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While pursuing side projects appears to be the"in" thing with many established metal musicians, the membersof England's Napalm Death have, to their credit, taken part in such offspringoutfits since the group's inception roughly a decade ago. Although not allof them were formed as "side" projects per so, bands such as Carcass,Defecation, Unseen Terror and Terrorizer have achieved much of their presentday popularity as a result of contributions from various Napalm Death memberswhile they were still part of the latter act. In keeping with the tradition,1993 saw the birth of yet two more Napalm Death offshoot acts, bassist ShoneEmbury's Blood From The Soul and guitarist Mitch Harris' Meathook Seed,both of whom issued debut recordings this post year that showcased a musicaldirection noticeably removed from the high energy, relentless assault onthe senses that has become a Napalm trademark.
Despite being perceived by some as a means for Mitch to let off some excesssteam while away from his full-time gig, Meathook Seed is taken for moreseriously by the six-stringer himself, who was joined by Obituary's TrevorPeres (on vocals) and Donald Tardy (on drums) for the recording of the band'srecently-issued first effort, Embedded. "To the labels (Earache Records,who released the album, and Roadrunner Records, who gave Perez and Tradypermission to take part on the album's recording) and the marketing people,they just see this as a project, but to us, it's like another band,"explained Harris while on a promotional visit to New York recently. "Ourpriorities definitely lie with Napalm Death and Obituary, but we want totake this as far as we can, and I see no reason to stop after just one album.
" In musical terms at least, Embedded features obvious similaritiesto Napalm in the riffing department, but appears to revolve a bit more onstudio technology and industrial influences than the approach practicedby Mitch's main outfit, a move which he claims was quite intentional.
"I've been hanging out at techno clubs a lot," Harris offered,"and I've learned to like the typical techno beat, even though I hatedit at first. So, when I started getting into it, I'd write things alongthat beat. I'd program it on my drums machine and just write something,and I was concentrating more on monotonr-like, you get a good riff and thenyou just get the most out of it. Plus, there were other things (musically)that I wanted to try out, with samples and keyboard sounds, and bits 'n'pieces that would've fuckin' freaked people out if Napalm did that, so Ifigured, do another bond and incorporate all those things into it."
Having had the band's name and musical direction in mind since before therecording of Napaim's much-criticized 1990 effort, Harmony Corruption, Harrisadmits to having taken "ages to get it together, 'cause I was basicallyworking on it completely by myself." Most of the actual musical ideascome together following the completion of N.D.'s Utopia Banished release,with all the songs having been written specifically for Embedded ratherthan containing any leftover Napalm material, as has been suggested by severaldetractors. "With the exception of one particular section which I'doriginally proposed to Jesse and Shane as a possible Napalm idea-and whichJesse didn't think much of at all-all the stuff was written from a differentpoint of view than the N.D. material," Mitch claimed. "And eventhat particular part sounds much different now that it's got a differentbeat and a different vocal thing on top of it." Despite having createdthe musical concept for the bond as for back as four years ago, Harris admitsto having "had no idea whom I was gonna get to sing until about half-waythrough writing the album. And then, I happened to be talking to Trevorone day, and I was saying, 'Yeah, I got this other band,' and I explainedwhat it was to him, and I was like, 'I don't know who the fuck I'm gonnaget to sing.' And he was like, 'Dude, I always wanted to be a singer,' andI was like, 'Yeah? Who would you sing like? Who would your influences be?'And he was like, 'Tom G. Warrior, John Tardy, Henry Rollins . . .' I waslike, 'How 'bout some weird, Skinny Puppy type e shit, like distorted and(using) effects?' C'ause i'm into that-just going in putting some effectson and trying to do something that sounds crazy, something just over-the-top.And he was like, 'Yeah, yeah.' So I was like, 'Cool.' So I had (Trevor)in mind. After that, I let him hear one song when we toured together (inEurope during May-July 1992). The song is called 'Cling To An Image.' Andhe was trippin' at the time that I let him hear it. He didn't know who itwas, and he was like, 'Who is this?' I was like, 'It's Meathook Seed,' andhe was like, 'No way!' He was all excited, and he said, 'I wanno sing onthis.' So I said, 'Killer.' " Having originally demoed most of thematerial using a drum machine, Mitch's initial plan was to utilize the sometechnology for the recording of the album, an idea that the guitarist expandedupon after a spontaneous jam with Obituary's Donald before a Napalm Deathgig of the Ritz in Tampa, Floridci.
"We fooled around a bit and (ame up with the song 'Focal Point Blur'virtually on the spot,", Harris stated. "It was right there andthen that I started thinking, 'Wow, maybe we should have Donald play drums,and then we (an take it on the road, or whatever, and we can make a band.'But then I was like, 'What about the drum machine now?' 'Cause the drummachine, I thought, sounded heavy. On the demo, it sounded cool. So I waslike, 'How 'bout the drums and the drum machine?' And I was like, 'Hey,that'd be crazy.' Little did I know that it was gonna be such a pain inthe ass to fuckin' mix, but the idea was good.
" Due to Trevor and Donald's coming into the group after most of thesongwriting had already been completed for Emhedded, their contributionsto the actual compositions were fairly minimal, with Trevor only addinga (ouple of words and Donald making slight adjustments to the drum beatsoriginally created on the drum machine. By the time the band regroups tobegin work on the next album, however, Mitch is hoping to have all the membersincluding the latest addition, fellow Napalm member, bassist Shone Embury,who incidentally didn't play on Embedded contribute individual ideas for(onsideration, from which the final track listing will eventually be chosen.
"You gotta be careful what you say to Shane, cause if you just tellhim to go for it and write shit, he'l I write the whole album himself, themothefucker," laughed Mitch. "He just picks up a guitar and comesup with shit. He's probably got more stuff for the next Meathook album thanI got, and I'm like, 'Calm down.' It's killer stuff, though. And Trevorsaid he's got some stuff, too. Anything anybody's got to submit, you know... Basically, we're just gonna record everything, if it's 14, 20 songs,whatever it is. So, whoever's got ideas, fuckin' bust 'em out. That's whatmakes it a band, and not just a solo project. So, we'll try anything ifsomeone (in the band) is not happy with (some of the material), then we'lljust keep working until everyone's like, 'That's cool.'
Although Meathook Seed is Harris's first non-Napalm project to receive aproper worldwide album release (within a year of the LP's completion), theformer Los Vegas resident has actually issued three full-length effortswith his previous outfits, Righteous Pigs and Defecation (the latter ofwhich also featured former N.D. skinsman Mick Harris), through the NuclearBlast label, a (ollaboration that was eventually terminated because of thegui- forist's conflicting contractual obligations with Ear- ache Records,to whom Napalm is still signed.
"Because of the fact that Righteous Pigs was on Nuclear Blast (Records),I think if I did do anything (further) with Righteous Pigs, it would havebeen like, 'Hey, what are you doing? What bond are you doing?'," Mitchpondered. "And in fact, that is definitely why the second Defecationalbum was never recorded. It was all written, and we were gonna record itthree days later when all of a sudden, we got this fax (from Earache) saying,'Breach of contract, breach of contract, you can't do this, it's gotta beon Earache.' And Mick was like, 'Let's fuck it. Let's not do it,' becauseit really started causing problems in the Napalm (amp. Shane wasn't intoit, Jesse wasn't into it they didn't really want it to happen (because ofthe potential problems with Earache). So, at the end of the day, it causedthat many problems where we just said, 'F!ck it, man. Forget it. It's over.'And now it's definitely finished."
Amazingly enough, the actual logistics involved in bringing Meathook Seedtogether were worked out in a surprisingly smooth fashion, with RoadrunnerRecords agreeing to allow Tardy and Peres to record with the bond only ifrelated group activities didn't affect in any way, shape or form the statusof Obituary, who presently stand as the top-selling pure death metal outfitin the world (with nearly 200,000 copies sold of The End Complete alone).Whether or not this level of co-operation between the two labels can bemaintained over the course of the rest of Meathook Seed's recording careerremains to be seen, especially in the unlikely event that the group exceedsthe sales base of either of the two bands the individual members are contractedto their respective companies with. While Mitch himself is hopeful and relativelyoptimistic that Meathook Seed will fare well in terms of commercial acceptance,he is firm in stating that no amount of record sales will take him awayfrom his main outfit, to which he remains as committed as ever.
"Napalm would still be my priority (even if Meathook Seed did as wellor better in terms of sales)," claimed Harris. "it would justbe weird, because we'd wanno tour Meathook (as much as possible), but wewouldn't be able to. Basically, I can't see it selling as much as Napalmanyways, but if it did, I'd be the lost person to say I'd leave Napalm andcarry on Meathook. I mean, if Napalm ever fell through, at least I'd haveMeathook to work on, but I can't see why you can't have two bands, you know?"
