When news broke of Dream Unending, the collaborative project between death metal masterminds Derrick Vella and Justin DeTore (Innumerable Forms), the first word that came to mind was onslaught. I was expecting the most brutal music output but little did I know that I was in for a very different journey. Instead, Dream Unending operates an emotional onslaught capable of soaring highs and abysmal lows. The duo combines ethereal riffs and leads with a doom metal rhythm section and tops it with the most malevolent growls this side of hell. The package evoked a visceral emotional response of uneasiness in me, akin to what I can only imagine it must feel like to meet your destroyer, amidst a walk in the park on a beautiful day. This is definitely not a record for everyone, but one that is most impossible to leave the listener indifferent.
Outside of this ongoing project, Derrick is best known as guitarist for Toronto’s Tomb Mold, which coincidentally also started as a two-piece project in 2015, before morphing into a full band death metal assault machine.
He is also the latest addition to death metal standouts Outer Heaven, contributing fretless bass to their upcoming record, which we can’t wait to consume.
Dream Unending’s debut, and Tomb Mold’s most recent LPs are available now through 20 Buck Spin.
What have you been listening to the most lately?
I guess as far as to be completely honest, not a lot of new records have really passed my desk where they’ve really held my attention, so to speak, but a couple definitely. There is actually a doom metal band out of the Pacific Northwest called VOUNA. They just put out a record on Profound Lore called Atropos, the second full length, and I believe the driving force of the band is just one woman. Let me get her name, so I can credit it properly…Yianna Bekris. It’s just a really, really beautiful album. It’s emotional. It’s crushing. It sounds amazing. The aesthetic of the album art. It’s just so good. The way you said the Dream Unending record made you feel, that’s how this record makes me feel, very emotional. I was definitely awestruck when I heard it. I didn’t even know it came out until I was one day, kind of scouring the internet, looking for anything that had come out that I hadn’t heard. The album cover caught my eye, it looked like something I would have liked. It looks like a THEATER OF TRAGEDY record from the early 90’s or something. So I was like, “I need to put this on”, and I was just floored. It’s just such a wonderful record. The opening track is incredible and the closing track, What Once Was, is amazing. Very long winded songs, a lot of 15-minute tracks on here, but really, really good stuff.
As far as another newer record, there’s a death metal band out of Cleveland INOCULATION, and their new album, Celestial Putridity, I really like it. The guitar player is a friend of mine, he built me a guitar, so maybe I’m a little biased in liking his band? But the playing on it is so tight, and they’re just a three piece. For a three piece band doing technical death metal, you couldn’t really ask for more. It’s breakneck fast, it goes places. I quite like it, I found it really refreshing. Songs like The Edge Of Town is really good, and a couple songs that I can’t really pronounce the names of. I think they’re on tour right now and I hope people are watching them.
A record that I listened to nearly every day, probably going back to last year, is the album Gretchen Goes To Nebraska by KING’S X. They’re a rock band. I guess they’re still around, technically but they started in either the late 70’s or early 80’s. It’s a mix of hard rock with some progressive tendencies. Gretchen Goes To Nebraska is their second record, from 1989. If you’d hear it and then someone told you that the guys in ALICE IN CHAINS loved that band, it would make a lot of sense. I feel like some of their songs really laid the groundwork for some of those rock bands that came out of the 90’s, whether it was them or maybe SOUNDGARDEN or stuff like that. It’s an interesting band because they’re also Christian, but they’re not a Christian rock band per se. They do have these sort of spiritual or religious elements in their music, sometimes very overtly, but I think they met some backlash from Christian community because one of the members in gay, which is a big no-no to a lot of Christians…which is fucking stupid, but there it is. It’s such a good record. The lyrics are amazing. Some of it is a little cheesy, but in a way like a band like LIVING COLORS is cheesy, but it’s kind of awesome? I find some of their songs, they really speak to me. It puts me in a good mood when I hear it. It fills my chest up with excitement and songs like Don’t Believe It, when I hear that song, I just feel better. The lyrics are very simple, but they’re very effective. As someone who experiences a lot of self doubt on day to day, if I hear that song, I can feel a little bit better. That’s what’s so amazing about music, the emotional grasp that it can have on you. My band member in Dream Unending, Justin, is the hugest King’s X fan I know. But to be fair, I only really know three people who like this band. It was something that him and I really bonded over. I think that guy, DEVIN TOWNSEND, that’s a record that he’s really excited about also.
