Garza Podcast - 225 - INCANTATION: Death Metal Riffs, Guitar Rundown & Learning

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

Garza sits down in-person with John McEntee & Luke Shively. Guitar players from death metal band INCANTATION. https://instagram.com/incantation_officialSPONSORS: https://thejackrack.com USE CODE Garza10 for 10% OFF!00:00 - Learning From Bands05:56 - Food Drives & Musically Fed13:49 - Riff: Chalice17:29 - How Luke Joined the Band18:58 - Ohio Pumpkin Festival22:36 - Dismemberment34:15 - TONEX ONE40:39 - Luke’s Pedalboard43:40 - Approach to Lead Guitar48:33 - Riff: Demonic Incarnate1:00:29 - Dean Guitars1:04:41 - Using Modern Gear1:08:44 - Riff: Devoured Death & Pinch Harmonics1:12:58 - Riffs That Shaped Death Metal1:18:09 - Influencing & Inspiring Bands1:21:41 - 3 Albums to Check Out1:29:44 - New Album1:32:37 - TikTok Knows You

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Incantation. John, Luke, thank you for being here again. John, I really appreciate you coming back. Oh, yeah. It's great. I mean, I, I mean, I, I was pleasantly surprised on how well it went over last time. Really? Yeah. Well, I didn't know what, you know, I didn't know, I don't know, I didn't know a lot about the podcast beforehand. So I knew it was big, but I didn't know it was going to reach out to, you know, people

like our follower kind of people were digging it, but also just a bunch of, you know, younger generation people were just like, oh, wow, this is something interesting, you know? So you really, we appreciate you giving me the opportunity to, um, expose herself to people that wouldn't normally, you know, be in our, I guess, our normal world or whatever. Like, even in Europe, last time we're in Europe, a bunch of kids came up and said, oh, I, you know, I heard about your band from Garza, you know? I'm like, no way, you know. That is bizarre. And these are like, yeah, it was pretty sick, you know.

I was pretty impressed. I was like, huh, it really, you know, was, yeah, I guess I was just out of loop, you know. I mean, not that I, I know you did a killer, you know, a couple killer interviews that I've seen, like the, um, um, Chris Barnes and the, um, Glenn Benton and a couple other ones. I know you had dying fetus on, but I was thinking like, maybe we're just too rugged for that, you know, like, no, like your fan base might be like, oh, what are these, you know, what's this idiot on here talking about, like, not knowing what the hell he's doing and all this stuff. Actually, uh, actually, uh, John and Luke, people might be asking, why is incantation talking? in Garza. Right? Well, yeah, there was some... I'm a fan. I love the show.

Thank you, man. It's awesome. Yeah, I mean, some of our fan base was, yeah, they were kind of like thinking it. What are you doing? Yeah, it's like, what do you do? What are you doing?

And it was funny because, like, I was talking about stuff that was like, you know, I knew you probably didn't know much about or whatever, you know, some of the old school stuff, which is fine. But it's like, I was trying to tell people the beauty of, you know, doing an interview with you is that you were like listening and, you know, absorbing it and giving me a platform, even if it's something that isn't, say, in your 100% knowledge level or comfort level as far as like what we do, you know, because like if we, if I, if you were talking to me on my podcast about stuff, there would be a lot of stuff that you'd probably be talking about that I

wouldn't know. Yeah. But I would give you that opportunity. Thank you. To bring it out to the world. And you gave the same thing to me. So I think that's super cool. And that's the way the, you know, the metal scene should be is we should understand that we all have her own way of doing things. We all do. Yeah, and it's better to understand the way other people do things and learn from it or give people an opportunity to talk about it than just, you know, dismiss it 100%, you know. Totally. There's something to take away from each genre of music, you know, and also both multiple eras. Like you're there's your era my era there's there's there's there's 90s there's 80s there's

two thousands now we're in the the 220s yeah you know I'm at a loop with a lot a lot of like the newer bands coming out yes I know I treat it like uh I treat it like gear not like going to analog or too advanced trying to find your own you know find that middle ground yeah find you know what you know what's the best gear for me you know and trying everything what what what can I learn from well you probably gain a lot of knowledge doing the show because there's so many different people that come on with different techniques and when you're looking at things your brain fly explodes it's crazy dude uh it's all it's all here and sometimes someone will say something and it just stays here yeah um i'm recently uh i'm recently uh i'm recently it's only been two days but uh john

gallagher said something to me this was three years ago and it's stuck and i'm finally doing it uh i i told myself next time i next time i right yeah i'm going to be sober because I he got into the subject where they they died fetus wrote um rain supreme and he stopped drinking and during that whole process he was sober and I don't know why but you know what someone said something to you're just like it's just there yeah it's and this doesn't go yeah I'm telling the fucking past two three years just like John's voice is like yeah go sober and then like there are like you know multiple guests uh from the older generation the newest just I've been finding some similarities with oh yeah we wrote this and

I stopped drinking I finally I made the leap and it's been two days so uh that's awesome yeah that's killer pretty nice also I gotta thank you guys because uh once the moment that pot came out I uh I got hit up by a Paul levy yeah I was like holy holy molly dude that's sick man dude how's the uh how's the food drive been going Oh, it's been going good. It was, it's crazy because it was just like a, how did this start? Winging it kind of thing totally. Well, it started because we were having, we were, look, I just got frustrated early on in the tour because the budgets were super tight on stuff.

And, you know, the first couple shows, it's like we didn't even get any, like, bottle water we couldn't even find at the club, you know? And I'm just like, wow, this is, you know, it's not that I can't get it. But I looked at it, you know, there's two things that bothered me. One was the fact that it's like, come on, you guys can afford the bottle of water. If you can't afford to bottle water, the show shouldn't be happening, maybe. But it was also the fact of, like, I'd have to go back because I also do like the band TMing stuff. I had to go back to the guys in the band and I'd be like, you know, sorry, you know, you're not, you know. I mean, we get our buyout or whatever, you know, but they want to take, like, the water out of her buyout,

but not out of like the price you get it at like Costco or Walmart they want to do like an upcharge price you know i'm just like we're only getting like 20 bucks a day to eat you know and it's like i can't be taking water out of it and be like okay now you have even less than 20 bucks i felt oh yeah i just felt personally i felt like an asshole so i was just like yeah the one day i was just like fuck this shit you know and i fucking i vented or whatever and I probably shouldn't have um you know vented the way I I did but it was like I just was at my limit like I can't because I can't go to the rest of the guys in the band and be like dude you know we don't even have any bottle water you know I just felt it felt ridiculous but then we got an outpouring of support from people saying oh you know we'll bring you

food and you know you know where can we send some money to all the stuff and I'm just like No, no, no, no, no. That's not it. It's not, we're not like destitute or anything. You know, we're not totally fucked. It's just, I just felt that it was not respectful for them, you know, because I'm nice to these people. I know these people at a lot of venues and stuff.

And I was just like, come on, guys. Like, and then basically, you know, we started to feel really awkward because people started a message you guys saying, oh, we'll get you, bring this for you, for that for you. And we're like, no, no, we're not asking for charity, you know. It was more a, it was more, I felt that it was a respect thing or whatever for the venues. So I was talking with a friend of mine and, you know, I was trying to like deal with it. And then it came up that, you know, maybe just take the stuff that they're giving us and donate it to local food banks. Yeah.

And it could be a good thing to, you know, plus I was getting annoyed because. It's sad the way somebody's news sites are and the way social media was taking it totally the wrong way and trying to make us look. It happens very often. Yes. They were taking the situation and twisting it to something else just to get more likes and stuff. I mean, there was even a couple of these posts where they have like, you know, what, they had Max Cavalera picture as me. Oh, no. Incantation.

Yeah. No. Yeah. And once I seen that, I was like, this is totally fucked. Like, if you're a metal, if you're a metal news outlet, you don't know the difference between myself and Max Cavalera. I get it if maybe some young kid. But I mean, if you don't know that, this, things have gone way out of control.

So it happens, dude. Yes. So I was just like, okay, you know, we're going to, you know, let's do this food drive. And then I have one of my friends works as a merchandiser for, like, you know, really big acts that are playing like arenas and amphitheaures and stuff like that. And he had a hook up with this nonprofit called Musically Fed. And so we've been in touch with them. They work with like really big bands.

Like I think they do like Metallica and Nineje Nail stuff like that where they do food drives there. And they organize getting the stuff there. So we got. What's it called? Musically Fed. Okay. And so we basically got in touch. with them and said like we don't know what the hell we're doing how do we do this like we're not going

to collect the food and we just figured we just asked somebody they bring it to local food bank at first but then we got in touch it musically fed and they ended up whoa dude this is sick yeah and they work with like really you know real national bands pink yeah rolling stone yeah rolling stone okay Rolling Stones pink incantation. Yes. That's what that's a crazy lineup. Yeah. That's a great lineup.

