Malevolent Creation
By Eric Chon
Friday. Aug 05, 2:16 AM
An interview with guitarist Phil Fasciana.

18 years of brutal Floridian death metal: another Buffalo-native (alongside Cannibal Corpse), Malevolent Creation have been one of those constant forces within the genre. Always sick, always heavy, and always crushing. Of course, constant line-up changes and controversy have inevitably followed the band (“They Breed,” anyone?), but they’ve always managed to pull through stronger than before. I got a chance to speak with Phil Fasciana – founding member and guitarist – about their first U.S. tour in almost a year, what they think of metal today, and touring disasters.

Hey man, how’ve you been?

Man, it is fuckin’ hot down here. It fuckin’ sucks! 8:30 in the morning and it’s already 90 degrees out. It sucks for rehearsals and it just never cools down. (laughs)

How’s Warkult been received so far?

Good! I think a lot of people are comparing it to our last one (The Will To Kill) because of Kyle, but everything’s been fine. We haven’t heard any horrible reviews out there, but then again we don’t really care. We’re happy with it and that’s what counts. And we’re ready to take it on the road here.

A lot bands love going on tour, but they don’t have the years Malevolent Creation have. Has your opinion on touring changed after doing it so much?

Nah. The best part of playing is playing live. You want to impress people and you want them to know your stuff kills. People get your new album and they wanna see you live and hear the band kick ass. That just fuckin’ rules. You get a chance to make a good impression on the crowds.

Yeah, touring is rough – it certainly takes a lot out of you – but it’s definitely fun. We haven’t done any tours in the U.S. in almost a year. We are so anxious to get the fuck out of Florida, man. Especially toward the West Coast: that will rule.

Any surprises for us this time around?

We’ve got a really cool set list for this tour. We’ll be playing a lot of songs we haven’t played since we fucking recorded the album, you know? Stuff from 1992, 1993: shit like that. It’ll be fucking cool and it’s certainly made the tour more interesting for us and the fans.

Okay, so what happened with Divine Empire?

The broke up completely! I know that Jason (Blachowicz, Divine Empire bassist/vocalist and also former Malevolent Creation bassist/vocalist) is looking for a new drummer and guitarist and that JP (Divine Empire guitarist; also former M.C. member) and Duane are also looking for new guys as well. I don’t know who’s keeping the name, man! (laughs) It’s such crazy drama. They keep telling me everything since I’m right in the middle. It’s a goddamn heavy metal soap opera! (laughs) And I’ve known Jason since he was 16!

We wanted to tour with Divine Empire. Me and Jason, we’ve patched our differences up. JP and I have been good friends for a long time also. It’s always good to tour with friends and since they were a three-piece, it was easy traveling. All this shit went down and... man, I had no idea the band was so fucking screwed up. (laughs)

What do you think of all these young bands nowadays?

What people call metal these days is fuckin’ weird. When I think of metal, I don’t think of these skinny dudes with dyed black hair parting it on one side being all angsty and shit. I don’t know about that kinda crap and people think that that’s metal! That’s fuckin’ strange! Bands like us – imageless bands – we’re always going to be around. Where the music is more important than the look. Unfortunately, the U.S. is so trendy… I don’t even know what the hell they’re all about. What I read about in magazines or hear on MTV: what they’re supposedly playing is metal, but I can’t tell one band from another, you know? I just don’t know what the hell is going on, dude.

And this New Wave of American Metal? They’re just stealing Swedish riffs and shit… who stole them all from older bands at that! There’s nothing new wave about it. I’m from the old school. Metal to me is Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Saxon, that kinda thing. I don’t understand what people consider heavy metal here anymore.

Would you say that Malevolent Creation have staying power because you guys are consistent and aren’t influenced by these trends?

The thing that pushes us… well, after you put out a record, the main goal is try and do better on the next one! We keep pushing ourselves to make better, heavier, more brutal albums each and every time. If I thought that we were slacking, I wouldn’t do it. If I feel we’re writing songs worthy of putting out there, we’ll keep doing it until that’s not true.

Will war themes remain constant or are you thinking of trying to go in new directions?

The war theme has always been associated with all our albums. It’s a topic we’re into and, you know, we’re in a death metal band. We deal with some pretty bad shit and war is dealing with the worst shit ever. But with our last album, we turned it into dealing with war throughout history, not just this latest Iraq bullshit.

On our next album, though, we’re gonna change it up. There’s no war. It’s going to be all new, sicker ways to reflect on death through disease and stuff. We’ve got tons of topics related to death and lots of cool ideas and song titles. It’s going to be fucking sick.

Actually, it’s going to our 10th album too, so we wanna really do something special with it. I want to be one of those bands that never fade out. When we stop I don’t want to ever hear that phrase “they used to be good!” or that we changed and became lame. Malevolent Creation have always been about keeping the pedal to the metal: we’re gonna go out as hard as we came into this shit.

Speaking of going out, do you have any crazy tour stories you’d rather not repeat this time around?

Well, there’s a lot of shit I can’t repeat here, (laughs) but the only bad thing that I can really recall happened in 1999. We got pulled over in Little Rock, Arkansas – our bus got pulled over – and the cops found three ounces of weed. Oh that was bad. We got jailed for four days and missed three shows. It was just like that movie Stir Crazy, man. We were literally wearing black-and-white striped suits! I woke up every morning hoping it was a dream. They took a ton of cash from us and… man, that was the worst.

Sounds like a fucking joke...

Oh wait! We actually had a tour bus trailer break away in Portugal! The bus went left and the trailer went right. We were driving along these cliffs and it slammed right into the railing, which stopped it from going over. Guitars flew out and everything! (laughs) Everyone went running out of the bus screaming! Thank god none of that shit was mine! I just laughed and said “goodnight, suckers!” and went right back to sleep. (laughs) They were fishing broken guitars out of the water and everything. It was fucking nuts!

The driver didn’t put the hitch on right and BAM! It came loose. It was a huge trailer that was holding equipment for four bands. I can’t believe it didn’t go over that cliff. I would’ve loved to have seen that. Well… no, that would’ve actually sucked. (laughs) A lot of my stuff was in there!

Sounds like touring can be pretty stressful. Any secrets to relaxing and taking it easy?

There really isn’t much time to do anything, so I end up reading a lot. I fart around on the guitar a lot as well. We definitely smoke a lot to pass the time and listen to some crazy shit. One good thing about being on tour is we get a chance to listen to mellower music and chill out. Good Southern rock: you know, bust out with the Skynard and stuff.

Has there been anything recently that’s caught your attention?

Well… I got into the new Judas Priest for awhile. I like it but I don’t love it. To be honest I haven’t really heard anything recently that’s mind blowing. The new Hate Eternal is definitely pretty good. It sounds a hell of a lot better than their last one. I did get the new Morgoth best-of collection. I forgot how fucking awesome their first two EPs are: simply brutal. That dude’s voice is the shit!
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Eric Chon

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