It’s been a solid 38 years of waiting, but the Dutch metal powerhouse Pestilence are finally heading to Australian shores. As one of the first major bands to emerge from the Dutch metal underground of the 1980s with albums like Consvming Impvlse, Testimony Of The Ancients and Spheres, Pestilence helped shape the current state of death metal as we know it.
Wall of Sound's resident metal bogan Duane was incredibly fortunate to have a yarn with guitarist/vocalist and sole remaining founding member Patrick Mameli about the upcoming tour, past experiences, the modern state of metal as he sees it and tattoos.
Hey Patrick. How are you mate?
I'm doing great. How about yourself?
I'm good, mate. You're looking well. You're looking fit brother. Look at you.
Yeah, well, you got to work out at a certain age. You got to do something with your life. I guess for me, it was a big wake up call when I found out I had diabetes type one at an older age, like at 36. I came to notice that I was gaining weight and so I had my blood checked and diabetes, so I had to do something, change my life, do lots of cardio, do lots of workouts and stuff like that. Now everything is under control and I'm about to be 57 this year.
Mate, you don't look 57, I'll tell you.
Yeah, man. But that's the whole key, knowing what you want to do in life. If you want to continue partying, there will be a nice light at the end of the tunnel for you waiting. For me, I want to see my kids grow up and be as much as involved with my own health situation and make sure I have enough power in my body to keep continuing making death metal and playing Pestilence.
Yeah. Awesome, man. Well, you've been doing Pestilence for 38 years and finally after all this time you're finally coming to Australia for the first time.
How about that, man, how about that? Man, it's crazy. I've been all around the world, but I've never been there and it was a bucket list thing. Kind of cheesy to say, but I've never been there. There's a lot of fans out there that acknowledge the existence of Pestilence, and so we have a lot of fans over there as well. So yeah, it's a dream come true man.
Why has it taken you so long?
Well, actually, I guess it has to do with certain situations in time. The people work know, the people you work with, the people that you say goodbye to and don't work with anymore, that you were supposed to go on tour, for example, and then that's how life goes. A lot of the times when people have an idea about how it works to go on tour, I'm talking about the fans.
They don't realise that there's a lot of costs involved, and especially flying from Europe to Australia. I mean just the cost of the flights. That's already a big letdown for at least local promoters to work with. I've been dealing with these problems for the longest time.
Although Pestilence is a big name, we’re not a big band. We come from the eighties and we helped mould the death metal scene and the music to what it is now and all the spinoffs that you have now. But we remained a real small band that most of us have actual regular jobs and stuff like that. It's just the last 10 years I've been just professionally, being just totally busy with just Pestilence. And me knowing Dave Haley (Abramelin, Psycroptic, Werewolves, ex-Pestilence) from the past when he did record an album with me.
This was just something that had to evolve into a manifestation of this. So finally coming over.
That's awesome. I saw that Dave Haley, obviously in Australia, he's a highly respected and loved musician with his bands, Psycroptic, Werewolves and also Abramelin who are touring with you guys. I looked at it and I thought, this is cool because it serves not just as a tour, but as a reunion of sorts. Are you looking forward to spending some time with Dave?
Yeah, I mean, it is not like we're never walk into each other again. I mean, he's coming to Europe with his band and stuff like that, so it's not like we never meet again. It's like when we come over five days, that means five flights just to cover all that space that we have to do. So I don't think we have a lot of time now if he goes with us on tour to do certain tasks. We can talk and have a good time, but from what I've seen, it is going to be busy five days for us.
But we are texting each other, emails and stuff like that, so it's not like we're total strangers after we did the recordings. But I do know that he's very busy guy and I'm very thankful that we got this done together now.
I know there's one show that you guys are doing in Adelaide. It's part of a festival called Froth & Fury. He'll be playing with Psycoptic in that one, but I thought that'd be cool because as busy as you are, I think it's great for a guy of your prominence to check out what Australia has to offer on the music front. Are you looking forward to that in particular?
Yeah, no, definitely. I really, really don't care because I am not very involved in the scene as people might think. It's like me, I'm so busy with Pestilence, I don't get a chance to see a lot of bands perform, and I think that that's a shame because performing live as a band, that gives you a really good high because you get the response and the feedback from the crowd. But most of the time I'm so busy performing myself that I tend to forget that there's other bands out there as well, that they have their creativity and they have their talent and stuff like that. So this will be a nice occasion to see what Australia has to offer. Definitely.
