February 12th, 2022

(The entire audio portion of the interview can be found at the bottom of the page)

Metalchondria: Metalchondria, on a very nice surprise: When you go to shows, and you see a band you never heard, excited about them, and their "signature", you want to talk about them. So, I'm here with Fermentor! Just as a brief, give me a brief introduction about you guys, your style, and how you started?

Dylan Marks: It's nice to meet you, it's cool that someone like you appreciates, a two-piece instrumental band, with only guitar and drums. Because, our music, we've think it's awesome! But, it's also weird, and a little different. We never know if everyone's gonna "get it", or latch on, but it's cool that you like it!

Metalchondria: I have more questions, for that reason, you'll know. I get that for sure! How did you two start?

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: To introduce ourselves, I'm Wolly, I play guitar for Fermentor, and this is Dylan, he's the drummer of Fermentor. It's always been us since 2008, Fermentor has existed. We have a bunch of EPs that we've put out over the years, and then last year, Metal Assault put out our first full-length on CD, called Continuance. And Dylan and I have known each other, basically our whole lives. We're like, loosely connected in our families, so we always kind of knew of each other. And, in 2008, we started playing music together, and subsequently created Fermentor.

Dylan Marks: Yeah! And, it's always been the two of us, and you know, the first album we did in 2008, as a demo, we really didn't know what the hell we were doing, yet. We didn't know our sound. We had vocals, we had Bass, you know, it was a totally different band. But now--

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: But it was still us, we were doing the Bass and the vocals.

Dylan Marks: Yeah! And, it's always been the two of us, and you know, the first album we did in 2008, as a demo, we really didn't know what the hell we were doing, yet. We didn't know our sound. We had vocals, we had Bass, you know, it was a totally different band. But now--

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: But it was still us, we were doing the Bass and the vocals.

Dylan Marks: But now it's like, we've many releases now where it's just the two of us. So now, we write the music specifically just for guitar and drums. It's not like missing an element, that is what it is. We're just more and more excited about the stuff we write. We love our album, Continuance, that we put out on Metal Assault last year. But we have a whole albums worth of new material, that we're going to put out on Metal Assault this year. And it's like, we're so excited about it. Every time we write, we just like our stuff more and more, I guess.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Yeah, we kind of figure out how to fill the space, and better ways to utilize the fact that we're a two-piece.

Dylan Marks: We like to go fast, because it's two of us, we can stop on a dime, and then change, totally being a new realm.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Very tight.

Dylan Marks: So, we sort of, we think of the two-piece as sort of a, a feature, not a bug. We take advantage of all the cool things we can do, with just the two of us.

I definitely saw that on-stage. In terms of instrumental work, The Chasm, their last album a few years ago, probably the best instrumental album I've heard. And, with instrumental music, you can't do what you normally do, with vocals, with "chorus-verse-chorus", the music itself has to be quite dynamic. Because, you have to make a lot of the riffs, the structures, the counterpoints and all that, as different. What was the origin of making this instrumental?

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: I think, it was just out of a default, at first? We just like playing music together, and we never really felt like, there was much more needed.

Dylan Marks: Yeah, we started jamming and the stuff we were writing, we're like, "Hey, you know? This stuff is cool, we don't need other elements." We're able to make cool music just the two of us, it's sort of like a light turned on. And we realized, this is a whole playpen of things we can do here. It's just the two of us, and I sort of like the weird separation between the drums and the guitar. It's like, there's parts where he goes up high, and a lot of the low-end goes away or something. But I think it's interesting to, we're making this weird choice.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: And the arrangements are compensating, too. Because there's only so many elements, there's only the two elements, really. So then yeah, the arrangement has to be like you say, dynamic, and it has to be, that's where you get your melody, your hooks for the song.

Dylan Marks: It also comes from us just being super hard critics. We can be easily bored by other people’s music, so we're like, okay we played this part 3 times, that's enough. Let's switch it, you know what I mean? We're constantly thinking, okay, we need to play this part 8 times? We get the gist, let's play it 4 times. You know, 4 is too normal, let's play it 3 times.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: There's no need to pad it for full verse and vocals.

Dylan Marks: Yeah, we like all the weirdness and the changes, the differences, we dig it.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: And people can, they're able to digest it. We try to not inundate with too much information, try and keep it tight and neat.

