It all started back in 1985 in Bayonne, New Jersey, when drummer Kevin Kuzma and bassist Louis Starita joined forces with vocalist Gary Markovitch and guitarist Adam Tranquilli under the band’s original name, BLOOD LUST. BLOOD LUST’s first studio effort surfaced in February of 1986 in the form of a four song demo tape entitled "Suicidal Mission". Later that month, Michael Basden was recruited as a second guitar player. In May of 1986 the band was approached by New Renaissance Records to appear on a pair of compilation album "Thrash Metal Attack" and "Speed Metal Hell Volume 3", with two tracks lifted straight off the demo tape. Soon afterwards the band was forced to change their name, and so they did… now calling themselves BLOOD FEAST. In June of 1986, New Renaissance Records offered the band an album contract. The band financed the budget for the recording of the first album themselves, and in February of 1987 the debut album from BLOOD FEAST entitled "Kill For Pleasure" became reality. Even with an extremely poor production and very little promotion from the record company, the album quickly became New Renaissance’s top selling release. It was the band’s musical talent, determination, and electrifying live performances (which always ended with a blazing cover of the CELTIC FROST classic ‘Into The Crypts Of Rays’) that gave them the recognition they deserved, not to mention their strong underground following and many favorable reviews in magazines and fanzines worldwide. Realizing BLOOD FEAST’s potential, New Renaissance immediately sent the band back into the studio to record a four song mini-LP. In December of 1987, "Face Fate" was released and almost immediately outsold the debut album. In June of 1988, BLOOD FEAST found themselves back in the studio to record a ten song demo, this time as a quartet, as Adam Tranquilli was asked to leave the band (he was later seen in HEADLOCK and most recently resurfaced in the band WITHOUT END on guitar and lead vocals – for more details, check out our review section). This demo was titled "The Last Remains", and it was recorded on 24 tracks and indicated a tremendous growth in the band’s songwriting and musical skills. The music is still aggressive and powerful as ever, but the addition of professionalism and finesse brought their music to new heights. There were some minor changes in the production of the album, such as new cover artwork and a name change. The title became "Chopping Block Blues" and was recorded in the summer of 1989 and released in February of 1990. "Chopping Block Blues" marked the band’s greatest songwriting achievement, and is a concrete indication of their true potential and unique style, but unfortunately, became the band’s last recording, as they broke up soon after its release. After being disbanded for over 10 years, the band got back together for a one time only gig at the March Metal Meltdown in Asbury Park, New Jersey in 1999. When they hit the stage, they took everyone back to 1987, because it seemed like you were seeing them in their prime. Unfortunately, although there were rumours of a possible reunion, it never happened after this concert and now each and every member is living his own life. However, in 2002, a compilation CD entitled "Remnants: The Last Remains" (including demo tracks, unreleased stuff, live and cover versions) was released by former drummer Kevin Kuzma’s newly founded own label Militia Records…

As far as I’ve heard, the band originally started out as BLOOD LUST… Was that your first band ever or was there already anything prior to that?
"Uhm… BLOOD LUST… BLOOD FEAST was pretty much my only real true band. I mean, I’ve played in cover bands before that. We used to play a lot of Thrash covers at the time. I might have been in about maybe two different bands before that. Nothing serious, we never wrote any kind of original material, it was basically just… you know… some friends got together and we just used to play some songs that we liked. We did stuff by… I don’t know man… god… EXODUS, POSSESSED, CELTIC FROST; DESTRUCTION, SODOM, VENOM, METALLICA… We did a lot of underground stuff, that was considered heavy at the time… we did some RAVEN, we did ANGEL WITCH… we did stuff like that. At the time, obviously, when l originally first started playing, those were pretty much the bands that I was influenced by… I never really had too much influences as far as mainstream kinda Rock. It basically went from BLACK SABBATH to TANK to a lot of the NWOBHM stuff and then it just went from there. But basically the answer to the question is yeah, I was in other bands prior to BLOODLUST, but nothing serious, just basic coverbands, just fooled around, played out maybe a few times with that and had a good time with it."

