Neuropath interview in Devoured Death 'zine #5

There's a comprehensive Neuropath interview in the brand-new Devoured Death 'zine #5 which was released this week. Apparently it's the biggest band feature they've ever done too which is kinda flattering (or perhaps just tells me that I don't know when to shut up). I think it could be the most honest interview I've ever done too.

Here's some information from the email I received about it:

HAIL DEATH!!!

  Devoured Death Zine #5 is OUT NOW! 80 A5 pages of cut and paste Death Metal insanity! 250 copies printed.

  In this issue we speak to Death Metal legends, BELIAL (FIN), as well as an exclusive new album preview discussion with DESTRUKTOR (AUS)..

 Also featuring ABYSSAL TOMB (AUS), AGLO (AUS), CHAOTIAN (DEN), CLAUSTRUM (IT), DISCARNATION (BEL), FORMLESS OEDON (PHIL), IMPEST (US), INFAMOVS (CHI), MISERY (AUS), NEUROPATH (AUS), PURULENCY (US) and VACUOUS (UK).. and many Underground reviews..

 As always, the zine itself is free for overseas customers... but you'll still have to pay for postage! See prices below...

 International orders in US currency (includes postage!)

 North American orders $9us

 South American orders $10us

 European orders $9us

 Asia orders $7us

 Australian orders are $8 AUS (includes postage).

PayPal address is shull8@live.com.au (choose 'friends and family' payment if possible).

Get in touch for trades or cheap wholesale!

HAIL DEATH!!

Apostle Of Sodomy - Chief Editor devoured.death79@gmail.com

UkurAzag - Co-Editor and Social Media Propagandist (FB and Insta) devoureddeathzine@gmail.com

Here's the interview in full for those that are interested:

Apostle Of Sodomy: Hail Daniel! Thanks for joining us for Devoured Death Zine #5. I’ve finally found the time to write these questions! Lets start with some introductions. What can you tell us about yourself and what got you interested in Death Metal in the first place, all those years ago? What made you want to pick up the guitar and learn your way around the instrument?

It’s my pleasure to be with you today & I’m honoured to be a part of your fine publication. I actually had music all around me as a youngster. My grandparents were musicians & performers who made their own records, my mother was an aerobics instructor who used to put together her routines in our lounge room using the latest compilation records & my father was a big hard rock fan who would play bands like AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, ZZ Top, Def Leppard & Motley Crue at ridiculous volumes both at home & in the car. That exposure to heavy guitar music saw me getting into some of the more mainstream metal bands like Motorhead, Iron Maiden & Judas Priest as soon as I hit high school but thrash metal took over in a major way once I discovered Metallica’s “…And Justice For All” in late 1988. This coincided with me becoming close friends with a class-mate who was already an excellent guitarist & shared my interest in thrash. He had an older cousin who was a Charlie Benante-obsessed drummer & we used to hang out at his house a lot so they could jam. I really wanted to contribute to their sessions so he lent me one of his guitars & I spent hours & hours practicing in my bedroom until I could keep up. Let’s just say that I don’t do things by halves so I quickly became pretty obsessive. The discovery of Slayer blew my world apart & I found myself craving ever more extreme forms of music. Death’s “Leprosy” was my introduction to death metal in 1989 but it was really my discovery of Morbid Angel’s “Altars of Madness” shortly afterwards that saw me totally succumbing to the dark ways of death metal for life. It’s still my favourite death metal release of all time to this day too just quietly.

AOS: NEUROPATH was formed in 1994, which seems like a lifetime ago. However, just prior to this, you were playing in a band called Coprophagia. Would you consider Neuropath was born from Coprophagia and therefore is sort of a continuation/evolution of that band? Or do you look at them as two different bands? I’ve read that the band played covers to hone their skills. What covers did you play?

