DAVID VINCENT ABOUT ”BLESSED ARE THE SICK”, TRACK BY TRACK (SWEDEN ROCK MAGAZINE #5, 2021) TRANSLATED

Sweden Rock Magazine (SRM) is a Swedish hard rock magazine founded in 2001 and publish 11 issues per year. It’s written in Swedish, but here’s an awesome interview with Dave Vincent translated to English for you.

On May 22 2021, Morbid Angel's second album "Blessed are the sick" turned 30. The band's then-frontman David Vincent goes through the album song by song.

Intro

- We wanted something that sounded like a painful birth and created a soundscape with a very ominous feeling about it, says singer and bassist David Vincent, who fronted Morbid Angel from 1986-1996 and 2004-2015 and has since performed old Morbid Angel songs live under the I Am Morbid banner. It's very noisy, but builds the backdrop for the cleansing that will follow. Layers upon layers of keyboards, samples and guitar were added to create the right bombastic tension.

Fall From Grace

- Yes, this was the opening song and a very good one. The song starts with a slow riff and it was interesting enough to make everyone say that Morbid Angel had slowed down. But that wasn't quite right. The fast parts on "Blessed are the sick" are much faster than anything on "Altars of madness". But people hear "da-da-daa, da-ta-ta" (David hums the first notes of the heavy opening riff) and then immediately jump to their conclusion. If you were to listen to the whole album first, you thought. But often the first impression is what takes root in people and that was the first impression of many. Either way, good song. 

Many people seem to have had a hard time dealing with the fact that you didn't make an "Altars of madness II".

- The album was of course different from "Altars of madness", and that's a good thing. I think we did a good job of making sure that each album had its own personality, atmosphere and vibe. It was important for us not to stand around and stomp.

"Blessed are the sick" also seems to often be perceived as a so-called middle album. Before "Altars of madness", which has a fairly undisputed status as one of death metal's greatest classics. After the major label production "Covenant", which is one of the genre's best-selling albums of all time.

- I understand what you mean. But that varies so much from person to person. People have their favorite eras and favorite songs by a band. It's hard to get it together into a single opinion.

Brainstorm

- Here we have a really intense song. It probably ends up closer to a more refined version of something that could have been on "Altars of madness". Even if it didn't exist then. The lyrics can be described as a mental journey towards madness.

The title stands out a bit.

- Yes, but I mean, everything is different. Different is good. 

The album, which like several other Morbid Angel albums was recorded at Morrisound Recording, has sometimes been criticized for its dry production.

- It has a really dry production. We did things differently and used completely different amplifiers and effects. Again, we didn't want to deliver the same product over and over again. It couldn't be just another piece of the same pie. There are of course many other bands where every album has roughly the same tone, but that was never our thing.

In an old interview, a point is made that you used significantly less distortion on the instruments.

- The production as a whole is significantly cleaner and braver than before anyway. Of course, it sounds dated when I listen to it today. It still sounds good. Not terrible, but simply like something that came out in the early 90s. Although not like any other death metal bands from that time, really. Then I think our sound is unique.

Morbid Angels classic line-up 1988-1992. Trey Azagthoth (Guitar), David
Vincent (Vocals & Bass), Richard Brunelle (Guitar) and Pete Sandoval (Drums)

How interesting was other death metal that was made at this time for you?

- Well, what came...? "Left hand path" by Entombed. It was great and also sounded completely unique to my ears. It really had its own vibe. And L-G Petrov really gave it his all on that record. His vocals and that guitar sound. They started that whole thing with the Swedish death metal sound, that was the first thing. 

And Entombed opened on the "Blessed are the sick" tour.

- Yeah, exactly. Those were good times. Good guys and we got along really well. They didn't sound like us and we didn't sound like them, but we were a good package. Unfortunately our friend L-G lost his battle with cancer and that's very sad. He was always a fun guy.

"A slow riff made everyone say that Morbid Angel 

had slowed down. But that wasn't quite true”

Rebel Lands

– A really strange song. We tried to play it live, or we played it live a few times. Probably during the first half of the tour, then it was shelved.

Guitarist Trey Azagthoth has said that this song is one of his favorites.

- Mm, but it's, well, strange. On stage, it was hard to get things to come out the way they were intended. It took a lot of work. And it was difficult to get it into the setlist in a way that preserved the flow itself, which has always been important to me. I want good transitions from one song to the next, create atmosphere and be able to tell a story live. "Rebel lands" was probably the most time we spent on of all the songs on "Blessed are the sick". Very tiring. It's like it never ends. But all the songs took their toll.

