Death Angel – Mark Osegueda

Bay Area thrash legends Death Angel made a triumphant return to the fore with their 2004 album, The Art of Dying after a 13-year hiatus, having disbanded in 1991. Since their reformation, they have continued to go from strength to strength and have further cemented their place in the ranks with their new album, Relentless Retribution. Metal Obsession spoke with vocalist Mark Osegueda about the new album, their first Australian tour in 2009 and beyond.
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Metal Obsession: What can Death Angel fans expect from your new album, Relentless Retribution?

Mark Osegueda (DA): The new album is by far the most aggressive thrash-based album we’ve released since The Ultraviolence. It’s very fast-tempo, there’s a lot of time changes. It’s the most personal Death Angel album to date, with a lot of subject matters that affected us real close, to the heart this time, stuff we were really pissed off about, so it is a very angry, angry album.

MO: Will there be any acoustic guitar parts in this album?

DA: There is actually one acoustic song on this album. It’s an aggressive album, but it’s also going to have its Death Angel elements. We’re suckers for melody. But definitely, an angry beast of a Death Angel album.

MO: What’s the meaning behind the album title, Relentless Retribution?

DA: What we’ve been through over the last couple of years, me and Rob, with lineup changes, having to find new members, we felt we had been let down a lot by people that were very close to us, some of the people most close to us, and we had to see in this time of having to replace original members who are our true friends and who were behind us. I understood why certain members left the band, it’s just the way they went about doing it, I didn’t necessarily respect. It’s just our way musically of getting back at them and our message to them.

MO: I think that pretty much answers my next question of what the lyrical theme is with the album generally.

DA: [laughs] the general theme of the lyrics is exactly that. Being let down by those closest to you and how we’ve had to deal with that over the last two-and-a-half years. But we’re very fortunate that we have music as an outlet and it was fuel to the fire, so at the same time it was a good thing because it helped us to create an album that we are very, very proud of.

MO: On the subject of lineup changes, who’s out and who’s in?

DA: Since we played Australia, we already had a new bassist that replaced the original bassist, Dennis Pepa, who had left, then we got in a new bassist, Sam Diosdado. He is no longer in the band, but still we’re very close with him. Once he saw the touring schedule that we planned on doing for this upcoming album, and also he just had another child, he just saw that he honestly could not keep up the pace that we needed to keep. He’s out, so we have a new bassist named Damien Sisson, who’s from the San Francisco Bay Area. He’s a monster player, has an amazing stage presence, and a youthful enthusiasm who has no problem touring as much as possible. Also since we played Australia, Andrew Galeon, our drummer and founding member, also left. The ironic thing was that we saw it happening. It was more apparent than ever last time we played Australia.

We saw that happening and it wasn’t necessarily a surprise to us, so we already had different drummers in mind and we had Will Carroll from San Francisco. He’s a San Francisco underground legend here, he’s been playing for years in underground bands. He also filled in for Machine Head on a US tour after they had lost Chris Kontos. He had been in a band called Vicious Rumours, and another underground band called Scarecrow. We got him in, he’s a monster of a drummer. More of a thrash metal drummer than Andy, and also can tour non-stop and that’s what we’ve been looking for.

MO: Did any of the new members have any input in the songwriting process?

DA: I would say they had input on their own parts, but the music, every riff on that record was written by Rob. I wrote the lyrics on nine of the songs and Rob wrote the lyrics to the remaining three [12 tracks on the album all up]. As far as input, they definitely have their own fills, their licks that came to them, but to keep this album more consistent and sounding more like a Death Angel album we figured that Rob and I needed to write the entire album. But their style of playing… once we got them in the band, we toured with them a lot. We did extensive touring with this lineup, so we knew their style of playing and their style of playing directly affected Rob’s writing and how he would write them, as far as his riffs. He would write riffs that would meet with their strong points and their style of playing but still being very Death Angel-based.

MO: Will there be any video clips for any of the songs from this album?

DA: Oh yeah. There’s going to be two videos from this album. The first one is just going to be a film video, a conceptual video and the second one is going to be a live video. We’re going to push this album like we’ve never pushed any album and we’re going to tour on this album like we’ve never toured for any album before.

