Interview: Left To Die
It’s one of those things that you could not have imagined as a fan. When I was growing up, Death was just a huge deal to me.
Left To Die have just related their debut album Initium Mortis and it sees the death metal supergroup pay their own tribute to the early days of Death and Mantas as they tackle deep demo cuts from the death metal legends earliest days.
With a lineup that consists of guitarist Rick Rozz (Death/Mantas/Massacre), bassist Terry Butler (Death/Obituary/Massacre), vocalist and guitarist Matt Harvey (Exhumed/Gruesome) and drummer Gus Rios (Gruesome/Malevolent Creation), Left To Die have the best pedigree to give these songs a new lease of life (and Death) and expose a new generation to the beginnings of the brutal sounds of Death. Gavin Brown caught up with Matt Harvey to talk about Left To Die and Initium Mortis as well as getting the lowdown on his long history with Death.
E&D: The debut Left To Die album, Initium Mortis has just come out. Is this a dream come true band for you to be in?
Matt: It’s one of those things that you could not have imagined as a fan. When I was growing up, Death was just a huge deal to me. Big influence on my playing and my approach to playing and my understanding of what the difference between death metal and thrash metal was, was defined by figuring these riffs out by ear when I was a kid, and you obviously I would much rather that Chuck would be playing with these guys and playing these songs, but seeing as how that’s not an option, yeah, it’s pretty surreal it’s me doing it. It’s wild, so it’s a bit of a balancing act between recognising, I don’t like to say that the shoes that I’m trying to fill, because that’s not possible, but recognising the weight of the legacy and the importance of this music to so many people, and also just, when we step on stage, trying to put that aside and just enjoy playing songs. I really like that there’s a point in doing it if it’s just all about this solemn burden of legacy or whatever. It’s also, we’re still a rock and roll band and bashing out the songs every night, and that’s even more fun.
E&D: Is the album a proper celebration of the beginnings of Death?
Matt: Yeah, as soon as we announced that we were doing gigs with this project, people were asking us, are you gonna write something, are you gonna record something, are you gonna do this, are you gonna do that. As time went on, we kind of got some chemistry, and felt like a band, rather than just two pairs of guys, each with a long history with the other, shoved together, then we realised that it might be fun to record something, and also it became clear that going back to what I was saying earlier, that weight of expectation of trying to live up to a record like Leprosy would just crush anything that we wanted to do creatively, because even if it was as good as Leprosy, or whatever, it wouldn’t be as good. So we’re kind of going back and unearthing some of these early tracks, and dusting them off and recording them properly, in many cases for the first time. That is a really fun way that we’re able to record something and do something that adds to the legacy of the band and makes sense, but doesn’t put that burden of expectation on us as songwriters, and also doesn’t put, selfishly, it doesn’t put me in the hot seat as much, because I think out of everybody, I would be the first one to draw the least favourable comparisons, if we were to write something, which I’m not super eager to invite.
E&D: How did you approach these Death and Mantas demos to give these songs the full power they deserve?
Matt: It’s really straightforward, because the songs are really straightforward, Rick is very much that kind of player that his approach is always super meat and potatoes, less is more, kind of thing. So it wasn’t,terribly different. I think that the main shift for me, when I was doing the rhythm guitars was just, the songs are simple enough, and the approach is raw, so I was able to do. very few overdubs or very few different takes to make up a guitar take, even if there’s four tracks of rhythm guitars, each track is played, if not straight through, then maybe one or two times that I punched in doing some more complicated stuff, so long as it’s like cut, cut, cut, cut, whereas this was like us, basically one or two takes. Really the approach was just to not overthink it, because I think just executing the songs, with a bit of oomph and a bit of attitude, really is all they needed. We’re not trying to turn it into Sound Of Perseverance Part 2 or anything like that. It’s very much, we are an old school death metal band, here are old school deaths metal songs, recorded in a modern way, but executed still in a very old school approach.
E&D: Was having the album on Relapse a no brainer, giving your history with long history with the label?
