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| Image lifted from deathangel.us |
A while back,
I had the pleasure of interviewing Death Angel’s Rob Cavestany for High Times
magazine and was truly impressed by how friendly and chill he was. Before we
knew it, our conversation exceeded what could ever be committed to print, so below
are essentially the outtakes from our talk. Most surprising tidbit I learned?
Apparently Rob thinks the riff to “I’m Bored” is overrated. Read on!
ZT: What were your expectations for Death Angel
when you first got back together?
RC: We had no goals at
all. It was only the immediate goal as to why we reunited in the first place,
which was to play the benefit show for Chuck Billy [2001’s Thrash of the
Titans]. We didn’t even exist when that benefit show was being set up.
Then we
played the show, and, of course, it was so killer… Then we started getting
offers and offers. Still, we were just going to close it up, then all of a
sudden we got asked to play the Dynamo festival in Holland –we headlined that
thing in 1990 on the Act III tour, so for us, it was one of monumental shows of
our career. So then we were like, OK, we’ll do the one show in Holland, and
that’s it. Then it just went on and on and on. We couldn’t stop after that
happened.
What does your latest album title, The
Dream Calls For Blood, mean to you?
The title is kind of
our mantra at this point; the dream being our band, and the blood that it calls
for is the sacrifice. The blood, sweat and tears, the ridiculously hard work
and your life that you pour into the efforts of something that you really want
to make happen very badly. Anybody can put their story to that kind of thing.
For a long time, you were used to
playing with family. How is the vibe different now?
At the beginning, it was extremely different and very bizarre, because I
was used to playing with the original members for most of my life. In time, I grew to be familiar with the different
styles that these guys play, and their personalities. Now, it’s like they are
family, they just look different. They’re our less brown family members.
Do you still
see the ex-members of the band at family gatherings?
I actually hung out with Andy [Galeon, original drummer] a couple of times recently. Andy’s got a
couple of kids, I've got one kid, and our kids don’t even know each other, which
is really sad because we were the closest of brothers.
Our entire
relationship revolved around our music, so now that we weren’t in the same band
together, there was just an uncomfortable silence of nothingness, of trying to
avoid discussing music when we’d see each other. They know I'm still doing all
this stuff. In the end, it caused us to lose complete contact with each other.
I practically didn’t talk to those guys for a year straight or more. We’re now
starting to say hi… Andy’s oldest daughter is as old now as he was when he was
already playing shows.
Technology has changed the music landscape in the last decade or so, do you
think it’s helped or hurt the scene?
Obviously, the Internet helped with the ability to download and share files
quickly, and has helped spread music quickly. But it hurts the recording
musician and the songwriter, in a way that you just can't sell music very much
anymore. So it depends on how you use it,
but it’s unstoppable… so you gotta figure out how to play the
game within the rules that have been shed forth.
What was your experience with having a "viral" demo back in the day?
The Kill As One demo was produced by Kirk Hammett. We played with Slayer and
Overkill in New York at the Ritz [nee Webster Hall] before we even had an album out based on our demo
tape. And when we got out to NY for the first time and
played, all these kids were singing the lyrics to our songs! That was only
possible because of tape trading… because we mailed it to them - one by
one. I was sitting there duping off them tapes and mailing them from my
house. That was a little bit more magical… everything felt more exciting when
you finally did hold your first album. Now, every kid can make a CD out
of their bedroom, no problem.
Any thoughts on the current thrash revival?
The style and the music holds its own because
that energy doesn’t go away. The same reasons that we were drawn to it all those
years ago is the same thing that can happen to any fucking kid of that age
now, then, whenever. It’s got that
youthful angst, but its also got musicality for
musicians who want to geek out. My kid
loves thrash, and he’s 7 years old.
Tell us about the signature riff to Frolic Through the Park's “Bored.”
I wrote that riff as a joke.That song was never even going to be on
Frolic, it was completely a joke. Friends of ours were like, "You have to put that song on your
album!" At first we were laughing at the idea of it, like, "That’s not a metal song at all!" But then we did, and now it's become
the song that we get defined by. Its not my favorite song of ours, but I'm glad that we have at least something like that
at all.
When you see old performance footage or listen to old live albums, what goes through your head?
When I see videos of us from back then... obviously we were way younger, but
we’re way better live now. And we pay more
attention to playing better. We used to swing around our hair a lot
back then, but we actually go off on the stage much more so now. We’re in way
better shape than we were back then. Back then we were just skinnier, we have
stamina nowadays.
And I can't let you go without bringing up the Carl's Jr. commercial that used your song, "The Ultra-Violence."
Carl’s Jr.
– Yeah, haha. I still haven’t gotten a free jalapeno turkey burger
out of it [laughs], but seeing it on TV was such a kick. Everybody was blowing up my phone. I never got down to the bottom of why us and why that song. It
seems pretty coincidental that we were touring for the 25th
anniversary of our debut album, The Ultra-Violence. We re-released it and we were
playing it beginning to end live.
I was with my parents, my wife
and my kid watching the Golden Globes and they cut away to commercial, and that’s the commercial that came
on! When it happened, it was a glorious moment in achievements…. My music being played on a Carl Jr.'s
commercial!
