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| Photo by Jehn W.A. |
My personal review of Exhumed's Horror will be live at Metal Injection later this week.
HELL-O Matt. The new album is heavy as hell. What's your favorite song?
It's kind of weird. With my own records its hard to have a favorite song. Because once it's done, it's not that I don't care about it, but it becomes about more what people get excited to have performed...I like all of them. I think “Playing With Fear” is one of the strongest ones. “Reanimated" maybe.
How do you mentally prepare to enter the Horror-related state of mind?
I think once we kind of like, figure out a general direction for the album it's not too hard. This one ended up happening by default. I ended up writing a couple songs for Expulsion with Matt Olivo, and they just didn't make it on the record. Matt works at his own pace and I work at my own pace. We work at our own pace. His pace is very slow and my pace is very fast...and yet we still managed to somehow have a scheduling conflict. So I ended up kind of stepping aside, and I ended up having all these songs. So I rearranged it a little bit so it had more of a typical Exhumed kind of thing, and then I was like, well I already have three songs in about four minutes, so I figured I'd keep going in this vein.
How does this album compare to your previous record, 2017's Death Revenge?
If our style was a rectangle, I'd say Death Revenge is in one extreme corner, as far as you can possibly go with these sort of pompous melodies and film score sections. We did a seven-minute instrumental. And this is pulling back in the opposite direction in the other far corner, the opposite extreme of the box. There's no frills. Everything is reduced, reduced, reduced, reduced.
Horror has a retro look, down to the movie rental store photo shoot. Where did that take place?
Movie Madness, it's in Portland. I wish we had a store like that here. I live in a small town in California. We were up in Portland doing a show, and we knew we needed new promo photos. We called the store and were like “hey can we come in and take pictures in your store for an hour?” they were totally into it. They brew their own beer there, so they gave us beer. They gave us some shirts. It was just a super fun day.
I think once we kind of like, figure out a general direction for the album it's not too hard. This one ended up happening by default. I ended up writing a couple songs for Expulsion with Matt Olivo, and they just didn't make it on the record. Matt works at his own pace and I work at my own pace. We work at our own pace. His pace is very slow and my pace is very fast...and yet we still managed to somehow have a scheduling conflict. So I ended up kind of stepping aside, and I ended up having all these songs. So I rearranged it a little bit so it had more of a typical Exhumed kind of thing, and then I was like, well I already have three songs in about four minutes, so I figured I'd keep going in this vein.
How does this album compare to your previous record, 2017's Death Revenge?
If our style was a rectangle, I'd say Death Revenge is in one extreme corner, as far as you can possibly go with these sort of pompous melodies and film score sections. We did a seven-minute instrumental. And this is pulling back in the opposite direction in the other far corner, the opposite extreme of the box. There's no frills. Everything is reduced, reduced, reduced, reduced.
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| Photo by Orion Landau |
Movie Madness, it's in Portland. I wish we had a store like that here. I live in a small town in California. We were up in Portland doing a show, and we knew we needed new promo photos. We called the store and were like “hey can we come in and take pictures in your store for an hour?” they were totally into it. They brew their own beer there, so they gave us beer. They gave us some shirts. It was just a super fun day.
Their movie selection was just out of control. So much cult VHS and DVDs. Trashy exploitation films everywhere, movie props. It's a really incredible store, and the record has the same spirit of love for this sort of trash culture.
What's one of your favorite horror films?
I used to watch horror movies incessantly. I sort of saturated myself. I just stick to the classics now. Re-Animator for me was a really big one. Anytime anyone hasn't seen that I try to show them.
...Braindead was another really big one that blew our mind when we were kids. We really thought it was the same sort of spirit of the band, over the top and disgusting but still with a sense of enjoyment about it. Not really dour and horrible but sort of light-hearted and capricious with the violence.
What's one of your favorite horror films?
I used to watch horror movies incessantly. I sort of saturated myself. I just stick to the classics now. Re-Animator for me was a really big one. Anytime anyone hasn't seen that I try to show them.
...Braindead was another really big one that blew our mind when we were kids. We really thought it was the same sort of spirit of the band, over the top and disgusting but still with a sense of enjoyment about it. Not really dour and horrible but sort of light-hearted and capricious with the violence.
What's your favorite on-screen movie death?