Yeah. So, yeah. So, of course, we got in with them and it was just like, you know, wow, this is really, you know, could really be something, you know? And it's like, why not, you know, like, we're, look, I, we've all, everybody in the band has some sort of bullshit that they went through and, like, of course. That was been difficult. That's almost why we're here as playing this extreme music is because it's a vent for that kind of stuff or whatever.

Totally. So we. Tires fucked up. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, like, especially in the 90s, there were times when I come back from tour, have no place to live.

I have to stay on people's couches for a while or sleep in my car until I was able to make enough money to get the deposit for a new place to live. you know, I've been through that kind of shit. So it's like you thought about it. It's like, let's, you know, this donation thing for the local food banks is a good way to give back. We're not, it's not like we're doing great. We're not, we're not rich by any means. We're getting by by the skin of her teeth.

But it's still nice to be able to do something positive, you know. I mean, to be fair, you know, it's a lot of work, but I get more out of it to knowing that I'm doing a good thing for people I don't even know, you know. Yeah. And hopefully these people. people, you know, some of these people can go on and do great things or just know you had a little piece of, you know, inspiring other people do positive stuff. And even know we're, you know, blasphemous death metal ban. And, you know, I mean, we hate, we hate religion. We hate Christ or whatever. But at the same time, you know, if we have to work, if we have to work with other, you know,

companies that might be even faith-based or whatever, it's like, I don't care. It's like, as long as of foods getting to people that are, you know, hungry, you know, and no matter, even if I disagree with some, you know, ideology stuff with certain groups or whatever, if they're going to work with me to help me or help the band get, you know, food out, the people that need it, then that's a common ground that we could agree upon. That is common ground. And I think if more people in life would look at the common ground that we have, um, and you know it'd be a better place we don't have to agree on everything but there's certain things

i think most people that could agree on is that people shouldn't go without food totally i and uh even though it started off uh with something bad and negative it was really cool to flip it yeah we all we all need to eat and we all we all like riffs yes you guys you guys earlier were playing chalice right we were trying trying to yes try you haven't played that one for a while A long time. That one's, yeah. So yeah, Luke and John, I've been getting like an itch to, I just kind of learn more about like some like death mental riffing and what,

at a better time and all shit, like they're going to be in town like now. So it's really cool. What, yeah, there's like this tremolo riff you guys were playing earlier. Oh, yeah. It was like a tremble into like a, a tremble until like a downbeat. Yes, it was. Yeah, yeah. What's that?

Something like that goes high after that. You haven't played it for a little while. Something like that. You're both stereo in my ears. You're both during the tremble. You're both playing something completely different. Like the harmonies are a trip. Yeah.

He goes like low to high. I go high to low. Yeah. Oh, that's what it is. Is that ready? Wait, wait. One way. And then he goes.

Yeah, I think it's like, but I would go. Yeah Right Yeah, it kind of walks down Yeah Yeah Like that Is that it?

Yeah It's It was just a A weird thing that I came up with Where I just Did it one way And I said Let's just go backwards

And let's just Somehow make a harmony out of it In reverse Yeah It was like It was totally a retarded thing But I remember When I brought that

The practice The guy just was like, what the fuck was that, you know? Well, that's a good sign for us. But that's good because if you go to, go to, you know, rehearsal and they're telling you, what planet are you on? That's a good sign that you came up with something kind of cool, you know? Yeah. It's created because, I mean, I pick it up pretty quick. And it's really hard to, like, do something simple, but make it sounds different.

And that's a really good example. I'm like, I was just looking at you guys play. I'm like, okay, it looks simple. But what the fuck is going? It's your drums right now. That's the thing. It has that weird dynamic to it. It's like a twisted thing going,

like this or something like that. You kind of need like two people to play it, to get it to sound like the song. You can just do like anybody. You can play Iron Man by yourself. But for certain stuff. This one you can't do. Because by yourself,

you lose, like the second guitarist is, it's really just. Just a two guitar riff. It's like you can't do it with one. You can do with one, but it just sounds like do, do, do, do do do, do. But when you have both of them in there, then it starts going to, it starts like doing some weird thing where it just kind of like dances around each other in the evil way. And this is off the latest record that came out in 2003, right?

Yeah, and Holy Deification, yeah. Nice. So it's been three years, almost four. Yeah, so long. Any plans? Crazy. And Luke, this was your first record, right? Doing as far as tracking.

He did some leads on the one before, the Sect of All Divinities. And once he did leads for the Sect of All Divinities album, it's like, okay, Luke, you're, you're good. Well, we were all just, it blew us away because we were actually, this was, this album, even though I'm happy with it, it was a struggle to get through. And we were having problems with some of the leads on the album.

And then we were there's a couple where we just couldn't get it with our former guitar player, something that we were all happy with. But then Luke came in and just said, I got these couple things. He just showed it to us. We're just like, oh, it's perfect. Okay. So we knew then that like, okay, the chemistry is going to work with Luke just fine. And it has been great on the, you know, doing the, on Holy Deification was great. But it was still, it's not until this new album where I feel like we've really utilized everything. everybody in the band's talent of writing to the max. I mean, it was almost like the Unholy Deification.

That was almost an answer to the sect of all divinities because it was such a difficult album to do. Sure. The Unholy Deification was such an easy album to do. But now we want to just focus on making a really great album that represents all of us in the band to our highest abilities, you know? Totally. Yeah, since Luke is officially in the band, I kind of want to get a quick back story on you.

You, so you grew up in Lurville, right? Yeah, yeah, a little Lurville, yeah. And that's, and I saw like, so the population, probably when you were growing up, it's like 500? Yeah, something like that. So would that be more like a village or what's? Yeah, okay. Technically, yeah, a village.

Okay. We're kind of out right there on like the cusp of the hills, like the aflatches. How far were you from Columbus? About an hour south. Wow. So not far. That's like growing up to go to shows, that's like where you had to go. Yeah, that's where you're going.

It's like the closest hub to catch a gig. Nice. Which isn't bad. I mean, the closest town for me is another small town called Circleville. And it's like 20 minutes. So to do anything, you've got to just kind of used to drive on. Population of Circleville. Circleville on the map right now.

Yeah. Circleville. We got the pumpkin. show, little town. You guys got a pumpkin show? Yeah, that's the big thing. The world's biggest free show, so they claim. I think now there's like 100,000 people that show up.

Oh, shit. It's pretty crazy. Yeah. Every year he talks about the pumpkin show, you know. They have like, they get like, all these like local farmers grow these gigantic pumpkins. Those are Matt, they get around. Those are like pretty normal. The ones they grow, those are like 2,000.

pounds 17,000 pounds 17,000 pounds Pumpkins that big exists It's crazy yeah like you can like live inside that thing I don't they like bring them in on a crane and have a competition And like I don't know what the winner gets you just You're the king of the pumpkin I guess It's pretty wild

It's pretty cool it's fun And anything you could imagine pumpkin flavor It's ridiculous How's there of? Do I love pumpkin pie? Oh, yeah. You go to town on some pumpkin pie here. Damn, this is probably like, I want pumpkin pie from one of those pumpkins. Yeah, you could do it.

And like Lindsay's Bakery, they do, like, the largest pumpkin pie. I don't know if you can eat it. I don't know how they preserve it. It's like five days, and it's in the window. And it's pretty crazy. Yeah, look at that thing. It's wild. Yeah, Lindsay's Bakery, they rule, man.

They've been around a long time, like a local staple. Their pumpkin donuts are great. That's like heaven and diarrhea at the same time. Absolutely. A 500 pound pumpkin pie, 500 pounds. Yeah, watching them try to get it in the windows. Oh, it's quite a- It's quite a crane.

Oh, yeah, because you can't get that through the door, right? No. How do you get it in? They kind of, they make it in the back, and then they get a couple of all of means to. They take the window off. legal it through the doorway there from the like the bakery area it's a it's a labor of love so if if you're a home this is what you're hitting up yearly yeah yeah most of the time now it seems like we're always on tour right as pumpkin shows happening but it's also sacrifices he

makes for now he doesn't get go to the punkson price you pay rock and roll it incantation needs needs to play the pumpkin show yeah that would be pretty wild hometown hero dude hometown hero Lou come on dude come on maybe this will get us there

put it put pumpkin show on the map right now wow dude and you uh so so you grew up around there

playing like little league and uh and you started off on drums correct yeah holy crap nice hell yeah

yeah I tried and failed it was something that like I still I love drums and um

it was just something hard to play had the kit in the house and it's, I mean, it's drum, so you're beating and banging on this thing and when you're not good, it's not something you're here throughout the day.

