Trevor Peres: We talked to at least half a dozen labels. We had a person representing us who has been in the industry for 40 years. He took his knowledge and wisdom of the music industry and helped us out. He shopped around for us and wrote our contract for us. It wasn’t a 40,000 page offer from the record company that you can’t understand. He wrote a 3 page contract that is easy to understand. It’s straightforward. What’s cool is that it’s a licensing agreement. We made a deal where Candlelight has a license to put out our stuff for so many years, and if we’re happy with it then we’ll keep doing it. Basically the ball is in our court. It was the best of everything that we were looking for.
Does that mean you retain ownership of the songs and recordings instead of the label?
Yes, exactly. We own everything. They have a certain amount of units to sell in a certain time, and if they don’t we can say “see you later.” I have confidence they are going to do those numbers anyway. What’s great about it is that it puts the label on the spot to where if they don’t perform, then they lose out, not us.
Before, Roadrunner would put our albums out, and that was about it. They would do a little bit of marketing, and the second it hit the stores you never heard from them again. That’s not a way to work a band. We’re chugging around doing tons of tour dates, trying to get things going and they don’t care. Candlelight are a smaller label, which is great for us and our scene. Big things can happen with a smaller label. Roadrunner was a major label. The number we sell compared to Nickelback is nothing. At one point we were the number one or two band on the label, saleswise. It’s better to be out of there and working with somebody who cares about you.
You have a little break before your next U.S. tour. What have you been doing with your downtime?
The last couple weeks we’ve been doing a lot of interviews. I’ve been putting some merchandise designs together for the tour. I also race a stock car on the weekends at a little dirt track. It’s for entertainment and to keep my sanity level. I usually do a lot of freelance design and graphics work, but I’ve been so busy I haven’t had much contact with people. I am going to do some more of that work before we hit the road so I can make a few pennies here and there.
Now that you’re older with wives and families is it tougher on you to go out on tour?
Of course. But instead of being gone for months at a time like we used to, we try to do four weeks maximum now. We do that, come home for a little bit, then go out for another four weeks. You can cover the same amount of markets, it just takes longer, which is probably better.
You’ve been part of the death metal scene in Florida since the early days. How would you evaluate the state of metal and death metal today?
I think in general, the phrase “death metal” is way more popular than it ever has been. In the mid to early ‘80s when I was listening to Hellhammer and Celtic Frost, there was a half dozen people in my school that knew that stuff. Today everybody knows about death metal, even if they don’t listen to it. The different styles of death metal have also expanded since then. When we were first starting, to us death metal was a basic form and idea. You had bands like Death, Morbid Angel, Possessed, Deicide, Obituary. All those bands were unique in their own way, but they all had that same vibe. Nowadays there are a lot of different branches of the style.
