EYEHATEGOD's MIKE WILLIAMS: 'We Are A Very Democratic Band'

In a new interview with "Reckless" Rexx Ruger of the Pod Scum podcast, EYEHATEGOD frontman Mike Williams spoke about the band's songwriting process. Asked if he and his bandmates usually go into the making of an album with more songs than they need and then they scale them back, he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Usually. Yeah. It depends. It depends on how many get written and how many get thrown out. You never know. We try to write a good 10 or 11 songs, I would think, and see which ones stick — maybe more than that.

Asked how the members of EYEHATEGOD decide which songs make the cut for each album, Mike said: "Well, it's gotta be kind of uniform with all the rest of the stuff. We are a very democratic band. Everybody's one quarter of this band, now that we're a four-piece. We make sure everybody's happy with decisions. We've always put all four of us as the writers. We don't split it up and leave out someone because they didn't contribute. Everybody contributes in their own way."

As for what happens to a song if it doesn't make the cut for an album and whether it goes into "a bank" for him and his bandmates to revisit it and try to flush it out at another time, Mike said: "I mean, [there are] probably a thousand different banks. There's probably songs and riffs and parts all over the place. I know there's one song that was supposed to be on the self-titled album that somebody actually brought up online recently. 'Cause we had played it live a couple times with no vocals. But we recorded it for the self-titled album, but we didn't use it — probably because it made the album a little too long. It was a great song; it just didn't fit in. But that song is still out there. I have it on my computer. It's like something that maybe one day we will… I wanna redo the vocals if we ever do it, put it out. But that's something for a bonus track or something. But there's cassettes and recordings on phones and things of riffs and songs that we never used."

Williams underwent a successful liver-transplant surgery in 2016 after he was hospitalized for liver failure. EYEHATEGOD later hit the road for an extended three-year global tour, only to have that cut short when the coronavirus closed down the world in March 2020.

EYEHATEGOD's first new album in seven years, "A History Of Nomadic Behavior", arrived in March 2021 via Century Media Records.

"A History Of Nomadic Behavior" was produced by EYEHATEGOD, Sanford Parker (YOB, VOIVOD) and James Whitten (THOU, HIGH ON FIRE),with mixing by Whitten. The band recorded at HighTower Recording and Hypercube studios. The artwork for the LP was created by Gary Mader and Mike Williams.

Mike was first told that his liver was failing in December 2014 while he was on tour with his CORRECTIONS HOUSE project. His health improved in the following twelve months, but he suffered setbacks in 2015 and in early 2016.

Williams's tales of drug abuse, excess and struggles with the authorities have been well publicized over the years. The longtime New Orleans resident was arrested after Hurricane Katrina for drug possession, detoxed from heroin in prison and lived for a short time on PANTERA frontman Philip Anselmo's property. Williams, who worked as an associate editor for Metal Maniacs in the 1990s and has written for numerous underground music magazines, published his first book, "Cancer As A Social Activity: Affirmations Of World's End", in 2005.

Williams was forced to miss more than a dozen EYEHATEGOD shows in the summer of 2016 and fall 2016 due to his health issues. He was temporarily replaced by Anselmo for two dates in August 2016 and LAMB OF GOD frontman Randy Blythe for eleven gigs in October 2016.