He equipped the axes with Floyd Rose tremolos and employed a variety of pickup configurations, including a middle-position single-coil pickup. “I am not endorsed by anyone and I buy all my guitars used off eBay,” he says. On Kingdoms Disdained, he rips through his staircase rhythms and seemingly backward chugs on his 1990s Ibanez Universe 7-String with a custom green pick guard.įor his leads, Azagthoth used six different guitars from various companies that he refuses to name. Since 1989, when Morbid Angel emerged with the next-generation soul-shredder Altars of Madness, Azagthoth has been one of the most skilled rhythm and lead players in death metal. Lilly-Bell, that plow is not gonna plow without a little elbow grease.” Then Azagthoth returns to song, “Momma’s little baby likes short’nen short’nen/Momma’s little baby likes short’nen bread.”Įven if his unsettling asides aren’t a stunt and actually reveal some mental instability, they don’t detract from his stellar playing. Mary-Bell, your daddy watching the way you planting that and it don’t look straight. “Momma’s little baby likes short’nen, short’nen/Momma’s little baby likes short’nen bread,” he sings, then spins off into an unnerving narrative: “Cori-Bell, those weeds are growing faster than you pulling them.
When asked if he was unhappy with the largely negative reaction to Illud Divinum Insanus, which was the first collaboration with Vincent since 1995’s Domination, Azagthoth drifts away into asylumville. Analysis of his conversation, however, reveals that the guitarist usually only descends into gibberish when he’s annoyed or if he wants to change a subject. Yet, it’s too easy to dismiss Azagthoth as a demented guitar wizard whose extra-curricular pursuits imbue him with strength, but whose quirky ideas keep him a quantum leap from reality. Rich “InstaGIB” Ironbird (Image credit: Chris Casella) Since then, Azagthoth has sought inspiration through a combination of magic, creative visualization and the teachings of motivational speaker Tony Robbins and alternative medicine guru Deepak Chopra.Īzagthoth plays his B.C. In the band’s nascent days, he and Vincent cut themselves as part of Satanic blood rituals before taking the stage. At the very least, he’s inordinately eccentric. Some have described Azogthoth as mentally unbalanced. Also, Land of the Lost, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Electro Woman and Dyna Girl and, for sure, Dungeons and Dragons, and I am a very caring dungeon master.”
“I’m also inspired by old children’s TV shows and video games: Thun-darr the Barbarian, Quake 3 Arena, Resident Evil, Dino Crisis and Twisted Metal 2. I look at things in my own freaky way and find musical influence in everything: My 1998 Trans Am WS6 Ram Air, my guns, my new BMX bike, Jim Beam, good green, strong coffee.”Īzagthoth pauses, as if he’s finished his thought, but he’s really only halfway done when he’s on a roll he speaks as rapidly as he plays. It is beautiful what humans can actually do.
When asked to elaborate, Azagthoth blurts, “Humans are dynamic and we can program ourselves, by what we choose to influence and condition ourselves with.
We can all create an embed into ourselves-the kind of code that we deem useful to achieve whatever results we want to achieve.” But humans are better than any computer, really. Magic and philosophy is the code, just like the code for computer software. “I was just exploring the place and tapping into the magic of the moment. “Bro, I didn’t have much of a clue as to what to do for solos so I just got in there and jammed to it and recorded things,” he admits.
From one song to the next, Azagthoth plays a torrent of mindblowing solos, ranging from the detuned noise wash of “Piles of Little Arms” to the frantic hammer-on, pull-offs and tapping of “The Righteous Voice.” Whether playing textural fills or blinding sweep-picked, flanger-saturated runs, Azagthoth is locked in the moment and going with the flow-mostly by necessity. Throughout songs like “Garden of Disdain,” “Architect and Iconoclast” lie an abundance of hairpin turns, long, deep string bends and vertigo-inducing tempo shifts.
With the help of producer Erik Rutan (who played guitar in Morbid Angel for two three-year stints), Morbid Angel has created a modern-sounding, old-school album full of barreling double-bass drumming, machine-gun blast beats, skewed riffs and choppy guitar patterns.