1. hey keith thanks for giving me a chance to interview you! first off give us a brief history of mangled atrocity and the current line up.
Hey Seiji, thanks for the opportunity. We've been playing together off and on since '93, finally making a stronger effort since around '01. Mangled Atrocity is me on guitar/vox/drum programing, Troy Tuggle on bass, Jack Douglas on guitar.
2. i get the feeling the band is influenced by bands like retch, devourment, and disgorge but can you please describe the bands sound in your own words and tell us what bands influence mangled atrocity.
Yeah, we definately are influenced by those bands. We saw Shaun from Insidious Decrepancy at the OH Deathfest and seeing him by himself with the drum machine backing him and how fucking sick that was... it really pushed us to do something instead of just talking about it.
3. the drum machine sounds so sick, how did you learn to use it? are there any sick drum machine bands you learned from and copied their drum machine sounds when you started to do drum programming?
I wanted to give a drum machine a shot for awhile, but I couldn't find one that would do tempo changes. I did get some info from Shaun that year about a couple of machines that would do what we wanted and found one on Ebay. We used that for awhile, but still didn't have the sound that we were looking for. The three songs on the split from the demo had drums transfered from a Roland R-70 drum machine to a Korg Triton keyboard. We finally found a sample program called Reason made by Propellerhead that we could tweak the sound and map the drums out better to be more technical, and give the ability to have multiple tempo changes, which is what we were looking for all along.
4. one more question about the drum machine, will you get a human drummer to replace the machine at some point or will you continue to use the drum machine? and what's the pro's and con's of using a drum machine as opposed to a human drummer?
We've given up on a real drummer option, unless we find a guy to do some studio work later on. There's just no one close to where we live that is interested, or has the ability to play death metal. Using a drum machine gives you one less person's schedule to work around, but other than that, it sucks. You have to put more time into writing and not having a drummer for playing shows takes away from the intensity somewhat.
5. so what kind of riffs do you use for the band like for example do you use fast paced and technical riffs or slow slam riffs? and what kind of riffs do you use the most?? i personally love slams!
I think we do a mix of groove riffs and some fast-paced stuff. I can't compare our version of fast to Decrepit Birth or a lot of other bands out there that smoke our asses. We're looking to do a few different things on our full-length, but not anything less brutal than what we've already done. Hopefully, it will be the sickest shit you've heard from us yet.
6. what kind of gear do you use?
We use Jackson guitars, Crate amps, boosted by EQ pedals. Our bass player uses Ibanez basses and SWR amps. Nothing major.
7. give us the band's discography. i really dig the split cd you did with artery eruption, how'd you hook up with those guys and severed records?
We took close to fifty copies of our split CD to the first Maryland Deathfest and handed them out. We met the guys from Artery Eruption there and we emailed each other for a few months. They asked us to do a split with them and Barrett from Sevared asked us if we wanted to put a full-length out on his label. We really didn't expect to get picked up by anybody; our plan was to do the demo and give it to the brutal motherfuckers out there that had inspired us to get off of our asses and do something. Right now, we just have the 4-song demo, the split with Artery Eruption, and we're working on getting our full-length done. Should be finishing that up soon.
8. the new full length cd will be out on severed records so how did the band's sound change since the split cd? and what do you want to appeal to the fans the most this time around?
Nothing much has changed around our sound. I'm using an Ibanez rack mount EQ that I had lying around. We're trying to speed up a little and write more technical shit. We'd like for people to say, "Damn, that's the sickest drum machine band I've ever heard!" We just hope to have a few people liking it. More than anything, we just want to get it out there for everbody that's asking for it. That shit really means a lot to us.
9. what newer bands have you been into recently and have you found any sick new bands we might be into?
Man, Gutteral Secrete ripped it up at the Central IL Metalfest this year. Cemetary Rapist was another drum machine band there I'd never seen. If you like grind, that guy delivered. I'm a huge Decrepit Birth fan. Although they've been around for awhile, I've never been able to catch one of their shows.
10. how's the scene in kentucky? any up and coming bands play guttural brutal death like mangled atrocity? in your opinion what state's scene is hot in usa?
There's just a metal scene here in KY. There are a couple of bands like Created to Kill, and Abominant that play death metal, but they're not really the same style as us. I'd say Texas, California, and New York have the biggest scenes. They have the most popular brutal bands in the USA for sure.
11. you are also a guttural vocalist so which do you love inhale or exhale gutturals and why?do you use other styles of vocals like gurgles and give us some vocalists that have influenced you.
I can get lower inhaling, but I can't get the volume or the real gutteral sound that I can when I exhale. I try to change my shit around for dynamics like most other bands do. Matti Way, the ex-Disgorge frontman is a big influence for me. If I could emulate his vox, I would feel like I was doing something. I also like Brodequin's vox and, or course anybody that has ever done vox for Devourment, from Wayne to Mike.
12. as for writing songs how does that work?
Usually one riff at a time. Sometimes shit just comes to you, or sometimes you have to sit down and work it out. There's a lot more of the sitting down, working it out than shit coming to you though! We might use one out of five ideas that we come up with. It's just part of wanting to give the best shit you've got. No filler riffs or anything like that. Fucking brutal shit, period.
13. ok last question, what do you care about the most when creating this kind of music?
Looking to inspire circle pits, ha ha! You know, bro, when you go to a show and see this fucking sick shit being thrown down in front of you and you just want to slam, crush, FUCKING KILL!!! It's all about the brutality. That's why we're all here. Ain't nobody out there to slow dance!
thanks for the interview man any last words?
Just want to say thanks, Seiji, for letting me spill my guts. Thanks to our bros in Brodequin, Artery Eruption, Lust of Decay, and Eternal Ruin for their support and all the brutal fuckers out there that still give a fuck about what we're doing. Stay fuckin brutal!