So, without a Bass, and without vocals, so you're missing that instrument, not just vocals. So, knowing that it's just guitar and drum only, talk to me about what is it like writing? Where do the constructions come from to make these songs, knowing it's guitar and bass only? Each instrument has to be dynamic, take a step back from each other, itself, vice-versa and etc. I'm just curious about, what it's like to make a whole dynamic with literally two instruments: no voice, no bass. What's it like?

Dylan Marks: It's a lot of jamming. We jam together, improvise a lot, and then we'll sort of jam, and we'll sort land in a thing, "Yeah, that's kind of a cool idea! Let's do that again!" A lot of it really just comes from, just jamming and figuring out cool things. Maybe 10-20% of it, is ideas that we already had, and things we already written. But, a lot of it is, we're just jamming in the room, I changed to a different beat, as he changes to a riff, "Oh, that's fucking cool! Let's do that again!" And that's literally how our songs just get built.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Yeah, we've gotten to know each other so well, and have a very clear musical vocabulary. Where it’s like, we are able to just come up with material, and extrapolate out from there, come up with permutations, try to explore what's interesting about that initial idea, and blow that out to a full song, you know? Normally it'll come from a kernel or two, then that's where the genesis comes from.

Dylan Marks: So, we're constantly recording our practices, jams, and listening back. We'll do a 5-minute jam and it's like, maybe most of it is bullshit, but then that, "Oh! That's a cool couple of cool parts!" We're constantly listening to ourselves again, and--

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: And collaborate. It's very highly collaborative. There's no sort of like, it's not like one person writes all the music, we really write it all together. And without one, there isn't the other.

And I noticed as well, a lot of your drum parts were very dynamic, and there were parts, your guitar parts, were lower, harmonic parts, and then he would a lot of drum parts. There'd be moments where he would take a step a back and set up the counterpoints. I feel like to me, sometimes the guitar parts were the "voices", and the drum parts were the "voices". So, how do you both know what works best when the drums or the guitar are the "voice?"

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Hmm, it's an awesome question, I think a lot of is just intuition? Just feeling what feels right. When does it feel correct, full and not lacking? I mean, it's a difficult question to answer, honestly.

I love those questions, that's why I like to ask them. (smiles)

Dylan Marks: That's also good on you, because that's how I literally think of it. I like to think, as a lot of the drums I do, as a different melodic voice, rather than just like the background. Sometimes, I'm like the background and you can jam over me. But yeah, I do think of it as its own melodic voice, with the drums very sort of, like thematic. I'm very rarely in the pocket, you know? It's funny that you think, because that's exactly how I think of it. It's its own voice. Yeah, that's cool that you hit on that.

Normally with your standard Metal, or even standard songs there's: "Chorus, verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus, done." or etc. With the voice, that generally will dictate that. But without the voice, then you can't just make the same regular riffs. There has to be something different, because you're missing the other dynamic. You're missing the instrument(s), and you're missing the voice, too.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Yeah, and you don't want to bring attention, to the fact that there's an element that people are expecting, that's now not there. So, the idea is, it should feel correct out of the box, and not feel like there's some aspect that was supposed to be here. It's like, the way we structure the material, hopefully it feels dense and correct, and like bold, you know?

Dylan Marks: Also, you say, I understand what you're saying, “missing the Bass and the vocals.” Yes, when some people would come to see us, that might be their expectation of like, "Oh, bands usually have a Bass and a singer. What is this?" But at least in my eyes, it's like, I don't think of it as like we are missing the vocals, or missing the bass, you know? I feel like it's full, it is all encompassing in its own right. It's not "missing" the Bass, I don't feel like the music is yearning for more accompaniment, you know? I think of it as, it is complete with just the two of us, you know?

And, I don't know about your musical influences or who you like. Gorguts, from Canada, is a very big, one of my favorites. I actually got to interview Luc Lemay (during my time in Metal Assault!) a few years ago. I learned--that's probably my favorite interview I've ever done. And he talked about it, in past videos of making Obscura.

Dylan Marks: Amazing album.