When did you exactly start out with BLOOD LUST and who was in the line-up at that time?
"BLOOD LUST started… I think we formed probably at about like ’85. It happened pretty quick. It was myself on drums, Lou Starita on bass, Adam Tranquilli on guitar and Gary Markovitch on vocals. We used to have a different guitar player in the band at the time, I don’t even remember his last name… his name was also Kevin something, but he just really wasn’t working out. When we first got together, we started out playing some coversongs, a lot of coversongs that we did, again were in the same type of vein as I previously mentioned. We were real big on CELTIC FROST; we did like, I think two CELTIC FROST covers, some SLAYER, some METALLICA, some EXODUS… But the line-up was originally the four of us and we started, like I said… I believe it was around ’85 when we originally got together."

Did you still play a different style of music at the time?
"If you’re basically asking us, if we were playing stuff out of the mainstream, yeah! I mean, like I said, ever since I started playing in a band, I’ve never really played anything, but more of the aggressive, more underground type of Metal! Whether you wanna call it Thrash, Death, Black… whatever kinda term you wanna use for it. It was always basically out of the mainstream, aggressive, fast… you know, that type of stuff. "

When and why did you go for a name change? Was the other BLOOD LUST (who were also around at the time) responsible for your name change in any way?
"Exactly! They were pretty much the reason why we changed the name. Soon after our demo was released we discovered that there was another band called BLOOD LUST out on Metal Blade. We didn’t really know how to handle it at the time, we basically kept putting out our demotape under BLOOD LUST… A lot of people knew us already as BLOOD LUST around our local area. We were starting to make a name for ourselves, we were starting to make an impact into the scene around here. It wasn’t really until we were starting to talk to our record company and really got into the thing about getting signed, when the name change really came up. It was pretty much an advice from our lawyer at the time to basically say, ‘Listen… they might have copyrights, they might have trademarks on the name, so you guys better change your name’. So, for the sake of really getting signed without any type of legal hassle and going through this at the last minute and instead of building up even a bigger following under the name BLOOD LUST we just decided, that yeah, its probably better to just go ahead and change the name. BLOOD FEAST I think was always something that was sitting in the background anyway, to tell you the truth. We pretty much had a list of names before we actually picked out BLOOD LUST, you know. And I think BLOOD FEAST was one of the names on there. So, it wasn’t like it was a big decision, it wasn’t really that hard to go back and say ‘Well, now we have to look for a totally different name and change I it this much and people won’t know who I we are anymore… ‘ and all that kinda stuff. We basically just went back and I looked for something similar or close I and we all liked it, so…"

Did you already record anything as BLOOD LUST or did the "Suicidal Mission" demo come out under the BLOOD FEAST moniker?
"No, the demo originally came out under BLOOD LUST. The entire time the demo was available, it was under BLOOD LUST. Like I said, we really didn’t need to change the name or felt we had to change the name until we were really getting close to getting signed. And basically that’s what we did."

Tell us a bit more about that demo, like which songs appeared on it, how many copies you spread around, what kind of response you were getting and stuff!
"Well, I don’t have a definite account on how many we actually made and sold and spread out. A lot of ’em went to fanzines, a lot of ’em were done as giveaways, I mean, we used to go to shows and just hand out our demotape at shows. There were only a few stores at the time that would actually accept demotapes. I would have to say that the demo itself… I don’t know… I’ll say a thousand maybe, that we actually put into stores and maybe sold. The rest, like I said, were pretty much given away. The four songs that were on the demotape, were ‘Menacing Thunder’, ‘The Evil, ‘Bloodlust’ and ‘Suicidal Mission’."

What made you recruite Mike Basden as your second guitarist after the recordings of the demo? Did you feel you were lacking in harmonies or was it just to give the band an even heavier sound?
"I would probably have to say that harmonies at that particular time, when we were creating the songs, had really nothing to do with it. It was basically to have a heavier sound, but also to have another guitarplayer’s input. We felt that it would be better to have two guitarists to come up with ideas and share ideas between themselves as far as writing, rather than just have one. I’m not saying that one is lacking anything… Like I said, I think the initial reaction of getting a second guitarplayer was due to the fact of… we wanted to present ourselves to be really really outstanding live and we felt that having the one guitar player was sufficent for recording purposes and writing purposes, but to actually perform the material live was a main concern on getting a second guitarplayer. And that’s why Mike pretty much entered."

