David Sittig of Impending Doom Talks New Record, Touring + His Love of Listerine

Impending Doom are currently on tour in support of their new album ‘Baptized in Filth.’ The band is part of the 2012 Metal Alliance tour, which features DevilDriver, The Faceless, Dying Fetus, Job For a Cowboy and 3 Inches of Blood.

Loudwire got the chance to catch up with Impending Doom's David Sittig backstage after their killer set during the Metal Alliance concert in New York City. (Check out our review and photo gallery of the show.) Sittig dished all about the new record ‘Baptized in Filth,' working with Demon Hunter frontman Ryan Clark, touring with DevilDriver, his obsession with dental hygiene and much more.

'Baptized in Filth' that’s a pretty deep name for a record. What does it mean to you?

It’s more a metaphorical thing just for just being obsessed and self-absorbed with this world and everything that has to be -- that being the filth of this world. It’s more like you got to read the lyrics and follow along with the whole album to kind of understand it all but that’s the basic meaning, just being obsessed with materialistic things and this world in general and finding hope that this world has everything. You were brought into this world naked -- with nothing -- and that’s how you’re going to leave this world.

You collaborated with Ryan Clark of Demon Hunter on this album for the track ‘My Light Unseen.’ What was that experience like?

We a did it a few months ago; maybe five months ago and he’s an awesome dude. We’ve played festivals with Demon Hunter a bunch of times and when we wrote this song it was actually supposed to be just an instrumental song ‘cause every record we kind of do an instrumental, softer song -- so we just wanted to keep the flow with it. With this one it just felt like it needed vocals so Brooke [Reeves] laid down vocals, but it was just the screaming and the background of the chorus. So it was kind of an empty song and we were like, “It needs something more,” and I think screaming all over it is too much. It would be cool if we could sing over it but none of us can really pull it off.

We don’t want to be that kind of a band; like a singing band. It was more of just a collab kind of thing. And we’re like, "Ryan Clark has a great voice." So we just went on a whim and just asked him and he’s like, “I feel honored to, absolutely.” Then he did it and it turned out better than we thought it would.

How would you compare ‘Baptized in Filth’ to your other records?

Well compared to the one before it, it’s a lot heavier and a lot darker. It reminds me of our second record ‘The Serpent Servant’ but [with] better riffs and better written songs all together. We focused on keeping the really dark sound and creepy leads and just the overall vibe of it is heavier. We kind of went that way with the first record and the second record and we did some experimenting with the third one, so this one was just like we took the experimenting that we liked with the third one but just went back to what Impending Doom is.

You’ve said that you’ve brought worship into Death Metal -- calling it Gorship. What are some reactions to this?

Since we’re a Christian band, it’s just our version worshipping through -- how it started was through gore sounding music. When Impending Doom started the only thing we listened to was gore metal like Devourment, Guttural Secrete, Aborted -- all those bands like that was what influenced that first record -- actually the demo really, not even the first record. We came up with 'goreship' a really a long time ago, so it just means worshipping through our gore-sounding music.

Being a Christian metal band, do you notice that you attract a different type of metal fan than a non-Christian metal band does?

No. I mean I would say the biggest part of our fan base is non-Christian followers and we’re all about that. If anybody’s willing to listen to our music and give our music a chance whatever you believe, we love you the same whether you’re a Christian or a devil worshipper or something. We’re not judgmental people at all. Everyone has their own beliefs. We’re here to talk to you if you want to know what ours are about. If you want to know why we believe what we believe and why we’re so passionate about it because you doubt it, we’ll talk with you.

We’re not condescending. We’ll hang out with anybody and you can be like, “Nah I don’t want to talk to you about that and I don’t want to believe in your God, but I just want to listen to your music and hang out with you.” I’ll be like, “There’s a seat right here, let’s hang out.” We’re cool dudes who just get along with everybody. We’re not judgmental or trying to force what we believe down everybody’s throats, but we’re here to talk if they want to know about it.

You guys are sharing the stage with DevilDriver, Dying Fetus, The Faceless, Job for a Cowboy and 3 Inches of Blood. How would you describe your relationship with these bands?.

They’re really nice -- like the dudes Dying Fetus are super nice, super laid back and just cool guys. DevilDriver too. We didn’t really know anybody on this tour -- this is the first tour we’ve done in five years probably where we don’t know a single band on the tour. We’ve played some shows with some of them but we’ve never toured with any of these bands ever, so it was like first day, fresh, new faces. Every tour we do there’s usually one band we’ve toured with prior -- it just wasn’t the case with this one. It was a chance to meet new people and to just start fresh where nobody knows you, you don’t know them and it’s been good vibes all around. Nobody’s cocky rockstar guys who are too cool to talk to you -- they’re all awesome.

What’s one thing you must bring on tour with you? No electronics.

No electronics? I feel like there’s something really important too. Well besides the standard thing like your toothbrush, that’s the most important -- which I forgot this tour! Immediately, the first gas station we stopped at, I had to buy one. I would say my toothbrush and a bottle of Listerine. Listerine is key, I love Listerine. My parents spent a lot of money on my teeth and I’m not trying to mess it up now, I guess. I’m a teeth kind of guy, it’s the first thing notice on somebody. [Laughs] So brush your teeth.

Impending Doom are currently on the Metal Alliance Tour and the band's latest release, 'Baptized in Filth' is now available.