Even by Death Metal standards, Incantation has a sound that is particularly dirty and evil. Having been active since 1989 and having consistently released albums since then, their influence on modern Death Metal has been immense. Their ability to switch seamlessly from thrash riffs over ultra fast beats to crawling doom riffs over slow beats has been instrumental, alongside bands such as Autopsy and Asphyx, in the creation of the Death Doom sound. But more than that, their influence can still be felt on modern Death Metal bands.
When the New Wave of Old School Death Metal bands started popping up, about ten years ago, and bands started moving away from the hyper produced, hyper technical sound that had dominated the previous decade, and focusing again on swampy, raw, brutal, cavernous sounding Death Metal, Incantation was one of the mains bands that was consistently quoted as a major influence. Make sure to check out their new album Sect of Vile Divinities, put now on Relapse Records, as it is a killer!
Dis-moi si tu as une meilleure suggestion pour débuter. Peut-être juste avec (…) avant le “You are in Québec”?
Hi John, how are you doing?
Good. How you doing, sir?
I’m alright. I just got off work and now I start the fun kind of work!
That’s cool. You are in Quebec, right?
Yes, Montreal.
Oh awesome, I love it in Montreal. It’s actually the first place out of country that I ever visited back in ’89. I had a friend there that used to manage a band called (crew named???) there and he told me about a show that was going up at the Spectrum. It was DEAD BRAIN CELLS, SOOTHSAYER AND GROOVY AARDVARK and I had to go see it. So I traveled up for the weekend, first time out of the US and I had an absolute blast! First time trying poutine and it was awesome! *Haha* Since then, I’ve always loved it up there. It’s really great.
Did you travel a lot to see shows back then?
I wouldn’t say a lot, but I’d travel a good amount. I mean, back then, when I was a teenager, I would go see every show I possibly could, in an area of at least a couple hours away. When I had the opportunity to go to Montreal, Canada to see Dead Brain Cells, -which I think I had actually seen before that, opening up for DEATH or DARK ANGEL, I can’t remember who- but anyway, I really wanted to see Soothsayer, I had never seen them and they were one of my favorite demo-era bands. I was a big fan of the old Canadian underground Metal scene so I was really excited to see them and also Groovy Aardvark, which I thought was a cool Crossover band at that time. But yeah, now and then, I’d take a trip. I was in the tape trading scene so if I knew somebody in an area, I’d say screw it, let’s just go out for the weekend to wherever and see a show. I remember when SEPULTURA first came in the US and they played just a couple of New York area shows, I remember going to every single one of them. I wasn’t going to miss one of them, it was amazing. We’d travel to see Death play on the tour for Scream Bloody Gore. It really wasn’t a full tour but I just made sure that every show that I was possibly able to get to, then I’d go. I’m a music fanatic.
For Sepultura, was that the Beneath The Remains era or even before that?
They played some shows up here before Beneath The Remains. It was for Schizophrenia but it was right before Beneath The Remains. It might even have been recorded. I think it was approximately around the time when they first came up here to do negotiations with Roadrunner for their record deal. They were hanging out here for a while and I guess they set up some shows while they’re here. It was probably part of the deal for them, if you get to the US, might as well play some shows. They played like, Long Island, New York, and I think they played someplace upstate New York. I can’t remember, but there was a whole bunch of shows and I remember going to every one that I could around that time. Sepultura, at that time, was a super important band for the Death Metal scene. Schizophrenia for me was a super big album. Even Remains was good too but for me, I’m still more of a Visions and Schizophrenia kind of guy, just because that’s when I first got into ’em. But Beneath The Remains is still a really good album, just not quite sentimental for me, that’s all.
Yeah, it’s often like that, where the album that you first discover a band with is often the one that sticks through. For some of them, they evolve and they come up with even better stuff but there’s always something special about that first one that got you into them.
Yeah, exactly. The first one that gets you into it is always important because without that first one, you wouldn’t be into the other ones. Sometimes, it just holds a special place in your heart, as far as when you hear it, it brings you back to that time of hearing it for the first time or that time in your life. One of the most amazing things about music is that it kind of preserves the part of your history when you hear a song.
