Hanna Tsepesh: Hello W! Thanks so much for accepting this second interview. First of all: how is your balance about the concerts so far?W: Well, this year has been great so far, we started with a concert in Madrid, organized by our label, with great bands like Graveyard and Dishammer. One of the best concerts these last years, I think. The place was full, some people even had to stay outside. The after-party was great also, the temperature was below zero, but who cares?
Still in January we played in Colhões de Ferro metalfest, lots of people there too, lots of friends. Anyway we had to decline some concerts to the end of the year, because we are preparing ourselves to our 20th anniversary gig, in October, so we need time to it.
Hanna Tsepesh: Let’s talk about the “Chaos Underground ” album. Can you tell to our readers what they can expect from this album? In your opinion what is the differences between this album and the previous one?
W:We always say that “this album will sound the old days, this one is to our older fans, bla bla, bla…”, I won’t say something different now. Some people were missing the old ways of Decayed, that ugly kind of sound for example; I think this is the biggest difference between this and the previous one, the sound itself. There’s only one guitar in this album, instead of two in the other one, we had some more keyboards that we didn’t had in the other one, we had female vocals done by Célia of Mons Lvnae, our dear friend in this album also…
Hanna Tsepesh: Also, "Black Funeral “song and is one cover from Mercyful Fate. There is any particular reason for the band chosen this song and band?
W: This is funny, we were working on a WASP cover, we really wanted to play “Fuck Like a Beast” in the album, but after some rehearsals this wasn’t going like the way we wanted, I don’t know what we were doing wrong, cause this wasn’t sounding good for any of us, so J.A. told “let’s forget this, let’s do Mercyfuls Fate’s Black Funeral!”. J.A. told that Decayed was supposed to play this cover already back in the 90s, so we thought that it would be suitable for us to play now. So we did. Also I was quite excited with it because I wanted to try something different with my voice, and play it live also. We all in Decayed grew up with the 80s heavy metal, so this is something that we all can be identified with.
Hanna Tsepesh: The album cover is so cool! Who was the person behind this work? You think that the cover transmit what the album is?
W: The cover is awesome! It was done by the same guy that draw the TBMF cover, Johan from the extinct Belgian band Suhrim. That cover (like the TBMF cover) was originally draw as an oil painting, before it was scanned and converted to a CD cover, so you can imagine that one with real size and all those details.
I think nowadays bands worry too much about the visual details … bands love to have great artistic jobs on the cover of their albums. We don’t give a shit about it, back in the 80’s the LP Metal covers weren’t any better than this, and still those were the days of Metal!
The cover transmits exactly what you can expect from the album: that fucking demon, coming out of a vortex, running your way, ready to cut your throat and eat your entrails. Just press play and you’ll see what I mean.
Hanna Tsepesh: (laughs) that is so cool! how as the whole process at recording studio? Everything went good?
W: We wanted that our 20th anniversary could be remembered with a classic release, we tried our best to sound the way people wanted us to sound like. First step was changing studio and producer, not that we didn´t liked the job of Hugo Camarinha in “Brugo” studio in both previous album, but we were all missing the “dirty and raw” production that always was the trademark in Decayed albums. Where could we get the essence to release an album like that? In the “Hell Mayhem” studio of course! After we recorded the drums in “Crossover” studio, we spent most of our days in J.A. bedroom working in the album. It’s good not to have the pressure of time, money spent and all that crap. We spent the time we wanted there, we could record something and record it again if we didn’t liked it, I did the vocal session in more than one day, just because we had the time to do it slowly, so why had we to do it fast?
After J.A. sent the master CD to Blackseed, we thought that we still could do some changes, so we sent an e-mail to them, to abort the whole process, we took one more week to do some improvements, and we sent the CD again. You see what I mean? We prefer to work within ourselves, managing our own time and money.
Hanna Tsepesh: If one of our readers wants to buy your album, what they can do?
W: The usual. I won’t say that it’s better to buy it in one of our concerts, because we only have two more gigs till the end of the year, and after it there is no more Decayed (but that’s another story).
So if you want one, just e-mail J.A. through Chroan@netcabo.pt or buy it on Ebay a couple of month’s later (laughs) .
Hanna Tsepesh: what is your favorite music in this album and why?
W: Like I said before, you have a great diversity of sound in this one; I can say to you that you can’t find two music’s looking the same. I think “Cry Wolf” rules! It makes me feel like I want drink some beer, grab some chairs and break them on other people’s heads… “Cry Wolf” it’s the real Thrash Attack!
Hanna Tsepesh: Well…now I know you want to say one very important thing to your fans....now is the moment, for you tell to us what and why? W: Well… most of people don’t know, but Decayed is dead in the end of this year. Twenty years are enough, and we are proud with what we did for the underground. J.A. always said that Decayed would always be an underground band, and he payed the price for that. Decayed always playing in small places, with few people (there were exceptions, of course), most of the times spending money from our own pockets … if I am in Decayed for four years and I’m tired of it, imagine J.A. …
No one gets rich with this, but still there are people who think it’s possible…
There are too much things to say, but it’s worthless right now, because people don’t care about the reasons, all they wanna know is if Decayed will be here next year or not, so the question is answered.
J.A. is getting out of the country; I’m going out of the country also with my family. If J.A. wants to continue to record albums (I’m sure he will), I’m 100% available to help him and do the vocals, with all these internet and technology stuff today, why not?
Hanna Tsepesh: Is really sad to hear that but, is there any possibility of returning to hear you in another band?
W: The place where I’m going there is no metal scene at all … I’ve searched already about it. Not that I care, you know? I’m planning to get some musicians there and play some different stuff. I really would like to make a Social Distortion’s kind of band… or play some of their covers just to have fun, nothing that much serious. Social Distortion is what I listen to for the last 4 months, I identify myself with them, musically, lyrically. Let’s see what the future brings to me.
Hanna Tsepesh: Yes I really understand! Do you want to send your last thanks for the fans out there?
W: I would like to thank all the real fans of Decayed who kept this flame alive for the past 20 years, it may sound cliché, but it’s obvious that if it wasn’t for you, this never could be possible.
If you never saw Decayed live, don‘t complain, you had 20 years to do it. We will do a last concert in Linda-a-Velha, to celebrate our 20th anniversary and we will record it live! This will be in the 9th of October, so be sure you’ll show up!
A few weeks ago I was reading an interview with Rob Halford and he said “One of the important things about being in a band, is to be able to realize this isn’t a fucking cure for cancer, this is a good night out!”
This is what Metal is all about after all!
By: Hanna TsepeshTo listen to some DECAYED music’s and for future information’s go at:
www.myspace.com/decayedlusitania
First DECAYED interview in here:
thegatesofmetal.blogspot.com/2009/07/decayed.html
ATTENTION:
JA send me an email today (9-9-2010), to tell me this :
"What is going to end is the current formation, Decayed will never end, as long as I'm breathing. The next album is almost done and there is new material to be released next year."
I am very happy to know that DECAYED will not end and I'm sure the fans out there are very happy to! :)
All the best for them and thank you JA for telling us this.
Hanna Tsepesh
