Interview by Jason Williams
Los Angeles-based group Abysmal Dawn have been a longstanding death metal juggernaut, with four crushing full-length albums consistently strengthening their arsenal over the past 12 years. Abysmal Dawn released their latest album ‘Obsolescence’ in 2014 via Relapse Records, and following a run of dates in the US and Europe, took a brief break before returning to obliterate the stage, as part of the lineup for Knotfest at San Manuel Amphitheater in San Bernardino, California, on October 24th 2015. After their set, our man Jason Williams had a detailed conversation with guitarist/vocalist Charles Elliott about Knotfest, touring, ‘Obsolescence’, Death To All, future plans and more. Enjoy the conversation below:
Charles, how are you on this fine Saturday evening?
Good! Just got done killing it at Knotfest! Having a good time.
I wanted to ask you about Knotfest. This is a metal festival, and for American standards it’s pretty great, considering the lineup for both days. You usually get this kind of lineup every week in Europe, but Knotfest this year has some quality bands. Is this lineup showing you that it’s more of a one-off type of festival? Or are you starting to see a trend of getting these quality festivals back in America?
I guess I wouldn’t be the one to answer that (laughs), as I’m not the organizer of the festival. But, it seems like to me, it’s the second year they’ve done it here. And they seem to do it right, you know? I’m not going to comment too much, but I know the Mayhem Festival didn’t do too well this year, and that was a huge traveling festival, and this one is just two days. They’re doing it right, getting the right bands, having a lot more going on, people can camp out and have a good time. It’s more European style, and hopefully we can get more of that here. But whether that actually happens, I couldn’t tell you.
There seems to be two aspects for this two-day style festival. One aspect, you can see all of the bands for one or both days, bands that you don’t get to see often, or who don’t tour much. And the other aspect, where the other set of bands are actually on tour right now, and their stop here is just a festival length set, instead of their headlining set of well over an hour or more, it’s now down to a 30-40 minute set. What’s your perspective of that as a fan? Do you see both aspects of the festival? Is there a particular side you’d rather see?
This is cool and all, but I’d rather see a band close up, in a club environment, but that’s just me personally. It’s hard, with these outdoor things, the sound is kind of wishy-washy and shit, lot of bands are stressed to get on stage and get their shit off, nobody’s playing with their own equipment usually. I don’t know, all things considered though, it seems like things were done right at this festival, you know? Things could have gone horribly wrong, and they didn’t. We had a good set, and seems like a lot of bands that we know experienced good sets as well.
Last time I saw Abysmal Dawn was last year, almost to the day, on the Deicide/Scepticflesh/Inquisition tour. That was the last big tour in North America I remember the band being a part of. How have things been with the band in general, in terms of touring, for ‘Obsolescence’ which has been out about a year now?
Well after that tour, we did a tour with 1349, and that was immediately followed by a European tour. That was kind of crazy. I mean, we did our month with 1349 and we ended on the East Coast. We parked our van at the Relapse office and got a ride to the New York airport, flew over to Europe, did a month of dates there, came back, picked up our van, and played some shows on the way home back to the West coast (laughs). And, yeah, it was brutal. After that two-month run, we were kind of ready to take a little break. Nothing seemed to materialize after that, I don’t know if for the better. Because it seemed like a lot of tours didn’t do too well, for some reason. I’m not sure if it was over-saturation.
Are you talking about the tour you did, or just tours around the scene?
I don’t know man. I heard a lot around, you know the Mayhem fest, the Metal Alliance tour, it seems like a lot of tours are falling apart, and just aren’t doing so great. And the last two tours that we did, did very well. We haven’t toured in 8 months or something like that, but we’re planning on coming back next year, on a big tour. So, I guess since we didn’t over-tour, it worked out for us. It seems like we’ve done the right tours, and I think we’ll do one more US tour, see if anything else comes up, but I think after that, we’re just going to keep writing for a new album and trying to get something out quicker than in the past.
I was going to say, it was a 3-year gap between ‘Leveling The Plane of Existence’ and ‘Obsolescence’. Is that something to do with picking the right tours for the album? Is the 3-year gap simply coincidental, or is it how you prefer the albums to build momentum for?
