Interview: Exhumed
It is about automobile horror, tragedy on the highways and byways, largely in America.
With their latest album Red Asphalt, gore loving death metal legends Exhumed bring you something different than what they have done before, a love letter to all things automobile and the road, although it is obviously done in their own horrifically gory style. With tales of horrific accidents, vehicular homicide, defective cars, gore-filled instructional videos and zombie biker gangs, Exhumed do their damndest to make you fear the road with all this horror going on! To celebrate the release of Red Asphalt, Gavin Brown caught up with Exhumed bass player Ross Sewage to talk about the album, Exhumed and lots of other related topics such as life on the road, horror classics, hip hop and his other bands Impaled and Cold Slither.
E&D: The new Exhumed album Red Asphalt has just come out. Can you tell us a bit about the album and its focus on automobile horror?
Ross: It is about automobile horror, tragedy on the highways and byways, largely in America. But, you know, there’s tragedy on highways everywhere. We just have the worst public transportation system in the entire world. We were on tour, and we were talking about what to do for our next record. We are on our fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, thirtieth, record we’re on. I can’t keep count anymore! We’re like, let’s do something interesting to keep it fun for us. I said, well, we need a road song, like ‘Beth’ or ‘Home Sweet Home’, and I just thought it’d be funny for a death metal band have a road song. Matt started running with it, going, yeah, like, you know, it could be about your way home, but it’s a death metal song, so of course, you’re gonna die tragically. Then we’re looking around like we’re on the road. We can make a whole record about the horrors of the road, whether that be automobile related, but also horror movie bus stuff, Mad Max even, and Wrong Turn A bunch of movies about horrible things that can happen on the road. We realised there’s a lot of other genres of music that have explored that, and I hadn’t really seen it in death metal. Dead Bolt has the album Voodoo Trucker, which is one of my favourite records ever, and we thought, Wait, we could do it too. It’s not going to be about, hanging out at a truck stop looking for lot lizards. It’s going to be about smashing face first into a semi truck!
E&D: You designed the cover for Red Asphalt. Was that a fun thing to do?
Ross: That was something I hadn’t done in a long time. I had done some gory, horror, movie-esque covers for Impaled, the other band I’m in, that’s kind of our aesthetic through all of our records. Exhumed did on the first one, and, also Slaughter Cult. It’s a little unpolished, but it is a gory cover, and Anatomy Is Destiny was a licensed photo. We’re like, we should really go back to it, it’d be really fun. We’ve talked about it for years, ever since Horror, for the right record, let’s, let’s go back to the meat market, get some guts and throw them on the ground and take another photo like that again. Of course, it’s shocking. It’s a little bit edgelord kind of shit. But it does convey what you’re going to get on the record pretty succinctly. I think it was Mike Scalzi from Slough Feg once told me, Oh yeah, I love that record, gore metal. I was like, oh, cool, thanks, man. He goes, No, I don’t like the music. He’s a heavy metal guy. He’s like, That stuff’s garbage, but I keep it around because when any of my friends asked me what death metal is, I could just show him this cover! It’s just guts in a kitchen, so we put guts on the road!
E&D: What have been some of the craziest things that have happened to you when you’ve been on the rune road with Exhumed?
Ross: Well, there was the time Matt flipped an SUV that we were coming home from a show so that’s definitely the craziest! We had played a show in Santa Barbara and had to borrow my sister’s SUV because we were poor ass fucks in the 90s! They loaded up with gear and I slept. It also had a broken window, so I slept in the truck to protect the gear so I couldn’t drive back. I was too tired. Matt took it on the way back, and he was just driving a straight road middle of the day, sunny day, no weather problems, and just kind of like started to veer off the road a little. Those SUVs back in the day, they were they were basically light truck bodies with a super heavy top. They’re much more better designed now, but in the early days, they were absolute garbage. That was an invented vehicle class by capitalist pigs to get past taxes and tariff laws on trucks. So they were selling a truck that wasn’t a truck. It was just like an overloaded piece of shit. So when he just over corrected in a normal car, he would have just been back on the road, but instead, the thing flipped on its side. I wake up in the back. All this gear is falling on me, and I look down to the road and it’s about this far from my face! At some point I must age. hit the road, because half my eyebrow came off, it was just dangling as some people pulled me out of the car, all of a sudden, a flap of flesh goes over my eyeball, and everybody thought I lost an eye. Thank God, I didn’t do that. Instead, I just got a really cool rapper scar, like Vanilla. Ice! Some people think I shaved my eyebrow, but instead, I just got that scar and end years of trauma.
