OBITUARY Frontman Discusses ALLEN WEST's Departure

Justin Donnelly of Australia's The Metal Forge recently conducted an interview with OBITUARY frontman John Tardy. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

"The reaction to 'Xecutioner's Return' has been awesome. From the moment the promos went out to all the press and those people, everything has been positive about the album. And now that the album has been officially released, the fan e-mails have been crazy. They seem to just absolutely love the album. There's more and more people hoping that we'll come and place somewhere close to them too. So it feels really awesome. There's been a bigger show of support from across the board, and probably the most positive support we've ever had in our careers so far. We're really excited by this."

On the songwriting approach the band took on "Xecutioner's Return":

"You know, it is just what it is. It's strange for us, because we hardly ever sit down and think about what we're going to do in advance. We just sit down and have fun with our music. We essentially write what we write. It's really hard for me to say anything about the direction of the album other than that. What I can tell you, though, is that we're really happy with it. I guess you could say that there are a lot of things new elements within 'Xecutioner's Return'. I mean you have [Ralph] Santolla's leads throughout the album, and I guess there are some faster songs this time around that have some fast vocal parts on them. That's something we've never done within OBITUARY before. So yeah, the new album has got some interesting stuff on there for sure. But in terms of the overall direction, there wasn't much thought at all. It's really just one of those things. We're just into writing music the same way that we have always done. We really haven't changed much over the years. It's just a matter of getting together and having a good time here in our studio. It was just about getting together and writing some songs. I think these are some of the best songs that we have ever written."

On the departure of guitarist Allen West:

"If you've followed OBITUARY's history, it really shouldn't be any surprise about West's absence. If you look all the way back to 'Cause Of Death', you could see he had certain issues at the time. If I had to sum up the two years since we released 'Frozen In Time', I would say that they've been a little challenging. His drinking was getting way out of hand. It was affecting us all personally, and affecting our shows with his poor performance onstage. It wasn't fun to be around him at times. It was bad. We would sit down and talk with him, and even beg with him to get his act together, and the very next day you would have a whole day where you simply couldn't get anything done because he was unavailable. There was something going on. His drinking got the best of him. In the end, he finally got himself one DUI (Driving Under The Influence) too many, and in front of a judge, who by all means probably did the right thing by him, put him behind bars for a little while. That's given him plenty of the time to think about the next time he gets behind the wheel of a car when he's been drinking. He could kill somebody next time. As much as I certainly didn't want to see that happen, I think it was all just coming to a head. I think this was the best thing to happen to him. He'll sober up to a point where he can finally think straight. I haven't really talked to him since they sent him to prison. It's not so easy getting contact with him, but I'm sure we'll talk when he gets out early next year. He has a lot of decisions to make, but I can't even begin to speculate what going to happen in the future with West. I don't know where his mind's going to be when he gets out. I don't know if being on the road is the best thing for him right now either. Whether you want to participate or not, every night on the road is like Friday night. You can't avoid being around that kind of atmosphere. It's one of those things. It's easy to get caught up in it too, but at the same we just have to keep focussed on what we do. The most important thing right now is putting good shows on for the fans. It's an unfortunate situation West's in, and only in time will we know what's going to happen with that."

Read the entire interview at The Metal Forge.