MALEVOLENT CREATION – On a Break

US death metal legends Malevolent Creation are currently in the making of their 12th studio album. They are taking some time off the studio to play a few festivals here in Europe in August, among them the great Getaway Rock Festival in Gävle, Sweden. Eternal Terrors Karina Cifuentes wanted to do an interview with the band while they were in Sweden, but due to the uncertainty of how much time the band will have before and after the gig, we decided to do it by mail prior to their visit to Europe. Founding member Phil Fasciana answering the questions.

So give us a general update on Malevolent Creation. I heard there’s a new album coming so how far have you guys come in the process of making it?

The new (12th) album is half done at the moment because halfway during the recording we decided to get off Nuclear Blast Records and are now signing with a bigger and better label. And we have new management and booking agents,so we will be finishing the last 5 songs as soon as we return home from Europe at the end of August. There is a possibility of our new label releasing a song or 2 in advance because we should have been done with the new album in February but with all the new changes with record labels,management and agents we had to stop everything and get our buisness sorted out. It will be worth the wait.The new material will shock a lot of fans. It’s very well produced and the songs are extremely epic and creepy. But still have all the speed you would expect from a new Malevolent Creation album.

Who is gonna produce the album and which recording studio will you be using?

We produced the new album ourselves but had some great engineers recording it including our former drummer, but we will be finishing the recording up in Buffalo, NY at a good friend of our’s recording studio who worked on the music we already recorded. It is possible that we may bring in a well known producer for mixing but i doubt it because what we have recorded already sounds better then anything we have ever recorded before.

What can we expect from the new album in terms of sound. Which direction will this album take?

It is definitely a Malevolent Creation sounding album with some new twists and turns. Some of the music is very fast and some of the songs have a real epic feel to them and also has a creepy sounding vibe to it. The vocals sound amazing and the song’s are structured really well. We have had a lot of time to work on this new music and have made a lot of changes to some of the songs to make them even heavier. I cannot wait till it is released!!!!

Having a sound on your own and such a long career, do you think that makes it easier or more difficult when it comes to write new material?

It is a little harder because we don’t want to ever repeat ourselves or have the music sound to similar to our previous albums. But that being said, we have had a lot of time to fine tune all the new music and arrange it perfectly and bring out the heaviness of the songs and make them very memorable.

So is Justin DiPinto going to tour Europe with you guys? Is he gonna do the new album recordings, or is he only gonna be a live musician?

Justin DiPinto is once again a permanent member of the band and will be playing live with us from now on and we couldn’t be happier. He bring’s a lot of excitement back into the band and we are having Justin re record all the drum tracks we have already recorded with our former drummer Gus Rios. Justin is just so much more intense of a drummer that we decided to take the extra time and have him re record all the drum track’s so we can make the new songs more intense and more dynamic. He is truley an amazing drummer and has really lit a fire under the asses of all the band members and we can now play the music the way we want it to be played without having to comprimise anything. He has no limit’s when it comes to drumming for Malevolent Creation. The drumming will make a lot of longtime M.C. fans very happy.

Tell us about the European tour that lies ahead and which other shows you guys will play in Scandinavia.

The Getaway Rock Festival in Sweden is the only festival/show on this short 3 week Europen Tour, but we will be back later in the year or in early 2015 when the new album is out and we can promote the hell out of it by touring all over the world.

Any differences between touring the US and Europe? What makes it easier or more difficult to tour in those places when you compare them?

We really like touring in Europe and overseas then here in America. Nothing against America, but the metal scene in Europe and South America are just so much more loyal and dedicated to the bands they like that it is just for fun for us to tour outside of America. We will surely be doing some touring in the US late this year or early 2015 because we have a big south american tour coming up in November. Europe has always been the best for Malevolent Creation and we can’t wait to get back over there in the next few weeks.

What is MC contribution to the development of the Florida DM scene in your opinion?

We moved to South Florida in 1987 after recording our 1st demo where we are originally from which is Buffalo, NY. I had some family that lives down in Ft.Lauderdale, Florida and decided to move the band down here in 1987 after recording our first 3 song demo and then losing the great drummer we had way back then. We had no idea that Florida was going to explode into this huge Death Metal explosion, but i suppose we were at the right place at the right time and as soon as we got to Florida and found a new drummer we started playing shows with all the great legendary Florida bands and i guess the rest is history. We are really a NY band that transplanted down to Florida, but it was a good move for us and because we do not sound like any other of the bands from Florida i think it made us stand out a little more because we have been playing our style of extreme music well before we had met any of the great Death Metal bands that are from here.

Are there any young underground DM bands that you like and would like to recommend us?

To be honest I don’t really listen to much new death metal because there is not many bands playing really heavy music anymore.  I’m sure there are some amazing bands that i have not heard yet, but all the new bands i have heard all seem to sound the same and are not playing memeorable songs. They all seem to be trying to play as technical and fast as possible and that kind of gives me a headache. I prefer music that i can understand and music that has heavy music opposed to a million notes per second. It’s just not for me!!!

Anything you would like to add?

We are looking forward to playing the Getaway Rock Festival in Sweden and hopefully running into a lot of our Swedish friends and fans, and also look for our new album "The Path Of Malevolence" at the end of the year as it will be a very intense listening for all lovers of extremely heavy music. See you in Sweden soon!!!

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