It’s tough. I think when ‘Leveling …’ came out, we toured a lot for that record. We did four US tours. We weren’t really writing during the downtime of the tours for the record, but when the time came to write a new record and have a whole lot of material ready, ‘Leveling’ was a really hard album to make. And I guess, at that point in my life, I was going through a bunch of shit, and making an album during that time was hard. And the thought of making another album was kind of like, “How do I top this?” Because I think at that point in my life, I felt pretty content, and pretty happy. And I think when I made other records, maybe I wasn’t as in a good place (laughs). So I think it made it sort of difficult, to get back in that mindset, or trying to figure out how to top that record. It took a lot longer than expected, you know? It’s important I think, to top a release or otherwise, what’s the point? If we don’t feel like it’s as good as or moving forward in some way, then we don’t put out a record. So, that’s why it takes so long. We’re not on a tour schedule, where we’re like, “Okay, we’re going to do a 2-year cycle, or a year touring, or whatever it is, then we’re going to go back home and write a record.” However long it takes to write a really fucking killer record, that’s how long it takes, you know? Because we’re not, I don’t want to say, a career band, or you know what I mean? We’re not like these bands going out on tour to make a living. We have our day jobs, sorry to spoil the illusion for you (laughs). But, we can take our time with it.
And speaking of ‘Obsolescence’, I found it to be a different Abysmal Dawn record. Not just in tempo, but in terms of the chord usage, and the sound itself. It seemed to be not just a darker record, but in particular I felt had much slower passages, a little more chugging, and just the intense speed alone. What inspired this sound? As you mentioned “Leveling…” wss your personal record, like your “Human” album, your revenge record for yourself. What would you consider this record to be, after making an album before that you were really proud of?
I think we were at a career high at that point, during “Leveling…”, where we did a tour with Cannibal Corpse, then I did that Death to All tour, you feel like, “Alright! If I die right now, I would die happy.” Pretty much (laughs). And maybe that’s a problem. Maybe I need a grander scope of vision or something. Maybe I need to be more grandiose with world domination, you know? And the fact is, we’re kind of down-to-earth people, who want to write expressive death metal, if that’s an actual thing (laughs). I guess we tried to. So, with this album, we tried to maybe bring back a little bit of the black metal sort of influence, in the guitar harmonies and stuff like that. And I think in a way, that made it a little bit more of a darker record. I think it is a pretty dark fucking record, when I go back and listen to it. And maybe, part of it was… I was pretty content starting to write it, and then as we went along, I was fucking miserable! (laughs) Because, I got so involved in the art of it, and you go work your 9-to-5, then you come back and you sacrifice your social life or whatever interaction with all your friends or family, girlfriends. Your art can drive you a little crazy, you know? We demoed the songs out, I guess the lyrics weren’t completed by the time we entered the studio. It was like pretty much a year in the studio, maybe a year of writing, a year in the studio when it was done recording, mixing, mastering and all that shit. I think we tracked drums in July of whatever… I forget what year! (laughs) Then after that, rhythm guitars took a long time, and it was bass, leads that we came up with one or two every week, and came in and did that. The lyrics took a long time, and part of it was because I feel like it’s two parts of my brain. They can’t function at the same time almost, like I have to be focused on lyrics. I can’t write them both at the same time.
And speaking of that dark style to the record, is that another reason you covered “Night’s Blood” from Dissection? Was it more paying homage to Jon of Dissection, for a band that we all love and remember, for everything that they did? Or was it something that was it more of coincidental thing for the album?
It was coincidental, but at the same time, it felt like that it fit the style of the record. And it was cool to show something that wasn’t obvious. We could have done a Death cover or something, and people would have been like, “Oh, cool.” Covering Dissection just seemed a little bit more of a challenge, slightly more out-of-the-box of what we normally do. Even though Dissection has been a big influence on the band, I feel like at least on me, I was a really huge fan growing up. When we finished the song, I got goosebumps because I really wanted this song to still retain that vibe and essence. It was very important that we did that, and I feel like we achieved it. It’s still got that feeling of the album, big reverb on the tomsand the vocals. We didn’t want it to sound like a modern tech death record and shit, it still needs to have a vibe. But it did just kind of happen on the spot, like we didn’t plan on that in the studio. Scott (Fuller, drummer) and I were sitting around, while we were tracking drums, and we had a little extra time, so we ended up learning that song real quick in the studio.
