If there is anything I learned about life throughout these last couple of years, it's that there is always a second chance for everything if you believe it. There will always be a redemption arc that gives an individual this one major shot to redeem, arise like a phoenix from the ashes, and spread his or her wings. Throughout these last couple of months, I have been really trying to find something or someone so inspiring, whose story will serve as an example of pure motivation and dedication that can change or save people's lives. Seeing the famous documentary "Last Days Here", which focused a lot on the personal aspect of Pentagram's founding member and singer Bobby Liebling, almost left me in tears. It's not easy to see someone battle his demons with such hardship and fatal consequences, but to see him triumphantly return onstage like a knight in shining armor on that very evening in Webster Hall on March 6th, 2009, really made you believe that not everything is always black and there is always a helping hand that reaches out to pull you back up. The moral of the story is, to believe and pursue. Some time ago, Pentagram announced on their social media that they are finally back in the studio, working on a new album that will follow the footsteps of "Curious Volumes" from 2015. On March 18th, I had the honor to speak with none other than the man himself Bobby Liebling via Zoom, where we covered a lot of subjects starting from the band's upcoming tenth full-length album and their everlasting 5-decade legacy as a band, going all the way to the importance of knowing the music business and how live music, as a form of entertainment, always requires something that will keep people on edge and leave a strong impression. I was not ready for what awaited me because this turned out to be a very in-depth talk that truly left a big mark on me just like Pentagram's music. I must say that towards the very end, as I listened closely to Bobby's wisdom, I almost cried because I was simply without words. Please join me on this journey and I hope you'll enjoy the conversation that I had with one of the godfathers of doom metal and the soul of Pentagram, Bobby Liebling!

Vladimir

First of all, Bobby, a heartwarming welcome to you on behalf of MetalBite. How are you doing man?

Well, thank you so much for having me here man, I'm hanging in there. You have to forgive me, it's been one hell of a fricking day.

Tell me about it, it's Monday, it always starts off like that. It would basically be the end of the universe if any Monday started off as a normal day of the week *laughs*.

Yeah, you got that right!

So, the reason why I invited you is because I saw the recent news that Pentagram has finally entered the studio and started working on a new album. This is a pretty big thing, considering that "Curious Volumes" was released like what, 8-9 years ago?

10 plus *laughs*!

So, it is pretty big and exciting news for the Pentagram fans. How has the overall work been going so far?

We're working really hard on the stuff, unfortunately, we're having to do a lot of stuff remotely and I'm not adapted to nowadays technology like that *laughs*. So, I've been sparsely involved, but my guitar player, drummer, and bass player are sending things up and back and audio files constantly and working on things to do like a scratched demo thing of the songs. It's not really a demo, but it's just for our purposes to iron things out and get the material properly chosen, and so forth.

You mentioned the difficulties of dealing with modern technology. I presume you are one of those guys who prefers analog over digital, am I right?

Hell yes! *laughs*

Honestly, I can't blame you, we are guilty of it because we all grew up listening to a lot of albums recorded on analog technology so pretty much understandable on your end.

Yeah, I mean, I am 70 now and I didn't grow up with this kind of stuff at all, it's really wild because everything now is done on your telephone or your laptop.

Were you guys facing any particular challenges during the work on the new album? Were there any tasks that you guys wanted to accomplish when writing the new songs?

Okay well, we actually have 19 new songs, of which 4 of them are very old ones that I wrote in the very early 1971/1972/1973 era, and we're redoing and rearranging and adding parts to it and so forth because my songs were so short back then that they weren't of a nowadays culture and it would sound like a Ramones album *laughs*. And even though I love the Ramones, I can't be doing too many songs anymore. Aside from those 4 old ones, we have 15 others and altogether out of the 19 we have to narrow it down and choose 12 that we want for our new album.

Do any of those older songs include something from the "First Daze Here" compilation?

No, they don't. There is one song from First Daze Here Too, but you know, it was all basement recordings that were never really committed to studio technology and so forth, they were just recordings of our rehearsals from way back in the 70s. One of them was in the flexi disk in Decibel magazine, and another one was on the album Human Hurricane which was again basement tapes/lo-fi and the third one was on Nothing, and they are actually pretty new for the public sake of listening. And I am not sure when we're gonna do the one on First Daze Too again anyway, but the other ones are brand new, and we've just been writing them since last October and trying to piece them together. We've only had time for a couple of rehearsals because we have people in the band logistically all over the place. We rehearse in Virginia, myself and the guitar player live right out in the Philadelphia area, and our drummer currently is in Boston, so it's not easy to rehearse either.

You guys are really scattered across the states so you really gotta organize everything nowadays.

Yeah, and the problem is it costs a lot of money to do that. We haven't been touring at all since last August. Thank God for my bass player Greg Turley because he's had one hell of an outlay for training and playing in the meantime.

How are you generally involved when it comes to the songwriting process? Do you ever manage to suggest a couple of riff ideas or do you mostly focus on the lyrics?

Nowadays, I am more so focused on lyric content, although I do of course write music, I've been playing guitar and bass guitar for well over 60 years. I wrote all the old songs in the early days, I wrote the music and lyrics to 90% of them, so I have ideas for riffs since so forth and so on, but the problem is again, I don't have recording equipment and these other three guys have interfaces and things that they record at their home and send up and back. Vocal-wise, I write a lot of lyrics, just like I did an album a couple of years ago with the punk legend Sonny Vincent, and the album is by The Limit and it's called Caveman Logic and I wrote all the lyrics on that and he wrote music. But I still have many ideas and I do play guitar here at home, without an amp but it works *laughs*.

Yeah *laughs*. If it ain't broken, don't fix it, if it works it works.

Yeah exactly. I mean I wrote all of the original Pentagram songs from 'Forever My Queen' to 'Sign Of The Wolf'. All of those on a 12-dollar Silvertone acoustic guitar from Sears *laughs*.

It's interesting because I have recently revisited the "First Daze Here" compilation, 'one' and 'too', and following the band's entire evolution of sound, you really did expand from the early days. When it comes to the early days, is there any particular memory that holds a special place in your heart?

