OBITUARY Guitarist Reveals Worst Touring Advice

Capital Chaos TV recently conducted an interview with guitarist Trevor Peres of Florida death metal veterans OBITUARY. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Capital Chaos TV: Do you think a band like OBITUARY would be able to "make it" if they were just starting out today?

Trevor: "Well, if this music were already going on, it'd be a lot more difficult. Obviously, when we started, there were hardly any extreme bands. The amount of bands compared to today with metal in general was about a hundred, you know? So we were on top of things doing something not a whole lot of other people were doing, I guess you could say, and we had our own unique flare to it. I mean, maybe, if nobody had already done what we did, I guess. That's the thing too. Like today, you go to any of these festivals in Europe and there's so many different styles of metal playing. I mean, we definitely stand out when it comes to extreme stuff, because we have our own sound. It's hard for any band today to start and be successful compared to thirty years ago in general, I think. But to get your name is probably easier though, because of the Internet and stuff, so it's hard to say."

Capital Chaos TV: What's the worst advice you've been given as far as touring goes?

Trevor: "The worst advice would be when we were told to go into the U.K. from Europe on a tour we were doing and they didn't have our work visas done. That was the worst advice. We got deported back to Holland, which sucked because we had to cancel a show in London. It was sold out; like 1,500 people were at the venue waiting for us to get there. At the time, our management dropped the ball and they told us, basically, not to worry about it and to just go through and say you're over there on a layover going to Ireland because we had to play there the next day. But they figured out what was going on, the border agency, so they held us. They asked if we were that band OBITUARY playing in London tonight and we were just, like, 'No,' but they knew it was us and we were totally busted. That was some bad advice. But whatever. Shit happens, I guess."

Capital Chaos TV: About how long have you been writing the new [OBITUARY self-titled] album for?

Trevor: "Well, actually, a couple songs from the 'Inked In Blood' writings and recordings ended up being on the EP we did, 'Ten Thousand Ways To Die', which one of those songs is also on the new album. We've been focusing on new songs after that for probably a year and a half or two years now. Most times that we're not on the road and I come up with something, I'll just record it and put it on the backburner, come back to it later. Last spring and summer is when we really focused on putting new material into songs. So yeah, on and off for a year and a half."

Read the entire interview at Capital Chaos TV.

Photo credit: Ester Segarra