My last question relates to a few years ago. You were a part of the very first Death to All tour, and the very first shows of it were in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and other places. I actually attended the SF show, I drove up all the way there with some friends, to witness the very first show of its kind. And of all the shows I’ve been to over the years, I consider it to be one of the greatest shows I’ve ever experienced. Not only because it was an incredible tribute to Chuck, but it was really brought everyone together musically, and people who really got into Death after he passed. What was the experience like for you for that tour you were a part of, and how did it turn out for you as fan? For some who don’t know, one of your first bands opened up for Death on the Death Live and Raw recording.
Yeah, I still have that fucking tape from the Whisky. Same fucking shitty quality that they got, we got a tape like that too. So maybe we’ll release that one day or something. But yeah, Death To All was surreal. I mean, it was a lot of stress too. Because I felt like Death was such a huge influence to me, that I really didn’t want to shit on this man’s legacy. So, while I was on the Cannibal tour, we didn’t even know what songs we were going to play. So there was maybe like a month’s time or so, once I got back from the Cannibal Corpse tour, and until the Death To All tour, I fucking stayed in my room and practiced that shit. It was stressful too. Because some of those guys haven’t played metal in years, and we really didn’t get to practice. We flew up to San Francisco a day or two before the show, and both “teams”, both separate bands, we were both rehearsing in the same spot, so it’s not like we could focus on our portion of the set the whole time. That was a little stressful. But when the first show came, it felt like magical almost (laughs), you know what I mean? It was crazy, because during practice I thought it was going to be fucking terrible (laughs). But you know, those guys are professionals, and I think I’m … kind of professional? It worked out. And I think it was fucking awesome, and I really tried not to think about it, because all of those guys are fucking gods to me, pretty much. I grew up with them, and they were some of my favorite musicians. And it wasn’t until I was on a plane home at like 4 in the morning, that I realized what I had done. It was on my 30th birthday actually. I got to play the venue that they filmed “Lack of Comprehension” at, in Florida for my 30th birthday. And we flew home that morning, and I was sitting there, all fucking … a little drunk (laughs) and feeling good. I just turned to my buddy and we just said, “We played in Death!” (laughs). It was at that point, where I told myself that I accept this. And of course I know it wasn’t actually Death, but you know what I mean? I got to play with all of those guys, and it was fucking amazing.
For the three lineups and forms of the Death to All group, many consider the first lineup that you were a part of, to be the very best one. And at that San Francisco show, when they played “Voice of the Soul”, I’ve never seen that many people cry at a metal show.
(Laughs) Right?!
And it was really something else …
Yeah! It was an emotional experience, you know? I told them that I didn’t want them to do it ever again, that same night! (laughs) I told them, “This is fucking amazing, don’t ever do it again!” But, in the end, I don’t know. We toured with that lineup, well the most recent lineup, in Europe. And honestly, I feel that was probably the best lineup. The lineup that’s been doing it recently with Bobby (Koelble), Gene (Hoglan), Steve (DiGiorgio) and Max (Phelps), they were fucking amazing, when we toured with them in Europe. And I think every time I’ve seen them since then, I know Sean (Reinert), he’s having a lot of health problems. They just had little problems along the way, and they seemed to work them out with this lineup. But to me, that first lineup happening was magical, and can’t believe it happened. I even was a naysayer when it was first announced. And the fact that it did happen, was awesome.
Is there anything for Abysmal Dawn fans, to expect for the end of this year and to start the new year?
We’re planning, maybe the greatest death metal tour ever, in February/March. So, if you like death metal, I think you’re going to be very fucking happy with this tour. I can’t say what it is yet … but keep an eye out and we’ll see you guys in 2016.
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