Then another record that I listen to a lot that I feel, in a lot of ways, is influential in the music I write, but on the surface, you would hear it and be like, “this doesn’t make sense because your bands don’t sound anything like this”. That’s a record called Hats by THE BLUE NILE. I feel like through Tomb Mold and even some Dream Unending interviews I’ve had to do, I always bring up The Blue Nile. They’re this kind of dreamy pop band from the 80’s and 90’s. Hats is the perfect record to listen to if you’re walking downtown in the city at night and it’s raining. It’s like the perfect companion piece to that. That band only had four records over a span of 20 something years, and I love each one for different reasons but the atmosphere of Hats, the sequencing of it…I always think of that record when I’m trying to put songs in order for an album whether it’s Tomb Mold, Dream Unending or anything else I’ve done. That record is just terrific.
So you typically have a quite a large variety of genres that you listen to, right? In that little piece you wrote two years ago, you were talking about the pile of record on your shelf, that included SIR RICHARD BISHOP, DEMILICH, GENE CLARK, TANGERINE DREAM and SUPERSTITION.
Oh, man, actually Gene Clark still, that album No Other, I think I listen to that at least once every two weeks. If not on my own, we play it at my work all the time and I don’t escape it. That’s a good thing. That record actually, and this other record, Pacific Ocean Blue by DENNIS WILSON, who was the drummer of The BEACH BOYS…well, Dennis Wilson made this solo album and it’s just better than anything The Beach Boys ever did, bar none. They’re both these amazing records by these men who are just kind of broken because of drug abuse and just fucking their lives up, but they write these amazing, beautiful songs. I can feel the weight of them, and they’re so strong. But yeah, I find I have to listen to all sorts of stuff. Listening to only metal would get really boring after a while. I love well constructed pop songs. I think it’s some of the best stuff. In metal, it’s funny because we get away from those sensibilities a lot, especially the weirder you get, or the more abstract you get. Some people, I feel like in their minds, they think that the weirder or the more complex and difficult the music is, the smarter you must be. I think some people think “I’m smart because I like stuff.” Whereas, you could put on a BRUCE HORNSBY record and I’m just like, “This is brilliant”, even though it’s just the glossiest of pop rock music ever. Every genre, for the most part, I think has something to reward the listener with. Especially in niche subcultures, like punk or metal or anything, I feel like people get a little narrow minded or they’re like, “Oh, no, I have a really eclectic taste from this approved list of bands by other metal bands.” Or punk bands. I remember going to punk and hardcore shows in the 2000’s and barely ever was anyone wearing metal shirts but once a popular band started wearing, like, STONE ROSES tshirts or something, then it was cool to like that kind of janky pop music. Because those cool hardcore guys like it now, you know what I mean? You can just like whatever the fuck you want, and it’ll be okay. I don’t know why people get so hung up on stuff.
In all of your different moods and listening habits, is there a common thread in what typically strikes you when you listen to new music?
That’s a tricky question. I mean, I’m really drawn to lyrics from bands. Whether or not they’re good, it’s like, “Do I somehow relate to them?” THE BLUE NILE, for example, the lyrics are extremely simple, but they’re so effective at what they say. Usually, there’s some sort of emotional element, probably because I’m a big wimp. I just really relate to sappy emotional songs. It’s funny, because death metal is such a dark genre for the most part. One of my favorite, if not my favorite death metal record, is Focus by CYNIC, which is a complete opposite of any of that. That’s a really uplifting record. Even though you can’t really understand what they’re saying, you can read along. I think songs like How Could I, the lyrics to that song are a big deal to me. They mean something. I think any music that can pull some sort of emotional response for me, I find very effective. I think that’s why I like doom metal so much as well. Doom is quite an emotional genre. Bands like MY DYING BRIDE, or ANATHEMA, you can’t listen to that music and feel nothing. It’s the kind of records where, if you’re not in the right headspace, maybe don’t listen to it. If you’re sad, and sometimes you want to lean into it, that’s a music genre where you can feel terrible, awful. And that’s good. I think that’s the emotional draw of songs. Because then on the other hand, you can have a band like DEMILICH, where there’s no emotional draw at all, at least for me. I like it because it seems like a perfect example of a band that can write weird music that is actually memorable, and that is really hard to do. There’s a lot of bands that want to imitate that style, but just can’t write memorable riffs. It’s the weirdest music, but it’s almost poppy in a strange way. Maybe the average listener would be offended because they heard me say that about it but, here we are, saying it. And I mean, musicianship for sure. I play guitar and I started playing bass a couple years ago so all I want to do is hear bands where they have a fretless bass player that’s better than me.
