Interview: Impaled (2002)

This interview took place following one of Impaled’s rehearsals at their cuboidal-shaped practice space in a particularly warehouse-strewn part of gritty, blue-collar Oakland, sometime in June 2002. At this point in time, Impaled was Ross Sewage (bass, vocals), Sean McGrath (guitar, vocals), Raoul Varela (drums), and Andrew LaBarre (guitar, vocals). They are probably the funniest band I’ve ever interviewed. A tiny sliver of this material was used in a July 2002 article on Bay Area metal that I wrote for the SF Bay Guardian. [Note: I didn’t turn on the tape recorder right away, so the conversation picks up abruptly after a few minutes of talking about who-knows-what.]

Impaled circa 2002. L-R: Ross Sewge, Raoul Varela, Sean McGrath, Andrew LaBarre

Ross: I swear, we’re a good clean band. We’re straight-edgers.

You’re straight-edgers?

Ross: Yeah.

I’ll put that in the article.

Ross: We’re really into Minor Threat. We don’t allow girls in here, either, just like Minor Threat wouldn’t allow girls in their practice space.
Sean: Well, even if we did, it wouldn’t matter. They wouldn’t show up anyway.
Ross: Ok, I wasn’t saying that we didn’t get girls … but that’s the case.

So what percentage—what’s the breakdown of the audiences? 95-to-5?

Ross: Are you asking about retarded people vs. functional people? Or are you asking about girls and boys?
Raoul: Can we get into negative numbers? I learned that in school. I knew that someday in real life I would use them.
Andrew: There you go.
Ross: How many smart people at Impaled shows? Negative fifteen.
Raoul: I remember the question, it was like, “If you take the bus all the way from Oakland to Portland, you’d ride 12 hours to play a show. How many people is gonna show up?” It’s a trick question! Because the answer was like, minus …

So this was a good audience tonight?

Ross: Oh yeah.
Sean: We had positive one tonight.
Ross: I don’t know how positive he was, but he was definitely a person sitting there watching.

I made constructive comments. I could’ve added some parts that would’ve made some of the songs a little better.

Ross: Can we get those? You wanna write those down for us?

I can transcribe it.

Andrew: We need all the help we can get it.

Did any of you study music?

Andrew: Yes, I did.

What band did you play in before this?

Andrew: I played in a couple that are not really well known bands.
Ross: I used to play bass in the London … Philharmonic? Did I say that right?

They’re good.

Ross: “They’re good.” [Laughs.]

Their early stuff was good, the first 7-inch.

Ross: I quit after they put their album out because I didn’t like it; it was kinda sellout.
Raoul: Didn’t they just play at the Covered Wagon?
Ross: I think they did. The London Philharmonic just played the Covered Wagon. Kinda weird seein’ my old band onstage, but, you know, it’s cool.
Raoul: He spent, like, 20 minutes just sayin’ hi to everybody, all 50 members.
Miscellaneous Passer-by [to Ross]: You got a cigarette for a quarter?
Ross: I got a cigarette for free.

[To Ross]: That’s how you support the scene?

Ross: I help people out.
Passer-by [to Ross, again]: Thanks a lot, man.

[To Andrew]: So what other bands are you in?

Andrew: Oh, none right now. [His speaking becomes indecipherable as the conversation resumes between Ross and the guy bumming the cigarette.]
Ross [speaking once more to the cigarette guy]: You want a light, too?!? Geez, guy!

Who’s in charge of this band?

Sean: Uhh … the police.

Sting?

Ross: Sting e-mails us and tells us what to do.
Sean: We wish someone was in charge of this band.
Raoul: Uh, actually, the leader of this band, we kicked him out.

So how long have you guys known each other?

Sean: I’ve known Raoul since … ’96 or something?
Raoul: I was like, this big [makes a gesture signaling that he was really short back then].
Ross: He used to be a midget, but he got over that.
Raoul: Actually it was ’97. The same day we met, we started playing together; we started fuckin’ things up.
Sean: Me and Ross had known each other for like two years before that.
Ross: It’s great, ’cause these guys didn’t like me at all.
Raoul: I used to hate that guy [pointing to Ross].
Ross: See, both these guys used to hate me.
Sean: The first time I met him, he was just a little asshole.
Ross: I wasn’t!
Sean: Actually, the first, like, five times. I went to one of the Exhumed shows when he was in Exhumed, and I had, like, a leather wristband …
Ross: Don’t tell this story! Make somethin’ up!
Sean: … it was just a wristband, and he came up and he was like, “Why don’t you get some spikes on that?”
Ross: He’s making that up; that’s one of our fake stories.
Sean: Right, dude. Such a jerk.
Ross: It was a joke!
Sean: It was funny, too.
Raoul: The first time I met this guy, we went to this show in San Francisco—it was supposed to be like Mortician, Sadus, and Exhumed, and Mortician canceled. And then …

Their drum machine broke? No, they tour with a drummer though, don’t they?