Well, there's a couple of them that were fuck-ups on my part *laughs*, or unfortunate circumstances that occurred that kind of held us up, but they are the things that stand out to me like, you know when Kiss came to see us which is in the Last Days Here, the movie about me. And the Blue Oyster Cult producers when they were going to take us up, those kinds of things. I wish those things wouldn't have happened along the way but yeah. Also, a lot of memories come from the re-emergence after I was really screwed up on lot of drugs for years and then got out of that and made a comeback in Webster Hall in New York City in 2009 because that was the birth of "Pentagram starting to finally tour after some 30 years".

Basically, if you can describe it that way, if you felt like a caterpillar for your entire life, at that point you became a butterfly.

Thank you *laughs*.

But that part with Kiss, when I watched the documentary, I basically said "Okay well, Kiss is not here at this point, the guys basically retired, but Pentagram is still here, putting out albums and Bobby is still alive". I don't wanna throw hate at those guys, but I really show a lot of respect for you guys for being particularly very passionate musicians and not businessmen or corporate minds as Kiss became in the following years when they became more popular.

Well, I can say the pros and cons of that. Pros are they tour as hell; they knew they were doing in business. And the con, for me is that I didn't, and never had until I met Pellet, I never had really kind of representation per se. He was just working for a small record company at the time, but he was a huge fan and I give him an awful lot of credit for bringing the band to national and international exposure, as far as people who were just getting to know who we were. That and technology of course, which even though I don't like it, you can talk to someone in Russia now on your phone, and I am in the US. But I've always loved Kiss, I was a Kiss fanatic. When they first came out, I saw their New York City debut when they were fifth bill and they had something special I will say that. Maybe if I had had the same kind of business savvy and a Neil Bogart behind me from Casablanca, things might have been different. But such is life, it goes on, and hopefully, we'll keep the crusade here.

You guys managed to gain a very cult following in the underground but you gained a lot more following in the 2000s when you became more popular. You guys managed to expand your sound, you became quite dynamic in your songwriting which has a lot of direction and ideas that go from catchy to something doomy and gloomy. What I wanted to ask is: is there a preferred style as to what kind of songs you like to make in Pentagram?

Myself, I am not a doom metal fan at all. I can't stand the stuff because it is pretentious, it's mostly growling and screaming for vocals. It doesn't have dynamics, and I was always into the dynamics. My biggest writing influence in history is The Bonniwell Music Machine from the 60s, because it's downer, desperate, and the "futility of things" feeling but it is not doom, because I looked it up in the dictionary and doom means dead *laughs*. And I am not dead and I don't like that terminology and I always called us heavy/hard rock as you probably know. But the late 60s bands were great influences on me: The Frost, Stray, Wishbone Ash were my favorite bands in history and I also have a punky side to me because my favorite album ever made was Raw Power by Iggy Pop. I like high-energy stuff but I like a lot of changes and ups and downs in the stuff, but the doom metal bands don't seem to have that dynamic about them. Not that it's good or bad, but it's not my cup of tea, let's put it that way.

Yes, even I avoid a lot of doom metal bands because most of them really don't convey anything, they just exist and that's it.

Their songs go on and on and it's pretentious and it's for getting stoned and to me it sounds half-ass braindead a lot of the time.

This is one of the reasons why I much prefer bands like Pentagram because songs actually have a meaning, they can tell a story and each album is very different in the sense of there being different emotions that each album conveys like you can't say that "Sub-basement" is similar to let's say "Day Of Reckoning" or "Be Forewarned", each of those albums is like its own story, it really kind of makes a bit personal connection. That's one of those things that I always adored about you guys, apart from most of those bands that they call doom metal whereas they're just like "yeah we're gonna be very lazy songwriters and that's it" *laughs*.

Yeah, you can be a complete idea in despair, but not just telling you "You're going to the graveyard, baa bababa" on and on, to me that is not particularly deeply expressive, perhaps a lot of these groups do feel like it is. I was with a really dear buddy the other night, Wino from The Obsessed and we talked about this kind of stuff many times also, I did a little excerpt in the Wino documentary and it's dubbed as "heavy" and "heavy" means it's intense and desperate to me. I mean, I am into downer rock, let's face it and I like also to make sure there is a little bit of "street attitude" in there, our albums have like a metamorphosis of movies.

Yeah, I mean take for example the song "City Romance" from Show 'Em How, that is basically that "street attitude" in there.

And that's from my heart all the way, I didn't write the music to that but I definitely wrote the words and they are really neat. City Romance is probably my favorite song from Show 'Em How, which was overlooked as an album very much.

I am really sorry that I was overlooked because nowadays people adore all the albums, basically those hardcore Pentagram fans, they all find a very big personal connection, myself included.

Thank you, thank you so much, I appreciate that. When I went to see The Obsessed the other night, Wino and I were talking about these kinds of things and I happen to think their brand-new album Gilded Sorrow, I think it's the best product they've ever done. It's kick ass and it keeps an even flow of heavy almost all the way through, but they also have changes in their stuff that are oddities and not the same old run-of-the-mill stuff. I feel like, for some reason, I wanna pound my fist on the desk and go "Can't you guys think of something that makes it a little different?". You know, there are only twelve frets until you repeat on the guitar, and there are only eight notes in an octave, but you can kind of mix it up a bit, you know *laughs*.

Indeed, it doesn't have to be like one note per minute.

And plauding and on, and it gets a little quieter and then some growly vocals come in, or whatever, about dying, and then it gets loud again and it's the same lick, and it doesn't change, and then comes the guitar break which is even louder over the same lick and it just goes on and on and on for eight or nine minutes, and I am just not into that, I like changes and I like dynamics. The bands of the late 60's, it was a different time though, I realized that. I am also aware when people say that Scott (Wino) and I are like the "godfathers of doom", I know that's meant like a compliment all the way and I appreciate the hell out of that, and I am humble about it because I know people mean it with love and care. But I just like the late 60's. It was an exploratory period because it hadn't all been said and done, you know. And it has now, for the most part, it's hard to come up with something new. Our new upcoming album, I don't know if I should say it, doesn't have the originality of the older stuff, but there is not as much variation because a hundred bands have ripped it off of the early stuff we did or the early stuff of The Obsessed, Trouble and other bands from back then, and warped it into the ground, so it's hard to be original now.

