Time to extreme the dojo! - An interview with Doug Long.

This is an old interview I did with Doug Long, a maniac from Kentucky who played bass on one of my favorite albums, HELLNATION "Your Chaos Days Are Numbered", and is also responsible for all the bands under the Backwoods Butcher Recs label.

Originally published in Scatology Magazine #2 in 2021.

Hi, Doug! How have you been, dude? Welcome to the pages of Scatology! Serve yourself some coffee and let's go.

Gracias! I’ve been peachy here. Enjoying a little solitude and currently sipping the hottest and blackest coffee you’d ever wanna try. The beans are illegally imported from the Congo and sold only at nefarious backstreet markets where you can also get black tar heroin, Chinese bat meat and an unschedueled walk-in abortion with no appointment needed.

What record are you playing as we speak?

I just put on “Esthetik Of A Corpse” by ATRAX MORGUE. It’s great mood music for occasions such as this. What about you?

Saint Vitus “C.O.D.” sounds here. Why did you decide to get into this underground rock n’ roll abortion we love n’ hate so much?

Boredom! Entertainment options were very limited when I was a kid growing up in rural Ohio. You could either go to church, become a cop or commit suicide. I’ve always been a bit socially awkward and wasn’t much into child molestation or date rape so I got into punk rock instead.

In my opinion, Backwoods Butcher Records is one of the last bastions of real underground record labels. How do you survive in these stupid times without any pressence at internet social media?

The secret is to not give a shit, embrace failure and just enjoy the process! Still love creating and discovering weird new music but most of what goes on in the supposedly underground music scene tends to be blatant grovelling for validation. “You kiss my ass and I’ll kiss yours”. Starting a band so that you’ll have content for your social media page? That shit sucks! Those clowns should probably stick to posting selfies holding up limited edition diehard picture disc 12” they bought online. Who cares? Fuck your face.

Where would all those kids be without Facebook or Instagram? Do you think they know how to walk in a record store or a small show in a basement? Or maybe they just order records online and go to summer fests with dad's credit card?

Being an active participant in underground music has always meant spending way too much time sifting through turds in search of the occasional glorious gem. At this point, I probably have enough gems to last me for the rest of my stupid life. Social media makes the morbid narcissism and self-obsession more obvious but it’s always been there to some degree; following the template has just become totally effortless and the results are so fucking boring.

How many releases have you excreted over the world until now? Which one is your fave?

My first band released our own 7” EP circa 1991 and I’ve never slowed down much since then. Never tried to tally it up before but I’m sure the damage is extensive. Way too much crap! Success in underground music can only be qualified in how happy you are with the results, right? My favorite release is the ERECTILE DEMENTIA “Rock N’ Roll Abortion” LP. Everything about the music just ended up working well and Morbid Mark’s cover artwork is outstanding! Also very proud of the GAMMA-GERÄT and RARE FORM demo tapes. A very rare but satisfying occasion when everything turns out perfect.

One of the things that I really enjoy about your records are the song titles! Sarcasm and cynicism at maximum overdrive, especially with Erectile Dementia where I think you've been over the top.

Thanks for noticing! Instead of vomiting out more long-winded lyrics like I did in BRODY’S MILITIA, I tried to express everything I wanted to get across in ERECTILE DEMENTIA with just the song titles. Most fans of extreme music seem to be illiterate with the attention span of a retarded chipmunk so ExDx was my attempt at concise communication! Also tried to candy-coat my suicidal geezer nihilism with some cheesy jokes. Keep things light and slip the venom in unnoticed, you know? Let it slowly waft out like a dead rat rotting in the walls! I find it much more of a challenge to pull off effective humor than to just keep cranking out full-on pissed off gibberish.

But you told me Erectile Dementia is over now?

Aside from the first demo, the entire recorded output of ERECTILE DEMENTIA is fairly cohesive with everything getting a bit more ridiculous with each subsequent release. Didn’t think I could top the “Festering Future Endeavors” 7” EP so I put it to rest before it became too rudundant. I have more fun working on one-off recordings under different stupid band names with no thematic obligations so I can go off in whatever direction makes sense in the moment. It’s all the same crap in the end because I can’t really play anything else.

Always awesome artworks. I really dig Morbid Mark. Please introduce that guy to the readers.

Yes! Getting to work with Morbid Mark was a real honor. He’s always been a top tier underground artist in my distorted worldview. His classic stuff has an authentically gross vibe; definitely gave me the feeling that something awful was going on. You could always be relatively sure that Pushead was working in a well-lit studio with proper ventilation but I always got the feeling that Morbid Mark might have been lapping up infant blood while huffing human remains from inside an abandoned asylum. His work for MAN IS THE BASTARD, SATANIC MALFUNCTIONS and NEANDERTHAL was especially brutal. I just assumed he’d been arrested for cannibalism at some point in the early nineties as he just seemed to disappear for many years. Years alter while I was working on the “Rock N’ Roll Abortion” album and having zero success finding the right artist for the cover, I got a letter from Morbid Mark out of the blue. I’d never had any previous contact with him and here he was sending me some cash for ExDx records! Unfortunately, it doesn’t end with me becoming furniture upholstery or anything exciting; he’s the sweetest dude you’d ever wanna meet and has become very prolific again in recent years!

Since some years most of your projects are just yourself playing everything or working in the distance with some other hermits, don't you get bored of playing alone? Do you miss real band practises?

