OBITUARY Has No Intention Of Ever Changing Its Sound

Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal of Metal Assault recently conducted an interview with drummer Donald Tardy of Florida death metal veterans OBITUARY. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metal Assault: Coming to the next album, I guess it should be out sometime soon. What's the update on that?

Donald: It's really exciting time for us right now. We are writing and recording some of the rough tracks to get our minds set with the album. The main thing we're realizing is we're really in no hurry. We don't want to rush things. We're at a point of our career right now where anything rushed doesn't make sense. A fan would love an album tomorrow if we had it, but the fact is we've been very busy this year, and although we have a lot of material, we're still going to take our time with making sure these songs are exactly the way we want them before we hit the record button. So we'll be listening to the songs we already have, re-recording some of the stuff, and really get a true recording come Christmas time and the beginning of the year. I think the idea would be to go with the songs we're extremely happy with, and the target date would be early next year or early summer time next year to have this album released.

Metal Assault: These days there are so many extreme metal bands going around. Do you ever look at what they are doing to kind of see where you stand?

Donald: The fuse is already lit, and you can't put it out now. Even when we were young, I don't think we ever really looked around to see what other people were doing to see what we need to be doing. I appreciate the new metal music, specially when it's good. But with OBITUARY, we know what we are, we're very comfortable in our own skins, and specially when it comes to writing songs, the only thing we're thinking about is what music we like, and what OBITUARY fans want to hear when it comes to an OBITUARY album. So there is a ton of good music out there, but we know what we want to do. We believe in our skills and creativity, and that's what the fans really want. The last thing we would want to do is try to change just because other styles of music are changing. So, it is an exciting time to see what's going on in the world of music and to know that OBITUARY is always going to be there as those godfathers of true, mid-tempo, groove metal that's not trying too hard but it's definitely throwing down and showing people how to keep it simple and keep it heavy.

Metal Assault: Yeah you're right, I know OBITUARY hasn't changed their music, but personally do you think you've changed or improved as a musician over the years?

Donald: I think we've kept to a straight arrow. It's important for us to do that. It's always fun to create and step outside your box, but with OBITUARY it's more than just the four band members. It's more than what we believe in. It's about the whole planet of people that love OBITUARY. You're always going to have the people that say, "Oh, this band's next record is going to be the same as their last one." Some people will always say that, but the important thing is the majority of the people buy OBITUARY albums because they want OBITUARY. You buy a SLAYER album knowing what it's going to be, as someone who worships SLAYER. If they were to change, who knows what we would do besides cry and be mad. The main thing with SLAYER is, they're the best band in the world because they are SLAYER. They don't need to change. They are my favorite band on the planet and I know what I'm getting when I buy a SLAYER album. And I think OBITUARY is that same way. Everybody knows what our style is, we know what we're good at, we know what John's [Tardy] voice needs, we know the style of songs he's good at singing, and we keep it that way. Some dude in Indiana or some guy in India, when he goes and picks up an OBITUARY, they're buying it because they love OBITUARY. We never want to change that.

Read the entire interview from Metal Assault.