Yeah, basically I don't know what else can I say about that other than…

It's a rehash!

Yeah! And it's reduced to ash! People these days basically need to look for a needle in a haystack if you wanna find anything original or attractive nowadays, so it's hard.

Yeah!

But the one thing I wanted to ask you is because you mentioned the 60's, I also noticed that your favorite color is pink and you have a unique choice of wardrobe that you wear onstage, it's a very 60s vibe to it.

It's glam. It's into the glam thing a lot. A lot of the tops I wear were worn by my mother in the late 40s, the same exact ones, when she was a cocktail lounge singer and toured with Bob Hope with the USO during the Korean War. And they are glammed out, and they are dollsy, and I like that, I like to keep people guessing, you know *laughs*. Whatever your preferences may be, it's not for me to choose or criticize, but I like giving people something to look at when they see a band. You go to see a band, the keyword is "seeing". It's not just to go and hear them when you can just listen to a record or listen to a live album or a tape or something, but when you go see something you go to see it. I want to make a spectacle up there, something you'll remember.

Speaking of things that I did actually remember is when I watched some of Pentagram's live footage that's posted on YouTube, particularly from the 80's and the 90's, I noticed that you used the main theme of Halloween 2 as the opening track before the show begins. Can you tell me a little about why you chose the Halloween 2 theme in particular, because I love the main theme and I love the movie so much, so where did the decision come from?

We liked it because it was really scary sounding and it sounded like impending doom, but not dead again like the boring and the caution flag, you know. And Halloween had like the "tin tin tin, tin tin tin, tin tin" and you were really like on edge. I like to put people on edge, I do. I always want to flip people out there, I want them to remember what they saw, it's entertainment man, and I am an entertainer, not just a singer and not just a performer, and not just a certain clothing type or certain music type, I try to consider myself as an entertainer, you know.

Yeah, you also have to leave a really big impression, because you can't just climb the stage, do the show, and then you're like "I'm off the stage" as if nothing happened.

Right, and then they forget about you in minutes. Everybody gets up now with shorts, a football jersey, a cut-off, in tennis shoes, and to me, it's like: what is there to see up there? It looks like the guy walking down the street on his off day or something, it doesn't have that flare, and music has lost a lot of its flare.

It has, but I always adore it when I see bands that really manage to surprise me. Bands that you wouldn't expect to come to happen in the 21st century, I mean here's the thing: There are many bands that influenced Pentagram, and you guys have influenced countless other bands, and the band that I am referring to right now is Lucifer from Sweden, that band really amazed me because I was like "Oh my god, this band has everything from 70's hard rock to like early heavy metal, like heavy rock basically".

Johanna is a very dear friend of mine, and I know the people in the band, I don't know if you saw but there on YouTube, I got up and did "Forever My Queen" in Omaha and in Philly, just the one song, and they were giving a tribute, and inviting me up onstage. I mean, you know, it was exciting, I had fun up there. You gotta have fun too man, as downer as the sound may be, you still gotta have fun doing it. And I really like Lucifer a lot, I think Johanna is an excellent singer and she's got amazing musicians. On the last tour, my buddy Henry Vasquez, from Saint Vitus and The Skull and so forth, he played drums for them (Lucifer) and he's a really good guy and a killer drummer. They are really good live, they are really fantastic live, if you've ever seen them.

Unfortunately, I haven't, but I would really love to see both bands, both Pentagram and Lucifer tour Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, so it would be like a "Yeah double score baby!", because both bands go hand in hand with each other because they are in the similar style, plus they are both refer to something that is occult.

Yeah, it's dark, definitely dark. I just spoke to Johanna about a month ago when they finished the satanic panic tour with Coven. I was really excited, I always wanted to meet Jinx Dawson, and I finally met up and took some pictures with  Jinx, I was really happy to meet her. They go all the way back to longer than I do, their very first album was '69 and they're still doing it, she's still doing it, whether you got the original members or not, I think people always forget like back when Last Days Here came out, the guys were talking about the fact that you never know when Bobby's gonna show up, or this or that or the other. They mentioned all the million/zillion members that have been through Pentagram through the years. What in the hell does someone expect after half a century? Do they think that the same lineup, that we'll all be together for like 6 or so years? *laughs*

That's actually the next thing I wanted to talk about. You guys have been around since the early 70s when the heavier sound was still being discovered and still on the rise, and you are one of the original heavier bands that came after Black Sabbath because it was like 1971/1972.

Well, Pentagram was formed in '71, but I mean we were playing before that together, really with a different name, so around the same time the Black Sabbath was. They used to say that "Well Pentagram are the American answer to Black Sabbath". I mean, just look at it, Ozzy's getting older, my generation's all dying often, they are not around, but we are still doing it, I can't believe it!

It's insane to think that the band is still active 5 decades later and still putting out fresh material.

Yeah, and you're gonna go through members in that kind of time period. My god, people have lives and people don't seem to realize a lot of times that folks go their separate ways.

Yeah, it's natural progression basically.

Yeah, it's life man! After 5 decades, what do they expect? We're not sown together at the hip; I mean we're family but we're not sown together *laughs*.

The last thing I wanted to ask you is that many bands nowadays can't even last longer than 5 years, let alone a single decade. What advice would you, as an experienced musician, give to all the new coming bands out there who are still searching for their sound and their place in the world of music?