With two of your songs, ‘Manacing Thunder’ and ‘Suicidal Mission’, you managed to appear on the New Renaissance Records compilation albums "Thrash Metal Attack" and "Speed Metal Hell Vol.III’ respectively. Have they been taken from the demos or were they from the album recording session?
"Those two tracks, that we put on those comps were strictly right off the demos. What we did was, we went into the studio where we recorded the demo itself, we basically just went in and we mastered them a little bit. Nothing was really remixed, we basically just threw a little bit more highs and lows into it and sorted some of that stuff out."

How did you actually hook up with New Renaissance Records? Was that the only label that showed interest in the band or why did you go with them? I mean, at least overhere their reputation at the time wasn’t really the best, so…
"I could probably spend another five audio tapes explaining this whole situation to you with New Renaissance, but to save me the headache and to save you the time, I’ll pretty much $sum it up as short as possible. At the time when we had our demotape and we were sending out a bunch of packages and stuff like that we weren’t really getting the best response from record companies. A lot of the record companies that we sent stuff to, the bigger record companies at the time anyway, Roadrunner, Metal Blade… we didn’t really send too many overseas record companies any type of packages, but it was mainly trying to get a label here in the U.S. We probably would’ve had a better deal, if we did send stuff out to Europe more and probably gotten a much better record label to support us rather than what we did here in the States with New Renaissance. So, yeah, they were probably one of the only labels that showed interest in us that they weren’t signing as much Thrash Metal, which we were considered at the time. They wanted to move on to explore other types of Metal, other types of music, I believe. The letters were pretty consistent in that kinda way. New Renaissance we felt… the good thing about them at the time we thought was that they were a new label and that they were gonna be hungry and that they would be willing to do a lot more for new signings, due to the fact that they were a new label and they might be actually starting to make an impact into this record industry. You know, we were young, I mean, I was 18 when I signed that contract and I was pretty much the youngest person in the band at the time, being about maybe two years or three years behind the oldest person in the band. And we really didn’t have any type of experience, we didn’t really have anybody that we could count on as far as giving us any kinda legal advice or explaining any contracts to us. We basically went to an attorney that I knew personally, from my family actually dealing with him. And he basically looked through the contract and said ‘Well, this is the contract and if you guys feel that this is a sufficient contract and you guys wanna be involved in the record company this way, then go for it!’ And basically that’s what we did. Long story short – the way New Renaissance turned out, they pretty much hurt us more than anything else! You know, we had a lot of opportunities thrown at us from different people to do a lot of kinds of different things. Touring was a big thing that we could’ve done, we could’ve done extensive touring, more so than what we did. But unfortunately you needed some type of backing, not only from the company that was going to actually book the tour, but from your record company! And you know, New Renaissance pretty much just sucked! We were one of the only bands that was, l know, at the time selling for them. We were one of the only bands who’s actually out on the road and doing stuff on our own. And like I said, we pretty much had a lot of opportunities slipped through our fingers due to the fact that… when it came time for New Renaissance Records to actually provide us with the support that we needed, whether it be advertising , whether it be funds to go on the road or any type of support or anything like that, their answer was always "We don’t have the extra funds to do it!" and it hurt us more than it helped us. So, if you’re telling me they didn’t have the best reputation, I’m sure you’re understanding where I’m coming from as far as the record company is concerned."

