Interview with ROB CAVESTANY (Death Angel) – 10 December 2013

January 14th, 2014 by Yiannis

It’s both humbling and inspiring to find a band that has been around for as long as Californian Thrashers Death Angel have, still seemingly thirsty for success, especially when this thirst translates into the creation of songs as impressive as those featured on their seventh studio album, “The Dream Calls For Blood”.

Having managed to arrange an interview with guitarist and founding member Rob Cavestany, I soon found myself in the presence of a happy and positive thinking artist, whose passion for both life and his band is infectious, to say the least.

Totally aware of what a musician of his standing needs to do to remain relevant in an ever growing scene, Rob spoke about the difficulty of sticking to prearranged plans, all the problems and trials that a family man has to face when on the road and…a very interesting idea for a comic which, sadly, never came to fruition.

By Yiannis (John) Stefanis.

Hi, Rob. Thanks for taking the time to do this interview.

Rob: The pleasure is all mine, man – I am always excited to talk to people about what we do.

You know, this is one of those things that I always appreciate about you guys. Every time I’ve had the pleasure to do an interview with a member of Death Angel, the end result has always been thoroughly enjoyable as there are great levels of excitement behind anything that you guys do.It’s quite refreshing to experience that sort of attitude from a band that’s been around for as long as you guys have been and one which has been consistently recording top quality music.

Rob: Thank you – thank you for noticing! (laughs).

It’s also all about physics – energy never disappears, it just travels around.

Rob: That definitely has something to do with it. You got to give some in order to get some back. I cannot sit there doing nothing, hoping that the crowd is going to give us the energy we need for a killer show if we’re not willing to do the same thing for them. It’s all about taking things for what they are and get excited about them!

Last time you and I spoke was almost eight years ago…I cannot remember exactly when…I guess dates become irrelevant after you reach a certain age!

Rob: I know what you mean. I forget too (laughs).

I believe that it was the year 2004 when you made your major comeback and I remember you guys mentioning the fact that you felt young and energetic enough to make an impact on the scene. Almost ten years later, I am sitting here opposite you talking about a band that has released four killer albums and which continues to tour like there’s no tomorrow. Congratulations are definitely in order. What, would you say, is the secret to your success?

Rob: There really is no secret or any specific recipe that we follow. The way we chose to do things thankfully works well for us, or better, works to a certain extent. Nothing has been worked up perfectly but also, with a bit of luck on our side I guess, we made things work…I really don’t know how other people do things but we just follow our hearts, you know, and try to have a good sense of what constitutes a business strategy at the same time.

I just think that our chemistry is very, very strong. We are fortunate, Mark (note: Osegueda / vocals) and I and then Ted (note: Aguilar / guitar), who’s been with us since we reformed, and now Will (note: Carroll / drums) and Damien (note: Sisson / bass) to all be on the same page and…I don’t know. We talk about things a lot too which maybe has something to do we us being so connected.

We are talking about our mission together, our common goal and then just go through each experience and learn through our mistakes. The key is then to not make the same mistakes again and try to push things forward, adjusting your attitude and perspective of things as you go along.

I guess all these things have something to do with it. Also, there is a sense of self respect and discipline in this band. We try not to let things that we know can destroy us as individuals and collectively as a band get through…there are too many things to mention that can actually destroy a person or a band.

We are aware of these things, we try to have a good time but also keep things under control and ourselves in good shape as the things we have to do are fu*king intense and we need to be able to last them.

Our situation is massively athletic! We look to our heroes and what they have done, bands that have been together for so long and try to follow their lead as these people have become successful by doing certain things apart from just play music.

If you put all these things together, with added hard work and plenty of compromising and respect towards one another you have your answer right there. Also, you need to have luck as the fact that one thing works for one band doesn’t mean that it will also work for the other. We just don’t want to go away, that’s it (laughs).

We don’t want you to go away either!