What's this asshole doing, right? What is this kid doing? All 500 of people like, what's the fucking you're doing over there, dude? Go outside and do something. It's supposed to be a village, do what the fuck. Yeah. So that's kind of what led to

the guitar. Like my brother, Jake, we started dismemberment and he would be out skateboarding. He's three years older than me. So when he was gone, I would, I'd sneak in and I'd start playing on his guitars and stuff. I'm like, these are pretty cool.

And like, growing up, my mom and dad were really big into, like, Dio and Priest and Ozzy. And so that was like a gateway immediately, like, heavy metal was pretty common. Yeah. Yeah. And dismemberment was a pretty prominent, like, local band in the Columbus scene, too. I mean, they were one of the, definitely one of the better local bands. I don't know how to Was it through Asheron did

Kyle get to know you guys? Yeah we played It was like our first out of state show It was at Flint Michigan at this like Biker picnic gathering And we played on some like wagon And Atcheron played And so he borrowed our kit

And we kind of hung out And then Yeah somehow him and Jake started communicating And he started doing some stuff with Atchron on and then yeah we opened for you guys it's like 2013 I think oh okay and so then that was like cool to see the band and like meet the guys yeah and actually your brother was the one that played with us first he his brother Jake filled in for us um was it Edmonton was that that farm again yeah a couple things yeah a couple couple shows yeah and then um

And then he couldn't do something and he offered up Luke. He said, well, Luke, why don't you try doing this? And, you know, you could tell him the story. You know better to me anyway. I think Kyle asked Jake if I wanted to do it and I was like, no. Said no verse? I was like, no way. I was just terrified.

I never like, I don't, I, at that time it was like I quickly was trying to learn guitar. Then I became like the guitar and vocals and dismemberment. my brother was like really good and Taylor and J.D. are bassist and drummer. Like to me in high school, they were like legends. They were playing the talent show

and they were like awesome. They had this cool band. Buried remains, beneath the remains. They're going to kill me for this. But it was a great band. So it was like, I just wanted to hang out with these guys and like somehow get into like,

hey, I want to start a band. I like metal, you know. So I would always wear, I knew Taylor was really big into Cannibal Corpse. He had it written on his folder. You know one song. Yeah, yeah. And so I took, I rated Jake's closet and took his Eatin Back to Life shirt and I'd wear every day to school, just hoping Taylor would notice.

Like, yo, I like, death metal do, man. It's old school, yeah. That time I was still a poser. Like, I loved eating back to life. And Jake was showing me stuff. And then funny enough, in like eighth grade, I went. went to, it's called Sam Goody. It was like a CD store.

And I was like, I'm just going to buy like the sickest cover I can find. And Diabolical Conquest was one of them. Oh, really? Yeah, so that's cool. That was just a crazy coincidence. Yeah, Sam Goody, holy crap. I think it kind of became F.I.E or something like that. They're connected.

Sam Goody. And, uh, but yeah, I got Taylor's attention and they came to the garage in Laraville. And, yeah, that day we wrote a song. became like that first demo that condemned and we started playing gigs like playing in Columbus it was like oh my god this is the big time fucking made it to the fucking Columbus dude holy moly dude it was out it was cool there was this this like promotion company C EG Columbus Events Group and they really like took notice because this is like 2011 so like deathcore was really big and we were like the polar opposite so it kind of made

to stand out and yeah we got to open for a lot of bands we played a lot of shows at the alrosavilla which was like we're all pantera fans so it was kind of weird to to play there because like with dime and stuff that's where he got shot at the arsavila yeah we had some amazing shows you know it's kind of where we all learned to to riff and rock and play and stuff and uh yeah eventually i think it was a CEG show that brought Encan and it was at like the shrunken head or something and yeah but yeah so yeah long story

short yeah Jake Kyle asked Jake if I wanted to do it I was like no and Jake just said like you should do it like it's it's just base and like you never know what could happen so that like you said like it just kind of stuck with me and like

okay well it is just it's only four strings I think I could do it did a couple shows, went to New York for the first time, that was cool, we played at St. Vitis, and like, I remember Richard Christie showing up, and that was like, I love. Death was, like, a huge gateway, too, like, inspiration for our band, and they kept calling me back, so. Yeah, well, you know, after watching Dismemberment Play, we were all just like, God damn, those guys are talented.

Like, you know, because we're just all. rough edged and just like you know like clunk in away and watch them play were like you know i was i was just happy that they were even you know a jake or luke at the time were happy to work with us i figured this is like playing with us going to be a cake walk you know because the stuff they were playing with this member it was way more um you know cleaner way more complicated um you know kind of like that uh kind of like uh say mid till later death kind of vibe or whatever right I would say that's a way to describe it. So, yeah, you know, when the opportunity came up, I was like, well, talent-wise, you don't

have to worry about it, you know, it just matters if these guys are cool. But, you know, Kyle or drummer said, you know, he knew those guys, they were cool or whatever. And I was like, okay, let's, you know, let's go with this, you know, see what's up. And it was super easy. I mean, it's exactly the way it should be, you know. We were, you know, positive at practice the first time. I mean, what's, you even said? It was just some kind of thing you said first time you met me at practice or whatever.

Yeah, V and Jake went to Kyle's house. It all was just too convenient, I mean, because Kyle lived in Columbus, so it was just like, it just happened to be like the right place, right time kind of thing for me and and Jake. And so we're at Kyle's rehearsing is funny because it's just drums and two bass players aren't in the van fumbling their way through the songs. He's like, well, John will be here tomorrow. I was like, oh man, here comes John. This is going to be terrifying.

John walks in the door and he's like, is up, homie? It was great because it took like a lot of weight off my shoulders. And it's just like, okay, this guy isn't this big evil, like, Christ-hating, like, asshole. He's just a chill guy. And that definitely made things easier. And, like, getting the first couple shows out of the way.

I think a first show. was like the smiling moose. It's like maybe April, 2015. I think maybe I was just turned 21 or I was 22. And was still pretty new to like traveling. Like, Dismariment only ever did one tour. It was with Master and Solstice and Hate Storm Annihilation. But it went like as far.

It was basically central. We went down to Texas, Florida, and back. We never made it to the West Coast or anything. Did some Canada and stuff. and so that was a trip just getting to like travel and be out here with these these veterans well yeah the the fact of having Luke with us really really let's say what's it what's where it it gave us new life in a way because everything was fresh for him you know so it kind of reminded me of how it was my first time around in the best.

and stuff and going to these places. And it was really refreshing because sometimes people get so, oh, we're doing this again. Well, say, you know, okay, we're playing here, playing, you know, and they forget the fact like, no, it's cool as fuck we're playing here and playing there. And all these things are, like, super awesome.

And almost every, like, band or local band that, you know, doesn't make it would die to be here right now to be able to play, you know, a show. I don't know, wherever. I'll go as far as saying, you know, just, just for a East Coast band to play L.A. or to play San Francisco, wherever, you know, is a dream coming true. You know, we were going, you know, Europe and South America and all these places with Luke.

And it was just nice to see that freshness. And it really made us feel good, you know, gave us a good vibe where it's like, yeah, is this freaking cool? It's not just another day at the office where you're just like, oh, yeah, okay, we're going to play Ecuador again, you know, whatever. it's like no every time you go you should be like hell yeah we're playing for people that you know music we never get to possibly go to all these places if it wasn't for music you know what i'm saying we're in this like broon closet backstage and i just come walking in like man isn't this awesome back then yeah i mean it's still a trip pretty big closet to me yeah i just i love to play so it's like i'd rather play the not so it doesn't

really matter if we play on the floor or we're bunched up together. Like, it's still to me is just as exciting as it was getting the first play with these guys. And the same with this measurement is like any opportunity. It was like, let's just do it. Like, I like to rock. Yeah. It's super easy. Like any time we get an offer, I asked Luke, you know, you want to do this? It's like, yep. Like there's not, it's never, never like any issue whatsoever, you know, which is nice, because I'm like that too. I'll just be like, get a cool opportunity. Okay, let's do it.

You know, it's like, why not? It's like, you get to play, music. And I've probably said this last time, but it's the same thing. It's like every time I get to play with the guys, it's just like it's a great freaking day. So it's like, you know, a band practice or going to show, you know, wherever it is. It's like, you know, I know it's going to be a good day

because we get to play live and, you know, maybe some people will like it, you know, and that'll be fun too, you. You know, but as long as we get to play, it's, it can't be that bad. That's what's up. And you guys are the first guitar players that brought in the tone X, correct? Yes. Okay.