E&D: Did it take a while for you to go back out on the road?
Ross: It took a while for me to get back in a car with Matt driving! That took a little bit of trust. He was a little bit careless. But honestly, that was a vehicle manufacturing issue because my manager, when I worked at this record store, flipped the same model vehicle six months later and came away with a lot more damage than I did. I hate SUVs! I drive a tiny, little mini cooper. It’s great. I can park anywhere! I live in a crowded city. So that’s the best bet for me.
E&D: Are you looking forward to taking Red Asphalt out on tour in the US with Oxygen Destroyer and NO/MAS and with Gruesome in Europe?
Ross: Yeah, we’re really excited about that. NO/MAS and Oxygen Destroyer, we talk about the bands we want to go out on tour with and put together a list of like people we like. I’ve toured with NO/MAS before. They’re super great guys, and they’re an intense live band. I’ve seen Oxygen Destroyer. They’re awesome. So I’m looking forward, because I don’t want to be bored at the show. I want to see like bands I like. We’re very excited to take them out and spend a month with them, and it’ll be fun to watch them night after night. Then we get to go to Europe and the UK with Gruesome. So Matt Harvey is going to be doing double duty. We’re calling it the kill Matt Harvey tour! We’re going to see how far we can push him to the edge before he breaks!
E&D: You recently celebrated your 50th birthday, congratulations! Playing with both Exhumed and Impaled on the same bill. Was it a fun thing to pull double duty for that?
Ross: Thank you! It was fun for me. With Impaled I’m not the frontman, Leo del Muerte is the frontman, but I’m the one who’s picking up most of the song announcements and stuff like that, talking to the crowd. Then, I switch to bass and get back with Exhumed. I get to kick more back a little bit and let Matt talk to the crowd. It is fun, and I like playing. It is a little rough, of course just sitting there growling the whole time! I’ve never done with double duty with Exhumed on tour, but in 2007, Impaled was going on tour, and we had Phobia scheduled to be direct support, and at the last minute, their bass player couldn’t go with them, so I just said, Fuck it. I’ll fill in. So I did 30 days where I would play with Phobia, screaming grindcore at the top of my lungs and head banging in, and I’d have to jump off stage, at the time Impaled was dressing up like doctors. I had to get off stage, go get, my lab coat, tie my tie on really quick, and then jump right back on stage and play death metal! It was a very tiring experience, but it was really invigorating at the same time. Just knowing that I could do that for an entire month, it was, it was really exciting to me.
E&D: As a big horror fan, what are some of the all time classics for you?
Ross: First of all, one of my favourite horror films is the shirt you’re wearing, The Slaughtered Lamb! American Werewolf In London, that I saw way too young. I still have dreams about werewolf Nazi stormtroopers coming to my bedroom because that one stuck with me. I like horror comedy best of all. I just want to laugh. Exhumed, we’re brutal, we’re death grind, but at the end of the day, you get down to the lyrics and the covers and stuff, it’s all very tongue in cheek. It’s wordplay. It’s fun, we want to laugh in the face of death, because especially hitting 50, thanks for reminding me! I’m way closer than most people who are at the show! I always go back to stuff like Braindead, Body Melt, Evil Dead 2 especially is my favourite, and Frankenhooker. I like to laugh, and then see some really gnarly gore. Street Trash is another one. Street Trash is like a perfect movie. You’re just laughing the whole time, and then you feel like you need to take a shower afterwards. That’s a good horror movie to me!
E&D: Will horror always be an influence on Exhumed?
