I conducted the following interview with the band on February 27, 1991*. It originally appeared in Deathcheese ‘zine #1.
I was hanging out at the Bayou, waiting for Morbid Angel to come on, and I ran into Big Chris Yuastella and Big Pete Reid of Abominog. We were meaning to do an interview, I think, and we figured, what the hell, as I had my tape recorder there anyway. So I took some paper I had with me and wrote down some questions,† and we sat down and did the interview!
“Awright! I’m here at the Bayou with two members of Abominog,” I joked, while Slayer’s Reign in Blood played over the speakers of the club. “Question number one, what do you guys think of those parental advisory stickers they put on the albums? Give me an honest opinion.”
“Um …” Chris began.
Deathcheese: Speak up!
“I don’t think shit of it, man!” Chris said with a smile. “It sells more albums. What the hell, y’know?”
Do you think it’s a form of censorship or something?
“Yeah, but oh well. That’s cool, though.”
“I had an attitude and I flipped out.”
[laughs] Question number two, what’s your opinion of the greater Metropolitan D.C. scene right now? Do you think it’s cool?
“It sucks,” a stoned Pete said.
Why?
“There’s no fuckin’ places to play. The show happening is Kreator next month. That’s it.”
“It’s alright, man,” Chris responded. “We get some good shows here. All we got now is the Bayou and 9:30 Club. Both suck, man. We need the Safari Club again. That was some killer shows.”
Question number three, what the fuck happened with Juan?‡
“He fucked up hard,” Chris said flatly.
Could you elaborate a bit?
“Well, he’d come to practice with an attitude [pause] and I had an attitude, and I flipped out.” [laugh]
“Chris was gonna kick his ass,” Pete revealed.
“No I wasn’t.”
“Yeah you were,” Pete said.
“No I wasn’t. Nah, he’d just come in with an attitude every time and shit. It’s like, we gotta force him to play drums, y’know? So it just didn’t happen. We’re looking for another drummer, though.”
Tell me about the new seven inch that King is gonna do with you.§
Chris explained, “King ain’t doing the next one. He’s gonna play drums on it. A guy in Singapore wants to do a seven inch out with us, you know, a color cover and shit. There’s gonna be a thousand copies out of that, so it should be real cool. It’s got a real cool lyric sheet on this one. Brand new songs.”
What do your lyrics deal with, generally? Just killing people and shit or what?
“Well, death,” Chris conceded. “Fuckin’ working on your mind surgically and shit.”
Pete added, “Gore, war, guts, blood—”
“You know, basic death metal shit, you know?”
In other words, the usual rehash bullshit that everyone else is doing.
“Yeah. Time for something different, man. Lyrically, I ain’t [pause] so great.”
The important thing is the music?
“Yeah, I think so. You can’t understand what the fuck I’m saying anyway, so what’s it matter?”
Well, have you ever thought about having two guitarists instead of just one?
“Yeah, we talked about it, but it ain’t never gonna happen,” Pete said.
Why not?
“‘Cause we like it the way it is,” Pete replied.
Chris continued, “‘Cause it’s just arguments. Keith [Lyons, guitar] wants some other guy to play and we want some other guy to play for us, y’know.”
“I don’t think there’s a guitarist there that we can decide on, together as a band,” Pete added.
Chris went on, “Keith’s been working by himself for the band for almost three years now and shit, so it’s just worked out that way, without another guitarist.
I know this is an old question, but what are your influences? I mean, you have a weird sound, so what do you listen to that gives you that sound?
“Our influence?” Chris asked. “Pot, man, that’ll do it!”
So you’re a weedcore band, huh?
“Yes we are, buddy,” Pete said with a smile.
Seriously, do you have to be stoned to write a song?
“No, when I play live, I’m straight as an arrow,” Chris revealed. “I don’t do drugs the whole day till after the show. We get high as shit at practice, but live, we’re straight.”
Pete added, “We trip at practice, we fuckin’ get high at practice.”
We came back to the original question of influences finally, and Chris offered, “Sabbath, you know, fuckin’ Carcass, Agnostic Front, man, and Accüsed and shit, Entombed, Autopsy.”
Well, what’s your opinion of the ex-war?
Pete said, “Saddam Hussein’s a pussy.”
“I think we whipped their asses.”
We bombed him for two months or so and he lived to tell the tale.
Chris laughed, “Living under concrete, y’know, you should be alive. I don’t care. I just say we embarrassed Iraq to death.”
“This one Les helped me out with,” I said by way of an introduction.¶ “Chris, why don’t you brush your teeth?”
“‘Cause I’ve been on strike, man, so they’d make some good toothpaste! So they’d make some pot fuckin’ smoking toothpaste.”
“Pot smoke flavored toothpaste, that’s it!” agreed Pete.
“Catch me a buzz while I’m brushing my teeth, give me something to do! I’m holding out, man, just ’cause Les said so. I’m gonna say, I’ll brush my teeth when Les wipes his ass!” [laughs]
OK, do you have anything to say to the fans that’ll read Deathcheese when it comes out, like “we love you” or something?
“Nah, I don’t love you,” Chris answered. “If you got big tits, fuck yeah, damn right. Well, fuckin’, fuckin’ [pause] smoke a bowl. [laughs] I dunno! Fuckin’ buy Deathcheese, man, should be a killer fuckin’ ‘zine.”
Yeah, even though you haven’t seen a copy of it, it’s still killer, right? [laughs]
“It’s gonna be a good ‘zine, man! Fuck yeah.”
Pete ended with, “Smoke another bowl.”
In all seriousness, Abominog consists of friendly, talented people that are having a hard time finding a drummer. The band is currently preparing new material and I hope it completes its lineup soon. Abominog has available the first seven incher, a two-track recording called Grotesque Humanity, and a six-track demo entitled Resting In Your Grave, and black and white t-shirts as well. ■
*For one of these interviews from the ’90s, I usually only know the year in which it took place and maybe the month too. In this case, the ‘zine included the actual date of the interview.
†I don’t remember ever preparing for an interview right before doing one. My memory of these sorts of situations is just ad libbing the questions.
‡I noted here in the original interview that I was “referring to Juan Figuerosa, the drummer that was kicked out of Abominog twice.”
§I noted here in the original interview that “King Fowley of Deceased has With Your Teeth Records and he released Abominog’s first seven inch.”
¶I noted here in the original interview that “Les Snyder is the bassist for Deceased and he suggested a few questions for me.”
