INTERVIEW: Lee Wollenschlaeger – Malevolent Creation
It’s no secret that the Florida death metal scene has more than its share of classic death metal bands. Alongside DEICIDE, OBITUARY and MORBID ANGEL, MALEVOLENT CREATION spent the early 90s carving out the genre. Their debut and sophomore albums, The Ten Commandments and Retribution, respectively, remain two of the genre’s essential classics. 2019 sees MALEVOLENT CREATION unleash their 13th offering, The 13th Beast (read our review here). In December, just after the announcement of the new album, we caught up with new front man Lee Wollenshlaeger to discuss The 13th Beast, the South African metal scene, and the controversy surrounding allegations of racism towards MALEVOLENT CREATION guitarist Phil Fasciana.
Hey Lee, thanks for taking the time to chat today. With the press run for The 13th Beast in full swing now, how is everyone in the Malevolent Creation camp?
Lee: We’re all pretty good, man. There’s been a lot of positive vibes going around so it’s pretty good.
The first single from The 13th Beast, Mandatory Butchery, was released last week. How has the response from the fans been so far?
Lee: Great! You always get a few negative remarks, but overall it’s been awesome, man. People seem to be really enjoying it, so it’s been going really well.
How much material did you contribute to The 13th Beast?
Lee: Quite a lot, actually. I wrote six or seven of the songs, I really worked my ass of on this album!
What lyrical themes and concepts did you explore with The 13th Beast?
Lee: Pretty much everything is the same as what it’s always been about: murder and serial killers. We’re pretty much carrying on in the same in the same fashion. There’s no point in changing a lyrical theme all of a sudden after 13 albums. So we thought “Well, that’s what the band’s about so we’ll just carry on like that.”
With the passing of Brett Hoffman earlier this year, did you want to pay tribute to him in any way with your vocals and lyrics?
Lee: I wouldn’t say I would change anything. The thing is, just before Brett got really, really sick, he was actually scheduled to come record some backing vocals with us in the studio for the new album. Obviously he got really, really sick and then he passed. It’s sad, because we could have had him on the last album but just wasn’t meant to be.
How did you come to join Malevolent Creation?
Lee: For a while MALEVOLENT CREATION was quiet. There wasn’t much news coming out of their Facebook page or from Blabbermouth or from anywhere. I went on to their Facebook page and I saw that there was nothing going on so just let it be, and then probably about three months later I went onto the page again and I saw Phil [Fasciana] was looking for a new vocalist. I put my application and he loved what I was doing, so he took me in. It was actually quite an easy transition into the band.
MALEVOLENT CREATION is the highest profile band you’ve been involved with so far in your career. What is your background in death metal like?
Lee: Yeah, there’s probably like 25 bands missing [from Wollenshlaeger‘s Metal Archives page]. I’ve been playing metal and death metal my whole life. I’ve been playing in bands for 25 years now. So yeah, I’ve played in so many bands, but only a few of them that I actually carried on with for quite a while. My solo project, IMPERIAL EMPIRE, I stuck with for the longest, obviously, because it’s a it’s a solo project so I would just working on music at home, writing and recording the music at home. It wasn’t really wasn’t intended to be a live band ever, but we did play a few live shows. Nothing serious though, it was never meant to be a live band, it was mainly intended to be just a recording project.
[MALEVOLENT CREATION is the sole focus now], everything else is on hold at the moment. We were actually going to do a new THRONE OF NAILS album and that got put on hold completely. I was just about a do a new IMPERIAL EMPIRE album, that got put on all completely as well. I’ve just got too much going on with MALEVOLENT CREATION, I wouldn’t have the time for anything else.
Does Malevolent Creation have any live plans for 2019?
Lee: Yeah, there’s talks with our manager at the moment, he is busy sorting out quite a few tours for next year so we’re going to be touring quite hard next year. It’s going to be pretty good. Nothing’s confirmed yet, the last thing I saw was quite a big tour, well, as big as it can get, in Mexico but that’s the last thing that I saw being discussed. But Europe, South America, everything is on the table at the moment, so there’s gonna be a lot of touring next year.
Obviously, Lee, you are South African. How is the death metal scene in South Africa?
Lee: It’s okay. I wouldn’t say it’s great. There are some good bands, there’s a lot of shit bands, but the scene is growing again. In the 90s we had a massive scene, and then the rave scene started and we had a lot of fallen soldiers to the rave scene! Over the past three years I’ve noticed the scene is getting quite big again. It’s picking up quite nicely.
And what challenges do you feel a South African band has that wouldn’t necessarily impact a band from Europe or the USA?