Ross: I mean, absolutely, I don’t think we could ever get away from that! It’s one of the things we enjoy. I know there’s a lot of metalheads. They rattle these gory songs but they’re like, I don’t actually like horror movies. It’s like, no, I really like horror movies. I have a whole horror movie shirt collection. I’ve been to some horror movie conventions. I met the first zombie who appears in Return of the Living Dead 3. That’s a celebrity that you want to get down with!
E&D: What recent horror movies have you enjoyed?
Ross: I guess I’m gonna jump on the bandwagon, and being proud of being from Oakland and all that, Sinners was a great movie. That was the last one I saw in theaters. I actually cried during the big music scene. It had a lot of cool stuff like that. Ryan Coogler is an Oakland boy, so he’s down with me. I dig him, and he’s done pretty much nothing but good shit his entire career. So go Oakland!
E&D: Who else in horror is doing it for you?
Ross: Macon Blair and that whole crew is really good . Murder Party is a hilarious movie, and then they got down to doing Blue Ruin, which is one of the most intense, fucked up thrillers I’ve ever seen. It’s like a crew of four or five dudes that make them and they did Green Room, that’s a movie that’s great because there’s comedy in it, but the movie is not necessarily played for laughs. It’s gruesome as fuck, and it’s tense and thrilling. So that’s another one I really enjoy.
E&D: With all your album covers and music videos as well having that horror aesthetic. Would you like to make your own horror film?
Ross: It’s something Exhumed has talked about, yeah. That is an idea that is on the shelf right now. It’s like a jar of kombucha. It’s just fermenting and growing, and it’s going to be kind of gross, and I hope we can get there. In the meantime, we were like, Okay, well, that was in that big conversation that we were having, but Red Asphalt was the one we can make now. So that’s what we went forward with. I think we took almost a year off of touring and stuff like that. So I really feel like this record we presented a pretty horrific Tableau, and had time to really work on it and make it what we wanted it to be.
E&D: You play in Cold Slither as well, is that a cool band to be in and will you be doing anything this year?
Ross; Cold Slither is a joy! I should probably should try to explain Cold Slither a little bit. I’ve been a GI Joe collector basically my whole life. I’m a Gen X 80s kid. So it was all about Transformers, Masters Of The Universe, Star Wars, and GI Joe. Course, I started on Star Wars, and that was my largest obsession as the little one and then Star Wars is gone, and GI Joe’s there. The toys were fun. The cartoon was camp and silly and awesome, but still fun enough for a kid to enjoy all the adventure. I saved all that stuff. I didn’t have firecrackers growing up, because I live in California, they don’t have them out here. So I didn’t blow my toys up, so I still have this mighty collection. I started recollecting as I was on tour. Hey, I’m bored with America. I’ve been to all these towns. Hey, there’s toy stores. I picked a lot up. Then me and Gus from Gruesome , pandemic times, we’re talking all the time, talking about toys, because what the hell else are you going to do? We’re sitting at home not doing anything, but looking over our toy collections. Then he says, we should just do that band Cold Slither from the GI Joe cartoon. It’s one episode. It’s a laugh, it’s a silly episode. I was like, yeah sure, let’s do that someday, whatever, and we’ll get around to it. Meanwhile, he gets around to it! And five years after we were talking about it, he and Gerardo at RPM, put together Cold Slither, the real band. I get a call from Gus in late 2024, and he goes, Hey, guess what? You’re a dreadnought now. You’re joining Cold Slither. You’re going to be in GI Joe. I’m like, What the fuck are you talking about? He goes, Oh, we got the record, we got everything, and we’re going to play Comic Con, and I need your help, you’re going to play bass and we’re going to get these costumes together. It’s officially sanctioned by Hasbro toys, and it was crazy! We had to throw all this stuff together. We had to dress up and get this whole kind of show together, put live videos up, we’re interacting with characters from the show. Then at the end of the show, this great, sold out show in San Diego around Comic Con, the entire GI Joe team from Hasbro bust in the back door, lit as hell, and just start going off about how much fun they had and how this is the best corporate retreat ever! And they’re like, you’re gonna play New York, right, so we play New York Comic Con all dressed up. I made this giant monster that comes out and I hope it keeps going. We’ll have to see. It’s really weird. It’s working with a giant billion dollar multinational corporation, and we get to do all this stuff. I made a video for a Christmas song that that they put out. I put in all these different GI Joe from different companies. Come to find out, they have to run that through the legal department of every single licenser and license so I created a nightmare for the lawyers. But the video came out, and its stop motion, and a lot of fun. Check out the video, Cobra Claws Are Coming To Town on YouTube. I hope Cold Slither keeps going, because I get to be in GI Joe, that’s sick as hell! It’s like the whole culmination of everything that I’ve loved my whole life. So yeah, I’m over the moon!
