SOURCE – These days it is hard not to talk about COVID-19. How are you and your family handling the situation, and how is the situation in your home country? What are the views/lessons learned from this scenario?
Travis Ryan (Vocals) – I have all sorts of feelings about it. Existential, practical and personal. The actual planet sure needed a reset of humanity like this. It needs much more actually. It requires many more deaths to be where it needs to be. The population needs a mass culling. Not even trying to sound like a badass here, this is what science has been telling us for years. So I understand that and acknowledge that but it doesn’t keep me from worrying about my family, my wife, my father whose health has been compromised for decades and is at a bad place now. All non-covid related, but if he gets this, that’s it for him. So, as a human with feelings, I do worry about that. Lessons to be taken away are the same that Death Atlas has expressed – that we’re out of control in our numbers and we need to bow the fuck down to nature because we aren’t the be all end all organisms of the universe like we like to pretend and think we are.
SOURCE – What impact do you expect this crisis to have on the global jobs market?
Travis Ryan (Vocals) – I think things will be forced to go “back to normal” simply because we’re a very irreverent species and do not give a fuck about anything but ourselves. We’re pretty fucked already and its only been like one month into this. Something I personally see lasting for 12-16 months. Those are just the numbers I’ve had in my head this whole time. There’s gonna be a huge lopsidedness to this as I don’t see things going back to normal all at once, but more gradually. But its going to be because of the crisis with the global market, not because the virus went away.
SOURCE – Your video for Bring Back the Plague has received great views through YouTube – what can you tell us surrounding the video shoot?
Travis Ryan (Vocals) – We made it all shitty like that on purpose haha. In fact, I think its too nice looking. I wanted it to look shittier but its still a great job by David Hall. I guess I just wish we had shittier phones haha. You can make full motion picture films on these things now, its incredible. But yeah, from the moment we had the idea to when the editing was finished was maybe 5 days to a week! We shot our parts ourselves and sent it to the editor who put in all the other stuff he found. I guess you could say him and I directed it cuz I came up with all the things I wanted to see happen but he went and sourced it all and put it together masterfully.
SOURCE – What can you say about the video for The Ted Bundy Song, release back in 1993 on Macabre’s Sinister Slaughter album?
Travis Ryan (Vocals) – Oh that kinda does have a story to it. Back in 2004 – 2005 Cattle Decapitation did the final two tours that Deicide did with the Hoffman brothers. One day, Brian says to me “you know, we call you Ted cuz you look just like Ted Bundy”. I’m usually not one to agree with those types of observations regarding myself but I knew exactly which photo he was talking about. It was shot outside the courtroom and its a famous image of Bundy. So those two tours the Deicide guys all called me “Ted”. Fast forward 15 years later and my buddy Jeff Sisson calls me up to tell me he’s working on a music video for Macabre’s Ted Bundy song as part of a reissue series Nuclear Blast was going to do. We go way back with their manager Rodney Pawlak and we’ve hung out with some of the Macabre dudes before so I told him right away, “if you don’t have me play Ted Bundy, you’re blowing it”. I then proceeded to explain the whole Deicide thing and he basically said “that’s why I’m calling you”. So I flew out to St. Louis, MO and filmed my scenes during late winter 2019. It was really eerie when I went to put on the wig and costumes. People in the room were like… “WHOAH… THAT’S FUCKED UP”. We shot some scenes in a bar and on our way out some local guy asked Jeff “what are y’all doin, shooting a music video or something?” Jeff confirmed his suspicions and the guy leans into Jeff and says “you know, that feller there is a dead ringer for Ted Bundy?” Its definitely not at all something I’m proud of, but it is cool to have something that started between the Deicide camp and I way back during our tour infancy to come to some sort of fruition. Its a perfect marriage of concept, practicality and reality.
SOURCE – Death Atlas is the 8th and latest studio record for Cattle Decapitation. Where do you see this album fit in the discography and style of the band – do you feel like you’ve established key elements and formulas for delivering your songs?
Travis Ryan (Vocals) – Its actually our 9th if you consider the first two albums that were really short but filled with around 13 or so songs. I think the last few records starting with Karma.Bloody.Karma even are the directions we’ve always tried to go. I’m personally happiest with whatever our latest output is just as much as our first record Human Jerky which had a place in my heart for many years and still does. But Death Atlas is more of what we’ve wanted to do. Lots of people seem hung up on Monolith of Inhumanity but I think that has more to do with timing, it hitting a certain generation of people at a certain time in their lives moreso than the actual content. Because to me, The Anthropocene Extinction blew that album away and Death Atlas levels both of those albums into the dirt. They’re fine albums, but I think we just get better and better each record.
SOURCE – Do you have a favorite song off of Death Atlas and do you have any songs off of the album that you’re itching to play live?
Travis Ryan (Vocals) – Time’s Cruel Curtain really hit me hard. That was so much fun to write to. I personally am more into depressing music more than anything. Real, raw emotion. So I think the last 15 minutes or so of Death Atlas is Cattle Decapitation’s career-defining moments. Those are our finest and most important moments so far in our career.
SOURCE – In a time where streaming and digital consumption of music is more the norm than owning physical releases, do you believe that great artwork is still crucially important for albums?
Travis Ryan (Vocals) – It is to me. Unfortunately, I don’t think others feel that way. I see bands putting just whatever on their covers that clearly don’t take much thought on behalf of the band members. Some bands just put it in the hands of the artist. Some bands just say “put a skull on it, skulls sell”. Not us. I like to put effort into this part of the band and I think its crucial in getting the ideas across. Its also awesome to collaborate with artists which is exactly what we do whether its merch items or an album cover that is going to serve as the image representing a historical document which is how I consider albums to be, no matter how relevant or irrelevant an artist is.
SOURCE – What do you have planned for the rest of the year? I know it’s a bit of a big question right now.
Travis Ryan (Vocals) – A whole lot of getting life back in order now that there’s no touring to get in the way of that! I truly feel for Death Atlas because its a great album that’s going to be completely hosed by this disease, so we’ll be doing our best to keep the stuff out there while not being able to tour. We also have some vinyl reissues coming of Monolith of Inhumanity and The Anthropocene Extinction to tide people over until we can get back out there and continue destroying people with Death Atlas!
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