Epicedium – דת' ברוטאלי להלוויה

Epicedium's debut album introduced to the world a band which combines technical and brutal death metal to perfection, sadly, because of poor distribution, this excellent band remains almost unknown world-wide. In order to change that, we spoke with their guitarist – Rob Tulk.

Hey Rob, I'd like to start out with what the hell does Epicedium mean?

We get that from everybody, bro. Most people can't spell or say it right. It's the song that's played at your funeral.

How would you describe the band's music?

It's just technical, extreme metal, man. We try to come up with insane riffs that are still catchy to listen to, and it just comes together as Epicedium.

What bands or ideas influence the band's music?

I think that's what's cool about Epicedium, actually. We all come from different backgrounds but we mesh our music together for our own sound. There's everything in there from Iron Maiden, to Suffocation, to Slayer, to Death, to W.A.S.P., to Morbid Angel, to Black Sabbath and everything in between. As far as the newer bands we all dig, there's Hate Eternal, Misery Index, Necrophagist, Trauma, Gojira, Lamb Of God, Black Dahlia Murder. There's some good shit out there if you can find it.

Your music is often described as brutal death as well as being technical, is that something which differentiates you from the lighter, tech-oriented bands?

I think so. There's a lot of awesome players out there, but a lot of them can't keep the brutality up with the technical shit.

What kind of memorable shows did the band do, and what childhood metal idols did you get the chance to meet (if any)?

My favorite was the Vegas Metalfest. We played with Strapping Young Lad and Deicide. Suffocation was there, that was the first time we got to play with them. Monstrosity and Kataklysm played that gig too, it was a good time. As far as meeting metal idols? I'd have to say Ozzy was the most intense meeting, ’cause it's fucking Ozzy, you know? But the most memorable for me was getting the chance to meet James Murphy and Eric Rutan, those dudes are huge influences to me. Billy Milano and Chuck Billy were a blast to hang out with too.

Your band bio states you hail from "the high desert of Southern California", where is that exactly? Is there really a desert there?

We're about an hour and a half north of L.A. and yeah, it's a big fuckin' pile of dirt. It's definitely not what people think of when you say southern California.

How did you land the deal with Embryo Records?

Eric from darksoul7.com actually hooked us up with Tom from Embryo records. Eric's a good dude, he's put a lot of time into doing his part to keep metal going.

How well was your debut album received by the media and Metalheads?

We got great responses from the people who actually got to hear it, but unfortunately there was no distribution (except online at embryorecords.com) for the cd and it didn't get pushed at all so it didn't get around much.

Your site doesn’t have too many updates from recent days, what are you guys up to now?

Now we're just writing new material and trying to find a new label that can help get us out there. We've got enough material for two more albums, we just want to make sure they'll have some support from a good metal label.

What would be your aspirations for the band? How far would you like to take it?

The same as everyone else's who's in a band they love, bro. ultimately we would love to support ourselves solely on making and recording our music and be able to jam it out the masses.