Yeah, this little thing. So I think it's time to go through the rig. Okay. And what's, uh, well, so what the heck is this thing? Okay, well, basically, um, when I was, well, we were on tour with suffocation, um, Terrence was using the full tone X. I was using an EVH pedal at the time through by Seymour Duncan power stage. And I wanted, basically, it just worked out that I wanted to have a rig for Europe and just leave it there

because I'm getting super lazy and I want to carry as little as possible. So I figured, well, okay, I'll take the, you know, my EVH pedal and a power stage and have one in Europe and then get another one here. And I was like, you know what, let me try the tone X. I mean, if it's good enough for Terrence to use it for suffocation, I'm sure I can get by because he's, you know, like a friggin' master on guitar and tone. It's unbelievable. Yeah, his playing is just like, you know, yeah, you could almost be like, why even bother

trying to play that tight because he's just silly. But anyway, yeah, so I just tried a while, I wanted downsize my rig, and I've seen the Tonex one, and it's basically the full-sized Tonex in like a mini-packing. which is super awesome. It's not even like a size or regular pedal and stuff and it's basically just it I mean it's a It's a fractal so it works on pretty much plug-ins. It's almost like it's almost like the same thing as the Kemper except it's used You know you go to their you know to the interface on your computer set up your tones you want and you get download it to the pedal And then it it just sounds awesome. It's crazy and you would think like you know someone like me wouldn't be would be not into it

Exactly I was very surprised Because yeah I mean I'm I'm like Amkai But the fact is is that It's like I used it and it's like dude It sounds so good Like you don't have to worry about Any of the problems Not just the fact of carrying a full

You know Guitar Head is a pain in the ass But also traveling with it It's like you know I'd have problems with the tubes loosening up the pots for the tubes and have to deal with that. And then also where it really, really comes in to play is, you know, playing Europe, South

America, wherever we're going to go outside the country. We don't have to rely on these rental heads, which sometimes are good, but sometimes they're not good. Yeah. Yeah, you're hit or miss. And it's like you're paying a crap load of money to use this for the price you're paying to use it in Europe. You could probably buy the damn head, a new one.

You know, so I just, you know, it decided. it to slim down and I ended up like yeah but yeah and and you know I started to use it on US tours after a while the simple setup because I'm like well hey it sounds so good in Europe and you know South America tours or whatever why wouldn't it sound good in the US tours and we still play out of our our cabinets we have Omega cabinets that we're yeah they're really nice cabinets so we're cranking it we're not just like going um direct into the PA. I can't play like that.

I can't play. I mean, yeah, recording, whatever, that's one thing. But live, I need to hear the power of the speakers, you know. I, you know, anyone that knows me knows I'm old school. I need to hear that power of metal behind me while I'm up there. I don't want to just, I don't want it to be like coming out of the PA and be like, you know, kind of hear it or, you know, not getting that push on stage. Some people might, you know, disagree with you.

Maybe it's a newer school thing. but for me, and I think a lot of us old school people, we have to hear it out of the... Gotta have the cab. Yeah, and the cab, and honestly, the tone on a tone X for me sounds better out of the cabin. It's miced than it does going direct. They probably could sound great through the simulator,

but I don't know enough about it. Be honest with you, most of the tone and the way of it set up, Luke deals with it mostly because I'm just a caveman with it, you know, and I just like, just set me up with the tone. He knows the tone that sounds good. I want. He could help me get it, you know, and because, you know, I'm the guy that could go to 5150. He's just go turn the knobs and it just sounds good, whatever I have it on. But this is a little more complicated. So I think, you know, thankfully Luke is the tone master. So he helped me kind of

organize it in a good way. But yeah, it's a simple setup, just a tuner, a tonnex. I, I just have my, a couple of cheap wireless is that work good in the small clubs and stuff. And then just a, you know just the seymour dunk in um you know power stage which actually works really really killer too these things were all yeah i was i was a little skeptical when i first got it i was using it i tried using it and i wasn't quite happy with it but once i used the tone x-for or used my um evh pedal for it i realized the tone was really good it just needed to learn and i learned from luke how to set it up properly because i just i'm used to using things in the old amp way so it took it was like a learning curve for, you know, for me to figure out how to make it work. But it sounds awesome.

And, you know, I respect people that want to use, you know, amps, you know, like, you know, a nice amp or whatever in a cabinet live. I mean, that's great. But for us traveling so much, this is way, way more convenient. And honestly, you don't, you don't notice a difference. Anybody live, I mean, we, we have on stage what the PV triple X that Dallas, you uses from a narcotic wasteland and every night or not every night but a few nights on a tour people come to me man that uh you know pv triple x sounds freaking awesome because he would sometimes leave the power on on it while we're playing to look like we were using it and i'm like no i like they do sound awesome yeah they're an awesome amp for sure but it's like no that's that's like my

tonnex with a with a power stage which you know they probably wouldn't you know they probably wouldn't be so excited if i was telling me yeah just this little thing like this or whatever and you know but It sounds badass, you know. Yes, it sounds awesome in my ears. Luke, you have a little bit more different setup, so what's going on here? Yeah, I'm using, I have like the sure wireless. It rules, it's the newer one. It definitely is better than the first-gen one.

I had that one as well, and this one I don't get as much interference. Okay. Morley Wall. And then I've got the, I think it's called the Dibbeck. It's Sammy from Gohor, his, like, signature overdraft. The Michael Klein stuff is, like, awesome. And, uh,

yeah, big shout out. Uh, Lonely Ghost, another great pedal. It's a delay, reverb and a boost all in one. Oh, nice. So there's no like tap dancing to, to do the widdly whittlies. Oh, of course. And then, um, so basically,

yeah, my, up top, it's like an amp just in pieces. Like the preamp is the VHD by S&K pedals. It's like the Ampeg VH-140C circuit, which is a sick amp. Oh, wow.

Sick, solid state amp. And when I bought that, I'm pretty sure his name's Scott. I apologize if it's not. He sent this pedal of the precedence, and it just adds presence and resonance. Anything after the pre-amp pedal before the power amp is your effects loop. So I just run that in the loop with the lonely ghost. And you can get like that extra wump and some clarity that the EQ,

the Duncan EQ is kind of weird. Like it's, it's not like a sweep. Each one is dedicated to a certain frequency, so it's only pushing or cutting one frequency. It's not like, it's not going across the spectrum or whatever. So I kind of counteract it with that,

and then just the regular settings of kind of how I ran my old Ampeg, the VH-140C. I sold it to Cody from, bog. Oh, nice. And like every so many years, I'm like, you want to sell that thing back to me? It's my biggest regret selling that amp. So, Cody, if you're, if you're thinking about selling that amp, call me back. Okay, so, so the main tone is, is that the orange pedal? This one up top here. And then that's basically my, a drive? It's my, yeah, like a tube screamer.

Oh. I think it's kind of based on the bad monkey, which was my first pedal. Okay. A good friend of mine, Mike Corns, gave me that. And, So drive the tone master. Okay, I got it. Okay. Yeah, because like if I've had some shows where I'm getting a little too excited and have the wall and my boot will hit it and that just, it goes straight to clean tone. Oh, yeah. Sounds insane, you know.

Yeah. But his lead tone, it really screams great. Yeah. It just pops. And I just love that because it just really brings a. three-dimensional vibe to the lead playing and the solo playing and what are some uh what are some parts you do in the set that that has a lead part like there's kind of like a cheat code too like um with like if i hit like it it kind of like catches the pickup when i push it all the way back

and that alone kind of makes it do its own harmonic oh yeah especially like mash the warly the morley down and that's pretty insane but really I don't necessarily consider myself like a lead guitar player like I'm trying to learn but I just kind of

just kind of pick a scale and then pick very fast and hope I land on the right note I don't want to pretend to be some yeah virtuoso because I'm far from No, he has good, he has good note selection. So he knows where to land and what to do.

It's, to me, he has a natural instinct on doing, yeah, he might not be like the virtual, so, you know, like the shredder. Dave Davidson on here. It's like, hoof, but. Holy moly. But he has, he has, it's, I would say it's close, to me, he's closer to somebody like, I don't know, Tony I owe me, where he's, he picks the right. notes where to land and how to apply it to the song more than a guitar player that say shreds over

the song or sometimes they shred despite the song unfortunately just try to prove themselves you know and like i'm more of yeah like iommi and like david gilmore are like my like top two and like they're not blazing arpeggios and playing every note across the fretboard i love that too like Jason Becker and Inveh and Vye, like those guys are, that's like a whole different world to me. Like some people were just, they're like born for it,

you know, like it's their thing. But yeah, I'm Randy Rhodes, Eddie, dime, like tasteful solos, like the right time to shred

and not trying to take the spotlight, kind of have your own little song in the song and then get out of the way. Yeah, what's up? You mentioned it's a really good cheat code. Pick a scale and it's pick really fast. Yeah.