Had a blast being in a band with other people in the past but I don’t really miss it. My favorite part of the process has always been writing and recording. Don’t need anyone else for that. The very rare exception is SPASTIC AMOEBAS. I could never come up with that quality of madness by myself and it’s a fucking blast working together with those two genius mutants!

When can we expect some black metal in the vein of early IMMORTAL made in Backwoods Butcher?

Never? FUNERARY BOX is the closest thing to traditional metal that I’ve had a hand in creating but that’s still endless frozen eons away from IMMORTAL. I do enjoy prowling the midnight forest under a howling werewolf moon while clad in nothing but my spiked arm attachments. You’ve seen the security camera footage!

Are you still loyal to Marshall amplification? JCM 800 or JCM 900?

Haven’t played a live gig in over ten years but I’ll probably never get rid of my beloved Marshall JCM-800 full stack. Total overkill at this point, of course! I also have a little single speaker Fender 15 watt tube amp that I use for recording. Both have their places but sometimes you need to abuse what’s left of your ruined ears in the name of Satan!

I heard your old band PRAPARATION-H is about to reissue some old stuff and some unreleased songs too?

Yeah! We recorded a bunch of new tunes with most of the original members getting involved. The whole mess will be released on cassette along with some old unreleased relics from the vault. One of the new songs called “Shameless Nostalgia Gimmick Of Ultimate Uselessness” will appear on a tribute compilation to Slap-A-Ham records. That sums up the whole thing very well.

Tell me a dumb story from your days as bass player for HELLNATION.

There had been some Relapse Records package tour called “Extreme The Dojo” go through Japan right before one of our tours over there and we kept laughing at how dumb that name was so we started using the phrase as a euphemism for taking a huge bombastic shit. So you got sloppy drunk, accidentally ate an uncooked block of tofu with squid semen sauce and were about to commit a war crime on a pristine Tokyo subway toilet? Time to extreme the dojo! By the way, I’m now listening to The Cure’s “Three Imaginary Boys”.

Do you miss the nineties U.S. Power Violence scene?

I was living in the middle of nowhere at the time and didn’t have much of a personal connection to it. Definitely still enjoy some of the bands; both CROM albums are incredible! We played shows with a lot of those bands and met a lot of really cool people from that scene but only had direct contact when we went out to California to play “Fiesta Grande” or crossed paths with one of those bands on tour. We spent a month driving across the USA with CAPITALIST CASUALTIES in the late nineties and that was a big blur of crazy freaks and weirdos playing fucked up music every single night. All those rigidly-defined genre specifications weren’t super important back then. Meanwhile, the local scene here was basically non-existent so I never felt like I was a part of anything.

Ok, so let's talk a little about one of our fave bands ever - LED ZEPPELIN! I've recently been revisiting all their discography. Holy shit, dude! Can't find a bad album there!

Yeah, I love ZEPPELIN. They were the first band to really sink the hooks in my brain and I’ve never outgrown them. Anyone that remembers “In Through The Out Door” as anything less than brilliant needs to clean the dicks out of their ears, go back and listen again!

Which album is your fave? It's hard to choose but I think they reached perfection with IV.

My favorite album changes from year to year but I firmly believe “Houses Of The Holy” would have been the single greatest hard rock album in the history of human civilization had they replaced the song “D’yer Mak’er” with the originally intended title track. Maybe that goofy reggae song was put there to avoid causing the universe to collapse under the sheer cosmic weight of that record? I also really love “Physical Graffiti”.

One of the things I like the most about that band is they knew exactly when to say goodbye and quit without problem. Now it looks like no more bands know how to finish what they started without falling in the absolute pathetic self-parody.

Yeah! They knew the true source of their power wasn’t just in cocaine and Satan. Thankfully they were classy enough to bow out gracefully after he died. Most modern bands start off as a pathetic self-parody with no dignity so why not go ahead and run everything into the fucking ground? Who cares? Fuck all that shit. A few long-running bands that I would say have always maintained their power and honor are BLUE OYSTER CULT, TETSU ARRAY and AUTOPSY. I’m very lucky to have seen all three live. Not at the same show. Wouldn’t that be a fucking tour, eh? Holy shit.

Do you think bands that keep on going - or even worse, coming back - with only one original member are totally fake and a fraud?

In the case of something really special where all the members contribute equally then it’s definitely best to fold the band rather than slog on without passion. But then you have bands like MOTORHEAD where a single member is the obvious driving force! The early stuff is almost always going to be the best but there’s still plenty of interesting variations on the original theme to explore. A lot of current bands are just watered-down tribute clones that have only ever excelled at passing off plagiarism as homage. Most bands should probably only play live gigs but not bother recording music.

I guess that the peak of talented rock n’ roll music was in the 70’s or what the hell?

That tends to be my personal favorite kind of music but there have been plenty fantastic bands to come along in the years since, of course! I’ve likely stopped noticing new stuff because I’m old and stupid. Can’t think of the most recent band I would consider truly innovative in my ears. PAINTBOX from Japan? That said, I still get a charge of inspirational fury seeing a killer live set or hearing a blown out demo recording by some new band of young maniacs playing an exciting freaky flavor of grindcore, death metal or whatever. Absolutely fucking hate modern bands trying to play straight up “70’s rock”. Nothing is worse! Dudes born in the 90’s wearing bell bottoms jeans and well-groomed beards trying to sound like BLACK SABBATH will always suck infinitely more than anything else! I’d rather listen to nothing but drum machine gore grind with pitch-shifted diarrhea vocals for the rest of my life than hear another patchouli doom rock band.