I would say, first and foremost, don't ever abandon your dream, because I've never done that and I've never been able to do that, because your dream and your aspirations can come true. Now having played before crowds of a hundred thousand people, you know I played at Hellfest, Wacken and Swede Fest and all these big places, I've been to Rockpalast and all, I never imagined this would happen for me. First of all, never abandon your dream. Second of all, you have to learn to separate business and pleasure, because you need to have fun in what you're doing and you need to always enjoy it and there's still always gotta be that spark of fire in your belly that motivates you, but you also nowadays have to be really acute, which I wasn't, to the business side, and that goes back to Kiss. They knew how to conduct business in a legal/proper fashion which is so much at a conscious level in nowadays world. So, make sure you love what you're doing, you follow your dream, you pursue what you want, and you never give up, but make sure you're careful, because everybody in the music business from back then, let's say 99% of the bands got screwed and fucked over and subsequently fell apart because of bad management, bad representation or misrepresentation, and crookery. It takes money to make money, of course, so I understand when members have another job on the side, the members and stuff like that, of course, I always just did music and unfortunately didn't have that cloud behind me from a company and companies don't give you record company support anymore these days. So, you have to know what you are doing, really be sharp and kindred to know what's going on around you in the business. And I wasn't aware of that, so I am sitting here nowadays, you know, I don't have a bonny. People google me and say "Oh Bobby Liebling's worth 300 thousand!". What? *laughs* I have a net worth of 300 thousand dollars, I feel like a rich man. But still, you gotta strive on, you gotta pursue the dream, but you gotta know what you're doing man. If somebody is in the band and they are not cutting it and they are not pulling weight in their department, sometimes people have to go and just know who's around you and know who your real friends are. Your real friends are gonna be there in the end, the few real ones you can count on one hand, so that's what I would advise. And practice! You gotta keep practicing! It takes a lot of practice man, a lot of hours, and a lot of your life, so sometimes when the groups say "I can't do this, I have to work". Well, wait a minute, what is the band? The band is a lot of work, and if you wanna have the band you gotta put in the work. So, it's like that. That's basically my two things, you gotta know what you're doing and the people you surround yourself with. Keep your head clear, because I wasn't lucid many of the times and you gotta keep sharp and pursue your dream man, never give up your dream because it can come true.  I don't have money, I don't care. I am happy for having my soul, that when I leave this world hopefully generations later, five or ten generations know that I left a mark that was enjoyable and made people happy, and I did it with pride and conscious effort, determination, and so on. That's what it is really.

Thank you so much for this interview, Bobby. Your words are very inspiring and I am very glad to have you hear I am really looking forward to hearing the new album. On the last note, I just want to say that a friend of mine from Croatia said a big "Hi!" to you and said he's been a big fan of yours ever since he discovered Relentless and both of us are hoping that we'll see Pentagram touring somewhere in the region of Eastern Europe.

I hope so, I mean all we've got this year is three American gigs in late April, and in May we're gonna play two major festivals, we're doing Desertfest and it's either Up in Smoke Festival or something like that, all I know it's in Switzerland, and then in October we have two more big festivals and there's not a whole lot plan for this year. We wanna try to get out to the West Coast in the US, we've got a hell of a fanbase out there. I love playing in Europe, and I BAD BAD most of all want to go back to all of the fans in South America. My god, it gave me the first taste of what I felt like "Gee, I feel like I am actually experiencing being a rockstar, for the first time in my life". They are great, you know. I love to travel; I love to see the world. I'll keep doing this till I drop, these festivals that are listing for this year saying "Last Performance Ever" or "Farewell Tour", I don't know why they say that because if I am standing upright then I can croak a note and shake my ass a little onstage, I'll be there. I am in for the ride; this is what I do, my profession, and my passion. So, I hope you get to see us too. Thanks for giving me the chance to do this interview. Without you guys, I am nothing, so I never forget that, not these days. Without the fans, you're zero.

Although you don't usually expect too many surprises when it comes to a band like Cannibal Corpse, they came up with a really big one last year. I'd say that releasing a killer album like "Chaos Horrific" (review can be read here) so shortly after having released "Violence Unimagined" was a pretty unusual step. I just had to catch up with their drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz via Skype to talk a little bit more in detail about the reasons for making it happen and some other things far beyond this. Enjoy reading!

Michael

Hey Paul, how are you doing? How was the US tour?

Great! It was an amazing tour, one of our biggest ones ever.

I was really surprised that you released another album after "Violence Unimagined" in such a short period. Were there so many ideas and songs left or were you so busy writing new stuff?

Well, I mean what ended up happening is the pandemic threw everything into a tailspin and there was no right or wrong, no set plans and everything was thrown out the window. So you really gotta go back to the beginning of the recording of Violence Unimagined" because when we went into record Violence Unimagined the pandemic literally hit at that time. Everything went well with Violence Unimagined, everything went normal so to say because the album was already written and we were just concerned if we were able to get into the studio because the pandemic just hit, will we be able to travel, all those kinds of things. So luckily we were able to record but then reality sets in when we've done recording Violence Unimagined the pandemic is in full swing at this point and now things have to be altered in the sense of the recording's done but when we release this, are we able to tour? All those questions were still surrounding the band and world and everything. What's gonna happen, thing's gonna be different than they are. So what ended up happening when you look back, it was supposed to come out at the end of 2020 when the pandemic was at full swing when we were supposed to hit the road. When we realized what we've done with the record and you gotta plan that far in advance and nobody is touring we asked if we were able to tour on November '20 at that point. So we felt that this wasn't gonna happen so everything had to be pushed back. The release of the record wasn't gonna happen on time. Well, when you're touring you sort of control your release of your record. Vinyl was the problem with all the printing issues and everything. So what do we do? How long will we wait? What happened is that we released the album in spring '21 and there was no tour attached to that because touring wasn't still really there. Before we even released the record we knew that we weren't touring for a while. So what do you do? I guess you start writing a new record. So there was nothing else to do, so why not maximize our time? So we got hold of Metal Blade and said "hey, we're thinking of writing a new record then although it is kind of crazy because Violence Unimagined isn't even out for a year" and they all were for it and we started writing then because we were uncertain of the touring. That's how we got Chaos Horrific done then. Looking back now it was very weird to think to think that we had to sit on this album for a couple of years. Nobody knew that we recorded, only the people close to us and we just wanted to keep it as a secret more or less. So we held it in our pockets for a while and then we put it out a little bit sooner than normally release a record but we felt it was probably the right thing to do. So that's what really happened and it's all pandemic-related. If the pandemic never happens then you go on scheduled like normal. You release your record, "Violence" comes out, we're touring, three years go by before the next record is released, all the normal scheduling so it all worked out at the end, I believe.

So there is at least one good aspect of the pandemic, haha. With Erik Rutan you have a relatively new guitarist on board – when I listen to the new album I have the impression that the songs are much more technical and sophisticated than before. How much was this also his contribution?

