Originally published in ‘zine issue #39, 2008
Discordance Axis was a band not to be trifled with. Their brand of extremely harsh grindcore and cutting-edge guitar work has yet to be outdone. Discordance Axis released a number of earth-shattering albums, the last of which was the posthumous Our Last Day for Hydra Head. Years after they broke up in 2001, it was Dave Witte’s legwork that made an assemblage of the original members in 2004 at a Mexican restaurant in their native New Jersey happen. In Discordance Axis, Dave blasted the drums, Jon Chang screamed and growled his highly intelligent lyrics, and Rob Marton made mincemeat out of distorted guitar chords.
Dave casts his mind back to the last time the three of them were all in the same room together.
Dave: Melt-Banana dinner.
Jon: Yeah! When was that—like, three years ago?
Dave: Two tours ago. We always came here when we did cool band stuff and the last time was at the end of that tour when we went out for a celebration dinner with Japan’s Melt-Banana.
Jon: Is that the one where we told everyone it was Yako’s birthday?
Dave: Yeah, exactly. They came out with a cake for her, and she was mortified, very embarrassed. [all laugh]
Jon: It wasn’t her birthday; we just wanted the free ice cream cake!
Dave: Y’know, a lot of people come out and they all clap, and she turned bright red. It was great.
Rob: … like they’re gonna do for Jon tonight. [more laughter]
Jon: I’ve been wondering where you went, you bastard. Yeah, it’s been a couple of years at least.
It’s pointless to attempt to describe how many times the band erupts into laughter during the interview/free-for-all, because the guys are cracking themselves and each other up constantly, with a few serious comments here and there. At the time of this interview, the posthumous last Discordance Axis record, Our Last Day, had yet to see a release, and featured several Discordance Axis covers by various bands, 25 of those by an individual who created his covers with MIDI (“The songs are, like, note-for-note exact,” proclaims Dave. “I can’t believe someone put that much energy into it, just for Discordance Axis.” Jon, in his own way, describes the release further: “Yeah, it’s just gonna be me, and it’s gonna say, ‘I wrote everything.’” Dave and Rob laugh, “Jon Chang’s Discordance Axis!”
Jon: All the secrets are gonna come out. It’s like, “I actually played drums on every one of those records. I wrote all the guitar.”
Dave: I’ve seen him do blastbeats before.
It has to be asked: Is he good?
Dave: No. Horrible.
One could never say that about the musical ability of Rob and Dave. Rob would, however, receive comments at Discordance Axis shows.
Rob: I would have people come up to me and ask what size of strings I used, and I would tell them .008s, and they would be like, “What?!” It’s like, the lightest-possible strings.
Jon: I remember him going into a music shop one time after our practice, and the guy at the counter, he was, like, “You can’t get no kinda heavy sound outta those things!” And me and Dave were, like, “Okay, dude!”
Dave: If only you knew, guy.
Jon: I was, like, “Hey, I bet you the new Monster Magnet really kicks ass, yo!”
As for the rest of Rob’s equipment, when Discordance Axis would play live shows, he describes, “I have an Ampeg SS 150 guitar head and a Charvel Model Five guitar, neck-through body, one of the ones I used. And I would usually find a Mesa Boogie [cabinet] from somewhere to borrow.” When Discordance Axis recorded, the method was different. For one thing, Rob would lay down a number of guitar tracks in the studio.
Rob: Umm … I think it was two, actually. I used the SS 150 Ampeg amp and a Mesa Boogie at the same time, and we would then split the guitar cable into each head.
Jon: He had two cabs he’d be playing out simultaneously, so it was actually four guitar tracks while he was laying two.
Rob: Out of my guitar it would split and it would go into two different cabinets, and we would record those, and I would do that twice.
Talk turns to the subject of gigging.
Jon: You wanna know why D.A. never used to play shows? ‘Cause we’d have to constantly get in shape. I remember when we’d go to Japan, [Dave] would start running every day, [Rob] would never go, so it didn’t matter for him, Steve [Porcopio, who replaced Rob on guitar a few times during the band’s existence] would start smoking more cigarettes, and I actually used to do stupid shit like running around screaming in my area at the top of my lungs so I could get used to running around screaming at the top of my lungs.
Dave: Can you imagine being a housewife and you go out your front door and there’s Jon Chang running around? “What possible reason could that man have for running and screaming?”
Jon: Me and Dave and Steve, when we were gettin’ ready for the tours, it sucked. We’d get together, we’d do the set three times in a row with, like, two minutes between each set …
Dave: Yeah, we’d be dead.
Jon: I remember Dave would take his shirt off and he could fill, like, a glass with sweat at the end of every session. It was nasty. It sucked, man. I hated getting ready to do shows.
The Necropolitan record is one on which Steve Porcopio played guitar instead of Rob.
Jon: Those were [Rob’s] songs.
Rob: Speaking of him playing the songs, well, he’s got, like, a different style, so they all sounded different. Other than that, I think, for what we gave him, he did amazing.
“How can somebody say ‘Mexican hat dance part blast beat’ is pretentious?”
Of course there is the subject of the band’s Pikadourei DVD, which includes guitar tablature for Discordance Axis songs that viewers can flip through on the screen.