I think the scene in Suspiria with falling through the stained glass is my favorite death. I always thought Dario Argento was a really skilled cinematographer. I thought his camera work was really inventive. Even when he was making these sleazy slasher movies, Suspiria wasn't so much, but it was late seventies, eighties Italian stuff, so it's going to be sleazy no matter what. But he manages to put a layer of class and sophistication that elevates it, even if the plots are sort of non nonsensical and the acting isn't that great.
Did you see the Suspiria remake?
I really liked it actually....it's really cool, because it doesn't try to be the same movie at all. It just takes the same premise and then plays on totally different elements of it. I like the fact that it's not just a slavish recreation. It's very much its own film but has the same premise.
What's one album that changed your life forever?
The one that's probably the most relevant to this new Exhumed album would be the Napalm Death Peel Sessions. I heard that in 1988 when I was 12 or 13. We were still looking for the fastest band. We heard Reign In Blood and Pleasure to Kill, and Convicted by Cryptic Slaughter and D.R.I. We heard Napalm Death was the fastest band around. And because we lived in the suburbs and all the Earache stuff was imported only, it was really hard to find their albums. But because of the BBC, the Peel Sessions were a little more available. One of my friends found and it brought it back to the house. And we listened to it and I was like “What a piece of shit. This is the worst garbage I ever heard in my fucking life...BUT play it again.” And we couldn't stop listening to it.
Napalm Death to me has been probably our biggest influence since the beginning. Everyone's like “you guys sound like Carcass!” I guess because we don't sing about the same stuff as them. Napalm always had the great riffs.
What's your secret for staying motivated with your musical projects after two decades?
I guess I always find a way to keep myself interested and strike a balance between staying true to what my 15 or 16 year old self would think was cool with Exhumed. But I also think it's about finding other avenues to play other types of music. I think if it was just Exhumed I would probably maybe feel a little limited and maybe get more burnt out. All my projects or whatever I look at as real bands and I'm excited about all of them. And with each one when you step away ffrom the others, you come back with a new perspective and a new vitality. You don't want to get so close to something that you can't perceive it or become numb to it.
Order Horror by Exhumed via Relapse Records.
I think the scene in Suspiria with falling through the stained glass is my favorite death. I always thought Dario Argento was a really skilled cinematographer. I thought his camera work was really inventive. Even when he was making these sleazy slasher movies, Suspiria wasn't so much, but it was late seventies, eighties Italian stuff, so it's going to be sleazy no matter what. But he manages to put a layer of class and sophistication that elevates it, even if the plots are sort of non nonsensical and the acting isn't that great.
Did you see the Suspiria remake?
I really liked it actually....it's really cool, because it doesn't try to be the same movie at all. It just takes the same premise and then plays on totally different elements of it. I like the fact that it's not just a slavish recreation. It's very much its own film but has the same premise.
What's one album that changed your life forever?
The one that's probably the most relevant to this new Exhumed album would be the Napalm Death Peel Sessions. I heard that in 1988 when I was 12 or 13. We were still looking for the fastest band. We heard Reign In Blood and Pleasure to Kill, and Convicted by Cryptic Slaughter and D.R.I. We heard Napalm Death was the fastest band around. And because we lived in the suburbs and all the Earache stuff was imported only, it was really hard to find their albums. But because of the BBC, the Peel Sessions were a little more available. One of my friends found and it brought it back to the house. And we listened to it and I was like “What a piece of shit. This is the worst garbage I ever heard in my fucking life...BUT play it again.” And we couldn't stop listening to it.
Napalm Death to me has been probably our biggest influence since the beginning. Everyone's like “you guys sound like Carcass!” I guess because we don't sing about the same stuff as them. Napalm always had the great riffs.
What's your secret for staying motivated with your musical projects after two decades?
I guess I always find a way to keep myself interested and strike a balance between staying true to what my 15 or 16 year old self would think was cool with Exhumed. But I also think it's about finding other avenues to play other types of music. I think if it was just Exhumed I would probably maybe feel a little limited and maybe get more burnt out. All my projects or whatever I look at as real bands and I'm excited about all of them. And with each one when you step away ffrom the others, you come back with a new perspective and a new vitality. You don't want to get so close to something that you can't perceive it or become numb to it.
Order Horror by Exhumed via Relapse Records.
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