Civilization has obviously been crumbling down for years but do you think 2020 was so terrible? Maybe people forgot about the years between 1914-1918 and 1939-1945. Anyway how was the year for the label, did you notice anything different?

I definitely had better sales during The Great War than I do now. The gas masks looked a lot more brutal back then as well.

Tell us about your future plans! Some more records coming out or just sitting at the barn to watch the woods on fire?

Doug: Mainly setting the barn on fire but I’ve also got a new demo tape called TELEKINETIC DECAPITATION that should be out by the time this interview becomes a printed reality. What does it sound like? Unlike anything you’ve ever imagined in your life, of course! Your brain will burst into searing black flames and your teeth will melt down the back of your throat. That’s a money-back guarantee, folks!

Right on dude! Thanks a lot for answering all this stupid babbling. Cheers!

Thank you so much for giving a shit about my good ol’ fashioned down home rock n’ roll arts n’ crafts, my man! Crush the fucking Christians and leave their desecrated corpses to rot under the brightly-shining sun of a hopeful new day.

https://backwoodsbutcher.blogspot.com/

Interview from Noxious Ruin Vol. 7

Noxious Ruin magazine and record label.

JM Dopico Interview – Noxious Ruin Vol.7

Hails Dopi, thank you for taking the time to share your history with the Noxious Ruin readers. You have been around the extreme music scene for over 30 years and I’m sure a lot of younger readers are unfamiliar with your history of influential bands. Let’s jump in to the interview:

MACHETAZO

-Take us back to the beginning.. How did you get into metal and extreme music? Were you playing an instrument before it happened?

Hails Brian, thanks to you too. Guess I got into metal and extreme music cos' I've been an outcast and a weirdo since a very early age, when I discovered rock'n'roll and its aesthetics of rebellion I fell in love with it immediately. I got into music in 1982/83 with a Barón Rojo “Volumen Brutal” tape and watching Iron Maiden videos on TV, I was 10 years old, I remember almost crying with emotion when I saw “The Trooper” vid. Afterwards I got some more heavy metal like Judas Priest, Venom, Motörhead, AC/DC, Kiss, Ozzy... until 1986 when I got Metallica “Master Of Puppets” and Slayer “Hell Awaits”, then went deep into the thrash / hardcore scene with Exodus, Kreator, The Accüsed, Recipients Of Death, Nuclear Assault, Whiplash, Suicidal Tendencies, Sodom, Misfits, Celtic Frost, D.R.I., Septic Death, No Mercy, S.O.D., Ludichrist, Excel, Dead Kennedys, C.O.C., English Dogs, Carnivore, etc, etc, etc. 1988 was the year I started to buy as many records as possible (sometimes stealing them in the big malls) and the first wave of death metal and grindcore was born; Death, Autopsy, Obituary, Morbid Angel, Entombed, Napalm Death, Carcass and Terrorizer were the bands that changed my musical perception forever and made me want to play in a band. So I got an electric guitar for my 15th birthday and started to make some noise, unfortunately for my family and neighbors.

-Being from Spain, was it more difficult to find extreme music or other people/musicians that wanted to play it?

No, it wasn't difficult to find extreme music at all. I had a small crew who had the same musical interests, some kids I met at school, one of them is Suici, who now plays in Leprophiliac with me. I had some tape trading contacts across the country too and also there were a couple of record stores in my town, both were pretty good, lots of import records and also ran by cool dudes who even recorded tapes for us when we were too broke to buy any LP. But finding people interested in playing extreme music was difficult, only me and like other four guys were playing instruments interested in extreme stuff. The rest of the young musicians I knew were more into classic rock or punk.

-Tell us about your first band(s) and how those led to the formation of Frustradiccion?

My first band was Necrosis and I played guitar. It was an absolute mess where we had like three shitty songs ours and then a lot of covers of Sodom, Napalm Death, Eskorbuto and La Polla Records. Necrosis existed only for some months in 1990, we played a show at a school party and then disbanded, hahaha... Then I switched from guitar to drums cos' one day at a practice room I realized I definitely could play drums without problem and totally fell in love with the instrument. So I formed a band named Distorsión Krónika, later changing name to Frustradicción. That was around 1991 and things got “serious”, lots of rehearsals every week and pretty soon we played live quite often. In 1992 we released a demotape and started to play out of town, I remember going to Madrid to play a beyond awesome show with Ruido De Rabia. In 1994 we recorded two songs for a 7” that wasn't released until 1995 by Qabalah Prods, -a record label ran by the then drummer of Avulsed-, and that long wait really fucked up our mood a lot. I don't like the demo, but the 7” is something unique, we mixed brutal stuff like Suffocation with industrial grind like Napalm Death and Godflesh. But right after the 7” things went downhill when the stupid techno music / drugs trend started cos' half band got hooked on it, that was very frequent back in the day here, lots of metal punks abandoned the scene to get into that shit, people with no integrity or attitude.

-Did you and Chinin form Machetazo while you were in Frustradiccion? Why did Frustradiccion split up?