Oh, it changed everything, you know? And, they talked about, when they made the riffs and everything, the structures, the counterpoints and the notes, they didn't want to "look" at what they're doing, they wanted to "hear" it first. So, that was their way of communicating, was not the typical way, just let the sounds communicate, not what you're looking at. "We want to be impressed by the sound, not how it looks." So, with that said, there's no vocals, so it must be a very interesting dynamic to communicate instrumentally. So, how do you both do that, when it works really well, or sometime a day or a jam when it's not working? How do you both, what's it like communicating through instruments, when there's really no vocals, you know?

Dylan Marks: I guess for a lack of better term, I guess we clash often. When we're coming up with songs--

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: We're passionate.

Dylan Marks: Yeah, where we're like, "Yeah, I don't think you should play it like that." We'll both be like, we both pretty much let each other play what we want, but we'll have times where it's like, "No no no, I don't think so." And then, we'll both realize, "Okay, but I like it like this, and I like it this other way." Alright, so we got to figure something out. We always have multiple versions of songs, and like, songs that will go through edits and stuff, until we're completely happy. But we're both very passionate and opinionated, and we'll say when we don't like something, or where we, "No, we got to play that part more times! That part's awesome!" And it's like, "No..." We do like clash, and are constantly, it really just comes from a passion, of just really wanting to make music that's awesome.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: And we'll fight for stuff that we believe in, so if we truly believe that's musical element, needs to be one way or another, we'll, you know. But, we're pretty good about coming to terms with that. But I do think, we do eventually go to paper when we start structuring out the song. Because, it just becomes very difficult to keep it all together. But, the beginnings of the song, is always by ear. So, it's never like, "I've written this riff down on a paper, now let's play this and try to come up with something from it." It's very like, in the moment, let's just start making noise on our instrument, and see how it coalesces and what we can do with that. Start playing, you know, a more loose, more playful approach, to making music. So now, I relate to Luc, and his perspective with Gorguts, which is like, yeah, how does it hit your ear first? And then, yeah, for us anyways, it's a requirement to start writing things down, so that we can structure and have a common terminology about the, the orchestration.

Interesting! It's actually really refreshing, hearing that you often more clash, then actually maybe see something right away, immediately. And that's okay, it's still works and it works. So, with that said, what are your individual writing styles like? And, what "clashes?" For example, I remember a long time ago Ihsahn and Samoth in Emperor, Ihsahn wanted all the extra stuff. Samoth wanted the stuff with breathing room, so that was their, one wanted more "technical", one wanted more "atmosphere". So, with that said, what is that dynamic like, where it clashes, what is your style, and your style?

Dylan Marks: So, we're actually in another band called Beekeeper. Where, I write all the music for--

They're playing tomorrow, right?

Dylan Marks: We would have been playing tonight, but--

I saw the merch, so I was--

Dylan Marks: Our singer, she's actually having a baby soon.

Oh, congrats! Okay!

Dylan Marks: Yeah, thanks! I couldn't do this one. So, that music I literally write all of it, so that's literally, if you just listen to Beekeeper that is what my style is: Thrash, Death Metal, I'm very much influenced by Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest, you know. I like some Death Metal like Morbid Angel, and Necrophagist, stuff like that, Sepultura, early Sepultura, and Death, that's where my home is. So, I guess I would come from a, I'm also like, I'm really into music theory, like a self-described music nerd. So, I guess I would have more of a, I guess a "Classical", not "Classical" like Classical Music, but I mean like Classical Music of an upbringing? And I feel like Wolly is more into the like different-y, noisier...

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Well, I also just, I don't know music theory, so I'm totally coming at it by ear.

Or more emotion maybe, right?

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Well, you know, I think Dylan writes emotional music, I don't think his knowledge of music theory holds him back from writing emotional music. But I do have to sort of just go with my gut, you know? I'm just very much relying on my gut, most of the time. But, I do also, as far as my influences are concerned, Gorguts is a massive influence for me, Cephalic Carnage, Decapitated, Morbid Angel, all of these--

Dylan Marks: Suffocation.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Suffocation!