Coprophagia & Neuropath are one & the same band. Coprophagia was our original moniker which would be changed to Neuropath before the end of 1993. I was never a big fan of the Coprophagia tag personally. My younger band mates were all keen to present ourselves in the most repulsive fashion possible though so I just went with it & focused on writing our initial songs. The eventual name change came about because I simply didn’t feel comfortable going with that moniker once we looked to start playing gigs. It seemed too immature for the image I was looking to portray & I took our music very seriously so I pushed for us to look for an alternative. I think it was me that came up with the name Neuropath after seeking vocalist Mark Wangmann’s feedback on what direction we collectively thought we should look to move in.

I think the first song that Coprophagia ever played was a cover of Kreator’s “Renewal”, mainly because I knew that guitarist Anthony Watson loved them & I thought everyone would be able to play it so I could use it to build some enthusiasm in becoming a proper band. That one didn’t last too long as it never suited us stylistically but we did play Obituary’s “Slowly We Rot” at all of our early shows as it went down really well with our audience. I remember us playing Cannibal Corpse’s “Hammer Smashed Face” at the Lewisham Hotel due to extreme audience demand at least once. We occasionally used to throw in covers of some of the more underground local bands that people probably wouldn’t know in order to fill out our run time too. Cruciform’s “Sanctuary” got more than the odd run at our early shows & I also recall us playing Blood Duster’s “Vulgar Taste” as an encore at a headline show at the Enfield Boulevarde Hotel at some stage.

AOS: Back then, I understand you were exploring the tape trading scene. In what years of the 90’s were you most actively doing this? What bands/demos, etc did you encounter? In general, what are your recollections of your tape trading days? Do you still have any of your old tapes? Did some of these bands directly influence how Neuropath would sound?

I began trading with older school mates as soon as I’d built up a decent thrash metal collection but would start using mail as a medium to seek out new music once I got into death/black metal, mainly out of necessity as there wasn’t anyone in my area that had even heard of those genres at the time. That would organically transition into trading with overseas metalheads & by the time Coprophagia formed in 1993 it was already very much a part of my identity. It’s probably not surprising that my trading activity peaked during the Neuropath years though. I was definitely most active around that 1994-1996 period off the back of all of the new relationships I’d developed with the fans & band members I’d meet at shows & the connections they’d share with me.

Early on I focused mainly on picking up demos from artists that I already knew so I secured all of the early recordings from the bigger extreme metal bands like Morbid Angel, Nihilist/Entombed, Xecutioner/Obituary, Darkthrone, Mantas/Death, Sarcofago, etc. Then as I gained stronger connections I started picking up more underground releases, both local & international. Off the top of my head I can remember Cathedral’s “In Memoriam”, diSEMBOWELMENT’s “Deep Sensory Procession Into Aural Fate”, Timeghoul’s “Panoramic Twilight”, Mournful Congregation’s “Weeping” & Cruciform’s “Paradox” being some of the more significant demos in my life during that period. Unfortunately, I don’t have any of those old cassettes any more but I certainly still revisit the music in digital form from time to time.

My tape trading days were a period of my life that I’ll always treasure, not only for the music I discovered but also for the people I connected with all around the world. I feel honoured to have been a part of the underground scene at the time & have no doubt that it’s played a role in shaping the person I’ve become all these years later. There’s very little doubt that tape trading played a pivotal role in the Neuropath story too as releases like Cryptopsy’s “Ungentle Exhumation”, Disgorge’s “Cognitive Lust of Mutilation” & Suffocation’s “Reincremated” were certainly contributing to the musical direction I saw Neuropath taking & I’m not sure I would have been as consistently exposed to that sort of material otherwise.

AOS: It’s documented that there was a 10+ minute Death/Doom track that Coprophagia did called ‘Four Seasons of Disconsolation’. Are there any surviving rehearsal tapes of that song being jammed? Given it’s described as Death/Doom as opposed to the rest of the material you are known for, what inspired the song’s composition?