Well, I mean the way we write these days, if you don't know anything about the band or most people and read the liner notes you see how we write. It's kind of an individual thing these days. Alex writes his songs, Rob writes his songs and Erik is writing his songs. It all comes together and it's Cannibal Corpse but when Erik joined the band, it was gonna be no different. When he came in for Violence Unimagined we wanted him to contribute of course. He is a great songwriter and he altered his style a little bit for Cannibal. He wrote three songs for Violence Unimagined and then he ended up writing three for Chaos Horrific. So yes, you can notice the vibes, maybe even without knowing who wrote the songs. You hear a song like 'Bloodblind' and go "wow, that's gonna be kind of Erik's vibe" and there you go – Erik wrote the song.

Well, actually I didn't look into the liner notes of who wrote which songs…

But you make that assumption by hearing certain songs and at this point in our career, especially the other guys, people might listening "oh, that's a Rob song, that's got the way he writes" or "that's Alex's song" and we got "that's Eriks song because he's gonna write of course a little bit different than the other guys and he's gonna have some more vibes that turn into Morbid Angel, Hate Eternal in a sense. In that regard it just gives us another flavor for the writing, another aspect, another great writer that's gonna fit Cannibal and to be himself as well. That's what Erik brings to the table there. So it's good to have this diversity.

The tact in the title track is pretty unusual and slightly chaotic. Was it difficult to do the drum patterns because of this structure?

Yeah, definitely. It's another thing in that job happening in let's say the last 10 or 15 years of writing songs when it's an individual effort how Alex or Erik writes his songs. Especially them. When they're writing they're so involved in the writing aspect and the use of technology so they send us over MP3s and it's to the drum machine and the patterns of the drums they give me a good idea what they'd like to do. 95% of the time I'm keeping what they came up with in the drums because it's their vision on the song and it really fits the riffs. So that's Alex's song and he just comes up with some twisted timing and twisted signatures and patterns. When I first heard it I thought "oh my god, this is gonna be a very challenging song to learn" (laughs). Speedwise, BPM and all that it's not very fast but like you mentioned, it's very different and mental. A lot of things happen that I normally don't do in a natural way that I would come up with. Song regarded it is definitely cool because it's gonna give the drumming more of a push and hey, if those guys are writing some cool stuff on the drums then of course, why not! But yeah, it was challenging, it was super challenging (laughs). It took a while for me just to wrap my head around to absorb that and learn how to playing it. It took a long time to get that together but in the end it's a great song and very chaotic, intense and worked out great calling it 'Chaos Horrific'.

You are responsible for a lot of the lyrics, for example 'Summoned For Sacrifice' which is one of the most malevolent and sick abominations you did. Aren't you afraid of yourself sometimes when you write them?

I'm not really afraid of myself but you look back and say "wow, I wrote that? That came out of my mind? What's wrong with me?" (laughs). I mean, we've been doing this for so long and we've been loving what we do and the gore aspect and the horror that we've been living for so long now and we've been big fans of that…it's been absorbed over the years and when we have to come up with these stories, I think all of us, that we just sit down and make them happen because obviously you're not thinking of these things maybe on a daily basis and that's not how you're living your life and how any of us are. But we're all creative in that regard and like I said, we've been doing it for so long now and better rounded that I just sit and come up with some cool stories, some horror stories like that  and I did do something a little different, tried out to do myself and it's all gonna be gore horror oriented and of course Cannibal's not gonna be too much difference in that regard but I still wanted to try to make it a little bit different. I think 'Summoned' is a good example, I mean I think like the way I had an idea of going, let me just countdown like that, having thirteen people committing the act and then just kind of describing it as a ghost…I found it was a pretty cool idea. Who knows how, why, where but crazy (laughs).

What would you say if a person told you that your lyrics helped him / her through the darkest times or inspired the person? Would you say that this person is insane or would tend to say, wow that's great?

Of course that's great. Amidst all the negativity seeming most people might look at all the death metal – listen to it, it's all negative and bad for society and all this – there is obviously the fans of it that love and live it and like we were growing up, I mean we know how important it is to serve to people. And if we're gonna help anybody in any way, through the music or the lyrics or whatever, it gives you a sense of accomplishment that you can help somebody in a positive light. If they're gonna get them through hard times or change their lives or whatever the case may be how do you not feel good about that? You made your mark, you helped somebody in a positive way seemingly through kind of somewhat negative sounding or seeming music, it's pretty powerful for sure and it's makes you feel good.

But there also is the other side of the story when I remember about Judas Priest back in the late 80s / early 90s when they were accused of having caused a suicide of a kid because of a song by them….

Of course those things do occur, yes. You don't feel good about that, I mean that's unfortunate that this gonna happen in the world and society. Almost all the time something's wrong with those people. They got something going on and it's not because of the lyrics or because of the music. Some more mental things happening in them that we maybe just don't understand but it's unfortunate when you have to hear about these stories. 

We met this year in Coesfeld where you played with Dark Funeral. Did you have any problems with censorship in Germany? I remember back in the 90s where you had these massive issues with playing some songs and somebody of you said in an interview that you played instead of 'Hammer Smashed Face' 'Fucked With A Knife' and nobody noticed, haha!

Yeah, that doesn't make any sense, right? Most of our censorship has been back in the 90s. We had these problems that everybody knows about but now it was over basically. We came back to Germany we're able to play these songs again and all that. But then it just depends on where we are. I think on the last tour when I think back, there's always a little pockets like when we play in let's say Bavaria we're all: "hey, we're having an issue, today we can't play song from this record" or "we can't play this song", so come on! There is no persistence at least before this was in place, it was all in Germany and now it depends on where we are in Germany and we still don't know what the problem is or what we can do or not do (laughs). So it was a couple of times on that tour with Dark Funeral that we had to not play a couple of songs. It is ridiculous that it's still kinda happening in this day and age but it was not as bad as it was at the height of it where we couldn't play any of those songs and couldn't sell some of our music. It's unfortunate that it still exists for us but hey, here we are fighting through it and the fans unfortunately, especially the ones in Germany, are the ones that lose out if we can't play certain songs but well, what do you gonna do?

A propos censorship – is this the reason you're using some more harmless covers for some years now?