That's the best live band, in life! That's it. (laughs)

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: But basically, dissonant and angular Death Metal, was what changed the game for me. And was like, "Oh, you can do it "like this!" And then it's very much your own, this not typically approachable, but also highly cerebral and orchestrated music, that was very much where I came from. In the ways that we clash it's like, Dylan is able to apply his theory in a way, the way he thinks about music, can be more elaborate, perhaps then the way that I might approach it. I might approach it a little more simply, and sometimes he'll suggest, "Hey, what if we do (imitating ascending musical sounds)?!" I'll be like, "Ahh, that's not really how I play." You know what I mean? That doesn't sound like me. So, we just talked about that the other day, it came up. But you know, stuff like that occurs, but then it's yeah alright, okay you do something. (laughs)

Dylan Marks: Also, I would say Wolly has much more of a, I would describe it as a "higher dissonance threshold."

(Wolly laughs)

Dylan Marks: So, very, chords that sound very dissonate and stuff like--

Like Ulcerate, Deathspell Omega?

Dylan Marks: Sure! I will like, I will often you know, I like to use dissonance, I also like just normal, 5ths and major chords, you know? Just sometimes I like, but I feel like Wolly always is trying to like, add like a weirdness, a different touch, different notes.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: There's sort of like, kind of comes down to like, how do you feel about resolution, you know? For me, I always want to "withhold" resolution, musical resolution. I always want to be, kind of not landing right where you think it's going to land. I want it to be just off, I want it to be broken, I want it to feel uncomfortable, most of the time. So, that then when you do eventually resolve, it feels that much better, you know? Perhaps it isn't fair to say, the thing in Beekeeper, whatever it's like, the resolutions are very perfect, in a great way, and in their own way. I mean, there's still dissonance and experimental approach to music, especially the next Beekeeper album, it's very experimental. If I were to try to classify it, or find some difference.

Have you ever heard of Vitriol, by chance?

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Yeah, yeah for sure! We saw, oh god, the guitarist, the crazy guitarist--

Kyle, yeah!

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Yeah, Kyle! We saw him at NAMM, a few years ago.

Oh yeah! All the pedals? I got to talk to him about that, it was great to see a Death Metal guitarist play. They're playing with Defeated Sanity in a couple weeks. When you mention about dissonance, that's a band I really, you know.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: And I really like that level of aggression, too. I do come from that sort of world, too. I like when the music is confrontational, like brutal, I really like that.

So, in terms of you said, about in terms of the clashes, I also like to know more, admittingly, I've been going to shows and listening to this music for decades now, and it's only a couple of years since drums have really, really opened my eye, more than I've ever have in my life. Because, we're really spoiled. For the amount of drummers, John Longstreth, Jamie St. Merat of Ulcerate, just in general. The drummers we have and everything, we've very, very spoiled. I've opened my eye to drumming in general more, so you talk about clashes, I'm curious not just what you like, but your own instrument styles, like your drumming style, and guitar style. So, when you say in terms of what works, what clashes, and what you both really work with, talk to me more about; even if it's dense or a little more theory like, about your actual guitar playing and your drumming playing? Particularly that helps really make that sound?

Dylan Marks: I guess it's like, it's a two-fold, I love Igor Cavalera and Dave Lombardo, like the Thrash Metal and Death Metal drumming. I love Gene Hoglan, you know, and I love that kind of stuff, just fucking blast beats and full of energy, momentum. But then, I'm also really into like, Jazz Fusion. And my favorite drummer in the world, is Billy Cobham, who's amazing.

What does he play in?

Dylan Marks: He was in a few different bands. He was in Mahavishnu Orchestra in the 70s, he played for Miles Davis.

Oh, wow!

Dylan Marks: Then essentially, what happened was: In '73, he had built up so much clout, that he just created a band, with all the best musicians in the world, called the band his name, Billy Cobham, just went on tour, and fucking crushed it for the rest of his life. And that's like, what I want to do, you know what I mean? It's sounds egotistical, but I'd be stoked to have a band called Dylan Marks, that'd be fucking insane!

