Heavy Metal Tribune: Interview with Excommunicated

Interview with Excommunicated

Author: Hong Rui | Filed under: Black Metal, Death Metal, Excommunicated, USA

Featuring numerous veteran members of the Louisiana death metal scene, Excommunicated presents with longtime followers of their individual bands with a different style from usual with their debut full length album, Skeleton Key. We talk to the band to find out more about their music.

Excommunicated - Cry To Heaven by heavymetaltribune

HMT: Hi Chad, congratulations on the band’s recent release of the debut album, Skeleton Key. Before we move on, would it be possible to tell us and our readers a brief history of the band?

Well, as many know, we all came out of a long history of playing together and apart in rival death metal bands throughout the 90’s and first half of the 2000’s; those bands being Suture, Catholicon, and Despondency. Each one of those bands are unique and I think a little bit of influence from each shine through in Excom. Jason McIntyre (Suture) played some guest lead guitar on both the first and last Catholicon albums; and Jonathan Joubert (Despondency) was our Catholicon’s bassist in the 1998-1999 era. Furthermore, I’d recorded Suture many times and Jason (Suture) had once been a member of Despondency. I even helped book shows that were played by Jason’s early bands (Guilt Trip and October) going back to the very early 90’s. So there’s a lot of history and mutual respect. I think Jason and I had talked about trying to do a studio project since 2009 after Catholicon disbanded. When Jonathan Joubert called me up to let me know he had David Kinkade staying in town at his studio to do some session work for most of 2010, it kind of gave us the boost to get started. Jason only had song ideas for about half an album’s worth of material, and Jonathan immediately offered to help write the rest of it, in order to get things on the fast track. The two of them have very different writing styles; but I think we keep the record glued together by having all the same players and tones on every song, and therein lies the ‘diversity’ that’s on the record.

The band is mostly made up of members associated with other Louisiana death metal acts, such as Despondency and Suture. What was it that made the band members decide to form a band that leans more towards the black metal end of the spectrum instead?

I’m not sure Excom leans any more towards black metal or death metal. It’s definitely got a lot of pure death metal moments on the record, I think. But it’s a very uninhibited album, it even has thrash elements, and mostly centered around oldschool vibe, and I think is very open to interpretation. What it definitely doesn’t draw from is modern black metal, in the sense that a lot of that stuff is very one dimensional, we feel like.

Let’s now move on to talk about the band’s debut full length, Skeleton Key. What does the album title, Skeleton Key refer to, and how does it relate to the concept that runs behind the lyrical contents of the album?

Well, the word Skeleton Key is in reference to the Catholic mythos surrounding the first papacy (which is purely fabricated) and the set of physical keys given by Jesus to St. Peter, the mythical keys to Heaven, which represents Catholicism’s claim to be the only truth path to salvation (Extra Eclesium Nulla Salas=Outside the Church, there is no Salvation).

It is stated that you were the primary lyricist on the album, and looking at the lyrics it is evident that much research is done when writing the lyrics, complete with a glossary to accompany the lyrics. How did the inspiration to write about the medieval Catholic Church come about?

Well, I got the idea of it back in 2005 when Pope John Paul II died and it had taken over every television station. I was actually in a hotel room down in Harlingen, TX, right near the border with Mexico, when this was going on (a city with a very large Hispanic population and probably very Catholic). Catholicon (my former band) was getting ready for a show that night, and I started thinking that a concept record revolving around Catholic mythos and dark history would be a good idea and a sort of sequel to Catholicon’s second album, “Death Throes”, which was about Christian atrocities. The record never happened during Catholicon’s timeline because I was too busy with other things, and I didn’t get around to really fleshing out the lyrics until after Catholicon had been disbanded.

The lyrics are also well thought-through, unlike many bands that deal with anti-Christianity in a straightforward manner, the lyrics on Skeleton Key seem to be more of a storytelling format. What were the difficulties that you encountered when writing the lyrics to Skeleton Key?

The most difficult thing was really just making sure I didn’t cross any territory that had already been covered so well in the past, either by me or by someone else. The record really takes the backroads through Christian history and talks about a lot of obscure issues, if you notice. There is no mention of the larger crusades and inquisitions, for instance.

In addition, how did the interest on such topics come about? What are your religious/spiritual background that make you despise Catholicism so much?

I come from a mostly Irish Catholic family, and some of the ones who aren’t Catholic are devoutly protestant. I have relatives who have gone to religious colleges and ‘schools of ministry’, and relatives who have smuggled themselves into China to distribute bibles translated into Chinese, at the risk of their own imprisonment. So you might say I got plenty of exposure to both sides of the coin, and decided very early on that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with any of it. A lot of people assume that as you get older, you become more tolerant and laid back about such things… But I can tell you now, as a grown man, I am more convinced than ever before that all forms of supernaturalism are nothing more than a disease, and deserve not the slightest consideration or tolerance. I’d say I’m more committed to this now than I was 20 years ago. It seems to be my mission in life to rain down on the religious parade.

