This interview with Rob, one of the two Dead Head guitarists, is really worth reading. Quite apart from the fact that Dead Head from the Netherlands are one of the greatest thrash metal bands on this planet and have once again recorded an extremely strong piece of extreme music with their new EP "Shadow Soul", the answers are captivating in their entertaining honesty, self-reflection and above all the fact that someone here simply emphasizes that he is pleased with what he and the band have achieved instead of lamenting what has not been achieved. A very healthy attitude to life that would probably make our planet a better place if everyone thought like this. But enough talk, read for yourself...
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Your new EP "Shadow Soul" will be released in March. I think it's very strong, awesome aggressive thrash metal, partly with a Slayer edge. Tell me something about it, how do you classify these new songs that haven't even been released yet in Dead Head's complete work and are you totally satisfied after the recordings? And the classic question for musicians: do you like to listen to your own recordings often or not at all?
Thanks for the kind words! Yes, I am really happy and proud about how the new EP turned out. I like the variety in the songs and also the vocals, the mix and the overall sound. As for listening to our own music. It’s that typical thing, right? Musicians pretending that they never listen to their own music. It’s a great way to come across as cool, interesting or nonchalant. But frankly I don’t believe them. Musicians are way too vain for that.
I did listen to our new EP quite a lot. Not only during the mixing process, but
also a lot after it was finished. And I still play it quite frequently. Now… do
I listen to all our older albums all the time? No, of course not. There’s too
much music in the world to enjoy and discover. And that’s what I do every day.
Well thanks! I think soundwise and songwise it turned out really well. However… for me as a bandmember, it’s always a bit hard to say. I mean, I remember listening back to our album "Haatland" shortly after it was released and thinking that it was the best thing we ever did. But then I listened back to it several years ago and I was not so sure anymore. The same is when I talk to other people. Some people tell me "Kill Division" is the essence of Dead Head, but many people still think "Dream Deceiver" is our classic. I think these things are also connected to the moment that you discovered a band. What is your first experience with a band’s music? Young people might think "Thunderstruck" is the best song AC/DC ever wrote, while for me… it’s not even in my Top 50.
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"So, while we were working on "Shadow Soul", we really got the idea that it was more like our "South Of Heaven". I mean, it has some really fast and ripping songs, as usual, but it also has some tracks in styles that we didn’t play before."
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You wrote on facebook that you're a bit annoyed when some people consider
"Shadow Soul" to be your new album. But doesn't it really matter, as 27 minutes can
actually count as an album, especially in the more extreme genre, and while
we're on the subject of Slayer, "Reign in Blood" is also just two
minutes longer…
Yes, but "Reign In Blood" is a totally different album. The impact of that Slayer-album would not have been the same if it had lasted over 50 minutes. A few people have recently made this comparison between "Reign in Blood" and "Shadow Soul" – just because of the playing time. I would not dare to make the comparison myself. I know Hammerheart Records is always promoting us as the best alternative to Sadus, Dark Angel etc. Because they think our fast, aggressive thrash side is our strong point and we can do that like no one else.
But actually "Shadow Soul" originally was really meant as a different kind of thing and an ‘in between’ release. We have done several ‘take no prisoner’-type of albums in the past. Even "Slave Driver" (2022) was 80 percent raging and ripping thrash. So, while we were working on "Shadow Soul", we really got the idea that it was more like our "South Of Heaven". I mean, it has some really fast and ripping songs, as usual, but it also has some tracks in styles that we didn’t play before.
Part of this EP was stuff that we initially wrote for "Slave Driver", but didn’t include because we thought it was too different from our usual thing. So very much to my amazement, I now read reviews where people write that "Shadow Soul" is a typical Dead Head album that doesn’t bring too many surprises. I sometimes wonder if reviewers even listen to a full album, or if they rather just skip through the tracks and go to the pub. I mean.. the song "Caverns Of Fate" is not typical Dead Head, there’s not one fast riff or drumbeat. It’s really different from what we usually do. Yet no one seems to notice, haha.
Just like the cover for "Slave Driver", it was made by Vladimir Chebakov. We love his art, because it's very dark and aggressive, and has this war/apocalyptic themed style. But it’s also very detailed and tasteful. Just perfect for extreme metal!
There’s not really a story behind it. Other than that he sent us about thirty
options to chose from and the one we picked seemed the most fitting to the
title and songs on "Shadow Soul".
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"I’m happy that we have a somewhat limited, but decicated following."
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Dead Head are one of the most underrated bands ever, I think. Do you have an explanation why you never got bigger? It can't have been because of the quality of the music. Despite some influences, you were often wrongly put into the death metal corner, in the end Dead Head were always a thrash metal band for me, even if there were links to death metal. Was that perhaps also a barrier?
This seems to keep coming back forever. ‘The promising band that never became famous’. I personally don’t dwell in that negative spiral too much. I’m just very excited that Dead Head is still going after 35 years. And that we are still playing with three out of four original bandmembers.
Of course presenting ourselves as ‘pure thrash’ in the heyday of death metal was not smart marketing, but in the decades that followed we always played with mostly death metal bands and were the only alternative band on a festival. It also made us stand out. Another thing is that we usually play a bit faster than most thrash bands. We are not easy listening thrash like Testament, with songs that are 80 percent midtempo and big sing along chorusses. We are much too ADHD for that.
