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Donald Tardy - Obituary 'We Are Full Throttle Ahead'

Dec 13, 2023

7 min read

Bonafide death metal OGs Obituary have 100% solidified their status amongst the genre’s greats by injecting their signature swampy, groovy style into the often-stiff and rigid extreme metal fare. With the Florida legend's 11th studio full length Dying of Everything one of the early highlights of 2023, the powerhouse five piece have proved once again that they can comfortably hang with the generation (or two) of metal acts they’ve influenced.

A month out from Obituary’s nine-show Barely Alive In Australia and New Zealand headline run, Wall of Sound got to pleasure chatting to drummer and founding member Donald Tardy about a whole host of subjects; from the creation of their newest LP, expanding their skill-sets during Covid lockdowns and much more. With their new tour looming, Tardy is quick to share his enthusiasm on touring in Australia - especially as it took them nearly two decades into their career to hit our shores.

It's funny because before this phone call I was just thinking that, you know how long we've been a band for over 30 years but we've only been to Australia a handful of times. When we did get the opportunity to go to Australia for the first time it was immediately just an amazing experience. I don't know how to describe it or explain it, but compared to other parts of the world - Lord knows we see 20 to 25 countries a year - it just seemed like down home folk, it almost felt like it almost felt like Florida in a lot of ways. You guys are just cool people laid back having a good time. The shows were unbelievable and it was one of those moments where we were like “wow, why did it take us this long to make it here?” And “how quickly can we get back after we've left?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSfL0w-l7AE

Aside from their six year break between 1997 and 2003, Obituary have consistently been delivering death metal across the globe. Having seen how the touring model, and industry as a whole, has changed - especially post-2020 - Tardy and his bandmates were more than happy to dive back onto the road as soon as they could, despite cost increases across the board.

(Touring) might have taken a half step back since the pandemic, but it's not gonna stop Obituary. I think most acts want to be busy and want to tour. We are full throttle ahead when it comes to the touring mode, especially with the album not even a year old at the moment. I think the world is much more accessible than it was for us in the early nineties; the internet, the smartphones, the travel, to how many fans there are that are waiting for it. Everyone can talk to each other on social networks, they all can be ready for it so we can get there more often than just once a decade. We are trying to take advantage of that in this part of our career.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53S32ZqvTKc

With the Covid-pandemic essentially shutting the world down for an extended period, the band decided to use the downtime not only to craft new material, but also expanded their collective knowledge and venture out into the world of live streaming.

For the last decade or more we were super fortunate to own a ProTools rig and own our studio (RedNeck Studios), which is basically my brother's (and Obituary frontman John Tardy) house. Years and years ago we figured it out that we would rather dump the money into a rig instead of into a studio for one album. And then we did and we learned how to basically record albums, basically just track them. We still ask for help when it comes to mixing and producing them. But we had that ProTools rig. So when everyone got sent home, we were like everybody else; we were handcuffed and we were going crazy. We were like, what in the hell is going on?

It's funny to think now that we didn't even know what the term ‘live stream’ really was, I had no idea. A buddy of mine that's the boss at one of the companies that rents all the PA systems for Central Florida for all the big concerts, hit me up. He said “we're in the same boat as you guys - we have $9 million worth of PA gear that's sitting, getting, collecting dust in the warehouses. So we’re getting bands coming in to do live streams. And I immediately thought of Obituary and I think you would be awesome at it.” We were like; “a live stream - and what the hell is that?"

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With their interests piqued, the Obituary boys took the chance to witness a somewhat unexpected band record their live stream - and were immediately all-in.

It was the band Underoath. We went down there and saw what they were doing, saw what my buddy did to stream it properly running high speed internet. So we did our first two streams and realised what a blast it was and immediately invested into making our music studio into a video studio. So we bought video editing software and six GoPros, taught ourselves what live streaming was and figured out how in the world we are going to make this successful, because it's fun to do it. Thankfully, my buddy, again, the guy who showed us what it was, they didn't just have a PA set up for the broadcast. They had a full Pro Tools rig, so we recorded the live streams in multi -tracked. So we realised what we had on our hands when we were done with those weekends. We played it well, it's two classic albums (Slowly We Rot and Cause of Death) and we’ve got them recorded now. So why not mix them, get them produced and put them out there as live albums - and they've been a real success.

We learned real quick what a live stream was and how can we try to pay the bills by doing it. And not to mention how many fans around the world haven't seen concerts, missing their favourite bands. And anyone that wants to be a part of it, make it a low price. We kept it as low as we thought we could and they ended up being pretty successful and more importantly, they ended up being a blast.

