US death metal legend Malevolent Creation is one of the oldest bands in this genre and released some really groundbreaking stuff in the past. I was pretty much excited to find out that the band is quite active again and currently working on some new stuff. Despite all tragedies that happened during the last few years and many line-up changes they don't give up and this is really good. I sent some questions to the only founding member left Phil Fasciana, and – thanks again for that, Phil – he responded my questions very promptly. Enjoy reading and look forward to their 14th beast!

Michael

Hi Phil, how you're doing? Thanks for making the interview especially since it's your first one for…how long? Maybe you can tell about the reasons for not having done interviews for such a long time?

Thank you for sending the interview Mike and let's get into it. I haven't done any press since 2019 when MC released The 13th Beast album and did a South American Tour and half of a tour in Europe that got stopped half way through in March of 2020 because of Covid. During the Covid lockdown I was involved in a horrible car accident and injured my lower back/spine, my neck/upper spine and left shoulder which left me with a torn rotary cuff. We had a US and European Tour arranged and I was not able to travel because of my injuries even though I considered it, but all the doctor's I had been seeing for treatments told me if I were to leave to go on tour and stop treatment they would stop treating me and I would have to find new doctors. I did not want to seek new doctors because it took me so long to get doctor appointments with the current doctors I have been seeing for the last year. I have to see my primary doctor, my pain management doctor, a physical therapist and neurologist, and it really has been just so much to deal with every month and seeing each doctor twice a month. I have to have surgery on my left shoulder and lower back because it's the only way to try to repair the damage I have. I was told after surgery I will need at least 3-4 months of recovery time so I am working on the 14th MC studio release with my band and getting ready to demo all the new material before recording the album this summer.

You've just told me that you are currently working on some new stuff for Malevolent Creation – can you tell some more about that please?

Yes I am currently writing new songs for the next MC album alongside our vocalist/ 2nd guitarist Deron Miller (X-CKY) drummer Ronnie Parmer and bassist. We are getting together here in Florida soon to record demos of the new material and rehearse a new 30 song setlist of songs from all our albums. Many songs have not been played live in a long time or ever in some cases. We just have too many songs in the last 32 yrs.

You haven't changed too much in your style since 1991, can we expect some surprises on your 14th regular album?

Not too much, only trying to write some extremely heavy songs that will come across great when played live. Of course they are very fast with a few mid tempo arrangements to keep the music interesting. I'm sure there will be some changes when we all get together to arrange the new material and lyrics that are being done by Deron Miller. I am really looking forward to recording this new material with Deron and Ronnie because they are both great musicians and understand the MC sound. We all just want to put together some great songs and have some fun. It will be a big relief to get all this new material sorted out.

Do you already have an album title / song titles?

No song titles as of yet or an album title yet because a lot of things will change while arranging the new songs musically and lyrically. They always do so I don't want to announce any song titles I have until we all have agreed the songs are completely finished and will no longer change. The album title will most likely be announced first so we can make sure all the song titles fit alongside the album title.

With the terrible war in Ukraine and the pandemic you have a lot of possible lyrical influences. Will there be some lyrics influenced by these things?

The war in Ukraine is just unbelievable and I cannot believe this war is still going on a year after it started. It really sickens me and it's hard to believe what an animal Putin is and how the Russian people can sit by and watch this unfold. I honestly hope this war will come to an end soon so the Ukrainian people can start rebuilding their country with the help from the US and the other countries in Europe. No country deserves to be treated like this especially Ukraine who unfortunately is located surrounded by Russia. I know we could easily write lyrics about this atrocity in Ukraine or the Covid pandemic but there is too many bands already doing this and I believe that we should go in a different direction. Although Malevolent Creation has always written lyrics about War throughout the ages since our first album The Ten Commandments, but I really believe complaining about the Covid lockdown has been beaten to death by now. I don't think it would be smart to write anti Russia lyrics either. I'm sure Deron has more ideas lyrically and we will be sorting that out soon enough.

What about the artwork? The one on "The 13th Beast" was really a great one? Will there be some follow-up to that or something totally different?

