Dave, greetings demon! Good to speak with you, I think the last time we met in person was the Inquisition / Bloodstorm show in Philadelphia, a couple years ago. So what has been up lately? Have Abaza or Funebrarum played any live shows lately?

What’s up, Dale!!!  Yes, the last time we saw each other was at that gig you mentioned, and it was a killer one at that!!!  Well, things are continuing with both bands but kind of “under the radar” as we are currently focusing on writing and recording material rather than doing live shows.  The last ABAZAGORATH show took place on October 28, 2005 and we played with INQUISITION, BAHIMIRON and SACRISTY in Clifton, NJ.  Despite some bullshit with the club resulting in a very early start time, the show went pretty fuckin’ well.  As for FUNEBRARUM, we played with the mighty DEMILICH and MUCUPURULENT at North Six in Brooklyn on May 31, 2006.  Besides being a guitarist short for this appearance and the “unwilling mosher” who tackled our drum kit in the middle of a song, it was a pretty killer time!!!

The first question should be is it difficult running two full time bands? Do you find you have to take a hiatus from Abaza for Funebrarum or vice versa during rehearsals for upcoming shows / recordings etc…? Have you given any thought to having both bands play a show in the same night?

Right now I would say it is more like running 2 part time bands between a full time job and other mundane responsibilities!!  But it has usually run in kind of an “ebb and flow” manner in which one band is the priority when the other one may be taking some time off.  Most of the other guys in both ABAZAGORATH and FUNEBRARUM are involved in at least one other band, some of us live pretty far apart (from a one and a half hour drive to 3,000 miles!!!), and everybody has crazy job schedules, so it is often a real juggling act to get things together!!  As far as what we plan on for the future, it looks like both will be swinging into full gear soon!! Plus, I have recently been working with a brand new band called PONTIFF that has begun conjuring up a Horrific and Nasty Dirty Black Metal racket!!!  As for the bands playing shows together, there actually was a Death Fest back in October of 2000 where FUNEBRARUM and ABAZAGORATH shared the stage at CBGBs in New York.  And better than that, it was a “three way” with FUNE guitar overgod Nick’s Doom band EVOKEN also on the bill!  There was also another EVOKEN / FUNEBRARUM show with NUNSLAUGHTER and CRUCIFIER on April 29, 2000 that I remember fondly as it was also my 30^th birthday!!  Now that you mention it, between the current, former and session members of each band, we could put together our own Metal fest.  A diverse array of bands such as IN MEMORIUM, KROHM, DRAWN AND QUARTERED, METHADRONE, KALOPSIA and more could be called upon to perform!!!

Now Dave going waaay back I believe you and other members of the band actually came from hardcore bands / scene. How did this come about and are you / they still involved in hardcore at all?

That is actually Daryl / Morgul who has a pretty long and storied past in the hardcore movement in the 80s and early 90s.  He was in quite a number of bands, performing drums in some and vocals in others.  The most notable ones would be CITIZENS ARREST and TASTE OF FEAR and he even filled in on vocals for ASSUCK on a European tour.  To this day, he gets a lot of recognition and compliments for his work with CITIZENS ARREST, so it is clear to me that he really made a big impact in the HC scene.  He also has tons of great stories about those days and is still in touch with some folks he knew back then.  Judging from the live pics I have see of old CXA and T.O.F. gigs, he was truly a raging maniac on stage! Total back flips, dropkicks into the crowd and bloody faced mayhem!!!  Well, I can’t speak for him directly, but it looks like early / punk and hardcore was his own “genesis” in the underground music scene.  But in that era, he was also picking up on a lot of the Metal that was going down too.  You would have to say that the level of dedication of those who are really into it has to equal the dedication of the most die hard metal heads, but of course I would say – and I think Daryl would agree – that there are a lot of trendies and people who are into it as a fad.  I know that Daryl dislikes a lot of what he sees in the hardcore scene of today.  And of course the mindset may be a bit different in comparison with the Metal scene.  Especially concerning politics and social issues….  Daryl has occasionally taken some flak from his former cronies / associates as far as his involvement in a Black Metal scene that is pretty much non-PC.   

