Mark Osegueda (Death Angel)
January 2008
Your comeback album "The Art of Dying" received mixed reviews. How do you see that album now if you look back?
Well, the way I see it... it needed to happen. (Laughs) It needed to happen for us to reconnect with each other and to create with each other once again. There had been 13 years since we've written together and we were all wondering what each other's vision of Death Angel would be again. So we wrote a bunch of songs with a bunch of outside influences that we had over that 13-year gap and what we wrote was very varied. Some of the songs were very experimental. But also there are some definite highlights of the album, songs that will probably always remain in the Death Angel live set. But as an album general I think is not as consistent as some of our other albums but it was a stepping-stone to get to where we are now.
A year later you had this box set release with the first two albums and some additional material. Was it the band's idea to get this out again?
We were approached and we definitely wanted to make it so people can get "The Ultra-Violence" and "Frolic Through The Park". And they said, "Why not do it with some bonus material?" so we added a bonus DVD and some songs that never made it to record. So there you go there's experimental songs that never made it. (Laughs) It's also supposed to be a separated release so you would get the individual CDs as well soon. I mean the ultimate goal was to make these records available to the people because we were getting a bunch of emails saying that they couldn't find our earlier stuff.
So how about the bonus disc? Who did compile those songs?
For the third this actually we've gone through all our own tapes and artefacts and we just chose the ones that never ever made it to any record. It was a blast listening to them because some of them we barely remembered writing. Listening back to them just shows how the band was progressing musically with trying every little sound we tried to bring to this type of music. (Laughs) We wrote so much music at that time and still there are bunch of demo material from that period.
Last year Rob released an acoustic solo album. How come?
Oh, that's something Rob has always done since early High School. He always wrote acoustic songs and as a musician he definitely has a lot of music in him but some of them are not in the style of the band. It's good because it helps him to get these stuff out of the system so when it comes to Death Angel he's writing clearly for Death Angel.
And he had Gus (Gus Pepa) on his album. How did he manage that?
(Laughs) Gus is an odd duck. He travels quite a bit, he tends to be in and out of the country. Every now and then he just kinda reappears into Rob's life. As soon as he comes to Rob's house they start playing acoustic guitars immediately. Rob always has a good connection with Gus when they play and Gus definitely had a blast doing it for the album. Rob even played a couple of live shows but Gus wasn't in for them. Ted filled in for Gus for the live acoustic shows.
And how about the other band members... is there any solo or side project going on at the moment?
I have a side project, which is more of a straight-ahead rock'n'roll project called All Time Highs. We play San Francisco and the West Coast. It's more like a power rock band that anyone kind of drinks and has a good time. It's something I've always been very fond of, this early AC/DC kinda straight ahead rock but it's not right for Death Angel so I can have that side out of me. Ted has a band called Mudface and it's more modern type of metal. Andy does a lot of session work on drums for people. He does a lot of studio stuff out here.
This time we didn't have to wait 13 years for a new album but 4 years is still damn long...
(Laughs) I think with Death Angel we tend to do things a little different than everybody. (Laughs) Actually after "The Art Of Dying" we toured for most of the year. And during that year a couple of the guys had their first children and they pretty much missed out on the first year of their kids life. After that we could have put out another album but the guys didn't really wanna go on tour again until their children are pretty much old enough to communicate, if that makes sense. So at least waiting until the kids can understand that why dad is leaving. It wouldn't have been fair to the rest of the band members who didn't have kids and to the fans to put out another album and not be able to tour with it properly. The kids are up in school now and they understand what dad's doing.
Dad is doing rock'n'roll...
Yay, man. (Laughs)
The new album sounds stronger, faster and heavier compared to "The Art of Dying". What was the basic idea when you went into the writing process?
We were all on the same page and we kinda knew what everyone's vision of Death Angel was for this one. We kinda knew what everyone could bring to the table writing-wise and performance-wise. We said that this album has to be more of a solid statement. From beginning to end it's a strong powerful album and we wanted to make pretty much the heaviest, darkest, most straight-ahead Death Angel album ever with this one. That's the attitude we had going into the writing process for it.
Is it harder writing when you have a certain direction in your mind?
