Desecrator are a melodic Death Metal band originating in Dingwall in Scotland, originally starting life as a one man project of Mark Dubanowski. In 2014, he relocated to Worcester and over the past two years has recruited Rich Moynihan and Tom Doherty to join. They are soon going to be releasing an EP titled ‘Invoking Thy Eternal Reign Ov Torment’ soon, with their live performance of some of the material on 24th August having left the audience hungry for more. We interviewed them in September 2022.
1. Hey. Thanks for agreeing to be interviewed. Now, to start off the interview I shall ask what will admittedly be a generic question, but here it goes… Desecrator started off in 2007 and initially released an album in 2011. Since then, you’ve now released several rehearsals online. What were your main influences when starting the band and how have they changed?
Mark: Thank you for having us! Well, the Desecrator sound sort of started in the death metal realm. I’d probably say the likes of early Cannibal Corpse, Vader and Deicide? Definitely a sprinkle of Thrash and Black Metal influences too. I also experimented with using orchestral sounds at one point. I thank bands like Behemoth, Emperor and Fleshgod Apocalypse, for that!
While we have been leaning towards more of a Melodic Death Metal sound, in recent times, we’ve still managed to retain a lot of the older sounds and influence in the new material we’ve been working on. The best way of describing it would be, “Where some bands choose to write the kind of music that fits that time period, we kind of just write what we feel like and see how it goes. Either way, we enjoyed writing it!”
2. Desecrator was originally a one-man project of Mark Dubanowski, but over the past year you have now recruited Tom Doherty and Rich Moynihan. How has this changed the creative process? Do you have a more collective approach to songwriting or is Mark still the main writer in the band?
Mark: I originally started the band as a wee passion project, when I started at my local music college. Only picked up the guitar a year or so prior, but I knew I wanted to write music of my own. A year later, I thrashed out what I considered an album’s worth of material, in a rush of young naive excitement. Beyond that, I wrote a couple of songs and released a couple of other demos between 2012-14.
Tom joining the band in 2020 sped up the creative process dramatically, in all honesty! We wrote most of the EP within 6 months!! I knew he’d been looking to start jamming with a new band for a while and at the time I’d started considering working with other musicians, after coming back from a five year hiatus. We got together around the time the first COVID wave started dying off and just started throwing all sorts of ideas at each other! It was refreshing to have someone that I could just immediately bounce off of, after over a decade of treating this project as an overprotective parent would. I’m still the main songwriter of the band, in the sense of piecing it all together, I guess. We’ve developed this unique method of writing, where Tom would send me all sorts of riffs, I’d have riffs stored away on the metaphorical shelf… day or two later, I’d message Tom, and later Rich, “Dude, I’ve fucking done it again, check this demo out!”
Rich has been the icing on the cake, putting together our current line-up. Even though he came along a little later in the writing process of the EP, his ability to knuckle down and learn the material we already had was second-to-none! Not to forget the older material that I also used to play live as a solo act. It all came together at our first proper rehearsals, in the run up to our comeback show. You should have been there, Malc, honestly! Goosebumps, shivers, whatever you want to call it. I was like a little kid again, jamming through Skinning The Snake from the first album. It was at that moment that I realised how much I’d missed playing in an actual band, with other musicians!
From left to right: Mark Dubanowski (vocals/guitars), Tom Doherty (bass), Rich Moynihan (guitars).
3. When based in Scotland and still a one-man band, Desecrator performed a number of shows live. In August you played your first gig in a number of years alongside Infested Angel and Absolution. How do you feel it went? Now, for Mark specifically, how would you compare it to your past shows?
Tom and Rich: It was months of preparation, but what an experience!! Very thankful and humbled by the response from everyone. The crowd, the bands, the sound guy, venue staff… I think you get it! It felt incredible to be back on the stage after so many years.
Mark: Couldn’t have put it better myself, to be fair! Infested Angel and Absolution absolutely killed it, too. I can’t wait to see them again, in the future. Comparing this to past shows as a one man band, I had to admit it was initially a little weird. I remember, at one point, looking either side of me and seeing these guys playing alongside me. Even though we had been rehearsing the set through the months prior to the show, it just hit differently, on stage. It was strange, but exhilarating! I had so much fun.
4. At the moment you are lacking a drummer. What is the story there? How do you feel about not having a drummer now for live shows? Is there anyone you have considered and how have things gone with those people?
Rich: We just haven’t found that elusive fourth member, just yet. There’s like 30-40 guitarists to 1 drummer, no matter where you go. Especially in the scene that we play in! At least, a tablet only needs smacking once to get going, am I right?.. Joking aside, rehearsing and performing with drum tracks hasn’t really held us back as a group. It has instead allowed us to continue on and has even enabled us to perform live with some form of percussive backing, where we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do so.
Mark: Not only percussive backing, but also the orchestra samples. Imagine trying to fit a full size orchestra into Paradiddles?? Some of our songs also use extra rhythm guitar layers, if Rich and I are busting out the dual lead work, for example. None of that would have been possible without the tech we have available, nowadays.