Yes, that's why we ended up doing that. I mean if you're a band of Cannibal Corpses' nature you just want one cover. Just pick Butchered At Birth, there's the cover. Any of our albums, look here's the cover. And that's why we have to have alternative covers - because of censorship, because you might not get it into the record store or because you might be abandoned in this or that country. It's unfortunate that that's gotta still occur but that's the reason why they have these alternative covers. In Germany the original cover on Violence Unimagined got banned, that one with the zombie woman with the baby…

Yeah, there is only the head to see…

Yeah, that's the censored version with the side view of the head. For Chaos Horrific we again were doing two covers. I think for the German version it's the same thing. It's just the main cover; we were good with that seemingly world wired and then on the back there is the darker version with the zombies coming out of the grave. So then it was almost like that if we needed an alternative cover we could use that as being the alternative cover. Buck luckily it looks like that they were able to just use the main cover pretty much everywhere which was pretty cool.

Yeah, I think it is pretty harmless and when I look at the news, there are more shocking pictures on TV these days.

Yeah, of course! It's music and it's fictional artwork here that we're talking about. Come on! When you think about it, it just doesn't make any sense.

With Ron DeSantis you have a very conservative governor in Florida under whom a lot of things get permitted which seemed to be normal in the past. Do you have doubts that he might be a threat to the Floridian metal scene, too?

No, I don't follow politics much at all, really. I never have. Of course I know DeSantis is our governor and running for president and all that. I never had a problem he's been the governor for so long, I mean in Florida everything just seems to be going. We do our thing and I don't want to have any sole opinions because I just don't know enough about it (laughs). I don't think about it so I don't talk about it but I'm not worried about anything for sure.

This year you have the 35th anniversary. Will there follow a special release for this or do you just continue?

No, nothing! Obviously it is a great milestone; I guess we'll be 35 years this month. We can obviously think about it and go "wow, 35 years, this is crazy!" So we kinda all take these milestones and we don't do much for most of them. Of course we'll be touring  and that's coming up in the next year and the year after that and we'll just keep doing our thing. We acknowledge these milestones of course but we're not a band that does too much in any way to celebrate it like that. But you'll never know, we will see! If we get the 50th, that's a big deal but then again, that's 15 years from now – who knows.

But do you plan to come over to Europe or Germany in '24 again?

We should be doing a European tour. Everything has been worked out. As I said, plenty of touring has to be done a little bit for Chaos Horrific – we haven't really done this one on tour so far. We will definitely come back, it's just a matter of when and all those logistics I'm sure everyone eventually will know about.

Are there some cool memories you would like to share with us you experienced with the band?

Hm, just all of them. I mean, who thought that we would be here 35 years later, right? Doing what we've done with the band. I have been playing all throughout the world, countless albums, people that we met – it is all an amazing run and a kind of pinch me-thing. That we do this – is this happening? This is amazing! There's a couple of big things, when we were doing the last Slayer tour it was pretty cool, the final run here in the States or the Mayhem Festival ten years ago when Jeff (Hannemann; M.) was still alive. Being on a tour with Slayer- they've always been a huge influence on us – and to be able to see them every night or sharing the stage with them at a festival, being together with the original guys, that was something special. But everything we've done. I always go back to the firsts of course, right 35 years ago when you're starting this band. We didn't have many expectations, of course everyone has dreams and all those things but you're not expecting anything. So when you put out your first record, do your very first tour, coming to Europe for the very first time all that was amazing. All those firsts stand out more than anything because those were the firsts and like I said we weren't expecting this to happen.

With Chris Barnes, Jack Owen and Pat O'Brian you lost some long-time members in the past. Are you still in contact with some of them?

Not really. I mean there's been contact over the years. Admit of anything it was it was maybe Jack we were more in contact with anybody – we never really had a problem with Jack. It's been known that we kicked Barnes out back then and everyone knows about the Pat situation so we had to let him go. But Jack quit the band and there was not talk about to kick him out. So when he didn't want to be in it anymore so he quit, it's okay. So it wasn't like we hadn't any problems personally or anything like that. But we haven't talked to him in years. It's been a few years now and at this point I think everybody's like the past is the past and you move forward. If you're running into people I'm sure things will be okay, you say hi and all that but that's really about it these days. We're just looking and moving forward and try not to live in the past.

I read some excerpts from "The Scott Burns Sessions" where you talked about Chris Barnes…

Right there came to light a little bit more about the details. It is still weird these days that a lot of people think Barnes quit the band. We made it known in the "Torment" DVD. We didn't get into it too much but a lot of people up to this day think that he quit Cannibal to form Six Feet Under. But that really obviously is not what happened. So when Scott Burns' book came out, he was there and he was around all this when this was happening and it was one of the stories that we wanted to talk about and clear up. This is what happened whether you like it or not or whatever the case may be.

Coming back to you as a vegetarian – do you have a classic Cannibal Corpse recipe for me?

Not too much. I make some pretty cool stuff but I'm nothing from scratch so to say. But we've been eating some pretty good stuff, I've been making some good vegan pizzas at home and these days you use a lot of these alternatives like Beyond and Impossible. They're making some cool stuff so that you can wrap up some really good meals. But me and my girlfriend have been making a lot of these vegan pizzas and I tell you they turned out very well. We're loving them. I thought we should make a cookbook or some sort of recipe book. And there's a Vietnamese restaurant that we all go to, it's right here in Tampa and it is one of my favorite places. They have some good vegetarian dishes…now I'm talking about it I get hungry!

So you're vegan or vegetarian?

I'm vegetarian but I eat a lot of vegan food. I wish I could just go full on vegan but I still like to eat normal yogurt with dairy in it but I don't eat a lot of dairy. It's like I probably eat more vegan anyways but I'm not a 100% vegan. I still consider myself vegetarian.

What are you looking for in 2024?

Like I said, we'll just be touring . We released Chaos Horrific in September so that we only did one tour in the States and Canada so we got some more touring to be done and we just keep the ball rolling and do what we do.

The last words are yours!

Thanks to all the fans out there that have been supporting us for the last 35 years or less, got into us yesterday, great (laughs)! We got the best fans in the world, thank you for the interview, Michael, and we'll see everybody in Germany hopefully soon.

