Last week Morphman wrote an awesome review about Green Death, an amazing metal band from Iowa, USA.
At the beginning of this year we wrote about a band called ONLY which rocked MySpace in 2007. Unfortunately the band disbanded but three of the members moved on to form a new band called Green Death. We were able to sit down with lead singer Solomon ‘Sol’ Bales and he kindly agreed to tell us about the band’s background.
“Mark, Erich and I were in a band called ONLY for the past 10 years or so, and during the final year of ONLY, we decided to move forward with the 3 core members of the band to reform under the name GREEN DEATH.” Green Death currently has five members, Mark Reinking (Rhythm Guitar), Erich Tran (Lead Guitar), Sol Bales (Vocals), Parker Willis (Bass) and Nick Svoboda (Drums).
How did they go from ONLY to Green Death? “At the end of ONLY, we were talking about changing the name, but along with the name change, we had noticed that our style was not the same since there were only three core members left Mike, Erich and myself,” the Lead Singer told us, “ we noticed our sound was a bit heavier, and was hinting towards thrash and death metal something that came naturally to us because we grew up listening to that kind of music. The name Green Death embodied the vibe that we wanted in the new songs as well as the imagery. It’s dark and creepy, and we try to bring in an element of fun not taking ourselves seriously.” Their music, according to Sol, is influenced by artists of the death metal and thrash genre, “ Our music is influenced by Slayer, Testament, Anthrax, Carcass, Metallica, Megadeth, Napalm Death, Kiss, Typo-o Negative, Danzig, Misfits, Death, Morbid Angel and Pantera.”
Being a fan of ONLY, it was interesting to see how the bands were different from each other, “Green Death is a lot heavier than ONLY. We definitely found a sound that three of us prefer, which is just a more aggressive sound. There were some limitations in ONLY, for one reason or another, we could not get the sounded that we wanted. Green Death is that sound.”
Being a musician is great but you have to wonder what is their favourite thing about what they do, well according to Sol, his favourite part is the process in general. He comments, “From writing songs, to coming up with song titles, to recording in the studio. I just dig being in a band and creating things. I try to focus on enjoying everything because at the end of the road all you have is your memories. Of course you’ll have the physical albums and posters, but you will mainly remember coming up with the riffs, the rehearsals, the time in the studio.
11 years in the making, Green Death has toured all over the Midwest (USA) and have released several albums and EPs. They currently have two EPs out, “Dawn of the Death” which is a 3 song EP and “Death Monks” which is a 5 song EP. They are also working on a final round of songs, and will be putting out a full length album which will have the first two EPs as well as the new ones.
You can find them on iTunes, Amazon, CDBaby, and other digital retailers. Physical copies are available at CDBaby, their website and at their live shows. You can also like the band on Facebook, follow them Twitter, and check out their website as well as their Youtube Channel.