Richard HolmesIn just six years, Rochester, New York’s Undeath have hacked their way into the heart of the death metal scene, infecting the globe with their unashamedly old school take on DM.
2020’s Lesions Of A Different Kind and ’22’s It’s Time… To Rise From The Grave both topped our album of the year lists… and with new opus, More Insane, they’re back with more bangers.
Rich Holmes caught up with Undeath vocalist Alex Jones to get the lowdown on the quintet’s rapid rise – and where they go from here…
Rushonrock: Lesions Of A Different Kind and It’s Time… To Rise From The Grave set the bar very high. How did up your game on More Insane?
Alex Jones: We love the production on the last few records and we all think that (producer) Scoops Dardaris did an amazing job. But we had some conversations about what we wanted this record to sound like and it resulted in us feeling like we needed to pivot a bit and go to a slightly more established metal engineer, and work with somebody who could make a record that was a lot bigger and brighter, and more ‘in your face’ sounding.
Rushonrock: What about your individual performances?
AJ: I think everybody on the record killed it. They did an amazing job and I’m so proud of the other guys.
Personally, I stepped it up a lot with this album, because I felt like I had to. I was able to come out of my shell vocally and not just do forced gutturals the whole time, and I introduced different pitches and dictions. I was able to explore a lot more of my range and I was very excited to be able to do that. I was also very excited that it came out well and I didn’t just destroy the whole record and fuck it all up to everybody!
Beyond that, it was just getting more confident from having played live more after It’s Time… came out. We did so many US tours. We went overseas a bunch and we got a lot of experience that really helped us come out of our shells even more as musicians and performers.
Rushonrock: Did those live shows influence the writing process for More Insane?
AJ: You never want to write specifically thinking about what people will enjoy, because you’re going to write yourself into a box, and you’re never going to be satisfied. But I would be lying if I told you that the audience response to stuff didn’t influence our writing.
We played (new tracks) Brandish The Blade, Sutured for War and Cramped Caskets a lot. We took them on a bunch of different tours and seeing how people responded to different parts of those songs really influenced the way that we ended up arranging them in the studio. We realised that, okay, when we played Bounty Hunter 15% slower it just popped even more, or when we built into the breakdown of Brandish the Blade a little bit more intentionally, the response was even better.
Rushonrock: Speaking of Brandish the Blade, it has one hell of a hook for a death metal song…
AJ: We view that song as a natural evolution of a song like Rise from the Grave. It’s right in our wheelhouse of fast and anthemic songs, and it didn’t feel too out of the box for us when we were writing it. It felt like a natural progression from what we were trying to do with Rise from the Grave.
We’re all stoked about it! We love writing catchy, hooky songs like that, just as much as we love writing a song like Enhancing the Dead that has a million tempo changes. It’s all fun for us… and that’s what really matters.
Rushonrock: Undeath is now three albums in. What have you learned since you started out?
AJ: I think the biggest thing personally is remembering to remain present and to be in the moment. When we started the band and when we were releasing the last two albums, I had so many moments where I was freaking out about something like, ‘oh, we’ve got to get ready for this’, or ‘we’ve got to get this tour offer’. I would just go completely apoplectic about stuff that was happening, not in a meltdown way, but I was missing the forest for the trees. All of this stuff was happening, but I was still looking for the next thing. And I was too focused on what was ahead.
Now, I think with all of us having toured a little bit and been through this cycle a few times, we’re a lot more grounded, and we’re more able to live in the present and appreciate it.
Rushonrock: Are there any moments where you’ve thought, this is a dream come true?
AJ: Yeah. The good shows always stand out the most, like playing a festival like Damnation – and the fact that we are lucky enough to have the opportunity to fly from New York to Manchester to play one show. We show up the first day at Damnation and I’m watching Enslaved and Sigh and all these bands that I loved growing up, and then the next day, we go up on stage and play, and we have a great response and the vibe is so good.
These are the opportunities that when we started the band, I never thought that we would be afforded. Now that’s a reality for us.
Rushonrock: You’ve shared stages with some of metal’s biggest names now. Do any touring partners particularly stand out?
AJ: There’s probably too many to mention, but I’ll say one of the most recent ones was Exodus, because me and our bassist Tommy (Wall), love Exodus. We were nervous going into that tour, because we were like, ‘what if they’re assholes, we won’t be able to listen to Exodus anymore’. But we showed up the first day and they were extremely cool and accommodating. Gary Holt is a legend and he was so nice.
Plus, when we were on that Exodus tour, Corpsegrinder came out to a show in in Florida. That was the only time in my life that I was truly starstruck just because… it’s Corpsegrinder! He’s a legend and his music means so much to all of us in the band. If you listen to one second of Undeath’s music it’s pretty apparent that we all like Cannibal Corpse. So that was very surreal, just getting to meet him and hang out with him.
Rushonrock: As you say, you are now getting opportunities that you could only dream of back in 2018. Did Undeath’s rise catch you by surprise?