E&D: So toys and comics have always been a big thing for you?
Ross: Oh yeah. I mean, that’s how me and Matt from Exhumed even met. We had a mutual friend in high school, Cole, who was the drummer from Exhumed. This is around 91 or 92, so they’re just getting going. I think they had a demo. I mean, Cole said I should come over. We do Marvel role playing games. I have sets of that because I love comics. I was a Marvel zombie growing up as well. Of all the other dumb shit, I was into, the one thing I didn’t do was video games. So I had lots of time for comic books and toys. I went over and we played Marvel role playing games, we read comics, we drew comics together, and having all these sleepovers and hanging out all the time. They were like check out Venom. Check out, Voivod, check out Carcass. I was just starting to get into hard rock, spinning some Metallica and Megadeth, and they’re, like, skip all that middle stuff, we could just go right to Godflesh. We can go right to Napalm Death. I got fast tracked into death metal. That’s how I met those guys, and eventually I started playing with them.
E&D: Will Impaled be doing anything else in the future?
Ross: There’s been talk about it. There’s been some tunes written and we talked about it. But there’s no rush. Im doing another project with Sean from Impaled, doing Exhumed with Matt. I got Cold Slither. I’m in no rush. Two of us live six hundred miles away in Portland, Oregon, three of us are here. We still have a jam spot. We’re gonna go play Mexico this year again, and that’s gonna be a lot of fun. Maybe we’ll get around to something.It’s just fun, we haven’t broken up. We just got some other things. People had kids, and they were like, Okay, well, you know what, if we ever get around to doing it, that would be fun. In the meantime, you know, maybe we can get some of our old catalogue out. I just got a package from Osmos productions, they did a reissue of Death After Life, so that’s fun. Maybe we’ll play some more songs from that in Mexico. When we get an offer, if it’s good and financially viable, we still love playing together. We’re still great friends.
E&D: Will your friends in Ghoul be doing anything this year as well?
Ross: Well, I have a direct number to the Mezmetron, so sometimes, I give a call over there. I think they’re planning something pretty big this year. I think they’re real hush hush about it. They’re not nice in the first place. Ghoul’s a bunch of dicks, but you know, when I got on the phone, they’re like, big plans, fuck off. So I’m pretty sure there’s something brewing for sure.
E&D: Ghoul did a split release with rapper Ill Bill. Would they say that was a cool thing to do?
Ross: You’re good, you’re clever! Yeah. I think it was just somewhere along the line, Ill Bill had mentioned Ghoul, he was naming bands. So they reached out to him, and were like, Hey, you want to do a split, and he was down. It’s just a a fun thing. It’s not exactly the Judgment Night soundtrack, but, you know, Bill’s a sick rapper doing that murder rap, or the horrorcore, and doing some sick stuff. I like a lot of music, and hip hop is included in that. I like a lot of hip hop. I like Run The Jewels and shit like that, as long as it goes really hard, Clipping is another hip hop group I like. I fucking love if it goes hard as metal, that’s the main thing to me. The only thing I don’t really like is G funk. I don’t want I to smooth it out. If I want to smooth it out, I’ll listen to some Parliament, or I’ll listen to some Sly & The Family Stone. I don’t need that on my rap. I want anger and aggression, just like I want that in my metal.