With Obituary fully embracing modern streaming technology, the five piece continue to reach out to their fans further than before by continuing these online events

After the pandemic, we now own the studio. We own all the editing gear and we're like, you know what? Why can't we keep doing live streams? You know, some fans were like, “you know, live streams were for when we were in the pandemic”; no man, it's a live stream. How many times do we get to go to Australia? Once every five damn years? So why not do a stream where the Aussies can wake up and they can watch Obituary jam in their studio with album quality audio and digital video. So we continue doing them and we still love doing them. We, you know, it keeps us in shape. It keeps our minds sharp and it makes us be creative because a lot of people that have seen it, they know it's not just us practicing song after song. We do some stupid shit. We do some funny clips and edits and skits. We try to make it interesting for the people that pay their hard earned money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-4r3ZjRhts&pp=ygUNb2JpdHVhcnkgMjAyMw%3D%3D

Though their equipment and abilities as musicians have certainly advanced throughout the years, Obituary still very much writes music like they did in years past - sans tape machines. With RedNeck studios based out of the aforementioned Obituary vocalist John Tardy’s property, composing new material has never been easier, and quicker.

That's really how writing has always been for us, even as teenagers and 20 year olds, we don't make a big deal about it. Me and Trevor (Peres, guitars) would just get into the room and usually within the first 10 minutes, if something was gonna come out of us, it would be right then and there. And back in the day, you hope you had your little radio ready to record onto cassette and if you waste too much time, he would forget the riff. And we were like, damn it, man. Fuck, we just, we had something. So now we just know when we show up, let's fire up the Pro Tools rig and put it on record pause mode. And if something pops up, we can hit record within seconds and get that idea down, hit save and tuck that thing away, put it in our back pocket for weeks or months later when we start actually looking at the ideas for the next record. That is a huge benefit for us because we are not young dudes anymore. So remembering things is not like it used to be when we were in our 20s or 30s or 40s. You just come up with riffs and then you just forget it somehow. You think it's so good, but it just sort of goes in one ear and out of the other. So now we try our best to capture the moment.

Not only is their latest release Dying Of Everything packed to the gills with classic Obituary goodness, it’s also wrapped in a strong contender for album art. The tremendous piece from Mariusz Lewandowski served as one of the late Polish surrealists last work, with Tardy highly proud of the collaborative effort between band and artist on it.

I'm so proud of it, especially now that he passed away, I am so glad I had the opportunity to have discussions with him, to give him the ideas that my brother and I were thinking. Brilliant minds, some of them like to work, meaning don't give them too much information. I asked him very, very blatantly “you let me know how much information you want us to give you and what you don't want from us, because I respect that”. I couldn't imagine being that talented and having that kind of imagination. I didn't want to ruin it by going “Hey, I want a typical metal, a skull with some flames.” Instead, when I asked him what he said mainly that he would love to hear the record and, in his way that he put it, he would love to let the songs tell him what he what he's going to start drawing. The minute we agreed that we were going to name this album, I emailed him and I said, we just made the decision that we're going to call the album Dying of Everything. And he wrote back to me and goes “That gives me great direction and I'll show you what I'm thinking.” And I just told him have fun with it, take your time. And I can't wait to see it. And he brought back that masterpiece. And I'm very proud to call that an Obituary album cover. And I told him that. And that was the one thing, even though he died, the one thing I'm so proud of was that I got to meet him, at least digitally online and have discussions with him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da9d2NJc9dk&t=10s&pp=ygUNb2JpdHVhcnkgMjAyMw%3D%3D

Having the start of their year sewn-up with their looming Australia and New Zealand dates, Tardy gives us a taste of what the rest of 2024 looks like for the band, spoiler: it’s busy.

Anyone that knows the booking of a band is a year in advance, so 2024 - on calendar anyway - is already a done deal. We’ll go to New Zealand, Australia and Japan in January. Then we come home for almost two or three months before an American tour that we will be announcing here in the next couple weeks. And then we come home again for the summertime. Since we did a lot of the festivals this year in Europe, we will skip the 2024 festival circuit. So June, July, August, we will be home in Florida. And then another exciting tour that we're looking forward to will be in September, which will be a South American run for us. We always love going to Brazil, Argentina, all those countries. Those fans don't have the money to buy the records and the shirts, but boy, do they love their music and they're passionate about their bands that they love. So we're going to go do that in September. And then Sepultura offered us and invited us to go do a leg of their tour in November. So we're going to do a European run in November 2024 with our boys, our longtime friends, Sepultura.

With less than 30 days to start of the Barely Alive in Australia and New Zealand Tour, Tardy signs off with beaming excitement about the upcoming run of shows.

We don't get there enough. It's so far away from home, but it is one of my favourite places to visit. With this new album, we could not be more excited about coming to Australia. We know how much the fans love Obituary and we are excited to play some of these new songs on tour. So we hope everyone comes out, we will play some classic songs, obviously off those first couple albums that everyone loves, but we're also really, really looking forward to playing these new songs for our Aussie fans.

Interview by Andrew Kapper

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