Sup Fellas! Let us go back to 1995 when one of the most significant records of all NY Death Metal history was dropped onto this earth like a cataclysmic bombardment. VORACIOUS CONTEMPT by Internal Bleeding is such an album. Once again, it has been a real honor to pick at these fellas brains in an attempt to recollect remnant thoughts and memories of the era when New York Death Metal was at it is highest peak and the world of death metal itself was in a rampant frenzy. The style captivated in this record remains unmatched and duplicated by many. As it matter of fact, the true New York Death Metal sound is a forgotten thing of the past that many new death metal fans seem to overlook due to the ever amassing releases of sterile and passionless offerings passed off as death metal in these recent times. Let us now learn something from the past and how it all came about when Internal Bleeding made their very first debut full length as young pioneers of the true east coast slam.
I command thee to rip up the dead... -Lou
CHRIS PERVELIS
A lot of effort went into the writing and making of Voracious contempt and although, in my opinion, the production did not come out the way we had envisioned it, I still think it is a fine album and a great representation of our music and what it meant to us.I think we were all fortunate in one respect, and that is we were all on the same exact page when it came to writing music. We knew we wanted to create songs that weren’t filled with excessive blast beats, mindless noodling and endless solos that took a song nowhere. We all wanted to concentrate on what I call the “two pillars” of tension and release. The point was always to build up tension in the listener to the point of explosion, and hit them in the head with a groove that would just get your body moving, your head banging and your fists pounding.
Writing a new song would usually start as a disparate collection of one or two riffs. Most of the time it was me or Anthony who developed the riffs but Brian, Frank and BIll each made significant riff contributions as well. We’d go through a long process of sorting out a rough framework of a song, then we’d go back into the song and pay attention to all the tiny details. We’d adjust beats, bass fills, riffs, speed and timing to get what we thought was the ideal combination. Most importantly, a song would develop over time through constant exploration and experimentation—especially in the drum category. Bill used to write a lot of generic fills just to hold space in a song until he developed more elaborate and appropriate fills. Brian would always end up sprinkling some really tasty bass fills into songs as well.
For the songs that already existed on the demos, we went through them and mostly slowed all the slam and heavy parts down and tinkered with the details.
I remember we wrote a whole song that never got a name other than “8.” We trashed the whole thing because it didn’t feel right—what a waste of two months. None of the riffs made it to Voracious Contempt, but a few did make it onto Extinction of Benevolence two years later.
We kept to a fairly rigorous three day a week schedule which really allowed us to experiment and improve the songs.
Lyrically, Frank handled most of that department (except for the songs that were on the demo) so I leave the lyrical development aspect for him to explain. I can remember after Frank and I saw the movie OUTBREAK, we discussed at length developing the song “Humanicide.” I am actually surprised we didn’t develop a song called “Clerks” because him an I almost pissed our pants when we saw that movie. I think we saw it more than once. Usually him and I and sometimes Bill and Brian too would go out to the movies on the weekends if we had nothing going on.
We all had our ups and downs, I think most bands do. Anthony could be very difficult to work with at times. He was very demanding, especially of Bill, and I can remember numerous verbal arguments between those two when it came to the writing process. When Anthony wrote something he heard the drums, right down to the fills in his head. That would bother Bill because it would step on his creativity. No matter, they always came up with a good solution and they had the mutual respect to work together on things, even though they would clash. I was a lot easier on Bill than Anthony was, although I had my moments I am sure. I would play a riff and say “I think a Euro blast would work here,” and let Bill decide what to do. Brian was much the same way as me. Much more laid back than Anthony. Frank always made suggestions to all of us, but was never adamant about his point of view musically and in turn, I don’t think we were too pesky with him lyrically. I would suggest things to him, but that’s about it.
I am sure I got on everyone’s case because I could be an incredible pain in the ass—when it came to certain things like being on time for practice, calling if you couldn’t make it, discipline, etc. I could be a real asshole.
