Morbid Angel Frontman David Vincent Chats With Full Metal Jackie

Radio host Full Metal Jackie talked to Morbid Angel frontman David Vincent over the weekend, with Vincent also serving as co-host on Jackie's show. The singer-bassist discussed the death metal band's new album, 'Illud Divinium Insanus,' as well as the bands he grew up listening to as a kid. If you missed Full Metal Jackie's show, read the interview with David Vincent here:

Morbid Angel recently released a brand new album, ‘Illud Divinum Insanus.’ It’s obviously your first Morbid Angel album in 16 years. Now that you’ve had a couple of months to kind of absorb it and you’ve been playing a few tunes from the record, what do you realize about the album now, that maybe wasn’t so obvious, when you guys were in the studio?

Well, I tell people that my job is done. Once I release something, it’s released, it’s done. I just, kind of, shoot from the hip when it comes to a creativity standpoint and this was another exercise in that. The new songs are going over really well live, so that’s a good thing I’m glad that people like it. I’m looking forward to continuing to travel around; We’ve been to Europe, we’ve been to South America, we’re going to Japan and we’re going back to Europe and then we’re probably going to have some announcements to make about North America, that I will share with you and then you can share them with all your listeners.

How do you feel about the response to this record?

You know, it’s really interesting. It has been quite varied and different people like different aspects of the record for different reasons and I found that this is, it’s almost like a territorial thing. When we initially went and did and initial press listening session at my label Season of Mist over in Marseille France, they got sort of the editorial staff from multiple magazines around Europe to come in at the listening session and then a Q&A, shared a few adult beverages.

It was very interesting to me that upon first listen, different people from different regions were attracted to different aspects of the record, so I’m like “it’s very interesting.” I like it when things are interesting, I mean if you do the same thing over and over again and there are people that do that, there are people that do that very well, we’re just not one of those bands.

I was fortunate enough to get a chance to see Morbid Angel perform in Germany at Wacken, which was an incredible experience, such a great show. Did you guys have a good time playing that festival?

You know I tell you, the European festivals, they have something really special going on there. It’s not a tour, it’s more like a Woodstock thing, if I had to put it into words, very bohemian, people from all different walks of life, just fans of music, people that are really music fans, planning their entire summers around it. In the case of Wacken, people travel from all over the world to come to this thing and I know this because they’re standing in front of me waving the flags of all of the various countries that they’re from.

So yeah, it’s a really special thing for us, it gives us the chance to share our music with people who may or may not be Morbid Angel fans or have been previously exposed to our music. It’s exciting for us, it’s certainly a very powerful feeling when you hear 70,000 people chanting along with the song.

You were mentioning the different places you’ve been around the world performing, and there’s footage online of Chilean fans forcing their way into your show in Santiago earlier this month. It’s really intense watching security trying to slow the rush of people. What do you think it is about Morbid Angel that gets people so frantic?

Well, I hope that I wouldn’t just say that it’s Morbid Angel, I just think that fans in general and specifically Latin American fans are just really really passionate about the music. What caused that particular scene, hopefully no one got hurt, it didn’t look like anyone did, but this just shows the level of fandom, not cynicism but fandom goes on outside of our country, it’s definitely something to behold.

There’s a couple of various shows that I know you’ve played in the U.S but up next you had mentioned you guys are going to Europe, can we expect a proper U.S tour in 2012?

We are working on that, generally speaking, when we have something definite to announce that’s when the announcement is made. There’s been a lot of talk on the internet but until you see it on MorbidAngel.com or the Morbid Angel Facebook site, it’s probably just rumor. We will have an announcement to make shortly and we’ll probably let you make it, how about that?

Alright, I love that. You’ve been around in the metal world and the music business for a long time. Tell us what your vibe is on the metal scene today as opposed to earlier Morbid Angel days.

Well there certainly are a lot more bands but I would say that there’s a lot of good stuff out there. I listen to a lot of music, there are a number of bands who are really pushing the envelope, some are younger, some are older. Aside from the fact that the industry as a whole, being in a band and being able to earn a living the way that you use to, now that people have chosen not to purchase CDs like they use to.

I can tell you, I buy CDs, I either buy CDs or I buy a download, the word “buy” is the key there, either off of Amazon or iTunes because I realize that it’s important, for me, that a band that I like continues to write good music and they’re not able to afford to do so if somehow, the people who call themselves, fans of the band just choose to steal the music off the internet. So I put my money where my mouth is and I buy the music and the t-shirts of the bands that I like. Hopefully everyone else realizes the importance of that and they will do their due diligence to follow my lead if nothing else.

Who did you grow up listening to?

You know, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Kiss, Alice Cooper, you know, probably the same set of things that a lot of people grew up listening to.

So what was the metal scene like, when you were growing up?

Well, the metal scene, I don’t know if there really was a metal scene or not. I mean you had the people who would listen to AC/DC and Judas Priest and then you had the people that were more into Van Halen, the happier sounding stuff. I was always into the darker sounding stuff, personally.

What does David Vincent do on the off time, when you’re not touring

There’s never any off time, I keep myself as busy as possible.

This coming weekend, Full Metal Jackie will interview Ivan Moody and Zoltan Bathory of Five Finger Death Punch, as well as Anders Nystrom of Katatonia. Full Metal Jackie can be heard on radio stations around the country — for a full list of stations, go to fullmetaljackieradio.com.