Obituary - Interview with Donald Tardy
VU: In 1984 OBITUARY started under the name Xecutioner.
You are still one of the most important Death Metal Bands from Florida and you influenced the style of Death Metal essentially. Your first release „Slowly We Rot“ proved that John Tardy put the main feature on his way of singing and there were no lyrics as far as I know. What are your thoughts about your first album today ? In my opinion his style of singing – besides BOLT THROWER – belongs to the very best ever existing ones in this genre. I hope that later on we will hear some songs of „Slowly We Rot“ when you’re on stage ....
Obituary: The Death Metal Gods from Florida......
DONALD TARDY: We were known because we were different than most of the people, cause no one has heard John’s voice, something so brutal before “Slowly we rot”, so it was a very important album for the whole Metal history. Looking back now it was amazing that we were only teenagers when we recorded in an A-track studio in 1986, it’s 20 years ago.
VU: What do you think about the quality now?
DONALD: I think it’s amazing, it still sounds as good as albums being played 20 years later. I think we always have good-sounding albums cause we are a good sounding band, cause we know each other so much that the music is very tight.
VU: If I remember correctly you have recorded some CDs at Morrisound is that right?
DONALD: Yeah, the first four albums, “Back from the dead” we recorded down in Miami, Florida and then we came back with this album and then we mixed the Album at Morrisound.
VU: When did you start to use lyrics for the first time? Is there maybe a lyrical concept in OBITUARY?
DONALD: John alwas had lyrics. Purposely he never put anything together to try to preach or to tell a story or anything. He worried more about how good his voice sounded, not necessarily what he was talking about. And it made sense with us, cause we are such an emotionally fit band and it’s just slow sometimes, sometimes dramatic and then it’s fast and crazy. And with John’s voice it just made sense, it really made sense with the music. We really don’t worry about lyrics, we worry about vocals, if that makes any sense.
VU: You played in Andrew W.K´s tour band and
Allen West worked with his two projects Lowbrow and Six Feet Under. In 2001 Trevor Peres founded the band Catastrophic. Are the members of OBITUARY still working on other music-projects ?
DONALD: I think Trevor still tries to do stuff with his band. I’m committed to Obituary now because I had so much to do with Obituary, I’m so busy that I cannot do Andrew anymore. Our main focus right now is Obituary and that’s obvious. We have to stay focused on the tour, playing shows and playing more music.
VU: In August 2005 the founder member Allen West left the band for the second time. The reason for that were supposed upcoming conflicts concerning his supposed drunkenness at a gig. Can you tell us some details about this ?
How do you manage this loss at gigs now? A second guitarist would be necessary at least on live-performances, or what do you think?
DONALD: It was simply that things are already back to normal and as you can see Alan is still with us. Lots of band members in the history of Rock’n’Roll fight battles of addiction and once you have a little bit too much of drinking, of the beer maybe, some nights and I’m the one, I’m like the mother of the band, I’m everybody’s guide, like I had to tell him:” Look, let’s focus again now. We are one of the greatest bands in the world.” That’s all I have to tell him and he was like:” You are right.” “Get your fucking ass up!” and he did it, it’s simple. I’m his best friend, me and Allan have known each other for 25 years. We went home, we talked about it and got it straight. And we’re ready, you know.
It’s really good, there is no changes in this band, we are who we are, we are best friends.
a nice talk with the Obituary Drummer Donald Tardy & Hanzi/V.U.
VU: In contrary to other Death Metal Bands you have kept your own style over all these years. And with your latest output „Frozen in Time“ you have put out a real hammer. Maybe only a few people would have expected such a success. Nevertheless, this album has reached the Top 100 Album- charts here in Germany ....
Did you ever think about factoring other musical elements into your songwriting or is that the typical characteristic and sign of Obituary also?
DONALD: It is a very natural, organized process with Obituary and the way we write music now because we’ve been doing this for....this is our 28th year together, so it is a very natural, funny feeling to write music. A lot of bands I think feel pressure and think “Oh, what are we gonna do next and what do the fans want?” Obituary focusess on nothing but what we love. What do I wanna play ? Cause I love playing drums so much that whatever makes me happy I think my fans are gonna be happy with, so I don’t look at this pressure, I just look at this complete power excitement and just knowledge of realizing “We write music for a living and we’re getting pretty good at it”. Cause “Frozen in Time” is my favourite album so far from us, so the future is exremely, extremely bright for us right now for the songwriting part.
VU: You could also see from the audience that you have lots of fun together while you were playing.
