Forum.RttP{this new BLOOD FREAK}

BLOOD FREAK interview by Billy Nocera

1. The first thing I'm sure everybody wants to know is....did you really do the entire first BLOOD FREAK album by yourself? Why did you make up a fake story about the "band" being an old one from the late 80's?

Maniac Neil: Haha! Yep! It's 100% me. I wrote, recorded and played every
instrument on that album. I don't know, I guess I didn't like the idea
of promoting BF as some one man band type thing. Theres 1,000 ultra crappy one man drum machine Grind bands around and I didn't want to be lumped into them. Plus I just thought it would be a fun idea. I even made three "demo" tracks that I put at the end of the CD. It was fun working with that concept for a while.

2. What inspired you to begin BLOOD FREAK? I remember you had done MANIAC KILLER, and after you stopped doing that you began FRIGHTMARE which put out "Midnight Murder Mania" in 2003. After that, you did the first BLOOD FREAK album pretty quick! It came out of nowhere and nobody knew that it was you who had done it. Was it hard to not take credit for the work you did on that album?

Maniac Neil: Well, I just wanted to make a band that was more straight
forward and basic, that I could do real quick and by my self. At the
time I was watching a lot of movies like I Drink Your Blood, The Blood Island movies, Blood Freak, Blood Feast, Asylum of Satan etc. and I wanted to do something that was influnced lyricly by drive in trash Horror. I took the name from one of my favorites of the genre and wrote the music in like two weeks. It about a month to write and record the entire album. Yeah it was kind of frustrating not be able to tell people it was me. But I did get
satisfation seeing people who hated my guts love the CD! Haha! That part was fun.

3. It still blows me away how you were able to record that album all by yourself! You even did real drums by yourself. Usually one-man bands only use drum machines(which you had done with MANIAC KILLER also). How were you able to do this, and in such a short time? I believe you told me the album only took about 2 weeks to do! INSANE! How long have you been playing drums? You're mostly known as a guitar player, so it was really shocking to learn you could play drums as good as other underground death/grind bands can, in fact...even better in some cases!

Maniac Neil: Thank man! Yeah it's real drums. Like I said before that
was one of the reasons I didn't want to come out and say it was all me from
the begining. I thought people would asume it was another one of those lame
one man drum machine Grind projects. I hate that junk and I wanted to stay
as far away from it as possible. Yeah it took me about two weeks two write
the album and about two weeks to record it. I did the drum tracks in one
day all by myself! That was definitely the hardest part of the recording. I've
been playing drum off and on for about 9 or 10 years. I don't own my own set so I don't get much practice. Drums always just came natually to me. I love playing drums almost as much as I love playing guitar. It's just a
bitch trying to jam on them, espeacially if you live in an apartment in the city.

4. How did you get Chas Balun to draw the art for the first album? That came out amazing! Was he fun to work with? I'm a huge fan of his stuff so it was really exciting to see you work with him.

Maniac Neil: I had always been a big fan of his artwork and writing. I
did a search on the internet and found his website. I just emailed him and
asked him if he would be interested in doing the cover art. He was super
easy to work with! One of the most proffesional people i've ever worked with in fact. He totally got what I wanted, we were on the same page from day one. Lately i've been working with him on Frightmare T shirt designs and
stuff. He's definitely one of the coolest people to work with.

5. When did you finally decide to come out and tell everybody that you were actually the guy who recorded the first album, and that there really was no "band"? You had Leon Marcelo (a writer for horror magazines such as Fangoria and Rue-Morgue) write up an insane(and hilarious) story about the band "dying" in a tour van accident, which actually ended up offending many people! The news even made it to web sites like MTV.com and Blabbermouth, etc. For a few days, it seemed like the entire metal scene knew about BLOOD FREAK and gave a shit....when in reality, 95% of those people who were "offended" didn't even know who or what the band was, and never even heard ANY of the actual music! There seemed to be a lot of false sentiment and phony "drama" from people pouring their hearts out...when in reality they really could have cared less. Was this a calculated thing or did you and Leon not expect this kind of fallout? (Leon, I'd also like you to answer this question as well...)

Maniac Neil: It's was a few months ago I think. Everything was done
just for fun. I never thought anybody would believe it nor care enough to even talk about it. Man, I was definitely wrong! Haha! Yeah the people that were offended never gave a shit or probably never even heard Blood Freak. Fuck em if they don't have a sense of humor.