How about the live shows of BLOOD FEAST back than? Did you have many possibilities to play out across the country or was it difficult to get shows?
"Shows was never really a difficult thing. At the time the club scene was a lot stronger for Metal, to see live performances by Metal bands than it is today. Again, like I previously just said, we had a lot of opportunities that we could’ve done, a lot more stuff than we did and unfortunately because of the situation we were in with the label that we were on, nobody really wanted to touch us due to the fact that they knew that there was gonna be no kind of tour support available for us. What we did manage to do, we managed to tour from the Eastcoast to the Mid West of this country with DEATH ANGEL, who were pretty popular at the time. We also did a Eastcoast tour with the band DEATH, I think it was during their "Leprosy" album and basically around here it was were we mostly did our shows. We mostly played along on the Eastcoast… New York, we constantly played a club which I’m sure everybody’s familiar with, called L’Amour in Brooklyn. We used to get a lot of really good opening spots on those shows that we did there, because we were a local band and our following was strong, the people used to definitely come out to see us along with whoever else was playing. We’ve opened up for a lot of good and big bands and we’ve done stuff with TESTAMENT, POSSESSED, KING DIAMOND, MEGADETH… I mean the list goes on, you know. We had a lot of good opportunities also to do stuff that never happened. We were supposed to do something over in Europe too, which again fell through due to the fact of lack of tour support, lack of promotion, due to New Renaissance’s part. I know that we were trying to get something together, to do something over in Europe at the time with SEPULTURA, which would’ve been great. But unfortunately a lot of the stuff fell through. But getting shows in general around here to keep us alive, to keep our name going… like I said, it was never really a problem to get shows. I think we were a big enough band around here and in the States at the time to be able to hook up with bigger bands and do support for them at shows."

Where did you draw your main musical and lyrical influences from back then?
"Musical influences for us, and I guess I speak on Gary’s part, cause I think Gary was the guy who mostly wrote all the lyrics… was stuff that we were listening to at the time. You know… I’II go through it again, we listened to bands like VENOM, METALLICA, SLAYER, DESTRUCTION, SODOM, TESTAMENT… the list goes on, anything that was Thrash, a lot of German stuff man, I mean, we used to listen to… I know everybody in the band used to be into ASSASSIN, ARTILLERY… you know, all kinds of stuff like that. Lyrically I’m going to say, I feel like I’m speaking on the part for Gaary, but… you know… the music, the scene itself, all the things that influenced us, the movies we used to watch, the news on TV man. I know that there was some songs that he basically got ideas from watching the news, so I’d say it had to do with music, it had to do with everyday life stuff that we’d see, stuff that we’d hear… just along the lines of that is pretty much where all our influences came from."

When and where did you record your debut album "Kill For Pleasure". Was it difficult for you to come up with a satisfying result as you had to pay for the recording on your own?
"We actually recorded "Kill For Pleasure" in a city called Hoboken here in New Jersey. As far as the production, I’m going to say that I’m not a hundred percent satisfied with the way it came out. I think that it wasn’t really a good representation of what the band actuslly sounded like when you came to see us or what we were actually capable of doing. Due to the fact that we did have to pull the money out of our own pockets to pay for the recording of it… we went to a wellknown studio around here… But the problem was not so much the studio we went to, but it was the people that we were working with. You know, we walked in and the guys who were running the studio, who own the studio, really had no idea whatsoever on how to take what we were laying down on tape and get across in the way we were trying to present it. Therefore I’m going to say that, even with the minimum amount of money we spent on it, I think that if we actually had better people behind the board, when we were recording it, it probably would’ve come out much better. I do like the fact of how it sounds though, due to the fact of that it’s so raw! I mean, if you basically came to a rehearsal of ours, you’d pretty much hear those songs the way they sounded with an overall little bit better sound, a little bit better guitar sound, a little bit better drum sound, the way we really sounded and the way we were trying to present our sound really wasn’t been shown on that recording, but, like I said, I love raw recordings like that. I don’t like recordings that sound like like overall shit, which I don’t think "Kill For Pleasure" sounds like, it definitely lacks the prime quaIity production that a lot of bands were getting at the time and even have today. But I think for the time of when it came out and for the type of material that it is, I think the production is one of the things that actually draws some people to it."

What kind of response did you get on it? Do you think New Renaissance Records promoted you properly enough?
"No, I don’t think New Renaissance did anything properly enough. But the response was phenomenal! Basically… I know she had some type of distribution overseas, I don’t even recall who it was at the time, but the fanmail was so consistent. I could go to the P.O. Box every day and there would be letters in there, not one, not two, but several letters from people from all over the U.S. and mostly, I would say probably 75% of all of our fanmail, came from Europel The response from what I could tell, and this is just by going from live shows, this is just by going from fanmail itself, by doing the shows that we did, touring a little bit that we did and talking to people, it was a great response that we had to that record!"