You mentioned tape trading back in the 80’s, what are some of the few times when you remember being really blown away by a tape you’ve received and for whatever reason, the band didn’t go anywhere after that? They just remained at the demo stage, but you think they should have been more popular and gained more momentum.
Oh, there’s a lot of things. For local bands in my New Jersey/New York area, one band I used to really, really like a lot was called CALIGULA. They had a really great demo and just super talented and super killer. I think they just did that demo and they ended up falling apart. I think some of the guys went on to do other bands and stuff but I just thought Caligula was really great. It was kind of a edgier Thrash Metal but super talented. Another band that was a super important band from New Jersey that only put out that one album, if I remember correctly, was RIPPING CORPSE. I mean, that Dreaming With The Dead album was amazing. They used to play a lot of shows when I was playing in my former band REVENANT and holy crap, they were brutal, they were talented, they were tight. I mean, they were worlds above where we were in Revenant at that time, as far as talent and musicianship. They were such a great band and so influential in our area. You talk to bands like SUFFOCATION, almost any band from the New Jersey/New York area, they’ll tell you that Ripping Corpse was one of the really important influences but they did their album and that was it. Nothing really happened and it’s just a real shame that such amazingly talented and amazing songwriters just fell into obscurity. I think they got caught up in a time when their album came out when people wanted to hear more Death Metal and they wanted to play more of that aggressive Thrash stuff and they unfortunately got kind of sidelined because of it, which is really a shame.
We had a whole bunch, even PRIME EVIL was another great example. Amazing Thrash band, kind of similar to a DARK ANGEL-ish kind of band. One of my favorite bands of the area too and they also never really made it past the demo stage. They were so close to getting signed numerous times but it was just the same thing, Death Metal got popular and nobody really wanted to hear that kind of Thrash. It was really a strange thing because I was a Death Metal fan, but I also really liked aggressive killer Thrash Metal so it’s kind of weird that the scene was kind of like, you had to be one or the other and if you were the wrong one, it wasn’t cool and you weren’t going to get any publicity. To me, I thought it was strange because I didn’t see what the difference was, it seemed like it was so divided at the time.
Back then, tape trading was probably one of your main ways of discovering new music but fast forward to now, what’s your favorite ways of discovering new music? Is it still records? Is it streaming? Live shows? Etc
These days, there’s more streaming and doing my own research online, which is cool but it’s kind of a bummer because I really miss the old days of going to record stores and getting into and looking at different albums. I used to do a lot of research when I would go to record stores and see who’s playing on what album and see what other bands they played in. Reading fanzines or magazines and trying to do research on stuff. It’s great to have the internet as a resource, but at the same time, I miss that kind of community of a local record store and having a guy at the record store kind of know my tastes in music and they bring up some cool ideas that I might not normally check out. As of recently, I’ve been really interested in a lot of the older 70’s style of what was considered Heavy Metal at that time. It’s an era of Metal that I didn’t have a lot of access to, I didn’t know about a lot of the 70’s Hard Rock bands besides the obvious popular ones, like DEEP PURPLE and BLACK SABBATH, RAINBOW, that kind of stuff. When it comes to some of the more underground ones, I never really dug too much into it at that time. By the time I started digging into it, I was more into the 80’s Heavy Metal scene and maybe the 80’s kind of New Wave Of British Heavy Metal or early versions of Thrash Metal like EXCITER and MOTÖRHEAD and stuff like that, but kind of passed by some of the 70’s stuff.
What are some of your best discoveries from that era?
There’s so many great bands in that era. I’ve been just doing a search on YouTube with that kind of stuff. It’s kind of crazy that it is how I’m figuring out about this myself but for me, there’s bands that I knew about that I never really dug into, like early Y&T. I knew about Y&T and I knew about the Yesterday And Today stuff too but I never really got a chance to check it out. Stuff like that I thought was really cool. There’s so many old bands like that. Most of what comes to mind is the more obvious stuff, like MONTROSE and Rainbow and that kind of stuff.
