Rockezine.com interview with Malevolent Creation on Nov 13, 2002

with Phil Fasciana on Nov 13, 2002

The Florida death metal formation Malevolent Creation are back with their brand new, tenth release “The Will To Kill”, which has become one of their best. With a new vocalist and drum player Malevolent Creation feel stronger than ever. The new record deal with Nuclear Blast (only for Europe) should strengthen their name at this side of the big ocean. No wonder guitarist Phil is eager to speak to the European press, although it seems to be a little bit too much for him.
		How are you doing? I’m doing fine. Only all these interviews man, they are killing me, haha. I have to do interviews the whole day for the coming two weeks. I’m getting nuts man, haha.
		Where are you now? I’m in Florida now to promote “The Will To Kill”.
		So you can’t complain about the weather? No, the weather over here in Florida is always all right. Where are you, then?
		I’m in Holland. Holland, that’s my favorite country! I really like it over there. I’ve been there for a couple of times and I really look forward to go there again. Life’s so easy over there.
We’ll be coming over there soon.		When are you coming here again? We’ll be coming over there soon. First we will be going on tour with Cannibal Corpse in the United States, which we really are looking forward to. After that we will be going on tour with Marduk in March of the next year; and we also will be featuring on the upcoming No Mercy festivals across Europe. So we certainly will be playing in Holland some time too.
		Why did you guys leave Arctic and sign with Nuclear Blast? We still are under contract with Arctic Records; they release “The Will To Kill” in America. Nuclear Blast is responsible for releasing it in Europe. And so far we are very satisfied. They are doing a hell of a great job. Despite of the fact that “The Will To Kill” was released only two days ago the reactions are great, everybody seems to like it.
		I noticed vocalist Brett had left the band. Kyle Symons of Hate Plow, the other band of you and Rob (Barrett, also guitar in M.C., TJ), replaced him. What happened to Brett and why did you choose for Kyle instead of a total stranger? Brett did not want to sing any more for some time. I guess he rather likes to do drugs and that kind of stuff. We just did not get along any more, and he wasn’t a real constant factor. We’ve already known Kyle for many years and we’ve always had him in mind as a replacement for Brett when it would be necessary. In the back of my head there always was a little voice telling me he was going to sing in Malevolent one day. Hateplow has always been a side project of Malevolent members, and the priority is with our main band right now. Kyle is doing a fantastic job.
		Did Kyle have some input in the song material or the lyrics of the new album? When Kyle joined the band most of the song material was already written, but we gave him a tape of the material in advance. He wrote a great deal of the lyrics on this release, and did a great job. We always had problems with singers in the past, but we have much confidence in Kyle.
		Where does a band like Malevolent Creation get its inspiration to write songs? We just try to bring out the best in us when we are composing songs. Just recently we listened to some old Destruction and Kreator for example. We also cut down on the blast beats this time to provide the release with more variation. We searched for an ultimate combination of death, thrash and grind this time.
		I also noticed Malevolent Creation used a different producer and studio this time? Should we know Mr. Dagenais from something; and how did the cooperation work out? We met last year when we played with Kataklysm. He’s Kataklysms guitarist and he also produces their albums. We heard their latest release, which he had produced and we were impressed, so he sent us some other releases he had produced and we decided he should produce “The Will To Kill”.
		Unfortunately we had some major problems getting him into the country, that’s why he could only do the mixing and mastering this time. He understands our sound, and spent a lot of time listening to our music. He will produce and record our next release completely. For this release we recorded all the songs analogue, and we mixed and mastered it digitally, a way of working that suits us perfect.
I sure hope we can play on one of those festivals this year.		Can you tell me something about the title “ The Will To Kill”, does this relate to the context of the other songs? When Rob (Barrett, also guitar) and I got together one day we came up with “The Will To Kill” as first title for the album. It set the tone for the titles on the rest of the record. The titles all have something to do with war themes.
		Is there, after all these years, something you still want to achieve with your music? Well, actually there is. We did nine European headline tours, but we did not play at one single summer festival. I sure hope we can play on one of those festivals this year.
		Any last words to the fans? Get out to the stores and check out “The Will To Kill”; and I’ll hope to see you guys in Europe next year.
(Teun Jans)