(Wolly laughs)

Dylan Marks: So, I mean, I did Jazz in college so, I like to do the Metal stuff, the double-bass, the blast beats. But I also like to incorporate weird, funky things, Jazzy things, I love different timings, I love, you know, I always want to drum something new, and something exciting. I'm also, very competitive, and very much like a showoff, I like, want everyone to look at me, you know? I want everyone to be like, want everyone to look at me and go, "You're awesome at drums!" That's what I want. I like all that, I like flashy, I like aggressive drumming, so, anytime I can do some sort of weird, cool ghost notes, or weird, cool funky beat over a Metal thing, I just think it sounds more interesting.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Well, I love that. Gosh (pauses). I don’t--

If maybe see I could help: I noticed when I saw you play, there was a lot of low-notes, there was a lot of like simple tempo, harmonic moments for rhythm, and there seemed to be more in the low-end, but the guitar has this flashy, powerful distortion, so I felt it complimented it. I felt Your playing, it felt more like a rhythm, even though you're the only guitar player. It was more rhythm based, but the harmonics--

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Yeah! That's fair. I definitely, I would say I come from a rhythm background. In Beekeeper, I play Bass, so I would think of myself as more of a rhythm guitarist. I don't really solo, or anything like that, never really excited me. Like, I love solos, but I just never got interested in that. But I love complicated and interesting rhythm work, you know, Dylan allows me to explore that, you know? I think too, a lot of times, we're just trying to find a way to break something traditional, and have a new perspective, you know? Or, just try and find something that feels fresh to us, and yeah, always trying to. I think, we've very picky, and don't really like to play things that feels like stuff we've heard before. Yeah, I think we're just always trying to, "up" that. I'm definitely more of a rhythm player, I try and move outside that sometimes. Dylan is good at sort of pushing me, and out of my comfort zone. In a way, he's sort of the lead instrument, you know what I mean? Much more high-end content, you know? The cymbals and snare, and stuff like that. But, it's fun to be able to kind of dip in and out of, "sync", with Dylan, doing my own thing. And I just like moody music. So, I like something that has a vibe. So, I feel like our songs will have a vibe generally, a theme that kind of emerges. Sometimes, they're just like riff fests. I think less so, as we've gone on. More and more, they've kind of been having an arc, a little more vibe.

In terms of the vibe and contrast, making song titles, for example. Since there's no lyrics, obviously, it's two instruments. So, when we see the song titles, what are the concepts of making, when you guys come together, and make these instruments and make these riffs, make everything together? What are the concepts? Are certain songs "sad", are certain ones "bleak", are certain ones "raging" songs? The song titles, like "Ring King", for example, "Seventh Circle" I believe was one of them?

Dylan Marks: (laughs) You want to know why the song's called "Ring King".

Tell me!

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Exclusive!

Dylan Marks: Literally because of (imitates and hums guitar motion palm-muted riffs together) "Ring. King!" The sound of the fucking chugging--

That's the sound of the palm-muted--like Dying Fetus! (Also imitates what Dylan did)

Dylan Marks: Yeah, "ring, king. ring, king." We just, that's literally just--

That's fascinating, yeah!

Dylan Marks: I don't think this is Wolly's opinion, but like, I think, I mean it's cool to have fun names, but I'm not as worried or interested in the names. It's like, Beethoven's 9th, Symphony. It could have been called anything, that's not why it's cool, you know what I mean? When it's instrumental music, I feel like there is a little bit of a beauty, of sort of, it's just the music. That's what we're using to move you, you know what I mean? We have cool images, and we have cool, then sort of done awesome music videos. Like for instance, "Seventh Circle", you know. We sort of retroactively taken song titles that we were excited about, and then made videos about them.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: A lot of stuff comes from just references, mutual references whether it's from media, just our lives or whatever. So, "Seventh Circle", for example, that's a quote from a movie that we like, or it's part of a quote. And just, broadly the seventh circle of Dante's Hell, you know from Dante's Inferno? Yeah, retroactively once we go to make a music video, then we kind of apply meaning to the song. And then, we get that opportunity to kind of think about, if there's a story there, what is that story? Where really, it's like, the path is, we write all the music the way we think the music needs to be, then we apply a title to it that's like, "This fits!" This feels like the correct, the connective tissue is there between the musical themes, and the sound of the verbiage, coming up with some meaning.