Are there drummers we have considered? A couple, but they’re mostly all busy with other projects. However, we do have someone in mind who is all but confirmed to be recording live drums for our EP. All revealed in due course, once everything is finalised.
Photo with members of Desecrator, Infested Angel, Absolution, and some assorted locals after 24th August gig.
5. Your first album is no longer available on your Bandcamp. Is this because you no longer consider it a part of who Desecrator are? How do you feel about the first album and how would you compare it to your newer material?
Mark: I don’t think Link’s Retribution was ever on our Bandcamp. Earlier, I touched on how the album was written in a rush of young naive excitement. Basically, It’s a very green, rough and raw sounding album, though I was very lucky to have the chance to release it through a small underground label in New Zealand, called Satanica Productions. I used to often collaborate as a drummer for a Black Metal band over there, called Beltane. Xan (Vocals/Guitar) would send me his guitar tracks every so often, to record over. I’d record the drums and send the stems over through the Dropbox, that kind of thing. He knew I was working on my own material and he kindly offered to mix it together and release it through his label. It’s still considered very much part of the Desecrator legacy, even if I admit it’s a very rough sounding collection of music. We are actually planning on revisiting it soon and hope to breathe new life into the material, for a future rework/re-release. Thinking 15 years of Link’s Retribution? You heard/read this here first!
6. On that 2011 album, Link’s Retribution, your lyrics were influenced by the video game series The Legend of Zelda. How have things changed since then? Where do you find inspiration for your lyrics nowadays? Do you still take influence from The Legend of Zelda series?
Mark: We haven’t written another Legend of Zelda themed song, since. However, I don’t feel a lot has changed. Even in newer material, we found ourselves exploring other gaming lore in our lyrical influence. We do love video games, but I wouldn’t consider this to be the sole source of inspiration for our lyrics. We like to explore other concepts such as horror stories, world events, protest against war and religion. The usual death metal nonsense, you know?
7. To develop from the previous question, there are a number of bands who have used computer games as lyrical inspiration. Chthe’ilist from Canada initially also looked to The Legend of Zelda for lyrical inspiration whilst Tomb Mold are inspired by Bloodborne and Dark Souls. Some people may turn their noses up at lyrical inspiration coming from video games whilst others might not. Do you think those who do are being unjustly snobbish? Are video games a serious source for lyrical subject matter for Death Metal bands or is there a degree to which it is perhaps a bit silly?
Mark: Unjustly snobbish is definitely up there in the more polite ways we would describe it, aye! We consider it more like an artform paying tribute to other artforms! We think anything can be a valid source for lyrical content, even in metal music.
8. For a long time, assorted Black Metal and Death Metal bands have sought to explore deeper philosophical concepts in their lyrics and experiment more musically. Some have searched for esoteric truths in exotic Vedic lore whilst others have tried to seek the answers to existence in Western philosophy such as Nietzsche or others. For yourselves, do you believe there is any deeper meaning to existence? How do you view man’s station in the universe?
Tom: We’re animals that got lucky in the grand evolutionary scheme, so lucky that we progressed to the point we could temporarily regress back into fucking cavemen and writing dirty rotten riffs.
Mark: We eat, shit, sleep, repeat then die. Nothing more to it! We are merely keeping ourselves busy until the inevitable happens.
Rich: Before getting bored of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, I do agree that God is dead and we killed him. I think the only fate that man can create for himself is to realise said fate and to seize the opportunity to make his own destiny. For me this simply comes down to creating moments in life which one can cherish before the crushing totality that is death. I would like to think that there’s some greater beyond, but one must realise that we must all stare into death and be still. All those moments will be lost. Like tears in rain. Have you read the Big Beat Manifesto? It just says ‘big beats are the best, get high all the time’.
Tom: What Rich said!
9. You have been recording a lot of instrumental rehearsals for tracks for the upcoming Invoking Thy Eternal Reign Ov Torment and putting those online. You have also recently remastered the song Darkness Is Upon Thee from the MMXIV EP. How has the reaction been to this material so far? Do you feel that these teasers have helped build interest in the band?
Mark: For sure! Certainly from a social media perspective, we have seen a fair bit of growth and interest, since we started releasing these demos. We sort of looked at these demos as our way of saying, “We’re still here and we got some new shit to wet your whistle with, before we put our next official release out.” Maybe we’ll continue to do these demos between main releases???
10. On your upcoming EP, you are collaborating with Jess from Arrow To The Knee Productions. She will be providing compositions for an orchestral piece that will be on the EP. How did this collaboration come about? What do you think of the music she has prepared so far, and how well do you think it fits with the material you have written?
Mark: Jess and I go way back to our uni days, bonding over our mutual love for music and video games. I was already experimenting with orchestral sounds at the time when writing Darkness Is Upon Thee, while she was doing her thing, but I had always vowed to get back in touch, knowing I wanted a professional to show me how it’s done! Ten years later and we finally made it happen. What was really cool about the whole experience was that she had streamed the entire writing process on her Twitch channel. That was a lot of fun, for Tom and I, to be able to interact with a whole new potential fanbase. We even got chatting to a few metal fans/musicians about gear and stuff.
