OBITUARY Working On 'All-Florida-Death-Metal' Touring Package

Shaxul of Earth-Dog.com recently conducted an interview with vocalist John Tardy of Florida death metal legends OBITUARY. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

Earth-Dog.com: Do you feel that your fan base is comprised of people that may be into SLIPKNOT or stuff like that? Bands that don't really sound like you?

Tardy: We're kinda open for that, you know. Back when we took that six-year hiatus when we weren't doing much and we kinda got back into these things and we run into some of these bands like SLIPKNOT or DOWN and finding out they're huge OBITUARY fans... you know, when you got Phil [Anselmo] walking up to you and saying, "hey, I like your style," that's fuckin awesome. It's good to run into some of those bands that are doing really well and even younger people coming up to us and saying, "You're the reason I started playing guitar." No better compliment than getting it from your fellow musicians.

Earth-Dog.com: Are there any artists out there that you think is really immitating your vocal style?

Tardy: Yeah I get alot of people coming up to me and saying, "Listen to this, it sounds like you" kinda stuff. I guess nothing would turn me off more than to hear something that sounds like something else. You know what I mean? If I wanna listen to AC/DC, then I'm gonna listen to AC/DC. I don't wanna listen to some band that's just gonna copy their sound. If that makes sense to ya?! I like to go to the source. I don't like to listen to a whole lotta bands that just sound like somebody else. I mean, we were very fortunate, Donald [Tardy, drums], Trevor [Peres, guitar], and I. It's just something when we get together. It's not about how fast you are or whatever it's not something you can immitate. We were lucky to come up with a unique sound. So I have heard a lot of bands [that sound like us], and obviously there's alot of people telling me about it. But I just...I don't like to listen to bands that, you know, they just sat down and decided to sound just like like PANTERA...and they're just working it to the ground.

Earth-Dog.com: Do you think that "clone bands" are more rampant than they were say 10-15 years ago?

Tardy: Well, when we came out there was so few bands doing it...we were fortunate to come out with that extreme kind of metal when there weren't alot of bands doing it. And now you've got so many — SO MANY — bands out there! I mean it's just ridiculous how many bands are out there and every one of em, unfortunately can't be original. I think there's just so many bands now that just by nature you're gonna get more and more of that.

Earth-Dog.com: Do you think the proliferation of all these "extreme" bands kinda waters things down a little bit?

Tardy: Well, it does, and I think you see times when it just gets too much for the market. And that's when you see kids start listening to other kinds of music
because you just get kinda overwealmed with it. But, you know, it happens with all kinds of music. You get country music. You get a couple big artists and they get real popular and then all these bands start coming out that start sounding like them. Then, over time, [it] starts getting little less popular and a little less until that new band comes back and creates that big splash that brings things back up again. And I think metal went through that for a while and we fortunately were taking a break when that was happening. You know, I think metal just got to a point where it just wasn't real popular. And it just comes and goes in waves.

Earth-Dog.com: How would you compare your old stuff to your new stuff? How would you say you've changed?

Tardy: God, I guess it's kinda like looking at an old photograph or yourself. You always think you look like a dork back then. [laughs] You know, when I listen
back, I hear all the mistakes we were doing back then... I hear the production — you know we didn't have the money to pay the rent. You hear certain things and you think, "Where in the hell did we get that drum sound?" So, you know, you just find yourself criticle of stuff you did in the past. You just always wanna listen to your new stuff. The production's better. I'm writing better songs now. With each album it's a different time of your life and you're doing different things. You get alot of people coming up and saying, "'Slowly We Rot''s my favorite album" or "'Cause of Death''s my favorite album." It's not always one album — we get a pretty good mixture of people coming up and, you know, they like stuff from all the albums.

Earth-Dog.com: What directions do you wanna take OBITUARY in the future musically?

Tardy: We're trying to do what we can to sell a million records! [laughs] That's where we need to get! I don't know, I never think much about what we're gonna do next. As far as musically, I don't think any of us sit around thinking to ourselves, "We really need to write a song like this," or "We never done one like that before." We just don't get that deep into it. I mean, honestly, it's like, 'Hey, you guys wanna come over and jam?" And that's what we start doing. And then we start hitting "record" and set up some mics and, you know... the next day we can drink about 20 beers and hit play and remember some of the rhythms we came up with! But, for the most part, we don't fret/think much about what we're gonna do. We just like to let it come out.

Earth-Dog.com: Did you know Chuck Shuldiner [late DEATH/CONTROL DENIED mainman] at all?

Tardy: Oh yeah. I met him, we played shows with Chuck. He was a bit of an opinionated person. He'd come across with people that maybe there was some friction. But that wasn't the case with us; we always got along with Chuck. He'd be the first one to tell you that. If he was sitting here listening, he'd be the first one to tell you that. He'll tell you, "Hey, that's just what it is." He even told us one time, "You know, a lot of bands just get on my nerves sometimes, but you guys are pretty cool!" [laughs] So we always got along great with him. And that's too bad. I mean, he was definately one of the originators of this style of music. When we first started out — the bands in our circle...and he was just right up there.

Earth-Dog.com: You guys gonna maybe play with bands like MORBID ANGEL or anything like that soon?

Tardy: Actually something we're working on right now, and it's not a done deal by any means, but I got SIX FEET UNDER and DEICIDE that said they would be interested in doing a European tour with us. So we're looking forward to putting togather a Florida death metal package. So we're looking at the beginning of the year. We talked to the CANNIBAL CORPSE guys and they were into it too. But they just got so much stuff lined up that it doesn't look like they are gonna be available for it. But we might try and do this on a yearly basis. Just a full "Florida death metal" kinda tour. Maybe we can do MORBID ANGEL and CANNIBAL CORPSE next year. It's good — the whole Florida death metal thing — and most of the big players are still around and doing things and I'd be good to get them all together before they start doing other things. [laughs] I mean, we actually toured with CANNIBAL CORPSE once a long time ago. But it'd be fun to do an all-Florida death metal tour and I'm hoping that gets done this time around.

Read the entire interview from Earth-Dog.com.

Video footage of OBITUARY performing live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada on September 17, 2009 can be viewed below.