It is possible that we may work with the same artist German Latorres from Chile again who did the artwork for the last 2 studio albums Dead Man's Path and The 13th Beast as well as some great artwork used for merchandise. When we decide on an album title we will contact the same artist German Latorres and see what ideas he has and have him send us those ideas. He is also one of the best tattoo artists on the planet and his tattoo artwork is even better then our album artwork done by him. We have many options to work with but I am sure we will give him the first chance to provide us with new artwork. I believe we could go with something less involved or even more involved. It is too early to tell at this point. The music is my main concern right now.

On which label will the album come out? Is it still Century Media?

The next album will be released on Back On Black Records from the UK for Europe and the UK and we are deciding what label will release our new album in North and South America. There are some really great options for us right now and Back On Black has actually bought the rights to every MC release from 1995 till now including all 5 live albums and 5 Best Of compilations as well as our 3 demo's from 1987, 1988 and 1990 in various formats. Every release has now been remastered and re released on Vinyl (various colored vinyl), CD and cassette with incredible packaging. It's unbelievable how many releases are now re released in such incredible formats from Back On Black Records. Go to www.backonblack.com or www.plastichead.com and search for Malevolent Creation and you will not believe how many cool releases are now available again. Great for us to bring on tour with us now and help promote sales from all these killer recordings.

You are the only founding member left – is this sometimes hard for you to be the "last dinosaur" on planet Malevolent Creation?

No, not at all! I have been doing everything for Malevolent Creation since me and Bret Hoffman (R.I.P.) formed the band in 1986 and recorded our first demo in 1987. If I had ever had to rely on any of the past members nothing would have ever got accomplished. Everyone else we formed the band with just fell to the wayside and I had to move to Florida in 1987 from Buffalo, NY to continue the bands journey. Although I have worked with many musicians over the years, I have been the primary song writer and have kept MC's music alive and will continue to do so until I feel I am no longer interested in playing and recording new music.

With Brett Hoffman another founding member and I guess also a very good friend of yours died in 2018 because of cancer. How much are you still concerned about that if I may ask about that?

The topic of my best friend and musical partner Bret Hoffmann since I was 14 yrs old has been very hard for me to talk about since his passing. It was too much for me to mentally and emotionally. Not only was he the best song writing partner, he was my best friend since I was 10 yrs old. And the amount of things we have gone through together including all the good times and bad is just enormous. When I think of all the things we accomplished together like the recording of our 3 demo tapes and the MC albums we have recorded together as well as all the touring we have done together around the world I am so glad I was able to experience those things with my best friend Bret Hoffmann. We truly did some monumental things together with Malevolent Creation and I wish he was still here to today because he made everything so fun to do and so many good laughs we have had in our lives. He will be missed by me and many people that knew him. If you were fortunate to know Bret you would know what a special person he was and one of the funniest persons you could ever meet. That is what I will miss the most and not a day goes by where I don't think of him. I now will always feel happy to discuss all things regarding Bret Hoffmann and will dedicate everything MC does in the future to Bret Hoffmann. Without him I don't think we could ever accomplished the many things we had done together. He was a very unique person and great frontman and I will forever miss him by my side onstage.

If you ask fans about their favorite MC albums, most mention "The Ten Commandments", "Retribution" and "Eternal". In my opinion an absolutely underrated album is "Stillborn" which is so much criticized because of its production. Will there ever be a re-recording of it? What do you think is the best MC album and for which reason?

I have a special place in my heart for all the Malevolent Creation studio albums actually. Not so much the last album The 13th Beast because of all the problems we had with vocalist/2nd guitarist Lee Wollenschlaeger and drummer Phil Cancilla who really let me down. There are too many issues to bring up right now but the main problem was they're lack of dedication to touring and learning all the past material correctly. They were both let go very early in the touring process and both really let me down considering the opportunity I gave both of them. I am so glad that is behind me now and I can move forward with great musicians again. We actually did re-record 2 songs from Stillborn on the Dead Man's Path album and they finally were recorded properly and with great production. We will most likely re-record a few more tracks from that album when we record the next studio album soon this year. Of all the albums I really love the Dead Man's Path album because it was recorded properly and with good musicians and was the last studio recording with Bret Hoffman who did an incredible job on that album. Like I said I really enjoy all the MC albums but Dead Man's Path was more recent and the songs came together very easily.

Do you already figuring out something about going on the road in 2023/24 or is it still too early for such plans? Hope to see you on stage again, the last time I did was 1995 in Essen!