So like I would just do like a lot of hanging on a note, a lot of that, and then just have some effects to hide all the mistakes. I mean, that's what I do. Most guitar players do that. Yeah, I'm not ashamed to admit it because, yeah, I'm not, I'm not pretending like I can shred. I just kind of on stage in the heat of the moment yeah you just go for it and that's kind of that's the exciting part

to me. It's expressive. Yeah I'm just kind of letting it all hang out and not really focusing on like the intricate, the minor details because it's death metal. Yeah for what we do that that chaos fits, that expression fits

with our sound more than trying to over overthink the theory aspect of it sometimes Of course it's not Bad to have the theory or anything But it's this it's more When he plays it

I think all of us in a band Able to hear it we're just like Yes that's like There's just something even if there's a tension It's like that tension's perfect Because it's like meaning something It's not just a barrage of notes And like some bands it works for

It's great you know some of them were Tech Death bands it totally makes sense to have the you know clean the theory the tight everything super tight everything super proper but for us it like we thrive on like you know breaking all the rules like you know last time i kind of told you it's just like you know it's just crazy you know we just kind of go on what the vibe of everything not you know it's not about being proper and it makes it for a fun show like if you see us two nights in a row like you're definitely not going to hear the same lead for me.

Like, I'm just going for it. But, you know, the people that are there feel it, you know? Yeah. It's like, you could tell when he's doing, you know, his leads, people are just like, you know, feeling it in the music. It's not just like, it's not just like, oh, wow, he's just a really good guitar player. No, it's more. It was in the key of G, interesting.

Yes. No, yeah, it's not like that. It's more just like, they like it because they, it's like, it expresses that pissed offness. Yeah. There was, like, the first time I saw, uh, the, the, the, band was last year and you guys were doing

a record. And Mortal Throne record. Yes. And the song came on it might have been the first one. Yeah, demonic incarnation. Yes, yes. And like there's like this bridge section came on. And I was like, what are they doing? And I listened to the record

and this might not be a term, but I might have been a term. I call it an under riff. And it's, and on the record, it's not really there but live it was loud i'm like it was sound of fucked it was like it was like a that's perp that sounds like us it was um it was like dun dun yeah yeah that like what i was what would you call it is i under rip it's not like a lead i was like what is that riff i wish you

i wish it was louder on on the record yeah well it was basically yeah it was basically was like a a lead it's almost like the song within the song kind of thing that he was talking about that we did where it's a bass griff's the dome you know just that yeah and then

it leaves space for the other guitar dude a dune it's yeah and there's the another guitar yeah it's like real like ominous sounding yeah basically

on the album it's It's two of the rhythm tracks of the low part, two of the higher, and two different harmonies, and then there's the lead. That part is like the, it's three different parts, but on the album it's like way too many. Sounds good. Okay, I was like, what are you doing that? It sounds a little off though.

Why fucking that up? What's that? A tune maybe? Maybe, yeah, probably a lot of tune. Yeah, I remember when I heard, I was like, what are they even doing, dude? It was like a crazy, like, dimension to it. That's how I feel when I have to, like, learn some of this stuff. I'm always asking John, like, what were you doing?

Like, what were you thinking when he wrote this? I know. Some of the stuff, I was like two years old when this song came out. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, I was just thinking of the sickest, darkest thing that I could, put on a record, you know, and it just, it just wanted to, I don't know, it just, it just come from this wacky mind to mind. I didn't really know what I was doing either. I, like I mentioned before, my knowledge of music is very minimal, you know, so I just kind of would go just on a total vibe of what sounded sick or whatever. We really just wanted this one to just have that bridge

area that just brought you to the dumbiest spot possible after kind of a kind of a more aggressive um it's pretty intense aggressive track yeah it's kind of an aggressive track but then it goes into it's kind of like that's like that rib is sick too it's a vibe of like a table turn kind of thing yeah yeah i really like this one a lot this is yeah it's a it's a it's a just a good vibe to it, you know? It's my Black Sabbath influence, you know. Oh, okay. You know, so I wonder, like, yeah, so there's a bridge part and there's a top stream

part you're doing. How is he getting those notes to ring out that way? Like, it sounds like, it sounds kind of trippy. But I guess it is pretty Black Sabbath. Yeah. Black Sabbath. Yeah, we, I mean, we, I remember blasting. I mean, we were playing, blasting the amp in, in the, you know,

room recording it trying to get like the maximum amount of like you know feedback and just um you know have you know the um that the notes really hang out to the max you know try to try to bring it to the point where it's like it's almost painful how how we're trying to extend some of the um the the bands and stuff like that but having that that uh agony in the music is what uh made it made the song come out the way it's supposed to because we wanted it to be super super agonizing super you know super like at that time we'll say there wasn't many death metal bands that would do an aggressive song and all of a sudden drop it out into this this other space that was more of a almost a doom influence thing or

whatever so at the time it was something that we we liked both Doom and Death Metal and we just wanted to incorporate it more. We were slowly incorporating it more and more into the band, but at that time we're just going for it in this one. We're just going to sludge out somebody's riffs on the Mortal Throne album. And it ends up making an impact that we really didn't know. I wouldn't say we were thinking on making an impact by any means, but we just wanted to express ourselves our way.

It was, again, us being kind of stubborn about we want to do it this way, You know, the other bands, great. You do it your way. We're doing it our way. And, yeah, and now it's been a template for other bands to go into a more atmospheric, doomy type vibe. I mean, it's crazy. It's been, our influence has influenced so many bands that I would never even think of, you know,

or just, you know, just like, huh, okay, whatever, you know. But, um, what, uh, what amps were using? Um, I was, my amp was a, um, JCM 850 watt and I had a Marshall. There we go. A Galien Kruger, you would call it a cabinet. I don't even know which one it was. It was a Galen Kruger with like the hard mesh. It wasn't like, it was like more of a metal mesh on the front one. For guitar? Yeah. It was just an old, it was the only one I could afford at the time when I got it. And I used that one for quite a while. I'm pretty sure the Galing Kruger was used on that.

It was similar than that. It was a little different. It wasn't, it was a tighter mesh. Yeah, none of those look exactly like it. But it could even have been a base cabin. I wouldn't even have known at the time. I was just like, I just want a freaking cabinet. I want my.

So loud. I think he used a base cabinet. Yeah, it could have been. Like I said, I didn't even really, I didn't, I didn't know enough about it. A guitar cabin. Somebody sold it to me as a guitar cabin, and I believed him so. Dude, imagine if it was a bass cabinet. Yeah, maybe that helped with the tone, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Doing like the Caius thing. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Except like I did it without even knowing, you know. But, yeah, it was basically a martial. And I think our other guitar player at the time, Craig, if I remember correctly, and I could be wrong, You were just using a basically just a generic crate amp and cabinet,

but somehow we made it sound heavy as fuck. But also production on that album isn't necessarily the best, but, you know, we were scraping for, you know, whatever gear we could use, you know, or whatever we had or whatever. We made it work. Do you have any, like, dry that was this straight amp plug straight into the dam? Probably, I mean, it's a long time ago, but I used to have. one of those boss distortion feedbacker pedals and I also had the orange what was it the

orange I think it was a distortion orange distortion boss yeah boss yeah it's a distortion and then I also had the an overdrive like the yellow oh S D1 yeah yeah yeah there's a the distortion SD1 I had and then there was a you had a super overdrive I had that one too I don't remember which one that I used on that though because I kind of would keep going back and forth trying to get a tone because even though the old Marshall 800 is a great amp

it was very temperamental and it would sound different in every room so I'd almost have to switch like what distortion I was using to try to get the right vibe from but I do miss that amp I made the stupidest decision in the world

because I sold it I didn't know I sold it because I sold it because I wanted to get the 100 watt, JMC 800. And 100 watt doesn't sound as good as the 50 watt. The 50 watt, it sounds better because you're pushing it harder. And then when I got the 100 watt, I'd have to be so loud to push it harder

that I can never get that tone again. It was an amateur mistake, but I was an amateur, so that's what you do. And then I used the other one. I had a messabugi after that, what a the prototype, do rectifiers, which was nice, but I never got quite the tone I wanted, because even though the Mesabuio was good, it was a little sizzily for me. I do like a tad bit drier tone and a, yeah.

But yeah, I mean, my amps now, I do still have, and I use it sometimes as the Revolt Amplifier Company out of Chicago, which is a really great amp. It has a good, a good tone. It's really almost like a souped up 50150, which is, you know, and a PV 5150 is a great amp.

I like it because almost any setting you have on it, as long as you have the gain up, it sounds good. Like, you just put it on 666 and that's like the perfect tone. Oh, ironically. Oh my goodness.