In 1988 the "Face Fate" EP followed, which was only released as a picture disc. What was the reason for that? Was it limited in any way? Tell us a bit more about the songs that appeared on that and when you recorded them!
"The "Face Fate" EP actually was done under the request of New Renaissance Records. They knew that "Kill For Pleasure" was doing really well, they told us that it was doing really well and they wanted to put something out that was gonna be a little bit special for the people who were into this band at the time. Picture Discs back then were something of a collectable kind of appeal. The size, you know, just putting out a picture disc with old songs on it or not giving something bonus seemed like a bogus kinda thing for a record company to do in our eyes. So, basically, when New Renaissance presented us the idea of doing something like this, a Picture Disc for something, instead of putting "Kill For Pleasure" out on a Picture Disc or maybe just giving them four songs on a limited edition Picture Disc, we basically decided that we would like to do something new or something different with some of the songs that we had and put it on this, so that the fans would not only buy it for the reason of it being a collectors Picture Disc, but would also be buying it for what it was, what was on it. It also came out on cassette by the way and the reason it came out on cassette was because of the material on it too. ‘Face Fate’ was a brandnew song and that was one of the songs that was currently new to us at the time, so right away we decided that ‘Yeah, we definitely wanna put a brandnew song on there!’. The track ‘Bloodlust’, the reason that it’s really on the EP, is due to the fact that it was not released on "Kill For Pleasure" here in the States. The song ‘Bloodlust’ was recorded during the "Kill For Pleasure" sessions, but was only released on the vinyl and on the CD copies, released in Europe at the time. Like I said, there was no CDs at the time originally when "Kill For Pleasure" was released here in the States. It was onIy on vinyl and tape. So, basically the song ‘Bloodlust’ was left out. So, what we did was, we decided that since we’re gonna go in and record a brandnew track, let’s put this song ‘Bloodlust’ on it, since the only way you’ll be able to get it was in Europe, plus it was a re-recorded version of it, which came out absolutely amazing! If there’s any favorite recording of ours that we have, that’s favorite to me, would be the "Face Fate" EP, cause I just love the way that recording came out! lt represents the band real well, it’s a powerful recording, but yet it’s clean, it’s raw enough, l mean, I think it just pretty much has all the elements that captured us and represented us in a good way. The other two tracks that were on it were ‘R.I.P.’ and ‘Vampire’. ‘Vampire’, going from responses at live shows and mail was a song that got a really good response. So, basicaIly we wanted to take a familiar song and put it on there and remix it. And also what we did was, we took the song ‘R.I.P.’ The song ‘R.l.P.’ we put on there because that was one of the band’s personal favorite songs. And what we did was, we also remixed that. The Picture Disc was done in a limited edition, I don’t know how many copies were made. Unfortunately things started going bad, relationship wise between us and New Renaissance and we never really had a good communication with them after a certain period of time. And because of that I don’t really have any type of numbers to give you as far as limited quantities. But yes, it was done as a limited edition piece!"

