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Hi, is Mike there?

Is this Mike?

Hey, this is Phil from Malevolent.

Good, how ya doing man?

(laughs) Yeah, dude, I totally... I just fuckin' walked in my door, I've been running around and shit, I woke up late.

Good, well tomorrow Obituary's playing down here, I haven't seen them guys in a while so I'm gonna get psyched up to party tomorrow for that, which should be cool.

Where's that?

Oh yeah, this tour they're doing, it's just a small one I guess, they just did two or three weeks with Napalm Death. But I know we're gonna make our way up there. All the guys in Malevolent's criminal records are clean now (laughs), so we can actually get into Canada without any problems.

Yeah, that's part of the reason. In 1999 we got arrested, our bus got pulled over, and they found like 3 ounces of weed that our drummer had and...

We had to clear that stuff up for a couple of years, but now everybody's records are clean, and we're able to go into Canada without any problems, so... we're recording our new album in January, and I think we're gonna start a U.S. tour, a North American tour, I guess we might do it with us, Hate Eternal co-headlining, and then have two other bands on the bill.

We might do that, we're definitely gonna do something after we record the album. Get on the road and do some shows.

Actually man, these guys work down here, I've only heard it without the vocals, not even the finished copy (laughs), I've gotta get a copy from their drummer.

Yeah I know, we were on tour the same time they were, and I heard that they had a lot of problems, so they went through like six different vans.

I've heard of them, yeah.

Really!?

Are you serious!?

Oh I know, all that shit.

Dude, it's so gay, I can't even believe it. I went to Ozzfest and I couldn't believe how gay it was.

(laughs) It doesn't make sense to me either, I'm like what do I... why the fuck is everyone putting on nail polish and eyeliner, and dying their hair black and parting it on the side... and then you get a record deal, I don't understand.

Oh, totally. I mean, a lot of those bands... I don't want to take anything away from bands, but when I listen to Lamb Of God and a lot of those other bands, I just can tell exactly where they stole all their music from. And a lot of it is old thrash bands, you know, death metal riffs and shit, and they steal a lot of Testament, a lot of Slayer riffs, and I just don't know. I don't know why people are so blind in thinking that this is new and fresh. I can't even listen to them albums because it pisses me off! I can tell where they stole all their music from, man! (laughs)

Oh, it's a joke man. And I just can't understand how people can get into guys dressed like ugly girls, I don't understand it man!

It sounds like it.

I never even heard the whole album, I heard like a couple of tracks that were on some samplers, (laughs) and fuckin', I just can't get into it! Sounds like rehashed music to me, man. It's like old and dated.

(laughs) I don't know man, you'd think that albums like ours, and stuff like that which is just so heavy... people that are looking for heavy music, they don't have to look that far. I mean, I bet if we were wearing fucking eyeliner and nail polish, we'd sell more records (laughs)

Ah well, who cares man. Eventually all that, the trend is gonna die out, people are gonna get sick of putting on makeup (laughs)

Well, last summer, as soon as Warkult was released, we went over to Europe where we played festivals and just some headlining dates. There hasn't been that much action going on since then, we had some problems with our singer Kyle's work schedule, so we had a couple of tour that we had to pass on, because I'm not really into getting a replacement for Kyle. Kyle's the singer and I can't imagine anybody else doing it and doing a good job like he does. But we did do six weeks in the U.S., it was us and Origin and Animosity, and that ended about a month ago. We're going to Puerto Rico next week, gonna do some Puerto Rican dates, and then we have a South American tour that's being lined up and some Mexican shows. But other than that, you know, we're working on the songs for our next album which is going to be our tenth album and we're gonna try to get in the studio in early January, right after New Years' we're gonna fuckin' get this thing together and get it out.

You know, they were supposed to be on the tour, (laughs) but right before, like maybe a week before the tour they had some big blowout and they ended up breaking up...

