At first let me congratulate you for your really good album "Statistics And Tragedy". Thank you very much for the time you are taking for that interview!

For the beginning I would beg you to tell me something about the beginning of Death Of Millions, about the founding members and the intention behind the band at that time.

Brian:
Hey Martin, thanks for the interview. The band began in 1994 as a four piece, with three of the original members still in the band, Mark, Chuck, and Lee. I joined the band on guitar in 1995, Brendon joined in 1997. At the time, death metal was at it's peak, the Florida scene here in the US, etc. We wanted to create our own version of that extreme sound here in Austin, Texas.


As far as I read the band split up after the "Frozen" production. What can you tell me about the reasons for that and about the changes which took place after the reunion?

Brian:
We had a potentially permanent break just before the deal with Blackend came through. The main reason for that was a lack of response from anyone else toward our newer material. We sent out a pile of demos looking for a new deal after things went sour with Dies Irae Productions, with no responses. We felt like no one wanted it, so maybe we should try other things, we all have side projects. Then, less than a week after we decided to take a break, we got the email from Blackend. The only real changes after the "reunion" were some really fresh ideas musically, I feel some of the best songs on the CD came about after we knew the deal came through. We wrote "Moon Saturn Square", "In This The Time", and "Keazyr Anar", three of my favorites on the CD.


How would you characterise the music you are playing by your own words?

Brian:
I would say that it is traditional American/technical death metal, music that is challenging to listen to. Challenging in a good way, something you need to pay attention to to pick up the little nuances.


In my eyes your music sticks out of many other bands in this genre because of your very technical and straight sort of Death Metal. What do you think by yourself is the reason why you stick out of them?

Brian:
I think there are two reasons. One is experience, we have been together for almost 10 years! Granted we haven't been on tour, but we have been writing music together for a long time. I am amazed sometimes when we are rehearsing, we will break down into these jam sessions, and we are able to follow each other through these changes, it's awesome! The other reason is five unique personalities, we all like different music, not just death metal, that helps bring a lot of different influences to the table. Hopefully that comes through in the music!


You played several years on the Milwaukee Metal Festival. What do you think of this festival? Does it mean something special to you?

Brian:
It means something special to me personally. I first visited the festival in 1993 as a fan, it was incredible if you were a death metal fan, the D.M. scene was peaking at the time. The show was one full day, they had so many excellent band, Obituary, Deicide, Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation, all the greats. I even got a skull fracture during the Malevolent Creation set! That part wasn't so much fun, but I went to the emergency room and got back in time to see the last 4 bands. Playing it the first year was fun, that was probably one of the larger audiences we've ever had, plus free beer. The second year was our best experience at the fest, we had a great crowd and played well. After that things went downhill, it just became too big. We'd think we had this great time slot, then find out later that on other stages Cephalic Carnage or Danzig were playing at the same time, you can guess our crowd wasn't too big. We'd end up playing for other bands, which was cool, we made a lot of band connections that way, even made friends with some of them.

Do you have a special year when you played on the festival you prefer to remember? If so - what's the reason why?

Brian:
I would say it was 1997, that was the second visit I mentioned earlier. We met many bands that weekend, including Texas metal heroes Dead Horse, we hung out with them for awhile, did some bowling, drank alot of beer. That led to a great opening slot for us with Dead Horse locally after the fest.


You are a band playing really extreme music with of course extreme lyrics. Didn't you ever get trouble in your home country Texas which is really known as conservative?

Brian:
No, never got in trouble. Where we live (Austin), things are much more liberal. I won't deny that parts of Texas are conservative, that's a sad reality here. Everyone around the world will always associate Texas with Bush Jr., wish I didn't live here!


Who is writing the lyrics/music in Death Of Millions?

Brian:
Chuck write all of the lyrics, but as with any aspect of the music we write, we all have a say in whether they fit any given song. It's a democracy.


Your songs are about rage, rape and murder. Do you use actual themes for them as inspiration or are there other sources which have impact on your lyrics?

Brian:
All of the lyrics reflect Chuck's emotions at the time. Earlier material had alot of gory D.M. influence, I think this was just for the shock value, to get attention. Our song "Abortion Retrieval" of our Frozen disc is a good example. Since then I feel Chuck's writing has become much more mature. The lyrics for the 4 song block on the new CD, "The Day Of The Last", take place in a totally fiction universe that he created, the story would take to long to explain here, read the lyrics to get the story. He hopes to turn the concept into a novel someday, Chuck is an important creative force in the band.


How did you come on the band's name Death Of Millions?

Brian:
It is fittingly death metal, isn't it? When you read it, the is no question as to what kind of music the band plays. It has a nice ring to it as well, it can be abbreviated, D.O.M.. Chosing a name is one of the hardest parts of starting a band, we thought about changing it, but couldn't come up with anything better.


What about the local scene in Texas? Is it more some sort of underground scene like here in Europe or becoming slowly bigger?

Brian:
The local scene has some good bands, but I wouldn't say it is becoming bigger. Death metal will always remain underground in my opinion, it's just too extreme for the standard music fan. Some good bands in Texas: Acerbus, Vesperian Sorrow, My Funeral, Icabod. We had our CD release party here, on a Friday night no less, and the turnout was much smaller than we expected, it was very disappointing.


Till this time you mostly focused on the United States especially with live shows. Will we see you with your new album right here in Europe?

Brian:
Our biggest ambition, aside from working on the next CD for Blackend, is to tour in Europe. We are hoping that the label will help us get over there to support the album, preferably with a known act. I feel that the scene over there is doing much better than here, plus it seems like the most interest in the CD has come from our fans in European countries. We would love to show them that we can play these songs live! Anyway, thanks for the interview, great questions, please email me at brimorg@swbell.net, for more info, and check out deathofmillions.com.


Thank you very much again for your time! Stay hard and brutal


martin