DEADLY STORM zine: A few questions - interview with death metal band from United States

A few questions - interview with death metal band from United States - EVULSE.

Recenze/review - EVULSE - Pustulant Spawn (2021):

https://www.deadlystormzine.com/2021/03/recenzereview-evulse-pustulant-spawn.html

Ave, can you introduce your band to our readers? – When was it founded and what style of music do you play etc.?

Evulse is a disgusting death metal band that was formed in 2018 from the San Francisco, Bay Area, in Oakland to be exact.

Where and under what conditions were you recording the new album? Who was in charge of sound, production and mastering?

Fred Avila came out and recorded it in our rehearsal room back in 2019. He tracked everything for us within a couple of days and sent us a template mix once the vocals were finished. We listened back to the recording for a few weeks and then sent him some minor notes for level adjustments, equalizing and etc that we wanted and then he mastered it for us. Fred is a super shredder guitarist(check out Unurnment & Abysmalist) and he also ripped a lil solo for us on the album as well.

How many copies were released and which medium was used for this new edition (CD, digital, vinyl, cassette)?

Not too much, I think between 1200-1500 tapes, 500 cds, and 500 LPs so far. Im not sure how to quantify digital since i dont have access to everyones numbers but a little south of 100,000 plays.

Who is the author of the lyrics and how were they created and about what do the lyrics deal with?

Jimmy handles the lyrics. A lot of themes for the band stem from a level of self intoxicating psychosis and the horror of existence. I am not really interested in writing about zombies and weirdoh shit like that, I think the human condition is much more fucked up than some fantasy bullshit, that is not to say i dont enjoy fantastical subjects, it's just not necessarily what i write about for what i am doing.

Who created the logo of the band, and who took care of the graphics and the website?

Our original logo was created by Scott Bryan, who is a brilliant artist that is the "Spew Tech" for GWAR. He came up with a bunch of super sick designs for us, some of which we havent unveiled just yet. On "Pustulant Spawn" we reached out to David Milkensen from Undergang to sharpen up and refine our original logo so it is still looks like what we started out with just nastier and digitized, the first run of logos were hand illustrated and then scanned in and cleaned up. David did the dirty work for us and illustrated the new logo and then scanned it in and colorized it for us. We are very pleased with how it all turned out.

The album art that we used was a private commission we got from a local San Francisco artist named Aaron Lee, he is an old school skater/graffiti artist that specializes in Airbrushing and since we all grew up loving that style we pulled the trigger on working with him. His artwork fits well with what we are creating and it isnt like every single other carbon copy piece of work out there.

What about you and social networks? Do you consider these things important?

There are definitely pros/cons to social media, the pros being able to talk to people all over the world that are into the same shit, like for instance killer bands getting to interact with one another and support each other is pretty god damn cool. the cons are it can be a big waste of time and the fact that there is a lot of people all over the world that think their opinions matter.

Social Media is not the utmost important thing, being a good band that writes good music is by far the most important thing. There are plenty of bands without social media that are doing well, I think knowing less is definitely more but at the same time if you use this right it can be a pretty powerful and logical tool to help network and bring folks together which is something quite useful, this interview happening for instance is a result of social media so that is cool.

Which label did you choose for releasing your album and why this label? Are you satisfied by how your label represents you and takés care about you?

We are creatures of habit so if it aint broke, there's no real reason to fix it. For where we are as a band the labels that we work with have been great. They are doing exactly what we would hope they could do for us and we are happy to work with them. Our vocalist has a label here in America called Transylvanian Recordings, so he has released our music stateside and Dawnbreed Records in Europe took care of our first demo and this new one on Wax and Cassette so that is great and GodzOvWar Productions has been super easy to work with and they are widely respected in Europe and beyond so with each release we have done together, the response overseas has been great. We pay for and record our own music so when we are looking for a label to work with we are only really interested in whose done right by us already and who can fit us in their schedule, so these 3 labels have all been great.