Yes, I was still in Frustradicción but I formed it with Miguel, not Chinín. Miguel was a very young guy (15 I think?) who used to hang out with us all the time at the semi-abandoned house where we practiced. We used to stay there until really late at night listening crazy shit like Seven Minutes Of Nausea, Anal Cunt and the beyond awesome Gut “Spermany's Most Wanted” 7” while we smoked tons of hashish. One of those nights in 1994 we decided to form our own noise grind project, and Machetazo was born. As I said before Frustradicción was already starting to fall apart, some of the members were losing interest in extreme music so the frequent line-up problems were a pain in the ass. At the end it was only me and one guitar player from the original line-up, then he decided to move to London so we broke up the band, I think it was 1997 or 1998. It's a pity we left a lot of songs unrecorded, we could have made a full album I think, we had some great stuff very influenced by Brutal Truth “Need to control” and Fear Factory first album.

-Machetazo had a far more brutal and noisy sound than Frustradiccion, was this the reason you formed the band and switched to playing guitar?

At the beginning it was just noisecore grind to get high and have some fun. As I was already playing drums in another band, I wanted to play guitar. If I tell you the truth I don't remember any reason at all, everything was an spontaneous decision after another, always induced by a complete blurred mind of a 21 years old stoner.

-The first Machetazo release was the 46 Cabezas Aplastadas Por Un Yunque Oxidado demo in 1995, looking back now, how do you feel about this as an opening statement from the band. What was the feedback from others like?

I think it's still fuckin' great! We had a lot of crazy practices in 1994, I don't remember much cos' we were always partying and the house was full of buddies going nuts all the time. Finally in 1995 one of the guys who was studying sound engineering got a four track tape recorder at school and we made the demo. We recorded the 46 songs in one evening, it was so much fun, I remember recording the spoken words for the intros from a VHS player, but without TV, so imagine that, listening films to catch the words, haha... crazy bastards. We self released 50 TDK tapes with a glorious cut & paste cover, everybody loved the tape and two years later Ironia Recs got in touch to reissue it on 100 pro-tapes, but we made the mistake of changing the cover, Ironia even changed the logo without asking us, and he put that stupid one with the classic country font... The reissue also doesn't sound so good, our home dubbed ones sounded way better. I'm not sure if Ironía made another edition cos' I saw some tapes with stickers and red cover instead of the printed tape and black covers of the ones we got, so who knows. What I know is that I'm still waiting for the master to be returned to me!

-All the songs on the demo are hyper fast grind-noise, except Inyectando Virus Ebola En Las Venas Genitales (my favorite song on the demo!) where did the influence for this song come from? (sounds to me like Godflesh or Head of David)

We were big fans of industrial music and experimental bands, so you're damn right, bands like Godflesh, Swans or Painkiller were all we had in mind when we did that track. There's also a cover of Godflesh in the demo, “Veins”.

-Was the band a complete line up in the beginning? Did you play any shows?

The core was Miguel and me, then we had a couple of guys “borrowed” from another bands, they weren't in it 100%. Chinín was playing bass with more punk oriented bands, and Marcos was the drummer for the death metal band Sepulcro, later renamed Deface. We didn't play any shows in those years.

-It wasn’t until 1998 that your next demo “Realmente Disfruto Comiendo Cadaveres” was released. Why did take almost 3 years between releases?

I don't know, we were lazy as fuck I guess, also Miguel was having some mental issues that led me to invite him to leave. The second demo was recorded by the same guy with another four track tape recorder, but he was already working in a professional studio so he got everything over there to mix and experiment all he wanted. He used and abused of the stupid pro-tools and the result was that weird cyber sound so overproduced for a grind demo, he even made whole songs at the studio putting little pieces together, a total nonsense I didn't like at all back then, and really hate now. I wasn't at the studio with him when he did all that shit, my mistake! Anyway the whole thing is a delirious and funny artifact of noise everybody liked a lot, we self released 500 pro-tapes and who knows how many home dubbed copies. It even was reissued on 10” in 1999 by Fudgeworthy Recs, that was so crazy! It's our first release in the USA, Charlie Infection did a fuckin' amazing job with it helping a lot to spread our name around the world. Fudgeworthy Recs is a true underground label that has been active since 1990, and Charlie is a legendary musician, he plays in a bunch of bands like Psycho or Gonkulator, he even played drums with GG Allin on the album “Freaks, faggots, drunks & junkies” in 1988.

-How much of Realmente… was made with a drum machine (if any at all)?

All drums were sampled and manipulated at the studio to the point of leaving the original drums unrecognized. I think that was the reason the drummer lost interest in Machetazo and was very uncomfortable with us. He also started to complain about playing too fast, cos' he was afraid about damaging his wrists and arms with the blastbeats. One day I told him that maybe it would be a good idea for him to leave, he immediately agreed, he didn't care at all. Then I searched for another drummer and asked Suici about joinning us, he tried a couple of practices but he wasn't fast enough, Suici hasn't been good with blastbeats never in his life, he's a good heavy and slow death metal drummer but definitely not fast. Frustradicción was dead and I wasn't drumming with any band, so I decided to switch to drums and lead vocals. We got Nacho on guitar and in december 1998 we recorded a bunch of songs that would appear on the splits with Rise Above and Abscess years later. With Nacho we played our first show, it was in A Coruña with Fermento from Madrid. Nacho left shortly after, we're still good friends, he plays now in the crust band Amhra.

-Over the next year or so, you write new song for various split releases and your first LP. Even though the new stuff is still grind based, there is a lot

more death metal influence now -so why the change?