Leon Marcelo: Ha! I'd be honored. Well, I had actually known for some time that BLOOD FREAK was simply Neil because Mike Sheldon ("Lord Nekro Von Gore," ex-LORD GORE) told me about it before the first album came out. Sometime last summer, though, Billy told me that he wanted to "reveal" to BLOOD FREAK fiends that there wasn't a "real" band behind that first album (and the upcoming album, "Live Fast ...") but was born from Maniac Neil's sick and twisted gray matter. He liked the articles I had written, some of the lyrics I had written for FRIGHTMARE and BLOOD FREAK, and some other stuff of mine that he had seen and so asked me to write a fake obituary with which he could make his announcement. I don't remember exactly what he had in mind for it, but it was something about all the "members" of BLOOD FREAK dying while on their way to Seattle to record their new album and that Neil, out in the woods in search of Bigfoot, found their van's wreckage. I love Razorback, had become good fiends with Billy, and really dug what Neil had done for that first BLOOD FREAK album and so took Billy up on his offer.

This was maybe late July or early August. I had just submitted a proposal for my book, CREEPY CRAWLS, and had some time while I waited to hear back from the publisher. I told Billy that it might be funny to put out a more "serious" piece of news that announced that all of BLOOD FREAK had died. We would put it out there, very short and very vague, and let that simmer in folks' guts for maybe two weeks before disseminating the "true story" of BLOOD FREAK's death - the "punch line" as it were. So I wrote a very fast paragraph that was purposefully full of holes, listed Jason Grinter's fiance's (or wife's?) name as, basically, "Martha Splatterhead," and then this was put out there on Razorback's website, Myspace, Razorback's old message board, and so on. Jill put a photo of some anonymous crying girl next to the article, which I thought was HILARIOUS. Letters of sympathy started rolling in. Offers of donations for Martha. It was unbelievable. What I found absurd about it was that people acted as if the "members" of BLOOD FREAK were these death metal gods, but WHO had ever heard of them before "Sleaze Merchants" came out? No one.

Well, about two weeks later, I wrote the real story in the space of a few hours. I wanted it to sound like some kind of fucked-up Lovecraft story (the last few lines are actually taken, with some alteration, from "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"). I don't remember who or why, but I decided to turn "The Turkey Monster" from the film BLOOD FREAK (who wasn't really yet the band's official "icon"), into some kind of "Old Ones"-esque god. I wanted the "obituary" to be a mix of horror, weirdness, absurdity, humour, and, ALL of the influences that inspire not only Neil but myself, Billy, Reuben from FUNEROT, etc. That was put up on BLOOD FREAK's new website (with the disclaimer for all those who should feel "hurt" by what was meant to be, in the end, a little bit of fun) and the reaction to it was even MORE absurd. All of these so-called "brutal" death metal fans - who are into serial killers, "real death" photos, bands who revel in all manner of perversion and atrocity - wrote to Billy or posted messages that this was all in "bad taste," that we should be ashamed of ourselves, that it was a "promotional gimmick," and so on. I was sort of shocked at how fucking hypocritical it all was. You wear a shirt or own an album featuring a photo of an aborted fetus or listen to ANAL BRUNCH, GORESLUTS, CUM DUMPSTER, or all these other so-called "goregrind" bands and THIS is what has you in an uproar: a FAKE "obituary" about a band that NEVER REALLY EXISTED? Please - PLEASE! - don't contaminate the gene pool. You obviously can't take a joke! We were worried about the "fallout" for about a minute but then said, "FUCK IT!" If you found yourself "offended," you need to get a life. If you put SO much of yourself into worshipping this band - that, again, WAS NOT REAL - that you "cried" when you heard they died, you have serious emotional problems. SERIOUS ... !

Looking back at it, I have to say I am actually very proud of the whole thing. Not only did I turn the Turkey Monster into some kind of weird-o Godzilla for the death metal underground, but this little piece of nonsense that I cooked up with a few good like-minded fiends STILL has folks scratching their heads. Some people just did NOT get the joke and still ask whether or not BLOOD FREAK was real, whether or not they are really dead, etc. Fucking Hell! If you don't know by the end of reading that "obituary," you must have a problem zipping up your pants in the morning!

And that, as they say, rotters, is that!

6. The crazy thing is...even after this insane story (which was so obviously RIDICULOUS and HILARIOUS!) people STILL BELIEVED that there was a band who actually "died" and almost refused to believe that you were the guy who had done the first album by yourself! What was your reaction to that? Even to this day I still see comments online asking about what the real story was...when it clearly says on the BLOOD FREAK web site that "BLOOD FREAK IS MANIAC NEIL!".

Maniac Neil: Well, theres a lot of stupid people out there. Espeacially
in the underground Metal "scene". Haha! It's the truth! Anybody who
actually belived that story should have been killed at birth. Yes, that stupid.

7. After all of this calmed down, you began to work on your 2nd album. How did you get Ed Repka (the guy who has drawn art for such legendary bands as DEATH, NUCLEAR ASSAULT, MEGADETH, etc.) to draw the cover art?