AJ: Yeah, it took us all by surprise! When we started the band, Undeath was my side project. I viewed Undeath, pretty much for the first year, like, ‘okay, this is going to be the fun thing that I do on the side, but my real focus is going to be elsewhere’.
And then those priorities completely changed.
After the second demo came out, we started getting a lot of attention, and it seemed like we could actually make something happen. We’re beyond grateful for all the opportunities that we get, and we’re beyond grateful for the fact that anybody continues to give a shit about what we’re doing.
Rushonrock: A lot of people certainly do give a shit about what you are doing. Why does Undeath’s music resonate with so many death metal fans?
AJ: I’m 30 and when I was coming up and getting into metal, punk and hardcore, the bands that I really resonated with, tended to fall into one of two categories. There was complete theatre, a total mystery persona – for example a band like Mayhem, where there’s so much lore and so much evilness surrounding that band, that everything about them just feels so dark, cryptic and unapproachable. And I loved stuff like that.
But then the other side was a band like Converge, where they’re just normal guys and they make this music that you love, but you feel, while you’re watching them, that they seem like guys that you could go to a show with and be friends with, even though they’re playing this crazy stuff. That approachability was really important to me. I love bands that made you feel like with a little effort and hard work, you could do the same things that they were doing.
I feel like Undeath is in that latter category. You know, we’re not dark, mysterious guys. We’re obviously not threatening people. We’re just relatively goofy, unassuming, approachable people who enjoy listening to death metal as much as we love playing it. That connects with people. I think people see themselves and their passion for this music in us.
Rushonrock: Over the last five years, there has been a real explosion of US death metal bands who hark back to the genre’s progenitors, and embrace that old school vibe. Why do you think that is?
AJ: It’s probably a number of different reasons, but I feel like the likes of us, Tribal Gaze, Maul and Phobophilic are all around the same age. We’re all in our early 30s and late 20s, and we all came up in a similar era of music. The style of death metal in particular that was, popular – at least socially – when I was coming up, was extremely technical and brutal death metal. That was the death metal du jour. But I always gravitated towards stuff like Carcass, Bolt Thrower, Cannibal Corpse and Autopsy. That’s hard music to play, but it’s not trying to bowl you over with its technicality. It’s about the songs. That’s the stuff that I really was attracted to and I think a lot of the guys in the bands coming up now felt the same way.
Rushonrock: In the US and now, increasingly in the UK, we are seeing mixed death metal and hardcore bills, and a blending of the audiences and styles. What’s your take on this?
AJ: I feel like the hardcore that I grew up with is a lot different to the hardcore that’s being made now. When I think of death metal that’s influenced by hardcore, I think of a band like Bolt Thrower, where they were punks first, and then they kind of wove that very naturally into becoming a death metal band.
But this new generation of hardcore kids have kind of taken it in a different direction, where it’s about getting to the breakdown as fast as possible. That is definitely the modus operandi for a lot of these bands now. I don’t entirely understand it, but it’s huge over here.
For us, the hardcore thing is less about the heaviness of the music and more about, the attitude, and separating the music from any kind of perception of rock stardom… and making sure that it’s apparent that we’re not putting on airs.
Rushonrock: Is the ‘merging’ of scenes bringing Undeath a new audience?
AJ: I hope so. With this tour that we’ve got in America, we’re going out with Kruelty, Gates To Hell and Tribal Gaze. All three of those bands, from what I’ve observed at least, have fans that definitely skew more towards the beatdown hardcore demographic. So my hope is anybody who goes to that tour expecting to be there exclusively for breakdowns would listen to us and watch our set, and maybe their takeaway would be, ‘hey, you know, it’s kind of cool to play fast sometimes!’.
Rushonrock: There are shades of Swedish melodeath in the new record and creatively, you seem to be spreading your wings a little. What’s next for Undeath?
AJ: I’ll say to reassure anybody out there that we’re never not going to be a death metal band. Yes there is a large scope of influences out there that we might take on, but it’s always going to sound like Undeath. It’s always going to be a pretty straightforward meat and potatoes death metal style, even if we are incorporating some more At The Gates-style, melodic stuff.
(The melodeath element) was stuff that came together naturally. It’s not like we sat down and said ‘alright, boys, let’s write our melodeath album’. It was just that we had a couple of songs that came together that way and it felt good, so we stuck with it. I don’t think that’s an indication of any larger direction we’re going to go in. I just think that was the mood of those songs, so we trusted it.
Rushonrock: ‘Veteran’ acts like Autopsy, Obituary, Cannibal Corpse and Immolation are still putting out records – and pulling in the crowds. After a couple more decades of Undeath, will you be doing the same?
AJ: The hope is to be able to do this for as long as we can, although I think that if we want to continue to play death metal like we do into our 50s, we will probably need to change our lifestyle!
More Insane is out now on Prosthetic Records.
Undeath photo by Nick Karp.