There’s actually a band from Quebec, FIRST FRAGMENT. It is just the most ridiculous technical metal, and it’s just silly at times, but I love it because I can’t get over how good they are at playing instruments. The bass player in that band just makes you want to quit music because it’s so fucking good but it’s inspiring at the same time. Makes me want to play more. I love when you hear a record, and it makes you want to write something, makes you want to play more. It’s a wonderful thing. Some people I think, especially in contemporary music, you’re in a genre and you’re writing contemporary records, and other people around are writing contemporary records, you kind of have two choices. You can be envious if they write something that you’re like, “I wish I could play that good.” Or you can embrace it and be like, “No, I want to keep bettering myself and be inspired by my peers.” That’s why touring is so fun, when you tour with a band that you like. You watch them perform in the same genre that you perform in, but they have a different approach to it, right? They come at it from a different angle, because we don’t all think the same way. You can see it and take something from it or not, but I find it better to be inspired by them. You hear something that they do that is lacking in your own sound and it becomes, how do I implement that feeling or that style, but with being true to yourself, not just carbon copying another band?
Talking about touring, what would be the band that you’ve toured with that impressed you the most? The one that you had to watch their set, night after night, no matter what?
We didn’t get to play a lot of dates with them, but HORRENDOUS, for sure. I like their records, and I really liked the last record they did. We toured with them for a few shows, after they put that out, and watching them play live, was great because they play with joy. I feel like that is something that lacks in death metal. People take it really seriously to a fault, I would say at times. They’re the kind of band that smile on stage when they’re playing their music. For some people, that might be a no-no, but for me, I’m like, “That’s great.” They have this spirit and I really value that, I really took something from that. There is a bouncy quality to some of their songs that I really appreciate. I love watching them play, they have a good energy and I felt very drawn to that.
Also, Tomb Mold toured a couple times with this band OF FEATHER AND BONE, which is sort of the opposite of Horrendous, but in the same way where there’s a lot of intensity and spirit there, but it’s very aggressive. Their sound is an assault on your ears. It’s good! I remember watching them play and it made me want to play faster, you know what I mean? I took something from that and I was like, “I want to do more of this. We should write something that sounds like this.” That’s the best part about getting to watch bands play night after night, especially too, because when you go on tour, each night usually, you’re a little bit better. If you’re playing the same set, you’re just locking it in even more and more to the point where you’re a well-oiled machine. I love that. Ending a tour, you feel like, “Oh, I just want to keep playing! We’ve got this sound so perfect, that we could play five or six more shows of this set, if it was this good every night.” It’s the bittersweet thing about tours.
What was the last time you remember discovering a band live that blew you away?
That’s a really good question. Usually, it’s on tours when you get to experience that the most. Actually, a band that I hadn’t heard that we played with was on Tomb Mold’s first tour, we played with a band from Philadelphia, at our Philadelphia gig, called MOROS. It was this sludgy, Grief-style band, sludge doom. I didn’t know who they were before, I met one of the guys, Jay, at the show. He came up to me and was like, “Do you want to trade shirts? A Tomb Mold shirt for my band’s shirt?” In my mind, I was like, “I haven’t heard your band” but definitely, because how do I say no? And the shirt was sick. Then I saw them play and I was like, “Oh fuck! This band is awesome!” There’s other bands that play that kind of style, and I just thought they were better than others. That was a good one.
