(What you’ll find below is Comrade Aleks‘ in-depth and wide-ranging interview of Michael Chavez, the mastermind behind the California death/thrash band Hemotoxin, whose new album When Time Becomes Loss is set for release on May 17th via Pulverised Records.)
Fresh and savage death metal from Hemotoxin is rooted in thrash and shaped in twisted progressive forms. The band itself was started in 2010 by Michael Chavez (vocals, guitars, bass), and after three full-length albums and global lineup changes it reaches its new top with the fourth album When Time Becomes Loss.
Or, as the official press-release states, “discordant in euphonious harmony yet ruminative in essence, riff-mogul Michael Chavez inflicts a gaping wound that perfectly intersects forward-thinking thrash and prog metal”.
So many people, so many opinions… However, let’s now devote our own time, as Hemotoxin’s mastermind Michael Chavez provided us the in-depth story of When Time Becomes Loss and far more.
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Hi Michael! How are you doing? What’s going on in Hemotoxin’s lair?
Doing great, we just dropped our new single Call From the Abyss and the response has been incredibly positive, almost overwhelming but we’re loving it. I’ve recruited a new live lineup consisting of Juan Carlos Garcia on guitar, Aryan Pakkhoo on drums, and Nathan Fruth who is back in the band on bass, so we’re rehearsing and getting ready for the stage following the release of When Time Becomes Loss in May.
When Time Becomes Loss is the first album of Hemotoxin that was recorded by you and the guest musicians. Foremost, where did you lose all the guys who recorded Restructure the Molded Mind (2020)?
It’s a bit of a story to tell, so initially when Restructure came out and even before we were really trying to prioritize touring, a few months before it released we did a run of the Pacific Northwest with the lineup at the time with Brandon Wilcox on drums and Shane Hunt-Dusse on bass. The run went fine, but once we got to the release of Restructure in March 2020 the entire world shut down and pretty much killed our chances to promote that release.
Once that happened it was a pretty hard blow to this band. As the pandemic shutdowns continued Shane had some lifestyle changes and I no longer felt comfortable working with him given his living conditions; as much as I love music I recognize when it’s not helping someone and the last thing I ever want to do is make someone who’s clearly not in a place in their life to participate in my band feel like it’s any kind of priority. This is for fun 100%, so I let Shane go. There was no dramatic quitting discussion or anything like that.
Brandon was similar where he was moving on with his life in a positive direction and couldn’t find the time to get into the studio with me and write a whole new album. We had multiple discussions about it, and like with Shane there was no drama or any harsh words, I knew my friend needed to move on.
The split with Brandon was a lot more painful to be honest, because he’s been my best friend and musical partner for 15 years. We started together in our first band Aeon of Death when we were just 14-year-old freshmen at Antioch High School, and when I lost the first Hemotoxin drummer Brandon stepped up and helped really develop the sound of Hemotoxin; listen to our demos prior to 2012 it sounds like a totally different band. Almost everything I’ve learned and experienced in this musical world was with Brandon, so once it became clear he was no longer interested in participating in Hemotoxin it hurt me, but I couldn’t be selfish about it, I knew I had to let my friend do what makes him most happy. I love that guy with all my heart and I only wish him the best.
How realistic is a tour of that kind for a band like Hemotoxin? I mean, is such an endeavour worth all the efforts? And do you see it just as fun or as part of a bigger strategy to spread Hemotoxin?
Well, it’s realistic in a sense that we could always put ourselves in debt and travel out to Europe to tour, but obviously we are not this big money-making machine, we are an underground Death Metal band and I’m more than aware of those realities. After touring Europe last year with RTS and experiencing the way the people there treat musicians with such high regard compared to the USA, I would say the experience is well worth the financial burden.
After 12 years of doing this there is no strategy for this band at this point, we’re just here to make quality Death Metal that other like-minded people can enjoy, and to me Europe is the cultural epicenter of Heavy Metal and playing any country in Europe to me is more like the crowning achievement for what we do. Whether playing there earns me a legion of fans or not isn’t the main objective, it is to be where I feel this music means the most to people.
So yes, it is for the fun and the love of this music and whether its Hemotoxin, RTS, or Condition Critical, playing Europe will always be a personal goal. I really can’t wait to go back.
How much did the process of composing new songs differ this time as you were on your own?