During the first minute of the song there is what can be seen as the beginning of a traditional rock structure, with at least one verse section that recurs once. After that, you can start to relate to how you used to sometimes compare what you did with classical music. On the inside cover of "Blessed are the sick" you can read, among other things, that Trey dedicates all his works to Mozart, and you yourself salute Bach.

- I've been listening to classical music since I was a child. That applies to all of us actually. Mozart was mainly Trey's thing, while I've always been more of a Bach and Wagner guy. And I understand what you mean, but it feels difficult to say exactly in which songs such influences can be heard. Inspiration comes from many different places and in different ways. It can be that you hear something and do a so-called ghost cover of a song or piece. By that I mean that you can be influenced by something and make a song that doesn't sound the same, but moves forward in the same way or where the riff comes in at the same time. But we analyzed very little of what we did there and then. Everything was very organic and there was no set formula on how to write a song.

Doomsday Celebration

- A keyboard composition by Trey. Interludes were something we always wanted to include to create atmosphere and create a calm between the chaos. It should be a bit like a roller coaster to listen to: highs and lows.

This type of instrumental interlude, which appeared on albums like 1995's "Domination" and 1998's "Formulas fatal to the flesh", was introduced on this album, you could say. 

- There's definitely more of it than on "Altars of madness". I would see it as evolution, simply. Adding new things, going in new directions, keeping it interesting. It's well known that album number two is difficult for many bands to do. Because everyone expects something. They want this or that. It's uncertain how every little variation on what the listeners have become accustomed to will be received. Because at that point they've only heard one album. It takes a while for people to get used to almost anything. This is also a good reason to always remain unpredictable. That way, there's not just one way you can do things, but a multitude. And that's what art should be: constantly advancing and exploring, but always emotional. And always honest.

"I've been listening to classical music since I was a kid. That goes for all of us. Mozart was Trey's thing while I've always been more of a Bach and Wagner guy"

Day of Suffering

- Yeah, what did you think...? This is a real slap in the face anyway. Fast, although of course it doesn't start quickly. But it gets so intense that it gets to a point where it was really painful to play it. And hence the title.

You can tell that you've started experimenting more with the song here.

- We had more time in the studio this time. Almost a month, which allowed for more of that. There was simply a better budget. When we made 1989's "Altars of madness", the record was so well-rehearsed that there were no question marks whatsoever when we arrived at the studio. It was necessary, because we had a budget of 5,000 dollars and not much time to lose. 5,000 dollars at that time wasn't enough for much more than a week, so it was about going in and getting it done. Looking back, we all wish we had had a little more time with that record, especially when it came to mixing. I've heard a lot of musicians say this: you're never really done with a recording, you just give up. You can spend forever adding and tweaking things, but at some point you have to say, "Okay, we're done." The other side of the coin is when you work with major labels, like we did on 1993's "Covenant." They want you to spend as much money as possible, because then they're constantly raising the limit on what you can keep before you start paying royalties. "Shouldn't you have this really nice tour bus instead?" You do a few big tours and a couple of expensive videos. And then, after selling a million copies of "Covenant", that amount has still not been reached. We don't get that kind of money. But that's how it always has been. The art is most important. Anyway, for "Blessed are the sick" we had significantly better conditions and were very excited to go in and work with those conditions. I only have positive memories from that recording. Now we could also try some strange things to build on the atmosphere. You can get a lot of crazy ideas in place in the studio too. Some work and some don't. I don't remember which ideas didn't work but because the budget was bigger we had time to play with different guitar tones and we could incorporate more keyboard elements. We always had more ideas than the studio time allowed us to test.

David Vincent on stage with Morbid Angel in 1991. He and then-bandmate Pete Sandoval, whose drum kit can
be seen in the background, have also played together on two albums with grindcore pioneers Terrorizer.

In an interview in the Swedish magazine Heavy Mental in 1991 you said this: 

"I have raised the microphone stand and have to stretch my neck to reach it. Partly I have constant eye contact with the audience, partly I can use the depth of the voice if I stretch my neck." The most famous example of raising the microphone stand is Lemmy.

