If you’ve followed the career of legendary death metal outfit Obituary, you may notice some significant gaps between studio album releases. Two years, five years… hell, eight years between new releases aren’t uncommon. It’s enough to make a fan question: why?!
During a recent interview with Sense Music Media (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), Obituary frontman John Tardy explained why the band spends so much time between releases, saying it’s a creative decision in the long run.
“It’s cool when you have the time to have some songs and mess with them for a while and put them off the shelf. It’s great to get started, put some stuff together and then you don’t listen to it for a month and a half or something. And then you come back to it and then stuff kind of comes to your mind fresh.
“When you have a lot of time, like we did during the pandemic, it really gave us time to let the songs kind of grow, feel them out and be able to add some cool stuff here and there to them. There’s nothing worse than being rushed with a song. And even if it’s a cool idea, get it down, write it, record it, because you listen to it and a year later, you’re, like, ‘Damn, I wish I would have done this. I wish I could have done that.’ And the longer you let yourself let those songs grow and you can sit and mess with them, the less of that you have. You’ll always get that no matter what, but the less of it that you do have, you give yourself that time.”
There’s a long-running idea in any sort of creative endeavor where you’re constantly wondering if you’re really done with something you’re working on. It’s the source of a lot of anxiety for artists, so it makes sense that the guys in Obituary want to be careful about the music they put out.
As for how those delays play into how they plan their approach to shows and whatnot, Tardy said it also stems from the fact that they want to extract as much value as they can from each album.
“We’ve just never been the band to put out albums every year, every other year, other than I think ‘Slowly [We Rot]‘ and ‘Cause [Of Death]‘ were pretty close. But other than that, we’re okay to sit back. And now with the touring, we just find that it really takes us three or four years just to cover all parts of the globe and get everything done with that album. And people don’t buy the albums that much anymore anyway, so you’ve really kind of gotta get your money out of ’em. [Laughs]”
Speaking of tours, Obituary were recently announced to be tourmates with Amon Amarth, Cannibal Corpse, and Frozen Soul for what looks like an absolute banger of a tour. That bad boy’s gonna kick off next April, however, so you may want to start planning now. The full list of dates can be found below.
AMON AMARTH: Metal Crushes All Tour 2024 w/ Cannibal Corpse, Obituary, Frozen Soul:
4/21/2024 Revel Entertainment Center – Albuquerque, NM
4/22/2024 Red Rocks Amphitheatre – Denver, CO
4/24/2024 The Complex – Salt Lake City, UT
4/26/2024 Alaska Airlines’ Theater Of The Clouds – Portland, OR *
4/27/2024 PNE Forum – Vancouver, BC *
4/29/2024 Edmonton Convention Center – Edmonton, AB
4/30/2024 Grey Eagle Event Center – Calgary, AB
5/03/2024 Steelhouse – Omaha, NE
5/04/2024 The Sylvee – Madison, WI
5/05/2024 GLC Live At 20 Monroe – Grand Rapids, MI
5/07/2024 Rose Music Center At The Heights – Huber Heights, OH
5/09/2024 The Wellmont – Montclair, NJ
5/10/2024 Toyota Oakdale Theater – Wallingford, CT
5/11/2024 Videotron Centre – Quebec City, QC *
5/13/2024 The Fillmore Philadelphia – Philadelphia, PA
5/14/2024 The Fillmore Silver Spring – Silver Spring, MD
5/16/2024 ExploreAsheville.com Arena – Asheville, NC *
5/17/2024 House Of Blues – Myrtle Beach, SC
5/18/2024 Yuengling Center – Tampa, FL *
5/20/2024 Bayou Music Center – Houston, TX
5/21/2024 Boeing Center At Tech Port – San Antonio, TX
5/23/2024 Arizona Financial Theatre – Phoenix, AZ
5/24/2024 Pearl Concert Theater At Palms Casino Resort – Las Vegas, NV
5/25/2024 Honda Center – Anaheim, CA *
* arena show