But I think the coolest thing about our group relationship was the vocabulary we developed to describe parts of our music and things in general. For example:
--Electricity part: a slow, heavy riff with speeding double bass under the riff
--European: a blast similar to a morbid angel type blast, using the ride symbol
--”Pfffff”: an expression that usually means something is totally cool
--”Sicko”: see “pfff”
...and so on
We chose Cove City Sound Studios (http://covecitysoundstudios.com) because basically we were young and impressionable and were impressed by the smooth talking owner who said he could get any sound we wanted. We had originally wanted to go to Legend Studios, where we recorded our demos, but the label wanted a 24 track recording as opposed to a 16 track recording. Pavement had suggested a studio in NJ, but we rejected that due to the impossibility of each of us commuting from work to NJ.
I was particularly nervous when it came to recording the album and it took a toll on me. I don’t know why, I was fine recording the demos and recorded them with ease, but when it came to recording the album, I was a total mess. I had to re-do parts constantly, I couldn’t hear well and worse, I was completely hopped up on the home-roasted coffee that the studio had. I only made it through because of the encouragement of my bandmates.
As far as the guitar equipment, I recorded with a Charvel Model 6 and Anthony recorded with a Jackson Professional. We both used an Ampeg VH140C head, with a BBE sonic Maximizer, Boss Noise Reduction pedal and a rack EQ. The basic setting on the Ampeg was Level: 4, High: 6, Ultra Mid: 2, Low: 7 and Gain: Max. No distortion pedal was used. Those who know this head, know that it provides completely crushing sound without the use of pedals. The BBE was set to Contour: 6 and Process: 6. As for the EQ, it was set at a soft wave, with the highs and lows slightly boosted and the mids “scooped” or cut out slightly.
I think Brian used his Fender Bass and plugged in directly, but I could be totally wrong and I will let him correct me. As usual, he put in a solid performance with nary a mistake. Anyone who knows Brian knows this one thing—the man is solid as a rock, reliable and always gets it done.
Bill used his chrome Pearl Export set. I remember it taking a while for bill to really warm up, but once he did, he put in a great performance. I think he had a case of the nerves like me. I can remember both of us swilling that damn coffee the whole time we were there. It was just so goddamn good. But the caffeine content was off the charts.
Frank, well, there is nothing to say, his vocals just were sweet and right on the spot. I admire his perfectionism and I think he turned in a hell of a performance.
My favorite part of the recording was adding the gong to the end of the song “Humanicide.” I can remember just thinking “Damn, that just is the perfect accent for that riff.” I was so excited about that. I guess looking back that’s kind of dumb, but I was thrilled by it.
After the recording was complete, Pavement got a hold of it and wasn’t too keen on it. They wanted to send it to Scott Burns in Florida to do a remix. We were pretty psyched by that, but one of us needed to go to Florida to be there while he did it so we could make sure it came out right. Pavement wouldn’t pay for anyone to go and we were totally broke, so Scott had to do it on his own. It came out better than what we had done, but he completely fucked up something on Epoch of Barbarity. That long middle part isn’t supposed to be like that at all. It was totally different. But how would Scott know? No one was there to guide him. Needless to say, we were pretty disappointed by that.Overall, I am happy with the release. Just wish it was stronger in the production department. The songs hold up well, but the production just doesn’t give it justice in my opinion.
I don’t know who came up with the name for the album. We knew we wanted the name to express pure hatred, and Voracious Contempt, seemed like an apt title. It was either Frank or me who came up with the name. I lean towards Frank coming up with the name. I do know we all totally dug it.
We wanted to stray away from the typical oil paintings of the day, so Frank got in touch with his friend PJ who was an artist attending Parsons school of art (or Pratt, not sure). Anyway, the first album cover he delivered was brutal as hell. We loved it. Well, Pavement didn’t. It was too over the top for them. We went back to PJ and he sent us what was to become the cover. I personally think it matches the album title perfectly, even though it is less graphic than the original cover.