MO: You took a break during the recording to tour Europe. Did you play any of the new songs for the European crowds, and if so, how did they react?

DA: We played two songs from the album live so far, and in a couple of tours we’ve only been playing one song. We’ve been keeping to the same song on all our tours, because prior to the album being released, we don’t want to play too many different songs from the album. With things like YouTube and stuff, after a while they’re out in the open and people are listening to half the album before the album is even out and pre-judging the album based on what they’ve seen on the YouTube video cameras that don’t actually capture the entire sonically what the album will deliver. The crowd’s reaction to the new song was like, “oh my GOD!” They’ve been floored and they love the direction it’s going into, one thing Death Angel has always gone up against, is we progress a great deal musically but people always want to hear the thrash metal roots from The Ultraviolence, and I think this album is going to give the fans what they’ve been wanting for.

MO: Last year saw Death Angel tour Australia for the first time, how did you find the Australian crowds?

DA: Oh god, I loved, LOVED the Australian crowds! That tour was monumental to us, and it was a goal of ours to get to Australia for our whole career and we finally got down to Australia. We’re dying to get back there with the new lineup and this new record, and hopefully get together a nice, strong touring package so that we can pack some venues a little more than last time and get some good crowd reaction like we did last time. I think the Australian crowds are wonderful. The people are wild, they love a good celebration and they’re fearless. Our music goes well with that type of environment.

MO: Thinking back to when the band first started in the early days, did you ever think that you would ever tour Australia?

DA: That was one of our major goals when we first started the band, because the album that changed our lives from when we were kids was AC/DC’s album Let There Be Rock, and we’ve always been obsessed with that, that made us like cheese to a mouse of getting to Australia. It didn’t help that I have a personal obsession with Nick Cave, and we’re big fans of early Rose Tattoo as well, so getting down there was an ultimate goal of ours, and now we want to get down there with every record.

MO: Did you get to see much of Australia when you were down here in 2009?

DA: Not as much as I’d like to definitely not, because you’re flying just about every day when you tour Australia, so hopefully we can get another tour down there that has some more breathing room so that we can explore more than we got to last time. I was fortunate enough to get to Fremantle and see Bon Scott’s grave, which was a life-long goal of mine, and I got to make that happen. Next time I’d like to check out more than just the city blocks around the venue we were playing in.

MO: With heavy metal going more global, and with members of Death Angel being of Filipino descent, has it ever been Death Angel’s dream to tour the Philippines?

DA: I wouldn’t necessarily say it was a big dream of ours, but we’d hoped to. We want music to bring us to anywhere we can go. With the Philippines, we didn’t even know if could actually become a reality, we didn’t even know they were having heavy metal shows there. Once they started, we were fortunate enough, we did get to play there for the first time. I believe the first show we played was probably three or four years ago now. But it was crazy, we played to 35,000 people in an outdoor stadium, people were throwing bottles in the air and going mad. The people were wonderful, the crowds were insane, and it was just an amazing culture to be a part of when we were there. It’s another place I look forward to returning to, I’d very much love to tour the Philippines again. That time we only did one show, but to do a full tour there, it would be incredible.

MO: Metal fans in that part of the world would also be very dedicated.

DA: Oh yeah. In a huge way, and very rabid. It was great.

MO: Will Death Angel be touring Australia in the near future for Relentless Retribution?

DA: That’s our goal, to get back down there to do a tour, definitely. I think we got our foot in the door on our last tour for Killing Season, and now we can get down there and make more of a mark with this album. We’re already booked all the way through to late March of next year, and hopefully after that we can get down to Australia.

MO: This wraps up the interview, any last comments for the fans?

DA: I’d like to say to the fans, you guys were so memorable to us and getting down there was the goal of our lives, and now we’ve tasted it, we want a taste of it again and we need to get back down there as soon as possible. Keep your ear out for Relentless Retribution, it’s the most vicious Death Angel album since The Ultraviolence and we look forward to getting back down there and playing it live for you.

MO: Thank you for the interview.

DA: Thank you, and I look forward to meeting you again when we’re down there!

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Q’s: Megan Masters
A’s: Mark Osegueda
Band: Death Angel
Date: 21/09/2010
Origin: USA
www.myspace.com/deathangel
http://deathangel.us/