative process like for song writing?
TOMMY:  I write everything down in a computer program called Guitar Pro actually. Generally without a guitar in hand as well. Luckily it plays the pitches back to me in a hilarious midi sound. Double edged sword, since I think I get some cool ideas I might not be able to pull off at the time. But that also means I have to learn some pretty hard songs sometimes. I bring in songs with some drum ideas, but Paul has learned to read me pretty well and can tell when I’m not committed to a part. His ideas round out the songs perfectly. John is a machine and can pull off whatever I give him so I write lyrics and he nails them quick. I’ve written around 200 songs though, so I have some catching up to do lyrics-wise.
Other than contributing a guitar riff here and there, I’m not super involved in the writing process. Tommy gives me lyrics and ideas, and I bring them to life during recording and live shows. I spend a lot of time thinking about how I want the vocals/lyrics to sound, when to emphasize certain words, etc. It’s pretty much what I think about all day at work haha.

Most of the songs on the split are less than a minute long. Do you see yourself writing longer tunes in the future or sticking to the short and sweet method?

TOMMY: Tomb Warden will always be a grindcore band at heart, no matter how death metal we get. Which is very. I don’t foresee us writing a song beyond two minutes. Three minutes absolutely tops. Even then, those would be few and far between.

JOHN: As long as they stay under two minutes, then I don’t give a hoot.

PAUL: I like the shorter format songs that scratch all the itches( blast part, d beat, breakdown, etc). If I can hear all of that in a minute that’s ideal for me and my short attention span. A really long song for this band is over two minutes.

Tell us about your musical heroes? Or : if applicable, non musical heroes?

TOMMY: I’m a bassist originally, so Steve DiGiorgio and Frank Bello from Anthrax are two huge influences on me.

In terms of guitar, Dave from PLF is the master, followed by Scott Hull from Pig Destroyer and Takafumi Matsubara, specifically with his work in Mortalized. These are my undisputed riff kings of grindcore. Hope to write riffs half as good as theirs one day.

JOHN: As far as vocal influences go, I was mostly inspired by Covenant era Morbid Angel and older Incantation records. My biggest influence as a guitar player is Chuck Schuldiner.
PAUL: Chuck and most of the dudes that ever played in Death are up there. One non metal dude I’m really inspired by is George Rebelo who drums for hot water music.
What's one concert that changed your life forever? 

TOMMY: I saw Anthrax’s first reunion with their classic lineup in 2005 at this infamous local spot Jaxx in Springfield, VA. Some of the best thrash ever written played 5 feet in front of me. Also saw Soulfly play a Sepultura and Nailbomb-heavy set with Danny Lilker on bass there. Those two stand out the most.

JOHN: Some other memorable include Undergang and Vermin Womb, both in Richmond, VA.
PAUL: One that really lit a fire in me was seeing Cynic whenever I was in highschool.

What do you think THE heaviest riff known to man is?

TOMMY: Probably a tie between the first two riffs of Bolt Thrower’s “World Eater” and the riff that kicks in around the 7 minute mark of Corrupted’s “Inactive”. Two huge influences.

JOHN:Anything by Demilich. Some runners up for me would be Carnage - The Day Man Lost, Obituary - Dying.

PAUL: The breakdown in "Pierced From Within" with the stick click. HARD.

Tell me about one album that gave you a throbbing heavy metal hard on.

TOMMY: Vio-Lence’s Eternal Nightmare is THE album. Every month I get a new favorite track off of it. Vocals are unhinged and heavy on the hardcore, which is what I think most metalheads don’t understand about it, the ones who complain anyways. Anyways, the riffs are in perfect balance. The way to my heart is to have super technical complicated parts go straight into some of the most ignorant hardcore riffs ever put in a thrash song. Sean Killian’s lyrics in this, but also "Oppressing the Masses," were HUGE influences on my lyrics. Hope I do them justice. First two Vio-Lence records are HIGHLY recommended.

What's your "ace in the hole" band that you like to show your friends? An underground band that most people haven't heard of that you know will blow their minds?

TOMMY: I’m gonna be that asshole who names a band with the caveat that it’s ONLY THEIR DEMO. The death metal band Eroded from Japan (who’d go on to form one of the greatest grind bands ever, 324) released a demo in 1992 that sounds like what every modern hardcore-influenced death metal band wishes they sounded like. Only 3 tracks, but I try and steal the essence every time I write something on the death metal side of things. The band released a full length in 1994 that went weird places. Not the same straight ass-beating death metal riffage the demo promised. It’s not terrible, but a huge let down after hearing the demo.

JOHN: Death - Symbolic and Morbid Angel - Covenant are what got me into playing heavy music.

PAUL:  Painkiller. Still throbbin’
 What can Grindcore and metal maniacs expect from Tomb Warden in the future, beyond this split?
TOMMY:  More splits! We have three more lined up (one coming up sooner than you think!) with some incredible bands. After that we’ve been talking about heading further west and maybe exploring more of Canada, as well as finally getting around to working on a full length. When plans are more solid, we’ll make sure to let everyone knows!

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Thank you for going one on one with the GRIM1. Would you like to say anything to Grindcore addicts all over the world? 

TOMMY: A massive thanks and respect to anyone who would call themselves a Tomb Warden “fan”. Not to be cheesy, but the fact that someone hears what we create and thinks it’s good enough to stand out among the endless sea of bands means the world to me. Can’t thank y’all enough. And can’t thank you enough, Grim 1! Hope we can grind your town down sometime soon!

JOHN: Go to more shows. Start more bands. Make more music. Don’t beat yourself up too hard as a gimick cause you’ll be hurting bad after a few years, trust me haha. And drink Old Crow!