I’ve heard that you will have to go to the hospital the next days?
“Yeah, tomorrow, man… They are going to butcher me up… I’m going to the slaughterhouse…”

Why?
“Why? Oh, man, last year I was working and I fell on my knee and messed it up and they operated on it once… And now it’s… it’s still messed up. So, they’re going to cut my lateral ligaments in my kneecap. I can’t walk straight, so they’re gonna fix it up. I’ll be in there for about four days, while they butch and twist it and all that good stuff… they’re going to be sticking all kinds of nice big instruments in it, so it’s going to be about the size of a watermelon Thursday night. Lots of pain killers though (laughs).”

What are you doing besides the music at the moment, to get along with your money? What kind of jobs do you have?
“I’m not working… the rest of the guys, Steve and Eric, they work, you know… two or three days a week or whatever, man. We’re moving to New York next month…”

Why?
“I’m from New York… and Florida is… you know… it’s cool for bands to come from, but there’s no place to play down here. And nobody wants to pay the money to see us. We’re still basically doing it for the money, you know… Florida is pretty lame as far as being able to play. And we’ve been banned at just about every bar in Tampa.”

Could you tell me all about the history of DEICIDE?
“We started… well, I had an ad in a magazine about four years ago, that I was looking for a guitarist and a drummer… and three of those guys called me, Brian, Eric and Steve. They all called me and they had their own thing going with the three of them. They were looking for a vocalist and a bass player and we basically got together and started writing material. We’re together for like two and a half years, almost three years, now… And we did an EP in Morrisound and I took that up to Roadrunner and they signed us. So, basically… then we just recorded the album… We have just been struggling for like the last three and a half years, man, doing shows whenever we can. We haven’t done a show here in Florida in almost a year. So, that kind of gives you an idea how many shows go on around here.”

This EP that you mentioned, is it available for the public?
“Uhm, it will be… it will be available after June the 25th, after the album’s released.”

Will Roadrunner release it?
“I will send it out through fan mail, stuff like that…”

Is it true that you’ve changed your name from AMON to DEICIDE?
“Yeah.”

Why?
“We’ve had the name since the beginning… I had the name like two or three years before… and everybody dug the name, but KING DIAMOND came out… this is like two years… two and a half years after we’ve been together… KING DIAMOND came out with an album that had our name on it. It was in the lyrics of one of the songs. And it started a bunch of controversy with that. So, the first thing, when people heard the name AMON… the first thing that would go through their head was KING DIAMOND. And we basically just… you know, we didn’t want to have anything to do with KING DIAMOND. After he did that, he blew our whole name. So, what I did is, I wrote a song called ‘Deicide’ and it’s about killing Jesus Christ. And from that, we derived the name of the band DEICIDE. You can’t go heavier than that.”

Have you recorded any demo tapes besides the EP?
“Uh, well, about six months after we got together, we did a four song demo. But the sound wasn’t, you know… we didn’t release it to anybody, because we didn’t think that the sound was that good.”

Are there any songs on it, which appeared on the album?
“From the demo or the EP?”

From both of them…
“From the EP… all six songs that were on the EP are going to be on the album. We already did the whole EP plus added four more songs.”

Which are the new songs?
“‘Uhm… Oblivious To Evil’, ‘Day Of Darkness’, ‘Deicide’ and ‘Mephistopheles’.”

How did you get the deal with Roadracer?
“Well, after we finished the EP, Scott Burns… he sent a copy of it up to Roadrunner and he also sent it to a bunch of other labels. And I was up in New York… I went to New York City about two or three days before Scott sent the tape. So, when I went to New York City… the day when Scott Burns… when his tape got there, I got there. And I had a couple of extra copies to give to Monte Connor, who is a label rep. I gave him a couple copies, but he didn’t hear it yet. I left New York City, went back to Buffalo and then came back down to Florida. And after about two or three days, Monte called me and said that they were interested and that they were gonna send us the contracts.”

Is it true that you’ve done some very bloody promotional photo shots?
“Yeah.”

Don’t you think that photos like that are very old-fashioned and that people might start laughing if they will see them?
“Well, there’s nothing to laugh about, it’s real blood… I don’t know which ones you might have seen, but there’s three to six shots there… Our shows are bloody… we’re all bloody. We all mutilate ourselves.”

Do you know Trey of MORBID ANGEL?
“Yeah, I know Trey. He cuts himself on stage. Well, we mutilate ourselves.”