Or stuff like RIOT. I like some of the Riot stuff but I never listened to a lot of their louder material before. I think it’s good, I like that vibe. Or BUDGIE. It’s just been as of recently, digging more into that. I really like that organic sound of the 70’s. I love that kind of feeling and to learn about some of these other bands that were really influenced by BLACK SABBATH and stuff, it’s really awesome. BLUE CHEER and that kind of stuff. There’s a good organic vibe to it and I just get really attracted to that with music. I do have a problem with some of the newer music these days, I think it just gets so digitally messed around with that, a lot of times, it loses the stuff that makes it great. It doesn’t matter to me how tight everything is with the band. If the band’s good, the songs are good, the vibe of the songs is what’s important. It’s not about trying to be the most talented or everything has to be super tight or anything like that, you know?
Is there any up and coming bands that you really enjoy though?
Yeah, there’s a good amount of new generation Death Metal bands that I actually think are pretty interesting. I don’t listen to a lot of other styles of newer music, it doesn’t really interest me, but there is some good Metal stuff. There’s a band from Washington state, which is really good, they’re called MORTIFERUM and they actually have a lot of old Incantation vibe to it. I don’t usually like bands that have our vibe too but for some reason, they just hit me as a really killer band.
There’s another band from Denmark that really good, called UNDERGANG, which is just good raw old school Death Metal. It almost reminds me of a really early version of CARCASS. To me, that’s my sweet spot when it comes to Metal, is that it still has that rough edge to it. Also, there is a new band, actually with the old guitar player for SEPULTURA, called TROOPS OF DOOM. It’s really cool because the song I heard has a similar vibe to the Morbid Visions era of Sepultura. It’s a more modern production, but it has that same vibe and to me, when I heard that, immediately, I felt that 18-year old kid and be like, yeah, that’s why I like Metal.
Talking about another older band I thought was pretty good, have you ever heard of this band called DUST?
Yeah, that’s a great one. With Mark Bell (aka Marky Ramone) on drums.
That’s really killer stuff.
One of my personnal favorites from that era is BUFFALO, an Australian band.
Yeah, I heard that! Our drummer was playing that, last time we were over for practice. After practice, he popped it on. Yeah, that’s killer stuff.
Such heavy riffs, it’s unbelievable for that period. The riffing was on par with Black Sabbath, they weren’t just a pale copy.
Yeah, that’s it. You can tell that they’re definitely on that same vibe as Black Sabbath. I mean, I only heard one song but it was really fucking killer. You hear it and you get that old school Sabbath vibe, which is so magical and so great when you hear other bands from that time also playing that kind of sound. There’s just something about that vibe of early 70’s trying to be heavy as fuck. It’s almost uncomparable.
Yeah, I mean, they all came out of the same pool too so a good band from that time would have had the same type of influences, and they would create on their own the same type of stuff. It happens with all genres of music. I guess it’s like you and say, Suffocation or something, the early bands of a genre often remain the most interesting bands because they defined the sound.
You define the sound and you get inspired by your contemporaries. You go to shows and other bands are kicking ass and it’s a big thing of inspiration, it inspires you to kick ass. I love to really dig in deep and hear about other bands that aren’t as well-known, even if it’s kind of a bummer sometimes. It’s good in a way that it’s hard to find because it’s not trendy or whatever but it’s nice once you find a killer band that might have flew under the radar for so long. You listen to it, you’re like, “Oh shit, that’s awesome!”, especially when you hear something and you realize that maybe some band that you like is influenced by them and you didn’t even realize it. Like, I got into IRON MAIDEN before I got into UFO and then once I heard UFO, I could tell where the influences came from. It’s almost like doing your music homework. I’m a big fan of knowing where everything comes from or at least being interested in finding out the history of Metal. It’s not like I need to know it for any important reason except just for myself. As a musician, I want to know where the music came from, it’s super important to me.
Is there any bands that were active after you started getting into music and which you missed out on when they first came out, only to discover them way later, to become one of your favorites?