Rob: We’re afraid to die (laughs loudly). If this thing goes away it will feel like our purpose in life has also gone. We’re still driven and hungry. We’ve got to get to the end of this story.

Rob, there have been massive changes in the music industry since the days of albums like “The Ultra-Violence” and “Frolic Through The Park” but you seem happy enough to embrace all promotional formats available to you.There’s always an active blog relevant to the band’s undertaking to be found on the Internet and your Facebook entries are constant and pretty informative indeed. That is quite an admirable thing, for a band to become relevant while retaining its character and feel. Quite a difficult balance to achieve really.

Rob: Thank you and yes, I agree that it is indeed a difficult balance. We’re pretty happy and pretty proud of the way we do things and what our strategy is all about. Things are working good and they are exactly that: a combination of sticking to one’s guns and retaining one’s true character but, at the same time, being able to be open enough to check what these new promotional mediums are all about and see whether they can be used to your advantage or not.

It took a while for us to get that working, for me especially, as I am a quite old school kind of person. After a while it makes sense to use such things and has to do with what I was talking about earlier: trying to improve yourself both individually and as a band and we do that.

It’s not like we really chase after technology or something but, at the same time, I don’t want to be too close minded like I admittedly was in the past. I used to be like: “Fu*k that, we won’t use such a thing but the ones I really know till the day I die” but, after a while, I realised that this is overkill and each should stick to its own. I am not saying that everyone has to do that – this is what we do. I have noticed that I’ve felt really…it was quite an emancipating feeling when I finally decided to change my attitude towards certain things and just be more open and same applies with the band in general.

Our band can be somewhat modern but old school at the same time and that is definitely a hard balance to achieve. If you’ve been around for thirty years, if you’ve come from the early 80s and stuff, how are you supposed to be relevant twenty five or thirty years later to young people and stuff? It’s a delicate balance and how can you achieve such a balance without alienating your hardcore old school fan base? At the same time…

…you cannot really please everybody.

Rob: Exactly! You cannot really please everybody but I believe that, in general, we’ve managed to keep a happy balance and that is our main goal. It feels really good to be able to do that.

I need your help with regards the following figures as, not being American, I cannot tell what their true meaning is. Blabbermouth gave your latest album “The Dream Calls For Blood” a 9/10 score which, on paper, looks fantastic and, if my information is correct, after one week of album sales said album landed at position 72 on the Billboard 200 chart. In this day and age, with record sales fast declining and most people using unorthodox ways of obtaining access to music what do these figures really mean?

Rob: These figures mean a lot to me – absolutely! These are straight black and white sales figures and…there are two different things here.

Blabbermouth gave our album 9/10 and that means a lot to me because it is a well known Internet site and what they say is perceived by a lot of people so they hold power in their hands so to speak.

If they give you a fu*king 1/10, people are going to see that and be influenced by that. It’s just the nature of the game, you know? I am not trying to re-write the game here; the game exists and I am just trying to see how I can play and achieve the best for us.

If I see a 9/10 rating, and I know that Blabbermouth does not hand out such rating easily, then of course I am happy about that. The review they did of our album was well written, the way they described the album makes me believe that they get what we do and made me really happy because I agree with it.

We worked very hard to create this album and we hope that it will be perceived that way and as it personally makes me feel very fu*king good.

On the other hand, reaching number 70 on the Billboard 200 is relating to record sales and to me is quite an achievement, especially when as you say it happens in a day and age when record sales are fast declining.

It is over the last ten years that record sales have been declining because of all those unorthodox ways of obtaining music. Meanwhile, in that very situation, there are four albums released through Nuclear Blast in a row that each outsold its predecessor.

Every album sold more than the previous one and that while record sales have been declining which means that, while other people’s sales go down, ours go up. To me that is a very good sign as people are buying our record and, for whatever reason this happens, I will take it as a good thing. It doesn’t mean that (note: screams from the top of his voice) now we’re fu*king rich (laughs). F*ck, we are on top of the Billboard charts and we sold twelve records (laughs).

