Author and musician T Coles is releasing their first book, Death Metal, on November 19th 2022.

Part of Bloomsbury's 33 1/3 series, the book explores the roots of the genre, from the early stirrings in the 80s to present-day bands like Venom Prison and Cryptic Shift, with some detours to look at grindcore, controversies, and the earliest examples of the death growl in medieval music.

Ahead of the release of the book, we caught up with the author to chat about the project, how he got involved and what he loves so much about this very interesting musical genre.

Death Metal is a genre that has always interested and intrigued me, but one I have never really heavily invested time in. Please tell me what the genre is all about and maybe a few bands that have helped to pioneer the scene in the early days.

Death metal started around the mid-80s with bands like Death, Possessed, and Necrophagia. A lot of aggressive music was floating around – hardcore punk, thrash metal, the antagonism of Venom, whatever Celtic Frost was doing – which inspired people to push the established metal sound into harder and darker territory. That manifested as bleak, aggressive music and a distortion of the singing voice that was far beyond anything seen before.

Death metal is notable because it's obsessed with death and dying. Many songs explore this in gruesome detail; people are chopped up or tortured, or they go insane, or they're haunted by existential dread. This is a practise that continues to this day, and is likely one of the things that has kept the style as popular as it is – everyone is going to die, and what better way to express this than through blastbeats and death growls?

There are so many genres that could be categorised as metal/heavy metal/death metal/doom, how does one go about deciphering when a band falls into the 'Death Metal' pigeon hole?

These days it's very hard. In an interview with Anaal Nathrakh's Dave Hunt, he told me that death metal was part of the wallpaper for extreme bands now, and they're likely to be influenced by other subgenres like doom or black metal. I agree – the boundaries can be a little blurred, and it's a little bit reductive to simply pick apart the influences on a modern metal band. That's before we get into distinctions with grindcore, or fusion genres like blackened death metal...

The main defining genre conventions are the death growl, detuned guitars, and rapid double-kick bass drums. Bands can drop any of the latter two, but it's very hard to imagine death metal that doesn't predominantly use the death growl. 

What made you want to write a book about Death Metal in the first place?

I remember being a young teenager around 2005 and dipping a toe into death metal. By this point the founding bands had already released their seminal work, so I got to explore their music and history by trawling through Wikipedia and the early days of Youtube.

I was instantly grabbed by it, but a few people asked me why I was into it and I didn't really have an answer for them – it was ugly music and perfectly ordinary, beautiful music was readily available. Not being able to answer that led me deeper into the rabbit hole and into writing about music in general, wanting to discuss and communicate why people like weird music sometimes. 

Tell me how you approached the project?

I was a really big fan of the 33 1/3 series and, having written about music for several years, was keen to do something with them. I'd sent a few pitches in that hadn't been picked up, but eventually they got in touch to say they liked my last pitch and invited me to submit for a new series they were launching. I did and got accepted that way, which gave me an exciting new project over lockdown.

I've worked for a long time as a music journalist, so I started with plotting the interviews I wanted, which would flesh out the narrative. I wanted a lot of classic bands, but also modern bands, and bands who kept things together after the initial heyday, when the buzz had worn off and some of the fans had moved on to other things. And I researched some of my favourite authors of metal books, journalists, label owners, academics, and production engineers to tell their side of the death metal story, which doesn't get covered as often.

Was it difficult tracking down and getting approval from bands for them to be included in the book?

Not really! I had a great time working with label press folk, who are all wonderful and rarely get thanked for the important work they do. There were a few bands that I couldn't get, and a few who simply didn't turn up when I booked interviews, which happens. Journalists, writers, and academics all rely on people reading their work, so they were all keen to get on board. In the main it was relatively easy and everyone was very polite and lovely to work with, even bands with horrible names like Carcass or Immolation.

I’ll admit that I heard of the genre back in the days of John Peel, bands like Napalm Death and Hell Bastard being a couple that he would regularly feature on his show. To us, it seemed a bit of a joke, did it take a while until the genre grew legs and started to be accepted as a legitimate musical style?

John Peel is a hero for championing the early days of the genre. Thanks to him, Napalm Death ended up on the indie charts, beating Sonic Youth. But on the flip side there was a BBC DJ who hated Napalm and would play them on his quiz show as a punishment when people got answers wrong. People did think it was a joke, and they still do. That's fine – humour and irony is a big part of the genre, just as gallows humour is a perfectly legitimate way to approach death.