Not necessarily. It's just the stuff that was coming out was naturally heavier and more aggressive. I think it just impersonates the sound of the times. It just seems to be we've been sitting on darker days lately and it reflects both the music and the lyrics.
Did it take long to come up with all the songs for the album?
I think before we started recording we took about ten months to write it. Initially it started off with Rob coming up with some riffs and we got to the studio where we thought out some basic structures. And then they gave me CDs with just a riff or a basic structure of drums and guitar and I started to hearing it. As I said earlier it was some of the heaviest and darkest sounding riffs I've heard Rob writing in a while. And I felt that the lyric needed to be right up as well.
Glad you mentioned this as it seems most of the album’s lyrics is gathered around the same these: our fucked up world…
Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to write darker powerful lyrics and I really didn’t have to look too far as it’s pretty much outside the window as the state of the world today. At the same time we try to be somewhat ambiguous so the listener could put his own meaning to it but it’s basically about the world’s leader who hold a position of power that uses fear and oppression as their tool for control. And a lot of people just stand and watch and do nothing while their rights are slowly taken away. So yeah, the general theme is about these leaders of countries.
So you didn’t hit out specifically at president Bush but also at another guys…
(Laughs) One could relate to him too. What I actually did was to take current world leaders and mixed them with historic dictators of the day and made this one evil creature. But if someone wants to relate to president Bush then they are more than welcome to do that. The shoe fits. (Laughs)
You mentioned about you writing the lyrics. Does it mean you wrote the most of it this time?
Actually I wrote the majority of the lyrics this time. It's the most I ever contributed to writing a Death Angel record. I think over the years the guys have really grown to respect my lyric writing and the melodies that I come up with. With that mind it kinda gave them the comfort and freedom to really concentrate on the music and know that when they pass the music on it wouldn't suffer in any way, shape or form. It was wonderful to have such an outlet and to get the respect from the guys as well.
Did you get more confident by doing this?
Oh, absolutely. Over the years I had my side projects outside of Death Angel where I was writing all the lyrics and that helped. And I also did one song for Nuclear Blast's 20th Anniversary compilation "Out of the Dark" and I think when the guys in Death Angel heard that it definitely impressed them.
I noticed you were doing the lead vocals on all the songs...
Yeah, I'm singing the lead vocals on all the songs. There's definitely harmony vocals, Death Angel always try to do that just because it separates us from the other thrash bands because we can do harmonies. (Laughs) There's one song on the album "Resurrection Machine" where there's a bridge where we trade vocals with Rob. But this is definitely the first time when I did all the lead vocals and again I think it was because we wanted to make this a more consistent album.
What did you find the most challenging about making this album?
I really wanted to push myself vocally and take it to areas I’ve never had. In the downtime between “The Art of Dying” and this one I really really worked hard on my voice and concentrated on it. It was just kind of taking it to that next level. That was kind of the hardest challenge. Me and Rob were working very hard on things and tried to make it as good as possible, he pushed me, I pushed me and when we got into the studio Nick (Nick Raskulinecz – producer), he pushed me even more. When I listen back to the final tracks I’m definitely very very proud. The goal as an artist is to improve and expand and progress so I’ll try to be even better on the next album.
That’ll be out in ten years...
(Laughs) That’s definitely not the case right now. Now we’re like a firing machinegun with a vision of the target. We’ll attack constantly. (Laughs)
I know it’s fresh from the printing but what would be your most beloved song on the album?
Yeah, as you said it’s so fresh. As I said with our other albums we had our ups and downs but this one to me is such a solid album from beginning to end. My favourites are changing from day to day. I’m still listening to it all the time. (Laughs) I love “When Worlds Collide”, “God VS God”, “Lord of Hate”, “Carnival Justice”... just different ones pop in my head from day to day.
Have you decided on which songs to play live?
