Interview Abysmal Dawn

Interview
Charles Elliot
Abysmal Dawn

Lineup:
Charles Elliot - Guitar, Vocals
Ian Jekelis - Guitar
Terry Barajas - Drums
Mike Cosio - Bass

10/28/08
Interviewer: Karma E. Omowale
Additional Questions: Kate Wilcox

“I think there are some morals or good things to be had out of some religions but for the most part morals are common sense that we’re born with.”

Los Angeles death metal conglomeration Abysmal Dawn has been busy since their first release on Crash Music, From Ashes, they are with a new label Relapse, a change in the lineup (Ian Jekelis is now on guitar), and a couple national tours later, the band is back out with their second album Programmed to Consume. In this interview, frontman and guitarist Charles Elliot discusses lyrical content for the new album, his stance on religion, tour tales… Read on!

Karma E. Omowale: First off, thanks for talking to us again Charles! It seems like it were only yesterday when you were opening for Immortal. What a bummer the shows were overbooked and were forced to cancel your appearance on the Death by Decibels tour when it came through California. But we’re stoked that you’re doing the mini West Coast tour with Sothis (Endless Wintour)! Will you take it further in the New Year?

Charles Elliot: Yeah, we plan on hopping on a bigger tour next year. Hopefully things work out but we’ll see. We’re trying to support some bigger bands and hopefully play the rest of the US and do a bit of Canada. We’re willing we just need a booking agent and a tour.

What do you expect from the crowds on this tour or what are you hoping for?

We just want to get out there and play really. We aren’t expecting huge crowds or anything but we’re hoping for a few good shows. It’s just driving us insane sitting at home not doing anything when we have a new record out. We figured we’d team up with one of the bigger bands from LA to tour and Sothis immediately came to mind. Neither of us are huge bands, both of us are starting to get known in the underground and both of us have new records out. We hope it does good but if not we’re going to have fun and just hone our skills for the next tour.

Your last trek across the States on the Relapse Contamination Tour was quite a tale to itself with the adversities faced: blown tires, alternators… at least you lived to tell the tale! What was your favorite memory from that particular tour?

Who said I remembered anything I drank it all away (laughs)? The tour itself was great but I think thing I’ll remember most was coming home and having our alternator blow. We had just crossed the boarder into California and the battery levels of the van kept going up and down all day. As soon as the sun went down I turned the headlights on and the lights in the van just slowly dimmed until the engine turned off and we rolled to the side of the road. We were in the middle of the desert and trying to figure out what the fuck just happened. We called AAA but they told us that we would have to be towed 20 miles back in the opposite direction of home, since that was where the nearest town and tow service was. That and it was going to be a ton of extra money to tow us with a trailer. We decided to put as much gear as we could in the van and leave the trailer by the side of the road with a note for CHP. If it got towed by CHP, fuck it, it was a lot cheaper than through AAA. Luckily, though the tow truck driver that shows up is this older guy with a mullet cranking Iron Maiden. He feels bad for us and let’s us pay him under the table to tow the trailer with the van. The guy was even cool enough to take us to go get beer and drop us off at a hotel. Coolest tow truck driver I’ve ever met in my life (laughs).

Speaking of Relapse Records how is life on the label after moving up and leaving Crash? Have they been supportive?

Relapse has been great to us so far and a major step up for the band. Our new record sold what From Ashes did in two years in a couple of weeks so we’re pretty happy. We’ve been trying to work hard so they’re happy too. Bottom line we couldn’t have made a better choice than to leave Crash.

Congrats on the release of new album! Damn your vocals are vicious along with the guitar/drums…was this a conscious effort?

It’s always a goal of ours to sort of push the envelope for ourselves with each release. There were some things that I wasn’t happy with concerning my vocals on the first record so I really tried to improve them. After our tour with Six Feet Under, Krisiun and Decapitated my vocals started to get a lot better too I think. Before that, I didn’t practice them as much. People have been telling me they’re deeper and more brutal, which is great. I did make the effort but it was a sort of natural progression that just came from singing a lot more.

How is Programmed to Consume different from From Ashes?

Programmed… is more of an extreme and modern record I think. From Ashes was a bit more thrash oriented and rooted more in nostalgia I think. Part of that has to do with the writing process being over and extended amount of time I think. Two and half songs were left over from the Inhuman Visions days too. If the album had been released in 2000 or 2001 when some of those riffs were written maybe it would have had more of an impact I don’t know. I think our new record is a bit more of our own style as well. Our sound is always progressing though and I really don’t want to be the type of band to release the same record over and over again. Their will always naturally be elements of us in our music so I never try to over think if a certain riff sounds like Abysmal Dawn.

Would you change anything on this album if you could turn back the hands of time?

Definitely but I don’t like talking about them so much. Mistakes to me or little things in the mix that I don’t like aren’t things I like to point out. I don’t want to say something that will ruin peoples enjoyment of the record. Sometimes it’s just us being anal about things but there’s always room for improvement. I even heard Metallica thought there were mistakes on “Master of Puppets”. I don’t want to know what they are.