Unfortunately, that one’s been swallowed up by the ages. I don’t have any rehearsal tapes at all these days which is something I regret now. The catalyst for “Four Seasons Of Disconsolation” was that both Mark Wangmann & I were heavily into the early doom/death releases from bands like My Dying Bride, Anathema & Winter. We were also looking to fill out our setlist as quickly as possible so that we could play some live shows so it made sense to write something lengthy that everyone could play easily enough & would be easily reproduced in a live environment. It was one of our better early tracks too in my opinion but we’d eventually drop it from our setlist, primarily due to it being so stylistically different from the rest of our songs. Interestingly, the couple of songs that I wrote after the “Desert of Excruciation” demo included some quite complex doom sections which I was particularly proud of at the time. They went down really well live too so it’s a bit of a shame that we never got the chance to record them.

AOS: Can you briefly talk us through the definitive moment that Neuropath came into existence and Coprophagia ceased?

It was an ongoing argument for a month or so actually. I was a bit more mature than the other guys who were 2-3 years younger than me & I was feeling increasingly embarrassed when telling friends & family what my band was called, particularly as most of them had no prior knowledge of death metal. “Rectal Pulpation”, “Masticated Cadaver” & an early version of “Copulation of Insanity” were all written while we were still Coprophagia as far as I remember. I actually think the name change was significant in seeing everyone in the band taking things a little more seriously than they had previously too though so I guess you could say that it was a significant moment.

AOS: How soon after Neuropath became its own entity did the band record the ‘Nefarious Vivisection’ demo? What were the reactions from your families when they heard the recording given you were all still quite young? Was there support for what you were doing?

“Nefarious Vivisection” was recorded in March 1995 & it was very much a purging of our older material. I’d suggest that we’d been together for around 18 months by that stage & had already developed a presence in the Northern Beaches area of Sydney. My father was well versed in what Neuropath was all about by that stage as he used to drive us around & come to some of our gigs, particularly when most of the band members weren’t old enough to drive or get into the venues without adult supervision. He used to love the instrumental side of the music but couldn’t get into the vocals & thought the blast beats were way too over the top. I can still remember my uncle reading the lyrics to one of our gorier songs out at a drunken dinner party so that the whole family could hear & taking great pleasure in emphasizing the more extreme lines so that everyone grimaced. He thought it was hilarious but I’m pretty sure my mum didn’t. I was happy when we started to head away from the gore-soaked lyrical approach if I’m being completely honest. I always thought that we were better than that.

By the time the “Nefarious Vivisection” demo hit the streets, the kids in our local area had started to catch on to the whole death metal thing so it was good timing & the demo became quite influential on a number of young bands who headed to Jungle Studios to record their own demo tapes off the back of it. It was really well received by those that heard it from the wider Australian scene too but we didn’t have enough connections to truly capitalize on it at the time. We did however use it to get ourselves higher calibre gigs at inner city or western Sydney metal shows which was always the end goal.

AOS: How many copies of the ‘Nefarious Vivisection’ demo were made? Back then I recall you could get 250 copies of a tape printed for around $300aus, which is crazy compared to the prices these days, but after adjusting for inflation, it was still quite a cost for some young blokes (Centrelink didn’t pay much!). Was it easy for you guys to fund the band or was it a challenge?

I’m not entirely sure how many tapes were produced but I’d suggest that it was only 100. I don’t think we had too much trouble drawing the money together to be honest. I had literally just scored myself my first full-time job while the other guys were still so young that they had to draw upon their parents for support. We shared the costs equally between us & there was at least one band member that struggled to pitch in at times but I wouldn’t say that it was an ongoing issue. Anthony Watson’s parents were particularly generous, embracing the idea of the band & letting us hang out at their house a lot.

AOS: Where were copies of ‘Nefarious Vivisection’ sent and what were the reactions like? Did you have an understanding of the role of fanzines at this point?

Given that we didn’t have too many copies to throw around, we mainly sold them to our friends & targeted the more prominent Sydney record stores like Sandy’s Music, Red Eye Records, Utopia Records & the Hammerhouse. We also chucked a copy to all of the Sydney metal radio programs which resulted in a few airings. We were printing all of the covers ourselves using colour printers & sticking the labelling on the cassettes by hand so the product didn’t come fully assembled. We honestly didn’t know what to do with them other than to share them with my tape trading network & sell them at metal shows. Our involvement with fanzines was more coincidental than anything else & we were contacted by a few but it wouldn’t really ramp up until the second demo hit the streets.