It all makes sense. Yeah. Wouldn't you guys switch over to Dean? You guys, so if it just, listening you guys are both playing dean Dean six strings for me it was

2002 a fellow named Chris Canella reached out I thought it was a joke at first like it was like a spam account like messing with me and he followed up he was like no this is like

actually Dean and I would like to work with you which was cool because like the first guitar I ever bought was this cheap $120 Dean V So it was like

Holy crap, dude Like Dean wants to work with me And they sent me This guitar And they sent me a few Over the years And then

I got this one And Out of rehearsal John was like Oh, it's pretty sick So then his birthday Was coming up I told Chris

Like Can you send John one? And then John's playing it all the time Now I'm like Oh shit That's cool Yeah it was

It was It was I wasn't expecting to go to Dean necessarily to be honest but it was just yeah he sent the guitar and I was like this is pretty nice guitar and I was talking with Chris and Chris was very accommodating on stuff I mean um you know he gave me the the V that I was using was the vengeance V I wanted to try out one I was just going like we we stopped at the the Dean um you know factory or the warehouse and I was just like oh I want to try out one of those Dean Vs and he's just like oh I

you could just have one. I was like, you guys have one. It's like, that's pretty cool. Okay, I'll, you know, I'll try it out. And it was nice because, you know, they helped set it up for me the way I needed and everything. They really showed a lot of care into the situation. And I was like, okay, this is cool, you know.

I mean, and I tried using the V-Live. And, I mean, this was a nice guitar. I was using my B.C. Rich mockingbirds before. So I originally went with something like this, because I just thought it looked cool, and it kind of has that bigger body. but then I started using the V and I'm like oh wow this is way easier

to play live you know then and I just it's just easier for me to toss the guitar around and the play that's lighter it stays up a little higher so it's easier for me to you know fret on it and the pick on it just like once I was able to adjust to like playing like this more than like that

I was like this is way easier to play live and stuff than it was on the other guitars that I had and stuff and yeah I just kind of went with it and It's been great working with them. They've been really supportive of us. And, you know.

Chris loves death metal. Yeah, yeah. He's a great dude. And yeah, and they, you know, he left Dean, but Dean's still, you know, supporting us and, you know, into working with us, which is nice, you know. And it just, I just wanted somebody that was, you know, wanted to work with us because I've been trying to work with BC Rich for years. And I'm probably a few of me from L.A. I know they've gone through so much problems over the years. And I would talk to them, you know, we'd get something going,

and then this person would leave, and then nobody would answer my calls there or my emails. And it was just like I loved playing my BC riches, but it was just like I just felt like I wasn't getting any love from the company whatsoever. After playing them for like, you know, 25 years or something like that, it's just like, okay, if you really don't care that much, me go for someone that actually cares you know and and dean showed that they they they they you know you got to you got to um you know respect people that are willing to reach out to you and try to do something

plus you know it's a nice way to get someone to you know work with you send him a birthday present guitar you know i wasn't expecting that you know i was nice yeah and it was it was luke that really you know got me hooked up with dean to be fair you know i mean if it wasn't for luke telling him they get me to guitar, I probably wouldn't have worked with them. But now that we have, I'm really happy about it. Yeah, they've been very, very cool. Yeah. That's awesome.

Also, John, it's kind of a trip to see, would you imagine you will be in this spot, seeing your gear and seeing, like, the guitar playing, and you're actually in a pickup in case you're not watching is a fishman. Yeah. So you're using all of this modern shit. Yes. It's funny.

So it's good. Yes, I was an EMG guy for years, you know. And then what was it? The Sousa guy, the guy from Earth, on Earth, I don't know. On Earth? Yeah. Is that? Yeah, you have 10.

Yeah. You see, I know him, but I can't even know. I know so little. Ken Suzy. Yes, Ken Suzy. That was it. I can't remember. I think he hit me up or something.

It was sometimes during a pandemic and he just wanted to send me some pickups. And I was just like, yeah, okay, we'll see what these are. I was thinking it was just going to be kind of, you know, laying pickups or whatever. But I got them install, plugged him in, and I was just like, huh, he's actually sound really killer. Because I was a EMG 81 guy forever, you know, pretty much. Once I went active, I just used 81. It was my comfort zone. But then I like the fact that the fishermen had a little more gain to it.

And it just popped. it popped like for me gear is good when I just play it I'm like and it sounds good I'm like okay we're good like you got you got one drum dude you got one two drums yeah yeah like I hear that girth in the in the metal and I'm just like okay I can work with this you know because you know if I think if you don't if you if you if you first couple strums and you feel it doesn't sound right you're like a now this is not the right thing because I want I want to go right out of the box I want to be simple and sound, sound, you know, good and something I feel comfortable with, you know.

That's the way I, I'm super simple. Keep it simple, man. It's hard to keep it simple, dude. I know. Oh, gear, yeah. Yeah, especially if you're a gear nerd like me, it's like overwhelming. There's so much stuff I want. Because you, you can get in the weeds very easily.

Yes. Yeah, I know, it's, I find myself a lot like, okay, what the fuck am I doing? What am I even doing right now? Okay, let's set back. I always go back to like what I was doing. You need to reset sometimes because you go down to rabbit hole and you just like, you know, you start losing. Yeah, you can lose yourself. I mean, we've had that in the studio where we have a pretty good tone.

We're like, oh, let's just fix us up a little bit. And then like a couple days later, you just like, you don't know what's good. Yeah, like, yeah. I mean, even when we were doing the last album, we're tone. It's like, after a while, we're like, I don't even know. Is this tone good or bad? It's like, this is really good. I think it, am I, am I?

Yes. You start second guessing yourself. That's why it's like, I like that first impression because it just is like, okay, it sounds good. Okay, we're good. We don't need to like, sometimes you over tweak and you can drive yourself freaking insane. I know. Once you start second guessing yourself, you almost screw things up more. I mean, totally.

At least for me, you know, my attention span, I think, just starts to go wacky after a while. I'm like, I don't fucking know. I guess it sounds good. And then when, you know, you say it's good and the album comes out, you're like, ah, I could do it better with the tone, you know. Yeah. I could, I should just went with what we originally had, you know. That's the worst feeling too. Yeah. The worst. I come back to it and you're like, dang. Yeah, but, you know, you're dealing with that fatigue from like, you know, listening to the tone so many times. I just, I related to the studio because I, I, I've stopped doing the pedal chasing the tone.

It's like, okay, I got the tone. Just leave it. Don't touch you. Don't try not to. I even try not to get in my head because sometimes I'll play it. I'll be like, it could be a little better, but no, no, just it's good. It's good. Just leave it. Yeah, because I know that when I start fiddling around, I'll get, I'll get bummed out later. You got to know when it step away. I have one more selfish question.

Yes. Devour Death towards the end of the song. Yes. There was like this harmonic and some deaf male bands have this very unique harmonic that I don't even like, it was a, it was a, it was. uh, it's, like, it's towards, or why's like, wait, did, yeah, I think, uh, the, that one, like that. Yeah, it just sounds like, oh, like, what,

it's like a harmonic, but it sounds like, if, if I try to do it, it, it just doesn't. Yeah, so, yeah. I don't know. I just, um, yeah, I just on a harmonic kick. I mean, It just, yeah, I just like, I always like the harmonics in DeathMet. I thought it was a cool little pop or whatever, and I just, yeah, I just kind of just go down the line, just fucking toss, I would toss them in here and there.

I actually do less now than I used to. I should go back to do them more, but yeah, I like, I like him, you know, but. Next record. Yeah, you had Zach Wilde here, and he, I know he's a harmonic king, but we were, we were doing harmonic. I was doing harmonics before him, you know. Oh! I think, I think Zach Wilde got it. Not for me, you know.

Yeah. He probably was listening to, you know, early incantation demos like, man, those harmonics are a badass. Let me throw him a miracle man. He's a Jersey guy. Yes, he's a Jersey guy. Oh, true. He grew up in the same scene, you know. So, yeah, I think he was, I think he was gang in my, uh, big harmonics.

He got it from, uh, he got it from, uh, incantation and zizi top. There we go. Yes, yes. That's awesome. Yeah, having like a good harmonics. Oh, you know, everyone went an, and all. Everyone does it a little bit differently. You know, yeah, bring it back.

You know, some of the worst advice that ever got as guitar player was, you do too many harmonics. And I'm like, why did I stop doing harmonics? Yeah. God. Because now I'm writing now. I'm like, I'm going to throw them all in there. Oh, this is what I used to do.