Raoul: Yeah, the drum machine started puking on their legs, so they had to take it to the emergency room … [indecipherable].
Ross: He actually tried to kill me at the King Diamond show. He tried to kill me. He actually threatened my life and strangled me. And I’m supposed to like him and be nice?

So how did you guys get into metal?

Sean: Well, the first tape I got was Out of the Cellar by Ratt.
Ross: I really liked Pretty Boy Floyd. Leather Boys with Electric Toys.
Raoul: Oh, dude, I used to love—when I was in Mexico, on the radio—Joan Jett, “I Love Rock and Roll,” and the fuckin’ Scorpions and Motley Crüe.
Ross: Yeah, Raoul kept coming to practice and going [whistles Motley Crüe ballad].
Sean: “Winds of Change” …
Ross: Yeah, he kept wanting to play “Winds of Change.”
Raoul: Yeah, but I had a purpose. [Here he mutters something indecipherable and apparently nonsensical, ending emphatically with the word “bitch!” Everyone laughs]
Ross: I’m not even sure which you just said, but that’s ok.
Sean: It was funny, though.

You could tell by the tone of voice. So let’s see, what are the questions I’ve been asking other people? I can just, like, phone it in here.

Ross: Oh, you’re gonna phone it in for us! That’s cool! Hey, you know what, can we give him some generic answers? “It’s like, we all got together, we were kids and we were listening to metal and we said, ‘Dude, we gotta start a band and play like this shit.'” What are some other generic answers?
Raoul: Dude, Weird Al Yankovic changed my life.
Ross: Weird Al Yankovic?
Raoul: Dude, I was about to kill myself.
Ross: I just bought UHF on DVD yesterday. That movie’s rad. It defines my life. That and every Roddy Piper film—all 14 or 15 of them.

How many of those are pornos?

Ross: Two. You like Welcome to Frogtown?
Sean: Hell Comes to Frogtown.
Ross: Hell Comes to Frogtown?

So have you guys ever been written about in one of the local papers?

Ross: No. No, we got in Zero.

Oh, well that’s different. I mean, like in the city.

Ross: Zero‘s different because they like to cover crappy bands.
Raoul: You go through Zero and see there’s a metal section, and then you go, “Oh!” and read about it, and it’s like, “Who the fuck is this?”

Yeah, it’s cheesy stuff. [Ross does hilariously stupid impersonation of generic nu-metal stomp riff.] They’re more tied in with the making-it-big idea, the music business.

Ross: We’re tied in with the sucking ass side of the industry.

So what’s it like to put all this dedication into something you get no respect for?

Ross: Horribly depressing.
Sean: Hey, wait a minute!

No, you get a lot of respect, I mean you guys are internationally famous. It’s just that around here …

Ross: We’ve gone on tour twice, we’ve gotten a CD out with only one demo under our belts—no, two demos. That’s pretty good; we’re pretty fuckin’ lucky. We like that. As far as locally, we’re not stoner rock, so sorry.
Sean: We do get recognition in other areas, but yes, we’re not like huge here.
Ross: It’s like, I swear to God, I go to Walgreen’s … and no one offers to suck my dick. Nobody!
Sean: You expect that at Walgreen’s?

What about the local scene. Is there a scene that you feel like you’re part of?

Ross: No.
Sean: No.
Ross: I mean, there’s a metal scene
Andrew: Bands are very competitive, it seems like.
Raoul: It’s kind of like, either you have the San Francisco crust-punk-metal kind of sound, or you have the brutal American [death metal] style like Suffocation.
Ross: And we’re ripping off something completely different.
Sean: Those bands aren’t even that successful.

What bands are doing that?