Matt: it just made complete sense, considering, Gus and I working with them with Gruesome. I’ve been working with Relapse forever with Exhumed, Terry’s worked with them with Obituary, and also I think it’s important because Relapse has the Death catalogue. I think us doing what we’re doing on the same label indicates that hopefully to the record buying public or the YouTube commenting public that this is okay with the Schuldiner estate, they are aware of this, they are cool with this, that we wouldn’t be doing this on the same label that’s reissuing Leprosy and Individual Thought Patterns if It wasn’t all part of the same family, and all done in the right way. Chuck’s family is going to get paid for the songwriting credits and everything else. I do think it’s important that people understand because I think that it’s easy to be cynical about this kind of stuff, and like, oh, it’s a cash grab, or these are cover songs, or whatever, and it’s like, well, obviously we want to get paid to play music and stuff, and we’re too old to just do this for exposure or whatever, but at the same time, is it a cash grab, is it a cover song when the guy who co-wrote the song is in the band, and is it a cynical cash grab when Chuck’s family knows about it, and they’re working with the same label. We want people to know that we’re doing this the right way, and then if people don’t like the album, that’s fine, but I just don’t want them to think that we’re out here trying to strip mire Chuck’s legacy, or squeeze every last dollar from the chafed teat of the Death catalogue , So that, to me, being on Relapse helps to get that idea out there as well, and hopefully people make a connection,
E&D: Has the feedback for Left To Die generally been good?
Matt: Yeah, with the first single, I don’t know that people quite got that it’s like, these are all old songs, these aren’t. We didn’t write this, you know? I mean, Rick was there, co-writing all this stuff, but it wasn’t like we got together, like, hey guys, I just came up with this thing, and blah blah blah, because obviously we want these songs and the record to be songs people hopefully aren’t terribly familiar with, but we’re also not out here trying to present it as this brand new thing that we’re doing. By the time ‘Witch Of Hell’ got released, I think people had figured out, oh, these are the early solos, they re-recorded them properly, In many cases, for the first time, a lot of these solos have ever been properly recorded, so it seems like it’s gathering positive momentum with each thing that we’re doing.
E&D: How did you European tout tour last year when you were playing the songs from Scream Bloody Gore and Leprosy, and what were some of the highlights of the run?
Matt: Every time we’ve been to Europe, it’s been great. It was funny because our agency over of merged with another agency, so we started getting more analytics and data that we’ve never looked at before, so they were sending us these presale numbers for the shows, and some of them were like, “Oh, I don’t know, is the show gonna suck or whatever? So I think we were a little gun shy about the tour, but we went over, and the shows were insane, Bratislava, especially, I remember being a highlight, maniacs! The first tour, we did all of Leprosy and some of Scream Bloody Gore, and then this tour, we did all of Scream Bloody Gore and some of Leprosy. For me, I’m a kid in a candy shop, I’m like, oh gee, we gotta play ‘Torn to Pieces’ tonight, shit, oh darn it! It’s just such a murderer’s row of a setlist that we have to pick from. It just becomes so fucking fun, as long as we can hear on stage, I’m generally having a great time, and the audiences in Europe have been very, very receptive to what we’re doing, and seem to have grasped the concept of it very naturally. So, we’re excited to head back.
E&D: Are you going to be playing the songs from Initium Mortis when you play live next?
Matt: Yeah, now we’ve got three releases to pull from. There’s certain songs that you can’t skip, so obviously those will remain. We’ll be bringing in some stuff from Initium Mortis, and balancing the set that way, and I think it’s gonna be super fun. I mean, again, to me as a fan, I’m always like the worst kind of fan that goes to the show and yells out some song from some demo no one’s ever heard, just to be like, what about this?! So I’m very lucky that I get to do my own fan service servicing myself for whatever. Take, take that as you will. I didn’t mean it as a euphemism for anything, but it certainly sounded like it! So, yeah, we get to do Scream Bloody Gore stuff, we get to do Leprosy stuff, and now we get to do stuff from the demos, and I’m fucking psyched!
E&D: What live dates have you got coming up now the record is released and will you be making it back over here?
Matt: We have been talking about it since the very first tour we did, because the shows we did in England and Ireland and Scotland for that were all fucking bonkers, We got to the Garage in London, and it was the first show in Europe, you’re jet lagged, you’re trying to get a handle on the rental gear, or whatever, and we just look out. I was like, “Jesus Christ, where have all these fucking people come from, like, this is insane!” So we have been talking about getting back ever since the first tour, and there’s some tentative stuff that’s being discussed right now. The issue always is, of course, Terry is very busy with Obituary, and then Exhumed. had a record this year, so I’ve been very busy, and yada yada yada, so the only super firm stuff we have is the European dates, and then Latin America, and then we’re going to just see when time lines up and what we can do, but we’re very keen to get back to the UK. I mean, I love going over there anyway. My wife’s British, so I’m used to spending a lot of time over there anyway, so it’s always fun.
E&D: How did you first discover the music of Death and Mantas as well, and who did you discover first?
