METAL HELL: How did the new  TERRORIZER album come about?

PETE SANDOVAL: We’ve always wanted to do a second one. We’ve always thought about doing a 2bd one because a lot of fans would ask, when are you gonna do another album? Please put out another record, and nobody was ready. Jesse was with Napalm Death & I was with Morbid Angel.  He didn’t have the time until he was not in Napalm any more. Then he had time to do it so we got together& did a demo. It was sent to Century Media & the rest became history. We got signed & we did Darker Days Ahead, with a new singer because Oscar did not want to do it. He didn’t want to get out of L.A. We needed somebody that could tour with us cause I wanna tour. I want to move around. I wanna play all the songs on World Downfall & this new album live. This singer is ready for that and that’s what we needed. He’s a good singer as well, he can sing. You can understand his voice man, that’s what I like about it. You can understand a lot of his words.

MH: You don’t hear Death metal with under-standable vocals any more.

PS: Yeah! A lot of Death Metal nowadays is more like ‘RARUURAR’, what is that? That’s why death metal is ruined and this is not even supposed to be death metal. It sounds a little bit like death metal but he does his own voice. He doesn’t want to sound death metal. That’s just the way it came out. For me it’s more of a modern day grind-core album with a mixture of death metal because of the way the vocals sound.  The lyrics are really the opposite of death metal or black metal.

MH: It reminds me of old school Grindcore shit.

PS: There’s a lot of old school feeling cause there are 6 songs that are from back then, in ‘86/’87. Like “Nightmare”, “Crematorium”, “Fallout”, “Mayhem”, “The Dead Shall Rise”, & “Blind Army”, those six songs are old. The reason I wanted to re-do “The Dead Shall Rise” is because now it is the original way of how it was supposed to be played back in ’86-’87. It was supposed to be all the way fast & not slowed down. For me it’s more extreme now than before. I love the way it came out. It’s super extreme. I like the way the vocals came out. The way he’s singing is different, almost in a weird way. I’m so excited about Darker Days Ahead, that it’s not disappointing. It’s old- school like you said. It’s pretty brutal & extreme. It’s not the same as the first album. Nothing is gonna be the same; no album would sound like Altars Of Madness with Morbid Angel. There’s no 2nd World Downfall, there’s just Darker Days Ahead period. But it’s in it’s own zone & it’s own world & it’s pure grind-core. I would say that what makes it different is the maturity of every musician. We have matured a lot. It’s more of a mature and modern release.

MH: Do you approach Terrorizer any differently than Morbid Angel drum wise?

PS: No. Drum wise, it’s still fast double bass. I love to try to be as original as possible & try to come out with something new all the time & that’s comes from different drum rolls or the drum solo that I did on The Heretic or the piano piece that I did at the end of Darker Days Ahead; “Ghost Train”. It’s crazy but it works for either band.

MH: Are you happy with the drum sound on Darker Days Ahead? I think they sound pretty sick.

PS: Thanks man, yeah I think so too, the drums sound great. They sound real to me & I always trigger my drums no matter what. If I’m gonna do it live why shouldn’t I do it in the studio? I’ve got to make sure that the sound is perfect. The snare sounds had to be worked on, that’s the thing that we worked a lot on.                   

MH: What inspired the lyrics?

PS: This guy (Anthony), it’s just his life and his background. He’s a Native American Indian so he’s into that kind of stuff. His other band is called Resistant Culture & his music is very native but it’s crusty and grinding. The inspiration for these songs is what’s going on in this world. The life. The misery. The war. “Crematorium” is a song that is based on a lot of places becoming crematoriums cause there’s burnt people every-where. A lot of these songs are about real issues, which makes the band not anti-political but that’s why the title of the album, Darker Days Ahead tells you everything. The days are getting darker & darker. There are bombs exploding everywhere. You never know what’s going to happen every day. It’s becoming worse & worse. A lot of the songs are about these normal every day life issues.

MH: Did you feel pressure to live up to World Downfall?

PS: It didn’t matter. I’ve been doing Morbid Angel & every time I was on tour with Morbid Angel a lot of fans would ask me about Terrorizer.  I would say yeah soon we’re gonna do another one, maybe next year we’ll get together but it bothered me that we never got to the point of doing it & to me it doesn’t feel like a long time to be honest with you. Not any more, because it’s finally out. It’s been a long period of time without doing any Terrorizer. But a lot of other bands were changing. Most of them changed to less aggressive. Everything is more like Slipknot nowadays and all this crappy music that I don’t like. The look is what made that stupid band become big, with their masks. Yeah, I’ll get a mask & suddenly I’ll be on MTV, give me a break! I wanna become a weirdo-dude like this Marilyn Manson weirdo. An it, I would call that ‘it’. And then finally the ‘it’ becomes a millionaire because of the image. I hate the bull & I’m glad where I am & I’m proud of what I’m doing and I’m proud that I started all this & I would never change to that                             

MH: Is Terrorizer going to keep going as a functioning band?

PS: Terrorizer is planning to do a 3rd album. We’re gonna tour & then we’re gonna do a 3rd album, fuck yeah. This is a band & it’s gonna move around. Jesse is no longer in Napalm Death & he’s got time to tour. Like I said we’re ready. I can’t wait ‘till we do this first show. It’s gonna be amazing.