(laughs) Yeah, they're two, but Jason the bass player/singer, kept the name and he's got three new members. Actually, they all just moved out here, he's got two new guitar players and a drummer, and they all moved down to Florida and he's working with them. But it would have been cool to have those guys on the tour, man. It would have been fun, Jay's kind of a character (laughs)

(laughs) Yeah.

Oh no, what happened between me and Jay, it happened in like '97 and as you know, we've been friends for quite a while, even since all that happened. I mean, we play shows with Divine Empire down here, and we would definitely tour with them, there's no kind of hatred towards each other or anything. He's doing his thing and I'm doing my thing, you know it would have been cool to do a tour like this, a lot of people think that we still hate each other, so it would have been good for the people who like to make up drama and shit like that, it would have been kinda funny. You only live once man, you can't stay mad at each other forever.

Oh those are all little fucking kids that want to be tough guys, (laughs) you know what I mean? Fuckin' people who talk like that are fuckin' five-foot-two and fuckin' nineteen years old.

They go get some tattoos and they think they're bad-asses (laughs).

I know man, I've witnessed it all.

Yeah, well it's coming out anytime now, it's coming out through a different label. It was supposed to come out through Olympic, but Olympic folded, so I think it's coming out through Crash Records.

Yeah yeah, but I guess they wanted to put it out bad, so they did whatever they could to get it released here in the States, so...

Yeah, good luck.

No. Really? Someone from Pavement?

Ok...

Oh yeah, definitely that guy Mark, he's the president man. You know what? He's released like nine or ten things, music that I wrote, and we've still NEVER received anything from this guy, man. Nothing. I mean, we've been hounding him, he's been avoiding us like the plague, man. I can't even believe he's still in business.

Yeah, well he did go under, and that's how he could resurface, by changing the name and this-and-that. So now it's Crash Music, and another year it'll be something else. It used to be Grindcore Records and then it was Pavement Records and now it's fuckin' Crash Music. He screws enough people over, then he has to change his name, but you know he still sells his backstock.

Yeah that's his pattern, the one he's been doing for the last fifteen years.

Believe me, he owes us so much money, that's what we're trying to do. We were trying to just fuckin' get the rights to the albums and just have them, and either sell them to a decent label, and get them released. Because he's re-released Eternal like three or four times already.

And it makes me sick, man. You know, we go on tour all over the fuckin' world and I see so many different versions of our albums, it's unbelievable. I know it's Pavement, Crash Records, Mark Nawara, I know he's the one who's behind it all. He's the one who makes deals with other companies and releases our albums all over the place, man, and we never get anything out of it.

Yeah, well that's the only thing we can do, man. We're pretty lucky that we're still able to do that, you know what I mean? Nuclear Blast, you know, it's not like they put a lot into the band or anything (laughs). We're probably the band on their label that they do the least for. No headline tours to help us do this shit, they basically do NOTHING for us except for get the records in some stores, and it's basically up to us to go out and tour, promote it.

Well, in America they didn't do shit (laughs) I know that for sure. Because I did like four interviews (laughs). For Europe I did like a hundred and fifty, I had to stay home on my phone for a week (laughs).

Four interviews. And you know, that's why they don't do any videos for us, they don't do nothing, they just don't see the purpose of it. The market here is not for this kind of shit. If we maybe changed our fuckin' image, and had like a girl in the band they'd probably do it, but...

As long as it's just five ugly guys, just us playing, man, I don't think it's gonna happen.

Oh yeah, I mean I make no money out of this anyways. I'm surprised it's been this long and we're still into doing it, but you know, our next album will just be heavier and heavier than anything we've done before. At least we can look back on this shit years from now and at least we've never fuckin' sold out, you know?

We didn't become gay, or try to do something different, or jump on the bandwagon like everyone else does.