In the musical world, name Quo Vadis has been taken on by Polish and Canadian musicians. This interview will bring you closer to the four Polish thrashers. During the visit of Quo Vadis in the (Wieslawski brothers') HERTZ Studio I was able to snatch away a moment of their after-recording relaxation. They were so friendly that they have agreed to answer some of my questions, sipping a tea-colored liquid which I offered to them. Quo Vadis are a legend, at least on the Polish metal scene. The mere fact of thrashing for over 25 years despite various adversities shows the power and fortitude of these guys. Let this interview help and encourage you to get accustomed with their work. Check out http://quovadis.metal.pl, to listen to their musical achievements and regarding the recent, past and the future, just keep on reading this interview.

Arek

Greetings Skaya, 25 years of pounding on the thick strings, how you doing, how did the jubilee go?

Skaya - Fuck yeah it went, even though we celebrated it like twice in the last year. First time on our tour with Percival Schuttenbach, which was on tour with Dominus Svantevitus, so it was kind of a summary of our 25-year career, but then, because this tour ended in May, our tradition is that usually we play a concert in Szczecin in December so we purposely decided to celebrate it again. We invited our friends from In Extremis from Bialystok, with Nikt'u, Scylla (author: according to the poster: Anvill, Junkers) and Percivals. Admittedly Percival did not play, only accompanied us as our friends. It's a very intimate composition yet effective. I think Scylla did not play though?.....
Cimas (added) - that just proves how good it was [laughs]...

Even though in Poland, you can specify the band as "known", outside the borders not necessarily. Introduce Quo Vadis to our readers.

Skaya - Quo Vadis has been around for 25 years, so it's a long fucking time [laughs] ... Cimas and Matek on guitar, Seba-Borel on drums and me on bass guitar from the beginning. 12-13 years with this line up.
Cimas - so it's a half, and it's the only stable line up through the whole history of the band.
Skaya - yes, this longevity of Quo Vadis is solely based on this friendship of ours. As if the fact that we like to hang out together is more important, though technical skills also matter a lot. The first album was released in 1991 and it was titled Quo Vadis, there is a good chance that it will be reissued by the Swedish and Brazilian labels, with whom we are talking. We recorded 9 albums including 1 EP and 1 DVD that's available for download on our website. It wasn't an official-super release.
Cimas - It is true that we are not known beyond our borders, but after Infernal was released we got more positive reviews out there than we got in Poland. We got a lot of such inspiring opinions. Polish reviews were rather average such as: "they play for so many years and still recorded the same thing", but for the ones beyond the borders we were like rookies. There was some kind of enthusiasm about it. I was terribly pleased with that. Someone gave at a cool look, they were not burdened with some years of playing, and I'm consciously not using the "L" word. Because the word discredits the team, because if you're "L", you fucking play like an old fart, but they forgive you because you have to play like that, because you started playing like it in the past. There was no burden on that one. Those reviews showed that those people looked at us and treated our music like we were rookies to them and that was so great.

Matek, I have a question for you, it maybe a little late, but in retrospect it will be easier for you to answer. As the youngest "component" of Quo Vadis, tell me how did you find yourself in the band? Quo Vadis has its own constitution, climate, the boss, and as it is known: the boss is always right (laughs)...

Matek - I did not really find myself, it's rather that they discovered me in room # 5 in "Slowianin". (Author-Szczecins Cultural Center and practice spot for Quo Vadis). Arek, can you imagine that earlier I played rock, blues, pop, funk. Overall, it looked as though I was in the church, and they pulled me out of it (laughs). Well, after all I do not go to church. Sometime around 2002 I politely played some blues with a band Ogien, and then I visited them. They were after 2 bottles of "water" already and when they drank 3rd the question appeared, if I could play with them, sorry, but Quo Vadis to me is a legend all this time. You know in 1992 I was at their concert in Jarocin (author-legendary Polish rock / punk, metal, etc. festival)
Cimas - incidentally, Jacek, who was playing with us at the time, could not afford to play concerts. He had to take care of the family, money earning and such other things. The spot for him in the band was waiting all this time, however, eventually it turned out, that he will not come back because he will not have time.
Matek - Wait, I'm not done yet. This is very important. As they drank the 3rd "water" it was suggested to me to play with them. I was stressed out like a horse in a western movie. As I have come to their practice, they were drinking this pepper-alcohol mixture, and when they saw that I drink that stuff chasing it with chewing gum, because there was no chaser, Cimas said to Skaya - yes, he's good, he'll handle it, [laughs] ... And so 12 years past or even 12 and a half.

Let's go back to Quo Vadis' birthday concert for a moment; can you bring us some interesting moments or events from the stage and beyond? I wasn't there, so I'd like to know what I've lost, (laughs)...

Skaya - So, ok, here it goes, there was Quo Vadis-lemon- alco mixture, but the fact is that we got a lot of cool gifts, and one of them was: Tom and Wrona - currently playing in the band Soul Ride from England, but before played in a band Cordis, and they have this recipe for a delicious booze mixture with lemon, sugar, etc. .. They brought 4 bottles, each with a label with the name of each of us: Matek, Cimas, Skaya, Seba. Prior to this they invited us on tour in the UK. From the "Slowianin" Culture Center we got drawing of Sawka (author-well known Polish cartoonist, satirist). From In Extremis we got a 5 liter keg of moonshine and overall it was very nice. Percival traditionally sang with us.
Cimas and Skaya - you know there are 3 chicks in that band that add so much fire, that even us, we felt that as a plus. The girls came out with us, they sang, it was really very good, it was great! In Extremis also came out with us. They're cool dudes, cool to talk to, to drink alcohol with, fun to spend time.

Presicely. You're no chemists, but a certain chemical compound known as C2H5OH stubbornly accompanies you everywhere in this musical adventure. Did you have any interesting experiences with this magical substance on your last tour?

