MetalSucks recently had the opportunity to have a quick chat with ORIGIN guitarist Paul Ryan on the set of the band’s shoot for their new video, 'Finite'. Ryan had some interesting things to say about life on the road, the band’s new album Antithesis (Relapse Records), and what lies ahead for these death metal masters.

Excerpts from the interview follow:

Q: Most of the band doesn’t live in the same geographical location… how do you guys all communicate during the writing process when you’re all so spread out?

A: Well, on my own, I just write, and then I send out a version, it’s just a demo version, and the song will advance by itself. And there’s stuff that I recorded that we didn’t use. And Jeremy and Mike would get together and record it and have that sent to me, and then… I mean, I have like two songs that I don’t know completely, that Jeremy and Mike wrote, whereas Mike and John know all the material, because Mike’s kind of like the middle man. So hopefully at some point when we’ve been touring long enough, we’ll be able to play every song on the new album. It’s just getting it to a point where we’re articulate enough that we can play it at the same speeds [as on the album]. And we’re gonna be touring [as support] and not headlining at first, so hopefully we’ll have more time to rehearse it."

Q: This is your first video shoot, right?

A: "First actual video shoot. We have a kind of video for the song 'Portal', more low budget, but… Relapse has treated us great over all the years, so we’re definitely happy."

Q: You’ve had some members come and go, and now this is the same lineup that made Informis Infinitas Inhumanitas in 2002. Can you tell us a little bit about the revolving door of band members?

A: "Yeah, basically… we were younger, there were egos, and out on the road people weren’t getting along, people got sick, people were sick of touring… but we had a lot of fun playing music together, and now we’re a little older, a little wiser, we each have less of an ego, and other people tried to fill those [vacant] slots but we felt most comfortable with one another. And the fact that the band works best with these guys and we’re all friends… like I said, you get in the van for awhile and, I don’t… we just weren’t getting along. Now everyone is trying to work towards a common goal.

And great things happened for us [during the time apart] - you know, Jeremy played in Cannibal Corpse… but it was like, the second guitar spot, we just couldn’t find another guy, I was doing both spots with an A/V box and playing both parts… so it was either gonna stay a four piece, or it was gonna be Jeremy. We just couldn’t find a bonding member… and even if we did, I think he would have been hazed a lot (laughs)."

Q: Cool. Any parting words?

A: "Just looking forward to… I mean, this is awesome. The support of Relapse, just flying us out to all different parts of the country, is awesome. A lot of people ask us 'How is Relapse?' and sometimes they have a different direction that the death metal kids don’t understand, but Relapse treats us, as a band, very well. A lot of kids are like 'Why did Relapse change directions?' But they’ve made the label bigger and better, and because of the decisions they’ve made, they’ve got that much more money to support a death metal band like us. So it’s pretty awesome… I just wanna make sure Relapse gets props (laughs)."

To read the entire interview transcript, visit MetalSucks.