Taipei Metal

Interview: Death Angel - The Art of Thriving

Any recounting of the halcyon days of the Bay Area thrash scene worth its share of blood upon the stage would have to include the story of Death Angel. With Death Angel’s original lineup comprised of cousins, all in their early teens at the time of the band’s founding, it was a family affair forged in the fury of one of metal’s most oft-glorified movements. They would go on to release three classic albums between 1987 and 1990, The Ultra-Violence, Frolic Through the Park, and Act III, before a terrible van accident, which left drummer Andy Galeon critically injured, became the catalyst for the band’s demise. The members of Death Angel, long having been frustrated with their place in the metal pantheon of the time, walked away from the defining institution of their young lives, with singer Mark Osegueda moving to New York to go to college and pursue a life outside the music scene, and the founding members, guitarist Rob Cavestany, Galeon, bassist Dennis Pepa and guitarist Gus Pepa going on to form The Organization, a relatively short-lived project that released two albums, and toured the U.S. and Europe alongside such venerable acts as Motorhead and Fight. It wasn’t until 1998 that Osegueda, Galeon, and Cavestany reunited musically, not to resurrect Death Angel, but first to form a new band called Swarm. It was then that the seeds of a Death Angel reunion were sewn.

Fast forward to 2001 and Death Angel was back and thrashing, and they haven’t taken a step backward since, though the original plan was just to reunite for a one-off performance at the now legendary Thrash of the Titans benefit gig for cancer-stricken Testament and Death front men Chuck Billy and Chuck Schuldiner. However, be it a festering sense of unfinished business, or just a simple desire to make music together again, Death Angel was driven to write, record, and tour the world once more, and since 2004 have released three more albums, The Art of Dying, Killing Season, and their most recent effort, 2010’s Relentless Retribution. While all these albums have stayed faithful to the band’s thrash beginnings, it was their latest offering that raised a few hackles with its decidedly modern sound courtesy of Jason Suecof—a relatively young but far from unknown producer known more for his work with deathcore and metalcore bands than thrash stalwarts. However, despite some grumblings from purists, Cavestany and Osegueda, still brimming with enthusiasm when speaking of recording and touring, even though they, as of the early May time of this interview, were several months into a long touring cycle, are clearly fans of what Suecof was able to bring to their sound. It wasn’t just one way traffic, either, as Osegueda explains.

“We come from a school of more organic sound, and what we were more excited about was the blend of our two visions. I think we brought a lot to his style of production as much as he brought to our style of music and the sound that we're used to, so we kind of met somewhere in the middle and it helped both of us.”

Cavestany too was impressed by what the young producer, who was able to lure Death Angel to his Florida studio to record outside of California for the first time in their career, was able to get out of the band. Suecof, he says, provide exactly what Death Angel was looking for in terms of sound.

“The sound that he gets is very crisp and clean. The clarity and separation is really nice, and yet at the same time there's a warmth to it. It's just what we were looking for.”

Touring in 2011 kicked off on a unique note for Death Angel, with their first gig of the year taking place on the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise—a four-day binge of booze and classic metal bands that initially, given the logistics of pulling off something so out of the ordinary, had people wondering if the waterborne festival would, pardon the pun, sink or swim. In the end, the boat stayed afloat, nobody went overboard, literally if not figuratively, and the bands and fans alike had an amazing few days filled with unforgettable performances and nearly unprecedented access to many of their metal peers. That being said, starting a months-long tour in such party-centric fashion doesn’t necessarily come recommended by the Death Angel camp.

“That was absolute insanity,” Osegueda recalls. “It was something that actually I never thought would get off the ground, and honestly something I thought we wouldn't have that much fun doing, and when we got out there it just surpassed my expectations, and I think it passed many people's expectations—fans and the bands. Every band did two sets—one indoor set and one outdoor set. Both our sets went incredibly well, and then the fun that ensued while we weren't on stage was over the top. It was great to see all the bands hanging out with each other and watching each other play and the fans mingling amongst them. It was maniacal. I wouldn't suggest starting a tour that way, but we did.”

When all was said and done, most people poured themselves off the good ship metal in Miami and went straight home for some much needed recovery. But for Death Angel, there truly was no rest for the wicked. For them, it was straight onto a bus, and on to Tampa for another gig, and they’ve been on the road, in the air, and on the stage ever since. But this is a band that wouldn’t have it any other way—a fact that, in recent years, has taken its toll on the band’s membership. In 2008 and 2009 respectively, Galeon and Dennis Pepa both left the band due to a deadening desire to remain on the road for long periods of time, joining Gus Pepa, who was replaced by Ted Aguilar from The Art of Dying onward, on the ex-members list. This opened the door for new blood, with drummer Will Carroll and bassist Damien Sisson forming the new rhythm section. Both, in the ensuing years, have thrived in the seemingly unenviable task of fitting into a band once comprised of blood relatives who quite literally grew up together. Before the new lineup hunkered down to write a new record, they tested their compatibility in the crucible of the tour bus, and quickly found that they had something sustainable on their hands.

“Even before we started writing for the record we did a great deal of touring with them,” says Osegueda. “So we had a feeling of complete unity and we had that band feel like it was us against the world writing for the record. And midway through recording we did some touring, and all we've been doing now since the record came out is touring, and touring, and touring. The feel up there right now is just second nature. We're all very hungry and blending together well.”

It was far from easy to replace Pepa and Galeon, but this difficult task was made all the more bearable by the band’s decision to bring in people they were previously acquainted with, rather than gun slinging strangers, as Cavestany iterates.

