Poised to release their brand new album Abysmal, The Black Dahlia Murder have well and truly become one of the Death Metal elite. With the new album tackling uncharted territory for the band, along with reminding us just how reliantly devastating the band can be we were able to speak to macabre linguist Trevor Strnad. Speaking of Abysmal’s theme’s along the album featuring a small track by track description, along with what it was like for the band to perform out of their comfort zone on the Warped Tour and some good ol’ fashioned Death Metal. Keep an ear out for an announcement of some European tour dates coming in January!
Going back to Abysmal, with the album artwork do you try and represent within each album a song? Deflorate had the artwork for “I Will Return”… Does Abysmal tie into that?
Trevor : I mean it’s just the general sentiment of hell really, I wanted the artwork to embody hell and like I was saying earlier there’s a few nods to Hell within the album it’s no particular song that is being pictured on the front really. I do like how it came out, it definitely lives up to the legacy if you know what I mean! It’s a lot of pressure on me to deliver good artwork, find the right guy and outdo Everblack, which had a really striking cover. Abysmal is no slouch it’s pretty awesome, it’s definitely a place where I don’t wanna go!
What was it like to be on the Warped Tour in 2014, you were pretty much the only Death Metal band there, did it change your outlook a little bit?
Trevor : It was interesting to kind of see the inner workings of a different scene, you know what I mean that was just outside of Metal. We were so far removed from anything we like or anything that we were comfortable with, it was like a wild long summer. It was cool though, we played in front of a lot of new people. We could have another Metal tour where we go and play in front of the same people or we could try The Warped Tour and reach really really young kids. For a lot of people man, that’s like their first exposure to any kind of underground culture over here. Their first punk show, anything that has to do with the alternative lifestyle.
Trevor : We’re trying to hit ’em pretty young man! There was a lot of positive response, we figured if we’re not compromising who we are in any way, we’re playing our same scary ass music loud going out and swearing at the crowd and just doing our normal thing then why should there be any shame in it? We’re just trying to prolong the life of the band and reach new people, you know it’s not really that outside of the box from anything that we have done in the past you know? For every Carcass tour there’s a Suicide Silence tour or scene oriented band, we’re trying to play to everybody that would like the band basically. Trying to realise who likes the band and kind of get it out to everybody that could be into it.
Yeah that’s true, you guys have had tours where you went on a co-headline stint with Suicide Silence…
Trevor : We really mix it up man, we try to just do a bit of everything. I have realised that people don’t just call us a Death Metal band. It’s all different kinds of genre tags that come with this band. You know I used to get kind of butthurt about it in the early days “Oh, I just wanna be considered a Death Metal band you know?” but now that the genre battle never ends about us, which allows to have fans from all walks. Out at in the crowd at a BDM show man I see all kinds of people, long hair short hair, Death Metal dudes, Hardcore dudes it’s kind everybody in between and I welcome them all. I don’t care what the hell they’re calling us as long as they like the music, then I’m happy to see ’em!
This is simply an excerpt of what Trevor had to say, listen to the full unedited interview below where the singer details even more secrets of The Black Dahlia Murder, along with how the band got their name no less!