Another band like that is SKULLSHITTER from New York. We’ve played with them a handful of times, I feel like almost every time we play in New York, we play with them, and it’s truly a blessing. So we played with them in Toronto and they were on tour with another band called RADIATION BLACKBODY who I had heard of, but I hadn’t heard SkullShitter, but my bandmate Max was like, “No, they’re really, really good.” Then we saw them playing and I was like, “Yeah, they’re actually dope. This is amazing.” Every time I see them play, I get so excited. Now, I’ve probably seen them six or seven times and I can’t wait, in more of a post-pandemic world, when I get to see them play again. It just makes me excited. They’re a band that we’ve gotten to know them, we’ve gotten close with them, and they’re just awesome people. That was one of the best surprises of seeing a band play.
Of course, that happens a lot more when we’re younger, the first couple shows that we witness. Do you have a vivid memory of something like that? Who was your favorite local band?
I grew up outside of Toronto, in a city called Oshawa, 45 minutes away. When I was a teenager and we would go to shows in Oshawa, it was always such a mixed bag of shitty punk bands, shitty grind bands, shitty metal bands, shitty ska bands, whatever, it was just everything. But a really good band from Toronto that I remember seeing when I was 17-18 was THE ENDLESS BLOCKADE. They’re a grindy, kind of power violence band. I remember seeing them play and being so mystified by it, because I thought it was so good. It was so aggressive and there were no other bands playing like that, at the time. This was before there was a revival of more grindy power violence bands. They were always so good and I thought their music was quite intelligent. Then going further back, growing up in Oshawa, there was a band from Newmarket that were this mix of punk and ska called THE HEAT SCORES. It was pretty dumb music, but it was extremely aggressive. I was quite drawn to it. Every show I saw them play, it felt very chaotic. I remember that feeling of going to shows where I was like, not scared, but just, “Am I going to get injured?” and coming to terms with that. After a while, you just never feel uncomfortable at shows. I think shows now feel a lot tamer. I’m not trying to have a boomer take here with that, it’s just the way it is.
I think just seeing people playing music was awesome. I mean, we were going to shows, me and friends growing up since we were 14. We had one venue in Oshawa called the Dungeon and you didn’t know who was playing all the time, you just went because, what else were you going to do? All the shows were all ages so there was no excuse and it was always fun. It was always such a gamble of like, what were you going to see that night? I remember seeing this band from Oshawa called FATO, which stood for Forever Annihilating The Obese. It was a grindcore band, I feel like it was just bass and drum, and it was awesome. I don’t know if it was actually good, but at the time, it was like, “Yo, this is amazing!”
Is there any universally acclaimed artists that you missed out on when they first came out and discovered years later? Or something that you even hated at first, but that grew on you to eventually become one of your favorites?
One band that I slept on for a long time was the band NILE. I would always see their tshirts when I was in high school, them and CANNIBAL CORPSE, and at that time, I didn’t really like death metal until I got out of high school. I liked thrash metal and some other stuff, but I just couldn’t get over the vocals. Those were the two metal shirts that I’d see at the mall, so I thought, it must not be good. I kind of lumped it in with bands like CRADLE OF FILTH, or ICED EARTH, which now are also bands that I can see the merit in some of the earlier material, so I’m not even dissing them. Nile is one of my favorite death metal bands at this point. I think I like all of their albums, across the board. But I resisted it for so long because I was like, “well, those assholes like it so it must not be good.” Then it’s actually good!
But that’s still kind of small scale. On a larger scale, I definitely have a lot more respect for a band like RADIOHEAD now than I did when the records were coming out. At the time, it was just not appealing to me at all. Then as I got older, I grew to appreciate it. I think even some 90’s bands were, growing up, I heard them all the time on the radio. Maybe I liked it, but I was never a fan. Like SOUNDGARDEN, my mom loved Soundgarden. I always heard that song Spoonman, and I was like, “This song fucking sucks.” Then down the road, that album Superunknown, I listen to it all the time now. I still hate that song but most of the songs on that record are fucking incredible. That, ALICE IN CHAINS was also a band that I heard as a kid. It was, whatever, but now Dirt is one of my favorite records ever. Talking about pulling emotion out of you, that record will make you feel miserable.
Superunknown as well. It’s really a roller coaster ride.
Oh, definitely! There’s some dark songs on that record, man.
I mean, the songs Just Like Suicide, Fell On Black Days. I can’t even imagine what mindset Chris Cornell was in when he wrote some of that stuff, especially putting it back in context to what eventually happened to him, you know?