Unfortunately I haven’t had the chance to read your lyrics so far, so could you give me a short description about what’s going on there?
“All my lyrics are derived from my nightmares. I write basically just everything about death and everything that torments my fucking life. I write a lot about the holy bullshit and all that good stuff. You’d have to read my lyrics, man, to understand where I’m coming from.”

Do you write satanic lyrics? The logo, which is on the Roadrunner infosheet, kinda looks like three upside-down crosses…
“It’s called the trifixion. I designed that. That’s what the four of us are bound to. We’re bound by the trifixion.”

After I had listened to your album a few times, I’ve noticed that you sound like a mixture of MORBID ANGEL, DEATH, SEPULTURA with little bits of SINDROME… Has any of these bands influenced you?
“No, I don’t listen to any of those bands. I mean, I listen to them, but nothing of that stuff is, uhm… none of that stuff has inspired anybody in my band.”

So, what kind of influences did you need to write your material?
“Basically, we… it’s our own style. Everybody plays their own style on his instrument… We’ve created our own sound.”

What has been the reason for you working so much with all these vocal effects? In my opinion, it would sound much heavier if you would sing more without them…
“Well, believe it or not, there ain’t very much effects on the album. Those are all my natural vocals.”

I can’t believe it. It sounds very much like, uhm… harmonizers and stuff like that…
“Well, the only parts with harmonizers are to highlight a word or something like that. But basically, what you’re hearing is double tracks with my vocals. I do a high vocal track and I do a low vocal track. I have like four or five different ranges of demonic voices that I use. I don’t do no bullshit.”

So will you continue this way of singing?
“Of course!”

And live?
“Of course! When I do it live, you hear a mixture of the variations of the vocals.”

Whose decision was it that you could work with Scott Burns as producer?
“Well, Scott’s a pretty good friend of ours and it was already discussed. He did the demo and after he did the demo, you know, basically… we all wanted Scott to do it.”

How do you get money for your living when you don’t have a job?
“Uhm… well, that’s a good question (laughs). Money just comes in every once in a while… Like I said, those guys work every once in a while and me, I just hang out… we do our music all the time. Money just comes in, you know… where’s a will, there’s a way.”

Anything else which is necessary to know about your band?
“Well, uhm… you sound like you already know quite a bit. As far as our stage shows go… man, like I said… totally bloody… totally brutal. And there’s something to see. It’s definitely worth the money to come see us, because you won’t see four guys standing there. You see four maniacs destroying the place.”

Are there any plans for your band to come over to Europe?
“Uhm, I’ve heard a few things, after the album’s out… we’ve got see how it sells. But I was told sometime like September or something, but you know, don’t quote me on that. I got a lot of fan mail coming in from Europe.”

Could you at last explain me the exact meaning of the name DEICIDE? I couldn’t find it in a dictionary and don’t know the meaning…
“DEICIDE means to kill God and all that is holy… the crucifixion of Jesus Christ… That is the definition of DEICIDE.

So, you’re antichrists…
“Naturally!”

Okay, Glenn… that’s it.
“All right. What’s the name of the mag?

Horror Infernal Magazine.
“Cool. How many… uhm, what’s your distribution there?

20,000 copies.
“Cool. Will you get pictures from Roadrunner?”

I hope so. I haven’t seen any of them so far, but I’m sure I will get some of them.
“Well, there’s a lot of different shots, man. There’s blood shots… and, uhm… crypt shots, something like that. The blood shots are definitely… it’s all fucking… uhm… everybody’s face is just burned on those. We use a lot of latex… stuff like that on stage. And, uhm, I just… you know, what can I say, man? Total blood. Total blood. All we do is… when we do shows, man, we’re getting… you know… we’ve got banned a few times, because I bring out all kinds of organs and all that good stuff. It’s real hard to get shows down here in Florida, man, when you got a wild show. Bar owners won’t let us in, because they’re worried about their bars getting destroyed. But we definitely got a real powerful thing going right now. We can’t wait to bring it to Europe.”

Where did you get all this stuff from… the blood and the organs and so on?
“I have good connections to the slaughterhouse.”

Maybe you should also try to get some connections to the hospital that you’re going to…
“(laughs) Well, you never know, man. Maybe I will creep on down to the morgue sometime in the night time. They might find me sleeping with somebody down there.”

Okay Glen, thanks for the interview. I wish you good luck for the band and your album and hope we’ll see you soon. I’ll send you a copy of the magazine when it’s out… I will send it to Roadracer, okay?
“All right, man. Thanks a lot.”

Okay, bye-bye.

www.facebook.com/officialdeicide

Interview and all Glen Benton pics: Frank Stöver