Live-Metal.Net - Interviews: Obituary

Tampa, Fl.'s Obituary was one of the pioneers of death metal. Their distinctive sound has yet to be duplicated by anyone. At the core of the band are the Tardy brothers: vocalist John and drummer Donald, who, with guitarists Trevor Peres and Ralph Santolla, and bassist Frank Watkins, are yet again a death metal force. The band responsible for such classics as Slowly We Rot and Cause of Death took a six-year hiatus, then returned with 2007's Xecutioner's Return. Now, with a phenomenal new album, 2009's Darkest Day, the band shows no signs of disappearing. In fact, Darkest Day is such a strong album and return to classic form it can be compared to those earlier albums, along with The End Complete.

Donald Tardy phoned in to Live-Metal.net's Jeff Maki to talk about Obituary's longevity, the new album and another project he's involved with, aptly named The Tardy Brothers.

Live Metal: First off, let me say it's somewhat of an honor today to be talking to you. Obituary, along with Sepultura, Carcass and Napalm Death, some of these bands were some of the very first death metal bands I ever got into. We're talking way back in '93 or '94 when I was still in high school. What would you attribute to your overall longevity and success?

Donald Tardy: The main thing is that we're friends. Band members are friends and we enjoy being around each other. I can't imagine being in a band for 20 years if you hated each other. And I'm sure that there's some bands that can't stand the sight of each other, but the success of the music keeps them together. So I can honestly say that we enjoy each other as company and we actually are still really good friends.

What do you think is the biggest difference in the band from back then up until now?

I don't think much has changed with Obituary. We were fans of music when we were young, so that's why we decided to play the music that we tried. And it was successful enough to where it kept us going now. And not much has changed because we're still fans of the music and we still love creating songs that are Obituary-ish. It's an honor to try and write songs that people are gonna recognize immediately from hearing it, that that's Obituary. To etch your name in the concrete of metal is just a really cool feeling, and it's gonna be around long after we're gone.

You guys do have a very distinctive sound—to the vocals, guitar sound and just everything. You put in Obituary and I think everyone knows that it's an Obituary album immediately. And I really haven't heard many bands that sound similar to yours. Is [the sound] hard to copy? What is the secret to that sound?

I don't know, man. [Vocalist] John [Tardy] obviously ... A person can't copy John's voice if they don't have that in them. But when it comes to sound with Obituary, the guitar tunings and stuff, we've never kept it a secret. We've said it from the beginning, from the get-go, 20 years ago, what we do and how we do it. It's a simple combination of a Fender guitar, a Marshall head and a rat pedal. It's literally that simple. There's no processing this and that or that we gotta do this style and this ... It's as simple as a Fender strat with a Marshall stack.

It's like with some of the other bands I mentioned, I've heard newer bands copy those bands, but with you guys I've yet to hear another band sound like Obituary. It just really stands out in my opinion.

And that's just funny because we've never tried to keep it a secret. A lot of bands talk about how they got the sound in the studio and what they did. But hey, if people wanted to try to replicate it, then that's cool because what distinguishes us from other bands is our style of writing. And our gift, when me and [rhythm guitarist] Trevor [Peres] write songs, it just comes out and it's Obituary. It's the style that we have. It's nothing that we do consciously. It's the type of music that we enjoy writing. And that's just what happens.

OK, well you guys were away for a while. It seemed like it was years. I don't know if you disbanded or were broken up. What was the reason for the long downtime and what made you decide to come back a couple of years ago?

We were gone for six or seven years. We never planned on taking time off, especially that long. We never broke up. We really were just on hiatus. It's just the lifestyle and being a part of this music world. And having to deal with record labels that no longer care about the bands anymore. And just not getting the push from record labels that you wish you did when you're still making what we though were meaningful albums. That's just really what it was. We weren't making money anymore. Every time we would go and try to do an American tour, we'd end up losing money. It's supposed to be a business. You're supposed to be able to hopefully pay the bills when you go out there and bust your ass. And we weren't making money, so that's really what ended it. Like I said, we didn't think we were going to stay away for even a year, but we stopped for a little while and that turned into a few years. And people started having families, babies and homes and all that shit. And that's just what happened.

And when you did comeback with Xecutioner's Return, I thought it was a solid record. And it was definitely an Obituary record, a solid album, but after hearing the new record, I would even call this one more of a return to form. Would you agree?

I would agree with that. I'm really proud of this album. It was a fun process. It was really a very easy, natural process to write this record. And the Xecutioner album ... there's definitely songs on there that are some of our best writing. I think the song “Evil Ways” is probably the catchiest Obituary song we've ever written, and when we play it live it's just one of those songs where you can tell that people that never really heard it before, by the time John gets to the chorus and sings, “Evil ways,” people are getting it the second time he's sayin' it. We definitely accomplished writing something on that album that means something, but with this new album, it's just song after song of just really cool, classic-sounding Obituary death metal.

You said it was very natural, but I found it kind of similar to one of my favorite albums by you guys, The End Complete. Just with the whole tribal-type rhythms and things going on, it has a similar sound in my opinion.

