Despised Icon Interview

The fourth full-length CD from Canadian death metallers Despised Icon is Day Of Mourning, produced by their former guitarist Yves St. Amand. Vocalist Alex Erian gives us the lowdown on a couple of lineup changes, the new album, tales from the road and several other topics.

Chad Bowar: Was your songwriting/recording process any different than usual for Day Of Mourning?
Alex Erian: We didn’t have as much time to write it then for our previous records. We were on tour all the time and took advantage of the few weeks we had at home in between tours to rest instead of writing. When you’re always on the road, it feels good to actually do non-band related things at home and enjoy your time off. We wrote at least half of the record during the Never Say Die and Montreal Assault tours. It was our first time writing on the road and we were a bit nervous at first. We didn’t want to sacrifice the quality and write (crappy) songs just to put out a record but every thing ended up working out great. Some of my favorite songs on the record were written on tour. I think we’ve all improved as musicians and songwriters and it shows on the record.

Eric and I always write most of the music. I usually program and link drum beats together on my computer, create the entire song structure and then sit down with Eric and sing riffs. That’s how it’s always been for us. We’re not the type of band that hangs out at the practice space and jams a bunch of riffs until they find the right ones. That’s a cool way to write but we’ve never been able to pull it off. Alex our drummer also co-wrote two songs with Eric, and Ben and Max wrote one song together. The album is really diversified musically. We added more influences, new and old but I think our old school death metal roots especially shine on this record. We have a couple of guitar solos, leads and melodies now. The drum patterns are more technical then ever and the album contains our best vocal performance, by far.

Read the complete Despised Icon Interview
Despised Icon - Day Of Mourning Review

(photo courtesy Century Media Records)