Illinois Entertainer April 2019 | Page 52

Continued from page 34 tastic. What was the most important thing you focused on going into the studio? JC: Everything had to be perfect. We'd never done the professional approach before. We’ve done tons of recording, but it was always just at my place. So, everything had to be perfect. We were really figuring out the tempos, and it took us, like, 12 hours. “Destination Death” has seven or eight tempos in the song and we didn’t know, we just jammed. When we recorded it with Matt Motto - we went to him, specifically, because my other band, Act of Destruction, recorded with him. If you’re familiar with Scars of Armageddon from McHenry, Matt recorded their record, and it sounded phenomenal. He also plays in Dissona. But we went to him because he was able to do it perfectly. He came by to do the drums at my apartment because I have a jam room. Everything had to be natural to us. I think it came out awe- some. Mosh: The album has so many diverse influ- ences. Who or what made the most significant impact on you, and how would you describe your sound? JC: On purpose, in the beginning, all we wanted to do was play stuff that we wanted to hear. And we didn’t know it’d be so complicated when it came to recording it because there’s so much stuff going on. One of my favorite bands ever and a huge influence overall in my life is Broken Hope. Gorgasm, too, from Chicago. Macabre's the shit. We’ve been compared to bands that I’ve never heard of before or ones we don’t follow. We were once compared to Pig Destroyer, which was awe- some. We come from old Atreyu, Underoath, Unearth, Hatebreed, and Slayer above anything else. There’s thrash shit all over the record. I grew up listening to King Diamond because of my dad, who still comes out to the shows. We listen to all of that. We cover Fates Warning's “The Apparition,” even though our music doesn’t sound like it. Slayer’s the shit; I know all their 52 illinoisentertainer.com april 2019 stuff forward and backward. I play Tama because I grew up loving Dave Lombardo. I have a Tama Swingstar. I still use the same kit from the eighth grade. All we do is go watch bands, listen to music and play music. Mosh: As far as the band’s trajectory, do you think you’re on the right track? JC: Definitely, I’m doing everything I possibly can. All I do is work for this band. We just want to get our name out there. The CD package itself, I met the artist, his name is Anthony Duran, and he came to me to print stickers for him. I do printing during the day, and I loved the theme, and I asked him if he did custom stuff, and I practical- ly begged him to do this CD book for us. All the lyrics are there, all the pictures, everything we did was in-house. Nobody did anything for us, ever. We’re just looking to snowball this band as big as we can. • MOSH-WORTHY RELEASES: Mortal Decay A Gathering of Human Artifacts (Comatose Music); Six of Swords Regime Decay/Polar Vortex (Redefining Darkness); Pounder Uncivilized (Hells Headbangers). • MOSH-WORTHY LIVE: Hatebreed, Obituary, Terror, Cro-Mags, Fit For An Autopsy (Concord Music Hall 04/11); Psycroptic, Cannabis Corpse, Gorod, Micawber, Roman Ring (Reggie's 04/16); Whitechapel, Dying Fetus, Revocation, Fallujah, Spite, Uncured, Buried Above Ground (Concord Hall 04/25). • MENTION-WORTHY: Des Moines-based psyche- delic/stoner metal trio Druids have beem under- ground for nearly a decade but are now poised to have a breakout year with the release of Monument on April 19. Phoenix-based Okilly Dokilly, the Ned Flanders from the Simpsons "nedal" band just dropped its sophomore record Howdilly Twodilly in March.