Death Angel guitarists Rob Cavestany and Ted Aguilar recentoly spoke with Guitar World about the band's early days, an their new album, Humanicide. Following is an excerpt from the story.

When they formed as teenagers in 1982, San Francisco’s Death Angel strived to play complex, unconventional thrash influenced equally by Metallica and Rush.

“Right off the bat, we were trying to be progressive when we barely even knew three chords,” says main songwriter and guitarist Rob Cavestany, with a chuckle as he and his bandmates prepare for the release of their ninth album, Humanicide. “We couldn’t play cover tunes because we weren’t good enough, so we just wrote our own songs. We had no idea what we were doing.”

Through constant practice and unerring determination, the band members became more proficient and in 1987 they released their first full-length album, The Ultra-Violence. The band’s iconic thrash combined rapid-fire tempos with unusual time signatures, abrupt rhythm shifts and off-kilter riffs that sometimes sounded forcefully welded together.

“We were like, ‘OK that part’s gotta go to that part,’” recalls Cavestany. “‘Let’s just squish them together and play one after the other, even if they should have been parts for different songs.’ Sometimes it was weird and totally awesome. However, a lot of times it sounded forced… because it was.”

Over time, refinements came. For their third album, 1990’s Act III, Death Angel hooked up with veteran producer Max Norman, who, along with the band’s A&R man, helped the group write songs that were more structured and cohesive.

“I learned that, as a songwriter, I needed to write parts that flowed together with the parts before them and complement them, and getting that right took a lot of time and hard work,” Cavestany says. “We sent the record company a four-song demo and they said, ‘Alright, let’s hear more.’ So we sent them four more songs. They came back to us and said, ‘Uh-huh. Send us some more.’ We wrote another four songs and submitted them and they went, ‘OK, now you guys are starting to warm up.’ I was like, ‘What? I thought we were done!’ We wound up writing 30 songs for that album and the real gems came at the end of that process. That’s when it sunk in that I had to put a lot of effort into writing the songs to make sure they were good and not just heavy. And I learned that everything I did wasn’t going to be good and that making an album was a real process.”

Read the complete story here.

Testament recently announced The Bay Strikes Back Tour 2020 with Exodus and Death Angel. Tickets go on sale this Wednesday, July 31st at 7 AM PST.

Dates:

February
6 – Copenhagen, Denmark – Amager Bio
7 – Stockholm, Sweden – Arenan Fryhuset
10 – Helsinki, Finland – The Circus
11 – Tampere, Finland – Pakkahuone 
13 – Hamburg, Germany – Docks 
14 – Oberhausen, Denmark – Turbinenhalle 
15 – Wiesbaden, Germany – Schlachthof
16 – Utrecht, Netherlands – Tivoli 
18 – Berlin, Germany – Huxleys
19 – Wroclaw, Poland – Orbita Hall
20 – Vienna, Austria – Arena
21 – Munich, Germany – Backstage
22 – Filderstadt, Germany – Filharmonie 
25 – Milano, Italy – Live Club
27 – Barcelona, Spain – Razzmatazz
28 – Madrid, Spain – Palacio Vistalegre 
29 – Toulouse, France – Bikini

March
1 – Paris, France – Elysee Montmartre
3 – Bristol, UK – O2 Academy
4 – Dublin, UK – National Stadium
6 – London, UK – O2 Forum Kentish Town
7 – Manchester, UK – Manchester Academy 
8 – Glasgow, UK – Barrowland
10 – Brussels, Belgium – AB
11 – Hannover, Germany – Capitol