“It was definitely different for us because we never had other members in the band. It was just us all the way through. At the very beginning we didn't know what to expect. But, for one thing, when Will first joined the band it seemed like he'd been in there for a long time because we've known Will for decades. We've known Will since the early days of Death Angel. He's been in the scene ever since and he's been a friend so it was pretty natural to vibe out with Will. And he's a really easy to get along with guy, so it was a perfect fit. We've got a similar sense of humor. And Damien just smoothed on in too. He's also a Bay Area guy, so he's got that Bay Area attitude and vibe, and coming from the same kind of school of music and metal. It really was a lot easier than we probably would have anticipated or thought that it would be. But once we just started jamming and hanging out it was very natural.”

Still, it wasn’t a foregone conclusion to continue with Death Angel when two cornerstones were, one after the other, removed from the structure. But losing Pepa and Galeon wasn’t something that blindsided Osegueda or Cavestany. They saw it coming, and when the final parting came, there was more relief than grief.

“I'd be lying if I said I didn't see it coming,” Osegueda says. “So, almost in the sense that when you finally heard it, it was, to me, a sense of relief because I saw all the steps leading up to it. And that was more difficult than the actually hearing it. You could see the fact that they could no longer tour or keep the schedule that we needed to do, and it was affecting the relationship within the band and you could also see it was affecting their home life. You just saw it kind of unraveling. So it just made for tension. Now we can move on, move forward.”

“Unfortunately it was definitely not a shock,” Cavestany continues. “The signs were there, and it was going that way before the actual announcement of leaving. Being in a band together is like being in a five-way marriage. If you can imagine yourself in a long relationship, and when you can see things just not looking good toward the end it's painful. When that moment comes it sucks, but at the same time it's a relief because it ends the so-called misery of the feeling that's happening leading up to that point.”

Once the painfully slow culmination was finally reached, the conversation had to take place about whether or not Death Angel would actually carry on. Cavestany and Osegueda were obviously no strangers to setbacks by that point, but still they had to discuss whether or not they had it in them to keep fighting for their band to exist. The talk, it turned out, was a short one.

“There was a moment when me and Rob had a talk about it,” Osegueda remembers. “But in my own particular mindset I was like I'll be damned if...as hard as it was to reform this band, and then all the work we put behind it, I didn't want to give up. And I had enough confidence in mine and Rob's ability to create songs that we could carry this thing on. Once me and Rob actually did sit and talk about it, once we set our minds to it there was no stopping us.”

Next came another difficult question—that of living up to the legacy of Death Angel. Metal bands, like sports heroes, become institutions in the eyes of fans, and no one wants to see a band become the musical equivalent of a late career version of Muhammad Ali or Willie Mays. But according to Cavestany, his band has managed to avoid becoming a punchy, paunchy, shadow of its former self, and has instead remained fighting fit to continue to put out solid albums, all while maintaining Death Angel’s hard-earned reputation as a dynamic and airtight live act.

“We're proud of everything we've done and we have our reputation of a live band and all the albums that we've put out. We feel that we've never put out a lemon of an album or done a fuckin' shitty show in our lives. So we knew that if we're gonna do it, we had to do it and live up to what we've done before because we weren't gonna go out like one of these bands that, at that point, everyone goes 'Oh man they should have fuckin' packed it up.' That's kind of the norm when that happens, and we're not gonna be one of those. If we're gonna do it it's gotta be at a level that lives up, and that's probably against the odds. But, like Mark said, we sat there and we talked about it and we knew that we could do it. And we feel that we did. We feel stronger than ever right now.”

And though Death Angel has grappled with the responsibility the band feels to live up to its legacy, it as far from a legacy act that rests on its past achievements. Of course they’ll play the hits—a Death Angel show without “Thrashers” or “Bored” would likely end in a riot—but their contemporary material stands up firmly against the old stuff. As a case in point, the band’s encore on their current tour isn’t a song off the first three albums, but “Thrown to the Wolves” from The Art of Dying. Death Angel is also keeping its eye on future projects to keep things current, a must in today’s fickle industry climate. 2012 will see the release of an indie documentary focused on Death Angel that is currently being filmed by Tommy Jones, the director of Death Angel’s most recent music video for “River of Rapture,” as the band tours behind Relentless Retribution. Jones also filmed and multi-track recorded several shows, footage of which will be in the film, including the band’s headlining set at this year’s Summer Slam festival in Manila, the Philippines, the ancestral homeland of the original members of the band. The DVD will be accompanied by a live CD also recorded during the Relentless Retribution touring cycle. After that will come a new studio album. The band may be getting older, and might need a bit more time to recuperate than it did in the old days, but Death Angel is still hungry, and has a lot left to accomplish, says Osegueda.

“The ultimate goal is to write our opus and to top it every other time,” he says facetiously, at least in part. “No, but it's just to keep creating music and outdoing ourselves and yet still having a foundation of our thrash roots and play to as many people as possible and have our music reach as many people via getting it out there, but also by playing live and increasing our fan base and doing what we love to do.”

“It was always our dream to be in the situation to be blessed and lucky enough to have enough demand to tour around the world and have an actual world tour,” says Cavestany, ever on the same page as his longtime band mate. “It's what we live for. After a year straight, definitely you start getting a little beat up, the body could use a little bit of a rest here and there, but we wouldn't really want anything else in our lives but this. This is the ultimate.”