Yeah. Sounds great. And they're sick. Yeah. It sounds great. I love, I loved, you know, the harmonics in the song. I think it's fucking badass, in my opinion, you know? I mean, yeah, just, yeah, I actually realized that I kind of wasn't.

doing them more and it's like oh let's toss some of those harmonics back in because i you know it's funny to it's so bizarre like i got to remind myself all the time this is what i'll be talking about until this thing is over but um sometimes you got to remind yourself of what you used to do you you you forget what you used to do yeah well it's so like gom's an idiot well that's that uh point that i was saying i can't remember i we're talking about something but it's like it's it's really important that musicians remember why they got into it in the first place and what they what they like you know like why they're doing it why they're playing in the band you know and and that goes for the writing style too it's like you're you know the early stuff you're writing of a band's usually some of their

best stuff because they were just really inspired and trying to remember that feeling of like fresh and new and just going for it is really what I think benefits will benefit a band more because you just start to you start to just get away from things playing live or times change and people adapt their styles a little different but it's like it's always nice to bring it back to the old school way where you first did it this is why we did it this is how we did it back then and then you know it's it almost like a fresh it's like a fresh beginning and

it keeps you you know keeps the band sounding old but fresh at the same time adding that kind of stuff to it in my opinion totally yeah you got you got to go back what do you guys are the band to ask about this go I'm just curious I got

two more questions what are your what are some riffs that you think truly shaped death metal what riffs what are some riffs that you truly believe like shaped death metal you guys are kind of kind of the band to ask.

Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, that's a lot. For myself, I would say a band that I brought up last time, Necervor,

their riff style was super inspirational to me early on because it was based on a vibe and evil-sounding you know, it's just really intense.

And also, like, the early necrophasia stuff really inspired me. If you listen to the early necrophagia stuff, you could hear where we got some of the Pintromanics from. Really? Yeah. So, Zach, while maybe my god got it from necrophasia, too, not just us, you know. Okay. But, no. But, and then, I mean, also, I think early more than.

an angel was probably one of some of the most important riffs especially first deicide too I mean yeah crazy riffs yeah I mean a lot of early I mean you can even say like obituary like

slowly rewrot or whatever you know for the slower parts you know slower death metal those were just like really inspiration I mean they were very I thought they were very Celtic Frost influence which I think they would agree with but definitely

that those were very important to kind of get you know to do it in a death metal way and stuff but it's it's really difficult because there really are so many inspirational you know riffs back in the day because there was

this thing where we didn't really know where this music was going so there was so many vibes and influences coming in from all over place. So, and things were like, just like,

like, blowing your brain. Was there, like a riff or two that you're just like constantly jamming? Like, oh, this is like,

what's, uh, what's, uh, any? You know, even like, pull to plug.

I mean, for me growing up, because, yeah, I mean, I was born in 92, so I was finding, I had to go backwards.

Of course. It's funny, too, like a crazy coincidence. Like, I was born the same day Armur de Golgatha came out. Oh,

so that's like a wild coincidence. And even that, that record, like playing some of those songs, like Golgotha to me is like, those are some classic, that song is classic riffs. And Unholy

Massacre, like that is some just pure death metal. Yeah. Well, yeah, well maybe are your own bands on that list. Well, yeah, it's weird. It's weird to say, but

there are some, there are the whole genre of death metal that was inspired by the stuff that we did on our first couple albums, which is like, mind-blowing because I never thought that as a, you know, we were just, we were all just doing what we wanted to do in our way or whatever. We never thought that we would really be an inspiration for sub-genres of death metal, you know, like this, a lot of cavernous stuff was really inspired by us. A lot of just the, yeah, like, I don't know what you want to call it. It's like, old school death metal bands like

I don't know Dead Congregation and what's you know just a bunch of bands that play there's really like a whole I mean there's basically a whole fest in in Denmark what that

Kill Town fest which is like so much base like so many of bands are like inspired by us and it's so crazy when I first seen it come out and all these bands were like inspired by us Like, wow, that's really awesome to see, you know, because you never think that, I mean, as a songwriter that you're going to inspire other people. I mean, it's nice. Maybe you fantasize at home that one day, you know, people are going to, you know, appreciate what you do.

But really, I didn't. I was just like, I'm just some asshole playing death metal. It's like, there was the last thing of my mind was that we were going to have anything to do with any other, you know, subjourner. It was just like, we're doing our thing. Everybody could piss off. And, yeah, then, like, 10, 15 years later, people are, like, start, like, at first, we did well, but then it kind of, like, it kind of, the trends changed the music and we weren't doing so well, and all of a sudden, 15 years in, people are just like, oh, dude, it's such an inspiration.

And I'm like, huh, really, that's pretty cool, because most of the time people just thought that we sucked or something, you know? But it's like, but now it's like they were inspired by it. So that's pretty cool, you know. So have you, have you played this? No, we played it once, yeah.

Wow. It was fun to play. Yeah, it's kind of a trip on. Sometimes you go, like you go into a show. And he was like, what the fuck?

Yeah. What the, wow. Well, there was a father befeld band that, like, wow.

They came out quite a while ago. Yeah. The first time I heard Father Befeld, I was just like, this is really weird. It sounds like I wrote these songs, but I didn't. Yeah, and coffination, I think,

is another project. Yeah, I mean, it's cool or whatever, but you got to just say, like, you know, in the beginning, when you hear people say, mimic your style or use it as a strong influence, it's just like, that's strange. I got used to it now,

but at the time, I was like, I don't even know what to think about this. It's like, should I ask this guy to join the band? Oh, yeah. Or, you know, what? What's going on? here you know but it's i think it's all i mean it's it's flattering we'll say that's the best way to say people are always discovering yeah people are always gonna find out about about you guys and i and i think

you understand because what suicide silence you guys are one of the pioneers of the style as far as i'm aware of and um you probably have the same thing where there's bands you know that were inspired by you and it's kind of like you know it's it's it's a nice thing to know that you inspired other people to play you know a style of music that you know you were one of the creators of and stuff you know it's like oh someone else connects with my childhood trauma yes yes exactly it's why it's like it's so weird oh yeah someone someone someone else gets it that's cool you turn your feelings into a sound and then other people like it like it so much they start their own bands and play and like it's that's a whole other like level you know it's fucking crazy and then and now we're just getting older and it's still

fucking rocking. Yeah. Well, it's always amazing that, you know, yeah, stuff I did when I was like 20 years old, people still want to hear it or still inspired by it or just enjoy it. It's like I also think, I mean, we're repeating from last time, but I never thought the band was going to last more than like five years. You're thinking like they're playing pretty crazy music. You know, something else is going to come by. And now what how many years into it or we now? Like 30, 30 something over 35 years? It's a It's absolutely, I don't even know what the hell to think about that. It seems wacky to me. It does, dude.

I mean, with a life in general, I'm just like, what the fuck? How am I, how am I even fucking get here? Yeah. I don't know. How am I hanging out with incantation right now? What a fucking crazy life, dude. It's like, I don't know. Yeah, for you, it's, yeah.

I mean, you start off playing in suicide silence, and now you're doing it's so weird, podcasts with all these, you know. It is so bizarre, dude. Yeah, I mean, it's super cool. Yeah, I got, I'm like, I always tell people I live two, two dream lives. Yeah. You know, so it's so weird. I get to hang out and just talk riffs.

And like, okay. And people care. I don't know, it's so weird. Yeah, I'm thankful for it. Like, the show is awesome. Like, you do awesome work. And yeah, I love the interviews. And thank you, man.

It's always something interesting. Yeah, exactly. It's free. It's free. I thought I was just being a dumb asshole. Okay. I got, I got one, yes. One more.

So are you guys both, so this is a two-part answer. Are you a singles? I think I already know an answer, but are you a singles guy or an album guy? You go first? I'm an album guy. I've already known. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. What are three albums people should check out? Um, we can you go first. Um, I would say, I'll just go with. the ones that really like motivated me like obviously arise sepeltura the first solstice record it's an amazing record and i don't know like my my gateway that like made everything click for me was hearing uh without judgment off symbolic death and that was like the turning point for me like i want to play music and i want to kind of this is how I want it to sound you know that vibe but many people know these records but

if you don't you you're missing out big time you'll be surprised dude sometimes every once in a while someone in comments is honest oh I didn't know this band so there's always new people there's always there's always oh shit no one there's people that never heard that's that symbolic I was one of those people for a while until people here kept saying death death I'm okay I mean I mean I mean I got a new metal so yeah so like so people you gotta say it i mean it's a lot of people don't know these records yeah yeah they're great i mean it's hard to pick three yeah there's so much good stuff out there give me give me one more dude you got so we have our two a lot of pressure don't fuck it out dude um man for me okay this one's like at a left field yeah huge nostalgia

I love it is the CKY I think it's just infiltrate Destroy Rebuilder or IDR and you had Darren on which is great

I mean it's I would call metal by any means but amazing songs and an answer can be found that's a bonus

one that record to just cool interesting songs and for a time of my life growing up

that was like the soundtrack of my life like skateboarding and watching the CKY DVDs and

skateboarding Yeah, anytime I return to it, it's just, it takes me back. Yeah, you're just there. I don't want to skateboard again. Yeah, for a lot. Can't pick up your wrist now, dude. No. You got a job now, man.