Maniac Neil: Well I think you suggested it to me after seeing some
interview with him in Destroying Angels and seeing some of his B/W pen and ink stuff in there. I was super into the idea since I loved all of his album
covers. You asked him and he said yes. The cool thing is, he had actually seen the movie Blood Freak before so he knew what the Turkey Monster was. Haha!

8. Tell us about the upcoming new album. What are some of the songs about? Seems like the new album has a little bit of everything in it. Gore, freaks, monsters, sleaze, sex and violence, a nasty sense of humor, etc.

Maniac Neil: The new album is awesome! It's a totally fun Grindcore,
Thrash, Death, Doom, Psycho-delic Rock album! The lyrics you wrote for it
are killer! A total tribute to 70's and 80's drive-in SLEAZE! Sly from
Fondle Corpse also wrote the lyrics for a song called "Full Moon Sacrifice"!
It rules!

9. Musically, is it similar to the first album or different? What are some areas you feel you have improved at over the first album?

Maniac Neil: It's different. I didn't want to make an album that
sounded like "Sleaze Merchants". I wanted to make something more Fun,
Psycho-delic, and Sleazy. Theres more Doom, the blasts are tighter and faster, theres some Punk and Thrash mixed in, and I got rid of the pitch shifter. To me it's what Blood Freak should have always sounded like.

10. BLOOD FREAK has a mascot, the infamous Turkey Monster! Is this sort of your tribute to classic metal mascots like Eddie from IRON MAIDEN, the Not-Man from ANTHRAX, and Vic Rattlehead from MEGADETH? Will the Turkey Monster always appear on all future album covers?

Maniac Neil: Yeah well the Turkey Monster IS the Blood Freak! I sort of
borrowed him from the movie Blood Freak. I mean that movie was such a
huge influence on me when I started BF (obviously) that I decided he would
be a cool mascott/charcter for the band. I'm pretty sure he'll alway make an appearence on every cover from now on.

11. Besides the themes of drive-in horror and gore cinema, there seems to be a fun new sense of "characters" and crazy little original tales of horror in the new album. It's like a trashy drive-in horror flick from the 70's meets one of those schlocky Eerie Publication's comics like TALES FROM THE TOMB, WITCHES TALES, TALES OF VOODOO, etc. Seems to be an extremely fun mixture. Will this continue on future recordings?

Maniac Neil: Yeah me and you (mostly you) came up with those for the
band. I mean when you wrote all those great lyrics you created some cool
characters too. Like the Mucouspewing Lungslasher! He rules! I love all those old Eeire comics! Those are a huge influence on me!

12. I see that you're doing a split CD with CADAVERIC INCUBATOR from Finland. Do you want to do more split recordings with bands in the future? What are some other ideas you have for the band? Do you think you'll ever have other people involved, or do you prefer doing it all by yourself? What are some advantages of doing the band only by yourself, as compared to working with others?

Maniac Neil: Yeah! I already have those songs written and partially
recorded! It's gonna rule! Cadaveric Incubator RULES! Yeah I would
totally be into doing more spilts with cool bands in the future! Well, you
pretty much are a part of the band now. I mean I do all the music but you come up with a lot of the ideas and write all the lyrics too! I definitely
think you took what I did on the first album and expanded it way more with the lyrics you wrote. As for the music i think it will always just be me. I'd like
to keep it as stress free as possible and that's not realistic when your working with other people. Too much bull shit.

13. You had other artists do work for the upcoming new album. Tell us all about 'em and what they've drawn!

Maniac Neil: Yep! The booklet is gonna be filled with TONS of art! Putrid did THREE drawings for the booklet! All are beyond KILLER! That guys art RULES! Definitely my favorite Gore artist out there right now. Raul Gonzalez did a drawing of Dr. Bitch and Wormface.

14. I really wanted to make this interview exclusively about BLOOD FREAK, but I do have to ask...what does BLOOD FREAK have to offer that's different from your other bands(FRIGHTMARE, LORD GORE, and WHORE)? Will people who enjoy those bands also like the new BLOOD FREAK album as well?

Maniac Neil: Blood Freak has more Doom, is way weirder, more Rock and
more Grind than my other bands. But at the same time fans of my other bands, especially Frightmare will LOVE this new album!

15. Thanks for doing the interview! Feel free to plug your DVD company, Undead DVD, and anything else! Any other last comments? The TURKEY MONSTER fucking rules!

Maniac Neil: Thank you man! Sorry it took me so long to get it done! Yeah you can check out my DVD store on Ebay at:
http://stores.ebay.com/Undead-DVD_W0QQsspagenameZMEQ3aFQ3aSTQQtZkm