After that, I pretty much lost sight with BLOOD FEAST overhere and the only thing I still remember is your 1990 album "Chopping Block Blues" which sounded a lot weaker than the previous material. What had caused the long break in-between and why did Gary go for a more ‘controlled’ way of singing on that? I think it hurted the band quite a lot…
"Well, I am really not too fond of "Chopping Block Blues" myself due to the fact of, like you said, I feel it’s a little bit of a weaker sounding record. The reason for that though at the time. A lot of the old label, like I said, were saying, was pretty much what we were being influenced by at the time of writing that record. Again, we were all listening… in the beginning of all this whole band thing, you know, like I said, I mentioned all those bands we were listening to, the heavy Thrash, the Death Metal… we were just progressing from there, but then we started, you know, really getting into a little bit more of a more polished sound… METALLICA, TESTAMENT was a big influence on us at that time, OVERKILL… there were just certain bands that were catching our ear and they weren’t as rough sounding as some of the older stuff that we were listening to, as some of our earlier influences were. And therefore it was a little bit fresher, it was a little bit newer to us and we started just pulling more influences out of that at that particular time of the writing of "Chopping Block Blues". Again, perfect example, like you said, the material was a little bit weaker. I’m going to say that it was weaker due to the fact of the production. I don’t really think that the aggressiveness was so much lost, but I think that the production was definitely lacking as far as power. But again, basically I think that had to do with several things. I think it had to do with lack of funds, I think it had to do with the studio that we went to and I also think that it had to do with ourselves, you know, being influenced by that a little bit more polished, a little bit more cleaner sound. It’s where we were going at that time. I was never a big fan of TESTAMENT, I was never a big fan of the more polished stuff, I was always personally more into the rougher sounding stuff. So, "Chopping BlockBlues" to me is one of my least favorite records. I think it’s definitely a progression for us as a band, because if you listen to our writing ability and what we were able to achieve musically on "Chopping Block Blues", I think it’s a big step from what we were doing on, let’s say "Kill For Pleasure". So, I’m really happy about the way we grew as musicians and the writing ability became easier and the writing ability became a little bit more complex actually. But, I said, the only thing I can explain at the best way is, I think that that record is definitely a little bit weaker sounding, I mean, I’m happy with it, I don’t regret it in any way, but the response I think was pretty strong. I mean, I definitely would say that we gained more people. I will not say that some people were not dissatisfied with it, because it wasn’t as aggressive, I guess. It wasn’t as raw sounding, it wasn’t as heavy. But I wouldn’t say that we’ve lost any fans due to it. I think that if we kept putting out records like that we might have. And we actually started writing material even after "Chopping Block Blues" came out. We had material that we didn’t put on "Chopping Block Blues" and it was actually more aggressive material, more heavier material. And because it was a little aggressive, it needed to be portrayed more aggressively. So, I think, if we ever took some of those songs and recorded them for a record after "Chopping Block Blues", I don’t think you would’ve heard as polished of a sound as you did on "Chopping Block Blues" and Gary singing a little bit more laid back, like he did on "Shopping Block Blues", because the songs that we had for other recordings were more aggressive in general. And they didn’t go onto "Chopping Block Blues" due to the fact that it just didn’t fit with the other songs on it."

Would you consider "Chopping Block Blues" somehow as the "stepping stone" in the band’s career? I mean, as far as I know you didn’t really do anything afterwards anymore, did you?
"We never actually physically got to go into a studio again and record anything. You know, New Renaissance pretty much fell apart and soon after that the band pretty much split up… We tried continuing on without Gary and without Mike, because Mike was the first one to leave. Gary, our singer was the second one to leave… Me and Lou tried keeping things pretty much together. We did get a new singer, we did get another guitarist, we did write some other material, we actually came to the point of working out a deal with a label called Kraze. They were here in the States and I think they put out the first BIOHAZARD album. But unfortunately, even before we could get the contracts together, the label went bankrupt and fell under, so that was pretty much it."

I was pretty surprised to still see the name BLOOD FEAST in your letterhead when you wrote me, so is the band still around or have you reformed or something?
"The band’s no longer around and we haven’t been around for years. The only reason that you got the letterhead is because, I basically just moved and I came across a bunch of BLOOD FEAST stuff and I got some extra pieces of BLOOD FEAST paper and I figured out to just use some of it. That’s pretty much how you got that piece of paper. Other than that I’m still in touch with some of the members of the band, you know, everybody pretty much is just working, everybody is just getting on with their lives, but no, we haven’t done anything, there’s no kind of reforming BLOOD FEAST."

But there has been this unreleasad album, which was supposed to come up before "Chopping Block Blues"…
"Yeah. The two tracks that I recorded for you are from that. It was supposed to be called "The Last Remains". In brief about that record, it basically is what "Chopping Block Blues" should’ve been. What I mean by that is, we recorded an entire record before we recorded what now is known as "Chopping Block Blues". The reason that we pretty much scrapped the recording was due to the fact that Adam Tranquilli was still in the band at the time and right after this recording was complete, he left. We didn’t wanna put something out with him on it and we weren’t really happy with the production on how this turned out. So, in general, we basically just scrapped this whole recording. The background vocals that you hear on our KISS cover ‘Black Diamond’ were done by Lenny Kravitz. At this point of time a lot of people don’t believe us, but when this recording was done, it was back in like ’88, Lenny Kravitz was doing the recordings for his first album at the same studio we started recording in. We used to end our sessions and he used to come right after us. So, he basically used to come a little bit early in here and heard some of the stuff that we were doing, heard us doing a song by KISS, ‘Black Diamond’, and asked if he could sit in for a session and just check it out. So, he did and of course Gary, being the great singer that he was, couldn’t really sing some of the parts that needed to be sung for this type of song. We basically were hanging out to hear what Lenny Kravitz sounded like and realized that this guy had this amazing voice. After hearing him and what he was doing in the studio after us, we basically asked him if he would mind doing some backing vocals on it mainly on the parts that Gary couldn’t handle singing wise. So, that’s pretty much the story with the Lenny Kravitz thing."

