Whenever I see Immolation live, I’m always stoked to hear the classics, but I’m just as excited to hear the new stuff. 34 years in, the band hasn’t lost a step. They keep their sound fresh while staying undoubtedly true to pure Death Metal. One thing that sets them apart from the multitude of Death Metal bands in the world, is the musicality. Each song has its own distinct flavour, its unique vibe and melody, yet remains part the coherent Immolation sound. To create such a feat requires true craftsmanship. The band is currently planning to record a new album early this year, so be on the lookout for that! Judging by the last couple of records, we have every reason to get excited!
Pick up Immolation’s latest album, Atonement, out on Nuclear Blast Records.
What have you guys been listening to lately?
Ross
On this tour, we just got the new BLOOD INCANTATION before it came out. I got that on my phone so I’ve been listening to that pretty much over and over and then we see the songs live at night. It’s cool to get more familiar with them but they sent it right before the tour so I only had a chance to really check it out once or twice before we left. Then once we got on the tour, I listened to it a lot, on the drive. It’s been the only thing lately, I haven’t really had time to listen to music on this tour.
Robert
Even when we’re driving, they’re barely any Rock playing or anything because it’s either late at night or early in the morning. Once in a while, we’ll put some of the old road tunes. You know, classics, like we were listening to MERCYFUL FATE the other day, stuff like that. Usually, when you’re on the road, you go back to the old classics, that kind of road music that everybody knows.
Ross
It’s an unusual tour. Usually, we have a lot of stuff, we’ll break out to Spotify or something like that and we’ll listen to all kinds of shit from like, early SACRIFICE to MY DYING BRIDE or newer stuff but we haven’t done much of that on this tour because we’ve been getting a lot of hotel rooms. We’re pretty much, go from the show, drive an hour, get some food, get to the hotel and then it’s fucking lights out. So it hasn’t been a very musical tour. The one thing that was pretty cool we’ve been doing, a fun thing, our merch guy Kevin has all the early 1970’s and 1980’s TV show themes and so he’ll randomly pick them and we gotta guess what show it is. That’s been awesome. We’ve been having a lot of fun with that. We never did that before.
Can you tell us about five albums that have been really important to you?
Robert
I think we’ll have pretty similar ones anyway. Definitely METALLICA Ride The Lightning and Master Of Puppets. The whole first three records really.
Do you both agree on the best Metallica album?
Robert
I think it’s between the second and third. They’re almost in the same ballpark. Kind of had that similar sound. I love both of them, really.
Ross
Yeah, Ride The Lightning was much more raw, whereas Master Of Puppets still had that heavy edge, but it had more feeling I thought.
Robert
It’s darker also in a lot of ways. I mean, I like a lot of this stuff and you can’t deny that. Anybody in that scene that tells you they weren’t a big influence, I don’t believe it. Those guys influenced everybody. The playing and everything, I love that kind of stuff. It was heavy and dark but the playing was melodic at the same time. Definitely a big influence. Also, IRON MAIDEN Powerslave.
Ross
Piece Of Mine! Number of the Beast, Killers, the first album…All of it
Robert
We’re both fanatics. I think he’s playing bass because of Steve Harris and I play guitar because of Dave Murray.
Ross
Pretty much man
Robert
And of course, JUDAS PRIEST, their early records (Ross: Oh my God!), Screaming For Vengeance and…
Ross
Defenders Of The Faith, top! That was epic to me. Even the last album is great dude. Firepower, it’s amazing.
Robert
Sad Wings Of Destiny and all the super early shit, it’s dark and very haunting sounding to me. I got the books for all these records to try and learn the songs. Those three, obviously a lot of people in heavy music in general, it would be their top 3. Then, you got SLAYER Hell Awaits and Reign In Blood and you know, Slayer is Slayer. It’s a big influence on us and everyone.