Realize that there’s a million bands out there that never became famous. And
many were way more talented than us. I
used to write a lot for the Dutch magazine Aardschok. And many times over the
years, I received albums for review of bands that really surprised me. I often
thought: this band is so good, they will definitely become big. But many times,
nothing happened. Sometimes because those bands don’t have proper support from
their label, or they fall apart before they even could have taken off. Other
bands try for many years and never succeed. And then there’s a lot of established bands that keep putting out mediocre
albums, yet sell a lot more than some of the real talented bands. Because many
people just like to stick with the old bands. Which is fair. Because everybody
is free to do so.
There’s many powers and factors that determine which bands grow big and which
bands don’t. Sometimes it’s luck or timing, more often it’s knowing the right
people, sometimes it’s pure corruption or big money. You can be very sore about
it, but you can also enjoy what you have.
I’m happy that we have a somewhat limited, but decicated following. People who
buy each album, who mail me about it, who appreciate and recognize things in
our music. That’s what keeps us going.
It was just a showcase in Berlin. We’re talking
early nineties in the last century here. And some Noise-reps promised to be at
that show to see us and check if we were any good.
Now, would it have made a diffference if we did play that show? Who
knows… we weren’t at the top of our game in those days. But we were a very
energetic live band.
You know, I read a lot of band/artist biographies. And if there’s one
thing that often goes wrong, it’s these kind of showcases. Because the record
company people promise to come to the show, to judge a band and consider to
sign them. But many times the record label people don’t even show up in time or
not at all. Because they are still be at a restaurant, being in a traffic jam
or be fucking the girl that they had tried to be with for weeks.
I have the suspicion that the lack of recognition as one of the best thrash bands could also be due to the fact that when people only listen to your music in passing, they quickly dismiss it as average. At least I only recognized the high class of Dead Head's "Kill Division", the work with which I really came into contact with you for the first time (I read for the first time about Dead Head in a review of “Dream Deceiver” in German Rock Hard Magazine) , after listening to it several times, and I still love it today after all these years... Can you relate to this experience?
I think "Kill Division" is very much typical for the ‘style’ of Dead Head. It’s also very typical for how we sounded live in those days, because much of that album was cut live.
"Kill Division" was our reaction to the pressure of some label trying to make us more like Pantera, Sepultura, Channel Zero… they said they appreciated our potential, but we should change to a more groovy, nineties style of metal. We tried that for a while, but then we thought: fuck that.. it’s not us. So we went the opposite direction.
From a musician’s point of view "Kill Division" is far from perfect. Many songs
were played ‘rushed’ (too fast) and also the production is very raw and
underground. But it’s one of my faves as well. Even the simple cover is just
great.
My personal highlights of your discography are “Kill Division”, “Swine Plague” and “Haatland”. But "The feast begins at dawn" is also great, it reminds me most of early Kreator. What are your favorite albums? Are there things that you would change in retrospect concerning the recordings?
"Kill Division", "Slave Driver", "Shadow Soul" are my faves. Of course I would have changed some things if we could go back in time. We should have released "The Feast" independently, done it ourselves. We really had the potential and the audience for that. We had sold thousands of demos before our first album came out. After we ended up on a small scale label back then, we kinda lost control for a while.
Some people suggested we should re-record the first album. I think would be
stupid, because we live in different times. And it would just not sound the
same. We actually re-recorded one song off ‘The Feast’ for our album
‘Depression Tank’. It turned out ok. But for us, it was also the confirmation
that we shouldn’t do that. We rather focus on the future.
I totally lost interest in Slayer after Jeff
Hanneman died and they kicked out Dave Lombardo. I thought "World Painted
Blood" was one of their best albums. I listened to that album a million times. I
love the rawness and the big hardcore punk approach in those songs. But that
came fully from Jeff and Dave.
As for Kerry’s new thing… it’s cool that he got a new vehicle that enables him
to tour and play some old Slayer songs along the way. He was obviously very
frustrated that ‘playing live’ had been taken away from him.
As for the music.. I only heard one song and it’s not really fair to judge an
album by that. In general I am not really interested in that kind of music. I’m
way more into death metal myself. Immolation, Suffocation, Obscura etc. Also… I
prefer to hear Mark Osegueda with Death Angel.
Apart from the release of the upcoming EP in March, what are your next
steps? What about a tour or some gigs-maybe in Germany? A small tour or some
gigs with Legion of the Damned would fit perfectly…
We love to play Germany, Belgium and other countries nearby. We did a few shows with Legion of the Damned in afar past and we know the guys of course. We’re open to anything. Call us!
Aside from playing live, we’re also writing for a next album already. Our other
guitar player and our drummer already have the base down for four or five songs. And
I really like what they wrote so far.
As a German living close to the border, I know cities like Venlo, Maastricht, Roermond and otherwise Amsterdam, Rotterdam or Groningen. You come from or around Zwolle, which seems to be a beautiful city. I recently interviewed Ecocide from Haarlem, which is also a great city. Please tell us about the highlights of your city and the region!
Well, my own hometown is not too big and pretty boring. Still, it’s kinda special, because it’s in a part of Holland that used to be water. This means that nothing in my hometown is older than 80 years. Buildings, roads, parks. Everything was created after 1940.
We do have a youth center that sometimes does metalshows, but it’s pretty
small. Zwolle is the bigger city in our
area, It used to be one of those towns where the import record store was and
all the big touring bands played. I mean, I saw Iron Maiden on the World
Slavery Tour in Zwolle when I was 14 years old. And in the nineties we got to see all the
touring thrash and death metalbands there. In recent years, that all changed
quite a bit. Not so many gigs there anymore.
The last words belong to you…
Thanks for your interest in our band and for the good questions. I had fun answering them.
