The upcoming album by Florida death metal pioneers Obituary, Xecutioner's Return, marks a return to the triumphant riffage and unabated aggression of the band's glory years. But there's one major difference between the new record and most everything else in the group's catalog. Guitarist Allen West is nowhere to be heard.
The band's founding lead guitarist has had problems with alcohol abuse over the years and even quit for a time in August 2005 because he was unable to remain sober enough to play shows. Although Obituary originally hoped West would sober up enough to work on Xecutioner's Return, the guitarist couldn't pull it off, and on May 16 he was arrested and imprisoned after his fifth DUI offense. West is expected to remain behind bars until February 2008.
"He's been a handful over the years," said frontman John Tardy in an interview with writer Dom Lawson. "The last couple of years have been particularly hard. You know, you sit there and you beg and plead with someone who's a grown man, and you have to beg somebody and explain how important this whole thing is right now. And then again he's just falling on his face drunk onstage and showing up to practice and he can't even play because he's so wrecked and it's 11 o'clock in the morning. It wasn't fun at all."
West's battle with the bottle wasn't just waged on the road and in rehearsal. "He has just as many problems when we're at home, and that's reflected in the trouble that he now finds himself in," Tardy said. "We kept quiet about it for a while because we were anticipating him getting out of jail, but then when he finally went in front of a judge, the judge laid down a hard sentence and he was sent to prison, so he's going to be in there until next year sometime, and we have a lot lined up right now. It's so hard for me to talk about. I don't know what prison's going to do to him. It may straighten him up, but he might come out and not have much will to do anything. I haven't even talked to him because of where he's at, so we'll have to see what happens."
When Obituary discovered West was going to be unable to work on the new songs, they recruited Ralph Santolla, who has previously played with Deicide, Death and Iced Earth among others. "We're just so excited to have Ralph and we get along great," Tardy said. "He lives a few miles from here and he comes over nearly every day and we're just messing around and writing all kinds of stuff."
Not only has Santolla been able to acclimate to Obituary's style of death metal, he has actually brought new musical dimension into the band. "He was so patient with us and he's more melodic, [and his playing has more of a] Kill 'Em All kind of feel to it. His leads just seem to fit and flow with the music so good. It's really cool to have such good leads on one of our records."
Obituary still list West as an active band member and Santolla is thusfar being considered a hired gun. However, he's going to accompany the band on its upcoming tour with Alabama Thunderpussy, Full Blown Chaos and Hemlock, which begins September 8 in Miami and runs through October 6 in New Orleans.
"We have a lot lined up and a lot planned," Tardy told Lawson. ""So Ralph has a lot of work to do with us, and we'll see what the future holds as far as what happens with lead guitar players."
Xecutioner's Return is scheduled for release August 28.
Before then, watch Obituary's video for "Insane":
Comments