Ross
POSSESSED’s Seven Churches, moving forward to stuff that I think kind of defined our scene, definitely Seven Churches man, hands down. That was the album that kind of defined Death Metal. But you had a lot of great stuff leading up to that around that time, like German stuff…
Robert
DESTRUCTION and KREATOR…
Ross
Yeah, OVERKILL, Kreator Pleasure To Kill, the first record, Endless Pain. All fucking dark, man. Bordering on Death Metal but you know.
Robert
Then you got SEPULTURA: Morbid Vision, Bestial Devastation, all of that stuff. Very influential to the direction we went in musically in the beginning. As time goes on, you create your own stuff, but those were definitely some of the roots for us.
Ross
I mean, there’s a ton more we didn’t mention, like DARK ANGEL’s Darkness Descends… so many great bands, you know?
Do you remember, the first time you really appreciated music? Whether it’s a song or a record?
Robert
It’s hard to say. I mean, there’s so much stuff! We grew up listening to ZEPPELIN and AC/DC and stuff like that. Then obviously, the heavier stuff like METALLICA and MAIDEN and all that. Definitely, by that point, we were totally into music and everything about it.
Ross
I remember in the 70’s, I was into movie soundtracks. I loved that kind of stuff. As well as I remember when PINK FLOYD The Wall came out, I bought that on cassette with my allowance. It was a double cassette. I got that and QUEEN The Game and a couple other things. Music was very much on my map but I was very scattered about it. I liked all kinds of stuff, very weird stuff. Anything from the soundtrack to Close Encounters to Pink Floyd to Queen. Some earlier Queen, I had a buddy who had all the Queen records so I used to listen to that at his house.
Robert
Pink Floyd The Wall, I remember when I was a kid, and the movie was out, we were pretty young back then but the whole thing was just like, wow! It was sick! For popular music, it was very dark. I think that’s definitely what attracted both of us to it.
You mentioned soundtracks, was it mostly the score type or the compilation kind that interested you also?
Robert
Mostly scores. Back then, you would get the record for whatever it would be, Star Wars or Indiana Jones. It would be just the music from the movie, all the instrumentation that you hear in the background. You listen to that and you get to know it as a result.
Ross
Like the Shining. When I saw the Shining for the first time, the music for that was super dark. That song Dream Of A Witches Sabbath, I remember I was young and thinking it’s so fucking dark. It’s a symphony but it was really good, man.
Robert
Music in general, the darker influences, Metal obviously has them but other kind of music definitely has them, sometimes even more so. The atmosphere they create with symphonies can be so dark and depressive and forboding. It takes you to that place.
Is that a main quality that you look for in music?
Ross
I like it because it’s a pure feeling. When you can convey that through music and create that kind of atmosphere and vibe, that you feel it like that, that’s talent right there. That’s what counts to me in music. When you go listen to something and the hair on your neck stands up, that’s fucking music, man. That’s when you know they struck a chord. We’re all over the map as far as our taste being very eclectic, very wide. We said this in interviews, even back from the beginning, everything from BJÖRK to TORI AMOS to soundtracks to DEAD CAN DANCE to TYPE O NEGATIVE.
Robert
DEPECHE MODE. Super dark band. So many dark things going on. It’s popular but they do some really cool shit. You draw stuff from different things. For us anyway, we want to be as open minded as possible with music and I don’t know how people can be, some people like what they like, and that’s cool too but we draw from all that. You want to listen to everything. Even music I don’t like, sometimes I’ll like, “alright, I’m not a fan of this but I get what people dig on this” or I get what the message is, so I appreciate that way.
Ross
A lot of stuff today, especially the popular stuff, is very happy and that’s fine. Some people want happy stuff.
Robert
Sometimes you need mindless happy shit. There’s something for everybody, that’s what it comes down to.
Ross
But I think we gravitate more towards the darker stuff that really hits in the soul, you know?
Is there anything in a genre that you typically don’t listen too much, yet you really love?