You guys have 38 years worth of music. I'm wondering, will we be seeing the wide gamut of Pestilence, like the 38 years? Will it lean heavily on those earlier classic albums? Will we hear the new music from the upcoming album Portals? What sort of setlist are we looking for?
Yeah, I mean that's always a biggie. It is very difficult to keep everybody happy because there's a lot of people that like the early stuff, more than they like the newer stuff, and that's not because they don't like the music that we make. It's just like most of the time people when they're at a certain age, they get stuck in that timeframe because that is something that they love the most.
There's a lot of people that [think Consvming is] the best and for example, haven't even heard anything after Spheres from Pestilence because they just stuck into that timeframe. So what we want to do is that we are trying to make a nice combination with all the work that we've done. From Portals, we will not be playing anything, but we will be playing the most popular stuff from Consvming [and] Testimony. We'll have a song from Spheres and then going on to Exitivm. That’s our latest album.
So you'll get a broad spectrum of what Pestilence is and trying to be as, how do you say that, true to Pestilence. People do have to understand that when we recorded Consvming, we are not at that level anymore because we have changed musically and became better musicians as well. But we're trying to make sure that it's as solid as it was back then. So you're going to hear a nice span of all the stuff that we've done in the past.
Yeah, well that's great. For myself, I've been listening to Exitivm and it's a fucking good album, excuse my language. It's a cracker and I really, really like it. So for me, I'm glad to hear 38 years worth of music because it is 38 years that we haven't been fortunate enough to see yet. While you're here, like I said, five cities in five days, are you getting any time to experience the rest of Australia? Is there anything you want to do while you are here or is it pretty much you're in, you're touring and you're out?
Yeah, I think it's pretty much in and touring and we're out just because of the schedule of flights and stuff like that. It is going to be very brutal, but I do think that we have to come back and do another proper tour. As far as I know that we're probably going to do an Asia tour and we're very close there, so we might add a few dates in Australia again and then perform a totally different set of songs. So it's going to be trying to keep up with our promise in delivering the music that you guys have been waiting for 30 plus years, which I think is ridiculous, but now it's going to be resolved.
We're going to come over and I hope we're going to see a lot of smiles and happy faces at the end of the evening.
Oh, for sure, mate. Like I said, it is a rare occurrence to get to see a band that's been as prevalent as you have for 38 years, to see you for the first time. You started in the eighties. Heavy metal was huge at the time. It had that dip in the nineties and now it's grown to be, it's almost like it's bigger than ever. You've got festivals where a hundred thousand people are turning up. It used to be, for us in Australia, we'd go to something like the Big Day Out [and] we might be lucky to get one or two bands that are heavy metal. Now we've got whole days where it's just dedicated to heavy metal. From your point of view, starting in the eighties and working right through to today, how do you see the scene now?
Well, the thing is that back in the eighties you had fanzines, magazines, you did tape trading and stuff like that. Now we have social media where everything is filtered out and you can see stuff that was not possible in the eighties and maybe early nineties. So a lot has changed as well.
For the musician, there's a lot of guys that are profiling themselves on, for example, YouTube or other platforms, and people can look up to those guys because they're very talented. We didn't have that. We just had more of a solid bond or partnership with the guys in the scene
And now it's turned into this monster. It's such a big thing now. There's a lot of spinoffs where you cannot even mention what style it is any more because it's a melting pot of all these things. Whereas back in the eighties, everything was a little bit more clear. Okay, well this is heavy metal. This is thrash because it's thrash. This is death metal. Now you have spinoffs like deathcore and the singers, they sound fucking brutal, but for the part of the death metal guys, they don't accept deathcore singers, for example. They want to grunt. So everything has changed also in a political way, that metal’s more politicised now.
So there are a lot of subgroups and sub-genres and nobody fucking likes each other because my stuff is the best. As kids growing up in the streets, you had that stuff too. You are playing with marbles and shit like that. Then comes another group taking your marbles and then you hate those guys. But nothing has changed really. It's just like more, it's just expanded a lot. It's just more of more, that's what I've noticed.
But the groups that are still going strong, for example, Obituary or Deicide or you name them, those guys have been doing that stuff since the early days and these kids growing up now, they don't even know those bands. They don't even know where it came from.
Unless they’re taken there by their dad.
Yeah
Are you seeing a lot of fathers and sons and mothers and daughters turning up to your shows now? There would've been guys that who grew up on those early albums of yours. Now they're turning up today, but they're bringing kids maybe. At 38 years, probably even their grandkids are coming to your shows.