Financially, it was a bit different. Once Nirvana had success with Nevermind in 1991 it redefined what could be a hit, which opened the floodgates for label execs to take more risks with bands. Death metal had some impressive underground support so it turned to those bands with dollar signs in its eyes. Obviously things didn't really work out, but that period was hugely productive for some pretty great bands – and briefly made a few people reasonably wealthy.

I do have a couple of death metal albums in my collection and the inclusion of a lyric sheet always intrigued me as it’s pretty tricky trying to decipher where the vocalist is in the track….

It does seem a little self-defeating. But someone is out there writing lyrics for death metal bands, as futile as that sounds, and we wouldn't want their hard work to go amiss. 

In death metal, the vocalist functions like an extra percussion instrument, pummelling the listener rather than communicating anything verbally. That's not to say it's always impossible to make words out – Chuck Schuldiner's death growl is markedly easier to decipher than Corpsegrinder's, for example. Death metal quite often follows similar verse/ chorus structures to typical rock and pop, so with a little knowledge of the song it's not too hard to find your place. It's all part of the fun challenge!

This may sound like a silly question but singing/growling in the way that they do can’t be good for the vocal chords?

So I'm told! I'm not a vocalist myself but there are plenty of guides online to avoid shredding the throat, the most famous being Susan M. Carr's The Art of Screaming.

I scream along to tracks when I'm alone in my car, but I'm not very good. Hopefully I'm a little better than Ed Miliband, who made a valiant effort in his interview with Barney from Napalm Death.

With the music being so abrasive and full on, do you ever think that the genre will become more mainstream or would you say that the fans would prefer to keep it a little more ‘underground’?

I doubt it will. The closest we'll see to that sort of thing is bands like Slipknot – they're not death metal in the strictest sense, but they are clearly influenced by it, and they're pretty popular. 

What we do see is people in the mainstream getting fascinated by it, and using elements of it as influence. Rhianna had a death metal-inspired logo for the VMAs in 2016, Doja Cat performed a metal version of Say So (2020 MTV EMA), and Extreme Noise Terror once played as the KLF's backing band at the Brits. Jokes pop up in places like Friends, The Simpsons, and Red Dwarf – and Cannibal Corpse had a guest appearance on Ace Ventura. So people are aware of it culturally, and there is a bit of a mainstream fascination – it's authentically dark, and it can be fun to flirt with that if you're known for pop music. I'm fascinated by this, and there are lots more examples in the book. But in terms of Brain Drill playing the Superbowl – we can only dream.

I’ve watched a few live shows on YouTube with death metal bands and they look pretty brutal….is this always the case? I think I’d be stood at the back, sipping my drink and nodding along....gently!

Usually the shows are pretty rowdy, but plenty of people stand to the side or at the bar. For the really brave concert-goers, there are deep, barely-remembered tales of bands like Deicide launching mannequins filled with pig guts into the crowd at their early shows – but that sort of thing is vanishingly rare these days.

Is there one death metal band that really got you hooked on the music and the scene? If so, please tell me about them

Cannibal Corpse were the first band I heard, but the one that really hooked me was Morbid Angel. At the time I was just getting into things like HP Lovecraft and they were leaning very heavily into that sort of imagery – whilst their peers were singing about body horror, they were deep into weird synth-y sounds, dark magic and dead gods. It was strange, off-putting and very exciting. 

Some people have written about death metal in the past and linked it to satanism and other dark acts, aside from the 'death' element, why do you think this is?

There were bands who absolutely leant into that. Deicide actively courted that sort of thing (choosing that as a name was a giveaway). Venom were a precursor to death metal and wrote a lot of songs about worshipping the devil, albeit in a very silly way. The death growl is a corruption of the beautiful singing voice and the art was, in many cases, as disgusting as possible, so it's hardly surprising that vicars and people's mums were a little miffed.

There were some major controversies – US Senator Bob Dole talked about the dangers of Cannibal Corpse at length in a speech, which probably turned more people onto them. In the UK, police raided the Earache Records HQ, confiscating several boxes of offending albums – plus a large poster of Alice Cooper. Mostly though the satanism stuff came a little later with black metal – which was very explicitly in league with the devil.

