CEPHALIC CARNAGE
SNOWBLIND
By: John Gnesin
Many bands will tell you about the struggle to create a new album in terms of sparking creativity, keeping the band together, getting good backing from the label and other predictable pitfalls of the music business. What happens when all of those factors are in place and everything is all ready to go? Well, if you are Denver-based hydro-grinders CEPHALIC CARNAGE, a band’s whose quickly-rising career has been as unpredictable as their varied musical directions, you refer to Murphy’s Law; which states that anything that can go wrong, will. And did.
“Just the first storm here dumped four feet of snow in some spots, followed by about a foot of snow each week for four or five more weeks,” explains drummer John Merryman. “Everything got fucked up.”
“This has been the most brutal, snowy and cold winter in the recorded history of Denver.” Guitarist Steve Goldberg emphatically agrees. “We got hit with three blizzards in a two-week period. Even today, some of the roads are still icy and fucked. The bumper on my car actually got pulled off while I was trying to get out of a parking spot, and I still haven’t had a chance to put it back on yet, ‘cause I am afraid it will just fall off again from another chunk of ice.”
“It was absolutely crazy! People were snowmobiling on the streets and all over the capital.” New bassist Nick adds, “Up to two hours per morning to dig your car out. Zac actually had gotten stuck in a snowstorm in his car for almost two days, and when they found him he had feces all over himself and was just a mess. I think they said he had ‘Temporary Schizofecalphrenia’ or something.”
In spite of Mother Nature taking a frosty white dump all over the group’s recording schedule, the band soldiered on, determined to overcome all obstacles to deliver another killer record. Then the technical difficulties started.
“First the interface wouldn’t work with the computer, and since we ordered everything online for price reasons, anytime we needed to send something back we had to wait at least two days for it to get shipped to us,” Nick explains. “Then when we found out it wasn’t that it was the motherboard, and so on and so forth. It was like what’s the problem going to be today that we can’t fix till next week.”
“We had problems getting some of the gear we needed for the studio,” Merryman adds, “and couldn’t even get to the studio some of that time. We were supposed to be done January 27, now we’re looking at the end of February, not too bad for CEPHALIC!”
So as much as we would have liked this feature to focus on the new album, there was, as of the time of this interview, no material to be heard. Luckily, while the band struggled admirably in the face of disaster; Relapse graphics guru Orion Landau has been nice and toasty, and cooking up an amazing cover and layout for the new album. The focus of the art - as has become a band trademark - is evolution and genetics, aliens and humans and all hybrids in-between. “Orion is an amazing graphic designer.” Steve gives praise. “He never disappoints. He is good at going through the lyrics to get inspiration, and he is also patient with dealing with everyone’s crazy ideas. In this day and age of easy downloading, we feel in order to sell CDs it must have an attractive package. Thankfully we are on a record label that agrees with that idea. I just recently picked up the COLDWORKER CD, and I was floored with how awesome the packaging and layout turned out. We are excited to see what our final package looks like, and we think people will be impressed with it.”
Along with dealing with the snow, the technical glitches, and other assorted inconveniences, the tight-knit group also had to find time to work a new member into the mix. Bassist Nick Schendzielos comes to the group from local Colorado tech-metallers AIN MATTER, and his new band-mates are very enthusiastic about what he brings to the table. Was any hazing involved, I wonder?
“Nah, he just has to watch the merch a lot more then everybody else,” Lenzig tells us. “He is a cool dude, who just wants to play music and see the world, a guy who enjoys everyday to its fullest with the most positive attitude to boot. It’s pretty awesome, did I say he also roadies and does our laundry, and buys our food and drives us around town?”
“Nick is an amazing bass player and vocalist and adds a lot to the band. People will be happy.” Steve assures us, “He caught on to our ways and sense of humor right away and fits in nicely. The only silly hazing thing we did to him was making him wear a hardhat while he was trying out. But we made all the bass players who tried out wear that fucking thing. If our band was a potluck diner I think Nick brings extra spice and poutine to the table.”