Well you know, the way we do all our records, man. We just come in with a bunch of ideas and we start hammering them out until we feel happy with the song being finished. But as for Justin, it was weird man, he's a really good drummer and great guy and everything like that, but after we were done recording that album he kind of let us know that he was in trouble with the law, and he had some fuckin' felony charges pending, and all this shit, and he wasn't able to leave the state let alone the country to tour. I still talk with the guy to this day, he's great, I mean we never wanted to replace Dave but we couldn't... a long time would have passed if we would have waited for Dave to record that record. We met Justin, and he actually came down and played for us and we were like damn! I was just showing him some of the songs and he just clicked right with it. It was pretty easy working with him, he actually plays a lot like Culross, that was one of his favorite drummers, so it came together pretty easy.

Oh yeah, he's a good drummer, I mean it's a shame. I don't even know if he's in a band anymore, I still talk with him but he's got like a good job and shit, and he's kind of afraid to fuck that up. So I told him, "man, you only live once! You can come back and fix cars anytime." Legally he really couldn't do anything at that time though, but it all worked out. We had to have a few substitute drummers fill in on some tours, but for the most part, Dave was able to pick up the slack, and I don't think we're gonna be doing that anymore. We're just gonna stick with this lineup, the tours that we do will be with Dave.

He does. He'll be here in a couple of days to rehearse for these Puerto Rican show and stuff, but usually what we do, is we make demos down here and we mail them to Dave. That's how it usually works. Or else I can go up there, or he can come down here for a week or two, and we can demo new material. But working with Dave is a lot easier than working with a stranger, or somebody else. All these years working with Dave, things clicka lot easier. (laughs) Dave's really funny, he's fuckin' fired up. He wants the next album to be fuckin' so fast (laughs).

His drumming, he says "dude, I've been playing so much, that our next record is gonna be so fast, it's ridiculous."

You know, it's very hard to find drummers that are that interested in beating the shit out of their bodies like Dave does. And I love Dave like a brother, so we're gonna definitely put a lot of work into this album sinceit's our tenth. Not many bands get that far, and we just want to make sure it's the heaviest fuckin' thing we can put out.

Yeah, well that's my label, actually me and my lawyers own that.

Yeah, well see Tony lives down here. I've known Tony for a long time, he filled in a few times for us during The Will To Kill tour because there were a lot of tours and Dave wasn't able to do all of them, so Tony, he's actually filled in for Malevolent as far back as the '97 European tour (laughs). And with Tony, any band's music he listens to, he can play. So yeah, it would have been harder to do things with a different drummer, because everybody's got their own style, which makes it a little more challenging, but he did a good job on the live album. We're pretty happy with the way it came out, we only had one shot at it, it was the idea of the two record companies, the Brazilian company and Arctic set it up for that show with all the proper gear for recording. I wish we would have had a couple more shows to play, because it was the first show, but for the most part it's as live and live gets.

For what it was, yeah, but what sucks is that three or four songs got cut out of it because there was a fucked up microphone cord. Some kid, some stage diver landed on Kyle, and it fuckin' snapped the cord or something, man... and four of the songs got fucked up because of the vocals.

For this next release, a lot of the touring that we do, we're gonna be doing a lot of recording. Because we've got so many goddamn songs (laughs) that we're bringing back into the setlist and stuff, we've been doing a lot of Stillborn songs.

We actually did on this last tour, and we may even re-record a few of them as bonus tracks, because that album was just recorded half-assed with shitty drumming and beat vocals. But when we play those songs now, man, it sounds like a totally different fuckin' band. A lot of those songs are really good, they just didn't come across the right way, the drums aren't fast enough on that album, the vocals fucking suck. Now though, it's like night and day. We were thinking about re-recording the entire album and including it as a bonus CD.

I know, but Nuclear Blast would never give us the extra money (laughs) and if we did that it would have to come out of our own pockets.

Exactly, we barely get enough money to finish our own recent albums.

Well, I mean, it's got distribution, but it's just not getting a massive push or anything because we can't afford it. I've seen it in some stores, I mean it's distributed through Caroline, so it's not all that bad, but it's not like a major push on it either. Live albums don't really get a big push, and especially a band like us that has no hit singles (laughs).

But it's out there, man. If people really need it that bad they can always find it online.

