Death metal act Mouth Of The Serpent call Los Angeles, California their home and are currently in the writing and recording process of their follow-up release to debut EP "Manifest". The new material will be revealed upon their full-length album due out soon! Frontman vocalist Max Reis talks to us about the recording progress and how this new album is coming along.
1. What type of band are you?
Max: We're a melodic death metal band.
2. Tell us the brief history of your band.
Max: We're just a bunch of metal heads that came together through the good graces of the Internet and mutual friends. We started jamming here in Los Angeles as teenagers back in 2008. 5 years, a couple of lineup changes, 2 EPS, A full-length album, and a grip of U.S. tours later and here we are keeping it brutal today.
3. How did the band get the name, Mouth of the Serpent and does it have a meaning behind it?
Max: Our guitarists thought of it when they first started jamming together. I think they just thought it sounded brutal. I see it as the temptation of forbidden knowledge in the religious sense, you know, like eve being tempted by Satan in the form of a serpent... but that could be over thinking the whole thing.
4. Who are your musical and non-musical influences?
Max: We all draw a lot of influence from the classic death metal and black metal bands that defined the genre years and years before us. Death is a big one you'll hear us blasting in the van. A lot of us are into prog as well; everything from Zappa and Yes, to more modern prog like Between the buried and Me and T.R.A.M., which I think really comes across in our music at times.
5. What are your dreams and goals?Max: If we can make a living traveling around the world playing metal then that's the life for us. More music, more people, more places. That's it.
6. What are your songs about? (What specific themes do they cover?)
Max: Our latest EP lyrically covered the use of hallucinogenic drugs in religious practice. Our new album is more about the cultivation of men and women for their inevitable enslavement by society. You know, metal stuff... Horse cops, vaginal surgeries, zombies... you name it.
7. Do you write your own songs? (Discuss the songwriting process in detail.)
Max: Yes, we write our own songs. It usually involves us all meeting up, kicking some riffs around, and making them fit together in a way that resonates with us. We pretty much just smoke a bunch of weed, and when the cloud clears we have a song hahaha. Once we have the bare bones structure of a song, we all work on our contributions to it separately, then reconvene and refine the song into a more cohesive idea.
8. Where are you in the process of the new album?
Max: We're currently recording pre-production demos for all the new material, and putting some final touches on the last couple tracks we've written. Making sure everything is perfect before hitting the studio, essentially. Our new album cover art by Tony Koehl (who did our previous EP cover) is almost done, so everything is really coming together.
9. Where will you be recording the album?
Max: We are tracking guitars and bass in our own studio in Los Angeles, and we will be tracking drums and vocals (as well as mixing) at either Hour Glass Recording Studios (in Phoenix, AZ) or Castle Ultimate Studios here in CA.
10. You're currently only in the pre-production mode, so would you know how the sound and style of these new tunes compares and differs from your EP tunes?
Max: You can expect the new songs to be darker, more technical, and more driving than the tunes on our previous album, Manifest. All the songs flow more smoothly, and progress over the styles which we had to communicate more quickly and in less time when we were recording Manifest. The production value I think you'll find will also be a huge step up from our previous release.
11. When can we expect the new album to be released?
Max: Were hoping to have it printed before the end of the year.
12. Have you been road testing any of the new material? If so, how have audiences reacted to the new material?
Max: On our latest tour with Apparitions from AZ we played an average of 5 new songs every night, and we think we can all agree that the audience approved. It was especially cool to see how comfortable we became playing them by the time everything was said and done. Very stoked.
13. What are your upcoming tour plans?
Max: We're hoping to head out in November on another west coast run, and a longer run in January to promote the new Album. Very excited about some potential headliner bands we're talking to...14. What plans do you have for the near future as a band?
Max: Finish up this album and tour the fuck out if it, then hopefully get some larger label attention and proceed from there.
15. Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
Max: You can download our album off iTunes or Amazon, and listen to it for free on the on Spotify. You can check out our videos, tour dates, and other content on www.mouthoftheserpent.com, and you can get help support what we do by picking up some merch from www.mouthoftheserpent.bigcartel.com THANKS AGAIN!
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