Yeah, no kidding right? Or, The Day I Tried To Live and stuff like that, there’s some heavy songs on there. Oh, Man. What an amazing album, though. Also, like, a 70 minutes record, where at least 63 minutes of it is amazing? *Haha*
Yeah, it’s unbelievable. Not a lot of records that long have so many gems on them.
Oh, I know. I know. It’s impressive, man. It’s really good. Even their record before that, Badmotorfinger was an hour long and it’s pretty much great across the board.
Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of people that say that the pre-major stuff way better but to be honest, I just don’t see it.
No. Badmotorfinger wasn’t technically their first major label record though, was it?
Louder Than Love was actually, you’re right.
Right. And they were on SST before that, right? (TTL: Yes. And Subpop.) Yeah. The stuff I mostly listen to is the major label stuff. That’s where my head’s at.
What band or artist do you believe has achieved the most perfect discography?
I think I have a couple of answers for that. I think straight up and obviously, just personal take, and I’ve already referenced them but the band THE BLUE NILE only have four records and I think each of them are near perfect. I love each one, I would give them each at least an eight out of ten or higher. Another band like that is the doom band ESOTERIC. I love every record they made. Another metal band like that is THE RUINS OF BEVERAST. They kind of evolved from being a black metal band, but now more of a doom metal band with some black metal parts. Every record holds my attention quite well. Some of them have some brilliant songs on here. Another band, this one might throw you for a loop, and they don’t have a perfect discography but I think they have maybe like an 11 record run where I love each record, and that’s HALL AND OATES, the pop rock band. Well, maybe somewhere between seven to twelve albums where I’m like, “These are all great.” *Looking it up* Yeah, the first album going up to probably H2O. Then the later 80’s stuff, I don’t like as much but in the middle there, there’s maybe four or five records that are fucking incredible. To have such a sustained output like that is pretty crazy. Some of those bands, especially in the 70’s, they were just making record after record. That’s all you did, right? If you were a successful artist, that was your job. Like KISS would average two albums a year during the 70’s, I think. Then they would take a year off to tour a fuck ton and then they would just put out a live record, like Alive or Alive II. Those are incredible live albums. *Looking it up* Yeah, from ’74 to ’77, they put out 6 albums in three years. That’s crazy. And then they all did their shitty solo records. After that, they kind of dipped pretty hard. But even in that three year span, that’s not accounting two double live albums. That’s fucking nuts! I still listen to that stuff. I don’t love it as much as I did when I was a kid but I still quite enjoy it.
It’s crazy to think that back then, a six record deal would last three years!
You give a six record deal to a band now and it might take them 12 years to get there, if ever. Another band like that, which it’s tricky to say that they have a perfect discography, because it’s barely anything, is the death metal band CYNIC. They put out only technically three LPs over the span of 20 years because they broke up and then got back together, but their reunion record, Traced In Air, I think is maybe one of the greatest comeback records a band has ever had. I’m a really, really big fan of them. Now, the band is essentially just one original member because the two other original members have died so I don’t really know how much you can count anything that they do going forward. It’s not a diss at the main guy, Paul Masvital, because he’s the straw that stirs the drink of that band, but it just doesn’t have the same essence. It’s just different. It’s tough because a lot of bands, I feel after a few records, depending on the direction they go in, you might either like it or you’ll hate it. Another band that has a bunch of records that I like is ANATHEMA, a doom band from Peaceville, and they changed their sound drastically. They went super soft, kind of pop rock, but I like a lot of it, to be honest. Even some of their softer records, those are my favorite albums of theirs. For other people, they’ll stop after maybe the third album, like, “Oh, they stopped being heavy.” But no, I think they actually got better after that, but that’s just me.
If we go one level deeper, can you think of a band that disbanded after put out only one fantastic release, either an album and EP or demo, that you really wish would have kept going?
A band that only had one full length that I heard is going to come back and record another is DEMILICH. That one full length is incredible and they never had a follow up to it. They’ve had demos and some unreleased songs but another bonafide full length, they just didn’t do it. Now, if they put out a new record, and it’s good, great, but if they put it out and it sucks, does that tarnish their legacy? I don’t know. That’s always a tricky question.