Release day was pretty exciting, especially since the album had BMG distribution. It was pretty much everywhere you looked. It was all very exciting. We had actually made it through the demo process, got signed and put out an album. Doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re young and in your 20s, its a big deal. For me especially. I have wanted that since I was a little kid air guitaring to Black Sabbath in my bedroom!
I would absolutely love to get the chance to re-record Voracious and give it the due it deserves. The fans have been so damn supportive of this release, and they—and we—deserve to give it justice.
BRIAN HOBBIE
Preparation for Voracious Contempt was pretty cut-and-dry as far as having enough material, getting things in order, artworks, etc. During the early 1990’s, a lot of folks were into what we had going on, which in a way made it easier to create the Voracious Contempt artwork. From time to time we would receive artwork from fans. When we got the artwork that is end it as the Voracious Contempt cover—that is what made it work, it fit the music perfectly, and it felt right. As for the music itself, we wanted to have material that was fresh without using any of our early stuff. In Extinction of Benevolence (our 2nd release), there is some older material that we re-recorded. We still played shows, did our normal routines and rehearsals before recording. I think the most that happened was when one of our gears exploded. The five of us were on same wave-length and shared like-minded chemistry during the Voracious Contempt days. We went in as a band on a mission to do the best job we could and we had a blast doing it. Looking back now, I must say that all personal habits and personalities did not get in the way. We all showed up on time and jammed the tunes. We were focused on getting the album done. It was truly a very learning-based atmosphere. Most of the tunes were written the in practice room and we wanted to have them done before recording. Chris and Anthony would lay down their riffs for the rest of the band and then the rest of us would write our parts/lyrics for the tunes. Our writing process was pretty basic.
We never had some mystical way of writing or had to be in some mood—being into the style that we were creating made the riffs flow. As long as the song structure was there, everything is became second fiddle.
I used my Fender P Bass and a Peavey Mark 4 head. The studio had an in-house 8x10 Ampeg cabinet, which I used and also an Ampeg STV4 as a back-up. Ampeg VH 140/150 guitar heads were (and still are) the amps of choice for recording. Ampeg, at one point in early 90s, started making transistor and tube guitar heads. The transistor ones have this gain that is unexplainable. No other head or even pedal had this gain/distortion tone at the time—it was perfect for Death Metal. Some bands today still use the Ampeg VH series and live by them, if they have one that works. Bill uses Pearl Drums and still has the same kit in collection to this day. As for guitars, old Charvel strats, the ones Jackson stopped producing years ago. I wish they would make them again because they were perfect for this kind of music. They just fit the style and performed strong. Chris used his Crate 4x12 cab that weighed a ton, but made up for in heaviness. Anthony used Ampeg and Marshall cabinets for recording. BBEs and Boss Noise Suppressors were the only effects used. We had no need for modulators, reverbs, or delays—not for what we wanted to create. Regardless, anything we could get our hands on that would provide massive amounts of girth and heaviness we spared none.
Cove City Sound Studios in Glen Cove,New York was the home base for Voracious. Also, Despise The Sun by Suffocation was recorded at this studio two years later in 1998. The story behind choosing this building for recording Voracious Contempt was that at the time, the band was on this odd Billy Joel kick. We had heard by accident a b-side to one of his hits on the radio and thought it was the greatest We found out that the song was recorded at Cove City Studios. The founder and co-owner of Cove City Studios is Richie Cannata,Billy Joels' sax player and long-time comrade/band-mate from the neighborhood. He is a very cool and professional guy that has one hell of a studio. It is not common that Death Metal bands record in a same building with gold records on the walls that exceed 4 million copies and some even 10 million—mostly contemporary rock and pop. it was awesome to be in that building as the band we were. On top of it all, Mr.Cannata treated us great and like pros. It was different for him, music wise, but he was into what we did. It was rare for him to work with death metal bands. He showed us a lot of old school pictures with people he jammed with and quizzed us. His office was like a shrine of music icons. This place helped give us all a positive outlook about the sessions and it worked for us and at the same time keeping the music brutal in its original nature. The only bad time we had there was that even in a 9 million dollar complex a band/artist can always manage to mess up the toilet and leave their mark. Once the mop and bucket were put away it was back to business!
