- It's pretty much the same statement I said in the promotion PR statement. It's basically a nostalgic album with a retrospective look back at the late 80s early 90s style and sound of death metal. So it's not an album or material to basically emulate and represent former previous albums from Massacre, but rather something that stepping back and taking influence from the era that death metal was created and formulated in. The early days – those mid to late 80s early 90s sound.

So it's not necessarily an album that's going to sound like something that came before from Massacre – but rather an album that reaches back and takes influence from the era that all of the bands that came from that timeline created. It's not necessarily rooted in a Florida sound or a Swedish sound or any other sound. It's a combination of all the death metal genres that were formulated and created in that time era.

- So after NB dumped us for whatever pathetic reason that they'll come up with – I started looking right away for a new label. I talked to several different labels that all came to me, and the one that seemed to fit the best was Agonia. I didn't want another trendy label that only cared about trends and what is popular at the time – example: like all female member bands or some pathetic excuse to sign someone like that – and no I'm not saying that all female band members means the band is bad. That's not what I'm saying at all – but what I am saying is that's what labels started looking for – when certain bands that were completely female members got popular. That has nothing to do with the bands themselves, but that has to do with the labels way of thinking, so let's get that straight and out-of-the-way before someone jumps on me and calls me a misogynist or something for whatever reason just because they wanna start some problems.

But labels that were only concerned with trends was not the label I wanted.

See I wanted a label that had integrity in their mindset – not popularity – and also had a roster of underground bands that still were strong and not just some popular trend. This is what I got from Agonia.

- So actually I discuss a lot of the covers and artwork with Timbul that he has done for the band. He's not only done this album cover, but every one of the singles and EP covers since "Mythos".

He's done them all; "Dead Beyond Death", "Ancient Evil", "Headless Halloween", "Casket Mutilations", "Corpus Umbra", "They Never Die", "Tri-pocalypse", & "Evil Dead Rise".

I think a lot of people don't realize how many releases we've had since I've come back as the leader of the band since 2019.

Timbul and I have a very open professional relationship that we can discuss things and send ideas back-and-forth to each other. When it came to the new artwork, I basically started talking to him about what I was looking for, and I had a certain vision and aesthetic that I shared with him. But that's about all. I don't go into deep detail. I like to let an artist create his own concept with just me giving very little my details to what I'm looking for and I might add something here or there later like I think I told him to add spiders and rats, they fit a certain aesthetic in the lyrics, but other than that, he gets it with the first go. Honestly, that's why I like working with him, because he has the same aesthetic and mindset that I do, so when it comes to me explaining something, he usually gets it without me having to deeply explain it.

- Personally I despise music videos. I think they're a waste of time, but I understand their purpose. I will never do a lip sync, pseudo, music video while the bands faking it in a dilapidated old building or I'm standing in a garage or out in a desert or on a mountain side lip syncing to my own song – fuck that – that will never happen. If anything a video could be comprised of live footage or something like that, but I will never fake a performance for a video. I did that once for a friend of mines video that I did vocals on, and it felt so unnatural that I told myself I would never do it again. So there is a plan perhaps for the next video to be live footage from a show spliced in with some story or horror visuals but that's about it – like I said I will never do one of those faux music videos lip syncing to a song while standing bollocks deep in swamp water or some silly shit like that.

- I work with what I got. I work with musicians that are willing and ready to work regardless if it's in a live situation or a writing and recording situation.

I'm not one to sit around and wait for someone else to get off their lazy asses to work. I did that for almost 35 years of my life – waiting around for some other musician to work and I realized all that did was hold me back. I'm done being held back. I want to work with musicians that are just as anxious, serious, and willing to work as hard as I am. And if that comes with working with different people at different times and different lineups and that's what it will be.

See because I'm out there pushing and working hard, so I expect the musicians that I work with to work just as hard. Sometimes it comes into positions where certain musicians that I've worked with in the past just happened to know the type of writing and style that I want as opposed to someone new coming in and trying to force them to do something.

So rather than waste a bunch of precious time, waiting for someone to get in the mindset or to learn to play in a certain aesthetic way – if I have people that know the style and can write in the way I'm looking for – then I'm gonna be working with them as opposed to someone who doesn't – all in all this is a business and this is like a job.

When managers interview people for positions at their job, they usually look for people that have experience in the type of work that they're looking to do. Sometimes they might not be able to find the right type of people in their area that they have to branch out and reach out to others outside of their area in order to find people that have the experience in the type of job that is required.