When I switched to drums I had enough of all the noisecore stuff, I wanted to play death grind and focus 100% in the band, I was very determined to take my music as far as possible. I also added lots of influences from crustcore and sludge, I was a lot into Extreme Noise Terror, Disrupt, Eyehategod and Grief. Machetazo never was a band easy to categorize, our music covered many styles and also we moved in several scenes at the same time, we were open minded having friends and contacts everywhere, back in the day we didn't care if the show was in a squat with crust punk bands or in a big venue with death black metal bands, we would go the same way to annihilate everybody.

-The band has also always had problems keeping a stable line up? Is this the reason it was usually only you and Chinin (el Mescalinas) for the the first 5-6 years of the band?

In those first years Chinín never was a constant member neither, he would go and come whenever he wanted until he finally left without telling me much explanation. There's even a recording with only me in Machetazo, I had to record everything for the split 7” with Corrupted in 1999 cos' he left to pursue his dreams with a hardcore band he thought was going to become very famous. That band was a total failure and just disbanded after releasing a super expensive record that went nowhere, then he came back to me as soon as he knew I signed with Razorback Recs for a first album that I was about to record by myself, so I got him back aboard to record bass on “Carne De Cementerio”. I was always very cool and patient with him dealing with his constant changes of mind until I had enough of his bullshit, one day he left Machetazo again and that was the last time, we never spoke to each other again.

-The next period of the band (2002 to roughly 2008) has your brother Carlos and new guitar player Rober, what made this line up work? Why did Carlos end up leaving?

Now we're talking, this is by far my fave period of the band, maybe the only years we were a real and proper band. Rober came in after the first album was released, he even spent some months dealing with Chinín in the band, playing some shows and recording the songs for the split 7” with Bodies Lay Broken (those songs have also my brother Carlos as guest vocalist). Rober pumped in me new blood and energy like nobody before, I was so happy to finally find somebody at my same level of attitude and dedication for the underground. We were furious, determined, and ready to give our fuckin' best when we were working on the second album, the result was “Trono De Huesos”, a very important album that receives praise still today. When Carlos listened “Trono De Huesos” he was totally impressed and realized the band was no joke anymore, we invited him to be the bass player and he didn't think about it twice. Carlos stayed with us until the end of 2008, he was very dissatisfied with the sound production we got for “Mundo Cripta” (now I'm too), other problems and disagreements were constant. Also we're brothers, and you know how brothers are sometimes, we used to have a lot of arguments, one day we had a big one and he just left. But now we get along pretty well, no more arguments since we don't play together.

-From 2002 to roughly 2008, you released 3 full lengths (and a bunch of various stuff), did having an American label help you gain recognition?

On those years we worked really hard, also we played out of Spain a lot, some years we were out of town almost every weekend and any free time we could get from work, a crazy experience without a rest. The albums with Razorback Recs definitely helped a lot, both to the band and to the label, we grew together on those years. It was so cool to be from Spain but signed to a label based in New York, people here went nuts with that. But our recognition was also due to a constant appearance on stage, a good lot of EP's and split records between the albums, and of course the incredible amount of mail I carried.

-You also had the chance to do a short (East Coast) American tour around 2006, was this your first time playing in the US. Do you remember any Highlights?

Yep, that was our first time in the US, no doubt the best tour we did ever, for many, many reasons. We were invited to play Maryland Deathfest that year so we took the chance to tour around the East Coast with Splatterhouse, our Portland buddies who had some dates planned around there just the week before the fest. We all met in Baltimore and that same day played in a warehouse together with Plaguewielder, on the floor, no stage, everybody around the bands while they played, just my fave kind of show! I don't remember all the bands we shared stage with but I remember Graves At Sea in Philadelphia and Psycho in Boston cos' they were amazing. Splatterhouse kicked ass every night aswell, we had a blast with those guys, very nice people who helped us a lot. The absolute highlight of the tour was the show in NY at CBGB's with Pungent Stench, it was one of the most memorable days in my life for sure, the show was insanely good and I met a lot of old penpals there, also it was recorded and we released it some years later! Any band with a “Live at CBGB” at the discography can die satisfied. Maryland Deathfest 06 was crazy, after a week of too much drinking and not much eating we were exhausted, but anyway we nailed it, we were young and restless, those were the days, the good times. Don from NunSlaughter sang a cover of Massacre's “Corpsegrinder” with us, that was so fuckin' awesome.

-For the rest of the time the band is together, it’s just you and Rober correct? Even though you were still releasing music, were you getting discouraged doing Machetazo?

Right, Rober and me were together until the end, with a couple of session bass players we had for live shows; our close friends Santi (Inerth, ex-Nashgul, ex-Looking For An Answer) and Iñaki (Horrible, ex-Denak, ex-Dishammer, ex-Moho). Iago (ex-Frustradicción) was the unlucky bass player during the last year, playing live and also recording the last Machetazo records, the split 7”s with Ras and Headless Death. He found the band dying already, sorry for him cos' he's a great bass player and a good old friend of mine.

Honestly, Machetazo never was the same after Carlos left, we lost somehow the feeling of “being THE band”, the camaraderie and the magic was slowly fading out, Rober and me got burnt-out of all the touring and to sacrifice weekends and vacation time to the band started to be a pain in the ass. We never made enough money to quit our jobs, so it was always the same shit over and over, at the end it brought too much frustration, disappointment, anger and lack of communication between us. Machetazo was an hyperactive band, non-stop, if we weren't in the studio we were on the road. We weren't like those old farts who now boast of having been together for 30 years but then you check out their activities in the last ten years and they played like one fest every year and recorded one EP in the last 5 years, fuck that shit.

