As I write up this interview, Hurricane Milton is getting ready to slam into the Western side of Florida as a potential Category 3-4 monster. Landfall is set for Wednesday, October 9, 11 days after Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic damage to parts of the state. The severity of this isn’t lost on Steve Asheim, drummer for the mightiest death metal band on Earth, Deicide. It’s October 7. He and the band are in Corpus Christi, Texas getting ready for a gig. Deicide has five dates left before this trek ends.
“We’re still on tour, but you know, we’re actually, probably gonna be heading home with this hurricane heading right toward Tampa. You know, it’s looking like it’s gonna destroy everything. It’s heading right for our area.”
Deicide’s final tour stops include Houston on October 8 and New Orleans on October 9, the same day Milton is expected to hit Florida. The band’s final two gigs are in Pensacola, Florida on October 10 and Tampa, Florida, October 11. This is the state the band calls home, where friends and family are.
Regarding Helene, Asheim says, “Our houses lost power and people we know lost power, so yeah, that was only 10 or 12 days ago. And so, this other one, right on the heels of that, it’s a big problem. We’re all in contact with back home and our people here deciding what to do, and it looks like we may have to leave after the show tonight. You know, it’s a small window to get back there. Plus, the problems are stacking up. There are places running out of gas, running out of supplies, traffic is fuckin’ backed up crazy already.
It’s not our first hurricane, and it’s not the first hurricane to hit while we’re on the road either, but you know where it is, it’s hitting near the end of our tour. We are close to home. We could just leave and head back, but we’d be heading right back into a fuckin’ devastation zone. But it’s our stuff. We may get trapped on the outside of the circle, who knows? Like if they stop letting people in, if they close down the highways all going in, yeah, it sounds terrible. It’s a real spot we’re in so we’re figuring what to do when we know more so we may end up going back home, it’s what we’re looking at right now today. I hope everything kind of works out so I’m keeping an eye on this storm too, pretty closely.”
As a journalist I want to tell the story, but I also realize there’s a deep human element at play here and I empathize with it. The tension, anxiety, and uncertainty everyone in the Deicide camp must be feeling right now, especially Asheim, must be a lot to deal with. I decide to lighten things up a bit, take our conversation in a different direction. I ask him what his first concert was as a kid, something none of us ever forget.
“Yeah, you know what? I went to go see Ozzy Osbourne on his BARK AT THE MOON tour with Mötley Crüe opening and that was up at the Brendan Byrne Arena in Newark, NJ, it was an arena show, and it was packed. I was just a kid you know, 13 or 14. I thought Shout At The Devil was cool, it was heavy for that time.”
And eventually thrash and death metal creeped into the picture. “Well, you know, it’s a natural progression from the rock of the early 80s, and I was into Maiden and Priest, and for me music just naturally progressed and advanced, like it’ll do. So, I just kind of grew into the heavier stuff and I was right there to appreciate it the whole way. It’s all good stuff to me, I just loved it.”
This leads us back to Deicide, the embodiment of all that is heavy; the definition of extreme metal. Knowing full well I’m about to ask about the band’s least favorite album, In Torment In Hell, I begin with the Deicide record he likes the most. “Oh gosh, I don’t know. I guess Once Upon The Cross is good. We play a lot of that live, and I like the new one we just did, it came together really well. I liked the last one, you know, the songs were good, and they came together well too.”
And what about 2001’s In Torment In Hell? “Well, you know, it came out at a time when death metal was kind of on the back spin and it was kind of on the back spin of our label too. They gave us a low budget and it was kind of a low quality record. Also, the writing was kind of rushed, the production was definitely cheap and rushed, and so it just didn’t have the intensity of the writing that the earlier albums had, that was kind of obvious. Plus, the production lacked, and the band on a personal level were kind of not getting along great. There’s a lot of reasons why that record didn’t quite click.
People who were fans and following us, it was easy for them to shit on it because they kind of knew all the story leading up. For fans just getting into Deicide, and they hear this record for the first time, they tend to like it because they don’t know the back story, to them it’s heavy, and it is.
But you know, it wasn’t terrible, but we agree it wasn’t our greatest. There are some raw, good elements there that had they had been worked out a little more it could have been a better record. I don’t think we’ve ever played any of those songs live yet. Some albums are like that. They just kind of fall through the cracks.”
I’ve been a Deicide fan since 1989. I remember being astounded by how brutal and heavy their first record was, coupled with the outspoken beliefs of lead singer Glen Benton who espoused his devotion to Satanism. I wondered if Asheim shared his religious perspective.
“He’s got his own tag and I have my thing, but I don’t really subscribe to religion, I think it’s kind of a racket and a sham. I wanna say it’s for the weak-minded people, the typical people I’ll rip on religion for. People are free to do what they’re gonna do, they’re free to believe in what they want to believe, and they’re gonna do these things anyway. It’s not my place to really say what’s right or wrong for people although I know what’s right or wrong for me. I don’t happen to believe in it, and I don’t waste my time on it.”
With the tour coming to a close and Hurricane Milton 48 hours away, we circle back to Deicide, presently. “You know this tour, it’s been a challenge in many areas. It’s been a long one and we’re doing a lot of work ourselves, so it’s been pretty grueling. But the shows have been sounding good, however our health has been on and off throughout, so it’s been a challenge, but we’ve been meaning to do our best to finish it. With the storm coming at us now, fuck, we’re really fighting all the odds here.”
One of those challenges Asheim spoke of is a physical condition he’s been dealing with as of late. “I have Tendinosis and they say you can heal in three to six or nine months, but to do so you have to quit the thing that’s causing the tendinosis which is me drumming, and since there’s no plans on me quitting, it’s gonna you know, it’s a chronic condition and so it definitely affects physical strength, and you can feel tendons are about to tear if I get too crazy with that stuff.
I used to like to lift weights, but I was getting injured a lot, so yeah, it’s not going away anytime soon as long as I keep playing. Lifting weights is fun, it’s a hobby, but you know, playing drums is my career. And, I’ll keep playing as long as I need to work and continue to make money, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. The plan is to keep playing as long as I can and deal with the side effects as they come.”
Deicide’s new record Banished By Sin is available now via Reigning Phoenix music. Check out the videos for “From Unknown Heights You Shall Fall,” “Sever The Tongue” and “Bury the Cross…With Your Christ” here.
Photo credit: Deidra Kling