Probably UFO and the MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP stuff. I mean, I knew about it, I had friends that had those early MSG albums but it never really clicked with me at all. The only thing I really knew by UFO was like, the Lights Out song and I thought “it’s okay, whatever”. But about 15 years ago or so, I started giving the Michael Schenker Group a listen and it just blew my mind. The guitar work, the riffing. His 10 years in UFO, I thought was amazing and I like the early UFO stuff too. That’s one of the bands I’m kind of surprised that I didn’t really like. As a 70’s kid, I grew up with KISS and QUEEN and AC/DC and then got into BLACK SABBATH and RAINBOW and stuff like that. But for some reason, UFO just passed me up and now, I can’t believe how that even happened. Sometimes things pass you by and you realize later like, holy crap, I had my head under the sand.
As you’re touching a bit about your early interest in music, if we go all the way back, do you remember the first time music really had an impact on you?
I think the first time I saw Kiss on TV, maybe in ’75 or something like that, I was five or six years old at the time. Obviously, the visual of it was a big deal but then hearing the heavy guitars and everything, it just blew my mind. I was like, “This is it!” I totally went from listening to DONNY OSMOND to listening to Kiss all the time, a total rush. I remember going out to the store and picking up a Kiss album as soon as I had enough money to. I was totally obsessed with it. At that time, my brother was kind of more of a hippie, and he threw out his BEATLES albums because he was getting more into the GRATEFUL DEAD. I remember taking those records out of the trash and listening to them and I thought they were amazing too. I used to have this weird thing where, I was two toned; I listened to The Beatles stuff when I wanted to be mellow when I want to be crazy, I had the Kiss stuff. Music in general really took a hold of me and since then, it was non-stop. I started hearing QUEEN, News Of The World and stuff like that. Once I started hearing Brian May’s guitar work, it hit me. I was listening to the radio back then and I remember waiting for songs that had a cool electric guitar part in it. I was obsessed with that punchy attack on the guitar. It was a pretty fun time. Music definitely kind of possessed me from an early time in my life. I was a very awkward child, very shy. I didn’t really like hanging out with a lot of people. For some reason, music became my way of expressing myself. Even though I wasn’t musically inclined at the time at all, I was listening to music and it wasn’t just enjoying music, the music was part of who I was as a person.
Later on, is there any one specific thing that led you down the path of underground music and the Metal scene?
As far as the Metal scene, I was kind of slowly getting into it early, with Kiss and AC/DC but I think the band that really, really got me into Metal was JUDAS PRIEST. When I heard Screaming For Vengeance and Defenders Of The Faith, which had just came out, that’s when I started to really be like, “Okay Metal is the direction I want to go into. I really relate to it.” At that point, I was interested in learning about as many bands as possible and I was always looking for heavier stuff and once I started hearing bands like VENOM, POSSESSED especially, which was a super important one, that’s when I knew that I needed to go even deeper. Somehow, I related myself with the darker, evil areas of Metal, more than the more commercial aspect of it. I mean, I still liked a lot of the commercial bands and the regular Heavy Metal bands but I knew that there was something about these ones that were kind of being more provocative that just resonated with me. Then once I got more into the tape trading world of like, ’86-’87-’88-’89, it just blew my mind because then I would hear some of the craziest, most aggressive, forward thinking music that I’d ever heard of, at the time. That’s the stuff that kind of fueled me as far as wanting to start Incantation up, and do it in the way I wanted to. I really related with bands that kept taking this music that I loved and pushing it to another level. I felt like I was becoming part of a team that is doing something distinctive that all of us can relate to. At that time, a lot of Heavy Metal stuff was getting more commercialized, there was a lot of that poser kind of stuff or whatever, and as a reaction to that, there was a lot of underground people that was like, “Fuck this! We want to go even heavier, more sicker, more aggressive.” I think that’s part of what fueled the Death Metal scene, the anti everything commercial that a band like WARRANT or POISON was going for. You were anti that.
What are some of the most memorable shows that you’ve seen in your life? What makes them stand out?