I believe you share a house with head of the notorious Elegy Records. How does this situation work out, do you find you argue over what metal should be blasted in the house and similar?! I am guessing this living arrangement must be very conducive to keeping the mind focused on your UG activities? Do you and Elegy work together on things? When one does something negative (for example extreme politics) does it ever reflect upon the other – guilty through association essentially? 

That’s right, I do share a house with Rob from Elegy as well as my ABAZ / FUNE partner Daryl.  The situation works out well since we are all friends and since we have similar tastes in music and décor.  So I don’t have to worry about my room mates freaking out if I am listening to SLAYER or have a goat skull in my bed room!!!  But we actually don’t hang out together all that much any more.  It’s probably because we see each other almost every day for the past 6 years!!  But it is helpful as far as the bands go to live with Daryl as we have all our amps set up in the living room so we have “house jams” where we write riffs and arrange them into songs before taking them to the rehearsal studio.  And it is nice to have a Metal distro with hundreds of titles to choose from in the basement! Plus Rob lets me check CDs out before I buy ‘em!!  A few years before we lived together, Rob’s first release on Elegy was ABAZAGORATH’s “Tenebrarum Cadent Exsurgemus” CD.  Since we are still technically “contractually bound” to put out another album with Rob, I have talked to him about doing a release that would put together some of our “rarities” and he liked the idea, so perhaps this will indeed see the light some day…  There may have been one case of “guilt by association” as there was a local reporter snooping around in our business 2 years ago. He made incorrect assumptions about all of us because we all lived together or ABAZAGORATH had released an album on Elegy.  The truth is, as I find with lots of Metal heads, that we are individuals – not mindless clones – and despite differences in opinions on many things (politics, society or even music), we are all friends and accept each other for who we are!!!    

You are to enter the studio soon to record an album and a split ep soon? What should we expect with the new material, where will you record this time and do you always fund the recordings or have any record labels helped out? Are you a fan of Pro Tools?

Well, I am not exactly sure if we will be recording “soon.” There is the possibility that we may record some new ABAZAGORATH stuff in the early months of 2007, but this is not at all confirmed yet….  We have some new songs written, but we still need to teach most of them to Warhead (drums), rehearse ‘em and we would need Nihilist (verbal hate amplifier) to make the trip out from Seattle to lay down the vocals! So there is a lot to take into account before this goes down!  It’s still a bit early to talk about the overall direction of the music but so far it sounds like “us” taken to a new level if that means anything….  If we do indeed get to record some more EP or split type of stuff, we may try to go the more economical, lo-fi route, but I don’t know for sure yet.  For our next album, we would most likely go back to a more “professional” studio.  Things have been “fifty-fifty” as far as the financial backing of the recordings go. The first full length was fully funded by Elegy and for “Sacraments of the Final Atrocity” we had money for 1/3 of the recording and full airfares for our European Tour funded by Cecile Hansen of Dominion Entertainment.  On the other hand, most of the expenses for the recording of our EPs, Mini-CDs were paid for ourselves with the various labels involved paying for the printing and pressing.  We have not used Pro Tools but we have done most of our recordings in the digital realm.  Off Stage Studio, where we have done a lot of stuff for both ABAZAGORATH and FUNEBRARUM, uses the Nuendo program which is pretty cool to work with.  But I am not a huge fan of all the shortcuts and tricks digital recording provides…  I prefer to keep things “real” even if it doesn’t sound perfect! 

I believe you have a split ep coming up with the mighty Bloodstorm, how did this idea come about? Do you know the Bloodstorm guys well? Do you prefer vinyl splits to CD splits?