Matt: Well, certainly Death. This is obviously in the 80s, before the internet and all those sort of caveats. I would get allowance money from my parents, I would do the washing up after dinner, so you get 10 bucks a week, which was enough for one tape and a Slurpee, so so you’d really think about what tape you wanted to buy, and I would go to the record store around my house,and I knew if it was on Combat or if it was on Metal Blade or RoadRacer, I guess, at that time, because this would have been 88, that had a pretty good chance of being good, and I’d never heard of Death before, but I was like, what the fuck, this band’s just called Death, this is insane, and I went to the Scream Bloody Gore tape, and there was that song, ‘Regurgitated Guts’, and I was like, I just have to know what a song called ‘Regurgitated Guts’ sounds like. I have to hear it. I’d heard Slayer, I’d heard Kreator, and obviously Metallica, Exodus, Testament, Megadeth, Anthrax, and all that shit, a few more underground things like Onslaught or, Bathory or Venom, so I got the Scream Bloody Gore tape and I put it in, and I was like, I don’t know if I quite get this, I couldn’t quite get my head around it, and then a kid, that I was friends with, had a buddy that was playing hockey somewhere, and he had the Leprosy tape, and he played that for us in the locker room after the hockey game, and I was like, “Holy shit, I get it, because it’s a bit clearer and a bit more decipherable, and then I went back and listened to Scream Bloody Gore, and I was like, I get it now, I get what I’m hearing, and that was a core moment of development as a fan, and as an aspiring guitar player trying to learn those songs.
E&D: What is your favourite ever Death song to play?
Matt: I’m a big fan of the song ‘Scream Bloody Gore’, because it hints at some of the places that Chuck would go later, with a more naughty bit at the end, and I also like playing it live because it’s kind of a real easy solo, so I don’t have to concentrate too much on it, and I think that first riff in that song is, to me, the prototypical blueprint for what would become a generic death metal riff. It’s got that chord progression that’s in everything. It’s in this ‘Out Of The Body’ by Pestilence. It’s in about fucking 43 different Exhumed songs in different keys and rearranged different ways.I think that’s one of my favourites. ‘Choke On It’ has been the dark horse cut that has become a big crowd pleaser, that I think people underestimate how excited they are about hearing that song, until we actually play it, because it’s a bit of a deeper cut. So those two would be the first two that jump out at me, but I mean, like I said, I’m so lucky because when we play live, it’s like, oh, this is my favourite song, oh, it’s my favourite song. This is my favourite song. This one’s my favourite. Oh, it’s one of my favourites too. How can you not have a blast doing that?!
E&D: What’s your favourite ever Chuck riff?
Matt: Wow, there’s so many to choose from. There’s so many good ones. Fuck. that’s a tough one. It’s just one of those things where, if you ask me tomorrow, I’ll probably say something different, but I love the first riff in ‘Mutilation’, the verse riff, because it’s got that proto,-slidey motion in the left hand that became so important for Exhumed, and it’s built off that same progression as the ‘Scream Bloody Gore’ riff, but it’s got a little bit more going on and some more chromatic stuff in it, and I just think it’s a real fucking mean-sounding riff. The thing is, as much as people talk about Chuck’s legacy of expanding the sonic palette of death metal, which is super important and very impressive, dude wrote some fucking mean ass riffs, man. He wrote some real nasty, brutal fucking riffs, Rick was so important back in the day too because even a few of the songs on Scream Bloody Gore, he was in the room for with Mantas, ‘Infernal Death’ and ‘Evil Dead’, those go back to Mantas, and so much of the stuff that he worked on Leprosy, and these Mantas songs that we’ve re-recorded, there’s some nasty fucking riffs in there, man!
E&D: Do you have a favourite experience of seeing Death live?
Matt: I don’t know if it’s my favourite, but I think it’s the most noteworthy. The first time I went to see Death was in March 1990, both times I saw them in 90, I was still 14, and the venue was this place called the Omni in Oakland, all the metal shows went through there, everybody from Forbidden and Vio-Lence to W.A.S.P and Armored Saint but it was in this really sketchy part of Oakland, and my dad dropped me and my buddy, who was the original Exhumed drummer, he dropped us off, and he’s like, if you’re not outside at midnight, I’m gonna fucking leave you here in Oakland! I’m sure he wouldn’t have, but with my dad, it was like, oh, you can’t just dismiss it out of hand! Shows ran so late back then. I think that Death didn’t go on until like 11.50 and I’m just sitting there looking at my little Casio digital watch, like, oh boy, I’m gonna get in trouble, my dad’s gonna kill me. So I think we saw the first two songs was ‘Living Mostrosity’ and I forget what the second one was, and I was like, fuck dude, it’s already after midnight, my dad’s gonna kill me. It was like, you get to the finish line, like, oh my god, I’m finally here seeing my favourite band, and then, oh, fuck, I gotta go, I only can see two songs, and that was when James Murphy was playing guitar with them on that first tour, and when they came back in October, James had already left, and it was Albert Gonzalez, and I remember being so bummed, I was like, fuck! I saw James Murphy, man, damn it, so yeah, I think that was my most, my most memorable, but when we went in October, when they came with Pestilence and Carcass,I did meet Chuck, I got him to sign my flyer, and was like, I really love your riffs, man, they’re awesome, you know, and he was very sweet, so that was a cool moment.