Let’s now talk about the music on Skeleton Key. The music on Skeleton Key features a wide range of influences, with each song having a unique touch to them. Jason and Jonathan each had an equal share in writing the music on the album. What was the songwriting process like?

Yes, very much so, and thanks. If you look at the CD as being ten tracks, which it is, then Jason and Jonathan each composed 5; so the songwriting credit is about 50/50. As I said, they each have very different styles. Catholicon was a primitive death/black metal band, and even though I’d like to say some of that comes through; I stayed 100% out of of the music process and focused on the storyline, lyrics, vocals, and a lot of the production/engineering. Suture was a brutal death metal band, but a very original sounding one; and I think that comes through. Despondency was a European sounding death metal band, and I think some of that comes through. The really neat thing Jonathan did though, was to turn in 5 tracks that all sound completely different from one another; while Jason sort of kept one solid style that sort of keeps the record glued together very well in the death metal domain, gluing together all of Jonathan’s more tangential excursions, maybe.

What and who are some of the band’s influences when it comes to the music, and the execution of the songs?

Oh, there is everything on there from Exodus to Carcass and Morbid Angel, Sinister, Acheron, Benediction, Celtic Frost, Obituary, Death, Deicide, Monstrosity, you name it. The song ‘Christ’s Sword’ is a downright study on the first Amorphis album “Karelian Isthmus”; we even had to check to see if we didn’t steal any actual riffs. I even tried (but failed) to imitate the vocals on that record in the beginning. I definitely did imitations here and there of John Tardy (Obituary), Jeff Walker (Carcass), Dave Ingram (Benediction), Glen Benton, David Vincent, Paul Baloff (Exodus), L.G. Petrov (Entombed), Karl Willets (Bolt Thrower), Martin Van Drunen (Asphyx), Chuck Schuldiner, etc. There are tons of hidden nods. I think the next one will be an even more serious study or tribute to these gods.

Skeleton Key also features guest spots such as Andy LaRocque on a lead guitar solo, and also notably, David Kinkade on drums for the album. How did these collaborations come about, and what was it like working with each of them?

Well, as I mentioned, Dave Kinkade was in Louisiana for some session work at the time that we were working on starting up this project; and he was very interested. He really came through for us and was instrumental in helping us put this record together. Andy LaRocque is just a metal icon, and since King Diamond’s ‘The Eye’ is my favorite record of all time, and because ‘Skeleton Key’ tells a similar story, though in more documentary form, I had to ask him to be a part of it. Thankfully, he agreed. Vincent Crowley is someone I’ve known for a very long time, a true metal warrior, and it was just an honor to have him give his signature voice to a spot on the record.

In particular, did the inclusion of David Kinkade on guest drums affect or help in the direction of the band’s musical direction?

Well, I can’t imagine how it would have sounded without him. He became part of the formula and chemistry, that’s for sure. He even helped with the tempo arrangements of one of the songs.

Also, will fans of the band see a permanent drummer in the band soon, completing the lineup?

Yes, and hopefully a live version of the band after we do the next record.

With each member having a rich musical background in extreme metal, how would you say it has helped in the band dynamics and the creative process on the whole recording process of Skeleton Key?

Well, I just think it gave us the diversity and the volatile chemistry of a this forced collusion, to make the record stand out in a sea of such one dimensional music. We didn’t want this record to ‘fit in’ to anyone’s genre conceptions or production expectations, etc., and it certainly is different, I think.

The band has mentioned that a follow up to Skeleton Key, tentatively entitled The Exterminating Angel will be written. Will fans expect to see a similar musical direction expressed in Skeleton Key in the upcoming album?

More heavy, I do know that; but it will be a continuation of the same story line, basically picking up at the time of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. Expect some offensive lyrics too!

We have come to the end of the interview, thank you for taking the time off to answer our questions!

Oh, my pleasure, and thanks so much for the chance to be interviewed in your fine magazine! Please check out the Excommunicated album, available at Red Stream, Deathgasm, Crucial Blast, Comatose Music, Moribund Records, eBay, and many others. Also email excommunicated@cox.net to receive a download link to our 100% free digital release album “Bone Fragments (EP)/In the Shadow Of the Cross (demo)”. Thanks again, and stay metal! -Chad

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Album Review: Excommunicated - Skeleton Key

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©2011 Heavy Metal Tribune | Hong Rui