Skaya - there was bunch of different ones, but I'd rather not talk about it, [laughs]... The point is that as we played one of the shows, it was Matek's birthday. It was a concert in Glogow, and what a fucking concert it was, we got moral hangover, although the pictures came out sensational. You know usually on the tour the first shows are just warm ups, and then you reach such a level that all the concerts are coming up good or very good. But you still have to be careful to not overdo it somewhere. Well, that's what it was – Hanneman died, Matek's birthday, and before we got to Glogow, and let's say it is not terribly far from Szczecin (author: ok.280km), we got so fucked up that there were times that each of us played a different song.
Matek - But I have to mention that Skaya then brought 5 liters of homemade wine for me. All prettied up and so on. Plus some other inventions like Jack Daniels, etc..
Skaya and others - but we would rather not talk about it. We are not exactly proud of this act. In general, alcohol disgusts us and let's keep it that way….. [laughs]....

Not to be monothematic, I'm gonna direct questions into Quo Vadis' music. 25 years is a long time, you got 9 albums and one live DVD. How would you rate your creative achievements of a quarter of century?

Skaya - This is not some stunning feat if I had to convert it into years of operation, but their strength is in consistency and the fact that there are still new productions. Maybe it could be more often, but it takes many factors to make it happen and because this project is very involving financially. After the Infernal Chaos especially, when we recorded it at Hertz-Studio, it was the biggest amount of work that was ever done. Now we cannot imagine ourselves recording elsewhere, and we had such a test, but in short, it did not work out well. My point is that as we were done with "Infernal' ...", it was the best sounding album. Generally, if we decide on the recording process there are financial liabilities, so you cannot do it every year, because you feel like it, it only happens when we grow to a certain point and now it is the time for something new.

Well since we started talking about it already, let's look into the future. We are at Wieslawski Brothers Studio and you got first recordings done so how about shedding some light on the successor of "Infernal Chaos". What, how, when and why so late?

Skaya - Well, is it late, that's the time that was needed [laughs].... Now we are like after the very first preliminary part. We recorded the drums. This is an important moment, because it is like the foundation and the heart of the album. The whole remaining part will be recorded in Szczecin, so it's just a dry run here and later we try and make something out of that shit [laughs]. Stylistically, in our opinion, it's Infernal-continuation, although we think it will be with more bling, more melody and harmony...
Cimas - We tried to experiment in the past. We had keys, some lighter stuff but at some point we come to conclusion, that there must be a punch, all goods, just bass and drums and that has to be the base of the music. It must be like a shot in the face, without any additives and it simply must suffice. But there will be extras, only on the basis of additives; it will be a decoration, not a track basis. Another thing that's simply beautiful with recording of this disc is that, just as it was when Infernal was recorded we did not know what to expect. Infernal we had very well polished, every sound was refined, and every sound was well thought out. The one here is also a different, but the end result surprised me still, at least. Thanks to the realization of it, it very positively surprised me, I did not expect this.
Mothers - Besides Skaya is not singing during practices and on Infernal we got surprised by just his vocals.
Skaya - For now, the working title proposed by our friend in graphics, by Ptys, is Mind War, but we'll see if it will last, or if the graphics will go together with it. There's like an idea out there, my buddy sits by the computer and he's working on it, but he raised the bar quite high so we'll see what will come out of it. Not all lyrics are ready just yet, because now lyrically Seba will give it a shot too. I can sing his texts very well, they come out with ease. It's like they're custom-made.

Are you planning any release announcing the big "10", a single, EP, or will it be immediate knockout punch?

Skaya - No, we're not planning any such contortions. You can include the EP Novem as a link between Infernal and say tentatively, Mind War. We are not planning anything, it's supposed to be a straight knee to the face right away version, lights out, without taking prisoners.

There are so many things I could to talk to you about, like your adventure with the X Muse. I was going to finish this thing, but once you say "a", then you've got to say “b”. Where does the interest of the film industry meet the band Quo Vadis?

Skaya - It's perhaps too strong of a word, but there was an affair, which resulted from the fact that we had the pleasure to meet Boguslaw Linda (author: known Polish actor and director), during one of the concerts, he announced us with known and used by us sequence "and who died, is not alive "(author: from the film "Pigs"). We fed him with our album, and later also fed him with more of our albums, in any event, on one of them there was the song "Ostatnia Niedziela "(author: album "After" 1999.) He liked the version of that number with a strong guitar and accordion and heavy kicks and he found formula for such a number in his film, "Sezon Na Leszcza". It was such terribly nice situation as I received a call from Robert Gonery (author: Polish actor), who was the second director. He started this way: "Well hello my name is Robert Gonera, I'm calling from Boguslaw Linda, who is the director of the film" Sezon Na Leszcza "and I II, to ask you whether the band Quo Vadis..." and I - YES! Goner - "You know there would be a track of Janusz Laskowski or "Beata z Albatrosa", or "Zolty Jesienny Lisc". It's such an important scene where they are in the pub and in the background there's suppose to play some heavy shit although it suppose to be a known blockbuster. I have only one request – we need it in two weeks, because we will be filming the scene around that time and in the meantime we need to have a demo, so we can film the scene and have the music together". We had to tighten our buttholes and we did these songs in a week. I called Gonera: "... look, where do I send it?" He - "if you send it today, then send to Walbrzych to the address of some hotel, and if not, there is another..." I sent it to Walbrzych, but pointed out that those there are tracks that are ready-finalized. Then, as the feedback for us Gonera said: "Fuck, we struggled with the songs and Boguslaw L., he played those bits non-stop." I have to add yet that the film producers contacted Janusz Laskowski (author: original composer of the song) - whether this version of these songs can be used in a movie? He gave them his blessing, and it's not such a simple thing with him. We had song “Zolty Jesienny Lisc” on our You Tube channel as acoustic concert piece and he blocked the track as the author. Of course, we apologized to him that we did not consult with him about this matter. Such was the story with the movie. Secondly, I had the pleasure to "play" cameo as the narrator in this alternative, crazy film "AIRAM" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2gyJEG2-Do), and recently we recorded the title song for the film about Szczecin: "BURNING SZCZECIN" - the film is to be a unique promotion of the city because it is presented as the movie about the city, which will be its apocalypse, special effects, explosions, fire, etc. It raises an awful lot of emotions and controversy around here so then we recorded the controversial song [laughs]

Thanks for the "moment" and see you at concerts.

All - thanks for the interview and this esquisite liquor, which no longer exists. Arek, would you happen to have another one? [laughs]