Around January of 1996 when Voracious Contempt was completed and shipped off to the people of Pavement Records, I guess they did not like it because it got shipped to Scott Burns for re-mixing right after. I will admit that the band was having some over-indulged low-end snags. When you are a Death metal band recording your first release on a real record label and able to afford recording in a multi-million dollar studio, you can feel musically invincible. But some of us, mostly Anthony, soon realized that too much low-end on the board does not work. It can make everything sound broken. Once we got the Scott Burns mix and listened to it, we tried to figure out if it was the same guy who is like this wiz at recording Death Metal by judging the final mix-down. If you have the album, some of the mixes regarding the instruments is off, as well as an error in track listing. All that we knew was that it wasn't the same mix that left Cove City. The sound engineer at Cove City, who went by the name Dug, and simply Dug, did a killer job and worked with us until the end, A trooper indeed! The way it came out from Cove City was insane, and gave Voracious Contempt the brutal sound it was supposed to have. If the label thought by sending it to a more "well-known" studio for this kind of music would have helped, that is truly a gamble that doesn't always work. Im not doubting Scott Burns works, past or present, or trying to insult him. Recording at Morrisound Studios maybe would of not have worked out for us—never rule out anything. Being that our style would get tagged as Mosh Metal or Slam Metal, and Black Sabbath being a main influence opposed to influences that were considered common for most of the icons then; should the band have flown down to Tampa to oversee things? Most bands that care about their work would have done so and we do. Receiving infomation on time helps also and not finding out after the fact. In the end the album got released and sold the best it could.
The possibility of ever re-recording Voracious Contempt? Honestly,I don't know. In someways,it wouldn't be the same or seem like Voracious Contempt. The way it come out,even with it's bumps and grinds, cemented itself, as-is,with no point of return or going back. If we ever did try and remaster it,a process it would be. Been like almost 15 years since the day we walked into Cove City, but I would think the masters are there, or with the people of Crash Music(post Pavement records). A re-recording could happen but most fans have told us that they love it, so why ruin a good thing. Sometimes a remastering can destroy the whole thing. Some remastered albums that I've obtained over-time have pissed me off with the way they did it again. I have some favorites that I can only listen to in original format now-a-days. People get big-heads and mess it all up for the old school, screw that!, if it works, don't fix it! Bill and myself were stoked that Scott Burns made us very loud in the album. Much bass and drum compliments indeed have come our way. Hails to ya Scott! It wasn't a total catastrophe, greats like Steve Harris would be proud of you!
This era of Internal Bleeding was definitely a milestone for the entire band. Not only us, but for all the other awesome brutal bands of the time. All of us have experienced the rewards, failures, trials and errors of the business then. You had a very strong Underground Metal scene and awesome bands. The Voracious Contempt album got us our first U.S. tour and established our Death Metal notoriety in the world. We did a lot of out-of-state shows with my black pick-up van and it got the job done for 10 years. Hails to that Death Metal battle tank of a vehicle! Eternally thanks to all that have supported us at that time, and I wish the best of everything and fortune for those who have taking damage for us during our shows, and to anyone who took a serious hit, we do hope that who-ever is in charge of this thing called "life", may it bring you healing and better fortune. The press then too was full throttle and you couldn't read the amount of fanzines that was coming out quick enough to keep up (and done with paper and pen). In that era Death Metal and Black Metal ran rampant and on the loose. The Roxy Music Hall in Huntington, New York WAS the Metal scene, and no place has lived up to what it was about since then. A lot of show flyers that might have had some crazy shit happen at that show, a cool memory on paper, along with getting to play or co-headline with some killer national acts like Cannibal Corpse, Gorguts, Immolation, Broken Hope, Six Feet Under, and every great band that we played Metal festivals with. Some underground bands of that era too, Dying Fetus, Lividity, Drogheda, Mortal Decay, Deaden, Sodomized, Necrosis(NY), Reefer Hut,Ton, Fleshgrind, Oppresser, Cryptopsy, Hot Stove, Waco Jesus, the list goes on. We thank them for jamming with us! It was the best of times I have never forgotten them! Thank you!