- Just like every other person in the world, I am a Motörhead fan but that was not why I raised the microphone stand, but because I wanted to be disciplined when it came to my breathing. I also watched video recordings from concerts and my performance looked more introverted than I wanted it to be. "If the big obstacle is a microphone stand that is too low, I have to get over this", I thought. After "Altars of madness" I stopped smoking so my lung capacity increased and my breathing technique became much better at the same time. I did basic stretching exercises and started using my diaphragm much more. I started thinking more like this: "If I learn to actually breathe, these lyrics will sound better."

Blessed Are the Sick/Leading the Rats

- My inspiration here came directly from the cover painting. That's where it started. I saw the painting for the first time in a museum somewhere in Europe, when we were touring for "Altars of madness". I always try to get out and see and learn things about the world when I'm on the road. Visit museums, look at architecture. I don't really remember where this museum was and what the name of the painting is now...?

"Les trésors de Satan (The treasures of Satan)”.

- Exactly. I was very inspired by it and my interpretation of it. I think the best way to phrase it is that it depicts Satanism in a beautiful way, instead of the usual opposite. Very sexual and sensual. An interesting thing is that one of the artist's (Jean Delville, 1867-1953) grandchildren many years later said about our album, and especially the title track, that his grandfather would have seen a perfect match in it. I have never met these people, it was something I saw on the internet. It is wonderful when "great minds think alike", even if a century separates them.

How did you think about the title and the text "Blessed are the sick”? 

- It is of course a Bible reference. Something that I turned around. "Sick" then does not mean sick as in influenza, but that you have a different perspective. It could be about someone's taste, or that you have some degree of decadence in life. Something that can be referred to as sick. And rather than shy away from it, I decided to celebrate it. Even musically, this is one of my favorite songs, to this day. I love how it moves forward and feel exactly the same things about it now as when it was recorded. It's still the same celebration of everything it was supposed to celebrate.

"It was Trey's crazy riffs that I fell for. And he's never had any problems delivering those."

Thy Kingdom Come

- The first of the four older songs that were re-recorded for the album. "Thy kingdom come" we had previously done in a demo version that was then made into a seven-inch, but felt that we wanted to do the song a little better justice sonically. And with Pete Sandoval on drums. It's an intense and interesting song that I haven't played in a very long time. I don't even remember when it was last done. I'm actually thinking about picking it up in the I Am Morbid set list. In that band, I'm of course the only one who knows the songs and gets to teach them to the other members. And it can take time, because there are a lot of little details.

Hexenhaus ”A Tribute to Insanity” (1988)	Morbid Angel ”Blessed are the Sick” (1991)

In 1988, three years before Morbid Angel, Swedish 

Thrash Metal band Hexenhaus used the same coverart!

Unholy Blasphemies

- Another old song, first recorded on "Abominations of Desolation" in 1986. This one hasn't been performed live for a long time either. I wouldn't mind, but you have an hour and a half and can only play until the audience goes soft. The more songs you have, the more you have to cut.

This is a lot different from the version on "Abominations of Desolation", with new riffs and a new structure.

- Yes, we changed a few things here, for flow and articulation reasons. It ended up being a version that corresponded to where Morbid Angel was then and not in 1986, so to speak.

Abominations

- Another old piece. This is ancient Morbid Angel history. "Abominations" was one of the very first songs that Trey wrote, very early on. It's on the band's very first demo "Bleed for the Devil" which came out in 1986.

What was it like for you to tackle this older material?

- Like I said, it was part of the band's history. I did it of course in my own way. But it was fun and there was a reason why I wanted to join the band at one point. It was Trey's crazy riff that I fell for. And he's never had any problems delivering those. I myself liked to take more of an arranging role when songs were being developed, to build good structures for the vocals. And again, create flow.

Desolate Ways

-This one speaks for itself. It's 100 percent the creation of guitarist Richard Brunelles (1964-2019). He bought a classical guitar and started working on this song. And it's one of the very few things he wrote for Morbid Angel. But it's fantastic, I personally love it. It's beautiful and so emotional.

"Blessed are the sick" was Richard's last album with Morbid Angel. I think Trey did all the backing guitar on the record?

- He played most of them, anyway. Not all of them. But we concentrated a lot on getting everything as distinct and articulate as possible. And then it's easier, when the riffs get really crazy and fast, to get a guitarist to match himself.

Was there an overriding feeling, during the making of the record, that Richard was on his way out?

