MUTANT SUPREMACY Rotting Season limited 7″ EP out now on BlastBeat Mail Murder!
Lev Weinstein interviews Sam Awry.
To me, the most interesting shit about I learn about other bands doesn’t stem from questions pressing them to wax philosophical in interviews, but more about the grit of composing, playing, recording and touring on material, so most of these questions are geared in that way.
I’m always curious about the way songs are written and practices are run. How specific are the parts you bring to the other guys?
It varies. Sometimes I’ll come to practice with a completed song, but the longer we play together the less frequently that happens. More often I’ll have some ideas of riffs that go together, or we’ll start with a couple of Curt’s and we’ll toss some ides around, and then I’ll work on complementary parts at home, and then we’ll put it all together when we practice next.
When working on new material, how much experimentation goes on in the rehearsal setting? Do you run through different ideas, or is the direction pretty clear before you start actually playing things down?
That also depends, mostly on how fully formed the initial ideas are. If we’re just staring with a couple riffs then we experiment a lot to see what sounds best. If it’s something I’ve been working on for a while and I have a lot of parts already written and arranged then we don’t need to try as many options.
How late in the process do vocals come into the mix? Do you start planning placement before lyrics are written?
Because we all play instruments, and therefore are playing while singing, we in general have completed music and then write lyrics, or write music to go with completed existing lyrics-the latter usually happening when Robert writes lyrics. I find that one has to be written with the other in mind, to allow for the vocal phrasing to compliment the music. The vocals are added to the arrangement last though, after we are all comfortable enough playing the song to start singing at the same time.
When getting ready to record, do you guys demo stuff, or do you find it’s not worth your time to do so?
We demoed everything before we recorded the LP, I found that it helped me. We are planning to do the same before we record the next full-length both to have already recorded it all once, and to scrutinize the arrangements of the songs from a different perspective. Our EPs (both the new one and the unreleased stuff) we tend to write much faster and don’t or at least haven’t demoed those racks beforehand.
In that vein, you guys just put out a ripping 7-inch, Rotting Season. How would you characterize the difference in the process between this most recent output and that for Infinite Suffering?
That epitomizes the different types of writing. We had the title track almost in its present form when we recorded Infinite Suffering, so we’ve been playing that song for over 2 years now. I wrote the music and lyrics to Kill Without Question and The Cost of Conquest on my own and brought them into practice pretty much totally finished. Memento Mori was written and arranged over the course of one practice, it started with Curt and I throwing riffs at each other and we turned it into a complete song that day. The lyrics I had written about 6 years ago and hadn’t used yet. I had actually wanted to have a band called Memento Mori – before I knew there were already a couple using that name – and when I was on tour in Europe in 2003 I was writing it on bathroom walls with a skull next to it. I wonder if any of them are still there.
What about musical differences between the two?
I think that the EP is a little more thrashy, that came from writing it so quickly. The title track I think shows best the songwriting progression from Infinite Suffering, it’s more developed and has a lot of tempo changes, that’s more where our songs are going.
What are your musical ambitions going forward?
To make killer records and play killer shows.
How about the more general ambitions of the band? Is touring constantly between albums the ideal goal, or is there another model that has more appeal?
We’d really like to get a tour opening for a more established band, someone who will help us reach more people. The drawback of being as unknown as we are is that there are people who would probably like our shows but don’t hear that we’re playing near them. Touring between releases has always been a goal. Plus the touring makes you a better band across the board, and recording something you’ve already played live goes more smoothly and sounds tighter.
This is the sort of question that is kind of annoying to be asked, but fuck it. Where do you see Mutant falling along the spectrum of death metal? Especially in regards to this new wave of old school thing happening now. At least to my ears, Mutant Supremacy doesn’t easily fit cleanly into any sort of consciously retro category. I hear plenty of nods to an old school sound, but I don’t hear pastiche, and I also glean plenty of influence from what I’d maybe call late ‘90s, early 2000’s death metal. But what do you think?
My personal thought is that we’re not so much a 100% retrodeath band as we are taking the old school sound as a starting point but trying to develop it along different lines than it did over the course of the last 2 decades. I don’t think we’re a totally old school death metal band, but we’re definitely not a totally contemporary one either, we’re just trying to take the parts that we like and let them form their own type of beast.