You are correct, there will be an ABAZAGORATH / BLOODSTORM split picture disc LP entitled “Ancient Entities Arise” coming out on Bestial Onslaught Productions.  It has been a long time coming – over 2 years since the idea was hatched – but the label has received all the materials, so it will hopefully be out soon.  It all germinated after a gig we played with BLOOD STORM up in Massachusetts in September of 2004.  Daryl met Alex from Bestial Onslaught, and since we have known BLOOD STORM for almost 10 years, he pitched the idea and things took off from there…  Through the years, we have played numerous shows together and Mezzadurus / Chris Gamble has shown great hospitality as I have been to several parties at his house in Philadelphia. And I do remember that it was at one of these parties that I met you, Dale!!!  HAHA!  So, it seemed quite natural that our bands share this release!  Going by the tunes from each act as well as the totally killer artwork and layout, this will be a release that should not be missed!!!!  I have no real preference of one format over another, but this being our first 12” vinyl, I am definitely stoked!!!  

There was a mix up with your release on Agonia Records release, can you tell us what happened and are they still on your Christmas card list? Will you do anything differently in the future when dealing labels? You guys work with a lot of different labels, is that out of choice or born out of necessity?

At one point I had several CDRs that each contained different versions of the recordings that would become the “Enshrined Blasphemer” MCD.  Most of them had serious audio defects and unfortunately, one of them became the master CD!!!  I haven’t been in touch with Filip from Agonia for a while now, and I have no seriously bad ill will, but he sure won’t get a Christmas card.  Come on, Filip, I would like the trade items you owe me from 2 years ago!!!  Dealing with labels can be a pretty big pain in the ass, especially if they are from overseas!!  Releasing things ourselves (“Channelling the Ethereal Moons” MCD, “Sacraments of the Final Atrocity” CD or with friends who live close by (Elegy or Necroharmonic) has worked better for us.  Of course it isn’t fun to dump a lot of money into a project that isn’t going to make us rich, but at least we had control over everything and any success or failure rests squarely on our own shoulders!!!  As I did a lot of the promotion, I was never that big on sending demos to labels and asking them if they were interested in working with us.  We have been fortunate to have people come forward asking to work with us in several cases.  As it ends up, we have worked with some pretty killer Cult / quality labels like Elegy, Necroharmonic, Agonia (…I know they get a lot of shit, but look at the roster!!!), Blood Fire Death / Red Stream, Hell Attacks and Bestial Onslaught, so I think that speaks highly in itself… 

Funebrarum has it’s own sound but it is a definite tribute to forefathers of death metal, do wish more bands would be playing classic DM such as early Grave, Repulsion, Autopsy etc…? What do you dislike about more, say modern death metal? Is it easy or hard when writing music to separate Funebrarum material from Abazagorath material?

As much as you think I might want to say, “Yes! I wish more new bands sounded like NIHILIST, ROTTREVORE or MACABRE END!,” this isn’t necessarily true!  While it’s great to hear bands like KAAMOS or REPUGNANT who have an “old school” vibe or sound, I don’t want this to be “the new trend.” Basically, we play Death Metal the way we think it should sound: Heavy as fuck but with a real dismal, horrific atmosphere.  This is what Death Metal should be! This is what our “tribute” is to!!!  I don’t care for bands who “overdo it.”  If you are trying to be too technical, have too many moshy breakdowns, or are trying to growl too low, you will most likely lose me!!!  Make me feel something emotionally!!!  Put me in that open grave as the dirt is shoveled in!!!  Cast me down into the abyss!!!  Even though Daryl and I are in both bands we keep everything in their proper places, so to speak.  Besides, a lot of the FUNEBRARUM material is written and arranged by guitarists Nick and Matt who have no affiliation with ABAZAGORATH.   

From Beyond is set to release the new Funebrarum album, how did you work out this deal? In my opinion, From Beyond seems really dedicated and champion old thrash/death/black metal as well as newer bands who worship the old ways, do you think this played a role in their offer to release Funebrarum? Do you prefer being on labels who have a distinct purpose such as F.B.? What kind of recording budget do they afford you?