[Band chimes in all at once]: Severed Savior, Hoarfrost, Vile …
Ross: All good bands, but we don’t quite fit in. [Translation: They’re not really good bands.]
Raoul: They just wanna be like Dying Fetus, Deeds of Flesh …

Ross: We don’t quite fit in with them, [and] we don’t quite fit in with stoner rock. But we love the people around here; we have friends. Like, we’ve got two friends. They come to see us live, our two friends.

But you’re friends with John [Cobbett]—he’s in a lot of bands [Hammers of Misfortune, Ludicra, the Lord Weird Slough Feg, etc.]. But that’s different music.

Sean: I don’t really think it’s all that different. But the people in San Francisco do. I think we’re just a little too straightforward death metal and there’s no, like, crust influence at all. It’s also not very pretentious. Which isn’t to take away from any of the bands in San Francisco, but that’s just not what Impaled’s like.
Ross: We don’t jive. You know where were do really well? Worcester, Massachusetts. God knows why.
Sean: You know why? ‘Cause there’s meatheads in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Ross: No, it’s not just meatheads—actually, I’ve met some very cool people in Worcester, Massachusetts, that for some reason really wanna hear a Swedish Carcass rip-off, and we fit in with that quite nicely.
Raoul: It’s not only there, we have really good crowds in Texas and California and Florida—South Florida is really good for us.
Ross: But you know where we do well in San Francisco? The Castro. [Audible cringing from the rest of the band here.] I don’t know why, but we do really well in the Castro. I’m not saying why, I’m just sayin’ we do.
Raoul: [Talking to me.] Can you throw me one of my beer cans? [The idea is that he’s going to throw it at Ross.]
Ross: Can you see why I’ve been kicked out the band?

I’ve read some of your interviews online, and I’m like, “These guys pretty much produce the comedy, one line after the next.”

Ross: What’re ya talking about? Every answer that you’re getting tonight is completely, 100% serious.

Somebody asked if you had any splits coming up, and you guys came up with about eight different kinds of splits.

Sean: “I don’t know how to do a split, har har.” [Prominent “retard laughs” from the band here.]
Raoul: [Makes some joke about a Comedy Central special, followed by an indecipherable Weird Al comment from Ross.]
Ross: Dude: I’m all about the pink, ok? [Exasperated silence from rest of band, then Ross laughs loudly.]

I’m just gonna run this uninterrupted. Forget all the other bands.

Raoul: Please do.
Sean: Feel free.

And especially in a “politically progressive” paper, it’ll really go over well. Actually, I’m surprised they’re letting me write about metal. But I did thing on Slough Feg a while back.

Ross: I love Slough Feg! Because it’s all about DUN-duh-duh-DUN-duh-duh, “We’re gonna sing about aliens … and role-playing games.” I love Slough Feg.

I like them too.

Sean: They’re funny.
Ross: Role-playing games.

They’re into role-playing games.

Ross: We’re into doctor role-playing. That’s what we sing about: doctor role-playing. We go to the hospital and do like … it’s like Vampires: Masquerade, but different. We actually go into the surgery room and we fuck up surgeries and then we run out really fast.

I was a premed student in college, but I’m too squeamish to do that stuff.

Raoul: So are we.
Sean: I’m too stupid.
Ross: I’m a vegetarian, but I’d love to dissect a body.

Is everybody in this band of vegetarian?

Raoul: Oh, hell no.
Ross: Say yes, so we can be like Carcass.

No, that would be too much.

Sean: I actually shoot up gravy.
Ross: He shoots gravy. But he only eats vegetables. No, actually he only eats fruit; he doesn’t even like seeing vegetables killed.
Raoul: Have you tried the George Foreman grill? You know how the fat drips? [Makes pouring/drinking motion.]

Do you ever run out of medical stuff to sing about?

Ross: Haven’t yet.
Sean: But we just keep on singing about all the same things.
Andrew: It’s just recycled.
Ross: Well, actually what we do is we just get the Symphonies of Sickness lyrics out and just read those. And we tell people it’s not that.

Were you, like, right there when that came out?

Ross: Necroticism.
Sean: My friend Matt got that album when it came out, and he had like given me the first Deicide album, I think. Then he got Symphonies of Sickness and he was, like, describing it to me in school, and then he gave me the tape and I was listening to it on my Walkman and I was just like, “This is the perfect music. This is the fuckin’ band.”
Ross: He said, “Brahms…”
Sean: Fuck Brahms!
Ross: “Mozart…”
Sean: Fuck Mozart!