Ross
Here’s an example. I heard the other day a song off the first HELLOWEEN album, Keeper Of The Seven Keys. That’s a happy album to me. It’s a very positive album, very upbeat and when that came out, I was attracted to that, I thought it was really well done. That’s when they first had that new guy singing and I thought he had great vocals. I think the overall vibe is a very positive, kind of happier vibe, which I’m generally not attracted to. Not that I’m a miserable prick, but I just like the darker stuff. *Hahaha* Well, sometimes. *Hahaha* That’s an example. We like some corny stuff too. I like DEVO, you know? That shit was happy and corny and bizarro.
Robert
The 80’s was a cornucopia of great music but a lot of it is happy and it’s whatever but it has a certain style and that was cool. I mean, we grew up with that so I still like a lot of it. But that doesn’t mean we can do that. I can look at artists and be like, “wow, that’s fucking awesome. I like that.” I don’t see us doing something like that but that’s cool. Then, there’s other artists which are not Metal but they are doing something dark where we think it would be cool to do something like that, pick some influences. The point is, you just want to enjoy everything and then, we know what we want to be and what we want to sound like. That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy something completely opposite.
Ross
You need a very expansive palette to create something unique.
What are some of the most memorable shows you’ve seen in your life?
Ross
Oh man, too many to name. DEAD CAN DANCE, amazing. MAIDEN, the first time I saw them on the Powerslave tour. My first underground Metal show was EXODUS, on Bounded By Blood.
Robert
DARK ANGEL and POSSESSED at CBGB’s! (Ross: Ohhhhh!) I had these albums and seeing these bands, whoa! I remember I had a VHS of Possessed. I ordered it from somebody and I was all excited, I put that shit in and it was all scrambled. You could tell it was kind of them but I still watched it time and time again and my dad would be like, “what the fuck are you watching? You can’t even see it!” But to see them live, it blew me away.
Ross
That was the Seven Churches tour, then they came around again and played with AT WAR, killing it. Then, they played a second time for Beyond The Gates and they opened up for MEGADETH.
Robert
At L’Amour, that was fucking awesome.
Ross
We saw MAIDEN at L’Amour, which was a club show. They played under the name Charlotte The Harlot.
Robert
That was for the Seventh Son record so that was pretty sick. I think we’ve always been influenced by them, from the first time we saw them. My first actual concert was DIO, for The Last In Line and after that, I was like, “Alright. Metal.” Family friends from Brooklyn ended up getting me into some of the heavier stuff like MANOWAR and MOTÖRHEAD and METALLICA’s second record. So we went to go see that show and seeing that whole force of the music and all the people in such a big arena was incredible. Obviously, Dio was phenomenal at what they do and how they do it, and I was hooked.
Ross
That was my first Metal arena show ever, Dio The Last In Line but my first concert concert was MEN AT WORK and that was great. It was for the second album, I wish it was for the first, but it was good man.
Robert
Too bad you didn’t see them during the demo days! *Hahaha* Demo ’82! *Haha*
What are some examples of bands that keep on getting better as they age?
Robert
The new PRIEST is really good, you know? Obviously, they’ve been fairly consistent. Maiden, they wavered a little bit in there but some of latest stuff is a lot better now. Honestly, after Seventh Son, that was kinda it for me but now I want to hear the material.
Ross
It’s weird because Priest, I get down with the newer shit. Fuckin’ great! Maiden? Not so much. Not really a knock because they’re one of my top bands but this is a personal preference. Metallica is another example, I kind of lost it for them after the Black album.
Robert
You know what? I saw them a couple of summers ago. My God! The new record, I’ve heard a little bit of and I think the first track is the best one. Anyway, they played a fucking set when I saw them! I took my nephew to see them because he’d never been in an arena, it might have been his first concert ever. For being someone that has followed them from the beginning, wow, they put on a great show. They played so much classic shit, they played Battery, Fight Fire With Fire, then some of the newest shit, I wasn’t familiar with a couple of songs but I thought, “you know what? This works.” The first song off that last record they played, that was just as on point. A band like that, that’s been around for so long and done so much, you gotta give them a pass on a couple of weeker records. I think they’ve gotten back toward the underground now. Even off of Load era, there’s a couple of songs I like, more so now than I did when I first came out.