Actually, From Beyond will not be putting out the next album.  They were interested at one point but I do not know what really happened in the end with them.   At the time, we were not going to be ready to record for a while and maybe they had more than enough releases planned? I wasn’t the one in touch with them, so I am not sure what happened.  Necroharmonic will be doing it, and I believe we also have an offer from Weird Truth to do an album with them once this next one is out of the way.  Well, I do prefer to work with labels that seem to “think the way I do” or support the kind of stuff that I like the best…  Necro Roy has worked with bands like AUTOPSY, ROTTREVORE, DR. SHRINKER, DISCIPLES OF MOCKERY, DERKETA, FATAL, ANATOMIA, GOREAPHOBIA, CORPSE MOLESTATION and BLOOD STORM, so it is an honor to be included on his roster!!!  I think we will be getting like $2,000 - $3,000 to cover the studio recording costs, and Roy is ready to also back us up as far as expanding the distribution, producing merch, more advertising, etc.   

What was the first record, first fanzine and what first enticed you towards the UG scene? What kind of non-metal music were you listening to before hand? Were there any other ‘heads’ in your school? Can you remember what bands you got in your first tape trade?!

My first exposure to “really” underground music came from a kid in my high school who gave me these mix tapes with VENOM, SLAYER, EXODUS, KING DIAMOND, CELTIC FROST, MERCYFUL FATE, POSSESSED, EXCITER, etc… I was already into stuff like METALLICA, BLACK SABBATH, IRON MAIDEN and one of my buddies told me this kid he knew could hook me up with some even crazier shit!!!!  From there I went on to buy cassettes of all these sick new bands I was hearing and then that set me off getting into even more wild and obscure stuff like SODOM, CARNIVORE, VOI VOD, BATHORY,  NECROPHAGIA, S.O.D, D.R.I., etc.  The first mag that I read that covered more underground stuff was the great “Metal Forces” from the UK!  In addition to covering the more popular stuff like METALLICA or MEGADETH, that’s also where I first read interviews with BATHORY, DEATH, EXUMER and so on…  “Blackthorn” from Denmark was also a killer mag that covered the UG but had great production value, too!  Before getting into Metal, I guess I was into rock-n-roll but was not a true “fanatic” about music yet.  That did not come until I got into underground Metal!!!  But, I had LPs from THE CLASH, ROLLING STONES, MEN AT WORK, JOURNEY, DEVO, THE POLICE…. I remember being particularly fascinated with the look and attitude of THE CLASH in the “Rock the Casbah” video and the outrageousness definitely appealed to me.  Yeah, Metal / Hard Rock was at its peak in the mid to late 80s when I was in high school so there were loads of “burn outs” or “heads” around…  Of course MOTLEY CRUE or BON JOVI were the most popular bands, but there was a contingent of kids who were into CELTIC FROST and SLAYER, too!!!!   My particular “clique” was made up of a small group of odd characters and outsiders and I ended up getting most of ‘em into some of the shit I was listening to….  I didn’t do any long distance tape trading through the mail until I started ABAZAGORATH in 1995, but in college there were a few other guys into Thrash / Death / Grind and they turned me onto a lot of sick shit like PROFANATICA, BENEDICTION, BRUTAL TRUTH, INCUBUS….  My sophomore year at Rutgers University, my room mate Bob and I would drive over to this killer record store called “Vintage Vinyl” like every week.  Bob took advantage of all the credit cards he could sign up with, so he would always leave with a huge stack of vinyl during the Death Metal glory years…  We’d roll back to the dorm with a case of cheap beer and start blasting these new LPs by AUTOPSY, CARCASS, NAPALM DEATH, PESTILENCE, OBITUARY, SORE THROAT, EXTRA HOT SAUCE, REPULSION, BOLT THROWER and MORBID ANGEL. Great Headbanging Drunken times, man!!!!  I also achieved a bit of notoriety on campus with my radio show, “Thrasher Dave’s Cavalcade of Death” and of course I only spun the most brutal shit!!! 

