METAL NIGHTMARE: BONE GNAWER INTERVIEW 2009

This is something I had hoped would happen. BONE GNAWER is the first collaboration between two of death metal's giants. On vocals is one of my all-time favorite death growlers, Kam Lee. He's really put his twisted mind to work this time, and it's safe to say that if the PMRC had ever discovered the underground, he'd have been locked in a padded cell a long time ago. On bass this time, but still behind the music is the death metal riff writing machine, Rogga Johansson. Somehow, he's still coming up with great material. The well of ideas hasn't run dry quite yet. These two titans don't clash, instead they're working together towards the mutual goal of ultimate destruction. Think of them as Gigan and Megalon if you will. We don't stand a chance. But before they crack my shinbones and suck out the marrow, Kam granted me this interview.

The first question is obvious... how did this collaboration come about?

Pretty much I started collaborating with Rogga online a few years back. We started to talk of doing another project called REVOLTING, that was back in late 2007. Anyhow, I ended up leaving that project due to situations with the label that was putting that album out. Rogga went on to finish up the REVOLTING album with-out me. Yet, he still wanted to work together with me on a band, and so we got to talking about BONE GNAWER. Work on BONE GNAWER started back in 2008, and we got everything done pretty quickly.

Was this all done by working with each other over the internet? You've never met face to face?

Yeah, we all correspond with each other over the internet, or over the phone. But yeah, we've never met face-to-face, yet. I plan on going over there to Sweden next year in 2010... to hopefully do some "live" shows and maybe a tour for BONE GNAWER through Europe.

How does the songwriting for BONE GNAWER work? Rogga does the music, you do the lyrics?

Yeah, pretty much. Although for new material, already Ronnie has written two tracks and Morgan has written one. But pretty much I do the lyrics and concepts for vocal arrangments within the tracks. I'm always open to new ideas and themes, but it's best that we work like this.... they do the music, and I work on the lyrics, vocalizing and themes and concepts.

You've said that these lyrics were meant to be tongue-in-cheek and have a campy kind of feeling. Could you elaborate on that?

Well, with songs like "Cannibal Cook-Out" the humor is in the title. Yet, with tracks like "Feast Of Flesh," "Hammer To The Skull" and "Defleshed & Skinned," the humor is more in the lyrics itself. I wanted the lyrics to reflect both horrific acts of butchery and cannibalism, but also have a dark humor and sense of the macabre. I think too many death metal bands have veered away from the more "dark humor" side to their lyrics, and tend to be more nihilistic and cynical with their lyrics. More humor can be found in grind-core and straight out gore-core bands, but the art of camp is something that I feel is lost now-a-days within many of the death metal bands of today. I mean guys like LG from ENTOMBED seems to be able to still do some really hard-core brutal lyrics, but make them funny as well. For example:

You Bend over Quick (And Say)
Here Let Me Guide Your Little Stick
When in Sodom

or:

Put your heart on a stick While you're choking on your dick
Got you fucking your own head
They won't stop 'til you join the... Dead, dying and the dying to be dead!

I mean... those are both some really great brutal lyrics but also funny as hell too. I write something like:

Pierce her ass with a knife - not his dick -
Slice her open from the back because he's sick -
Defleshed & Skinned is the thing he likes to do -
he'll make and wear a female skin suit!

And some people think those lyrics are "stupid" or "dumb" because they can't see the humor in the macabre. Yet it describes some of the bizarre shit that Ed Gein did... I just try and make it comical when I write about it.

But at the same time, this isn't meant to be funny, is it?

Well... to me the true art of being tongue-in-cheek, and to be "black comedy" is to have humor hidden within something that is serious or horrific. I maybe described as being ridiculous and even "stupid" for some of my lyrics... like for "Cannibal Cook-Out", but then again - I am singing about eating people. So the humor is there, but so is the horrific acts of human slaughter & cannibalism. A perfect example of having humor mixed with scenes of pure horror and horrific violence is the film (the original) Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Not only is that film a great classic horror film, but I also view it as a classic "black comedy" as well.

Why did Rogga opt to play bass for this album?

I think he wanted Ronnie to have full reign on guitars, and to sort of take a back seat in this band as guitarist. I think this way he could still be an important part of the writting process of BONE GNAWER, but also a way to say - this isn't just another "Rogga Johansson" led band. Besides he's done guitars for all his other bands, and he's proven himself to be a very acomplished song writer. He did write all the music- but he opted to do bass in order to give Ronnie some artistic freedom with the solos and also with some of the stylistic playing.