Our booking agent for Europe and the UK is now booking us festival dates for Europe as well as a tour based around the festival shows. Everything is in the works and will be posted online asap. We also have plans to tour everywhere else in the world and that information will be posted asap as well. Main goal is to get a new album recorded first and then get over to Europe and start playing live with this great line up.

Thank you very much for taking the time for the interview!

Thank you for the interview Mike and it was my pleasure to do it for you. Stay in touch and look for studio album # 14 in 2023 by Malevolent Creation. Cheers!!!

With "Ultimate Abomination" the Dutch deathers Bodyfarm on one hand found a new home regarding their record label and on the other they have released a, so I would say, didactic work in the matter of death metal. Also, after the tragedy around their old singer they have shown that they won't give up despite everything that happened (review here). So, of course a good reason to talk to guitarist / songwriter Alex Seegers via Skype about the new album, the past and the future. Have fun reading!

Michael

Hi Alex, how are you?

All good. We are very busy at the moment because we have the preparation for the tour and we also did the 70000 Tons Of Metal, which was of course a very time consuming thing. That was great, last week we had two release shows and next Friday the tour starts. So I'm busy with my job and the band and doing that at the same time is quite difficult.

Yes, I think so. What do you do for a living?

I am a project manager on the construction site and drive all the construction sites. We install our own frames and doors, which we produce ourselves.

First of all, congratulations for "Ultimate Abomination". I was pretty impressed by this killer album. Were you surprised about the feedback you got so far?

Thank you. We were definitely happy and also a bit surprised that they would turn out so well. We didn't know what to expect because when you've been in the business for so long, it's difficult. We knew that we delivered quality with Ultimate Abomination and we really pushed ourselves and all four of us to the maximum. I think we succeeded when you read the reviews and of course that's a great thing. I hope it stays that way.

Before this album, a huge tragedy happened to the band with the death of the founding member and vocalist Thomas Wouters (died in 2019). Was it clear for you to continue the band or was this a crucial moment where you considered letting it disband?

We didn't think about it that way from the beginning. Thomas quit before because he heard that he was going to die and that changed everything for him. He had known for three years that he had cancer, but he had chemotherapy, had seen doctors and everything was stable. From the moment he knew that it was no longer curable, he decided to stop with the band and that's when we decided that we would continue. Half a year later he died.

This is really a fucking disease. How old was Thomas - 31? I'm really sorry - my condolences belatedly....

Thank you. He had this for a long time. We did a lot until 2016 and from summer 2016 he knew he had a brain tumor. From then on we only did a few shows and we waited until he was stable again and that was 2018. Then we started to play a few gigs sporadically again and in 2019 we recorded Dreadlord, but that also only went in phases. Three songs a night and nothing for a few weeks and by August 2019 it was over.

With Ralph DeBoer you have a new vocalist who is also active for Dead Head. Is there any conflict between the engagements or does all this work well?

Time-wise there is no problem because Dead Head plays much less than Bodyfarm. They play a few gigs a year and that's a different level. It was also like when I asked Ralph to come to Bodyfarm, he wasn't with Dead Head yet. That didn't come to Dead Head until six months later because the old singer was only back with them and then he left again. I'm also a Dead Head fan and we thought it was cool that he was asked and also told him he had to do it. There are no conflicts, but if we go on tour and there's a Dead Head gig coming up, they're out of luck, it can happen. Bodyfarm is already a priority for him, that's what we agreed.

With "Ultimate Abomination" you also found a new label with Edged Circle Productions in Norway. How did this happen?

We didn't know the label at all. It came about through our manager, Roman Hödl from District 19. He knows Stian and played his stuff and he made us a very good offer. He's the old bass player from Immortal and that's the only thing I knew. We looked at what kind of bands he has under contract - In Aphelion, Darkened - and it's a very good label. We didn't know him at all, as I said, but now I've been in intense contact with him for over half a year and he's a great guy.

Talking a little bit more about the album - are you content with everything or is there anything where you would say that it might have been a little bit better - production, layout....?

We are 100% satisfied with the artwork. Musically, it's always such a thing. I mean, of course I'm completely satisfied when I try to listen to the album objectively, but you can't do that when you're the musician yourself. Of course we hear things that maybe we should have done differently, but they're not things that everyone can relate to. But overall it's a great thing and I think it's our best production because it's so different. We did The Coming Scourge and Battle Breed with Ronnie Björnström, a great thing and very direct, the Dreadlord with Dan Swanö and that was a bit darker and now the album has even more of its own touch. I can't judge it objectively yet, but I really like the drum sound and the guitars and I can't say anything negative.

