GENE HOGLAN On Performing DEATH Music With DEATH TO ALL: 'The Ability To Be Able To Play All The Material Is Important To Us'

In a recent interview with Rockum TV, Gene Hoglan spoke about his involvement with DEATH TO ALL (DTA) — which features former members of DEATH celebrating the life and music of Chuck Schuldiner. The current lineup of DEATH TO ALL includes Hoglan (also of DARK ANGEL and DETHKLOK),Steve DiGiorgio (TESTAMENT, CONTROL DENIED, SADUS) on bass and Bobby Koelble on guitar. Max Phelps (CYNIC),who has been touring with DEATH TO ALL, is once again handling the vocal and second-guitar duties.

Asked how important it is to him personally to keep Schuldiner's legacy alive through DEATH TO ALL, Gene said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Chuck was our friend. He was our metal brother. He was taken too early. I mean, the man was 34 years old when he was taken from us. We're 56 now, a couple of us, and that is too young to be taken from the earth. So Chuck being gone and therefore kind of essentially not able to produce any more new music, because he was going down before he left this earth, so us being able to keep his musical legacy alive, the music of DEATH, getting to play DEATH's music for people… We hear it all the time. Some of the guys roughly in our age bracket are, like, 'I saw DEATH back in the day, my favorite band. I thought I would never get to see them ever again. And thank you guys for doing this.' And we also have a legion of young fans.

"The future of death metal, the future of DEATH or DEATH TO ALL is in good hands because there are so many young folks out there going, 'I wasn't around when DEATH was doing their thing. So when you guys were doing your thing back in the day, I wasn't even born, but I'm huge DEATH fan now. I've discovered them through' whichever album they discovered. 'And the fact that we get to see you guys, this is the next best thing.'"

Referencing the fact that DEATH TO ALL's recent "The Scream Of Perserverance Tour" featured unique two-night stints in multiple cities, where the first night was an old-school, brutal night featuring, in its entirety, the album which started the DEATH legacy, "Scream Bloody Gore", as well as classic tunes from "Leprosy" and "Spiritual Healing", while the second night featured the finishing touch in DEATH's history, "The Sound Of Perseverance", as well as timeless classics from the technical and more melodic era of DEATH, "Human", "Individual Thought Patterns" and "Symbolic", Hoglan said: "We do this well — DEATH TO ALL does this well, I'll flat-out tell you, and the ability to be able to play all the material is important to us. That's why us doing nights like these, where we play the entirety of the old catalog and then the second night we play the entirety of the newer catalog, more recent catalog, that's important to us to help keep Chuck's music alive.

"It could be like, 'Stevie D., you played on 'Human', Stevie D., you and me played on 'Individual'. Bobby, you and I played on 'Symbolic', so we're just gonna play those three albums there.' That doesn't do this any kind of service — to just concentrate on three records that we played on, that's rather abhorrent to me. That makes zero sense to me. So, we can do it all and nobody plays like we do. So that's why it's important to us to honor the entirety of Chuck's music, Chuck's catalog.

"As it was put to me by Christopher Steele, who is Chuck's nephew, back in the day, and he's involved in the DEATH official socials, when I was talking to him about this whole thing sometime back, and I had mentioned that it's important to us to be able to keep Chuck's music alive," Gene recalled. "[I said to him], 'This is Chuck's musical legacy, and his music is very important and his legacy is very important.' And Chris stopped me. He's, like, 'That is killer. We love seeing that. However, you've gotta remember, this is also you guys' musical legacy as well. You guys were very important to DEATH being what it was and what it is.' And I was, like, 'My God, nobody's ever put it like that. Thank you, Chris.' I was really touched when he said, 'Hey, let's just take a moment and talk about you guys' influence on the band and you guys' impact on the music of DEATH.' And so I was, like, 'Wow, that is really, really cool. Thank you, Chris. That was very nice to hear.' And so that's one thing we also try to remember.

"On 'Individual Thought Patterns' there, I was trying to create drum beats that had never been heard before, and trying to leave my impact on the world of drumming, the world of metal, the world of death metal, the world of music in general," Gene added. "That was important to me. I wasn't thinking about it at the time, but it became important afterwards. Like, 'Hey, I've never heard this beat before.' When I'm trying to come up with beats, it's, like, 'Well, nobody's ever played that one before. Throw that in there.' 'Hey, Chuck, can you play over this?' And Chuck's, like, 'I'm good. Everything you're throwing at me, I can play my riffs over. So, don't sweat that. That's all good.' And so it's our musical legacy to some degree as well. So we're really happy to come out and celebrate DEATH, the music of DEATH. How cool is that?"

Schuldiner died on December 13, 2001 after a battle with pontine glioma, a rare type of brain tumor.

In recent years, DEATH's storied catalog has undergone a meticulous reissue campaign via Relapse Records.

Relapse released the first-ever fully authorized DEATH tab book, featuring 21 classic songs tabbed out for guitar from the band's entire discography. The book, which includes traditional notation as well as tablature, also comes with a digital download of all tracks.