Dave: Those are hilarious.
Rob: Those are actually the notes I gave to Steve to learn the songs.
Jon: That was actually good. Steve, he tracked all those down and pulled them out of his, like, various places and we scanned them all in. Those notes are all classic Rob Marton there: “shzooga shzooga shah!”
Dave: “Play garbage. Just follow Dave.”
Jon: Oh, that was “Empire.” I love that song. I like some of the other notes: “This song is a real pain in the ass to play. If you have trouble, just tell Jon that my style sucks and that you can’t do it.”
Dave: “Blame Dave for this one.” It’s funny; a lot of people got pissed off about that, about the guitar tab, and they were saying, “Oh, that’s pretentious,” all this other crap.
Jon: Really?
Dave: Yeah, it’s like, “Yeah, they’re real pretentious, they take themselves way too seriously.” I’m like, well, if you realize it’s a joke, then it’s not pretentious, y’know?
Jon: How can somebody say “Mexican hat dance part blast beat” is pretentious?
Discordance Axis played one of the Fiesta Grande festivals back in the day, and they were surprised at the wave of positive response they received there, and the degree to which they were popular in America as well. Yet the band’s catalog would sell out quickly.
Jon: They loved the shit out of us. I mean, I was puttin’ out the records for a while, and basically, one of the reasons we went on tour in Japan all the time was ‘cause 89 percent of our records were sellin’ in Japan. Like, the distributors over there would pick ‘em up over there and they’d just be gone. That’s where people like grind music, you know? The only thing people were interested in here for the most part, as far as we could tell, was slow shit, you know? Pretty much the same as today, right? Almost every band is, like, slow. It’s all about, like, grooving.
Dave: People are tryin’ to climb the ladder these days, but they’re failin’.
Jon: Yeah. I mean, it’d be nice if there could be a fast … I’m lookin’ forward to the new Slayer record with Lombardo, man. That’s gonna kick ass all the way through.
Dave: Yeah. It better be good. I think it will be good.
Jon: I have a good feeling about it. I’m convinced.
When prompted, Jon reveals that he “really liked God Hates Us All.” Some listeners have a problem with that release, since there is such a degree of groove sections to the songs and with Kerry King saying in interviews at the time that Slipknot kicked his ass.
Dave: You know what’s weird, though, if I can interject here? This is a point that I wanted to bring up with the whole Slayer thing. People rip on them ‘cause they sound like bands today, and then people don’t even realize that they started that and those bands ripped them off, and they’re just doin’ what they originally did, but a little bit different. It’s weird, ‘cause there’s some parts, “Oh, yeah, it sounds like Slipknot or Korn,” on that last record, and I’m like, well, if you really listen to it, it sounds like “Raining Blood” when they break it down, “dun dun—dun dun—dun dun.” They did it first. So it doesn’t make any sense, and I’m blabbing.
Jon: I mean, Slayer’s Slayer. They’re like an institution, you know? I mean, God Hates Us All is one of the most pissed off records I’ve ever heard, man. And for me it was especially strange, ‘cause I was goin’ to work that day when that came out. I stopped to get that record at Vintage Vinyl, and, like, 10 minutes later I’m up on the turnpike and I see the Second Tower explode. I mean, most people don’t remember that came out on September 11th.
When asked to look back on Discordance Axis, Dave answers, “I think it was a great experience. We all had a great time.”
Jon: One of my favorite moments is, like, Rob Marton, coming over to his house, ‘cause he lives in his parents’ basement, and you come in and knock on the glass door and he’d be on the floor doin’ pushups, gettin’ ready for practice, ‘cause he had to build that downpickin’ arm up. Rob was pretty old school. You should have seen him when he had metal hair. Whoof! He looked like Mille from Kreator, man. It was, like, the best thing you could ever tell him, too.
Dave: Did people mistake you for him sometimes?
Rob: Yeah, I had a couple people ask me for an autograph.
Dave: And you’d sign “Rob Marton.”
Jon: I’ll tell ya, despite the problems that are on all the records, ‘cause there’s stuff I screwed up on every record too, I actually like those records. I kinda hated it, ‘cause I actually like those records better than any other grind records other than Mortalized, pretty much, right now. I’d rather listen to those, which is prob’ly why I don’t listen to almost any grind anymore, ‘cause I don’t really like listening to myself that often. But, I mean, I really dug those records.
Dave feels Discordance Axis’ records stand the test of time. He reveals, “I listen to ‘em once in a while. You know what? I think they’re good to me.” That’s Dave being modest. It behooves anyone who appreciates extreme music taken to its limits and with the upmost of thought to invest in the Discordance Axis reissues that are currently available, and to really listen to them and read the lyrics, and, in the case of the DVD, watch the band play. Exposing yourself to great music will be your reward.
Discordance Axis release and reissue select discography on Hydra Head:
Our Last Day
The Inalienable Dreamless
Pikadourei
Jouhou
Original Sound Version 1992-1995
The Discordance Axis web site is www.studio-grey.com/da. This interview originally appeared on the web site of Zero Tolerance Magazine. ■