Ross
Alex, our guitar player, likes to the newer Metallica albums a lot, he thinks it’s great. I’m still on the fence, I’m not that familiar with it. So yeah, I guess those are three good examples of bands.
Can you name 3 songs that you consider to be perfect and say what makes them so special?
Ross
Where Eagles Dare (IRON MAIDEN). The Sentinel (JUDAS PRIEST).
Robert
There’s so many perfect songs. I can name any song off the fucking SLAYER Reign In Blood album and it’s perfect. Angel Of Death, there you go.
Ross
That’s a perfect album, I think. You can’t top that. That was a special moment in Metal history right there.
Talking about perfect records, what would you say is the most perfect sequence of three records put out by a band?
Robert
Well, definitely in the Maiden realm, you could do the first three records after Di’Anno left.
Ross
Yeah, you could do Number Of The Beast, Piece Of Mind and Powerslave.
Robert
That’s a pretty heavy hitter right there. Not to take away anything from the first two records but those three, I think are definitely a perfect 1-2-3 punch that pretty much put them where they are today.
Ross
It’s hard to find bands with three perfect records. Even though I love Kill ’em All, I don’t think it’s a perfect record. I don’t think they became Metallica until Ride The Lightning. That and Master Of Puppets, that’s two perfect records but then …And Justice was kind of a fail, you know? Not a total fail but…
Robert
When it came out? No. I heard it and I liked maybe Blackened but the rest, meh. Now, later on, I look back, I think that was actually pretty cool but again, still not on part with the previous too records.
Ross
Haunting The Chapel is an EP but if you can consider that, along with Hell Awaits and Reign In Blood, each one is fucking unique. I think Hell Awaits is the darkest record. Reign In Blood is the pinnacle for them. Hunting The Chapel is epic, I think it was one of the best EP ever. That being said, you could throw Show No Mercy in there because there’s a lot of great stuff. But again, like Kill ’em All, it wasn’t quite where it needed to be, compared to the rest. That’s just my opinion.
So you’re not much into South Of Heaven and Season In The Abyss?
Ross
No, I didn’t like South Of Heaven when it come out because I always felt like it was a tease and never kind of took off. I was always judging it by Reign In Blood, so to follow it with an album that was much heavier and slower, at the time, I was not buying it. Now, in retrospect, I can go back and listen to that record and say that’s a good record.
Robert
To me, those records were kind of okay when they came out but I don’t think I appreciate them too much. When I hear them now, I think it’s pretty fucking good, there was a lot of good shit. When you’re younger, sometimes one little thing and you’re like, “ah, fuck it!”
Ross
Just like DEATH. Scream Bloody Gore, absolute perfection right there. Leprosy, great album, not perfect. Spiritual Healing, fail. That was it for me, done.
But it picks up after that though!
Ross
Not really to me. It became a different band. They went in a more Progressive direction and I wasn’t into that at all, I wanted my Death Metal savage and raw. Just sick.
Is there any band or artist that you didn’t like at first but grew to love over time?
Ross
There were a ton actually. Not necessarily that we didn’t like but bands we weren’t that familiar with, who weren’t even on our radar.
Robert
I was totally late to the game on MERCYFUL FATE. I missed that boat and once you miss the boat, you’re not likely to jump on it right away. You feel like they already got this many albums out, they’re already done or whatever the time period was. Then, when I got into it, when we first started doing the band, our drummer was so heavily into them at the time, we listened to it so much. For me, it had a different sound, the production was a little different than what I’m used to but then, when we started listening to it so much, I was like, “wow, this is just amazing shit!”