No, that’s gonna be a tough one. We’re getting back to the rehearsal studio and maybe this Friday we’ll start rehearsing for the live set. It’s gonna be tough because I think all the songs on the new album were completely made to be played live. The translation of any of these songs live is gonna be great. Then again now it’s five albums to choose from and the headlining set is one thing but when we start doing some support gigs and these festivals shows the sets are gonna be from 35 to 45 minutes and then you try to pick from five albums. It’s gonna be rough for all of us. (Laughs) We definitely love and take very serious our live set. When we come up with it, it’s definitely a process of elimination and it’s hard to eliminate some.
You did quite an extensive touring after the release of “The Art of Dying”. How did that go for Death Angel?
It was wonderful and the response was great. And it’s probably the most festival shows we ever had gotten to do and the festivals shows enabled us to reach out to a broader audience that we normally never would. It was definitely great that we came across in the reviews as a definite live band to reckon with. And with the new album we’re looking out to tour much more extensively than we ever have. Right now our agent is working on booking a US and a European tour for us. So far we only announced two gigs in San Francisco where we’re doing the album release party. And to make it very special we invited Forbidden to support us and that show was already sold out so we added a second night. It’s gonna be a blast. Forbidden are very good friends of ours. It should be a really good time.
If it was up to you what band you’d like to tour together with?
If it was up to me the ultimate choice for us would be to tour with Metallica. (Laughs) If I had to pick a list I would say Metallica, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath or Heaven and Hell.
You’ve been playing in Hungary four years ago. How do you remember back that day?
Oh my god, me and Rob, actually we were just talking about this the other day. It was one of the most special gigs we’ve ever played. It was one of the most special passionate gigs we’ve ever played. It reminded us of the old days back in the Bay Area back in the day but just much more emotional. I remember we were coming in and we couldn’t get across the border. They kept blocking us off as we tried to get to another border just drive in the band but they wouldn’t let us in. And the promoter came across with a van and he picked us up. But we had no equipment just the guitars. Our equipment was on the other side of the border and the other bands that we were touring together with, they couldn’t come. I remember getting to the club and people were just going wild before we went on. The opening band was from there and they let us use their equipment so we just plugged in the guitars. The energy was incredible, the crowd was going nuts, the whole place was sweating, the walls were sweating and it was just magical. I remember men and women crying that we were playing and it was just an emotional outpouring of just incredible energy. To me and Rob it was one of the most magical we’ve ever had.
Hopefully you’ll come back this year.
Oh hell yeah!
You also did a gig in the Philippines last year, which was quite special.
Yeah, very special. And that one too. It was incredible. We’ve never been there before and the people were just very warm and very welcoming. That was a big outdoor show. All the bands were from the Philippines and we headlined and 35,000 people came out. It was an incredible experience.
Some of the members of the band have Filipino roots. Are they proud of that?
Absolutely. Actually all the other guys are full blood Filipinos. They even have some relatives living there. I think going back to that country meant a lot to them.
You live in the Bay Area. What has left of the classic thrash scene?
What’s left is a genuine excitement about the old bands reforming and playing. It went through a big change but now it’s coming back that there’s this rebirth of the style. New Exodus album is coming out, our new album is coming out, new Testament album is coming out... it’s incredible. And now all these new young thrash bands coming out and in San Francisco new clubs are opening up so there’s places to play. People are getting excited about the new scene. But of course you could never draw a parallel between the times because it was a birthplace and it was an amazing time to be around and one could never duplicate that era.
How do you see the biggest difference if you take a look at Death Angel 1988 and 2008?
Nowadays we still have the aggression that we had before but we are more precise in our attack. In the early days it was just pure aggression and energy and we just got shooting all directions. (Laughs) Now we see our target, we hold in and go for the gut.
And how did your personal life changed over the years?
Huge. I mean basically your priority has changed. You are grown and you have much more responsibility unfortunately (laughs) than you had as a 15-16 years old but the same energy is there. I guess maybe there’s a bit more sense of mortality (laughs) than back then.
What albums did you enjoy the most listening to in 2007?
I listen to everything across the boards. I listen to all types of music. But as far as metal I would say the new Exodus that came at the end of 2007 but it didn’t quite come out. (Laughs) Grinderman, that was Nick Cave’s more heavy side-project and... what else did I listen to that I was excited about last year? I was thinking about this the other day and there was something I was really enjoying. Hmm. I would just say the new Machine Head then.