So how has the local scene changed over the years?

Sean: It was actually kind of better when we started playing shows here.

Like in ’97?

Ross: 1999 was pretty good. When I started with the band—when was that, ’98?—there was actually quite a bit going on. The CW would have us basically anytime we wanted—god knows why they wanted us. But did we play there, two times a month or something? Something ridiculous. We played there a lot. There was a lot of shit going on: Exhumed was playing around locally more, Weakling was playing. It’s slowed down little bit; a lot of clubs have closed down.

What was it, the Tip-Top?

Ross: The Tip-Top was doing stuff.
Andrew: The Cocodrie had a lot of metal shows.
Ross: A lot of stuff has closed.

It’s weird, I talked to Matt [Harvey of Exhumed], and he said the early ’90s were the best. Then I talked to John [Cobbett] and he was saying the early ’90s was dry. For him, the best has been the last six years.

Ross: See, the older the person you talk to you, the earlier they’re gonna say it was good.
Sean: Plus, Matt has been in Exhumed playing shows since 1991.

So besides the Bay Area, what other metal scenes are there left in the U.S.? Florida, upstate New York?

Andrew: The Florida scene is gone.
Sean: It’s gone.
Ross: Yeah, the Florida scene started with Deicide and Death, and ended with Deicide and Death.
Sean: Actually, I think if you wanted to put your finger on like the best place for death metal, or metal probably in general, it’s Oregon—Portland.
Andrew: Like in the U.S., yeah.
Sean: There’s a lot of good bands [in Portland].
Ross: They all have the same members, but they’re really good bands.
Sean: It’s just like San Francisco: the scene is incestuous; everyone is in everyone’s band.
Ross: And we all fuck each other.
Sean: We all fuck our sisters and brothers.
Ross: “And brothers.” That’s the part I want you to print loudly that Sean said.
Sean: I fucked my brother, sure.
Ross: Sean fucked Andrew’s and mine and Raoul’s brothers.
Ross: But no, it’s very incestuous, we all know each other … and we go to black metal beach parties.

I’ve heard about that.

Ross: Black metal beach party is a lot of fun. We put on black metal makeup and we play volleyball.

So you’re into …

Ross: Volleyball. Yes, absolutely.

That’s another stereotype about metal bands. So it’s true?

Sean: “Metal people like volleyball.” [Laughs.]

There was some guy on this music listserv I’m on who came out and said, “If you’re supporting black/death/power metal, then you’re supporting music that openly advocates racism, misogyny, homophobia….”

Ross: There’s not one [Impaled] song about a girl getting hurt; there’s not one song about any race.

Oh, I know. I told that guy, “I’m not even gonna bother explaining it.” But you’re all like really WASP-y guys …

Ross: I have a little Cherokee Indian somewhere in me … WASP-y?!? He’s [Raoul is] fuckin’ Mexican!

I’m just kidding! I’m just joking!

Ross: We keep him in the band for PC reasons.
Andrew: Oh god …
Raoul: Am I about to kick your ass?

So as far as these stereotypes, do you just tune them out?

Sean: I don’t think people really make that stereotype about Impaled specifically.
Ross: In the lyrics, I care. There is never mention of the word “bitch,” nor “slut,” nor any racist terms, nor … nothing. There’s no negative terminology in Impaled.
Sean: Well, “pus” …

How much of your lyrics are about fecal matter?

Ross: First album? Or are you gonna ask about everything together?

Is the first one a theme album?

Sean: No.
Ross: No. That [the first album] would have been fifty percent. Now…
Sean: I don’t know about fifty.
Ross: Now, with the new songs, twenty-five percent.
Sean: I don’t think that’s true.
Andrew: Is there any on the new one?
Ross: A little bit.
Andrew: “Rest in Faeces” …
Ross: But that’s …
Andrew: It’s not really about …
Ross: That’s not about poo, but poo is involved. We’re not all about poo, though we do all have poo problems.

So what do you think that says psychologically?

Ross: That we’re stuck—what did that reviewer say?—that we’re stuck in the two year-old Freudian stage—poo worship.
Sean: I just thought it was funny. It was actually something that started out as a joke and got like way out of hand.
Andrew: Way out of hand.
Raoul: I always thought it was really dumb, but, ah, I got used to it.
Andrew: Yeah.

Who writes the lyrics?