I’ve never written an album like this before. When Hemotoxin first started as a one-man project I didn’t even have a computer. Back then I used a Yamaha drum machine to program songs and a tape deck to record the demos onto, which sounds like a set-up best fit for 1985 instead of 2010, but at the time that’s all I had access to. Once I could get my hands on a laptop the rest of the music up until Restructure the Molded Mind always had been me demoing stuff out at home in Guitarpro, then taking it into the practice space with Brandon and working songs out with him; this time around it was just myself and the DAW. I bought EZ Drummer and a bunch of sample packs then just started making songs.
Like I mentioned before, I would just write my riffs in Guitarpro then work the songs out, so this time there was no guitar pro at all; I was just writing songs and letting the ideas naturally develop without any constraints or any filter. So the biggest difference this time, I could write exactly what I hear in my head and craft riffs without thinking of how technical or flashy it should be, because when tabbing riffs as I was writing them in the past I always found myself trying to make the riffs more complicated than they really needed to be, just because it felt “too simple”. This time around I embraced the simplicity and just recorded what sounded good to me at the time and went from there.
Do you enjoy this way of composing more than if you could do it in a company of people? Didn’t you ever think to record an album live at a studio?
We have done a live studio session, recording in 2018 for the radio station KFJC 89.7 FM. We played the entire Restructure the Molded Mind album, including a song called “Desomorphine” that never ended up making it on the final product, along with some old songs. I do enjoy making music on my own as it allows me to create exactly what I hear in my head without any distractions or input. We used to have disputes in the past where Brandon didn’t wanna do certain drum patterns like D-beats and would kill ideas I had for songs with that kind of rhythm, so not having people around to say no to my ideas is something I enjoyed.
Recording an album live requires a lot of practice and dedication to make; if we get to that point where we are so tight as a band that it makes sense to record live then I would definitely go for it. We always wanted to, but the lack of time for practice made it impossible.
You’re the guitarist, and still three more guys helped you to record guitars this time. Why did you choose to call for extra help? Were some parts technically too complex or did you search for a special sound?
I resent this question a little bit, just because all of these riffs on this album are mine; all of the rhythm guitars, my own solos, bass and acoustic guitar overlays you hear on this record all came from my hands. The only real help I had recording came from Andrew Lee who dialed in the guitar tones and mixed the record as well as helping be my filter for some of these tracks as I was writing them. I would send Andrew demos and he would give me his opinion on them.
The concept of having Tony, Donnie and Andrew contribute guest solos to this album was more so based around the idea of having an album that features musicians I’m in a band with, or in Donnie’s case I wish I was in a band with, although in 2018 Donnie joined us on stage along with Chris Reifert for a cover of Evil Dead at Gilman, so for those 4 minutes Donnie was technically a part of this band.
It’s also no secret that I’m a huge hip hop fan and work for a company that sells rap music, and in that world albums will have features from other artists as a way to promote your friends and music you enjoy, I also didn’t want this whole album to feature solos from just myself as that tends to get a bit boring, and having other musicians give their take on what I wrote would be a good way to add some more layers to the sound of this album.
I’ve actually had this idea for almost 10 years but in the past it always happened to worked out to where we would only have one featured solo guitar player such as Steve Danska who contributed solos on Restructure, Michael Rowher on Biological Enslavement and The Alchemist EP, and Hunter Farrand on Between Forever …and the End.
You mentioned your work for a company that sells rap. Did you think about interaction with artists of this kind? Slayer’s Kerry King did it for Beastie Boys and Sum 41 (or Blink 182?), so it isn’t something criminal.
I absolutely would love to work with any artists in just about any genre. In the past I’ve done guitar solos for R&B and Hip-Hop songs that never saw the light of day, so it’s something I’m really into and have talked to rappers such as Dankhead Doug from Concord, CA about collaborating; he is actually a metalhead as well, and the amount of Rap artists that enjoy metal would surprise a lot of people. Rappers like Necro, Mars, and Lil Sicx are some I can think of.
I will admit that I have the upmost respect for the music I enjoy and know that not every crossover of Rap and Metal is great – some of it is horrible – so the idea of crossing over with a rap artist or any genre is appealing but I’m not gonna just collaborate on anything; if it’s good then it’s good and I’m happy to do it.
By the way, did you search for a specific kind of sound this time? What new did you aim to try with Hemotoxin now in comparison with the previous records?
There was no direction at first. When I started writing this album I didn’t even know if it was going to be for Hemotoxin. I really believed that it would be almost impossible to do this without Brandon helping me write the music.