-Before the band ended, you released the excellent Ruin LP and played Maryland Death Fest twice. What were some of the other highlights of the last years of the band?

Hell yeah, we played Maryland Deathfest three times in total, that's awesome and I'm very proud of such achievement, those guys loved us, they even asked for a reunion not long ago.

“Ruin” is the clear reflection of how we felt back then, we were depressed, angry and tired. I really like the album cos' it's pure darkness and real despair, the cover artwork made by my late friend Timo Ketola says it all.

I can't think of many highlights in the last years... maybe the “Necrocovered” EP cos' of some crazy special guests on vocals like Chris Reifert and Kam Lee. But I remember mostly the terrible hangovers at airports, stupid arguments, broken friendships, boredom and feel like I was wasting my time.

-After 20 years, you end Machetazo, was it a hard decision? What was your state of mind at the time?

It was just another of my spontaneous decisions, and my mind was blurred the same way it was when I was a 21 years old stoner. I was very depressed for some time, but when something is dead is dead, leave it to rot and turn the page, luckily nothing is eternal.

-In hindsight, how do you feel about the bands legacy?

I feel very proud, we did a lot and pretty well, also we quit before we started fucking it up, that's not very usual, you know!

BODYBAG

-Pretty quickly after Machetazo ended, you start Bodybag. What were you trying to accomplish with a new band that you couldn’t with Machetazo?

I just wanted to stay active and have something I hadn't in years: Fun. So I joined with a couple of young dudes and things were rolling pretty quickly.

-Did you feel that Bodybag had a greater amount of straight forward death metal influence?

Not really, I think it was grind as fuck too, some of my best blastbeats are in Bodybag songs.

-And with the name, it didn’t matter to you there had already been a US grind band called Bodybag?

We hadn't idea about that band, we only knew there was another contemporary Bodybag, but a metalcore band, so we didn't give a shit.

-The first Bodybag release, Predominance of Insanity was recorded in 2014, did Bodybag start up before you officially ended Machetazo?

It started up exactly two weeks after Machetazo's end. Another of my “spontaneous decisions”, this time a very precipitate one cos' I was still suffering the Machetazo depression, I don't know why I didn't take a break to cool my mind a little bit, but I guess the anger and frustration I felt was embodied in “Predominance Of Insanity”.

-The pace of releases for Bodybag was much slower than Machetazo, was this a conscious choice or did other things slow the band down? Were you also playing in other bands at the same time?

I hadn't other bands, but the other guys in Bodybag were always busy with other bands and projects, never 100% in Bodybag, sometimes some of their other bands interrupted Bodybag activities, in fact that was the main reason that led me to split it. But I totally understand they acted like that, they were way younger than me, also they already had those other bands with their buddies before joining me in Bodybag, so the one that was left over was me.

-Did you play many live shows or get to play outside of Spain much?

We just played a few shows in Spain and two in Portugal. We didn't get many proposals for shows or fests, promotors didn't care at all about Bodybag.

-Besides Hellnation being a fucking AMAZING band, how did you come to do a cover on the Invocation of Obscene Gods compilation? Had you know Doug before then?

Oh yes, I know Doug since so many years I can't remember. No doubt the best thing that the underground scene gave me is the friends I made around the world, and the backwoods butcher is one of the very best. I've been a Hellnation fan since I got “Your chaos days are numbered” LP, I still think it's one of the fastest records ever made, some of the greatest hardcore / grind right there, incredible album! When Doug invited us to the compilation the choice was easy, “Fuck your hippie love”, awesome song and even better lyrics.

-3 years, 4 official releases, 21 songs… how do feel about the bands legacy?

It's a proper dose of old school grind death you don't hear very often anymore, grindcore has changed a lot these last years and I think Bodybag was one of the last real ones. Most of the bands now who claim to play grind just play bullshit; too much math hardcore and post metal influences, stupid double pedal gravity blasts with triggered drums, Donald Duck vocals, indie hipster attitude... modern grind sucks.

-Any last words or thoughts about the history of Machetazo/Bodybag? Anyone you want to thank or give a shout out to?

I want to thank specially my old friends Nor Prego and Paco “The Maggot” Liaño cos' without them I wouldn't be able to be who I am today, they always supported me no matter what, never failed me. Thanks also to the record labels who bet big on me all those years, specially Ramón at Living Dead Society, Uge at Throne Recs, Jill at Razorback Recs and Tim at Parasitic Recs. Hails to anybody who bought / buy my records and came to the shows, you all rule, check out my current projects Leprophiliac and Premature Burial, hope you dig them. Thanks for the interview Brian, it's been a good nostalgic trip.

Leprophiliac meets Spastic Amoebas split CD out now.

An interdimensional shockwave of festering filth and telekinetic molestation! Spanish corpse collectors LEPROPHILIAC unearth their casket crawling chaos with four massive death grinding epics slathered in the sultry sound of disease and dread. Innard-chewers and bone lickers will rot united in fatal ecstasy! SPASTIC AMOEBAS return from beyond the realms of good taste with a vicious barrage of frantic schizophrenia sure to delight both the criminally insane and deaf people with equal aplomb. Roaring sexual perversion and pinpoint killing precision in one pulsating package of frenetic thrash! The full-tilt cosmic power of underground rock n’ roll duality spews triumphantly forth with zero discretion for your feeble inhibitions.