There’s a lot of really great ones. One was recently actually, in Toronto, Canada, a DAVID GILMOUR show and that was phenomenal. I’m a huge PINK FLOYD fan and I love his guitar playing. One of the best guitar players out there. To witness that greatness live is like a magical experience for me. I never got to see Pink Floyd. I saw ROGER WATERS and that was good too but I was just so thankful to see Gilmour and witness that greatness in front of me.
Another one was actually was at the same place, I used to go to shows in Toronto a lot. I lived in Johnstown, Pennsylvania at the time, and I liked going to Canada. So I went to see HEAVEN AND HELL there, which is another one that blew my mind. That was when they did the first leg of the first tour together, before the album was released. That was so monumental to me. I mean, I grew up listening to Black Sabbath and I became a fan when Dio was already the vocalist. I mean, I knew about Black Sabbath with Ozzy but at that time, it didn’t resonate with me as much as it did after I got into the Dio/Black Sabbath stuff. Then I went back and understood the Ozzy stuff better. So, for me, it meant a lot to be able to see that line-up. I never thought it would happen, I thought that Live Evil was something that I was just never going to be able to witness played live. That show was just so amazing. I had a tear in my eye watching the show, I couldn’t believe that I was so fortunate to witness this.
Then, there’s smaller clubs shows that were amazing, too. There’s too many to mention but one band I got to see at the height of their career, back in the day, was CARNIVORE. Such an amazing experience to see Carnivore at this club we used to have in Brooklyn called L’Amour. It was so heavy, so raunchy, throwing out meat in the audience. Pure old school kind of vibe. Just amazing to witness. Another great one was getting to see DEATH play on the Scream Bloody Gore tour. They had the lineup for Leprosy already and they basically played most of Scream Bloody Gore, they played Pull The Plug, which was a new song at the time and I think they played Beyond The Holy Grail, the bonus track on Scream Bloody Gore. To witness Death at that time, there wasn’t a lot of people at the show but it was seeing the future of Death Metal. An amazing experience. I have a lot of amazing experiences. I love watching greatness performing in front of me, you know?
In terms of bands that you’ve toured with, what was the one that impressed you the most? One that you had to watch their set every night, no matter what.
Wow. We played with a lot of great bands…When we toured with MORBID ANGEL on the Formulas Fatal To The Flesh tour, that was an amazing lineup they had in that band, it sounded so good. Watching them play was like Groundhog Day because every day they’re playing the perfect set. It was just unbelievable how tight that band was and how much fire and fury they had. That definitely was a great experience.
Our first bigger band, US tour was with ENTOMBED on the Clandestine album and I thought that was a really, really great lineup they had in the band at that time. The vibe was great. I remember every night, they brought it so hard and it was so awesome. For me, at that time, to watch a band perform at that high level and have that much of a great vibe was just amazing.
Nicke was only playing drums, he wasn’t singing, was he?
No, Nicke sang on the album but LG was back in the band for that tour. There was Lars, Uffe, Nicke and Alex so basically the first album lineup playing the second album on tour, and it just sounded so good. I mean, Nicke is an amazing musician. He’s an amazing guitar player, he was an amazing drummer. His drum work had so much passionate feeling on that tour. He is amazing at every thing he does. One of those super talented people who could just pick up any instrument and kill it. It pisses me off, I wish I could be that good! *Haha*
Is there any unpopular music opinion that you’d like to defend? Something that you truly love but for some reason, can hardly find anyone to agree with you?
Well, the thing is, I look at it like, most of the bands I like, I think most people probably hate. I’m so used to people not liking anything that I really like. One thing, which isn’t really the proper answer to the question, but I remember back in the early days of the band, I really, really loved DREAM DEATH. I thought that was great and I loved that album. I’d listen to it all the fucking time when we were on tour. I remember the other guys fucking hated it. “Turn it off, turn it off!” and I was like, “Nah. This fuckin’ rules!”. So like an asshole, I just wanted to play it more because I knew it pissed everybody off and I loved it, you know? It’s one of those things like, there’s other people in the band that don’t like MANOWAR and I love their old stuff. I know it’s cheesy as fuck, but I just love it. For me, it’s just fun to listen to.
In closing, is there anything that you’d like to promote, besides the new Incantation album? Any side projects that you’d like to talk about?