AOS: The band is reported to have played live a lot during this period. How would you describe the Sydney Death Metal scene at this time? What bands were you playing with? I heard you played with Lord Kaos. Were there any other notable bands you shared the stage with?

The Sydney thrash metal scene was pretty strong at the time with bands like Addictive, Dark Order, Cryogenic, Blathudah, Fester Fanatics. Neophobia, Frozen Doberman, Segression, Mortality, Dearly Beheaded & Tribe Maelstrom all floating around but the more extreme death/black metal scene was noticeably weaker than some of the other Australian cities with very few prominent metal bands still in their prime. Cruciform, Nazxul & Sadistik Exekution were probably the main ones people would know but Cruciform kinda imploded when they were on the cusp of greatness & Sadistik played very few live shows (although they were a major event when they did happen). Most of the interstate bands would bring support bands with them or play with the same more established bands all the time so it was really hard for a new artist to secure opportunities to play. We’d end up playing with the other lower-tier local outfits that were struggling away along with us, sometimes outside of the extreme metal space altogether. It’s a bit hard to remember all of them now but I recall shows with bands like Kilswitch, Tscabeze, Oracle of the Void, Persecution & Deadspawn & I’m sure we would have played with Elysium & Progrom/Across The Scarlet Moat too. Lord Kaos were probably the most prominent of the Sydney up-&-comers at the time so they inevitably seemed to pop up wherever we ended up being.

AOS: A band trying to make a name for themselves in the live scene can be tough at first. Were any gigs a total disaster? What was the worst experiences that you can share?! I’ll go first if you like.. in 1996 when I was in Encabulos, we arranged a gig with Inverted Prophet in Bendigo. We knew nothing about the scene up there (or lack of), but wanted to give it a try. Inverted Prophet pulled out at the last minute.. and when we got there, there was only two people. TWO! One of them was Glenn from Destruktor though, so it wasn’t a total loss haha

For every exhilarating blinder of a show there was a disappointing one with very few people in attendance. I mean, even shows from the more established extreme metal bands weren’t exactly packed to the rafters in Sydney at the time & most gigs were in small venues. The worst one I can remember us taking part in was at Wentworthville Hotel where we’d played previously. Warhead had a regular thing going there & would rotate their bands across their weekly night. On this occasion though, we arrived to find that there’d been a mistake with the advertisement that went out in the free music media magazines each week & we weren’t listed as playing. When we arrived we found that there wasn’t a single Neuropath fan there as they simply didn’t know that we were playing. This particular venue had a policy that if they didn’t earn more than a certain amount through the bar on the night then the bands would have to pay the remainder themselves. We ended up telling the venue to go fuck themselves & left without performing.

AOS: The ‘Desert Of Excruciation’ demo was a big step up in song writing and playing skill. The recording took place in 1995 but the release by Warhead Records took about a year after the studio session ended. What happened during this time delay? Did it affect the band's momentum?

I honestly don’t know what Warhead were doing. It wasn’t a full year but I’d suggest that it was a good six months & it annoyed me more than anyone. The delay certainly halted our momentum & by the time the final product eventually saw the light of day we’d already evolved quite a bit further as a band. I’m not sure that things wouldn’t have ended up playing out a bit differently if the tape had been released right away because we definitely failed to capitalize on any sort of buzz given that there was a lot of water under the bridge during that period. The cracks were already starting to show in the band by the time of the release too & I can’t help but think that some of that was caused by a lack in interest given that we’d essentially been treading water & finding it just as hard to secure shows as we always had.

AOS: How many copies of the second demo were made? Were you getting more support from fanzines and underground maniacs once it was released? Do you recall which fanzines the demo featured in? Were you getting many interviews at this point?