Which bands do you idolise and where do you get your inspiration?

We live in Oakland, California so it should come as no surprise that we love Autopsy. There's a mutual respect and appreciation for the greats like Incantation, Immolation, Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, Bolt Thrower, Napalm Death, Carcass and Darkthrone, but we also are inspired by the hunger and determination of bands like Necrot, Spectral Voice, Blood Incantation, & Undergang. Those four bands arent wasting time talking shit online, they are focused on being bands and in this day and age unfortunately that type of behaviour is super underrated.

Did you send your record to some Labels - which are the labels? How was the response?

No, we have zero interest in begging someone for money to put our music out, we can do it ourselves. If a label wants to work with us and we respect what they are doing we will talk about it but we arent some band that gives a shit about things like that, we play underground death metal, not pop music and weve been around in other bands for a long time so we know whose who and who we might want to work with. People in labels that we respect have purchased our music from us and I think that is a lot more genuine than us spamming them asking for a handout.

How many gigs have you played? Which type of gigs do you prefer, whether it's (clubs or festivals) and which of your performances would you consider as the best?

We've played probably between 30-50 gigs so far. Almost each one we have done has been special in it's own way, we pretty much book all of our gigs so we try to make each of them something worthwhile. We have a rule when it comes to shows that we wont play a show that we wouldnt go to if we werent playing which i think is a pretty important rule to stand by if you give a shit about the integrity of what you are doing.

We havent gotten to fest level yet, we were going to be playing our first international festival this past year but then the world shut down to covid so i cant answer that, but I know playing a massive death metal festival alongside a lot of our friends in killer bands from all over the world is going to be a great time.

A couple highlight shows for us, our first show in Los Angeles was pretty great, I put together a stacked lineup with us alongside Ruin, Ensepulcher, Mortal Wound, Happy Pill Trauma and Malignancy, a couple hundred folks came out and went wild which was kind of unexpected considering we never played out there yet but it was a great time and we are already itching to get back out there.

Another killer show was from a small run of shows we did last year to the Pacific Northwest, we played alongside Torture Rack, Cystic and Villanious Temple. It was super packed in the venue and it was our first time in Portland so we were pleasantly surprised with the reception. It was a birthday party celebration for one of our friends in the band Petrification so everyone was in good spirits and there to have fun. Just as a fan of music and extreme metal it was really fucking cool to look around at a full room of people and see so many folks in killer bands that we all have a lot of respect for, respect is one of the biggest takeaways in underground music so seeing stuff like that is great and makes you feel honored to get to be apart of it all.

Our first show was killer as well, it was a sold out gig with Necrot & Of Feather and Bone in Oakland. Anytime you get to play with bands of that caliber at that serious level you cant help but be inspired to do better.

What about your plans for the future? What do you want to achieve with the band?

Our plans for the future are to keep grinding and creating, we dont have any unrealistic expectations for the band, we are just taking it day by day and focusing on being a band when we can. We are working on getting better and better and writing more music . At some point it would be great to get out and play some fests and tour the world, but we will do it when the time is right, this isnt our first rodeo so we arent in the biggest hurry to head out and eat shit on the road or around the world, well strike when we are good and ready to do so and when it makes sense, because if it dont make dollars than it dont make sense.

How and where can your fans contact you? Can you provide some contact information?

You can write to us via social media on IG @Evulseache & on FB at @Evulsingdeath, we may or may not get back to you, dont trip it is not that important. If you dig the music, that is cool we appreciate it, if not it is no big deal go listen to something else. Regardless, thanks for your time.

Thanx for interview.

Recenze/review - EVULSE - Pustulant Spawn (2021):

https://www.deadlystormzine.com/2021/03/recenzereview-evulse-pustulant-spawn.html

https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/pustulant-spawn-2

https://www.facebook.com/Evulsingdeath/
https://www.instagram.com/evulseache/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2jkFxUtxZCvLDhKUk0eJi9
http://www.godzovwar.com/