MH: Where are you planning to tour?

PS: We’re gonna tour everywhere. We’re gonna tour the whole world. There’s offers for 2 shows in November, in Virginia & New York City, but we don’t know yet, because it all depends on what’s gonna happen with some issues right now. I cannot say much more. We are gonna tour but I don’t have any idea when. This year there’s some issues, like I said but that’s not gonna stop this band from touring. We’re planning to do a 3rd album & that’s the bottom line.

MH: Will there be a new Morbid Angel album with David Vincent?

PS: Yeah, that’s been planned, to have David Vincent, definitely.

MH: Do you have any advice to drummers for developing a good double bass technique?

PS: There are different exercises, for everything & practice makes perfect. You’ve gotta practice.  Drummers have to practice as much as possible & they’ve gotta feel the pain. If they don’t feel pain they’re not doing anything. If they’re not sweating they’re not doing anything. No pain no gain, you know what I mean, you’ve got to feel the pain.  That’s how I went through all these years with Morbid Angel touring, developing muscles that I needed. That took all those years to build these muscles. It’s about practice, the more you practice the stronger you become, that’s what it is. Practice makes perfect & if anybody wants to be fast they’ve got to practice because if you are at this speed right now, if you practice this week using metronome speed, next week you will feel like you can go a couple of notches up.

MH: What drummers got you into the fast double bass playing?

PS: When I joined Morbid Angel I didn’t know how to play double bass so I had to learn how to play double bass in about 2 & a half months, to be ready to do some live shows in ’88.  I joined Morbid Angel in ’88 & I didn’t know how to play double bass. With Terrorizer I only played with a single kick & I had to learn how to play double bass. It was hard for me. I quit like 3 times, Morbid Angel didn’t want to let me go. They had faith in me, but in about 2 & a- half months the magic came. I finally got it & I did it all myself.

  The influences that I had back then were the speed metal drummers. That helped me to practice, like Dave Lombardo, Gene Hoglan or Clive Burr from Iron Maiden. Even Bathory, the music itself, I was pretty drawn to their music. That was the kind of stuff that influenced me. Right now I don’t have a favorite drummer cause no drummers play like I do & if there were drummers that played like I do then they already play like I do so why am I gonna look at them when they learned it from me. I started this thing in ’86 -’87. Nobody was playing a one foot blast-beat in  ’86-’87 when I created it with Terrorizer.

MH: And sometimes you can practice double bass over single bass drumming on records.

PS: Oh yeah, like playing on top of the industrial stuff, like Laibach. I’ve got a lot of Laibach stuff and I play on top of that, but I’m adding stuff. Like if it goes da-ta-da-ta-da, I go ‘dudeldudeladudel.’ You can practice to anything. It’s always better to have a metronome. It’s a metronome thing so it helps you to not get off on the timing, & to always be on top of it.

MH: Do you tend to play songs faster live?

PS: Well yeah, when you play live you tend to. Right now Terrorizer hasn’t played live except for those gigs that we did in the past, that were backyard gigs, not real gigs with a real P.A. & the drums were not even mic’ed. So when we try some real shows we’ll realize the difference in it, right now I don’t know. I just hope that we sound good & close to the album of course, & we will. We hope the guitars & the rhythm section will be as clean as possible because grindcore is pretty tough, especially live. So you better have a good soundman that knows your songs & who makes the guitars with everything else sound right. Even the album was not really done right to me. It could have been better sounding for me. It was mixed like 3 times & there was one perfect time that we almost kept but we changed it at the end. The only thing I think is that the guitars are a little bit too loud.

MH: Were any extra songs left over from Darker Days Ahead?

PS: Nah, even the first song on the album, was written while we were in the studio. We didn’t have all the songs. We had to do an extra one. “Darker Days Ahead” wasn’t even going to be a song. I had the idea on tape for a long time & nobody cared about it until we thought about, hey we need to write another song, so Tony Norman just happened to be in the band, me & him put some killer riffs together & that song came out to be what it is. It’s different than a lot of songs. It’s telling you we’re back & the next song is totally old school “Crematorium.”

MH: What’s in the future for Morbid Angel & Terrorizer?

PS: With Morbid Angel, we’re going to write new songs for a new album. With Terrorizer as soon as the little stuff is fixed, we’re ready to tour. We’re gonna be doing some touring while Morbid Angel’s writing stuff, cause I don’t have to be writing with them. I can be touring with Terrorizer. I want to tour with Terrorizer so bad. It’s time man. I wanna play all those older songs from World Downfall. Like “Ripped To Shreds”, there’s so many classic songs. “Infestation”, “After World Obliteration”.   * This interview is dedicated to the memory of the late Jesse Pintado.

 

 * As you can see Pete was genuinely excited to bring back Terrorizer, sadly it was not to be & founding member/guitarist Jesse Pintado died from complications of the liver on August 27th, 2006 at the age of 37. Their new album, Darker Days Ahead, was released merely 5 days before he passed away. Jesse was a true innovator in the grindcore genre & will be truly missed by us all. - Joe D.