You have a lot of different styles combined on the album. From epic Bathory stuff, Death n' Roll influences to old school death metal. Was it planned right from the beginning to write such a diverse album or did it happen because there were more people involved in the writing process?

More the latter. It wasn't planned because we write what we think is good, but it was like when Thomas was alive we just wrote riffs and he arranged the songs because he had to sing and play guitar at the same time. When we would come up with more complex stuff, he would simplify it so he could sing while playing guitar. He was very good at arranging it and now instead of putting our ideas in, we had to write our own songs. We had done that before for other bands, but not yet for Bodyfarm. That's what Bram (Hilhorst; M.) and I did now. Bram wrote about half and I wrote the rest, but we have two different styles. That's really where this variety comes from - you can distinguish very clearly. The death metal stuff is more my thing and the black metal stuff with the frosty riffs is more Bram in the game. 'The Wicked Red' and 'Sacrilege Of The Fallen' are really Bram songs and 'The Swamp' and 'Carving Repentance' for example are mine. This also gives us more depth because we didn't have to pay attention to the vocals. We can do our stuff because Ralph is the singer.

How did you come to the idea of using a cello in 'The Swamp'? This is a very gloomy stylistic element and fits perfectly into this dark atmosphere!

I wrote this opening riff on the sofa. I was going to do an intro, but the song sort of wrote itself and I thought it's a bit of an epic doom-death piece, which we've never done before, and it needs an intro. I thought of a friend of mine who plays the cello very well and we tried it and that's how it turned out.

When I first read the album title, I thought that this might be a tribute to Vader's "The Ultimate Incantation". Was there such an agenda behind it?

No, actually we didn't. We did some brainstorming on what would be a great title and we had different titles in mind: "Torment" for example, but that was a title Six Feet Under already had and so we thought it wouldn't be that smart. So we kept thinking and this cover already evokes certain thoughts. "Abomination" was one of those thoughts and that's where we added something to make it sound more powerful. Actually the title is the reaction to the cover and not necessarily to the lyrics.

Good transition - what are the lyrics about? Can you go into more detail, I unfortunately did not have them with the promo.

We already have a lot of lyrics like on Battle Breed or The Coming Scourge that are about war in all its facets and on Dreadlord it was about Thomas' illness and all his fears and now you can trace the lyrics back to war as well but it's the dark side of humanity, the psychedelic side in direct comparison to war and it goes from post-traumatic stress syndrome in 'The Swamp' to the dark side of prostitution on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg in 'The Wicked Red' to self-injurious behavior in 'Carving Repentance'. You can also trace it all back to wars you wage with yourself in your own life.

Right. 'War Inside Your Head'!

Suicidal! (laughs)

The album has been out since last Friday. Are there some special editions to purchase or just regular vinyl and CD?

We have besides the regular black vinyl edition and the digipack edition of the CD with bonus track, 'Compulsory Existence', which couldn't be on the LP because the album was too long, a red and an orange vinyl edition, which is only sold via Edged Circle. The red one we only sell ourselves. But there will probably be a jewel case edition of the CD.

The upcoming Friday you will start the European tour with Helleruin and Destroyer 666. Why did you go on tour with two black metal bands?

First of all, I don't think Destroyer 666 is a black metal band. Maybe they were before, but the new record sounds absolutely not like black metal, but more like a thrash/black/death mix. It's all mixed up - the main thing is that it's awesome! Helleruin are with the same booker -District 19 - and our drummer David (Schermann; M.) also plays with Helleruin, so that was a clear thing. The bands also like each other and this tour came about because our booker Roman saw the opportunity and the timing is perfect. We could have waited to play with other death metal bands, but now we have the moment and I think it's interesting for the audience to see three different bands. It's very diversified and maybe we can gain some new fans.

I know that you are also playing the Dortmund Deathfest this August. Are there some more festivals you're going to play?

Yes, I'm really looking forward to Dortmund! We are still at the "Braincrusher In Hell" Festival, "Hell Over Aschaffenburg", the "Vienna Metal Meeting" "Eindhoven Metal Meeting" and many single gigs.