Greetings Mike and welcome to The Temple Of Omega. You have been an active member of some of the most remarakable bands in the Death Metal Scene from Morbid Angel to Nocturnus, from Acheron to Incubus you have been around since the mid 80s as far as I know and are still active with Nocturnus AD and other endevours, the word is yours?
Thanks Godwin, yes it's been a long road for me ever since I started playing Metal in high school with Trey Azagthoth and that was back in 1981! It started from a cover band playing Judas Priest and Angelwitch called Ice that turned into Morbid Angel, then Incubus was in 1987, which didn't last long. So in 1987 I created Nocturnus and I did that until 1992 when I joined Acheron till about 1994. I did some local band projects until I formed my own band again in 1999 called After Death and now in October of 2013 I decided to Nocturnus AD which is a continuance of where I left off in Nocturnus when I was singing and playing drums like on The Key. Nocturnus AD will pick up from where the story of The Key left off, like I had originally planned to do back in 1990.
You are very active with Nocturnus AD, can we expect a recording after the current set of performances?
Yes actually we are just starting to work on some new material for Nocturnus AD, we have a couple new After Death songs we are still gonna record for a Compilitaion Cd that will be coming out, but after that we will just be playing these Fests and shows and working on new material.
Very much looking forward to the followup of The Key's theme! And musically what are we to expect from the new album ?
Well we are gonna try and stay musically more similar to the style somewhere between The Science of Horror demo and The Key, technical, but still heavy at the same time. The music will have more changes and stops and leads, then the After Death songs, but that is why it's good to have both bands now, so I can write in different moods and ideas.
Nocturnus was a most innovative and highly original band, once could say ground breaking, just as Morbid Angel before that. Both influencing hundreds of bands. Any of these bands that you listened and enjoyed?
Yes both of those bands that I played in did have a big influence on a lot of other bands, I listen to all kinds of music, but metal is the main thing that I listen to, there are literally hundreds of bands that I could name right now too, lately I have been listening to stuff like Septicflesh, Grave Miasma, Pestilence, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Animals As Leaders, Blotted Science and tons of others!
Some awesome bands indeed that you have mentioned, so apart metal what other genres or artists you enjoy listening to? and to which extent is the influence on what you write conscious and which part comes in subconsciously?
I listen to lots of different music, mostly metal of course, but I also like a lot of the old classic rock from the 60-70's and some electronic and soundscape stuff and some Middle Eastern and Egyptian styles as well.
That depends on the song, some songs I have woke up in the night or in the morning with the whole idea in my mind and had to write it down very quickly before I forget it and some songs were written from my experiences or stuff that I am reading or doing at the time.
Are the two After Death songs you mentioned recent compositions?
Yes they are, I haven't even written the lyrics for them yet, one is for the Death card and the other is for The Devil card.
The band where pretty much all of these influences are very evident is AFTER DEATH, apart the two songs you mentioned earlier on I hope there will be more coming, it's a band I am very fond of, however it being sort of a post Nocturnus band and now with rise of Nocturnus AD does this mean Afterdeath is laid on ice f assimilated in Nocturnu AD along its initials AD?
Well after we record these 2 songs we will be taking a break from After Death for a little while to get in a different mode of writing for Nocturnus AD. My plan is to keep both bands because the main difference will be lyrically I think, where Nocturnus AD will have certain guidelines that I want to stick with keeping it similar to the old Nocturnus themes from The Key and After Death will be more of an occult band and the fact that we can incorporate just about any kinds of styles of lyrics and music in After Death and when everybody brings in new music whether it be a whole song or just some riffs, then we can determine if it is more towards Nocturnus AD or After Death that we want to use it for. It will be similar to what King Diamond does with King Diamond and Merciful Fate.
THE KEY, that magical, crazy, innovative, groundbreaking album. What does it mean to you today, almost 25 years after?
Well looking back there is always things that you would change and do differently and at the time none of us had any idea that this many years later it would have become a sort of ground breaking cult album that it has. In fact I would have never even imagined that I would still even be in a Metal band playing drums in 2014! I would have never thought that people would even remember that album 25 years later!
And the changes you would do to The Key will those lucky enough to see Nucurnus AD live in concert hear any of them? And speaking of live situations how does it feel like to handle both drums and vocals?
The changes that I would have made would have been in the recording process and better equipment, Mike Davis actually had to rerecord all the bass tracks because our bass player Jeff Estes was so drunk he couldn't play his parts correctly, he was fired because of that too. So the bass had to be turned down really low in the mix and the sound of the drums that I had were pretty bad too, all my toms were concert toms and had no bottom heads, so there were several things that could have been done differently that would have made the album sound much better. The music and lyrics were all fine, so there was really nothing that I would have changed about that part. I am pretty used to it by now, so as long as I don't think too much about what I am doing because when I start thinking about too many things, then it messes me up! I just click the sticks and go for it and let the chaos ensue!
27 years ago together with you back then band mates Morbid Angel you recorded one of the most important and seminal releases that would set new standards in the extreme metal scene, Abominations of Desolation. Almost 3 decades have past and I sincerely have not listened to one single release that has the vibe and the magic of this cult recording, care to elaborate more on this recording?
Well we were all really young back then and very out of our minds, we were so into the Necronomicon and it's rituals, that the music was a part of that and we really did devoted our musick to the Gods every time we played, whether it was a show or a rehearsal or a recording. The vibe that most people feel and hear on that album was from pure devotion. The album was recorded under contract with Goreque Records, which was owned by David Vincent. It is Morbid Angel's first recorded debut album and it was engineered by Bill Metoyer, who is a very well known engineer/producer, seen on a lot of older Metal Blade Records. And no it's not a demo and John Ortega is the bass player on that album, Morbid Angel's own website is not correct on it's info of this album!
Thank you very much Michael for this interview, Last words are yours. Anything you would like to add which I did not ask and you would like to tell your fans and followers.
I just want to say Thanks for the great interview and watch for Nocturnus AD this year, we have several shows in Europe and of course the Maryland Death Fest in the US! And check out our website www.afterdeath666.com and Facebook page as well www.facebook.com/nocturnusad