CD released by Backwoods Butcher Records in the USA.

In Europe you can get a copy at Leprophiliac Bandcamp or directly from me, just send me an email.

Leprophiliac side recorded and mixed by Paco "The Maggot" Liaño at Treboada Studio in January and February 2025.

Mastered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studio.

All music and lyrics by Leprophiliac, Dopi on guitar/bass/vocals and Suici on drums.

Cover artwork by Nor Prego.

LP will be released by Morbid Reality Recs, and cassette by Psychocontrol Recs, date TBA.

My Complete Discography

FRUSTRADICCIÓN (Drums)

- El Vacío De La Locura Cassette (Self-released, 1992).

- Frustradicción 7'' EP (Qabalah Prods, 1995).

 

MACHETAZO (Drums and vocals)

- 46 Cabezas Aplastadas Por Un Yunque Oxidado Cassette (Self-released, 1995).

- Realmente Disfruto Comiendo Cadáveres Cassette / 10'' (Self-released, 1998 / Fudgeworthy Recs, 1999).

- Carne De Cementerio CD / Cassette / LP (Razorback Recs / Witchhammer Prods, 2000 / Throne Recs, 2002).

- Split w/ Corrupted 7'' EP (Frigidity Recs, 2000).

- Split w/ Rise Above 7'' EP (Sterilized Decay, 2000).

- Split w/ Abscess 7'' EP / MCD (Upground / Ironia, 2001 / Throne Recs / Parade Recs, 2004).

- Split w/ Bodies Lay Broken 7'' EP (Discos Al Pacino, 2001).

- Trono De Huesos CD / Cassette / LP (Razorback Recs / Witchhammer Prods, 2002 / Throne Recs, 2003 / Doomentia Recs, 2012).

- The Maggot Sessions 7'' EP / MCD (First Blood Family, 2003 / Living Dead Society, 2004).

- Dead...In The Raw! Cassette (Self-released, 2004).

- Horror Grind 7'' EP / MCD (Last House On The Right, 2004).

- Split w/ General Surgery 7'' EP (Escorbuto / Goryfied Prods, 2004).

- Split w/ Cianide 7'' EP (Hells Headbangers Recs, 2005).

- Sinfonías Del Terror Ciego CD / LP / Cassette (Razorback Recs, 2005 / Throne Recs, 2005 & 2019 / Bloody Scythe Recs, 2020).

- Split w/ Total Fucking Destruction 7'' EP (Relapse Recs, 2006).

- Ultratumba CD / Double LP (Living Dead Society, 2006 / Apathic View Prods, 2011).

- Split w/ Ribspreader 7'' EP (The Spew Recs, 2007).

- Mundo Cripta CD / LP (Throne Recs, 2008 / No Escape Recs / Power It Up Recs, 2009).

- Split w/ Winters In Osaka 7'' EP (Torture Garden Pictures Company, 2009).

- Necrocovered MCD / 10'' (Living Dead Society / Parasitic Recs, 2010).

- Desolación Mental 7'' EP (Doomentia Recs, 2011).

- Live At CBGB LP / CD (Black Mass Recs, 2011 / Selfmadegod Recs, 2013).

- Split w/ Marrow LP (Dysphoria Recs, 2011).

- The Maggot Sessions II Cassette / LP (Filthy Cave Recs, 2011 / Haunted Hotel Recs, 2012).

- Crypt, Marrow And Desolation Cassette (Kandar Mosh Distro, 2011).

- Ruin CD / LP (Doomentia Recs / Parasitic Recs, 2013 / Cráneo Negro Recs, 2014).

- Split w/ Ras 7'' EP (Equinox Recs, 2014).

- Split w/ Headless Death 7'' EP (Blastasfuck, 2014).

- Ultratumba II CD / Cassette (Selfmadegod Recs / Bloody Scythe Recs, 2020).

 

MUNDO INFERNO (Drums and vocals)

- Amenaza Viva En Un Mundo Muerto Cassette (Self-released, 1997).

 

GRUB (Guitar and bass)

- Deepcoldburial Cassette (Stab Prods, 1999).

- Illfated Cassette (Rarefazioni Uterine, 1999).

- Clot City Cassette (Out Of Love Recs, 2000).

 

WORSHIP THE SUN (Drums and vocals)

- Worship The Sun CD (Self-released, 2003).

 

THE DEADFUCKS (Drums and vocals)

- GG Allin In Your Ass CD (Self-released, 2005).

 

DEADMASK (Guitar, bass and drums)

- Under Luciferian Wings MCD (Psychedoomelic Recs, 2008).

- Split w/ Jess And The Ancient Ones 7'' EP (Doomentia Recs, 2012).

 

DISHAMMER (Vocals)

- Vintage Addiction CD / LP / Cassette (Hells Headbangers Recs, 2008 / A Sangre Fría Recs, 2013).

- Split w/ The Warwolves 7'' EP (Parasitic Recs, 2009).

- Under The Sign Of The D-beat Mark MLP / MCD (Parasitic Recs / Armageddon, 2010).

- Behind Black Doors 7'' EP (Sons Of Kain, 2010).

- Collection Cassette (Kandar Mosh Distro, 2010).