I can’t recall how many copies we manufactured but I’d be surprised if it was more than a couple of hundred. I did a lot of fanzine interviews over the next couple of years, even after we’d broken up. Those opportunities appeared far less often prior to “Desert of Excruciation”. I can’t recall which specific fanzines we featured in as it’s been too long & I no longer have copies but I know that one of them was an English one called Kentucky Fried Afterbirth as I caught up with the author only recently. To be completely transparent, we had no idea that the demos were so well received internationally as we were simply too detached from it. Warhead never told us what they did with their allocation & we never received any royalties for anything as far as I can recall either so we didn’t have any gauge on how well the tape was received other than from our direct interactions. It’s only decades later that we’ve stumbled upon pirated CDs being released throughout Europe & the many streams of positive online content. Perhaps I should have been paying more attention.

AOS: In the track, ‘Copulation of Insanity’, there is a spoken word/sample at around the 1:50 mark. What is this taken from?

I actually had no idea when I read the question but with a bit of help from Google I’ve discovered that it’s sample from the 1988 horror film “Hellbound: Hellraiser II”. I assume our lawyers negotiated for us to use that legally of course.

AOS: Can you talk us through the band breaking up? Was there a specific moment this took place? Who led the conversation? What were the main reasons for the end? Were there tears and fist fights at this momentous, final blasphemous band meeting?? These days if you want to end a band, you can just send everyone a txt bro. What an age we live in..

It was definitely me that instigated the split but the other members weren’t averse to the idea once I raised it either as far as I could tell. For me, there were a few things that caused me to want to go this way. Firstly, I’d become increasingly frustrated with the ever-growing effort required of me just to keep the band moving forward. I’d always written all of the music which was easily the most rewarding part of being in the band for me but I also took on the bulk of administrative, managerial & promotional tasks too which I was generally fine with as long as I felt that the others were appreciative, motivated & attentive. Once we started to gain some level of respect back from the scene around us though, there seemed to be more of an interest in partying & socializing than rehearsing & performing which was perhaps inevitable given our ages. It became more of a battle just to get everyone to rehearsals or to learn a new song, particularly as the song-writing was becoming increasingly more complex. There were certainly some strained relationships within the group for a number of reasons too. I was starting to be offered opportunities to work on other projects with older musicians where I wouldn’t be required to put in all of the extra effort & I was surprised to find myself starting to consider some of them. I’d begun writing material for a doom/death solo project that I intended to build a band around once I’d finished the writing process but now I had the opportunity to not only prioritize that project but also to remove myself from the exhausting task of dragging the Neuropath train along for a while.

My other major motivation was the de facto relationship I was in at the time. My partner was well known in the Sydney scene & our relationship hit some pretty major speed-bumps in full view of the metal community. The judgement was taking its toll on me emotionally & I felt that I needed some time away from our social group in order to work things through & get my head straight. I always intended on going back to the metal scene eventually but the circumstances of the ultimate breakup of that relationship left me so scarred that I needed a long time to recover & subsequently chose to distance myself even further from the metal scene & metal music in general. My hiatus from metal would last for just over a decade but I’d eventually return to it & have never looked back since.

As far as the details of the breakup of Neuropath go, I believe that I called each of the band members over the phone after a few weeks of inactivity where I didn’t see anyone making any attempt to get anything moving. I suggested the idea of us taking a break for a while & I don’t recall anyone being particularly against it. I knew full well that it was very unlikely to be just “a break”. Our two newest members Frank & Ali always had their own tech death project on the side so I imagine that they saw it as a good time to explore that while I could tell that Mark was as ready for some time away from the band as I was. So, there was no final showdown as such. It all just kinda ended & I often wonder if I would have made a different decision if I could have seen that Neuropath’s music would still be talked about for several decades to come. We had no idea at the time & it all just seemed like a lot of work for very little reward at the end of the day.

AOS: Let’s pretend for a moment that the band didn’t split up back then… In this alternate universe scenario, what would the ideal Neuropath debut album have looked and sounded like? What would have been a good title for it? Would it have been all new material or feature any re-recordings?