FRANK RINI
After Internal Bleeding’s initial Milwaukee Metal Festival appearance in the summer of 1994, Pavement Records wanted to sign us and they sent us a contract—we negotiated with them a three album deal. While returning from a show we were discussing the album title and wanted something that had hate in it. I mentioned Voracious and then I think it was Chris Pervelis that said Contempt. We put it together, hence the album name. Now a lot of the record was already written. We re-did three songs off the Invocation of Evil demo and three off the Perpetual Degradation demo. The new songs were Languish in Despair, Humanicide, Reflection of Ignorance and God of Subservience. We were rehearsing three times a week and the songs were coming along fine. It was just a matter of tightening them up. When I first joined the band, I had told the guys that I would leave the music up to them and I wanted to just do the lyrics. They were cool with that and Chris Pervelis would come up with lyrical ideas/suggestions from time to time. At that time, I would get the music on a tape that we recorded in our rehearsal space and take it home to write the lyrics. Then I would see what lyrics went with each song to then construct the phrasing while listening to each part of the song. I would then come to practice and we would hammer out the song and I took in all suggestions from the fellas. Maybe a growl needed to be taken out, added, increased in length etc—it would all be put in place. I took great care in coming up with phrasing that was catchy and that went along with the song in a coherent manner. Now it was up to us to find a studio. The music was done and we contacted Cove City studios in Glen Cove, New York. We had to actually have an interview with them before they decided they wanted to record us. They liked us and said ok. We had to load in the equipment at night due to Taylor Dane being there recording and not wanting to be seen. She was a pretty popular pop/rock singer at the time. I can remember after we loaded in the equipment Bill and I were waiting near the steps inside and she comes strolling along, without make-up on with her entourage and she struck up a conversation with us. She asked “Do you know who I am?” I did not recognize her at all, she looked rough and I said “No”. She then told us and we were like “oh wow, that’s just great” and then we just moved on. It was an awkwardly funny moment.
We all were getting along quite well during the recording. Tempers flared a little when maybe someone had to keep redoing a part over to get it right. The engineer Andy Tarr was pretty cool and Dug was the producer on scene. All the music was written and then it was up to me to lay the vocals down, which was daunting, since this was my first time in a recording studio. I prepared by drinking a lot of tea and eating tons of honey—it thickened up my vocal chords a lot. It was very strange wearing these big heavy earphones and singing into a pea shooter and microphone and all you can mainly hear is your voice. We just put a little reverb and equalized to the vocals to thicken them in the studio, nothing was done to enhance deepness or anything like that. Miola kept pushing me to hold out the growls longer and longer. I think I nearly collapsed on growls during Languish in Despair, Anointed in Servitude, Reflection of Ignorance and God and Subservience. In the long run, it was for the better and all the guys were very supportive of my vocals and were very helpful in the studio. But I banged out the vocals quickly and when we listened to the entire record we loved it. They even gave us a tape that we took home and we loved it. It was shipped to Pavement and they despised the mix. At that time Scott Burns at Morrisound Studios in Florida was the big name producer in Death Metal. He remixed the entire album. The album came out more compressed and I do like the version better, it does sound tighter; however, since we were not there for this mixing, some things were screwed up. The mastering is iffy. In the cd, where Gutted Human Sacrifice starts, but it shows on the cd as Epoch of Barbarity while it is still on. Also, the mix on Epoch of Barbarity is screwed up. What happened was that both the original mix and Scott Burns mix got combined towards the end, so when Bill is hitting the snare I can hear almost like a double snare being hit. I do have the original Voracious Contempt recording on a dumpy old tape. It was very raw sounding and it actually captured the live energy better than the final mix. The guitars were more upfront, but when I play them back to back, the Scott Burns mix actually sounds more cohesive. During the recording Pavement Records stiffed on some recording reels that we actually had to front. The album was recorded in analog, so that kind of stunk. Anthony came up with the intro, the weird carnival music that goes into Languish in Despair. We would open up a lot of the shows/tour with that and then go into Languish in Despair and the pits were like nuclear eruptions!