As I have said many times before during various interviews I have done, the days when people made a lot of money by writing music are long gone.

Rob: Exactly, so I am just using it as a guage of how much people like your stuff. More people bought our new album than did the last one and, in fact, the first week of sales for this album more than doubled those for our previous effort (note: “Relentless Retribution”) which is fu*king great.

Since then, I have been observing our sales on a weekly basis and while those of most bands will have an incline in the beginning and then stop, those of our album have been consistently rising every passing week.

It feels good, especially as we have put a lot of hard work in it. When our record came out we already had toured for four weeks in North America in order to best promote ourselves and push our music out there so the fact that we have been getting steady sales since we got on tour shows that you work is paying off. Our goal is for our music to be heard by as many people as possible.

One of the reasons why I kind of insisted on doing this interview with you tonight is because I believe that you’re personally responsible for the levels of success that the band has been enjoying over the years – especially in relation to “The Dream Calls For Blood”, an album which features phenomenal guitar work. For a band that’s been around as long as you guys have been, coming up with fresh riffs and ideas must become harder every passing year.

Rob: Thank you. I appreciate what you say.

How much would you say that this is a result of the inspiration you have drawn by working with the new line up? Have these guys helped you advance as a musician on a personal level?

Rob: Absolutely, in all levels. The inspiration appeared right off the bat and the feeling of excitement, the want to write the best music possible was accentuated by the desire of these guys to contribute. The need to write killer songs together cannot be compared to writing one’s own stuff.

Having that desire while knowing that the rest of the band is so eager to play is amazing. This new line up, so far, knock on wood and all, is great. We are all in a great headspace together and that is always welcome. If there’s tension between people, for whatever reason and you’re trying to collaborate and work together things can turn out quite weird sometimes.

If you have different ideas when you try to write stuff together or maybe you’re not really connected on a personal level, the end result may not always sound very exciting – it’s not as fun as it really ought to be. When the right balance is struck, these ideas come out much easier and it is also easier to be excited about playing music.

I feel happy to play with these guys because I might sit there for eight hours working on an idea and next time I will look at the clock it will be five o’clock in the morning! Sometimes eight hours pass like nothing just because you’re so much into what you’re doing. That’s the beauty of the whole thing, when stuff is free flowing and the best ideas are coming out. That has to do with many different factors but one of the most important ones is the relationship that I have with the remaining members of the band and their musical contribution as well as the positive vibe they are bringing across – that has a lot to do with it.

Another topic discussed last time round was family obligations and how your loved ones are affected by your chosen lifestyle. After that chat I remember thinking to myself: “The next couple of years will be crucial in order to establish if there is any future in this band” and, again, the fact that we are sitting here tonight talking about a new Death Angel album fills me with immense joy – so my fears were unfounded.Your touring schedule, nevertheless, is fairly demanding as, following the completion of this tour, you begin another US tour come January in support of Children Of Bodom. How on earth do you manage to combine the life of a musician with that of a civilian?

Rob: Hmm…again it’s just…that’s why our new album is called “The Dream Calls For Blood” – that’s exactly what’s being talked about there, the blood that’s being shed for this!

Ourselves and everyone around us, our people back home that support us, they all bleed as a result and we’ve been so deep into this whole thing for so long, so many years, that there’s simply no way back! It’s one of those things, you know? We’ve got to see it through to the very end and believe me when I say that we’re still hungry for it.

We just have to take things all the way there, deal with any occurring problems day after day and hope that everything works well. Some days are easy while others are really, really hard. Failure, however, is not an option and everybody that knows us knows it too so…God bless them: they just have to go along with it because they know that there’s no other way for me personally.

I am so driven this way and things have always been that way, so it’s one of those things I guess. These people are making huge sacrifices for the same goal too and that is another reason why I try so much harder because, yes, I want to make this all worth it for them too somehow.

Even though we are able to do things our way it’s still a really hard thing to have to do. We are not yet at that level of success where we don’t have to…it’s just…it’s hard living man and it has been like that for a long, long time!