The first song I wrote was actually the title track “When Time Becomes Loss”; initially I meant for that song to be an instrumental similar to “A Journey Through Dreams”, but I felt the verse riff I wrote deserved some lyrics over it so I ended up making that the title track. Then “Malediction” came after a night of playing Doom Eternal on two tabs of LSD and being a little bit salty that none of the songs for the Doom Eternal OST had any blast beats, so I wanted to write what I thought a Death Metal song would sound like in that game and “Malediction” is what came out in a 2-hour writing session at about 3:30 am. I didn’t edit any of that song from the first time I wrote it – what you hear on the album is what I wrote that night after I beat Doom Eternal.
The aim once I had those songs then became creating an intense metal record that can accompany a journey someone might be on, for me it was day-long bike rides. I would put the demos on my phone and just listen to them the whole time I was out on my bike, and so that helped me figure out how I wanted to pace this album and the moods I wanted to go for, going from track 1 to track 7. I like to think that this music could help accompany the intensity of any situation like a workout or playing some crazy ass FPS like Doom. If somebody uses this album for a spin class then I’ll really feel fulfilled.
There are ten years between Between Forever… and the End and When Time Becomes Loss; how do you see your development as a songwriter from this passion?
That’s a loaded question. I was 17/18 years old when we made Between Forever, and I’m 29 now, so there’s been a ton of development. Back in the days of BFATE I was really trying to mix the Death and Thrash sound in a way that I didn’t think a lot of bands had done up to that point, although I was wrong, it had been done. If you asked some of my older contemporaries, they would probably say I was directly ripping off Chuck Schuldiner. So as I grew up and developed my technique I still found that I had a passion for this style of Metal, and rather than trying to do something new or different I just wanted to embrace what makes this music awesome in the first place, no matter how derivative it was.
After the first album and The Alchemist EP I received a lot of trolling comments online and in real life that were talking about how much we ripped off bands like Death, which is fine because if I remind you of a band like that then I’m doing something right, but when I was around 20 years old it definitely got to me so bad I stopped listening to Death and Slayer for two years. That’s why Biological Enslavement had so many different influences on it, as well as having help from Michael Rowher for some of the songs.
The one thing I learned is that the music of Death, Cynic, Sadus, Slayer, and all the other bands I might remind you of is embedded in my blood at this point. It’s become so much a part of my musical vocabulary it’s just what comes out of me, and so now I embrace it and try to give the metalheads what they’re expecting while also throwing in some unexpected elements and really using this music as an opportunity to have fun with that audience and take them on a fun ride.
When Time Becomes Loss is planned to be released on May 17th. How do you prepare for this date? Do you have a live lineup to perform new material?
Yup, like I mentioned earlier I got Nathan Fruth back on bass, Aryan Pakkhoo on drums, and Juan Carlos Garcia on guitar. We had one gig recently with Bonded by Blood and the turnout was incredible, almost 200 people packed in this venue to see us open a show after being absent from the stage for two years. So we’re definitely still riding off of that momentum and have some shows scheduled for this summer that are gonna really pop off in a big way and we’ll do our best to continue that momentum and start playing more shows in the Bay Area and beyond. So to the reader, if you wanna see us in your local area have your promoters contact us and we’ll see what we can do!
In terms of preparation, we’re currently discussing which of the new songs we’ll debut first and what old songs to keep/get rid of for now. The guys in the band are definitely motivated by the release of this album so I think people are really gonna enjoy the live shows we are preparing for them.
There is “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” song on the Between Forever… and the End (2013) album. How deep are you into Lovecraftian horrors? Are you a longtime fan or did you approach this topic by accident?
When I was in high school I was a big Lovecraft nerd. I was like 15 or so when I was at a bookstore and found the “Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre” book and it had the same artwork as the “Cause of Death” album from Obituary so that really peaked my interest, and I loved the way the stories were written, especially “The Outsider” and that style of writing and I adopted it when I started to write my own lyrics as a kid.
The Shadow Over Innsmouth is one of the most popular of H. P.’s stories for metal bands. Why did you choose this one? Do you have other songs inspired by his mythos?
