Interview by Kris Peters
Certain bands in history are untouchable, with every genre having a stoic pecking order.
When it comes to death metal bands such as Morbid Angel, Obituary, Death, Cannibal Corpse and Atheist sit atop the proverbial tree, unflinching in their resolve and unyielding in their unrelenting pursuit of metal supremacy.
Certain names stand out above others as well. Names such as John Tardy (Obituary), Cronos (Venom), Chuck Schuldiner (Death) and Glen Benton (Deicide), but perhaps above all others is Kelly Shaefer, pioneering and revered vocalist of Atheist and unofficial revolutionary and spiritual leader of death and extreme metal.
After a period of inactivity, Shaefer returns to the metal realm, this time fronting an entirely new outfit Till The Dirt that threatens once more to derail the very fabric of sonic intensity.
Despite being a main cog in the death metal machine, Shaefer has allowed himself to further develop musically, harnessing the elements that drove the early parts of his career but combining them with a myriad of outside influences that would once have been considered taboo.
By blending elements of grunge, black metal, jazz, rock, dark wave, and even a dash of classic pop to his musical furnace, Shaefer has thrown expectations and convention to the wind in his search for sonic clarity, which has manifested itself into Till The Dirt's debut album Outside The Spiral which will be released via Nuclear Blast Records on August 25.
Shaefer sat down with HEAVY earlier this week to tell us more.
"I think I'm anxious more than nervous," he admitted. "I've been around long enough now to... even as long as I've been around I still feel that anxiousness; that excitement. It's been 13 years since I've done a new record - 2010 I did Jupiter with Atheist - and I feel very fortunate and lucky to have tripped upon this prolific period of song writing that happened, because I never intended on having a new band or new music at all. It just naturally came out of thin air, so here I am back in an album cycle again and it's fun. It's exciting, it's different, but it's a lot like sending your kids to school. You hope all the other kids like your kid, and you hope the teachers nice to them, you know what I mean (laughs). So there's those nervous feelings, but I'm super proud of it and I can't wait for people to hear it. I've been sitting on it for two and a half years (laughs)."
We ask Shaefer to take us deeper into the music side of Outside The Spiral.
"It's fusing all of the things that I love," he smiled. "I've had dual careers. I've had a career with Neurotica and a career with Atheist and both bands did well in terms of making a mark in their own right. Neurotica was much more singing, there was more clean vocals. It was heavy rock/metal with Atheist being obviously crazy, technical metal so I've never had an outlet like this where I was able to combine the two and really pay homage to all my 90s grunge influences, my stoner rock, desert rock Kyuss and Atomic Bitch Wax, all that kind of stuff that I really like. Black Sabbath and 70s thick, groovy shit along with blast beats and chaotic screams and harmony vocals. It's a plethora of shit that really just came out of isolation from COVID and frustration and anger and unknowingness. It came from a really natural place, where art should come from. It should come from a place of not just happiness."
In the full interview, Kelly talks more on what to expect from Outside The Spiral, how the album came together, putting yourself in different head spaces to bring out different sides of your musical psyche, the different styles inherent in Till The Dirt and how they come together, personal limitations if any, enticing Scott Burns out of self-imposed exile to produce the album, what effect he had on the finished product, future plans and more.