Are riffs ever rejected because they stray too far afield from what you think of as Mutant’s sound?
No, but we reject them for sounding too much like an other band, as in, “Um dude, that is an Obituary song”.
I also wonder what you guys think of as the bands that you most hear reflected in your riffs. You know “This is the Immolation riff”, or “this is the Morbid Angel” riff. What names seem to show up more than others?
Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel probably. I think the essence of good music is good riffs, and those bands wrote some really memorable ones.
On a related note, what would you say are the most common denominators as to the tastes of the individual members? I know you guys are all metal heads through and through, but what will never get turned off in the van by anyone under any circumstances?
We’re all pretty spastic, and the music in the van is usually someone dj-ing different bands. We all have a respect for the classics though, no one wants to be the asshole that has something better to do then listen to “Onward to Golgotha” or “Realm of Chaos”. I’m going to resist the urge to name drop every album that I think is awesome here…
I need to hear about at least one utterly retarded tour story here. You pick: Either describe the most disastrous show Mutant has played, or the strangest, most aberrant event you’ve witnessed while puttering through the country by van. Feel free to not pick and answer both. In fact, just do that.
While we were driving through the Amish part of Pennsylvania, Winslow likes to hold the stereo speakers out the window and force Slayer on the technologically resistant. This has happened more than once. He also commits slingshot drive-bys. Most disastrous would have to be our first show in Pittsburgh getting shut down by the police 3 songs and the promoter almost getting arrested. If you notice, both of these occurred in western PA. Weird shit just happens there.
Who stinks the most on tour? Which dude only brings one pair of jeans, two pairs of underwear and a shirt for two plus weeks?
Curt. He does that when he’s home too.
How have the tours you guys have done been for you so far money-wise? Are you at least breaking even, or is touring the financial sink hole it can often be?
We’ve made enough to cover gas, the van rental, the bar tab in Richmond, a month’s practice space rent, a couple hotels and a trip to an airplane museum. We still lose the money we would make working, and pay for our own food, but it could be worse.
What items of merch seem to do pretty well for you guys on the road? We’ve found that vinyl sells shockingly well, way better than cds. What have you observed?
Yeah I’ve noticed that too,and it makes me really happy to see that vinyl still holds a position of reverence. I have always believed that the best way to get a totally immersive music experience you have to put it on a turntable and flip it over half way through, and have a bigger version of the artwork. We also sell a lot of bottle openers and beer coozies, it appears that metalheads like to drink.
Is it as hard to tremolo pick in big fuck-off gauntlets as I think it is?
We wear them on our fret hands.
What are your thoughts as to the metal scene in NYC? To my eyes, things are way more locally vibrant than when I was a kid. I know you’ve been down this way for a while now. Have you seen a big upsurge in interest? How does the city’s scene compare to the other places you’ve lived?
I definitely thing the metal scene has gotten way more DIY since I’ve lived here. My biggest complaint about the metal scene had always been this huge separation between the bands and promoters and the fans. I like that bigger bands play at venues in Brooklyn now and not just at BB Kings where the sound always sucks and the staff are assholes. I like that local bands get opening slots for touring bands like Hate Eternal, Enslaved, Inquisition and Suffocation, for example. As far as comparing NYC to other places, we win out by sheer numbers, touring bands play here because there are so many people here, so while it might be the same percentage of the total population being into metal, that numbers gonna be a lot bigger then it is anywhere else.
Did you give a fuck about the idea of a local scene when you were a kid? How much of a fuck do you give these days?
I’ve always cared quite a bit about it. I always wanted to feel like I was a part of something, part of a community. That’s a big part of what I like about music, is its ability to bring people together. Even hateful, ugly music like death metal, being in a room full of people feeling the same energy from the same source, it makes you feel really powerful.
Jeff Hanneman gets bitten by like 15 more spiders and dies. Gary Holt decides to fuck off. You get the call. Do you think twice?
Yes. But I’d do it anyway.
Extra credit: the band will only perform material from Diabolus in musica. Still yes? Bitter Peace is a pretty good song…
No. being in Slayer wouldn’t be worth it if you don’t get to play fast.
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