Sonic Destruction With KELLY SHAEFER From TILL THE DIRT

Interview by Kris Peters
Certain bands in history are untouchable, with every genre having a
stoic pecking order.
When it comes to death metal bands such as Morbid Angel, Obituary,
Death, Cannibal Corpse and Atheist sit atop the proverbial tree,
unflinching in their resolve and unyielding in their unrelenting
pursuit of metal supremacy.
Certain names stand out above others as well. Names such as John
Tardy (Obituary), Cronos (Venom), Chuck Schuldiner (Death) and Glen
Benton (Deicide), but perhaps above all others is Kelly Shaefer,
pioneering and revered vocalist of Atheist and unofficial
revolutionary and spiritual leader of death and extreme
metal.
After a period of inactivity, Shaefer returns to the metal realm,
this time fronting an entirely new outfit Till The Dirt that
threatens once more to derail the very fabric of sonic
intensity.
Despite being a main cog in the death metal machine, Shaefer has
allowed himself to further develop musically, harnessing the
elements that drove the early parts of his career but combining
them with a myriad of outside influences that would once have been
considered taboo.
By blending elements of grunge, black metal, jazz, rock, dark wave,
and even a dash of classic pop to his musical furnace, Shaefer has
thrown expectations and convention to the wind in his search for
sonic clarity, which has manifested itself into Till The Dirt's
debut album Outside The Spiral which will be released via Nuclear
Blast Records on August 25.
Shaefer sat down with HEAVY earlier this week to tell us
more.
"I think I'm anxious more than nervous," he admitted. "I've been
around long enough now to... even as long as I've been around I
still feel that anxiousness; that excitement. It's been 13 years
since I've done a new record - 2010 I did Jupiter with Atheist -
and I feel very fortunate and lucky to have tripped upon this
prolific period of song writing that happened, because I never
intended on having a new band or new music at all. It just
naturally came out of thin air, so here I am back in an album cycle
again and it's fun. It's exciting, it's different, but it's a lot
like sending your kids to school. You hope all the other kids like
your kid, and you hope the teachers nice to them, you know what I
mean (laughs). So there's those nervous feelings, but I'm super
proud of it and I can't wait for people to hear it. I've been
sitting on it for two and a half years (laughs)."
We ask Shaefer to take us deeper into the music side of Outside The
Spiral.
"It's fusing all of the things that I love," he smiled. "I've had
dual careers. I've had a career with Neurotica and a career with
Atheist and both bands did well in terms of making a mark in their
own right. Neurotica was much more singing, there was more clean
vocals. It was heavy rock/metal with Atheist being obviously crazy,
technical metal so I've never had an outlet like this where I was
able to combine the two and really pay homage to all my 90s grunge
influences, my stoner rock, desert rock Kyuss and Atomic Bitch Wax,
all that kind of stuff that I really like. Black Sabbath and 70s
thick, groovy shit along with blast beats and chaotic screams and
harmony vocals. It's a plethora of shit that really just came out
of isolation from COVID and frustration and anger and
unknowingness. It came from a really natural place, where art
should come from. It should come from a place of not just
happiness."
In the full interview, Kelly talks more on what to expect from
Outside The Spiral, how the album came together, putting yourself
in different head spaces to bring out different sides of your
musical psyche, the different styles inherent in Till The Dirt and
how they come together, personal limitations if any, enticing Scott
Burns out of self-imposed exile to produce the album, what effect
he had on the finished product, future plans and more.