E&D: Do you think a rapper could ever spit over an Exhumed track?
Ross: They’d have to be really fast! I don’t think it would work. I would never tell someone not to try. But, you know, maybe, They could throw on ‘Shovelhead’ off the new record. That’s got kind of a slow groove to it. I could see some guys spitting some rhymes over that for sure.
E&D: Going back to Exhumed. What have been some of the highlights and memories that stick out for you to this day?
Ross: Oh, geez. I mean, there’s so much. I think one of the funniest memories I have, it’s all the bad memories. We’ve had some good shit happen, but I always remember the bad shit. That’s the problem with being a cynical jerk! Before I had even technically rejoined Exhumed, I did a couple shows with them, helping to promote the Gore Metal Redux, I’d recorded on that, but I wasn’t in the band, but Matt said, Hey, we’re playing, our bassist is leaving, he doesn’t want to do this anymore. Do you want to fill in? We got a show in Guadalajara with Judas fucking Priest. I’m like, yeah, I’ll fill in for that. That’s cool. I’ll eat some humble pie. I was kicked out of this band, but hell yeah, I’m gonna watch Rob Halford come on stage at a motorcycle. This is sick as fuck. So we all fly separately to Mexico, and I’m in the hotel. I think I got there first, and I’m just waiting for everyone to arrive. The Wi Fi is not working, so I can’t really contact anybody, but I’ve got a hotel room, and everybody knows where we’re supposed to meet and everything Then the Wi Fi, all of a sudden kicks in around 1am and I get a message from Matt that says, I am in jail. This is not a joke. That was in a Mexican jail. He had decided to fly in with his bullet belts. I guess the customs agents didn’t understand heavy metal very well and the aesthetic trappings that we have so he gets arrested, they say it’s a way for people to smuggle drugs in. I think basically it was a money shakedown. The next day, we’re just kind of panicking, it was Bud and Mike, the other guitar player, he left the band a little while ago, good guy. But they’re like, Wow, we got to cancel. Matt can’t play. We got to cancel. Cancelling is really, really frowned upon in Latin America, especially if three quarters of your bands there, you gotta pull it together and figure something out. So we’re like hopefully Matt gets out of time, the promoters going back and forth with the police, and eventually, it’s time to go on. We had talked about it. We’re like, All right, let’s drop a couple songs that have too many harmonies, but you take this part, I’ll take this vocal part. I’m not even in this band technically at this point. They’re like, as we’re going on stage, Ross, you announce the songs. I’m like, how do I do this? I got kicked out of this band fifteen fucking years ago. So I’m on stage doing my best, Matt Harvey like, fuck yeah, Guadalajara, fuck yeah. We kind of pissed our way through the songs as best we could as a three piece. And get off stage. They’re like, why’d you play so short? Like dude, our guitar players arrested! We played it all okay, and twenty minutes later, Matt shows up. They finally were able to bail him out of jail! So we watched some Judas Priest and had some of the weirdest conversations ever. So that was an interesting day!
E&D: You’re enjoying enjoy being in the band again?
Ross: Absolutely, I mean, I’ve been in it longer now than I was the first go around. So yeah, it’s a good time. Me and Matt, we’re we’ve been friends, like I said, since we were like sixteen or something, and we had a falling out because we were snot headed, pig nose, stubborn ass young men, and we got older, and we had life experiences, and then we chilled out, and now we’re like, oh, shit, that’s right. This is why we became friends in the first place. We have a good time, and we have a great time on the road together. We have a great time making music together. He lives in about two hundred miles south of me, so we don’t see each other all that much, except on the road, but we’re texting every day and joking, whether it’s Exhumed shit, and working on other projects together, we’re doing Cold Slither together. I’ve known Mike for decades from other bands from around the Bay Area, and Sebastian, I’ve known since he joined the band, and he’s a great dude. He’s awesome. We’ve had the same lineup for three records that I hope we can do at least three more. Then that’ll be hitting 60, maybe, maybe we’ll have to check with the doctors at that point and see if that’s medically advisable!