Dylan Marks: Our last music video, "Seventh Circle" the music just told us, "Dude, this is just a fucking action movie. Just a fucking chase! Balls to the wall. We just need to be running, fucking chasing each other!" You know what I mean? You should check it out. But we have a very cool action-packed music video for "Seventh Circle", where it's just a fucking chase. The music, it's, we both like to listen to movie scores. And it's like, when I jog, I like to fucking listen to like you know, John Williams, because I feel like I'm in an action movie. I like that, because it's instrumental music, okay, what if this music was playing over some scene? It'd be awesome! The "Seventh Circle" one, we turned to a, fucking action chase scene. We have another song called "The Stench", which is more like the song, the music is much more dissonant, and creepy, so we made it kind of a creepy vibe. So, it's very music forward, in terms of where we're getting our inspiration, and things like that.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Yeah, it's kind of case by case, song to song, they're just is a different vibe, it creates a different mood, yeah.

In terms of soundtrack music, the Robocop music soundtrack, if you ever heard it, is tremendous! I think it won an award, way back when it was released.

Dylan Marks: I just watched that movie! But it's funny, I can't think of--

Watch it again, and the ending credits, you'll know, "Oh, that's the song!" Catchy, dissonant, bleak, and 80s vibe to it. It works really well; I recommend hearing it again.

Dylan Marks: Alright! You want to know my favorite movie score of all time?

Tell me!

Dylan Marks: The Mummy from 1999. (I just heard "The Crypt" from the soundtrack, it is excellent) Jerry Goldsmith, fucking music in that movie.

I need to see it again!

Dylan Marks: So. Good! I'm obsessed!

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: I would say, also by Jerry Goldsmith, for Alien.

Alien I mean, is top notch, in every way and four.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: That's really my, I love that so much. I keep bringing it to Dylan like, "We should find a way to cover these little sections." There's some insane shit, in that score, if you listen to it. The song, "Facehugger", check it out!

I think you guys already made an idea for another song already, you know? It's already up here. A couple of more questions, and thank you guys again for your time.

Dylan Marks: Yeah! These are really good questions.

I love the music that I listen to, and break things down, and everything, you know?

Dylan Marks: Do you play an instrument? You sound like you play music.

Ahh, guitar, here and there, drums, in terms of rhythm. I break down the music. My first Death Metal show was: Dreams of Damnation, Origin, The Berzerker, Vader and Immolation, 20 years ago.

Dylan Marks: Ahh, I love Immolation so much!

They're playing on March 1st, in LA, that's the only Southern California show they're playing.

Dylan Marks: One time, Me and Wolly saw Origin and Suffocation for free, at a Tesla show, and it was open, not Tesla, at a Scion show, and it was open bar.

Wow! Was this in LA? Was it an art show?

Dylan Marks: It was. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

I couldn't go to that, but I heard about it, and I actually, I’ll admit, I teared up. I found out an hour after the show was going, "What's going on?!" That was when Frank (Mullen) was taking his break, and then coming back.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: He was announcing it, and he was going to be making films, and stuff.

Dylan Marks: The way it worked was, there was an artist having a showing of skateboard decks, that he did. His name was Mr. French--

This was 2012, right?

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Yeah, that sounds about right!

Dylan Marks: If you go to that free art show, you can get a ticket for the free concert. So, it was a sort of roundabout thing, but it was a tiny venue, with like a 100 people, we saw Suffocation and Origin, it was fucking sick!

I've seen Suffocation 24 times, since 2004. (This is completely true)

Dylan Marks: 24?!

24. If you give me time, I can name all the ones.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: That blows my mind, that you can even fathom-

Dylan Marks: What's your favorite album?

Pierced from Within.

Dylan Marks: That's my favorite album, too.

I mean, that was made in 1995. That was a year before Load, and they did that, then. They did Effigy of the Forgotten the same year the Black Album came out. I mean, it's not even close what they did.

Dylan Marks: (laughs) That's your timestamp? A year before Load?

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: That's your litmus test?

(laughs) I'm saying Load was the big thing at the time, and they did that. To your point, in 2006, Sunday, February 18th (correction:19th), (Tazumal, Instincts of Aggression) Abysmal Dawn, Decrepit Birth opened for Suffocation at the Key Club, in LA. A 500 (person) venue, probably the best sound, the opening band got headlining sound. Suffocation played from newest, Souls to Deny, all the way to Effigy, backwards in order. They did a 2 and a half hour set, about 24 songs.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Holy shit! Wow!