Are there different styles of music within the death metal genre? I’m imagining a fan of the music kicking back on a Sunday morning after a heavy gig the night before, are there more chilled/relaxed versions of the music out there or is it all 160bpm full on stuff?

Yes! One of the difficult things about writing about is now is that there are so many subgenres to explore within the wider umbrella. There's plenty of really relentless stuff – Autopsy and Obituary aren't particularly subtle examples. But only a few years later, Opeth were experimenting with acoustic passages. Bands swing between astonishingly talented musicians to people who can barely play – some of the grindcore stuff is really ropey, and by contrast some of the Meshuggah material is staggeringly complex. Some bands play slow, and some fast, and some have electronic elements and some are strictly guitars, drums, and bass. Some of it is very silly, and some if it is deathly serious. 

Death metal has been around for nearly 40 years, and people keep finding new things to do with it. I'm of the opinion that if you're open to it, there's something out there for you – no matter what your vibe is. 

Let’s assume I would like to get into the genre, any tips on where I should start out?

I think I legally need to advise reading the book as a starting point – there is a “10 essential tracks” list at the back. That's a decent primer from the very first bands right up to today, and covers as much ground as possible.

I started with the older bands because I was into the history, and if you're doing that it's fun to start with bands like Possessed and Death, particularly Seven Churches and Scream Bloody Gore. They kick-started the whole movement – from here you can explore stuff that's heavier, softer, faster, slower, more complicated, simpler, or completely off the wall. There is lots of it out there.

I used to spend a lot of time trying to decipher the name of the band by looking at their logo (which always seems very complicated) has this style of typograghy got its own name?

I don't think the font has a name beyond “death metal logo” but a lot of the bigger subgenres will have their own style – deathcore is barely readable, technical death metal tends to be clean and crisp, grindcore is grim and gristly... There's probably another book in there somewhere.

Are there dedicated death metal festivals taking place at the moment? If so, where are they and what are they called?

Death metal pops up everywhere, but of particular note are the London and Maryland Deathfests which are pretty much exclusively dedicated to the style. I am particularly looking forward to Damnation Festival in Manchester which this year features Pig Destroyer, At The Gates, and Full Of Hell, which may drag me out of mosh pit retirement.

Please tell me about anyone (artists, bands, people) that have helped you on the book writing journey

So many – the good folk at Bloomsbury were great, especially my editor Ryan Pinkard, who has just released his own 33 1/3 on The National's Boxer. I am also indebted to Chris French, a fellow death metal fan who read through and provided some vital feedback. I'm particularly thrilled that Brian Slagel from Metal Blade Records, the journalist and author Kim Kelly, and the sociologist Keith Kahn-Harris were able to spare time for me, not to mention all the bands who were busy touring, recording, and writing.

In total there were 32 interviews, and most of them had at least one PR representative who was involved, plus all the press, marketing, typesetting, editorial, and financial staff at Bloomsbury – plus everyone who kept me together as I was putting it all together. I've tried to thank everyone comprehensively in the acknowledgements.

Finally, please tell me your top 5 (or top 10 if you’re feeling up to it) list of your fave death metal bands and the albums that they have put out that deserve to be heard….

Possessed – Seven Churches:

Year zero for death metal, this was the particularly horrible noise that excited hundreds of impressionable teens to practice mangling their own voices.

Morbid Angel – Altars of Madness:

Weird and distorted, this showed that death metal wasn't limited to descriptions of human suffering, depicting arcane rituals, dark visions, and horrifying elder gods.

Opeth – Blackwater Park:

Sweden's death metal masters outdo themselves here, exploring the gentler side of the genre whilst delivering some of the most complex guitarwork in death metal history.

Venom Prison – Animus:

Modern death metal is forging ahead on its own path, writing truly mortifying music. Here they take violent misogyny and turn it on its head, imagining the castration of a rapist. 

Cryptic Shift – Visitations from Enceladus:

Spacey death metal that flirts with Rush's 2112 as much as it does with Death's Human. Cryptic Shift have imagined life beyond the stars, and have found it filled with just as much death and misery as we have on earth.

We’d like to thank T Coles for sparing his time to chat to us about the book, we’ve certainly learned a lot and will be checking out some of the bands and albums mentioned above.

The book lands on November 19th and is available to pre-order HERE

Interview by Steve Muscutt