Southern California’s Antagonist compile the best parts of classic thrash and death metal and throw them into a lethal brew that is often catchy and always brutal. The band is releasing their Prosthetic Records (All That Remains, Gojira) debut, Exist on September 30^th. SMN News caught up with vocalist/guitarist Carlos Garcia to talk about the new record.

What initially drew you to heavy metal? Do you remember what your first few albums were?

Carlos Garcia (vocals/guitar): I was into punk rock when I first started playing the guitar, but when I was around 12 or 13, my friend let me borrow a tape of Metallica’s “…And Justice for All” and I was hooked! From then I picked up albums like Megadeth’s Youthanasia and even Cannibal Corpse’s The Bleeding. Funny story about that album…my parents were subscribed to one of those mail order CD clubs, and I saw The Bleeding under the metal section. And it didn’t even have the album cover, because it was too grotesque, so naturally I HAD to buy it. I remember the first time popping it in the CD player, and about 10 seconds into the first riff of “Staring Through the Eyes of The Dead,” I stopped it, and told myself, “My god, I shouldn’t be listening to this…this is wrong and evil!” So of course, I giggled, and kept playing it all the way through. True story!

The band toughed it out independently for the better part of a decade before signing with Prosthetic Records this year. It seemed like a lot of newer bands were getting deals while you got passed up. Was there ever a point where you almost threw in the towel?

There were times of discouragement along the way, but I don’t think there was ever point when any of the four of us wanted to give up. We’ve seen bands come and go, and for the most part they’re usually “flavor of the month” type bands. We’ve always been a band that writes music, first and foremost. There’s no image or gimmick involved, we just write the best music we possibly can and play our hearts out at every show. And we still have faith that those are the characteristics that’ll endure and have a lasting impression on people. Lots of these new bands will be gone in a year or two. We’ll still be doing what we’ve always done, just hopefully on a bigger scale.

With this being your first high profile release, was getting a veteran like Fred Archambault (Deftones, Death By Stereo) behind the boards key to everything coming together? The record sounds great!

Thanks a bunch!! We’re all really happy about the final product, and Fred definitely had a lot to do with it. We never really had time in the studio to get out all the kinks and really get a sound we all agreed upon. It’s always been “okay, you have 1500 dollars and 2 weeks to record an album, GO!” This time we actually had time to let things develop naturally, lots of cool amps and guitars and drums to really get a sound we dug, and of course, Fred kicking our asses in gear to get the best possible performance out of us. Dude knows what he’s doing, and we’re all very grateful that he worked with us.

There are some old-school flavored thrash riffs on Exist that reminded me of bands like Annihilator and Kreator. How important was that late 80’s era of metal to the shaping of the material?

There’s no denying that Metallica is super important to us, especially from ‘84-’88. That’s the band that we all found common ground with, especially Matt and I. To be honest, I don’t listen to as much of the late 80s stuff as Matt does, he listens to much more Megadeth, Sacred Reich, and Testament than I do, but we all agree how important the sound is and how it’s shaped our sound. And like I said before, we’re all big punk and hardcore fans, which is pretty much what thrash is anyway.

You and Matt did a fine job on the guitars and there seems to be a real connection with the way you trade off on the riffing. How do you guys go about constructing the parts and how do you figure out who’s playing any given guitar figure?

I wrote a majority of the music for this album, but it always seems to morph once I take it to the practice space and show Matt. He’s very, very good about writing parts that compliment mine and also very good at filling voids when I’m at a wall with a song or riff. We’ve been jamming together for so long that we kind of already know who’s going to play which part, or harmony, or lead, or anything; we know each other’s styles. Lots of times, we’ll be jamming on a new song and without saying anything, we’ll each play the proper parts, and we’ll just bust up laughing because it wasn’t planned but we just knew! It’s a pretty awesome thing we got going in that sense.

Some of the solos have a really lose, fluid flow about them. Did most of them happen organically in the studio or was it more of something you guys fleshed out in pre-production?

There were a couple solos that I had written before we got into the studio, and there were definitely some (like the one in “Angels”) that I just ripped off the cuff. I’m not a very flashy player, I’m a big believer in substance. If you could hum a solo back in your head, like any catchy melody you’d hear, then I think I’ve done my job. I find that a lot more satisfying then just playing a bunch of scales really fast and doing lots of sweep arpeggios all over the fret board. You know what, I need to address the sweep picking dilemma: it’s PLAYED OUT! Tons of newer bands do it now, and do it pretty badly. There’s a handful that pull it off, and throw in other elements to keep it fresh, but I’ve seen guitarists whose only trick is sweep picking, yet they can’t even play a simple blues scale and their rhythm playing is sloppy. It’s fucking annoying! There, I said it.

What kind of themes are you lyrically tackling on Exist?

Lyrically, the main theme is the idea that if people work together as a whole, for a common positive goal, we can achieve great things. And at this point in history, we as humans need to do this in order to survive, in order to continue existing. Otherwise, we’ll just destroy each other and the world we live in. There are definitely songs on the album about war, failed relationships, and times where a person feels like all hope is lost, but I always try to tag on a positive outcome or message to every song. It may not seem very “metal” to a lot of people, but I don’t think there’s anything more metal than standing up and fighting for what you believe in. It’s the idealist in me.

Antagonist’s sound is obviously very diverse so I imagine you play with all kinds of bands. So far, which kind of crowd has been the most receptive to you?

I’m happy to say that we get great responses from all types of crowds! Even if a certain crowd doesn’t necessarily dig our style of music, they definitely respect what we’re doing and appreciate that we’re giving 110 percent at every show. Hardcore crowds love us, the metal crowds love us, and hopefully the death metal crowd (which we’ll be in front of for the next five days) will be into us too! People appreciate when a band makes the extra effort, and I think the kids at any of our given shows recognize that about us.

What’s on the schedule for the next year for the band?

Right now, we’re firming up a couple tours that’ll hit the west coast, southwest, and some Midwest dates. Hopefully we can get out to the east coast too, but nothing is 100 percent confirmed yet. We always update our tour dates on myspace.com/antagonist, so everyone needs to add us and keep checking back to see if we’re coming to town!

By Carlos Ramirez

Rate this interview:

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 at 11:34 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are no comments yet.

Make a Comment

Name:

E-Mail Address:

Website:

Comment: