CATTLE DECAPITATION
Interview w/ Travis Ryan
By Haag & Horns
CATTLE DECAPITATION is currently working on their follow-up record to 2009’s brilliant release The Harvest Floor. Currently, the band is in the metal strong hold of Dave Otero’s (CEPHALIC CARNAGE, CATHETER, TRIVIUM) Flatline Audio Studios in the mountains of Denver, Colorado. Singer Travis Ryan comments, “The album recording has been going great… We just started tracking drums but judging by the preliminary preproduction we’ve done so far, I can tell it will most likely be one of our best sounding records; We shall see, but for now that’s my prediction.” See below for Travis’ elaboration on the upcoming record and opinion in comparison to previous releases. Hails.
How has the recording process been going and how much time did you guys get to discuss the record title/concept/visuals etc.?
The album recording has been going great. We just started tracking drums but judging by the preliminary preproduction we’ve done so far, I can tell it will most likely be one of our best sounding records. We shall see, but for now that’s my prediction. For the past two or so years I’ve struggle with what to call the next record, what the themes might be and what the cover art would be. Usually I have all of that mapped out during the previous album’s progress. For example, The Harvest Floor was actually conceived during the making of Karma.Bloody.Karma and it’s even referenced to in the lyrics of a song on our split EP with CANINUS, which directly followed the release of KBK. Everything falls in place for a reason. This next record’s concept literally just popped in my head one day, I ran it by the guys and then ran with the idea to artist Wes Benscoter who embraced it more than previous projects and that’s a great thing! So as far as having time to discuss those things, that wasn’t an issue. Just getting it all to be laid out to where its readable was the only thing I had to do and the idea still leaves a little to the imagination so its almost similar to The Harvest Floor in that respect.
For CATTLE fans, how would you describe the evolution of this releases music in relation to a record such as To Serve Man (my personal favorite) and/or Karma.Bloody.Karma?
See, we don’t get it… To Serve Man was by far our weakest Metal Blade output but I see a lot of people citing it as being their favorite. I’m not sure why as for one thing it was bashed to shit in reviews and people seemed to be really bummed on it at the time. So I figure to a lot of people it was their first encounter with us and thus they tend to think it’s their favorite as a result or something, I don’t know. The songs are fine its just the recording is really weird with no balls, the drums are an overly edited inorganic mess and ended up being mind-numbingly boring and monotonous and I feel its our lesser musical output besides the first two rather noisy records. None of that do I even attribute to the producer either, I just think we didn’t know what we wanted at that time, we just wanted to jump in there and do it. Either way to answer your question, I think its been a progression album to album with The Harvest Floor being the cream of the crop so far. When I listen back to our records from Homovore to Karma.Bloody.Karma, I cringe. The production is all over the place. The Harvest Floor is indeed our most solid record yet and has a true “album” feel and flow that the rest did not have.
What compositional aspects separate this record from your previous releases?
What I’m seeing is it’s a whole lot heavier than previous releases. There’s some hints of The Harvest Floor in there but its still a ton heavier than that record and is sort of, dare I say… “More metal”? That’s the only way I can put it. There are a lot more straightforward parts in there with the usual CATTLE DECAPITATION signature quirk. We went out on a limb on The Harvest Floor musically and I think we’re even farther out on that limb on this one. That’s the way we like doing things though. Josh and I love to push boundaries.
How has the production process been at Flatline Audio with Dave Otero (TRIVIUM, CEPHALIC CARNAGE, CATHETER)? What can you tell us about the tones?
Haven’t gotten to that stage yet but the reason we went with him was judged based on what we’ve seen him do with our friends’ bands and others. He makes em sound like a million bucks. I can tell this will be no different. He’s a great guy and I’m fascinated by how focused he is so far. He definitely has a formula, one I’m looking forward to seeing the end result of.
Artistically how has Wes Benscooter connected the records content with art? How do they tie into each other in your opinion?
He doesn’t hear the output before coming up with the art. The art differs album to album as far as how it was conceived. To Serve Man, KBK and The Harvest Floor were my ideas and executed masterfully. Humanure was his idea. I think we both know what each other want by now and I know what he can do, which is pretty much anything, so we’re much more on the same page now than ever. He knows exactly what we want and that’s huge. I love his use of Photorealism. I think he’s one of the best at that and from the beginning we’ve shot for that method of execution of ideas.
You guys have some album showcasing shows booked. What can fans eager to see the group in support of the new record expect from touring in 2012?
Well, we’re hoping to do less touring in the states than usual so fans that want to see us in the USA might want to go to the ones that we do. We’re looking to do much more international touring than usual this time. We’re going to go home after the album recording and relearn some old good songs that we haven’t played in years and switch em’ out with the ones we’ve been playing all these years night after night. So that should be something to look forward to, that and we’re going to try to make the live set we’ve been wanting to do for years now.
How many tracks and what approach was taking in “framing” the music?
We’re doing 11 songs, 10 for the USA and a bonus for the Japanese release. The rest of they guys really are the ones who write the music. Derek and I wrote a really cool track that we’re looking forward to playing live. They worked hard a few nights a week for like a couple hours after long hours of their day jobs for the past year or so. I know they paid a lot of attention to making the songs flow and I can tell we might have another killer flowing album on our hands here. That will all unfold in the editing room!
Lastly, how was the experience of singing on the new SOULFLY record Enslaved?
It’s an honor to have someone you listened to in your early days of high school hit you up to be on their record, let alone actually write lyrical parts for it. That part was a trip. Max actually had me write my own parts and luckily, it worked out great! Max was super stoked and that kinda freaked me out. It’s a killer death metal, almost “deaththrash” sounding track. Very akin to the SEPULTURA I grew up a fan of. It’s a really cool track!