As far as I know, nowadays you have a mailorder going… When did you start with that, what do you have to offer (have you specialized on anything in particular) and what are the other BLOOD FEAST members up to these days?
"Again, I’m not in touch with everybody from the band, I am in touch with some of them. Basically just working, getting on with their lives. I know like one or two guys are married, I’m kinda in the dark about most of it. It’s not too often that I spoke to them, I haven’t spoken to them in actually quite some time. Although I did speak to two of them recently… I’II get into that in a minute. As far as my mailorder thing is concerned, I basically just started that to see where I could take something like that. It was pretty much fun for me to do, I had some extra time on my hands, I felt that I have the capability of actually getting my hands on a lot of good MetaI CDs, a good selection of ’em and I figured that, if I could offer this to people who’re interested in getting hard to find type of stuff, meaning imports, some deleted titles on CD and stuff like that, it would be as good for them as good for me, to be able to make some extra bucks, doing a mailorder type business. I did have some time with it, I had some good customers, I sold some stuff, but I reaIly just don’t have the extra time on my hands at this point to go into it full blown, like it needs to be done."

Anything else you’d like to add here?
"This is really fresh, this is something that I just started discussing with some people over the last few days. We have been contacted by some label who’s interested in putting out possibly "Kill For Pleasure", re-issuing it with the "Face Fate" EP on it and also possibly getting ahold of that unreleased album that I was speaking to you about in the beginning of this, which would be called "The Last Remains". To refresh, it basically is the recording that we did prior to "Chopping Block Blues", way different than what "Chopping Block Blues" is due to the fact of the material being much more aggressive. Some of the songs that are on "Chopping Block Blues" are on that in a different form, with a different type of recording and basically we’re gonna see if we can maybe work something out here between us and this particular label. If it won’t work out with that label, I’m at least trying to get "Kill For Pleasure" re-released on CD. Till this day I still speak with people and run into people and get letters from people asking if they could possibly somehow get a CD copy of "Kill For Pleasure". The CD was released here in the States by New Renaissance Records years ago, it had a very short run, I wasn’t in contact with the label when they did it, I saw it in the store initiaIly, I did contact the Iabel shortly afterwards, I got a few copies on my own, I gave those copies to the rest of the members and I know that the album was also released on CD over in Europe. I believe on a label caIled Shark Records. From my understanding that label is no longer aIso. But like I said, right now I’m in the middle of trying to work something out with the Iabel, who would be interested in trying to re-release "Kill For Pleasure". Personally Frank, if you happen to know of anybody who you think would be interested in doing this, have them feel free to contact me please, because, like I said, I spoke to two other members recently and we would love to see something like that happen, especially giving them those bonus songs of the "Face Fate" EP, cause that was never released on CD before and because it was done on a limited basis on a Picture Disc. A lot of people who might know of it and are into the band, probably have never seen it or heard anything from it. So, yeah, if you know any labels that might be interested, that would be great man, have ’em contact me! Again, I just wanna say thanx very much for giving me a chance to do this, I think it’s reelly cool that we’re remembered out there!"

U P D A T E : As you all may (or may not) know, "Kill For Pleasure" as well as the "Face Fate" EP were re-released seperately on CD in the meantime through New Renaissance Records, while "Remnants: The Last Remains" came out after all on Militia Records, which is Kevin’s own label.

Band History courtesy of Xtreem Music
additional info supplied by F. Stöver

Official website: www.drinktheblood.com

Interview: Frank Stöver