DONALD: Yeah, yeah we do, I mean, you heard it tonight, it’s just fun, that’s good stuff, man.
VU: You know the roots...
DONALD: Yeah, that’s it ! So powerful ! I can’t get enough.
VU: What do you think of those bands who combine Death Metal with other elements?
Is that a typical further development in your eyes or would you call it a change-in-style which isn´t okay in your opinion?
DONALD: I don’t like it personally. I don’t wanna talk bad about any bands cause there are many bands with bandmembers that are amazing songwriters, amazing musicians, but it’s not my cup of tea, it really is not, I don’t like going – imitates clean vocals turning into deep growls, starts singing again-
VU: Mixing female vocals and combine it with Death Metal vocals....
DONALD: Yeah, I think you have to expect, it’s going to happen, everyone is gonna test the water, everbody is gonna try and there’s always a record label that is trying so hard to sell albums to kids that are not..... listening as much as they’re looking. Kids see a video and they’re watching it and that’s what sells records nowadays to me with the popular stuff. So you know, with Obituary we are not any thing but what we are: a Death Metal-straight forward-heavy-ass-band. And that’s what we worry about, we don’t worry about radio. The name Obituray will never change our style, I think we have something good here, you know.
VU: Yes, of course. What kind of expectations do you have concerning this tour and what about OBITUARY´s future ?
DONALD: I was a little bit wondering how it was gonna do because Bolt Thrower was out at the same time, there is other tours out, so the booking agent, when he started booking us, the band was wondering “ Wow, pre-sales are not that great.” And then, 2 weeks before the tour, pre-sales were amazing. The clubs are packed. And we are doing full houses every night. So unbelievable, and the expectation now I just see that kids are starving, they are so hungry for Obituary live and that really makes the future much more bright for us to go and write another album and create another killer.
VU: To which extend can you refer “musical diversity” into OBITUARY ? Are there still new things you want to try? Only concerning musical things,okay? :-)........
DONALD: Not with Obituary, now it’s like a race team, like a race car. And we are all the pit crew. And we have a really good running car now. We have to stay on the race track we can’t wreck. We have to stay on the race track and we’re doing good, we’re exactly where we want right now. The band is full blast focused, straight ahead on what we need to do which is write more music and tour.
VU: Every band meber is standing behind it?
DONALD: Yeah. Absolutely, everbody is really excited, like we were 20 years old again, you know, really, it’s a killer for me. All I wanna do is play drums, I just wanna play music, you know. That’s what I need to do.
VU: Please describe each single bandmember concerning his character and begin with yourself !
the “Brain” of Obituary: Trevor Peres
DONALD: I’d be like a cat cause I generally stay in the shadows, I’m very quite, very adapted. My brother would be like a lion. He’d be a male lion on Seringeti, you know. I don’t know, Frank would be the bear, definetely, his character is the grizzly bear. And Alan is like the smart owl that just sits there and watches everybody and knows what’s going on. And Trevor is the brain, the squid in the ocean, he’s got the biggest brain power of most people I know, for real, when it comes to crazy shit like chemistry and calculuses and, you know, a lot of brain power stuff. I see us as animals, you know, that is my characteristic of my band.
VU: What is your definition of Death Metal and which bands do you consider to be the most important representatives of this genre?
DONALD: I guess, Death Metal to me, when I grew up the first things I heard was Venom, Hellhammer, Slayer, you know, people say that’s Speed Metal. To me it was brutal, as fast or as hard as you can play or scream. And the content in the album covers, that’s Death Metal to me, you know, of course it’s Obituary and Deicide, Morbid Angel but to me it was Venom and Hellhammer and Celtic Frost, Slayer. When I was a kid I would say that’s Death metal.
VU: Some bands of today maybe ?
DONALD: Death Metal? Obituary !! I don’t know man, because my favourite bands of the heavy stuff, you know, are Full Blown Chaos, Hatebreed. It’s not Death Metal, it’s what I like more than most of what I hear in Death Metal nowadays. With me I think right now Obituary have shown that we’re king right now in the Death Metal field, cause Bolt Thrower is as heavy as can be, it’s unbelievable. That’s Death Metal, you know.
VU: At the end of this interview please deliver a message to your fans ....
DONALD: There is much about to happen with Obituary, new music has already been written, we’re thinking of the next release already we’re gonna focus on “Frozen In Time”a little bit more in America. And now we go home and write the new album. So hopefully by the end of the year, we’ll have another album ready to record. And this is not the last of Obituary.
Here we come.
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