Yeah, well we've been slowly putting stuff together, man, we always gotta take into consideration that Malevolent comes first, so we're gonna bang one right after we do the Malevolent record, we're gonna bang out the Hateplow record.

That's why Dave's getting so warmed up with the speed stuff, because like, the third Hateplow record, we just want to make it so ridiculously fast (laughs)...

We just want to take all of the death metal elements out of it and just really, really, make a pure grindcore record, so we're gonna do it. I'm kinda glad that we waited instead of rushing and putting a half-assed Hateplow record out. A lot of people are asking about it. We're probably gonna record it out of our own pocket and then probably try to get another deal. And we own the rights to the other two records, so maybe we'll sign a deal where we'll be able to release the new album and have the other two albums as bonus discs.

Yeah, we'll try to figure it out, try to make it something special, because with all the pirating and shit these days, you almost have to make every release special and worth buying.

Oh yeah, he's been gone for a while, Jon Rubin our original guitarist has been back in the band for the last six months.

It's a long story, but Rob wasn't happy that we weren't constantly touring, and he figured that if he played with Cannibal... I don't even know if he's in the band, but he wants to have a steady job! And them guys just tour like seven or eight months out of the year.

We only tour like three or four months out of the year, but there's a lot more to it, and I'm just glad we got Jon back in the band, because it's a lot easier this way.

The best cities? There were a lot of good ones, man. There's a lot of places like Oklahoma City, you wouldn't think it would be such a kick-ass show in the middle of the tour, but it was! New York City shows are great, West Coast is always good for us, California shows are always good. I'd have to say those were probably the best shows.

Yeah.

(laughs) Yeah, actually his band actually opened up for us on the Buffalo date, man! It was hilarious! Actually, Brett, I would never work with him again, you know, he sucks (laughs).

It was bad, because his band is actually worse than he is, man!

(laughs) And that's not saying much, but they were terrible! I was laughing my ass off watching them, it's like everybody was just confused (laughs). You see big, tall Brett up there headbanging, and there's these poor guys standing there like they're scared to death to play. The music was so lame, my God, I thought he would at least do something a little better than that. But I'm not really concerned about him, he's been a pain in my ass since the day I met him.

Oh yeah, I mean, fuck! Everybody likes to party but that kid, it was just ridiculous (laughs). He lost interest in music after we did Retribution, he was just, I never thought that drugs and alcohol could actually tear someone to shreds like that (laughs) but it did, and it was getting old, it was getting stupid. And the end of the band almost happened a few times because of him.

(laughs) You can't polish a turd, man, bottom line! I didn't want him to be the reason that this band fuckin' folded. It would kill me to know that that piece of shit was the reason the band ended, so fuck him!

Oh I know, I've never had a problem with him. His worst are better than Brett's best days, and he's been very loyal to us.

In Europe you know, there's a stronger demand for this kind of music, which probably helps them. There's a lot of great American thrash bands that we'll probably never see again, especially like Exhorder, that's a great fuckin' band. But you get frustrated if you're a metal band in America because everything's so trendy here, man, that heavier music gets overlooked, and record companies don't want to promote the heavier bands, it sucks. But in Europe, they're not so closed-minded. All styles of metal music are a lot bigger over in Europe. You have a band like Bolt Thrower, and if they don't play a show for five years, they play a show, it's gonna be a big show! (laughs) For us, we play a show here, and it's like big fuckin' deal! (laughs) There's a hundred people (laughs).

Actually, Arctic, we're gonna be fuckin' folding it when December comes.

Ah, it's just taking too many fuckin' problems, too much work man, my lawyer, my partner is an attorney... criminal attorney... actually I think we're in talks about selling the label to a better label that can take some of the bands and help them out some more. I'm still interested in doing it, but without my partner's help, I just really couldn't do it on my own.

Oh ,we still have them, man, they'll still be available, but as far as signing new bands and stuff like that, it's not gonna happen anymore.

Hey, no problem, Mike.

Thanks a lot dude, take it easy.