Ross
How did we forget about KING DIAMOND and Mercyful Fate? Again, two perfect albums: Melissa and Don’t Break The Oath. You have to include that in there with perfect records. I can’t believe I missed that one, we forgot about the King!
Robert
All that stuff now, I’m love that shit. I just got into it later in the game.
Ross
The Nuns Have No Fun EP was great but Melissa? Man, there was something amazing about that album. Just dark and eerie. Then, when you got to Don’t Break The Oath, I think the production and the songwriting was perfect. Epic.
Robert
Then, you got an album like The Eye from King Diamond, for instance. It was swepped under the rug, you didn’t even hear about that record. We got that record and it was awesome. The production was great, the songs are awesome, the whole thing is fucking amazing. But it was like one of those records which kind of flew under the radar for him for some reason, and I think it was definitely up there.
I think now, people are looking back on it and realizing.
Ross
One of my favorites. But getting back to the old question of three perfect records you can go, Fatal Portrait, Abigail, and “Them”. Those three are hard to beat. Even Conspiracy is great. And then The Eye so that’s five perfect albums in a row!
Ross
Is there any music that you can share with your parents or kids, if you have any, and equally love?
Ross
We like all kinds of genres so we share a lot of cool non-Metal stuff with our family. The studio we go to in Millbrook, New York, our producer Paul Orofino, his good friend Frank Carillo played with PETER FRAMPTON, RINGO STARR, a ton of ridiculous classic people. He’s got his own band, FRANK CARRILLO AND THE BANDOLEROS and he’s an amazing songwriter, amazing lyricist. We see him all the time. We turned our families on to him and our families are in their 80’s and they love Frank. We just took them to see Frank not too long ago. We turned them on to a lot of stuff. A lot of Jazz and a lot of different stuff not so much Metal. Obviously, they’re not really into that.
Robert
My nephew started getting into music so I’ll throw some stuff at him. He’s discovering stuff on his own too but it’s so funny now, he’s into METALLICA, the same way I was when I was a kid. He’s like trying to learn the songs on guitar. He’s into the heavier stuff too. I was pushing BEHEMOTH on him so he kind of like them now. He likes SLAYER of course. You know, it’s cool to see him go from listening to whatever to being totally into Metal now.
What’s the first thing that strikes you when you listen to new music?
Ross
Just something that strikes a chord, you know? We toured in 2017 with a couple of really cool bands. FULL OF HELL was a band that wasn’t really on our radar and then seeing them every night, we got the record that they were touring and then we got the new one, amazing stuff. Same thing with BLACK ANVIL. We were with them on the MAYHEM tour. That As Was album was one of my favorite albums of the year. I listened to the shit out of that one when I got home. There’s just so much feeling and there was something about it man, you can’t explain it. There’s something about certain records that just kind of grab you and suck you in. Same thing with BLOOD INCANTATION. They weren’t really on my radar until last summer, when I saw them at Brutal Assault. I heard people say “hey, you should check out Blood Incantation, you might like them”. I saw them and thought, wow! I came home, I checked out Starspawn and the EP and it was great stuff. So yeah, certain things just grab you. Not everything grabs you but when they grab you, they grab you. I tend to listen to shit over and over and over again when I like it.
What are some of the most impressive bands that you’ve toured with, where you had to watch them every night?
Robert
Well, these guys, Blood Incantation are a perfect example. They’re great musicians and they’re really cool guys. They sound great. They do a lot of heavy, dark stuff and they throw in a lot of weird stuff in there today, which grows on you. It’s cool.
Ross
You want to tour with bands like that. Bands that you go, “wow, that shit’s mint!” That’s who you want to bring out with you, bands that you enjoy as well. It’s cool because they’re a younger band and they bring out a younger crowd but I think they appeal to the old school people as well. There’s definitely a cross section of fans that appreciate both bands so it’s awesome.