What went into the creative process for this album? Did everyone have input?

It was mostly me to be honest. Jamie wrote some riffs and Terry always puts his touch on the drums. The majority of the riffs are mine though and I demo most the stuff at home and present it to the band. I think Terry especially had more input on his parts this time around though. Mike just played to bass (laughs). He will have a lot more input on our next record since he’s already started to write some stuff. He was the new guy at the time though and was trying to learn all our old songs and new songs at the time.

How much pressure was there surrounding the creation on your sophomore effort? Was it harder this go round?

I think touring with Six Feet Under, Krisiun and Decapitated lit a fire under our asses. Locally we felt like we were flying the flag of death metal high but we felt we had to compete on the national and international level now. We all felt the need to push ourselves and make the playing and music more extreme. Like I said, we didn’t want to be a throw back retro death metal band, we wanted to be on the same level as our current peers. So in that sense there was some pressure yes. Mostly it came easier this time around somehow though. For example, “From Ashes” was written in a span of maybe three years, which is not the best work ethic you know. This one took about a year to write because we working harder and inspired. Not too mention I didn’t have any stable work for a couple of months so that helped me to focus.

Loving your take on the lemming mentality and your stance against religion on “Compulsory Resurrection,” and the overall theme of people being automatons not thinking for themselves, never stopping to ask question. It’s nice to have cerebral lyrics that cause you to think! Were there any specific events or triggers that sparked songs like “Compulsory Resurrection” or “Cease to Comprehend”…

Well “Cease to Comprehend” was sort of inspired by a certain record company we used to work with. “Compulsory Resurrection” I think came from me watching something on the Discovery channel about searching for the remains of Christ. That got me thinking about what sort of affect that would have on the Christian faith. Then I took it a step further and started to think about what would happen if they actually cloned him. What I try to convey in the lyrics is that a lot of peoples faiths would be shattered. When I say “Christian holocaust” in the lyrics I don’t mean in the literal sense but more in the spiritual sense. I wanted to clear that up because I’m not advocating the annihilation of a group of people, just the education and eventual annihilation of a way of thought.

Well as you can imagine I’m not much for it. Most religions are a way to start wars, control societies and abolish free thought. I think there are some morals or good things to be had out of some religions but for the most part morals are common sense that we’re born with. Most religions have been preaching the same moral code since the dawn of time, which I think is interesting. The only difference is the Gods people create to help divide the people of the world. People take religions too literally. They should take the lofty tales of any religion with a grain of salt and just draw the life lessons out of them. I await the day when religion is no longer needed and we equate the stories of the bible, Koran etc. to Jack and the Beanstalk for example. There probably a moral there but people don’t believe in fucking giants and golden gooses.

Jamie had this cool black metal type piece that he’d been messing around with a bit before we went into record. I thought it would be cool to use as and instrumental so I had him track it on an acoustic guitar. There’s the usual thunderstorm in the background that you hear with something like that (laughs). We tried maybe a few other things for ambience in the background but we still ended up using that. I’m a big King Diamond fan so I thought I add some choral stuff over it as my tribute to “Them.” It’s not the same melody or anything like that but that was the inspiration for it though.

Was there one “bitch of a song” that gave you hell while constructing it?

I don’t know, “A Remission of Life” didn’t come so easy. If you mean what was a bitch to play I’d say the entire middle section to “Twilight’s Fallen.” All those riffs are pretty damn hard on guitar; most have some big stretches and some pretty fucked up picking. I can only imagine what it’s like to get that down tight on bass (laughs). You can bet the other guys professed their hatred towards me for that one for a while.

Do you have a favorite song off the album and why. If you are not able to choose, please explain why.

That’s tough but maybe “Walk the Path of Fire.” It just sort of has everything that we do in one songs. Fast parts, doomy parts, dual guitar, black metal, death metal, low and high vocals and some of my favorites leads. It was the first songs written for the record and the lyrics are a favorite of mine as well.

The cover art is phenomenal! Nice you used Pär Olofsson again! He really captured the essence of the overall theme. What do you want the viewer to walk away with when they pick the CD up?

We just wanted an album cover that wasn’t so one dimensional and stereotypical. What you see has hidden meaning to it and hopefully it gets people thinking. That was the whole goal behind the lyrical and visual content really. Not to spell everything out but get people thinking.

Life and my surroundings I guess. I wouldn’t say anything specific. Usually what happens in my life ends up influencing what I write in some way.

We just have that quick run of the west coast in December planned so far. Other than that we hope to do much more touring next year. We’ve already started working on material for the next album as well.

Support your favorite bands! Go to shows, buy a shirt, and buy the CDs because MP3’s sound like shit and you don’t get the artwork. If you really love metal and want it to survive the trends I shouldn’t have to tell you this.

We would like to thank Charles and to his camp for making this interview happen.