Sean: He does now [nodding towards Ross], and I wrote most of the ones on the first album.
Ross: Yeah, we just kind of traded off. [Looking at Andrew.] You’re stuck with the next album.
Andrew: Yeah …
Raoul: I can do it.
Ross: He’s gonna do it. Next album’s gonna be entirely in Spanish.
Raoul: And about poo. [Ross leaves to use the restroom; Raoul tells me to lock the door behind him.]

What’s your favorite Swedish band? Entombed? At the Gates?

Andrew: Probably Dissection, or At the Gates.
Raoul: At the Gates, Dissection.
Andrew: Their old stuff [At the Gates] is awesome.

You like the old stuff better than Slaughter of the Soul?

Andrew: Yeah, actually. It’s kind of an acquired thing. The old stuff’s really weird and technical. [The door creaks and Ross re-enters the room.]

[To Ross] I can’t believe the stuff they’ve been sayin’ …

Ross: They kick me out yet?
Raoul [to me]: Nice job lockin’ the fuckin’ door, man.

How much of what you listen to now is metal?

Sean: Most of it. I mean, I listen to some rock, but most of my CDs are metal—death metal, mostly.
Ross: I listen to probably 80 percent death metal.

You still think there’s a lot of good stuff coming out?

Ross: No.
Raoul: 95 percent of the stuff that’s coming out is just crap.
Ross: But that’s in any genre.
Andrew: Some of the bands being pushed now are not very good.
Sean: Yeah, some of the big bands aren’t very good.
Ross: That’s true, but whatever, most of what I listen to is death metal. That’s just the way it goes. I like a lot of Witchery, I like a lot of His Hero Is Gone.
Raoul: It’s hard to actually listen to death metal everyday and actually find something good.
Ross: If it’s new stuff.

So what is the future of death metal?

Raoul: A bunch of beer.
Ross: What about space robots? Cadaver, Inc. talks about robots.
Sean: Robot reptiles.
Ross: That’s a song title. “Robot Reptiles.” So I think the future’s about robots.
Sean: Are they really death metal? They’re more “post-black metal.”

I still haven’t heard that album. I like Dødheimsgard.

Andrew: Which one? The old stuff or …
Ross: No, I know what you’re talking about. It’s good—that one is good.

I like 666 International and the Satanic Art EP.

Ross: I like the new Dødheimsgard. As far as the future of death metal, I think the future of death metal is still unfortunately tied to 1992. That’s the future of death metal.
Sean: No it isn’t, because it doesn’t sound like that now.
Ross: Well, that’s not death metal, that’s “robot rock.”
Sean: Well, Origin doesn’t sound like it came from 1992 and they’re one of the most popular bands around.

Have you heard their new one? I wasn’t really into it because of all the triggers and stuff.

Ross: I like the first one. I’m very anti-trigger, but I like their first album.

The new Krisiun one did that. It’s one of the worst cases of triggers ruining an album that I’ve heard. It sounds just like a drum machine. There’s drum machines that sound a lot more authentic than that.

Ross: That’s sad, because that guy’s a really good drummer. We didn’t use any triggers [on Mondo Medicale] did we?
Andrew: No.
Sean: If you give it a couple of years, there’s gonna be a backlash against all that hyper-blasting garbage.

You guys just do a little bit of blasting, not too much.

Ross: There’s a lot of blastbeats, but there’s no triggering.
Sean: [Impaled’s music is] not like all those bands like Rotten Sound and stuff where it’s super, super fast, and it’s always like that through whole album.
Ross: We hate ourselves because we don’t go fast enough.
Sean: No …
Raoul: Fast can be good, slow can be good, mid-tempo can be good. I don’t wanna be playin’ as fast as I can every second of the fuckin’ song.

So how often do you guys attend black masses?

Sean: Three times a week.
Ross: I try to go every day. Okay, back when I was in Exhumed we did masturbate all together in the full moon.
Sean: That’s not true, is it?
Ross: Yes, it’s true, unfortunately.

Onto a cookie and the last one had to eat it?

Sean: What did you just say?
Ross: Exhumed organized a jack-off time with the bands Pale Existence and Gory Melanoma …
Sean: I though you were just joking.
Ross: … under the full moon when I was in the band. And we all went to a giant hill and jacked off—in our separate corners. But there was ejaculation all the way around.
Sean: You’re fired.