Yeah, it does. I had friends when we started to record this album ... We had reactions of people saying it reminded them of our first album. I don't hear that, but that's a good thing because we tried to keep it simple on this album. We didn't try to overproduce this album. We wanted it to be raw and just be what it is. After so many years, we know how to perform in the studio and come up with a good sound. And sometimes I think bands will overproduce an album and make it sound picture perfect. Instead, we're more back like in the Led Zeppelin days. We hit record and what you hear was recorded by me on drums. There's no fixing this and that or replacing bass drums or triggering snare drums or anything like that. It's just a microphone and a drummer beating the shit out of the drums.

What are the lyrical themes on the new album. Is it more along the lines of what you guys have been doing all along?

I don't know. John keeps his lyrics to himself. It's always a fantasy mood-type thing. We've always said that Obituary sets the mood and the music, and John just fills that whole. It just helps the music, it's not about the lyrical content. John's never been one to try and preach, talk or tell stories. It's more about cool crazy sayings and sentences and phrases and stuff that just puts you in that mood. Of course, there's always progression in songwriting and lyric writing. He's always getting better, but he always keeps it John Tardy-like. He always has his own style where he's not necessarily trying to depict any type of story or preach or anything. It's just about the mood of the music and mainly the vocal to set the right mood for the music, and we've always been that way.

The album is out on June 30, 2009. Do you have a lead track or video ready to go or already playing on satellite or radio?

We're so confident with this album that when the record label asked if we were going to try and target one song, we just said let the radio station or you let the dude pick whatever song he wants to listen to or play or promote because I like all the songs on this album. And video-wise, we have not dived into a video yet. We haven't really discussed what would be a good video. Maybe that would be something cool for John to monitor on the Web site. People that buy the album and listen to it, they can put their idea of what would be the first video. That might be a cool idea.

With literally over a thousand metal bands coming out over the years since you guys started, and so many different styles and subgenres and other forms of extreme metal, honestly, do you guys ever worry about keeping up with the Joneses per say?

No, if I worry about those drummers out there that are 10 times better drummers than I am, then I would worry myself sick. Instead, it's not about how good of musicians we are individually, it's that when we put our heads together—me and my brother and Trevor—we come up with cool albums, and that's the important thing. It's like saying to a long distance runner, “Are you afraid that dude next to you is gonna blow you away in the 4-40 sprint or not?” And he'd be like, "Look, I can run seven miles better than any human on this world, so I don't care if this dude can run a football field faster than me." Longevity is everything, and with Obituary, we write good albums. They're not the greatest albums in the world, they're not the most technical albums in the world. But they're albums that metalheads can put on and know that they're gonna get that mid-tempo, cool southern groove-type, old-school death metal sound, and we're proud of that.

You guys have another project going on, The Tardy Brothers. Give us some general info on that. What is the sound like and what's going on with the band?

It's something that I wrote. I wrote all the songs and I'm also the guitar player. I performed all the guitars on this album. I played all the drums on the album, and so I had four different people put solos all over the record. So it's just one of those things where I'm super, super proud of it. It's something I think Obituary fans are gonna love as long as they go into it listening and realize that we did not try to sound like Obituary. We didn't want to sound like Obituary, but of course with John's vocals, it's gonna have those elements. And that's what we realized when we wrote this album. The last thing we wanted to do was to sound like Obituary, but it's just good. Good metal, with shredding guitar solos. I had four different friends that put some really killer stuff on the album.

So definitely check it out. I mean, John's voice is John's voice, but my guitar style is a little bit different than Trevor's. Trevor is just the king of writing classic death metal, heavy-ass guitar riffs, and with me, I was more influenced by the stuff I grew up to because I had never recorded guitars on an album. And when I was 25 years old I was playing some of these rhythms. And of course that would have been my influences back then, which would have been Mercyful Fate, Metallica, stuff that was classic metal back then, and it's combined with the new stuff I wrote for the album.

Being veterans of the death metal scene, what would be the best advice you could give to a new death metal band or maybe just a metal band in general?

Look at yourself individually and see what you do well. If you're a drummer that likes playing single bass, cool, solid drum beats, don't try and play the fast double bass just because you think that's what's needed. Do what you're good at and keep it that simple. If you're gonna attempt a little bit different style that's outside of your pocket, practice it first, so when you take it to the studio you're confident in your performance. And your songwriting just has to be what's true to your style of playing. Obituary does not blast beat, simply because I don't know how. I'm not a blast beat drummer. I'm a drummer that grew up with Led Zeppelin and AC/DC, Metallica and Slayer. So I don't blast beat because I'm not good enough and I don't practice it at all because it's not Obituary. I just tell dudes to stick with what you're good at and what you believe in. Don't worry about all the other bands on this planet and what they're doing. Just do what you do good.

The Tardy Brothers album came out in April and the Obituary album just came out. So I hope everybody's digging it, and go to the Web sites and tell us what you think.