Exhumed
Photos by Sir Tod Ekko
(Photos by Sir Tod Exxko)
Bella: So did your PR person tell you what this interview was for?
Matt: Um, not really.
Bella: Ok, well, it's for a porn site, and hopefully a porn magazine. It's called BurningAngel.com; is that a first for you guys to be in a porn publication?
Wes: Um...no...but it's the first time I did an interview for porn.
Rob: There were some things I wasn’t very proud of in college
Wes: ...and after college too...
Matt: You took one credit and then gay porn just took over your life?
Wes: Not gay porn, dude! That's not what were talking about...is it?
Bella: No...Well, there's lesbians on there.
Rob: That's acceptable.
Bella: Yah, that's how everyone seems to feel. I dunno; it's kind of a double standard but that's the way it goes.
Mike: I don't really care, people can fuck however they want...I don't want to SEE certain things though.
Bella: Well, it's a site filled with hot tattooed chicks having sex, and they have DVDs and win awards and are generally awesome. And now they have a print magazine, so I've had the pleasure of being able to interview my favorite metal bands.
Matt: Sounds very tasteful.
Wes: We're a very tasteful band.
Matt: Delicious.
Bella: Yummy. So, this topic is something that effects both the adult industry and the music industry…
Matt: AIDS?
Bella: Well, that probably effects the metal scene more than the porn industry actually. Ya know, there's no mandatory STD testing for like, banging bands. Is there?
Matt: Not yet!
Bella: Should there be? Should we regulate this in some way?
Mike: That's also a myth; band members are not getting laid as much as people think.
Bella: Really? I was gonna ask you guys for awesome sex stories.
Wes: We play death metal...there are four chicks in the crowd: one chick is with her boyfriend, the other chick fucks all the dudes in the band but she's a social climber so it's only certain members, the third chick is there to do an interview with the band and the fourth chick is unfuckable.
Bella: So there are no awesome tour sex stories to be had? Come on, isn't that part of why you join a band?
Wes: NO!
Matt: Not this band!
Wes: If you're gonna play in a rock band - sure, but not, if you're gonna play in a death metal band - no way.
Bella: the girls get freaked out by you guys you think?
Wes: The music sounds retarded - why would chicks listen to it?
Bella: I listen to it!
Matt: Sometimes we get freaked out by the chicks. Some chicks are like "YAH! Let's party - I'm gonna drink you under the table and then beat you up."
Bella: You're not into that?
Matt: That’s not really my thing.
Bella: That’s kind of my thing.
Wes: I think if there ARE any metal chicks there that are down to do something they're pretty scary. I don't wanna compete with your drinking skills or whatever.
Matt: I've gotten yelled at by a lot of metal chicks...And it's like "Whoa - calm down!"
Bella: THAT freaks you out?
Matt: Pretty much.
Wes: It's sorta like wannabe masculine and it's not that hot.
Bella: Well, it's hard for us metal chicks ya know...we don’t have a place, it's hard for us to find a balance, hard to find a place for chicks in metal.
Wes: Right in front of the stage.
Matt: It's true; it's not a very female-friendly scene.
Wes: It's a lot of testosterone shit.
Bella: I was gonna ask you about female fans too, but I guess that kind of answers that question.
Matt: There are dozens of them worldwide.
Bella: I think there's probably more than you realize.
Matt: Well, they don’'t really talk to us after the show.
Mike: It could be that they're just creeped out after a metal show; they have every guy there hitting on them.
Bella: It’s true, I can say that as a girl who goes to metal shows, even sometimes alone, it's a bit overwhelming.
Wes: Ok, there might be some chicks that might wanna talk to you, but by the time they talk to you, they’re gonna have been hit on like fourteen times.
Rob: By the rest of the bands on your tour package.
Wes: YES! Starting with the bands, and then there's the rest of the crow;, it's not conducive to getting laid at all.
Matt: Also, we’re old now. I mean not old-old, but I just turned 36.
Bella: That’s not that old.
Matt: But I just mean like, when you're in your 20s, it's a lot more fun.
