Interview with Opium Death
Opium Death are an extreme progressive metal band formed in Chicago, Illinois. They released their album Genocidal Nemesis on April 19th. All questions answered by Irvin
Alicia
Can you Introduce the band?
Irvin
Yes, my name is Irvin and I am the guitarist of the band and Don is the bassist and lead vocalist, Dennis is the drummer, and Luis is the other guitarist of the group.
Alicia
Where did the name come from?
Irvin
If memory serves, I remember one night we were at my friend’s house in the backyard one evening and the lineup at the time was not what it is now. Back then we called ourselves Cazador and I believe I brought up my opinion on that name and how it just did not feel right for us. The rest of the band agreed and so we started brainstorming possible band names around the fire pit. After many back- and-forth pitches of names, we settled on being a two-word name with death as the secondary one like Napalm Death. And after many pitches of that, it was either myself or my guitarist at the time that said opium. From there it clicked and since then it has stayed.
Alicia
You have an album coming out can you tell us about the recording process?
Irvin
It was very long and strenuous process for us since it was our first album and we wanted everything to sound as good and clean as it can be. We rehearsed these songs a lot but when it came to recording, it took us by surprise when you start listening back to the takes and notice some flaws or hiccups here and there. For drums, it was done at Sweetwater Sound Studios in Indiana, and we had four days to record it. Dennis was able to nail most of it very well and so retakes did not take too much time. The rest of the instruments were recorded by us in Dennis’ basement. We utilized the Neural DSP Quad Cortex for guitars and bass and vocals were recorded with the Shure SM7B. As time went by and recorded some songs at every meetup, we got involved with shows and life happened and so the tracks were then finished longer than anticipated. Retakes were then done when everything was turned in for listening and got fixed when mistakes appeared.
Alicia
Do you have plans to tour this release?
Irvin
No, not for this release unfortunately. We just do not have the transportation and means to commit a full tour but eventually we will hopefully by next year for our next releases. We want this record which will be out on April 19, 2024 to get on its legs and us promoting the hell out of it to build up hype and momentum.
Alicia
Can you tell us about the music scene where you’re from?
Irvin
It is fantastic and the musicians and people in it are very supportive of each other. While this is more of the Chicago metal scene, from our experience it has been nothing but friendly greets and gestures from friends and strangers as our name was being recognized and seen in the places with bands that we have never played with before. It is something I am glad we are a part of, and we extend those same manners out to others in return because this is something we are all passionate about and so creating drama or to criticize someone’s music with disrespect is not tolerated and just does not help anyone at all.
Alicia
Was music something you’ve always wanted to do?
Irvin
For all of us, not exactly. It sort of came on later down in life when we started to learn our instruments and covering songs from our favorite bands. It wasn’t until when I started the group with my friend that the possibility of turning it into a career was a possibility. When we started to write our own music, the future seemed to be becoming clearer and clearer as time went on with playing shows and eventually creating a debut album that a ton of people will listen to.
You can check out Opium deaths music and social media below