Now I tried to work with musicians for years in my area and none of them knew or had the correct mindset that I was looking for – it's more than just playing music – it's a mindset. Certain people have to be able to click and get along and unfortunately a majority of musicians in Florida are a bunch of rock star posers, narcissistic, toxic people, and I wasn't going to lower myself to work with such people like that ever again.

I did that before with former members of this band and I told myself never again!

I need the right people that are on the same level, and the right type of musicians that I needed just so happen to live in Sweden. And so the majority of my musicians that were writing the material are Swedish musicians. However, both Jonny and Rogga have their own bands and lives – they can't easily tour or be a part of a band that completely tour all the time – as such even though they are writing musicians, they weren't necessary the right musicians to do shows and tour with and do live performances with.

I was forced to find a lineup that could do that and that's why there is a separate lineup now that performs live.

I just luckily found Florida musicians that aren't part of any of the clicks or scenes – especially guys like Carlos and Tim who are completely not involved with the scene locally whatsoever and have removed themselves from being around such toxic people in the local scenes. However, the members in the band now – the lineup that performs live – that make up the live performance members – yes now they are also the new members of the band that will be moving forwards as of this moment.

- I tend to think a majority of fans once they see us – they realize that this lineup regardless of who is in it is still bringing the best performance and the best musicianship on stage.

They can do the material justice – regardless if it's the older material or the new material.

The biggest difference between the 80s crowds and 90s crowds and today's crowds is today's crowds are there because they want to be there – as opposed to 80s and 90s crowds who were only there because it was something to do or somewhere to be. I mean you still get that in small local scenes – you still get that sort of high school immaturity and mindset where everyone's just showing up someplace because it's the place to be – to be seen and to be recognized. It's all about being the "cool kid"... it's so pathetic.

However, we've been playing a lot of festivals lately and I can tell you that our crowd has been some of the biggest crowds, especially in Europe. The fans have always been more supportive of this band than any of the US. That's just how it's always been so I'm very appreciative of the euro fans.

- Both reasons actually. I like to have an ever changing logo to represent the band in its current theme, although I like to retain the updated version of the original logo. I never liked the logo that was used on the debut album. That logo was implemented without my consent and it was something done behind my back and I never liked it at all. I referred to that logo as the Superman logo as it always reminds me of the logo from the first Superman movie from the late 70s.

I always preferred the original logo with the axes. That's why when I finally became the sole trademark owner and leader of the band I implemented that logo back into the band. I also don't like logos, because logos represent a brand. I've never been about brands – to me that is so commercialized and so commodity driven in the way of thinking. It goes against my own self nature of what I feel music should represent. I know most 98% of musicians think of themselves as a brand – however I don't think of myself in that way, because I think that's very egotistical and narcissistic. To me the band should never be thought of as a brand... that might be counter contusive to most, but that's just how I am I always go against the grain. Honestly, the best representation of anti-branding is the movie Repo Man – although that movie may seem dated now – if you go back and watch that movie, everything entirely in that movie is nothing that is a brand label. Everything has no brand – every food item, every packaged goods, everything in that movie is just a complete absence of brand based packaging. That movie represents my mindset when it comes to branding.

- Well it's pretty evident that I'm a horror movie fan. I'm a fan of the horror genre in general – but doesn't always necessarily have to be movies. It could be books, magazines, comics, manga, online web series, creepy pastas... if it's horror I'm drawn to it.

Of course, I'm a huge H.P. Lovecraft fan, so that is the main source to my inspiration and lyrics. Everything is rooted in cosmic horror or should I say the complete utter madness and absurdity of the universe. That's what I view the real reality of our universe as – madness and insanity – it's all just one complete absurdity. So Lovecraft aesthetics is that type of absurdity that I view the world and the universe as.

Complete utter chaos and absurdity that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, it's only fitting that I would use such absurd simplistic explanations to my lyrics to describe such absurd things. It's probably why I like hentai and Japanese anime that has tentacle demons having engorging sex with human females. It's not that it's a turn on. It's just such an absurd, absolute complete chaotic mindfuck of a thing to happen. I just enjoyed the absurdity of it all.

I don't ever try to get political or religious or try to use my lyrics as some social commentary – I just simply want to entertain people and if they find some macabre entertainment in my complete chaotic absurd lyrics of horror, that's all I ask for.

The last movie I watched was Dead & Buried – it's one of my favorites from the 80s and I revisited again this morning. Kind of a hard question to ask me what was the last movie I watched since I watched movies every single day of my life and usually one horror movie a day – sometimes I watch something new, sometimes I re-visit something that is one of my favorites.

- Thanks for the support and love of our fans in the Ukraine.