“The Shadow Over Innsmouth” specifically scared the shit out of me because of where I live; it is right at the beginning of the Sacramento river so we have the Delta out here in Pittsburg and I always had this nightmare when I was a kid that Pittsburg was at one time a place like Innsmouth where these hybrid creatures were living in the delta waiting to one day rise up and take it back. So that influenced me to adopt the story into one of my own songs and it turned out to be one of the sickest songs we ever wrote.
To be completely honest I’m not as big of a Lovecraft guy now as I was when I was 15 years old, so none of the lyrics on the last two albums have any real connection to Lovecraft lore. I got what I needed from his work and was able to develop my style of writing lyrics that also tell a story, so in a way I am still influenced by the Lovecraft stories in terms of how I write lyrics, but nowadays my lived experience is what I’m writing about lyrically.
What about Mark Cooper’s artwork? Is it connected with the lyrics directly or does it serve to channel some abstract mood of this material?
To be honest I actually purchased this piece from Mark before I had the lyrics finished. Funny enough I was attending a Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa concert and during the Wiz Khalifa set I was going through Mark’s portfolio and found the piece I picked for the album, and it actually influenced the themes and lyrics for the album.
At that point I had most of the music completed, but the themes and lyrics were still coming together. So once I found the piece. the whole landscape of this huge path leading to ruin and this giant tree with space inside of it, along with the color scheme, gave me ideas of how the themes and overall vibe of the album should be. Especially the gigantic stars in the sky, it made me want to achieve more of a “sparkly” sound on this album, especially on my solos, so Mark’s work definitely influenced this album, not the other way around. I believe the artwork was made in 2022.
Michael, you joined three more bands since 2020. What drove you to do this? Do you feel that you have enough time and energy to run three bands at the same time?
Well, during the Pandemic my life did a complete 180 and I wanted to really prioritize music in ways I hadn’t before, so I traveled to New Jersey and tried out for Condition Critical, a band I’ve been a huge fan of since 2011 when I saw the video of them covering Demolition Hammer under a freeway. They truly are the greatest thrash band to come out of the USA in the past decade, so when the role of Guitar/Vocalist became available I jumped on it immediately and really hit it off with those guys; I can’t wait to get started on the new album with them.
In 2021 Andrew Lee contacted me to fill in on second guitar for Ripped to Shreds at the Decibel Magazine Beer and Metal fest that year. Andrew and I have actually been friends since about 2016 and I love RTS so I was happy to help. Then as time went on Andrew offered me a permanent spot in the band and of course I had to say yes to that, as things for RTS were really starting to pick up leading up to the release of Jubian. I really wanted to help Andrew promote the band and do what I could to make the band sound as sick as possible on stage, and now it’s developed into a beautiful working relationship and I think the fans of RTS are gonna go crazy when they hear what we’ve been working on recently.
The third band you’re referring to I am actually no longer a part of. For about a year I was playing with the California Hardcore band Doomsday. We played a lot of great shows together and I had a good time recording leads and backing vocals for their self-titled EP. There were some very unfortunate things that happened on a personal level and I had to depart from Doomsday earlier this year. I’m still friends with the guys and I know for a fact they are destined for greatness, so for the Metal Archives nerds I am no longer a part of Doomsday. I play in Hemotoxin, Condition Critical and Ripped to Shreds. Joining three bands at the time was something I definitely had time and energy for but as life slowly went back to normal and I got a new job I lost some of that time and so now I only play for two other bands.
What are your further plans for 2024?
In a few weeks I leave for tour with Ripped to Shreds across the East coast, then once I get back Hemotoxin is gonna have some more shows coming up to promote the new album. I’m hoping in the next few months we’ll be making some progress on the new Condition Critical album too, as well something new from RTS. So there’s gonna be a lot of music coming out that I’ll have a hand in and I’m really excited to have an opportunity to show the metal world my vocal and guitar capabilities in multiple projects, and hopefully at some point get back to Europe and tour there again as well as other countries outside of the USA with any of the bands I’m in. That’s about it, a lot of music going on and for me that’s how it should be.
Okay, then I wish you all the best in this tour! Thanks for the interview, Michael. By the way, did we skip something important?
I think that just about covers everything, thanks again for all the detailed questions. When Time Becomes Loss is out May 17th on LP and CD, look out for the third Condition Critical album, which hopefully will be ready by the end of the year, and maybe something from RTS.
https://www.instagram.com/hemotoxinband/
https://www.facebook.com/hemotoxin
https://hemotoxin70.bandcamp.com
https://pulverised.bandcamp.com/album/when-time-becomes-loss