I think it would have looked & been titled a lot like “At Damnation’s Core” actually as we intentionally picked the artwork around the idea that it might have been the cover of our debut full-length back in the day & the title was basically our description of the image it portrayed. We’d left the gore-soaked imagery behind by that stage so it wouldn’t have taken that direction. I think we might have re-recorded “My Bleeding Mortality” & “Incantations of Decrepit Nihilism” but the rest of the demo material would have been left in the past. Those two were the songs that I feel were pretty much at the level that I’d always envisaged. The rest of the album would have seen us further expanding on our pre-existing musical palate with increased emphasis being placed on structural complexity & general brutality but covering a wider range of influences. The couple of new tracks we were performing at live shows just before we split were comfortably our most aggressive & technically demanding with a much greater range of tempos & dynamics being explored. The recruitment of Ali & Frank were certainly precursors to heading down that path as they were generally more capable of handling the material than our previous members would have been given that they were a little older & more experienced as musicians. I’d started to cherry-pick elements that I loved about the more extreme examples of black metal & doom metal I was hearing & was experimenting with integrating them into the most brutal death metal I could imagine. I think those tracks were up there with our best work actually so it’s a shame that we didn’t get the chance to record them. On the other hand, rehearsals became a bit less fun as we were certainly challenging ourselves physically & technically.

AOS: I’ve heard you say that Suffocation are your all-time favourite Death Metal band still. What do you think of their albums after the 90’s and more recently? I don’t think they were ever on par with previous material after ‘Souls To Deny’ came out.

There are a few bands that would vie for my all-time favourite band. Classic Slayer & Morbid Angel would certainly come into the discussion but when Suffocation are at their best I find it very hard to argue against their sound being the one that’s the most closely aligned with my ideal of what extreme music should be. There’s no doubt that the 1990’s was when they were at their peak but I think they’ve released some killer albums since that time too. Hell… I’d even go so far as to claim records like 2006’s self-titled & 2013’s “Pinnacle of Bedlam” as genuine death metal classics & would definitely take either of those over 2004’s “Souls To Deny” or 1993’s “Breeding The Spawn” which both have their appeal limited for me by production issues.

AOS: So what did you all do after the band ended? Did you all become qualified Neuropaths? Did you quickly cut your hair and get a nice job in an office? Do you stay in touch with the other guys?

Honestly, I just needed to get away from metal for a while after leaving the scene in the late 1990’s & didn’t hesitate to indulge myself in other styles of music which saw me feeling reinvigorated pretty quickly. I already had a customer service job at the time & my career path saw me gradually veering into the dreaded “management” territory over time. That process was certainly accelerated when I cut my long hair off in the early 2000’s. The band really didn’t stay in touch much at all after we split so I hadn’t talked to any of the boys since the late 1990’s when I reached out to them about the “At Damnation’s Core” project in late 2022. It’s been great to reconnect with everyone after all these years & I think a few of us will definitely be staying in contact moving forwards.

AOS: In November last year, Sphere Of Apparition Records (AUS) released ‘At Damnations Core’, a compilation CD consisting of both Neuropath demos. How was the connection with SOA Records established and the idea proposed? How long did the whole release take to plan?

Jason from Sphere of Apparition reached out to me over Facebook some time around October or November 2022 to speak with me about his proposal. I honestly didn’t know there was all that much interest in the Neuropath material until he pointed it out to me at which point I felt quite honoured. There really wasn’t much hesitation on the band’s part as we had nothing to lose & all dreamt of having our own CD while the band was active. I think the whole process took about 18 months to come to fruition. People might be surprised at how long it can take to get a professional package put together, especially when you need to seek agreement from a number of people who reside all around the country & are often in different time zones from one another.

AOS: What’s the response been like now that the compilation has been released? Are you happy with how it all turned out? Have you had old contacts from the Underground reach out from the woodwork to say hello again?

We couldn’t be happier with the reception actually. The feedback from around the world has been almost unanimously positive & it seems like there’s a real appetite for authentic 90’s death metal these days which probably helps. I wouldn’t say that I’ve had too many of our old contacts reach out though. Most of the interest has been coming from a fresh batch of fans, many of them too young to have been there the first time & others that simply weren’t exposed to it at the time.

