Angelic Desolation 27/03/21
MM: Can you tell us about your Band and whos your biggest influences
Hey, I'm Matt, I play guitar and I'm responsible for managing socials/touring/all that fun stuff. I would say as far as Angelic Desolation goes, we are mostly influenced by extreme metal as a whole. We love riffs, blast beats and mosh pits. I guess that means we're mainly influenced by riffs with blast beats over them, that make you want to jump in the pit.
MM: Where do you draw your inspirations and ideas from
For the most part our vocalist, Jay, writes all of the lyrical content. He is a huge horror movie buff so twisted and morose ideas naturally come from his brain. Of course, there is the poison that is organized religion and general disgusting human behavior that ideas come from as well.
MM: What would you say is your Bands favourite song ?
Well, I'm the only guy in the room so this is a hard one to call but I would probably put our song "Bloody Buddy" off of 2018's "Rumpus Time Is Over" as at least one of our favorites. It's a mid-tempo straightforward death metal song that usually gets heads and bodies moving.
MM: Plans tour and festival wise for 2021
It's hard to say right now with every state having different restrictions but one thing for sure is that we will be playing Slam Dakota Deathfest in July. That will be taking place in South Dakota and due to touring pulling a hard stop last year, there are some bigger names on this bill so this should be incredibly fun. Beyond July we have nothing etched in stone tour wise but we're writing new music so we're keeping busy.
MM: What can we expect from you guys live
None of us like to stand still that's for sure. We believe that if you are going to see a performance, you should put on a show for the audience. At smaller venues where we can't get as crazy, we will typically do the classic hair windmills and scream in your face. However, if we are allowed some wiggle room then you will likely see us throwing aborted babies at you or pulling the heads off dead babies and eating their brains. Our vocalist might even ask you if you would like some brains as well. Essentially, live abortions, fake blood and dead babies are some of our commonly used stage props. A lot of our fans even keep these babies afterwards and proudly display them in their homes.
MM: What do you like best and worst about touring
The best part about touring is all the new connections and playing with bands that you've never heard of that are killer. The worst part about touring is probably the price of gas. Planning a tour and talking to all of the out-of-state bands or promoters that you'll be working with, we find that stuff fun. Paying for gas though? Totally blows.
MM: Which three Bands would be your ultimate touring buddies
Cryptopsy, Aborted, Cattle Decapitation, GWAR (with Dave alive), end of story.
MM: What's the most memorable concert you've been to (other than your own) and why
For me personally I would have to say Metallica. I know that this is kind of a cliche answer but I had never seen them until about four or five years ago. Seeing the stage show they put on with pyrotechnics and lasers, I feel like I will probably never see anything even close to as epic as what they did. Mind you, watching the Metallica "Binge-and-Purge" 3 VHS tape live performance might have impacted me quite a bit as a 13 year old kid so my choice here is a bit biased.
MM: What do you feel has been your biggest accomplishment so far with
Biggest accomplishment so far is probably the EP "Quorum Of Unspeakable Curses" that we put out in 2020. It was easily our most well-received release and we managed to get a premiere at Metal Injection with it. That really shot us through the roof as far as fan growth goes.
MM: Which are your Two favourite Albums of all time
That truly is a hard question to answer. For me, one of them for sure is "Tubular Bells" by Mike Oldfield and the other would be "Scepter Of The Ancients" by Psycroptic. The former is an instrumental masterpiece that I have ingested many hallucinogens to so it holds a special place for me. With Psycroptic, that was the first technical death metal album that really blew me away and I knew at that point I was never going back.
MM: Can you remember the first time you ever played live and how it felt to have people watching you?
The first time I ever played live in front of an actual audience was a battle of the bands performance in a park. I was 13 and we moved on to the next round. When you're that young and you're playing your first show you don't care if you sound good or not. I personally do not have any kind of stage anxiety so as far as I was concerned, we were the best death metal performance that park had ever seen.
MM: Growing up which Bands posters did you have on your bedroom wall.
Slayer, Slipknot, Metallica, Dry Kill Logic, Rammstein. Those were my jams on regular rotation in high school. My Discman CD player and the walls of my bedroom as a teenager were filled with their posters.
MM: Who do you think influenced the world of Metal / Rock more than any other person
Though I'm not his biggest fan, I would say that Ozzy has probably influenced the world of metal and hard rock more so than anyone else. He has been present through five decades of heavy metal and has what is likely the most iconic voice in that realm. Ozzy, hands down.
MM : What's the most important thing to the band right now?
Our most important thing is keeping busy. A lot of bands kind of fell by the wayside when everything shut down and we are all very fortunate that that didn't happen to us. Losing a year's worth of traction in the music world is not necessarily a spot that you want to be in. Growth is key and if you aren't growing then it's hard to get anybody to care.
MM: If you could do a cover of any song which one would it be and why?
I would probably fall back on my "Tubular Bells" reference from earlier. I don't know how you could arrange something like that and make it work in the death metal realm but if you could, that would be amazing and super fun.
MM: Tell us why we should buy and listen to your Band
We perform live abortions on stage and then throw these babies at you so that you can take them home with you. Our shirts and merchandise feature churches burning, yeti's tearing apart children, baby onesies that have "shake me" in alphabet blocks as a graphic or coat hangers through the heads of aborted fetuses. Aside from our gimmicks, our actual music has been well received thus far as well. So if riffs, blast beats and dead babies are your thing, you will likely dig what we do.
MM: Four words to describe your Band
Offensive, dead, babies, riffs
MM: Final Words for your fans and our readers
We have an upcoming release on April 2nd. It will be a digital-only reissue of our last two releases. However, instead of music we recorded track-by-track commentary for every single song. We also get progressively more drunk as the recording goes on so there are definitely some off-the-cuff moments within the commentary. We go into the history and thoughts behind the creation of each song, along with some drunken morbid humor. It will be available on all the major streaming platforms along with our Bandcamp as well. We have music and a presence on every single social platform so if you read this, hear our music and enjoy it, a follow, like or retweet would be pretty swanky of you. We might even dance at your wedding.