- Well, I'd rather not get into the politics of that, if you put it that way. But sadly, he had some substance abuse problems, which started to affect his playing and performance. That happens to people. We wanted everything to be tight and sound as good as it could. But he played all his solo parts and some accompaniment guitars anyway.

The Ancient Ones

- Yes, here's another old school story, taken from the "Abominations" era and reworked a little. 

What do you think of it today?

- Well, I like it. But it's another one that hasn't been played in decades. It wouldn't be impossible to pick it up, but with the I Am Morbid band I concentrate on things that I was involved in writing. I'm the only one who cares about doing that, keeping the music we wrote alive. And that's very dear to my heart. On I Am Morbid's upcoming European tour we'll be performing well-chosen parts of "Blessed are the sick" but not the whole album. We performed the whole of "Covenant" on a tour but the way the song order is on "Blessed are the sick" it doesn't feel sensible to play the whole album. But we'll have a big surprise that I can't tell you anything about now, hehe.

What kind of relationship do you have with the other still alive members of Morbid Angel's classic lineup?

- I don't have any. Or, I met Pete when he was out with Terrorizer last time. It was nice. I haven't met Trey.

Have you heard Morbid Angel's latest album "Kingdoms disdained" which came out in 2017?

- No.

In Remembrance

- One more instrumental piece to round off the emotional trajectory of the album. As I said, I've always loved interludes. Something that may not be a song in the usual sense, but a piece of music that adds a little color to the painting as a whole. ■

SEXUAL DEATH METAL!?

Was the "Blessed are the sick" image on Morbid Angel with the women seemingly worshipping you inspired by the cover of Kiss's album "Love gun”?

- No, it wasn't, says David Vincent, who was Morbid Angel's singer and bassist at the time. It may seem that way, but it wasn't. The whole atmosphere of that album and what we were doing at the time also had a lot to do with the album cover. We wanted to make it come alive in the mood of the music and the lyrics and everything else. This wrapping, the snaking and the flesh was like a whole package. We wanted it to look different and it definitely was different from any of our peers at the time. It was something that came across as very artistic and visually appealing. The photographer built everything up, we showed up and that's what stuck in the picture. "All right, it looks very interesting and very different", we thought and so we went for it.

Were the others in Morbid Angel as immediately on board with it as you were?

-Hmm... I don't know if... I probably had the strongest positive opinion about this. But as a frontman, it's my area, so to speak, so I took it. Even though everyone had a voice, no one really had any ideas that went in the opposite direction: "Yeah, we could have the standard thing: four guys standing there in their t-shirts, this typical photo that you see over and over and over again." We wanted to do something different so we did it.

We had a hard rock show on Swedish TV, "Diezel", and I remember it was a "wow" moment when we premiered the video "Blessed are the sick". Something like this had never been done before in death metal. That video was basically your creation, wasn't it?

- Not exactly. I mean, that's how it ended up, but... Yeah, it was fun.

"It all started with the album cover, 

which is very sexual and very sensual"

When I interviewed you for Heavy Mental in 1991, you said this about the video: "The other members gave me free rein to do whatever I wanted with the song and I went to England alone to finish the recording." Were you directed or did you direct yourself?

- She's going to kill me because I can't remember her name. We had a couple of people present the script. Everyone has their own expertise and the cinematography is not mine or anyone else in the band. When you bring in people who have a way of saying "well, I was inspired by this and this is what I thought", then they have a storyboard and you get to see it unfold. And she came closest to what I was looking for. I added a few things here and there, but we more or less stuck to the storyboard that she presented. You sit down and talk to someone and put your heads together so that you feel at ease knowing that the director knows where you want to go and that they can make it come to life from their cinematographic point of view. That's pretty much how we've approached all the videos, including the ones that came out with the album "Covenant" (1993).

This was a very unusual video for a band like Morbid Angel, a death metal video that was dripping with dark, sexual energy, if you know what I mean.

- I know exactly what you mean. It was intentional.

It sounds silly to say this but Morbid Angel became something of a "sexual death metal band”.

- I'm a very sexual person. But this happened completely organically and as I said, it all started with the album cover, which has very sexual and very sensual motifs. Inside me, I tried to make it come to life, let it be the atmosphere for everything. In my opinion, this whole Satanism and occult thing is not just dark, miserable and damned. It is actually the foundation of nature, of planet Earth and I would argue that the other side is the dark and damned one.

MARTIN CARLSSON