Honestly, that does happen. Although I see our fan base greying out a lot. They're getting older like we are and stuff like that. That's why I'm trying to stay healthy and stay young. So hoping that the younger generation also will pick up and if dad loves Pestilence, probably their kids will know about Pestilence and they can make up their own minds. Now when they come to the show, they know that we value playing music a lot.
We like to be as good of a musician as we can be, unlike some other bands that go more for the noise, which is okay, it is just like whatever you want. But for us, I like to evolve and I like to become a better musician, and Portals is going to be the proof of that, which is going to be topping everything that I've done prior. It's really something that I'm kind of challenging myself a lot as well. I'm thinking like, wow, because I'm in the middle of the recordings of the guitar parts for Portals, and I'm like, wow, how I'm going to do this live?
This is going to be a challenge for myself, which is good for me because I like to kick myself in the butt and try to become a better musician and make sure that when we play people hear that we are talented musicians.
When do you think we'll see Portals? Because I've gone through your socials and there's a post that goes back to May and it's got these songs listed: 'Portals' and 'Mangled' and 'Hypnotised'. So you've been sitting on this music for some time. I bet you’re refining it. When do you think it will come out?
March next year. Yeah, because we have Australia coming up. Then I have to go back to Mexico to do that huge festival over there, and then I'm coming back, I'm going to Hong Kong with my girl, and then we go to Thailand. So after this, I have to focus mainly on Portals. So that's why we have fewer shows after November because it has to be released in March.
I do have these frames of songs ready, but they evolve. So when I listen to my music and some days I'll be like, wow, I'm happy with this. And then the next day I'm like, ah, this is shit. I don't want to use this part. So it is also evolving all the time and trying to come up with the best parts to make a song more valuable and that people actually think it's cool. So it's going to be March and looking really forward to it.
As we're speaking, my drummer's recording the drum parts. Already sending them over to me. I play my parts and then it goes back and forth. We don't even have to be in the same room. Then when it's time to tour for Portals, we'll have a week of practising because I like to keep the wow factor. I don't like to record an album, which is rehearsed to death, so there are no wow factors anymore and then you still have to play these songs live and you're like, ah, drag man, I've heard these songs already a thousand times. Now I got to be enthusiastic about it and show my enthusiasm and playing these songs.
So we like to keep it fresh for ourselves as well, and that's why I think that our albums have this value to it.
Yeah, I think the crowd feedback really helps. You've toured the world for decades. You mentioned Mexico. Every time I see live footage of any band in Mexico, or anywhere in South America, it looks like that crowd is trying to put a hole in the earth. They're just so wild and so vivacious. Who would be, and this is beautiful because you can't say Australia, so who is your favourite country to play to?
That's difficult to say because every country has their own charms, so they have their little things that they do. For example, we played two shows in Japan, and after the show they clap, they applaud, and then it's just total quiet. You're like, did the Pope come by? Is somebody dying? Is somebody dead? So that feels kind of weird.
Now, on the other hand, like Latin America, South America, these people live for it. They work, they don't have a lot of money, so their value to buy a ticket for them is way more than, for example, here in the Netherlands where you can see every American band or whatever band playing, you're like a spoiled brat. Over there, it has more value because these guys, they work for months to go to a show and then they can let all their frustration out. So that's why it's so fierce.
And Europe is more laid back because although everybody is complaining about we don't have any money and everything and economy is bad, they still get to go and see all these bands. They still get to go to Wacken and be there 150,000 people or Hellfest, stuff like that.
Look, I keep seeing the lineup for Hellfest every year and in Australia we understand how far away we are from everything else, and we are pretty spoilt for live music here at the moment, but I keep seeing stuff like Hellfest and I would love to jump on a plane and get over there and just spend four days in the mud with everyone else. You played Wacken a couple years ago. You would've played Wacken back in the day as well, or was that the first time you'd done it?
No, actually that was the first time. And again, it's like the people you know, how serious they take you or because it's like politics. This guy knows this guy, and then you get a chance to play on Wacken. When you perform well, you might be able to go back there again in four years or something like this. So it's an investment, but you have to make sure that you perform well. That’s the bottom line. You have to perform.
That was just a few years ago, and it still doesn't compute in my head that we played in front of so many people. But when you're there doing it, I'd rather be a fan and checking out the other bands because it's a job. It's working hard, and again, you cannot please everyone. Then again, you have the problem, okay, what songs are we going to play? And then some songs, they don't work live that well.