Being a veteran band you must have some kind of interesting stories involving either live shows or recording sessions / rehearsals?

Let’s see….  There are a couple of good stories, I guess…. Most of the better ones are from our “early” days and my memory is getting a bit foggy…  There was the time our drummer Warhead laid out some drunk guy who grabbed his cymbal bag with one punch.  There was the one time most of us were riding with our old guitar player in his car when he crashed it into a divider on the New Jersey Turnpike!!!  There were loads of time we would hang out after practice and get drunk and usually some sort of shenanigans would ensue….  The best recent memories that come to mind are probably from the European tour ABAZAGORATH did in 2004 with DEMONCY and KRIEG.  There was the trip to the Red Light district in Nurnberg, Germany, loads of drunken partying, meeting and hanging out with all sorts of people and many wonderful places and things to see (…that I wish we had more time to explore!!!)….  Too much to talk about here!!!  As we are in the process of planning a European tour for FUNEBRARUM next summer, it looks like I will get to experience it all once again!!! Looking forward to that, for sure….!!!! 

Was the bass your first instrument and whom did you emulate in the beginning? Did you take any lessons? What was the first band situation you were in? When did you first start doing back vocals? Do you have any aspirations of moving on to other instruments or even other levels of music?

I grew up in a musical family so I started off with singing lessons and aborted attempts at learning guitar and piano early on.  I also played trumpet in the school band from fourth grade until I graduated from high school.   In my senior year of high school a couple of friends and I put together a weird / fucked up (and not so serious) Thrashcore band called VACUUM PACKED ABORTION.  We were heavily influenced by the most offensive / non-PC elements of S.O.D., M.O.D. and CHEMICAL WASTE and we specialized in writing songs that made fun of people we hated!!!  I guess I was the lead singer (or screamer as that what it really sounded like), but the line up was never solid and we even had 2 drummers a couple of times.  V.P.A. was pretty much whoever happened to show up when we would make noise in my garage or “Skitz’s” basement!  It was mostly a big mess (… and lots of fun), but we did end up with a tape that collected a bunch of the best stuff from our practice sessions.  By the time I got to college, I was hanging around a lot of musicians, particularly guitarists, and really wanted to get in on the action.  Between my freshman and sophomore years I bought a bass and an amp and started learning to play.  At the time I wasn’t looking to emulate any specific bassist, I just wanted to play, period.  Once I got my gear, everything else just took off from there…  In a few months I was playing bass in a Thrash / Deathcore band called NO RESTRAINTS that I played in for about 5 years up until I quit in 1995 to form ABAZAGORATH.  I also mess around with guitar a little bit. A lot of the riffs I write originate from that.  Some day I would like to do something more serious with that, playing guitar in a band or at least some recordings.  I could definitely see myself playing in bands outside of the Death / Black Metal genres.  We spend a lot of time at FUNEBRARUM practices jamming out on Psychedelic / Stoner Rock type of stuff and we have a lot of fun with it, so I could easily imagine us doing something along that line.  I have also been getting into some instrumental ambient rock stuff like GUAPO, GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR, TIDES, MOGWAI and PELICAN so I might see myself trying something like that as well…  Or maybe something that I could fuse my Black Death background into something with other rock, punk and noise influences…  I don’t think I will ever get too far away from dark, aggressive and underground stuff, however.  I think I will always be into that harder edged stuff.   

I know for a fact you are a fanzine die hard, could name some current and past titles you like? Do you have a preference of Xerox, newsprint, total pro glossy and/or cut ‘n paste? Do you check out webzines much?