Yeah, my knees would just, they can't take it no more. It's not over there. Yeah. I'll leave that up to the jar dog. Oh, hell. Charlie, Charlie can rip it up. All right, John. I mean, it's impossible for me to really say, but I'm going to use ones that were

inspirational on my metal journey to you know here to hear to the Garza podcast okay they took me there all right

I have to go with uh Venoms that war with Satan that album you are evil crushed my brain when as a kid I was probably a 14,

50 year old kid when I heard that and was just like holy crap hell sounds fucking awesome you're god you're dude you're like

you're you're you you're you're evil that covers is fucking oh wow yes I seen that I was just like I gotta on this I don't know what it was it just I just I love that evil vibe to it and I heard it and it just to me it's it's awesome it's my probably my favorite

venom album too but yeah I would say that because that crushed my brain as a kid and definitely put me on the path to perversity. I would say, I have to say, possess seven churches because that took it to the next level and made it even more evil, but more aggressive music style. So that was super important. And to this day, it's like, it's one of my sources of inspiration when I hear that album. It just makes you want to just, it just makes you want to continue to make dark, blasphemous music. And it's hard to say.

Okay, I'll just go with necrophages Seasons of the Dead because that was such a huge inspiration for incantation when that came out. But one, another band that I have to bring up to, which is probably, going against the rules is where it all comes from is black sabbath and you know the band every everything for me from black sabbath from the first album till probably tier is for me uh essential metal listening to know where everything that we all do uh spawned from all all those albums somewhere in that timeline something that almost every metal band does that today comes from that in one way or another, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. But it's, to me, that's the point one of metal.

So it all starts. And it was, it was evil too. When I first heard the first Black Sabbath album, I heard the bell ringing and that dom, you know, it was just like, oh, snap, you know. Yeah, I was just like, it was spooky. Yeah, when I heard that, I was a little kid probably, 11 or 12, I borrowed it from my friend's brother's record collection. He gave me the record to borrow from his brother's collection.

It wasn't even his that I borrowed. And I heard that and I was just like, holy crap. The first time I heard Ozzy sing. I didn't know what this guy was. I thought he had a fucking, like some kind of fucking ball in his mouth while singing. Yeah. But it was just like the whole thing was so evil. I was just like, I don't know what's going on.

But my life has changed from this point on. Awesome, man. With Venom, is there, is there two versions? I don't know where we're at now. Yeah, where? It's either two or three. Because there's Venom, ink, there's Venom, and then there's a new thing that Mantis and Abadon are doing, which is like having session members come in, too.

So I'm not exactly sure the whole thing, but, you know, I look at, it's really simple for me is that I love all those guys, I respect their, I don't know all those guys, I love them, but I love what they've done for music, and I respect all of them. And if any of those guys are playing in any bands, I'm gonna check it out, and I'm gonna show appreciation for it because they're a part

of why I'm here today. And just, you know, it's like, it's great to see, you know, of course, it's always nice to see, you know, the original lineup from the album that you liked or whatever together or whatever you want to say but the fact that the all these these bands are i mean the guys in the band are still playing they get all my support you know i know there's a rift between them but for me i just you know i respect all of them and i'm not good enough friends with any of them really to to get involved and and that kind of stuff i just like so long as

they're rocking out some of my classic songs that i grew up with as a kid it's nostalgia for me and it's me it's a great thing nice so so whichever one's come in like to the town. You're like, fuck it, I'm going. Yes, I'll definitely. Whatever, whatever one I get to see is a good day. Yeah, so you win. Yeah. All right, anything anything that you want to people to know about the band,

anything that I might have missed? I don't know, Luke, anything comes to mind? Well, the new album is almost done. Oh, shit, really? Yeah, yeah. There's tracking guitars for that. Before this tour, we got the drum mixes and, um, Got about halfway, so that's what I get to do as soon as I get home from this.

Nice. Get back to work on that. I'm really happy with the way it came out. We really, we really, well, the short story was we just really talked together about it beforehand, had like a kind of like a powwow on the situation and how we wanted to approach it. And it was nice to get everybody on the same page before even going into writing anything for. it and then it was just like everything just flew you know flowed out naturally and everyone contributed a lot to the album and it just it it feels great not just because the songs i think are

really stepped up but also just the vibe in the band and have that collaboration of everybody's you know songwriting quality in the in the music music and care into the music, I think is going to really make it, you know, be something that we could all be proud of. Because I wanted to make sure that we do this album that everybody, because everyone is a freaking badass in the band in one way or another. And it's like, I want all that to be represented. Because when we play live, it's like, you know, it's such a great vibe.

And I want to have that kind of collaboration vibe on the album. You know, I wanted to make sure that it wasn't something where any, you know, one person took too much you know control over it was all going to be a band effort and this is who we are now as a band it's not that it's changed from before but you know different lineups

different times you have to just be honest with the album and I think it's a very honest album and I'm super proud of it so yeah that's probably the biggest news um yeah besides that we just have some you know cool stuff coming up or playing in

Ferno Fest. I don't know when this is coming out, but we're at Ferno Fest of Norway. And that's, yeah, that's like three weeks from now. And we're super pumped for that. It's the first time doing that. And yeah, we're just really looking forward to just continue crushing skulls. I mean, the, you know, the vibe live you've been playing has been awesome. We just want to continue with it and just enjoy it while we can. Great.

So people check out the shows. Check them out on Instagram Incantation underscore official, correct? Yes. Okay, anywhere else? Oh, I was a TikTok one. I don't know. Oh, you want TikTok too? Yeah, I'm hit with the kids.

John is this like? Yeah, I'm on Renaissance, man. Yeah, I'm on TikTok. I don't even know what my handle is on TikTok. I think I might be under my name or something because I... Okay. But, yeah, I started doing that lately, and it's crazy because I avoided TikTok for years because I was just like, I don't know how to do these dances and stuff that all the kids are doing on.

You know, or I didn't, I didn't want to do like the, what was it, those, the challenge of eating the, um, eating the spicy chip. No, not the spicy chip, but the, the, um, whatever it was, the stuff for, um, the little pods or whatever. No tie pot. The tie pot. Tide pot. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was like, no, I can't do that to be on there.

You know, no tie pod challenge for me. So, yeah, I just started doing it only about six months ago, but it's getting there. You know, we have about over 2,000 followers, but mine are all just like me babbling about stuff mostly, a couple live things. Yeah, like I throw it on the tire there, you know. We're trying, you know. You don't want to be a hater, dude.

I fucking avoid TikTok for a while now. I'm the only one in my band that's on TikTok. It's awesome. Yeah. It's fucking rad. But it's, you know, it's not something that I would normally be into, but it's part of what you need to do these days to get your music out to people.

And it's like, you know, I'll do it. I mean, you know, to be fair, you know, I would prefer not to. But I know that it's, you know, it's helping the band out. And it's like, you know, it's a cool thing. And it's cool to connect to people and just to learn how, you know, the new way of promoting bands works and stuff like that. That's great. Because, I mean, I'm old school, you know. So somebody's new things are tough to get into, you know.

You got it. But I'm getting a vibe with it, you know. Play the game. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I'm getting more comfortable doing these podcasts now, too. So it's like you just get more you do it, you know, make a fool out of yourself for a while until, you know, people either like you being a fool or you get better at it. Mm-hmm. You know?

It's great. Does your TikTok know you yet? Because mine knows me. It knows me better than Instagram. Is that right? Yeah. I mean, it, yeah, but it likes to toss me stuff that it knows I won't like. Oh, weird.

And mine, for some reason, like, mine has just will always toss me seven does videos. I don't know where it's like, this is all it's going to be. And you know what? And it's long form, too. It's like full, like, videos, like five, five minutes long. I'm, I open my TikTok credit to do like a post or something. I found myself, oh, shit, I've been watching this live, seven does video for like three minutes. I think TikTok is evil because they do the same thing.

The worst about it is they'll show me something they know I don't like, but I'll watch it. Oh and then I'm watching it for like five minutes And then I'm like And I'm just like I told this Don't what am I doing watching this It knows you Like so and every time I see something I'm like

I gotta pass it up I don't like it's yeah it sucks It knows me better than I know myself Exactly so it's TikTok knows like You know what the singer of incantation likes the hate watch So I'm gonna keep giving me Yeah

See it knows you dude It's all right All right Luke John Thank you so much I'm on it Thank you guys Thank you Chris

It's always awesome Hell yeah. Thank you. All right, everyone. That's it. Let me guys.