The band has a song that is up for a GRAMMY in the Best Metal Performance category. They are signed to Nuclear Blast Records and released an album in May 2019 and a music video in November, and next month they will do seven shows in nine days in Europe, performing in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Germany. They have a rabid, worldwide following with a combined total of almost 800 thousand across their social media platforms. This is the second NHTE appearance for Death Angel, having previously been on Episode 163. This interview features songwriter and lead vocalist Mark Osegueda and songwriter, lead guitar player, and band founder, Rob Cavestany.
(Mark) "It's still one of my favorite tracks to hear. And, ya' know, for a vocalist to say that, like, 'One of my favorite songs is an instrumental,' it's very interesting. And being in the band."
(Rob) "We totally wanted to kick ass and we wanted to change the world, at least back then before we realized the reality of that actually happening was not as easy as we thought."
(Rob) "Metal was like an evolution for us, actually. We didn't even really know of metal when we were first starting to rock. I think it was more of us just getting into rock music... We're so ancient, that metal barely, like, didn't even exist. That's why we didn't know of metal at first. It was becoming a thing as we were getting into music and listening to rock."
(Mark) "It was just a lot of things that helped us, I guess, get drawn towards songwriting structure, unknowingly."
(Mark) "About five minutes into (the KISS concert) when we saw the show, it struck me like a lightning bolt that that's what I want to be when I grow up."
(Rob) "We knew we wanted to have a band before we even knew how to play instruments."
(Rob) "Before we even could play covers we were trying to write original songs 'cause we just thought that that's what you're supposed to do."
(Mark) "Eventually I joined the band and then we did the three-song demo with Kirk Hammett. And then when he approached us, he wanted to produce a demo for us, of course we jumped on it. And Metallica was just about to release 'Ride the Lightning.' So they were obviously the huge buzz band... So, of course, when he approached us, we said Yes, Yes, Yes. And then that did lead to us getting signed to Enigma Records, who was an indie, but, we were excited because their distribution was through Capitol Records."
(Rob) "We've pretty much sampled every possibility of what you can do right and what you can do wrong."
(Rob) "How hard you thought you were working, that was a joke compared to how hard you really need to be working."
(Mark) "We always did want to be good songwriters, even though we were writing thrash metal. We still wanted to have good song structure."
(Rob) "We were on tour, we were going from one show to another at the height of our success and we got into a terrible bus crash which had severe injuries, almost killed us, and that basically ended our band at that point in time."
(Mark) "Just being nominated (for a GRAMMY) feels extremely victorious for us."
(Mark) "I'm not one of these lyricists that has a lyric book full of lyrics waiting for songs to be written. I don't write a lyric 'til I hear the song."
"The Ultra-Violence"
"Humanicide"
Bonus audio content on Patreon