Wes: You got more gusto! You're like, "YAH, I’m gonna go talk to these chicks and after it's awhile, it's like...eh -"
Bella: So, after a show, do you guys just wanna like...eat and cuddle with each other?
Wes: No, we just want money, but that's not happening.
Mike: No, we like hanging out with the fans; a lot of times you don't wanna be looked at as a negative aspect like, you're just trying to get laid. It could have negative effects on the band too.
Wes: You also have drama too, if you hook up with a chick and she's got some other dude in some other death metal band, then he gets pissed.
Bella: Yah, it's kind of a small scene and everyone seems to fuck each other and it's kind of incestuous.
Wes: We've all been through that I’m sure.
Mike: Because there are only five chicks at the show.
Matt: Exactly.
Bella: Is that something that changed as you've been making music? When you started out were you trying to party all the time and get with girls and then you got a little more serious about it?
Matt: I think in the beginning I was really serious and then in the middle, I wanted to party all the time, and now I’ve sorta gone back to being more focused on the music, and also like, when you tour two months out of the year, you can rage every night and be plastered and do blow every night of the week but when you tour all the time, it’s tiring.
Wes: I mean you can party if you want, but you're not going to be able to put on an awesome show night after night. I mean, we still party but we just have calmed down. Have a few drinks, ya know. Maybe I'll drink 20 beers but I'll drink em in 16 hours. It's different than when you're a kid and you have to get it out of your system. Except for him, because he's younger than us.
Bella: Oh, are you on your party phase right now?
Rob: I get all the chicks, all the time.
Bella: So do you have all the awesome sex stories?
Wes: He does a lot of crazy shit, but I dunno if he gets crazy laid.
Bella: I don't even know how you guys have time for anything crazy; you're touring every fucking day!
Matt: That's exactly what it is, when we're out, we play almost every day. Thank god, the guy behind you is our driver, if it wasn't for him, we wouldn't be able to party at all. We'd be angry and cranky.
Wes: We'd be more angry than we are now. I'm super pissed off right now.
Matt: Yah, I was in a really shitty mood this morning; I don't know why.
Wes: Yah, that was funny.
Bella: Did you wake up in Columbus?
Matt: Yah.
Bella: Well, that might put you in a bad mood.
Mike: Well lemme ask you this, how many porn stars are actually into metal heads?
Bella: Ya know what I've discovered actually is that there's a huge crossover of porn chicks that love metal. Like even the vanilla mainstream porn stars that have blonde hair and fake boobs. I dunno what that says but it's definitely true.
Matt: The fake boob girls are probably more into def leopard and stuff.
Bella: No, I don't think so.
Wes: Well, like strippers and bikini dancers always go out with metal dudes. I think death metal is sort of like the new rocker guys. In the 90s, it was more like rocker guys, and now death metal is the new rock and roll.
Mike: Well the thing is, porn and death metal is kind of the same, kind of both an underground scene.
Wes: They're both nasty in different ways.
Bella: they’re both frowned upon by the outside world.
Mike: Normal society kind of looks down on us both.
Bella: Maybe that makes us bond.
Matt: I think the whole fear of death and sex are basic human impulses. Society doesn't want to acknowledge either of them.
Wes: It's like the grey area that people don't want to talk about, but it's part of life; people fuck, people die.
Bella: So is there time for any porn in your life with all this travelling?
Matt: Yes! Thanks to the iPhone.
Bella: We have an iPhone app for BurningAngel!
Wes: Hehe - yah, I know all about it.
Bella: So what kind of porn are you watching?
Matt: This is so embarrassing.
Wes: I think Matt's the connoisseur; I don't even know the names of them...I just watch clips.
Bella: You don't have a favorite porn star?
Wes: I like that chick, the one that's married to the Biohazard guy.
Bella: Tera Patrick; she's not married to him anymore.
Matt: I like...there's this Czech chick named Ella.
Bella: Oh, you like the foreign porn...you freak.
Wes: I like the Latina girls. But I’m not single...if I was...
Bella: Wait, does that mean you can't watch porn?
Matt: What kind of girlfriend won't let you watch porn? That's the girlfriend that gets dumped.