Are you already planning another album?

Yes, we already have several songs written now, and should be working on some new material throughout the rest of this year and into the begining of the next year.

Do the two of you have other projects that you're working on together?

Yes, we also have the band THE GROTESQUERY- which we just finished up recording and working on the debut album for that. It should be coming out in early 2010 through Cyclone Empire Records. On this one Rogga went back to guitars, and we've got a fantastic bassist: Johan Berglund from the band THIS HAVEN and spectacular drummer: Tapir (B. Helgetun) from the band LIKLUKT out of Norway on this record. This band differs from BONE GNAWER as it's more technical death metal than BONE GNAWER. Where BG is very grooving and catchy style death metal, TG is more atmospheric and has a sense of dark moods and technicality. People can check it out at: www.myspace.com/thegrotesquery - right now we have two tracks from the album up on our player for people to hear!

Are there any musical projects you're working on outside of what you're doing with Rogga?

I do have plans to work with Noel Kemper of ALTAR OF GIALLO & GRUSOME STUFF RELISH on a band called BROKEN GRAVESTONES. Yet, I had to delay that project for now because of somethings that came up. I still plan to do it, but it's been pushed back. I also have a recording project with both Mark and Mike Riddick to work on called GRAVEWAX, that is still "green lighted" at this time, but also is pushed back for a later date. A nd I also do an "old school Horror-Punk/Psychobilly" band called CRYPTIDZ. This is the only "local band" that I do at this time, and the only band that I actually perform in at the moment. Soon we shall be recording our debut album sometime next month in October. This is just a guilty pleasure of mine, as I've always been a huge fan of horror punk like THE MISFITS and THE CRAMPS, and this band combines those elements with our own unique take on the genre's style and sound. Hard-assed death metal fans won't like it... but those open minded enough to accept it, and those that like old MISFITS and other horror-punk should get into it enough. If people want to check us out: www.myspace.com/cryptidz.

Whatever happened with KAULDRON & CADAVERIZER? A few years back, Matt Harvey told me he was working with you on these two bands. If I remember right, CADAVERIZER did one song for a DESTRUCTION tribute... then nothing.

Matt never was in KAULDRON... he was working on maybe trying to get us signed to Necropolis Records, but he was never in the band KAULDRON. So let's get that straight - please. [D'ohh!! That's my faulty memory. - Metal Nightmare] Also it was KAULDRON that did the DESTRUCTION tribute song... not CADAVERIZER. [Double D'ohh!! Great... I'm 0 for 2 now. - Metal Nightmare] Matt was organizing CADAVERIZER with me, but nothing ever became of it. I was geared up and working on material he had sent, but some reason or another he just didn't follow through with it. I never really knew why - but I guessed it was because he got busy with EXHUMED. As far as KAULDRON went... I was doing that band back in 2000 and 2001 with pretty much all of the line up of the black/death metal band: EQUINOX. But after some time, the band just fell apart after the Necropolis Records deal went south. Something very 'crooked' happened during that time... and I never really knew what really transpired, but it seems that Paul from the label was under the impression that we "KAULDRON" got a thousand dollars somehow from the label... but we never recieved any money from Necropolis nor did we ever sign a contract. I have my suspicions as to what happened, but I'll just keep them to myself, because I don't have any solid proof of it, and it's all conjecture and speculative anyhow.

Other than those two bands, there was a long gap between the end of MASSACRE and DENIAL FIEND. What were you doing in the years between?