 

GENERIC DEATH (Bass, drums and vocals)

- Underground Is Dead 7'' EP (At War With False Noise, 2011).

- Split w/ Varunian Cassette (Truco Espárrago, 2012).

- Split w/ Sete Star Sept LP / Cassette (Rage For All, 2012 / Blast Work Recs, 2012).

 

RUINEBELL (Drums and vocals)

- Demise In Disgrace 7'' EP (Doomentia Recs, 2011).

- Embers' Grave MLP (Doomentia Recs, 2015).

 

MUTILATED VETERANS (Guitar, drums and vocals)

- Necro Crust Warhead MLP (Hells Headbangers Recs, 2014).

- Split w/ Vastation 7'' EP (Morbid Reality Recs, 2015).

 

BODYBAG (Drums and vocals)

- Predominance Of Insanity MLP / MCD / Cassette (Living Dead Society / Unholy Prophecies / Noise Not War Recs, 2015).

- Split w/ Modorra LP (Plague Island, 2016).

- Split w/ General Surgery LP (Living Dead Society, 2017).

- Split w/ Earth Federation 7'' EP (Awesome Mosh Power Recs, 2017).

- Discography CD / Cassette / Double LP (Grindestroy, 2022 / Noxious Ruin, 2023 / Psychocontrol Recs, 2024).

 

DEFENDER (Drums and vocals)

- Defender 10'' / MCD (Alone Recs, 2016).

 

LITURGICAL DAMAGE (Drums)

- Social Martyr Cassette / 7'' EP (Bloody Scythe Recs / Grindfather Prods, 2018 / Haunted Hotel Recs, 2019).

 

PREMATURE BURIAL (Guitar, bass, drums and vocals)

- Antihuman CD / LP / Cassette (Selfmadegod Recs / Vomit Recs / Beat Generation / Home-Dubbed Junks, 2019).

- Promo MMXXII Cassette (Self-released, 2022).

- The Obsolete CD / LP / Cassette (Clandestine Prods / Cain Recs, 2022 / At War With False Noise, 2023).

 

LEPROPHILIAC (Guitar, bass and vocals)

- Caskets Of Flesh Cassette / MCD / MLP (Dismal Fate Recs / Clandestine Prods, 2019 / Obliteration Recs / Inhuman Assault Prods / Headsplit Recs, 2020 / Catábasis Recs, 2021).

- Necrosis CD / LP / Cassette (RFL Recs / Inhuman Assault / Headsplit Recs / Cianeto Discos, 2020 / Rotten Scum Recs, 2021).

- Split w/ Concilio Cadavérico Cassette / MCD (Life After Death / Fuck Your Life Recs / El Conjuro Recs / Cain Recs, 2021).

- Split w/ Rotting Grave 7'' EP / Cassette / MCD (Tenebrous Aberrations Prods / Goat Throne Recs, 2021 / Clandestine Prods, 2023).

- Split w/ Cadaveric Incubator 7'' EP (Headsplit Recs / The Other Recs, 2021).

- Slimebath MCD / MLP / Cassette (RFL Recs, 2022).

- Rehearsal Cassette (Noise Not War Recs, 2022).

- Split w/ Gravavgrav CD / LP / Cassette (Behind The Mountain / Obliteration Recs, 2023).

- Gein CD / LP / Cassette (RFL Recs, 2023).

- Mil Gritos Tiene La Noche 7'' EP / Cassette (Seven Metal Inches Recs / Iron Fortress Recs, 2024).

- Split w/ Spastic Amoebas CD (Backwoods Butcher Recs, 2025).

 

DEATHCONTROL (Guitar, bass and vocals)

- The Endless Echo Of His Own Litany CD / Cassette (Selfmadegod Recs / For Victory Recs / Noxious Ruin, 2024).  

 

Guest / Session Musician:

 

Banished From Inferno (Spain)

- Banished From Inferno MCD 2008 (Additional vocals track 3).

- Minotaur LP 2011 (Additional vocals track 5). 

Winters In Osaka (USA)

- Mindburrow Cassette 2009 (Lead vocals track 2). 

Bone Gnawer (USA)

- Feast Of Flesh CD 2009 (Additional vocals track 5). 

Bonesaw (Scotland)

- Sawtopsy CD 2009 (Additional vocals). 

Black Demon (Spain)

- Demons Of War, Demons Of Darkness MCD 2012 (Lead vocals tracks 1 and 2). 

Iron Lamb (Sweden)

- The Original Sin LP 2011 (Additional vocals track 1). 

Lobotomized (Norway)

- Norwegian Trash LP 2013 (Additional vocals). 

Repuked (Sweden)

- Up From The Sewers LP 2013 (Additional vocals track 11). 

Looking For An Answer (Spain)

- Kraken MLP 2014 (Additional vocals track 4). 

Bokluk (Spain)

- Taphonomy CD 2014 (Additional vocals track 6). 

Haemophagus (Italy)

- Atrocious LP 2014 (Additional vocals track 9). 

Morbid Messiah (Mexico)

- Disgorged In The Coffin MCD 2021 (Additional vocals track 5). 

Paganizer (Sweden)

- Where The Ancient Ones... Live CD 2022 (Lead vocals track 13). 

Funerary Box (USA)

- Belligerent Curses In An Unknown Tongue Cassette 2022 (Lead vocals track 16). 

Mortify (Japan)

- Split w/ Human Corpse Abuse 7'' EP 2025 (Additional vocals track 10).