Bella: So do you watch porn with the girlfriend?
Wes: No, that’s not my thing.
Rob: Occasionally.
Bella: Some girls get insecure about that shit.
Matt: I've had girlfriends who were totally into it.
Rob: One of the best things ever is getting a blowjob while watching porn.
Wes: That sounds pretty cool; I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that.
Matt: The best is when you bust your girlfriend watching your porn. That's happened.
Bella: So, if you think death metal is the new rocker and strippers love them, do you think there will be a death metal sex tape that emerges sometime soon?
Wes: I hope so.
Matt: You can't scandalize the death metal scene because there's already a bunch of degenerates in it.
Wes: Plus there's already all these old albums from like the 90s that have dudes fucking girls in the ass on the cover it's kind like...obviously sex and metal intertwine.
Matt: Sex and everything intertwines.
Bella: Ya know what's interesting is that I've interviewed a lot of foreign black metal bands and they never wanna talk about sex with me, they get really uptight.
Matt: They're uptight because they're from Norway.
Bella: OhMyGod!, that's not nice.
Matt: It's not nice to generalize...
Wes: But I will.
Bella: So you have a lot of hatred for the Norwegian black metal scene?
Wes: No, they're just boring. It's like when you hang out with them they're just boring, they don't talk, it's weird. To us, it's boring because we're crazy American death mettalers; to them, our culture is idiotic.
Matt: I'll take the idiocy over the boring.
Wes: I'd rather be an idiot than a boring guy.
Matt: You ARE an idiot.
Bella: So this tour you guys are hanging out with GOATWHORE and the dudes from HAVOK; are they fun?
Mike: They're awesome.
Matt: Maybe Goatwhore should be a little bit more boring, and make everyone's life a little bit better.
Wes: That's what entertainment is all about though; there's always the one band that's over the top; they're like the bad influence.
Matt: Before we started on this tour, Wes and I were talking and like ya know, we got away with a lot of stupid shit before, and we just can't do that anymore. I remember when we were in Canada like 6 years ago; we just were totally demolished and after vandalizing another band's equipment, I remember driving drunk in a van in Toronto on a suspended license throwing beer cans at pedestrians and we never got caught. Never got a DUI or anything, and I think now we're more focused on putting on a good show for the kids, making sure people get their money's worth. And also, we get paid a little more now; when you only get $150 a night, it's really easy to not give a fuck; not that we're making tons of mone,y but we're definitely more focused.
Bella: Now everyone has camera phones too so the one fucked up thing you do is gonna go viral on YouTube.
Matt: For me too, it's hearing how sloppy we sound when were drunk. And also, when you're fucked up and you're talking to the kids after the show, it sucks if you're rude and you don't mean to be, cuz you're hungover or something.
Bella: So do you like that part; do you like to interact with your fans?
Matt: Yes, 99% of the time.
Wes: Occasionally there's someone that’s ridiculous.
Matt: They remind you how lucky you are not to be sitting somewhere doing data entry. Even like last night, we played Detroit on a Monday night, so not huge turnout, but even then you can meet a guy who's like, "Dude, I've been waiting eleven years to see your band!" and he's so pumped it makes it worthwhile. We're makin' this guy's week. It makes you realize all these years of putting out records and riding around in vans and smelling these guys' farts was worth it.
Wes: Obviously too there are so many variables, in each different venue and equipment fucking-up, so to add another variable of being fucked up in there is too much.
Bella: Has there been any mishaps on tour so far?
Matt: So far so good, except one flight smashed my guitar case, another one lost my guitar, one place in Germany blew up his wireless.
Mike: Wes has a little black cloud over him. But so far no, we haven't been arrested, we haven't wrecked any vans or anything. But we are lacking porn stars at our shows; if you can make that happen, that would be awesome.
Bella: Well, thanks for talking to me you guys; are there any closing thoughts for people that may have taken a break from jerking off to read this?
Matt: Keep on masturbating!?
Mike: Stop masturbating, put on our new record, and continue masturbating.
Bella: I think with that we're out!
Twitter at EXHUMED! @exhumedofficial
Dnothing!
