OBITUARY Frontman Discusses Guitarist's Incarceration

Candlelight Records has posted a new interview with OBITUARY frontman John Tardy, conducted by Dom Lawson. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Q: There was a lot of excitement when you reunited. Did that surprise you?

Tardy: "It was surprising, but it also felt really good. It seemed like our time away happened at a really good time. During the break the whole metal scene got quiet. I think it got a little over-saturated, but then I think that all different kinds of music do the same thing. Country music gets popular and then dies back down again. So I think the time we decided to take a little break, it worked out good for us, and now we're coming back again, it seems like the scene's picking up a bit and there's a lot of other bands that have been around for a while enjoying a bit of success too, so it's been good to see the scene have some fresh blood pumped back into it."

Q: Was "Frozen In Time" the comeback album you needed to make?

Tardy: "I love it. I'm totally happy with that album. I thought it was a great record and exactly what we needed to do, even though I didn't want to release it with Roadrunner. It got released with Roadrunner and stuck in a pile, just like we anticipated. Roadrunner did absolutely nothing for us which really took the air out of our tyres, because we thought we did a really good job with 'Frozen In Time'. If you go back and read the reviews of the album, everybody liked the record and we had no negative feedback about the whole thing. It really went over well and it made the statement we wanted to make, that we're back and we're still doing what we do, in the style we've always done. With this new record, it's like a blanket's been taken off of us. The foot that was sitting on our back got taken off and we're rising up and feeling rejuvenated, being with a new record label and everything else. I think the scene is ready for it. It's a great record and I hope that there's a wider audience than just death metal fans that might hear it and get into it."

Q: So was "Frozen In Time" a contractual obligation between you and Roadrunner?

Tardy: "Yeah. That was the last record on our contract, so our contract was fulfilled. I think that put us with Roadrunner for longer than any other band they've had, I think. I may be wrong, but there's not many bands that have been with a record company for that long. It was definitely good to move on, that's for sure."

Q: A lot of people are saying this is your best album for a long, long time. How do you explain that?

Tardy: "I don't know. I don't know if you can tell from my voice, but the hair on my arms stands up when we start talking about the new record. I can't exactly explain why it's so good. I think it's maybe because there's so many songs on there that you start to enjoy more and more. When Candlelight first got the masters sent to them and they listened to them in the office, they called us up and said 'Look, we need a single, we think songs one, three, five, seven, nine and eleven would work out okay!' and that was the response we wanted. One of the things that makes it so good is that there's not many songs that you'll want to fast forward through. Every song hits you, in the way that 'Reign In Blood' did. Every song keeps pounding and pounding at you. There's some different stuff on there. It's probably closer to 'Frozen In Time' than anything, but there's some faster stuff where I'm singing faster than I ever have before. I was sitting there mouthing things as I was writing the lyrics, and the others were like ‘How are you going to sing that kind of stuff?' because I've never done it before. It was a mouthful, but it was awesome stuff to work with. Even with 'Frozen…' I think you can find songs that could have been on other records of ours. Through the years, what we get better and better at is the production. Once again, we actually built our own studio this time and recorded it there. We knew the sound we'd get in our room. We had a little digital recorder that you can hit 'record' and it records what's going through the mics, and we instantly heard that the room sounds great. So as soon as we started recording we knew it was going to work out so great. Not to mention, I can walk out of my house, walk across the field and I'm in our studio and I can set up and sing half a song if I feel like it, or sing three or four songs if I feel like it. It was really cool. We should've built a studio a long time ago. It was such fun to work with."

Q: Why did you choose the title "Xecutioner's Return"?

Tardy: "It's a celebration of the past. It's a look back. I look at all our CDs lined up here, and it reminds me of all the time and effort we put into those things, and being with a new record label, it felt like a new time and a new era for us, a change in our career, and it just felt good to pick that title, especially working with Andreas [Marschall] and the artwork he does. It's just a cool idea and a cool meaning."

Q: The artwork's amazing…it doesn't get much more death metal than that!

Tardy: "It's pretty much right out of the death metal handbook, right there. We work really good with Andreas. He's a really sick painter, to start with, but he's also really good at listening to some of the ideas we come up with and then just taking them a step further. All you have to do is give him a little bit and he'll come up with a whole lot more for you. I'm sitting here looking at our albums right now…he's done four album covers for us now. 'Frozen In Time' was great too. They look so small on CDs, but we have 20 foot backdrops made for festivals, and then you can sit back and look at them and say 'Yeah, that's pretty firkin' badass!' (laughs) When we hung the new album cover backdrop up at Waldrock [festival] I thought it looked really fuckin' good, that's for sure."

Q: How did Ralph Santolla become involved with OBITUARY?

Tardy: "We were extremely happy and extremely fortunate to come across Ralph when we did. I think his leads add a whole new aspect to our records, and it was almost a necessary step we needed to take to change that record to a different level. He can play anything he wants, but the best thing about it was he was so willing to sit down and listen to us, what we wanted. Not to take anything away from James Murphy, but when Allen (West) bailed on us during 'Cause Of Death', James came in, literally right into the studio. Scott Burns said 'Hey, you guys should have James do some stuff!' so he sat down, listened to the songs and played some leads, but the leads do sound like they were just put on top of music that was already there, but Ralph's leads, because he had much longer to work with it and he was so patient with us and he's more melodic, a more 'Kill 'Em All' kind of feel to it, his leads just seem to fit and flow with the music so good. It's really cool to have such good leads on one of our records. He's amazing. Mention any song and he can play it. He's an old rock 'n' roller, DEEP PURPLE kind of guy at heart, but his eyes have just been wide open when we've been jamming, and it was really cool seeing him on stage with us the first couple of times. He was like a kid in a candy store up there. We have a lot lined up and a lot planned, so Ralph has a lot of work to do with us, and we'll see what the future holds as far as what happens with lead guitar players."

Q: Can you foresee a time when Allen West might come back again or have you reached the end of the road with him?

Tardy: "I don't really know, but I will tell you that he's been a handful over the years. The last couple of years have been particularly hard. You know, you sit there and you beg and plead with someone who's a grown man, and you have to beg somebody and explain how important this whole thing is right now, and then again he's just falling on his face drunk on stage and showing up to practise and he can't even play because he's so wrecked and it's 11 o'clock in the morning and it wasn't fun at all. It's not just when we're on the road. He has just many problems when we're at home, and that's reflected in the trouble that he now finds himself in. We kept quiet about it for a while because we were anticipating him getting out of jail, but then when he finally went in front of a judge, the judge laid down a hard sentence and he was sent to prison, so he's going to be in there until next year sometime, and we have a lot lined up right now. It's so hard for me to talk about right now. I don't know what prison's going to do to him. It may straighten him up, but he might come out and not have much will to do anything. I haven't even talked to him because of where he's at, so we'll have to see what happens. We're just so excited to have Ralph and we get along great. He lives a few miles from here and he comes over nearly every day and we're just messing around and writing all kinds of stuff. Me and DT [Donald Tardy] have been writing some songs, and Ralph's been writing some material, so we've been living out here and jamming. It's been fun."

Read the entire interview at this location.