E&D: As well as Left to Die, you’ve got Exhumed and Gruesome too. Do you find it a challenge making time for everything?
Matt: I mean, the scheduling is the challenge. I find it, creatively, it’s invigorating, honestly. I’m excited, to come to practice, and to always have something going on, and be working on things that people seem to care about, that’s all really cool. It’s just the logistics of trying to figure out when can we do this, when can we do that, when can person A from band B be available to go to place C. It’s like just this endless succession of WhatsApp group chats and Excel spreadsheets, like, where the fuck are we at this time? Oh, shit, I forgot so and so is doing whatever, he can’t do it, that part is exhausting, but it’s a great problem to have, and I feel incredibly fortunate, and as a fan, this is way beyond anything that I could have imagined as being possible. When I was that 14 year old kid, getting chewed up by my dad, showed up 15 minutes late because I wanted to see, the Spiritual Healing tour. So it’s a crazy position to be in, and I’m stoked to be here.
E&D: How did your joint tour with Exhumed and Gruesome earlier in the year go and how was doing double duty for you?
Matt: I’m probably gonna regret saying this, but it was more manageable than I anticipated. It was challenging. We had one stretch where we had 12 gigs in a row, and that was too many. Normally, 12 gigs in a row is no big deal but playing two different sets every night, it’s a lot of wear and tear on my voice, and it was physically draining, but it was doable. I just turned 50 as well, so just to be up to that kind of challenge, to set that out for myself, and feel, hey, that was good, there was no night where I was like, man, that sucked. I did notice that there was, a certain section in the Exhumed set, I was like, why do I feel like these songs are hard, and I was like, oh, because that’s when I’m starting to get exhausted, but then you get to get that second wind before the last song or whatever, so it was cool. I’m not in a hurry to do it again, but I certainly wouldn’t say never. I felt like I accomplished something, and I proved something to myself, I guess, so that was a good feeling.
E&D: Have you had any thoughts about doing something with Left To Die involved too, not a full route but a one off show?
Matt: I mean, I think it’s doable. The thing with Left to Die is that our sets tend to be a little bit longer because a lot of the songs, especially the Leprosy ones, like ‘Leprosy’ or ‘Choke On It’ or whatever, they tend to be a little bit longer songs, and also it’s one of those things with a great grindcore band like Caustic Wound, or whatever, I still don’t want to see two hours of that. I think 40 minutes is good, but at a Death show you can play for maybe two hours if you really, really wanted to. I know DTA plays incredibly long sets, they’ve got a little bit more breadth in the catalog that we do, but it’s just like going to see Iron Maiden or whatever, I could watch two and a half hours of Maiden, no problem, but not two and a half hours of extreme death metal, so the Left To Die set tends to be longer, which would make it more challenging to do it as a triple thing. But I mean, I’m a glutton for punishment, apparently, and my wife loves it, because she’s like, “Oh, you’re gonna get paid twice, you should do this again. I’m like, “Jesus Christ, woman are you trying to kill me out here!” If somebody pitches something that makes sense, and it helps everybody’s schedules, wouldn’t be opposed to it, but who knows.
E&D: Would you ever do anything with Death To All as well and do you have a good relationship with those guys?
Matt: Well, I did the first 10 or 11 show tour. I came in at the last minute because Stefan from Obscura was going to do it, but he couldn’t get his visa approved in time, so they called me up a week and a half before the tour, and they’re like, “Hey do you want to learn how to play ‘The Philosopher’ and ‘Crystal Mountain’? I was like, “Oh shit, so I was very underprepared, and came in at the last minute. I think Max, who sings and plays guitar for Death To All, is fucking phenomenal, he’s amazing. He plays rings around me on my best day, so I’m very happy to let him play the ‘Crystal Mountain’s of the world, and he’s, he’s the perfect guy for that job. I think the really cool thing would be to see Left To Die and Death To All do some gigs together. I don’t know if that’s too much Death for one bill, but if that was a thing that can happen, I think it would be really cool, and I think people would be really stoked on it.