The title of the group’s last effort was Anomalies, a title that aptly describes the songs on that album as well as CEPHALIC CARNAGE’s place in the greater metal scene. By now, coming up on album number five, fans know to expect the unexpected and predict the unpredictable. How does the band keep the muse fresh and uninhibited and do the expectations of a well-established fan base put more pressure on them in the writing and recording process?
“For us it’s just always been the way all our ideas evolve.” Merryman explains. “We all bring different influences and concepts to the band for each album, which hopefully helps give each one its own feel and sound. I think the new material is a strong follow-up
to Anomalies.”
I would say we are just super weird people in general, and it comes through here and there with the music.” Steve chips in, “John and I have been playing together for 16 years now; Zac and Leonard have also been playing together for 16 years. Together we have all played together for almost 11 years. We all understand how one another writes and what to expect out of each person.”
One thing that the band has become known for is mixing a good deal of offbeat humor in with their more serious songs. ‘Black Metal Sabbath’ from Lucid Interval, and ‘Dying Will Be the Death of Me’ from the last album were both solid and well-played parodies of the trends the band sees around them. The intention with these songs is purely fun, but knowing how seriously extreme metal fans and musicians alike take this music, one wonders what kind of blowback they might have received as a result of these musical jokes.
“Well if you know us personally, you know we don’t take anything in life too seriously.” Steve states, “We thought it would be funny to release ‘Dying…’ as the first single ‘cause that’s how we are, and sure enough, we’ve heard plenty of backlash about it. We are the type of people that if something is popular within the scene we are more likely to poke fun instead of trying to milk it. No bands that we have ever toured with have accused us of making fun of them with that song, and we are in no way making fun of any band. We are more just poking fun on how certain things about the scene are getting too trendy. When a genre of music has more to do with image and having the same haircut as your girlfriend, the integrity of the music is definitely lost.”
As on record, the band certainly knows how to have fun and tear it up on the road. and touring in support for Anomalies saw the band hit the road with a huge variety of different bands. Even during the tumultuous process of recording the new album, the group was able to take a day to open up for thrash legends SLAYER in their hometown of Denver, an experience that must have been alternately nerve-wracking and exhilarating taking into consideration how the SLAYER crowd generally treats opening acts.
“Playing with SLAYER was beyond amazing,” says Nick. “We have all wanted to play at the Fillmore for a long time so that was really incredible. You know there’s that 3-minute stint when you’re about to come out on stage and you’re hearing the SLAYER chant that’s a bit intimidating, but you just chant along till you’re on and after the first song it’s cool.”
“Playing with SLAYER was a childhood dream come true,” adds Steve. “We feel we did a good job because we all know the SLAYER crowd isn’t the easiest to win over. We did some great tour for Anomalies too. The one with BLACK DAHLIA MURDER, BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME and INTO THE MOAT is probably the sickest tour we’ve ever done. Each band was down-to-earth, cool-as-fuck dudes, the turnouts were amazing at every show, and all the bands were constantly running out of merch. Hopefully we can do a repeat of that tour again sometime. We did a tour with DARKEST HOUR and DEAD TO FALL. That was another amazing one. You tend to bond with people when there are 18 of you living on a tour bus! I would have to say our most memorable show was with BRUJERIA. Jeff Walker is playing bass for them, so we got a hold of him through email and asked if he would come and sing a CARCASS song with us if we played one. Sure enough, he did! Good thing I brought an extra pair of pants to the show that night ‘cause I totally shit myself.”
Finally, at the last stages of mixing the new, as-yet-untitled album, CEPHALIC CARNAGE has overcome obstacles that would likely destroy a lesser band, and despite all the problems, the group is very enthusiastic about bringing the new material to the public. I figured I should, being the creditable journalist I am, make one last-ditch effort to get some inkling of information about the new record, but unfortunately Lenzig is not super-forthcoming at this stage.
“You should expect the exact opposite of what you’re thinking.”
That’s just what I expected him to say.
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