It's a job, but it's a job that I love. I get to go all over the world. And now for the first time, Australia. I can't get enough of it, man.
When I knew that I was going to come over, I have a few fans that I talk to on a regular basis, and I couldn't say anything. I'm like, oh my God, this is crazy. I finally get to see those guys live as well and see and talk to them because that's what I think is very important, to keep that relationship with the fans as well. It's not like, okay, we do the shows and it’s bye bye. We want to shake some hands and make people happy, do some signing.
I've seen the list of venues you're playing in. They are a more intimate setting. You can get right up close. In Sydney, the place you're playing. There's no place in that room where you are too far away from the band. It is a great room to play, and I've seen some bloody good shows there. Now there's a question I ask everyone when I do an interview, it's just a silly question, but bare with me. So the planet's blowing up. We've all got to get on a big spaceship, and you're only allowed to take one Black Sabbath album with you. Which one is it and why?
That's a good question. I like Ian Gillan, right?
Yeah
Yeah, man. I think that album, I think, was it Born Again?
Yes, with the red demon baby.
That's my album.
Mate, you were the first person to say Ian Gillan. Born Again. That's a cracking album.
That guy has a fucking awesome voice, let me tell you. And I guess that Ozzy, he put a stamp on it and there's been some other guys, but Ian Gillan, man, that guy is just fucking amazing. And that album is so evil.
Yeah. Wow. I'm going to be listening to that on the way home. That's awesome.
Check it out, man.
Oh dude, I haven't listened to that one for ages. We listened to a lot of Heaven and Hell, the Dio record and Ozzy gets flogged in here. I work in a tattoo studio, so we play heavy metal all day while we're tattooing. I did notice that you and the guys, you are all heavily tattooed and there's some outstanding tattoo artists in the Netherlands, there's some beautiful tattoo artists out there. Who does your tattoos at the moment? You've got a lot.
When I was a very young kid, like 12, I hung out with my grandparents, because my grandparents took care of me when my parents were working. Their next door neighbour, he always did martial arts and I always look over the part that I could see where he was doing stuff. So later on I was like, hey, that's my next door neighbour, now he has his own tattoo parlour. What's up with that shit? So he is inspiring me. So I’m very happy that this guy, that he's doing that just because he's a big Pestilence fan and I'm a big fan of his. Isn't that crazy? I mean, that's crazy. So yeah, can you see that thing right there? (Points to an artwork on the wall, a picture of himself)
Yeah, I've been looking at it the whole time. Yeah.
It's not like I'm so full of myself, but he made that and he gave it to me and he has one in his tattoo parlour as well. Snakebite Tattoo. Snake by Tattoo. This guy's been doing it for 40 plus years, and every time I go there, he's sponsoring me. I get my stuff for free, which I'm like, oh my God. So happy with that.
It's great that he's a fan of yours and you're a fan of his and you grew up right next to him.
Yes. Isn't that crazy story?
Yeah it is. Well, it was my neighbour, two doors up, he was the one who put me on the Black Sabbath and tattoos.
Wow, and you are a tattoo artist then?
I am, yeah. Yeah, I've been doing it for 15 years.
You still have that oily fires, you're still feeling like,
Yeah, I go to tattoo conventions. I watched the new kids coming through. I watched the really old guys, the guys that have been doing it for as long as Snake Bite Tattoo has been around and it lights me up every time. I still love doing it. I can't imagine doing anything else. So by day, I tattoo all day and then on the occasion I get to talk to legends like yourself. Patrick. I cannot wait to see you guys when you come down, you’re here in November. It's going to be an absolute ball terror. I can't wait to see you guys. I'll be in there for sure, man. So thanks for your time.
Always.
38 years. It’s a long wait, but I reckon it's going to be more than worth it.
Oh, definitely. And we're trying to live up to the standard and make sure that all y'all guys get to get a good show. And when you leave, you'll just have, you are fulfilled. You have, you've had a good time. And everybody is happy. That's what it's all about. It's the feedback that you get from the fans and we really appreciate just coming over. That's just awesome. After so many years, we're so happy, man.
Interview by Duane James @duanejamestattoo
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PESTILENCE – Consvming Avstralia 2024
with guests ABRAMELIN and ALARUM
Nov 6th – Brisbane, The Triffid
Nov 7th – Sydney, Crowbar
Nov 8th – Canberra, The Baso*
Nov 9th – Adelaide, Froth & Fury Festival**
Nov 10th – Melbourne, Max Watts
*Abramelin not appearing
**Abramelin and Alarum not appearing