In 1994, I quit MASSACRE, and pretty much gave up on the scene and trying to do music all together. I had been through a lot of bullshit with the members of MASSACRE, from them quitting the band in 1987 to join DEATH, to them returning to do the From Beyond record in 1990, to the crooked underhanded shit that happened on the tours in 1991 and 1992... as some money was stolen and blame was pushed on several different members, and still to this day - I'm not sure who is telling the truth. But honestly I don't even care about it anymore... life moves onwards. Anyhow, back to the story.... I ended up quitting the band in 1992 right after the last tour, but later in late December of 1993 Rick [Rozz] asked me to come back for the third album Promise. And the band hit the studio in early 1994 to record the material. From the start, I hated the material and the direction he was taking the band. H e had new members that replaced both Terry [Butler, bass] and Bill [Andrews, drums], and even though these musicians were good, the band's music and direction wasn't the same. So during the post production of the damn album, while still in the studio... I ended up just quitting the band. I hated the material so much... I didn't want the album to even come out! But eventually Rick and Earache both finished it and released it two years later in 1996. I was already living out in Phoenix, Arizona at the time. I had relocated out west to try my hand as a comic book artist. But I later found out that business was even harder to break into then the music business, so in 1999 - I decided to move back to Florida. it took me a year to pretty much get settled back into doing "death metal" music. For the first year I was back I played bass in a gothic industrial band for awhile, and also worked on a side black/death metal project called: PHLEGATHON. I released a three track demo under this moniker, and played all the instruments in the band. It was very old school sounding black/death metal like a cross between VENOM meets MAYHEM. Well, that was the idea anyhow. Then in 2000 I organized KAULDRON, and pretty much went from there... KAULDRON lasted a year... from 2000 to about 2001, then it fell apart. I then tried to reform PHLEGATHON, but wanted to change the name to SOUL SKINNER, I was working with a few people, but it never really got past rehearsals and try outs. Then instead of doing the black/death metal idea, I decided to try and form a grind/death band called CATAGORY 3 instead, but that also failed. Mainly because the members weren't into that type of music, and really they didn't know what type of music it was that I wanted to do. Orlando, the city I live in... it's a very fucked up place... it has no real true "death metal scene" and most of the metal musicians that I've met in this area really don''t know the "real" underground! They only know the "trendy" death-core slam-core death metal and not the true old school stuff. Well - that was back in 2003, and once again I tried to write material on my own, but the year just went by quick. The next thing that happened around the start of 2004, was when I was contacted by a friend of mine, Mark from Tampa, and was asked to start working with him the members of SHADOWS WITH KNIVES-- which eventually became DENIAL FIEND-- and that was in 2004. Although SWK was the guitarist Sam and also Terry from DF, besides me on vocals there was also with another vocalist Mark Odechuck of the band PAINEATER, and another drummer TJ. We recorded a 5 track EP/demo, but it never went anywhere. It was more like old school Heavy Metal with death metal/grind-core vocals. Then in 2005 - we all got together and talked about doing another band together - and that became DENIAL FIEND. And I was in DF from 2005 until January of 2009... when I finally just quit that band. Mainly due to the direction of the music they were writing, but also I wasn't happy with some of the way they did the band business. It's all in the politics of it all. A very crooked and shady business the music scene is I tell you. Very back stabbing and two faced.

How did you get so sick in the head when it comes to the lyrics you write?

Horror films, horrorbooks, horror comics, and magazines! Halloween being my B-day and favorite holiday too.

What's your favorite type of horror flick? Zombies? Cannibals? Slashers?

Mmmm - I gotta go with Cannibals first, zombies, then slashers, but all of them hold an dark place in my heart. You also forgot to mention, monsters, werewolves, vampires, ghost, and demonic possession films as well. I love em all... even the torture porn stuff too.

Is there any one serial killer in particular you have studied the most? And why that particular one?

Ed Gein, mainly because he was the inspiration to such films like Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

You also have started writing short stories. Are they similar subject matter to your songs? Are they just for yourself, or will you try to get them published somehow?

I basically write horror stories. I have one now I'm writing called Scream For Life - which is about a serial killer and his life during a zombie plague. It's going to be broken down into several short stories, and told from different people's point of view. From the point of view of the people that happen to come across this individual during their lives, and to what happens to them during that time.

I think you did a short movie too?

Yes, I co-wrote a short five minute film that is basically a coming off age 'zombie-comedy' called Bettie Deadly. It has to do with this high school girl who basically is the 'nerdy unpopular' girl in school... yet she dreams of being the one girl that everyone wants, the one girl who is the most wanted girl in school, the girl that the entire school wants a piece of, the girl standing high up on a pedestal. Well one day she get's her wish... the entire school is after her... and everybody wants some. Only thing... is they are all zombies! It's one of those basic moral stories... the "watch what you wish for" type of tale. I make a cameo appeareance at the very end as the "Zombie-King" and my Horror-Punk band CRYPTIDZ did the outro main theme song. It can be viewed on YouTube.

What's upcoming for the band for the next year?

Hopefully a tour... we want to do a tour, but also we will work on and record the next album.

Final comments are yours!

Thanx for the interview, and the support!