"Now, when metal gets more popular, we're getting active again!"

Less than a month before their first ever show in Bulgaria, scheduled to take place on June 18, 2006 in Sofia, Tangra Mega Rock managed to get in touch with the vocalist of Florida death metal legends Obituary, John Tardy, for a friendly conversation...

Vassil Varbanov: Hello, Mr. Tardy! How are you doing?

John Tardy: I'm doing well!

V. V.: You're coming on a tour on the Balkan Peninsula for the first time. How do you feel about it?

J. T.: I'm actually getting more and more excited. We've never been to Bulgaria before, you know, but when our show there was confirmed, we started reading about the country and looked at the map to see what's around. So I'm really excited, because A, It might be quite pretty there, and B, we're looking forward to meet some new fans in Bulgaria and put on a good show.

V. V.: Nowadays we're sort of celebrating two decades of Florida death metal, right?

J. T.: He-he-he, right!

V. V.: If you compare John Tardy of today with John Tardy of 20 years ago, what's the main difference?

J. T.: Surprisingly, I really don't think I've changed that much. Musically, if you listen to our new record, that kind of reflects in it, too. This CD has songs that sound a little bit like any of our records... It's nice to see metal coming back again and becoming more popular, and it seems our break came at a good time, because shortly after we stopped doing music, things sort of quitted down, and now, when metal gets more popular, we're getting active again. We get more and more offers to play a lot of places, and it's been a lot of fun.

V. V.: What about your fans? Do you see the same people in the front rows at your shows now, 20 years later?

J. T.: Ha-ha, it's funny, but I do see a handful of the same people, mainly friends who support us. We all look a little bit older, but we all still enjoy this kind of music. You also see young kids who are starting to get into it, which is good, because this way we're building a new fan base. There are many people who tell us things like, "Hey, guys, the first time you came around I was only 12 years old and I couldn't go to the show..."

V. V.: What do you think, why did death metal flourish exactly in Florida back then? Just don't tell me it's because of the alligators!

J. T.: Actually, we did have three people die from alligator attacks here last week and... You know, when we were in high school and started jamming, I was trying to sneak into Nasty Savage and Savatage shows. Both bands were very unique and sounded like themselves and not like anybody else, so we started playing our own music, too. What was important to us was to sound like something that's never been done before. We were lucky with the five people we hooked up with at the right time. We were all influenced by Venom, Celtic Frost, Hellhammer and stuff like that, and then bands like Morbid Angel, Deicide and Death came out, all of them hailing from our area, so all of us had to get better and better in order to stay in the game. Maybe that's why the whole scene flourished exactly here, in Florida.

Copyright: Tangra Mega Rock