Yeah. You really wish for it, but then, too often you look back and think that we could have done without it.
Yeah. Another artist, where I pretty much like every record they’ve made is ALLAN HOLDSWORTH, the guitar player. All of his albums are incredible for different reasons. He put out at least seven or eight records that you can really dig into. And then even more from there. I’m trying to think about other bands that only put out one record…We were talking about Soundgarden and Alice In Chains and from that same sphere is that band MOTHER LOVE BONE. They put out one full length and an EP and then the singer died. I love that album Apple. That band sounds like if GUNS ‘N’ ROSES were from Seattle. It has that kind of spirit, but I find it way more palatable than Guns ‘N’ Roses.
Are you into that TEMPLE OF THE DOG record? That’s a one-off.
Yeah, absolutely. That record is also sick. Another band that I think of a lot that has a bunch of records, but I only liked one, is that 90’s alternative band LIVE. Throwing Copper, I fucking love that album but I don’t like any of their other records at all, probably. But Throwing Copper, I listen to it all the time. I have a shirt from the Throwing Copper tour that I didn’t go to but I remember when that tour was happening, hearing about it on the radio. Back in the day, the alternative station in Toronto, aside from the university stations, was 102.1 The Edge, which is now a caricature of what that radio station used to be. I remember hearing all those alternative rock bands, hearing about when they were going to be playing, whether it was Lee’s Palace, or the Horseshoe Tavern or the Kool Haus, whatever, and if you call and you’re the 8th caller, you can get two tickets to that show. That’s a thing that I feel just died. But yeah, that one album is fucking great and everything else, I don’t like it at all.
To be honest, I don’t believe I’ve ever listened to the record, but I still feel like I know it because there must have been like, seven singles that were hits.
Yeah, there was like a lot! I guess another guy would be JEFF BUCKLEY. It’s tricky because when someone dies, you get all this extra material released after the fact but he really had just one true full length. That album’s great, Oh my God. That’s another good one. Yeah, that’s a good question. It’s a thing I don’t think about too much but there’s a ton of bands. A really influential band that I don’t care about but I know that they had a huge impact with only one album was OPERATION IVY, the pre-RANCID band. You’re gonna be hard pressed to ever find me putting on Op Ivy but it was hugely influencial. Then, we talked about this record earlier, but DENNIS WILSON, Pacific Ocean Blue was the only record he made and it’s one of the greatest records ever so that’s a really good one album discography.
Is there a song that you would die to hear live but the artist/band never played it, every time you’ve seen them live?
Yeah, there’s a couple like that, definitely. There’s an indie rock band. YO LA TENGO, they’re a big favorite of mine. My favorite song by them is the closing track from their album Painful, a song called I Heard You Looking. It’s an instrumental track and they still play it at shows but when I got to see them a few months back in Delaware…It’s a strange story, but my wife is American and she finally got her permanent residence so in September, I went down to drive back in a U-Haul with her with all of her stuff. Yo La Tengo announced a small tour during the same time and she was like, “They’re playing in the middle of nowhere Delaware at a really small venue. Do you want to go? I’ll go to the record store and get us tickets, because you can only buy tickets in person?” And I was like, “Yeah, definitely, I’d love to!” I remember perusing setlists of their shows and they were playing I Heard You Looking and I got really pumped because it’s like, “Oh, I know they’re gonna close with it.” And then they didn’t. I was definitely sad but they played another song that night called Decora off the album Electr-O-Pura, which is my second favorite song of theirs so I got kind of lucky. I didn’t get my favorite song, but I got my second favorite song.
There’s this country rock band called DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS. A really awesome band and I feel like my favorite song of theirs, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a live version of it. It’s called (Something’s Got To) Give Pretty Soon and I think as we get further and further away from the record that it came out on, I’ll never hear them play that song live. It’s my favorite song but I could understand why they wouldn’t want to play it, it’s quite a downer of a song. But the song’s amazing.
Another song where I don’t know if he plays it live is the guitar player, JOE SATRIANI. He has a song called The Bells Of Lal, Part Two and it’s basically just a three minute guitar solo over a rhythm track that never changes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a video of him playing it live and whenever I search for it, I just find people covering the song on YouTube or something. I can understand why he doesn’t want to play it because, when I watch other people cover it, it’s extremely difficult. But that’s a song where I would pay 50 bucks to go watch him play that song only and I could just leave. He could be like, “I’m only playing this song and then the show’s over.” I’m like, “Yes, fine. Take my money. I just want to see you play it.” It’s such a sick song.
