How death metal icons Obituary came in from the cold with Frozen In Time – and a little help from Andrew WK

Death metal gorehounds Obituary helped lay down the template for the entire genre, with such classic albums as Slowly We Rot and Cause Of Death. But the end of the 1990s and the start of the 2000s saw them taking a long hiatus. When they returned in 2005, it was with Frozen In Time – a record that called back to past glories. As frontman John Tardy told Metal Hammer at the time.

When you’ve made an album that helped to define a genre, where can you possibly go next? This question has troubled Obituary so much, they’ve felt it necessary to stand back and take a break.

Recorded on a budget of just $500 (around £270), the Floridian quintet struck gold against the odds with their 1989 debut album Slowly We Rot . A  set of bowel-rupturing heaviness and gore-flecked malevolence, its contents have since found their way into 300,000 homes. Some enjoyed 1990’s Cause Of Death equally as much, but like just about every other death metal band of that decade, Obituary’s sales dwindled and the albums slowed to a trickle.

More albums followed – 1992’s The End Complete and 1994’s World Demise – but there would be a three year gap between the later and 1997’s optimistically titled Back From The Dead . Following a live album the same year, the ironically titled Dead , things just seemed to splutter out.

Eight years  later Obituary have returned once more, this time with an offering that could live in the same graveyard as those first two legendary albums. Incredibly, among the factors that brought them back together again was… Andrew WK.  A huge Obituary fan, Andrew had pulled Obies drummer Donald Tardy into his backing band and realised it was time the world heard from them again. WK set things rolling by calling Don’s brother, vocalist John Tardy, and bassist Frank Watkins and inviting them to join him for a few numbers at an Ozzfest gig in Florida.

“It was the first thing we’d done in a number of years, and it played a part in getting Obituary back together,” says John now, “but I believe it would’ve happened eventually anyway.”

When asked why Obituary had ground to what seemed destined to be their final halt back in 1997, Tardy sighs deeply. “It was a combination of little things that had happened to us before,” says a man who offstage is known for being laid back almost to the point of horizontal. “We’d just finished a tour that hadn’t been the greatest, and planned to take a break. Nobody expected this one to last for six years.”

Throughout the gap, Obituary jammed together from time to time and either played music with other people or held down day jobs. Guitarist Trevor Peres was a member of Catastrophic and fellow axeman Allen West had the band Lowbrow. Frank Watkins sold mortgages and John was employed by a local computer company. With commendable honesty, John admits he didn’t miss being away from music.

“Now we’re back doing it again I’m having as much fun as ever before. But I had my job to keep me out of any trouble and my brother was busy with Andrew WK, so maybe I lived it through him for a while.”

Having tested the water with a few well-received reunion shows, in October 2004, the band played a recharged set at London’s Electric Ballroom, the inclusion of a new song, Insane , cranking up expectation levels for a new, then as yet unrecorded album. Frank had told us in a pre-show interview that it might be tough to, “come back and be the kings of death metal again, after so many bands came through and ripped Obituary off.”

Did everyone share his unease?

“I’d be lying if I said we hadn’t thought about it,” admits John. “So many of the younger bands that open for us say Obituary was the reason they started playing music. You can pay attention to that, or you can just get on with doing what you do. Obituary went down the second path.”

As John’s already revealed, he didn’t pay too much attention to metal music in general during the layoff. Ask if he was impressed by comparatively new bands like Mastodon or Shadows Fall and you’ll

be greeted by friendly indifference.

“For years I didn’t pay close attention at all,” he says. “I was still breaking out albums by Celtic Frost, Venom, Slayer… and I listened to more blues and country than I did metal. Now we’re out touring again I’m hearing all these great bands.

“The thing that strikes me most about these kids, though,” he adds, “is that although they’re real technical they lack a certain something that’s impossible to explain. None of Obituary are great musicians – I guess my brother would be our best – but luckily this band has that ‘something’.”

One of the most accurately titled albums you’ll ever hear, Frozen In Time is a cryogenic reawakening of the classic Obituary sound. Although self-produced with trusted engineer Mark Prater, it saw the band luring Scott Burns, who’d worked with them on their fi rst four albums and oversaw a slew of records by Sepultura, Deicide and Cannibal Corpse and more, out of retirement for a co-credit.

“Scott now works in computers,” explains John. “But we’ve always remained friends and it was a no-brainer that he would come into the studio and lend us another set of ears. Despite the friendship, he’ll always tell us what needs changing. Mark had worked on our records with us in the past, so although the label [Roadrunner] were suggesting all these producers we should be thinking of using, we always knew the team we wanted to put together.”

Retaining another link with the past, some of the album was recorded at Morrisound Studios, scene of Obituary’s original triumph with Slowly We Rot and a location favoured by a tidal wave of impersonators. The place had apparently changed little.

“Oh man, Morrisound was exactly like before,” laughs John, “and although being there again with Scott and Mark was a little unusual – everybody’s hair is a little bit thinner and greyer, and some of us had longer beards than before – after five minutes it felt like we’d never left.”

Despite all of the above, John insists that the back-to-roots feel on Frozen In Time wasn’t intentional. “People have asked whether we sat down and tried to sound just like our old selves,” he comments, “but it really wasn’t like that. We don’t decide we need to write a fast or slow album, or to try to sound like another band. The songs just fell into our laps, it was almost like we’d never stopped jamming.”

One major difference lies in the song titles. The album begins with the scorching instrumental Redneck Stomp, other gore-free and innocent-sounding offerings including Lock Jaw , On The Floor and Blindsided . Is the decreased splatter and gore on the new record attributable to the band becoming a little more mature?

“That probably has a large part to do with it,” he agrees. “We’ve had songs like Chopped In Half [from Cause Of Death’ ], but none of our albums have gone completely down that route. And when we did that stuff, it was never meant to be taken seriously.”

Where did Redneck Stomp come from?

“I’ve no idea! It was a working title – a stupid name we used while the song was being completed – that kinda stuck. I looked across at Big Al [Allen

West], who was there in his camouflage hat and Nascar shirt, stomping his foot on the floor. Donald probably called it Redneck Stomp first, and there was a lot of discussion about changing it. Some of the band and the record company wanted to, and Scott Burns was okay with the idea but thought it shouldn’t start the album, but Donald and I were dead set on it.”

John’s dislike of touring has frequently been blamed for their disappearances, but Tardy vows they’ll be back.

“There are good and bad sides of touring, and in the past we’ve done 19 consecutive shows,” he says. “I’m in my 30s now, so I can’t do that any more. None of us can. What we do now is play more selectively.”

Do we put a date in our diaries for a new Obituary album in six years time?

“Ha! Ha! No, we already have some new songs,” chuckles John. “We’ll probably have a new record [in 2006]. The songs just keep falling out of our pockets, so we’re defi nitely not done yet.”

Originally published in Metal Hammer 142