Right now, I do two other side projects. I do one called Tribe of Pazuzu, which is a project with Nick from the band SOULSTORM, a Canadian actually, from Toronto. It’s basically his band. I play guitar in the band, I guess as a member, but more of a session member because we don’t really get together as a band to play. He just sends me the riffs and stuff. Then I have another band called Beast of Revelation, which is a Death Doom band that I play in with my friend AJ and Bob, the former drummer for ASPHYX. It’s a side project that we do, which is also really fun where I just do vocals. I think it is really great, I really like the fact of just doing vocals in the band, it’s a different perspective.
Besides that, check out the new Incantation album and, you know, check us out the old school way. Even if you don’t buy the album, do as I used to do as a young metalhead and if you pick up an album, you listen to the whole thing through a couple times and even if you think it sucks, you listen to it a few more times because you paid money for it. You know, if you still hate it after five listens, then okay, you really hate it but usually, after a while, you start to understand and get it. I know most of my most important records in my collection are records that, my first time I heard it, I didn’t quite get it or understand it, but after giving it a bunch of listens, I started to really understand it. And now, they’re some of the most important bands in my music history. So definitely don’t be one of those fly by night people who’ll listen to something for 10 seconds and goes to the next thing on Spotify or whatever. That’s just being lame, and you’re really missing out on a chance to some quality music that could be an important part of your life.
That’s great advice! That’s actually the whole reason why we’re doing this website. The project is all about people listening to new stuff and discovering new stuff so yeah, I’m right with you with this.
You know, during this quarantine, I’ve been really thinking about that. I think about how, when I was younger, it was a whole thing about going to record stores each week. It was part of who I was growing up. I’m thinking about it now and especially because of all this virus stuff going on, a lot of record stores were struggling already so what’s going to happen now? It’s going to be even more difficult so I’m actually trying to tell people, if they get a chance, try to buy a record from an actual record store, if you have one by you, just to help keep them alive. It’s something that is an important part because it’s a part of the culture of music. People who are doing record stores, most of them are not doing it to be money grubbing people. They’re doing it because they love music and want to spread music around and be surrounded by music. They’re not doing it because it’s the best way to make money because it definitely isn’t!
Actually, during the confinement, I did end up buying more music then I did in years. Just because that was the main activity I could do. There’s a couple of great record stores in Montreal and they kept going, they just did mail order through to the website and delivered at home. So that was great. But I defintely get what you said before about, back in the day, when you had that album and you paid good money for it and you had to make tough choices to get that album. You could only get so many so you gave it a real good running chance. I remember discovering albums that are not necessarily the best one from that artist but I still have a soft spot for them, just because I had it and that’s the one I mostly listened to.
Exactly. I remember picking up the VOIVOD War And Pain album and I was like, “WHAT is this? What the hell is this?” I didn’t really understood what was going on, but I listened to it more and more and I started to realize, this is genius. But it could easily have been tossed aside if I didn’t spend money on the album. I could have easily just been like, “Ah, garbage.” But now, since you actually paid money, you want to sit back and want to listen to it and give it every shot possible. You know, some records, I tried to like and never liked, but I feel like I gave everything a proper listen. Now, music’s so cheap that people go through stuff, not even giving it a real chance and it’s really sad. It sucks as a band, to know that people might be blowing through your music like that, but even just as a musical fan, it’s sad because that kind of really paying attention to albums is part of a culture of what I grew up with and I hate to see it gone.
Yeah, reading the insert and the lyrics and going through the thanks list. That’s where the name comes from, that was one of our ways of discovering new music before the internet. Reading and remembering, “I’ve seen that name in this other album. Maybe I should check it out.”
Yeah, I used to do that too and see bands on the thanks lists and I would go and try to check out those bands or at least, put them on my list of things worth looking into. But yeah, I know, it was a different era of discovering music. It’s not that the internet’s bad or anything, it’s just that, like with all technology, it becomes a crutch instead of a tool. The internet is a good tool to find new music but it shouldn’t be a crutch for finding new music necessarily, you know?
No Comments