Do you have any unpopular music opinion you’d like to defend? Something you love, may it be a song, a record or a band, yet most people don’t argue you with?
Robert
It depends. If you talk to our drummer Steve, we’ll be listening to something and he’ll go, “that’s horrible!” but we love it.
Ross
He’s younger than us and sometimes, the moment you jumped into music can be a big deal. What was the first thing that really sucked you in.
Robert
But it’s not anything I can think of that we think it’s awesome but people think it’s a fail.
Ross
The stuff we like that’s a little rough and raw, there’s still people on our crew thinking that’s still epic though.
How does the setting affects your musical selection? Like when you’re driving or when you’re writing, etc?
Ross
Depends on my mood. Sometimes I like to listen to non-music, listen to the news or talk radio. I got the Serius and I like the comedy channel, sometimes that’s cool, nice change your pace, you know?
What are some of your favorite lyrics? May it be a song, or line or the general work of a lyricist?
Ross
So many man, I’m a lyric guy, I love lyrics. I like lyrics from all the bands we’ve spoken about.
Robert
I really like stuff that kind of paints a picture. Some lyrics are very straightforward but there’s certain ways of saying things that makes it better.
Ross
Oh, A PERFECT CIRCLE! That’s a good example. They have a couple of songs where the lyrics are very ambiguous as to what they could be about. They have one song called The Noose and it’s a really great dark song. If you listen to the lyrics, you can imagine it being about one or two or three different things, and then I read what it was actually about and I was like, “that’s what it’s about? Aaaah”. I liked my interpretation better.
Robert
People want to tell you what the song is about sometimes but I like to steer away from that because we kind of jumped on that same ship. When we’re writing lyrics, we know what we’re writing it about but we try to write in such a way where maybe everybody gets their own thing out of it. To me, that’s more interesting. Then we try and be artistic with the words and where the words are in the song. If there’s an epic part to the song and it’s dark and heavy, you try to paint more of a darker picture. There’s a lot involved in it and you don’t want to take away somebody’s thinking. To me, lyrics are very personal in a lot of ways.
Ross
TORI AMOS has some great lyrics. BJORK has some great lyrics.
Ross
Even JANE’S ADDICTION, side B of the first album, those lyrics are dark, man. Really cool. Even TYPE O NEGATIVE has some great lyrics, especially World Coming Down. The whole album is about their drug addictions, the cocaine abuse and dependency, but done really well. Very revealing, in a very personal way. That’s the kind of shit that I like.
Robert
DEPECHE MODE has some great ones too.
To maintain some level of mystery is such an important part of music. Either in lyrics or even in the example of that scrambled VHS you were watching as a kid.
Robert
Yeah, in these days, there’s not I lot of that left, with the internet and all. I mean, it’s a different generation so I guess, for a lot of the kids these days, they like to see behind the scenes, they like to see what’s going on and they enjoy that in a way too. But yeah, musically and our lyrics, we try to do our best to keep something that’s not always explained fully but sometimes you get roped into doing an interview and reveal more than you wanted.
Ross
For the last record, we did a song by song kind of thing and…
Robert
Argh. We did a song by song, the label wanted us to do that. Fine, it’s a cool idea but the funny thing about that is, honestly when we were doing that fuckin’ thing, we just got out of the studio and to me, all the songs were really 1-2-3-4-5, you know? So they were going, “what do you think about this song?”, calling them by the song titles…
Ross
…And we had no idea. “Do you mean number 7? I think that’s number 7. I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. I don’t know the titles yet.”
Robert
It sounded like one long song to me at that point so it was the same answer for every song. Now, I could do that interview a lot better.
Ross
But I agree, that mystique, that mystery is a lot cooler. I’ve had people come up to me and say, “hey, this song seems like it’s about this or it’s about that. Is it?” You feel like you’re gonna ruin it for them to say, “nah, that’s actually about this” and they’re like, “oh. Really!?” So maybe we won’t say much about the next album.
No Comments