So, the 2nd half, was all Breeding the Spawn and Effigy of the Forgotten. That was the best show of my life, I have pictures of that show. When I post the interview, I will find those.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: I'm upset I didn't get to see them when they were touring for Souls to Deny, I love that album!

I think that's their 2nd best. It's their most underrated album!

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: I also think Souls to Deny is where they changed, because that was where they went from sort of like, traditional Suffocation, to modern Suffocation.

Actually, I actually think that was their real "technical" album. After that, was the S/T. It had Mike Smith's really intense drumming, but the riffs were a little less. Like in Souls to Deny, there's so much chord structure.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Yeah! No, that's true. I got into the S/T album.

I think it was the last "technical". But I love the S/T!

Adam “Wolly” Wollach: Pinnacle of Bedlam's super Techy, isn't it? We love that (album)!

Yeah, that was their best (since Souls to Deny), great album!

Dylan Marks: We love that one. And there's Blood Oath.

Blood Oath was really dark, and demented.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: That was a grim album.

Mike Smith wrote a lot of the music, in that too. That's why some of the riffs were very dense, and a little out there (drummer writing guitar riffs, fascinates me). We love Suffocation, they're the best!

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: So once, we saw Morbid Angel play Covenant, all the way through.

I was there! Was that at The Fonda?

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Yeah, we were at a lot of the same shows!

**Fermentor (Dylan Marks, Adam “Wolly” Wollach)**

I know, that's insane! I have footage of that show, I still have it. That was amazing. So, going forward, I noticed that instrumental especially dynamic instrumental Metal music, can go a long way. I feel the band can play a number of shows coming up, like in general. Going forward, hopefully we get time back and things are more "normal", does the band want to perform as many shows as possible? Knowing you can fit on the Cannibal Corpse event coming up, you can fit on the Dark Tranquillity show coming up, you can fit, because of the instrumental aspect, and the dynamics between both of you, I feel you can fit in a lot of venues, and a lot of tours and bands. What's the plan for this year? Anything coming up? What's the goal?

Dylan Marks: We’re booking. We're almost done writing our next album, so we'll be doing some recording.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: We're playing as many shows as we can right now, just to get out, we're trying to get out there, as the world's sort of recalibrates.

Dylan Marks: No specific tour booked. But lots of shows.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: And, we like to think that we are versatile, and can fit on pretty much heavy bill, out there.

Dylan Marks: I also think that, because we're instrumental, it's I feel like people that aren't into Metal at all, kind of dig us on their first viewing. "Oh, whoa! This is weird and different."

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: Death Metal vocals can be a barrier to entry.

Yeah, yeah! I was going to say. I mean, we're still in 2022, and people still feel that way? But, alright.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: It's a silver lining. (laughs)

For sure, I agree!

Dylan Marks: But also, my opinion? Death Metal vocals have to be amazing, otherwise I don't like them.

Not Chris Barnes, these days. It's bad, it's bad.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: We don't talk about Chris Barnes.

It's so bad. He was great in his prime, but I mean--

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: The Bleeding was amazing, but yeah.

It's bad.

Dylan Marks: We're tough critics.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: There's a high bar to hit. My brain will just phase them out. I'll listen to the music, and I don't even hear the vocals anymore. I'm really listening past them, to the music a lot of the time, with Heavy music. Unless the vocals really stand out, you know?

Last words? Great performance tonight, and good turnout, nice for the Metal Assault 12th year. Going forward, any last words for the fans, the new album?

Dylan Marks: I'd say thanks to Andrew and Metal Assault, for having us on our label, and putting out our last album, and going to put out our next album, just giving all the support. We appreciate it. If you want to find us, you can just go to fermentorband.com, or search Fermentor Metal on google, and you'll find our YouTube. We have music videos, find us on Spotify, all the social medias and everything. But we lots of cool videos, and we have lots of cool releases, and we lots of cool merch.

Adam "Wolly" Wollach: And we got the new album coming out, it's going to come out on CD and vinyl, which we're really excited. We're really stoked on these songs, and you know, through the last couple of years having all this, sort of downtime, you know? At least private time it's like, we've been in the woodshed all this time, just hammering at these fucking songs, so we're really, really, excited to get them out, and to show people what our next stage of music is.

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