 I’m particularly happy with how the old recordings sound now that they’ve received a bit of polishing from Grave Upheaval/Temple Nightside/Grotesque Bliss mastermind Bjorn (aka Dredged Oblivion). The B side to “Nefarious Vivisection” was the biggest challenge for us as it seemed to have significantly less high end than the A side & we had to do a fair few trial runs to get those two tracks sounding decent. The artwork is exactly what we wanted too & we have Jason & Dave from D’Jenerate Creations to thank for that as they went to great lengths to ensure that every finer detail was scrutinized & we didn’t settle for anything that wasn’t perfect. They prioritized the band’s vision over all else (including Jason’s own financial position) which I’m sure isn’t all that common with most record labels.

AOS: When it comes to Death Metal, what are you listening to now? Do you listen to any current Death Metal bands or just stick with the golden oldies? Do you still go to any live shows now in your old man twilight years?

I run a metal rating/review/forum style website called Metal Academy with my younger brother Ben so I’m still heavily exposed to all eras of death metal & metal music in general. I hold a deep, unbreakable love for the old classics but feel that the modern metal scene is really healthy with a smorgasbord of different sounds & variations on offer for the discerning listener. The last three death metal releases I’ve listened to were German death thrashers Protector’s “A Shredding of Skin” from 1991, Finnish death metallers Gorephilia’s “In The Eye of Nothing” from 2020 & Canadian progressive/melodic death metallers Stortregn’s “Finitude” from last year, all of which are of a very high quality. Unfortunately, I had to give live shows a miss nearly a decade ago for a couple of reasons. The first is the ever-worsening tinnitus problem I’ve suffered from for more than two decades now, potentially first triggered by continuously rehearsing next to Luke Burns blasting away on his kit. I simply don’t want to tempt fate as I’m addicted to loud music as it is without subjecting myself to even greater extremes. The second is more to do with the financial & time restrictions placed on me by my young family. I do miss the energy of a live show sometimes but I take solace in the fact that I’ve been lucky enough to experience most of the great metal bands of all time in a live environment at some stage over the years over the years so I don’t have too many unattended lines on my bucket list left anyway.

AOS: So, the inevitable question now is will there ever be a rebirth of Neuropath? Has anyone proposed a reformation?

I can confidently state that there won’t be a Neuropath reunion. No one from the band has even tried to propose it as our lives are simply so different & hectic now that it would be far too challenging an undertaking to contemplate. Sphere of Apparition have loosely tossed the idea about at times but we’ve never seriously considered it as we wouldn’t do it without the involvement of a few core members & there are unfortunately some relationships that will never be mended amongst that small group with one key member being estranged from the rest of the band. Besides, Mark says that he can’t do the vocals any more anyway.

AOS: I’ve enjoyed getting re-acquainted with the bands material since the compilation CD has come out. I can hear the band with fresh ears, as opposed to 1997 when I first heard the second demo through a boom box while sitting in a van. I think it’s aged very well and is still distinctively connected to the sounds of that era. What final ‘misty eyed’ recollections would you like to share at this moment? Any regrets?

I’m not sure I regret anything much to be honest, partially because I know that we wouldn’t have been able to hold it together even if we’d all staunchly committed to do that. I love metal music with a burning, undying passion but are satisfied to have been able to give a little back to the scene through the Metal Academy podcast & website which seems to keep my musical thirst quenched for the most part.

Apostle of Sodomy: Ok mate, thanks for spending some time with me for this interview. It is greatly appreciated. Please state your farewells as we head for the exit.. HAIL DEATH.

Thanks a lot for the opportunity to share my thoughts. I hope that you & your readers get something out of the insights I’ve shared & the “At Damnation’s Core” release which is something that myself & the rest of Neuropath are very proud of. And please… keep up the support for little labels like Sphere of Apparition & passion projects like Devoured Death zine as it’s these people that are the fundamental building blocks of the scene that brings us all so much joy.