Last night I got my greedy claws on issue #2 of “Vomitose” from Australia! Nice little FUNEBRARUM interview that Daryl answered in that one… I just finished up “Necromaniac” #7 the other day and the latest issue of “Franang” a few weeks ago.  I also just ordered “Yersinia Pestis” #1, so that should arrive in a few days…  As far as the current and past titles I enjoy, here goes: “Wheresmyskin,” “Oaken Throne,” “Descent,” “Petrified,” “Desecration of Virgin,”  “Cerberus,” “Horrible Eyes,” “Leather N Spikes,” “Suicidogenic,” “A View Into The Abyss,” “Dark Moon,” “G’Hinnom,” “Black Moon,” “Ancient Spirit Terror,” and I guess even your own “Canadian Assault,” Dale!  As far as the format or production values, it really doesn’t matter…  The nasty and rough look of “Wheresmyskin” fits perfectly with the twisted content and the slick, artistic look of something like the latter issues of “Descent” is also great….  I think it’s the spirit of the editors and contributors who differentiate the killer, interesting mags from the boring ones… 

What is your opinion on the album “Black Metal” by Venom?

Absolutely a Metal classic, of course!!!  Not sure about “Metal Black,” though….  It might be something to pass on!!!! But I did hear good things about their recent New York show that I unfortunately missed!!! 

How big of difference do find it in this day and age, to find quality bands? Do you prefer the days of the late 80s / early 90s when it was more difficult to record and release an album in addition to the mass of closet record labels or do you think it is nothing but positive, no matter how crowded it is, that so many people are out there trying to support the scene?

Well, high quality bands are still around if you really look hard enough.  But there is a lot of shit or copycats and clones to go through to find those gems sometimes.   But there was a lot of bad shit going around in the “old days,” too…  Some of the older bands people are praising these days were nothing special back then and are nothing special now!!! The advent of more user friendly digital recording methods / communication and the proliferation of smaller labels kind of goes both ways – good and bad.  On one hand, it is positive as the bands can get their music out much more cheaply and efficiently and the fans can become more active as far as becoming label bosses themselves.  Unfortunately, the underground is definitely flooded with many more labels and distros than the scene can adequately support.  It has sort of become a “survival of the fittest” environment where labels are here one day and gone in another….  But the bottom line is that any support of the underground is a great thing, considering the alternative of “pop culture” garbage!!!! 

What is the sickest thing you have ever seen or witnessed?

It took me a while to think of this one, and I most likely would regret saying too much as it is a little embarrassing…..  So, I will just relate friendly some advice to budding young perverts out there:  If you are going to check out a live peep show at the local porno den, make sure you splurge on the $2.50 booth and not go budget with the 25 cent booth!!!!  At least then you can be reasonably sure the lady in the booth doesn’t have any “extra parts!” BLEEECCCHHHH!!!  

Please give in at least moderate detail the area’s what both Abaza and Funebrarum lyrics touch on? Are lyrics important for you or are they merely an expected accompaniment to the vocals and ultimately the music as a whole? What bands do you respect for their lyrical contributions?

Both bands have lyrics that touch upon the only the most lovely things in life: Death, Eternal Damnation, Never ending War, The Triumph of Evil,  Disease, Decay and so on….  Lyrics are definitely very important to what we do.  Rather than an “expected accompaniment” to the harsh vocals and violent music, I think they are integral to making sure that the atmosphere and intensity comes across.  We spend a lot of time working on appropriate lyrics and making sure they fit within the songs for total effectiveness!!!  As for bands that have had great lyrics, it is hard to top SLAYER’s early stuff, particularly “Reign in Blood.”  Fenriz, Chris Reifert and Pete Steele are all awesome in their own way too…  Most of all, the old 1980s Thrash lyrics I read off the inside of my cassette inserts and sang along to stick with me the most!!!   

How does the writing process go?  Does each member contribute, or does one person do the lion’s share of writing and arranging the songs!?? Does either band write during rehearsals? What cover songs do you do in rehearsal?

