DYING FETUS : Nothing stops the rain (of blood) |
-Soon we will see your new Lp, ‘Stop at nothing’, in the shops : could you present it to us ? What are for you the main differences with ‘Destroy the opposition’ album ?
-J : I think that this album is a bit more dynamic, has more technicality, but also has more slay'em-style riffs as well, there’s more diversity in that album, and I would say that the lyrics are a bit less political. I think it’s a better well rounded album as opposed to ‘Destroy the opposition’, in my humble opinion. See for yourself !
-Did you have special inspirations for this new lp ? Some specific subjects ?
-J : Not really, my inspiration for this record has just been my hunger for vicious death metal and to create good quality death metal, that’s my love and inspiration, that’s pretty much it from the inside, that’s about it.
-Some time ago, you created your own label, ‘Blunt force records’ in 1999 : why and how did it happen ?
-J : We have four records on Blunt force records, and, basically released in 1992, our first albums were all independently released, first ‘Infatuation with malevolence’ on a label which went under and we retained the rights for that, so our second album, ‘Purification through violence’ was released on Pulverizer records, which went out of business too, and ‘Killing on adrenaline’ on Morbid records. Hopefully in the future, we might release Dying Fetus EP’s released on Blunt Force, if I have time, sometime it’ll happen. The previous Dying Fetus release is on Blunt Force, that is still being carried and available, so, we’ll see what the future may bring, I’m really busy with Dying Fetus right now so it’s hard to sign bands and really create a very strong label, so I’m pretty much keeping them on the back burner right now, and focusing more on Dying fetus and working with Relapse.
-Today you’re signed on Relapse records : what does it bring to the band ?
-J : I think it brings us more exposure, because they have a bigger budget than what I can do for advertising and adds, of course a worldwide distribution, they spread our name out, and as a result we increased in popularity and we're able to tour a bit more, it helps us with exposure.
-How do you see the evolution of the death metal scene from the eighties to today and the fact that it comes back in view with bands such as Nile, Decapitated or yourself ?
-J : I guess it’s a great thing that kids are getting back into metal or whatever, I think it has to do with the Internet, people being more easily exposed to this music than in the past : when Dying Fetus started, we were all trading cassettes, it was underground and very hard to find anything new, but nowadays you have just to click on your computer and be able to search around and find shit, which I think exposes this music to the kids and therefore increases its popularity, that’s my feeling. I could be wrong but bigger nu-metal bands are creating an avenue, I think it's gotten kids into it, plus a lot of mainstream music played sucks, so those kids try to find something. When I was a kid, that’s what I was trying to do, find something very extreme, maybe on today’s society, how violent it is, and specially over here in America, maybe that also have something to do with death metal’s popularity increase. I don’t know, it’s all speculation, really ! Maybe we should do a survey, I don’t know.
-It is more difficult today to be an extreme artist in USA than before ? Do you have more problem with censorship, for example ?
-J : We’ve never suffered any censorship, because we’re not that popular, really, as Cannibal Corpse I guess has, but of course they’re way more popular than us. It hasn’t happened yet, but who knows ? I know that we actually, when I think about, our first album wasn’t released in some of the more popular department stores, like WalMart because the name was offensive. So there’s been a little bit of censorship, but nothing really yet. We’ll see what will happen in the future...
-Could we say you’re, through your music, politically engaged ?
-J : I don’t write the lyrics personally, but we try to keep political aspect and try to have well-grounded songs, themes and lyrics. We’re not trying to preach to the world in a sense of political platform or whatever fucking term. Lots of the politics in the past came from Jason, who is no longer in the band, that stood behind his beliefs and his lyrics but this new album has some political context but I wouldn’t consider it as being all about politics : we have new songs about war, about cloning, ‘Stop at nothing’ is about my hardcore influences but the idea of being true to oneself and not conforming to peer pressure and being a real person and doing what do you believe is right for yourself. We have ideas for song titles and songs concepts that we’ll try to introduce with this next record.
-What do you listen today ?
-J : I’ve really heard anything recently that’s been taken me aback. I don’t really listen too much death metal all the time anymore, to be honest with you : I mean, I listen to a lot of classic rap these days, I’m getting old, man, I’m thirty years old ! I get caught with Dying Fetus, I listen so much things when I’m on tour and I don’t listen that much music when I’m sitting around. I rather listen the classic faves : Judas Priest, Metal Church, Loudness, I download a bunch of shit, make cd’s with a lot of old classic metal. What I’m listening to lately would sound lame, I guess for some metal heads, but sorry !
-Do you intend to release videos for the band ?
-J : Yes, sometimes in the future I’d like to do that. There’s a few underground tapes that are circulating, but one day, we would like to release a DVD professionally done, but we’ll see what happen to us, that’s hard to pay a camera crew on all this. That hasn’t happened yet, but hopefully one day, we’ll be able to do that.
-Is the website of the band important for you and why ?
-J : Yes, very important, we have current news, tour dates and so on, we keep fans updated with what’s going on as much as possible but sometimes it’s hard, because right now, Mike Kimball, our new guitarist, is doing the website and when we tour it’s hard to keep it updated. It took me a while to get a computer : I bought a computer two years ago, which is pretty late, but I’m kind of old school, like ‘Fuck the computer’, but then I realized that this is the age and the world we live in, today it’s just necessary to have a computer pretty much and be on line and stuff is the wave of the future.
-Are you yourself a big Internet user today ?
-J : I just use it for information I might need, and of course E-mails and stuff, I’m not Mister Internet ! It’s useful for information and anything, but sometimes I think it’s bad because there could be good and bad things for the music because I mean right now our whole album is up on an Internet site, and he has not even been realized yet, people have got promotional copies and already slapped them up there. The album comes up May 13th and it’s already available to people. That’s kind of weird, I mean, I download stuff myself so I can’t really bitch about it, but it's weird how easy things can get up there and circulate. We don’t think too much from albums sales, cause percentages are low. For bands like us, it gets paid through the shows and maybe merch that you can sell and this and that, that's what you get most of your money from. So I guess it’s no so bad as people listen to us through a computer then come to our shows and buy a T-shirt. There’s some good positive aspects to all this file sharing.
-After twelve years, how do you judge the career of the band ? Are you satisfied with how things evolved ?
-J : Yes, I’m happy with how everything ended, people being receptive with the new material, and we’ve made good live gigs and that was always a dream of mine to play guitar as a kid and being in a band, and I do this, and for me, I couldn’t ask for more, really !
-Next projects ? Touring Europe ?
-J : We’ll be in Europe this September with Hate Eternal, Defleshed and Severe Torture and we’ll be In Paris, at the Locomotive on September 9th. But also, we’ll be part of the Fury fest in France, June 28th, an hardcore festival, and we have a few other French dates also at the end of the tour, but keep your eyes on WWW.dyingfetus.com for a further update.
Interview made in April 2003 by Jean Paul Coillard.
Thanks to Frank Van Liempd from Relapse records Europe for his help.
Visit the Dying Fetus website : www.dyingfetus.com
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