The reviews from the fanzines were incredible, however not everything was positive. Voracious Contempt came out in the summer of 1995, the same year as Pierced from Within, from Suffocation. Since they were around longer some reviews compared us to them and said we copied some of their sound. I was quite confused because 6 of the 10 songs were written from 1992-1994 during the demo days and the four new songs on the record were so slam filled and not technical, unlike Suffocation. But in the long run it may have helped us sell more records because it was NY Death Metal and a lot of people loved the sound at the time. Some fans thought the album did not sound as good as our live shows, but you can never please everyone. Pavement Records sent the cd to labels with bigger bands and Metal Blade’s Six Feet Under wanted to tour with us since their debut Haunted just came out and Immolation was on the bill too. We toured for 5-6 weeks across the entire U.S. and Canada. On the tour with Six Feet Under and Immolation, we made a lot of new fans and the album sold pretty well, with promotion being done more on our end then Pavement Records, although they did try and were able to get us a few full page ads in magazines and even got us a full page ad with picture and album cover in the BMG catalog.
During the recording we found an artist named PJ Loughran who did illustrations for the New York Times magazine. He was a young guy who was artsy fartsy. He heard our music and came up with many different interpretations of what Voracious Contempt meant. I have all the original drawings still. One piece was two guys in three piece suits carving up a lady. The finished work was incredible and Pavement denied it due to censorship. It did remind us a bit of Butchered at Birth from Cannibal Corpse. Another drawing was just people killing themselves and each other. Finally, he came up with the finished piece and we loved it and I still love it to this day. Voracious Contempt means intense hatred and nothing is more evil than killing or about to kill someone. I felt sorry for PJ, Pavement Records screwed him with paying him and did not give him his full fee. He kept harassing me and I was like dude if you want to sue us, go ahead, we are a Death Metal band making no money, which was true. In the end, he was just happy to get something like that published. We were also in touch with a guy named Sean Carr who came up with the sicko Internal Bleeding tribal symbol and that is in the cd. Chris Pervelis, a graphic designer, by trade did the layout and did a stellar job. The back picture of the band was taken at some local scrap heap/junkyard. The live pictures, on the inside, were taken from various shows and the cd tray is a live shot of us at the Roxy and it captures the band in its live glory and the pit as a swarming mass of bodies. Miola is cut out of the picture, because the entire picture could not fit. So it’s got Chris, Brian, Bill’s drums and me bending down growling, while stomping across the stage.
I think that does it. I am proud of Voracious Contempt and do not think it needs to be re-recorded, but a remastering of it and our second full length, The Extinction of Benevolence would benefit from today’s technology. We were young at the time and I think for the budget and our experience Voracious Contempt came out a good recording. It was released in CD and Cassette format and was available at all record chains when it came out. 1995/1996 was a good year for Internal Bleeding and we were at the top of our game. I would like to thank you Lou for your dedication to this NY Death Metal project and for keeping the Internal Bleeding name alive. I would also like to thank the fans that consider Voracious Contempt a classic death metal record, that means a lot and the Internal Bleeding fans from NY were the most dedicated and amazing fans. By and large, I will always have fond memories of Internal Bleeding fans that were there for us. You all crush!