Most musicians I know mention the fact that the real money these days is in touring and selling one’s merchandise. That automatically means that, for success to happen, you need to stay away from home for longer periods of time. At this moment in time, is there something like a five year plan for Death Angel that you adhere and stick to or you take things one step at the time?

Rob: You actually hit it right on the head. Basically it was exactly that: starting from “Relentless Retribution” there was supposed to be somewhat a five year plan or a two album plan for us to work with – where we are right now.

Right now we’re in the fourth year of it but “Relentless…” was not supposed to go on for that long. The first half took up more than half of the time, so, you know, going by that the five year plan we’re talking about has stretched into a six and a half year plan going towards seven years. That’s a lot of years invested man!

Talking about the balance, you can push and push and push but you don’t want to push things too far, so you’ve got to know when to call back for a second and take a breather. We’re not ready for that yet because we’re still in the beginning of our second album of that two album plan and what I’m hoping for is that what we did in three years touring the last album we will accomplish in a year and a half for this one. I now think that the plan has evolved into a three album one before we decide to take a break. We’ll see how crazy this gets by the time this tour is over.

Rob, as a person that puts so much passion and energy in your performances, when you do decide to take a break what do you see yourself becoming involved with? How will you fill your free time outside Death Angel?

Rob: How I fill my free time? I just try to catch up with my life, the part that has absolutely nothing to do with music. Straight up, just spending time with my kid as much as is physically possible and with my wife, of course.

My kid, however, needs me even more so by another dimension so…you know, being just around with my family and parents. As time goes by you want to see them as much as possible, especially as I am never around.

I just want to be around them and the few friends I have left at home who still stick around waiting for me to, you know, grace them with my presence when I come home and tell them stories of what we’ve been doing when on tour (laughs). Just to spend some normal time with people that know me as a real person and not through my music.

Then, of course, I like jamming music with other friends – stuff that have nothing to do with Death Angel’s music. It’s a great release for me, just catching up and hanging out – getting my soul filled with good energy as much as possible before I have to say goodbye again.

I believe that out of all the Death Angel fans that you’ve got around the world, of which I think there are many, I am one of the few who can claim to have loved the idea of having another The Organisation album come out at some point in the future as I believe that this was an amazing band. I really love that different approach to soulful music that you followed there.

Rob: Thank you, thank you so much!

Do you see something like this happening at any point in the future?

Rob: I love the band, I love both the albums we did together and I love everything that has to do with the band. Hmm, the thing is that such a reunion is so far out right now as Death Angel are so busy, so anything I would want to do to spend time either recording a new The Organisation album or a new solo album, with the amount of energy needed… I would prefer to use that energy towards recording a new Death Angel album to be honest.

It’s the most powerful thing and for me choosing anything else is not an option. When I finally do get some downtime I will see what other possibilities will be out there but that stuff is far back in line as hanging out with my family and friends is my absolute priority. If I could have a longer day and a longer week than the average person does I would use all the hours to do stuff like that as I am a total workaholic and there’s just not enough time available in the day and in one’s life to do it all.

Rob, the person that’s going to discover a way of selling free time will become a billionaire in an instant.

Rob: Oh please: that’s why there is a…a long time ago there was a comic book that we were going to have made, a Death Angel comic book and I am really bummed that it never really came out. You see, each person got to pick his own superpower and mine, had this thing materialised, would have been to be able to freeze time. That would be the fu*king thing that I really need (laughs). I could get a lot of things done had I possessed such a power (laughs).

I don’t envy you for having to live such a life as there are indeed too many sacrifices involved but I do want to thank you for choosing to do the things you do because, as a result, people like me are capable of enjoying honest, powerful high quality music. Let’s wrap this interview up with that thought, shall we? I hope you enjoy tonight’s show.

Rob: Thanks, man. I also hope that you enjoy tonight’s show too. Cheers!

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