Is there anything else besides Dream Unending that you’d like to promote? Anything upcoming with Tomb Mold?
Nothing on the horizon right now for Tomb Mold but there is a death metal band from the Philadelphia area called Outer Heaven. Really fantastic band…
Oh right! I heard you joined them. That’s great!
Well, it’s been tricky during the pandemic so they play shows, and they have someone else play bass and it sounds sick from what I’ve heard. But they’ve been recording a record and I did play bass to that album, actually played fretless bass for them, which is why I think they insisted that I stay on the record. That record is going to be really good, I’m really excited about it. It hasn’t gotten mixed yet or anything so I don’t know when it’ll come out but it’s an impressive output of songs. It was a lot of fun for me to learn them, and I got to really push myself. It was a nice challenge. They seem stoked on it, I’m stoked on it. The feel of the record and everything reminds me of death metal CDs that you would get in the 90’s because it’s 12 songs, and it runs a little long, but there’s a lot there. It’s a lot of fun, a lot of catchy hooks, a lot of cool technical parts. Zak, one of the guitar players, stepped his game up solo-wise in such a huge way and the solos are fucking wild and really inspiring. They let me play a couple solos, they’re nowhere near as good as Zak’s, but that’s okay. I’m really excited for that. I was really happy to contribute to that record, and add an extra dimension to an already multi-dimensional album. Then obviously, the Dream Unending record, I’m really excited about that and I’m even more excited to go record the next one.
Bonus questions, answered in writing in 2019!
Name five songs that you consider “perfect songs” and explain why or what they mean to you.
Duk Koo Kim by SUN KIL MOON
Momentarily putting aside that Mark Kozelek is generally a walking trash can, this was him at his peak. Perfectly ripping off Crazy Horse, he uses the death of a boxer in the ring to help convey some sort of feelings about knowing you can die at any time, and the fear of dying alone.
Giant Steps by JOHN COLTRANE
It is shocking how many people I see flexin’ on Coltrane but going straight to his Impulse days. I haven’t been able to get this song out of my head since I heard it when I was a kid. Coltrane has the ability to wail and shred with the best of them, but what he plays that others lack is conviction.
Part II at Ferrara on October 25, 1996 – Teatro Comunale by KEITH JARRETT
It might seem like a copout to pick 30 minutes of improvisation as a perfect song, but that’s sort of the genius of KJ. His playing always feels like he’s searching for something and how long it takes him to find it, is anyone’s guess. He finds it somewhere around the 15 minute mark where he brings the song to a halt and slows it down. He blends his bluesy jazz leanings with an ending that is sublime and beautiful. I love the way it makes me feel, I don’t know what else to tell you.
The Town I Live In by MCKINLEY MITCHELL (1962 version)
I would describe this as a perfect soul song. For me at least. It’s raw like Stax, but doesn’t sound like Stax, and Mitchell’s vocals quiver and wail perfectly. It’s crazy that Ace didn’t include this on their birth of soul compilations.
The Host of Seraphim/Orbis de Ignis by DEAD CAN DANCE
Cheating a bit here since its two songs but one of them is only 90 seconds. Pretty easy answer here, it’s my favourite song by my favourite group. Not a lot of Brendan Perry on these tracks, and that’s a plus.
Your five favorite rappers of all time? Name one song that best exemplifies what makes them great.
GRAND PUBA/BRAND NUBIAN – Step to the Rear
BIG DADDY KANE – Set it off
2PAC – If I Die Tonight
KOOL KEITH/ULTRAMAGNETIC MC’S – Kool Keith Housing Things
MOBB DEEP – Get Dealt With
Five hardest riffs of all time?
How about every riff in Suicide Note Pt.2 by PANTERA? Can we just go with that? Song was made to destroy shit to.
Do you have a favorite setting or place to listen to music? How does the setting influence the type of music you’ll listen to?
When I’m walking. That’s when I usually get most of my listening done. Or late at night. Or when I’m walking late at night!
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