It sort of depends on the situation.  There are times when somebody just comes to the rest of us and shows us riffs they came up with, but there are times when we get together to specifically jam on stuff and see what we come up. Right now, this latter method is pretty much the standard way we write music for both bands.  We used to do a lot more writing in the full band rehearsals, but I think this way is better as we have been able to solidify the arrangements and use the stuff we think is the best rather than waste too much practice time on stuff that we may decide is not good enough in the end.  We do not too very many cover songs at rehearsal, unless it is something we plan to do live or record.  For FUNEBRARUM, we covered GRAVE “Into The Grave” and “ABHORRENCE (Finland) “Caught in a Vortex” for our upcoming split album with INTERMENT (Sweden), so we were rehearsing those for a while…  When we do go off on tangents at rehearsal, we usually end up doing some spontaneous psychedelic stoner rock jams or a 70s funk / rock styled ditty we like to call “I Got a Dollar Five, Gonna Get Me a Biscuit.” 

Do you believe in UFO’s or the paranormal in general? Being from NJ, what is your opinion on the whole Jersey Devil legend? Ever wander around in the Pine Barrens? Who is your favourite serial killer and why?

 I am definitely interested in the paranormal / supernatural, and I guess I like to keep an “open mind” on such matters as I know several people that profess to having seen ghosts or trafficked with spirits / demons.  On 2 occasions I had what I would describe as near out of body experiences in which I felt my soul (?) and / or consciousness was being attacked and pulled out of my physical body.  Victim of psychic vampirism? An attempted possession? Or some kind of seizure?? Whatever it was, it was much more than a dream as I physically felt like I was involved in a struggle and could see myself from outside my physical form.  It scared the shit out of me!!!   It is also arrogant for us earthlings to believe that higher life forms could not exist elsewhere in the universe so I think it could be possible that extraterrestrials could have visited us at some point!  The Jersey Devil legend is a great one.  Damn that shitty “13th Child” movie that does not do the story justice!!  But it is not the only legend with origins in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.  There are also the “Pine Lights” and the Witch of the Pine Barrens as well as stories of inbred hillbilly type folk!!  I don’t live anywhere near the Pine Barrens so I have not ventured into these haunted woods! But years back my buddy took his date for a ride there one night and told me it was most definitely a freaky place!!  Serial killers have also been an interest of mine, and there are many that are certainly fascinating.  Some of “my faves” would be Chiktailo, Bundy, Dahmer, Ramirez, Berkowitz, Manson, Lucas and Gacy.  Dennis Nilsen sticks out the most as his methods of corpse disposal – including flushing pieces of human remains down the toilet – seem to eloquently illustrate the fate most people in this “society” should face!!! Garbage should, after all, be flushed down the drain!!! 

What do you look for in cover artwork? Do you choose an existing piece or do you generally have custom work done? Who are your favourite metal artists and do you have any classic fave painters? What do you think about computer generated artwork?

Good cover artwork is whatever complements the music you are presenting.  I mean for what we are doing with ABAZAGORATH and FUNEBRARUM we just try to look for the dark and morbid…  Whatever imagery and artwork we use is meant to coincide 100% with the feeling and atmosphere we are trying to create with the music.  We have used existing pieces but most of the time, Daryl, who does most of our graphical stuff and is a talented artist in his own right, will create the art himself.  Some of my fave Metal artists would include Chris Moyen, Necrolord, Desmond Sia, Dan Seagrave,  and I am pretty pleased to say that with the exception of Necrolord, each has done a piece for one of my bands!!!  Also look out for Dave Carson’s pieces for the forthcoming ABAZAGORATH / BLOODSTORM LP!!!  Fucking Killer!!!  I am also into modern and classic artists like Giger, Beksinski, Bosch, Bruegel, Goya, Durer, Dore….  I have no problem with computer generated artwork as long as it is created with taste and style and works well with what you are trying to put across…  A lot of the stuff Daryl does for us is usually a mix of different elements.  He often starts with free hand sketches and drawings and then does additional work in photoshop.