Lee: Exposure. It’s difficult. Being from South Africa, labels aren’t really going to pay much attention, because bringing you overseas in the first place [is expensive], it’s just such a difficult and expensive thing to go on tour. That’s the problem I’m having at the moment, getting myself to the States, but I am planning on moving to the States just to make things a lot easier. At the moment we can’t play one off shows or one off festivals, it’s going to be too expensive to do that but if I’m living there then obviously we can play whenever the hell we want.
Do you feel it’s easier for South African bands now with the internet than it was when you first got into the metal scene?
Lee: As a band from South Africa, or a musician from South Africa, it’s much easier. Without the internet, you were screwed, you didn’t know what the hell was going on. The only contact you had with the any international bands was in magazines or maybe like a live video or something that came out. You had absolutely no exposure to international bands because back in the day bands toured South Africa. I think the first extreme band to tour South Africa was NAPALM DEATH, and then probably about a year or two later CARCASS came over and then after that there was nothing, no bands touring at all. I think in 1998 KRABATHOR come to South Africa and we played a show with them. The scene was terrible. The scene with the people was good, but getting international bands to come tour South Africa, that was terrible, nothing was happening on that front.
How involved are you in the international death metal scene?
Lee: Every day I’m on the music sites to see what’s happening with all the bands. It’s weird because my wife and I have two computers next to each other, and the first thing I do after work is I switch on my computer and open Blabbermouth to see what’s going on in the world of metal. And my wife would look over and says “Hey there’s you on that page!” I find it very bizarre! I’m still very involved in keeping up to date with what’s going on with other bands. You get a lot of musicians that stop caring – I don’t know how you can stop caring because it’s music you like, you want to carry on knowing what’s going on with your favourite bands.
Are there any death metal bands in the underground that you are particularly impressed by, either in your native South Africa or worldwide?
Lee: I thought about that today, actually, and not really. It’s difficult for me to get into new bands lately, and I don’t know why. I don’t know if all the albums are just too overproduced, but I keep always going back to the older bands that I’ve always listened. But bands that I have recently gotten into that obviously are not very underground, WOLFHEART, I’m loving their music. They’ve been around for a while but I only discovered that a little while ago. Great, great band.
The new CRIPPLE BASTARDS is awesome, I’m loving that album. Like I said, it’s difficult for me to get into new bands, just for the simple reason that everything is just overproduced and everything just sounds the same. Everything’s just blast beats from start to finish, there’s no changes in tempos, there’s nothing, it’s just blasting from beginning to end. I like that but it gets old, it gets old quickly. You get a band like KRISIUN, that’s what they do, that’s their thing. You can’t just carry on doing that with every other band. We’ve got KRISIUN, and that’s what they’re there for so just leave it alone! They put blast beats over riffs that don’t even need blast beats at all, but it still sounds awesome! I love KRISIUN.
Phil Fasciana was making news on metal news sites a few years ago for alleged use of racial slurs. Were you at all concerned when joining MALEVOLENT CREATION that those articles would continue to be a black mark against the band?
Lee: Not really, because I know it’s all bullshit. It’s a bogus interview. It’s not a real interview, it’s fake, it’s fraudulent, it’s bullshit. I knew that before I joined MALEVOLENT CREATION and it was confirmed when I joined the band that it’s bullshit. I actually got asked the same question last night in an interview and actually got quite angry, because it’s bullshit and Phil‘s taking shit for it every single fucking day. We‘re all taking shit for it. Who in their right mind would do an interview like? Nobody!
How everything started was with the infamous lyric in They Breed on Eternal. It was explained to me so many times, over and over, in the studio, what they meant by that. Their warehouse had gotten broken into, and a whole lot of gear was stolen. They weren’t in the right frame of mind, they were angry and they were writing angry lyrics. When it came to the end of that song, they kept on putting in different words and nothing felt strong enough. How it was explained to me, is that if you look in the dictionary the term for the N word that means slacker and that’s all that was meant. It wasn’t meant racially, not at all, and it got completely blown out of proportion. That’s how everything started. From there, MALEVOLENT CREATION was known as the racist band.
Two or three nights ago I was on YouTube, and I was listening to, I can’t think of the name. But the vocalist was tried for a triple homicide murder and he was found guilty. And people are posting on this YouTube video that it makes it so cool because this guy’s a killer and really killed people, and now he’s singing about it. So people will praise this guy for actually fucking killing people but then words get twisted around about Phil, and he gets made out to be the Antichrist. That’s fucking bullshit, man.
Thanks again for your time today Lee. Finally, do you have any parting messages for Distorted Sound Magazine’s readers?
Lee: I just hope everyone enjoys the new album, man. If you enjoy the album, or even if you don’t enjoy the album, come see us live. We’re gonna break some heads off when we play live. We’re gonna come terrorise you guys!
The 13th Beast is out now via Century Media Records.
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