What we ended up with… the only way I could describe it is perfect! She, very effectively, captured the magic behind the riffs involved and brought the arrangement to life. If any bands want a bit of orchestral spice added to their mix, give Arrow To The Knee Productions a shout. We’ll definitely be doing so again, in the future.
11. With your upcoming EP, you are planning on releasing it yourselves online. Are you considering releasing physical copies of the EP? Would you like to be signed to a label, or would you prefer to self-release your material?
Mark: The initial plan is to release it digitally, as we’ve been doing with our demos. We’d like to produce physical releases, but we suspect it may be a small run at first. It’s still early days since we made our return and we plan on booking more shows over the next year. Saying that, we would be open to working with management/labels in future.
12. Now is the time for a question that may or may not make things uncomfortable when we next go to Heroes (a great bar in Worcester). What are your thoughts on the state of the underground scene in the West Midlands, ranging from Worcester to the whole area that encompasses the metropolitan county, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Herefordshire etc? How does the scene in these areas compare to elsewhere in the UK? How would you compare things in the Midlands now to how they were prior to the pandemic?
Mark: I can’t really say much for the rest of the West Midlands as I’m not too familiar with their scenes. However, for a long time I don’t think there was really much going on for metal, in particular around the Worcester area. Not since the closure of The Pig And Drum anyway! The last year or so has seen a resurgence in Worcester’s scene and we have to give credit to Jon Weatherill (Cathedral Worcester Promotions) and I suppose yourself, Malcolm, for the Sadistic Screams gig nights at Paradiddles. Of course, we can’t forget where it started for yourself, Malc, with the Raise the Dead metal club nights you’ve been hosting.
Tom: I miss bands like Pathosis, Kataleptic and Fury. Also had the pleasure of playing alongside bands such as Coilguns and Horsebastard.
Mark: I guess we had Fury come to town a couple of times, over the last few years. I did catch them in the first week of moving to Worcester in 2014 and I think they’ve been back twice or three times since?
13. To continue with the vague controversy, let’s discuss the state of Death Metal in general. For a while, assorted bands have emerged under the banner of Old-School Death Metal. That whole revival initially can trace its way back to the mid to late 00’s, when bands like Dead Congregation, Cruciamentum, and Slugathor started making waves as they contrasted with what felt like to some to be a bit of a sterile scene that was awash with bands that could play proficiently but seemed to lack passion. Nowadays, however, some may say that the scene is awash with bands who merely ape the old masters and perhaps are even copying previous bands from the recent revival. What are your thoughts on this? How do you view the current state of Death Metal?
Rich: I think that there’s been a great revival of death metal and that it’s just as strong as ever. Bands from the States like Vitriol, Skeletal Remains, 200 Stab Wounds, and Frozen Soul to name but a few have really brought about either a revival of the OSDM sound or have come up with refreshing takes that are brutal beyond belief.
Tom: FERAL FERAL FERAL FERAL FERAL FERAL FERAL FERAL FERAL.
Mark: Have you heard the new albums from Revocation and Bloodbath? Both fantastic examples of great death metal albums, released just this past month! As for saying that bands could play proficiently, but lacking passion, we’d say that in order to play metal, let alone death metal, there’s got to be a huge amount of passion as the driving force, due to the very challenging nature of the music itself. It’s not something that can easily be picked up on a whim and therefore, the musicians aiming to create that style of music have to be very passionately driven to do so.
14. Right. Time for something relatively pleasant. What bands and albums from the underground have excited you recently? These can be classics that you’ve recently dug out or rediscovered or new bands. Are there any newer bands that you would recommend?
Mark: I got back into Raised By Owls, recently! They sing about Ainsley Harriot, The Chuckle Brothers and Mr. Blobby to a mostly death metal soundtrack. They’re fantastic! Their instrumental work made me go back and revisit Morgue Orgy’s discography. They were a great band also! In the past year or so, I’ve also been getting into other bands, such as Repulsive Vision, Agrona and Master’s Call. Still listening to a lot of Scottish Metal these days too; Scordatura, PaRtY-CaNnOn, Iniquitous Savagery, Tyrannus, Ten Tonne Dozer, Melted Messiah, Rend Them Asunder and BrainBath, among the many examples of some fantastic metal from North of the Wall.
Tom: Man, that’s not half made me cast my mind back to the plethora of bands I’ve had the pleasure of sharing the stage with. Bands like Agrona, Foetal Juice, Blasfeme, Shadowflag, Grave Altar, Necronautical, Antre and Coilguns, just to name a few!
Mark: Oh, I can’t forget bands like Esoteric, At War With The Sun, Grizzleroot and Soden! Those guys are all doing some great things at the moment.
15. Thanks for the interview. Do you have any final words?
Always a pleasure, never a chore, dear Malcolm!
We shall be back at Paradiddles, on Friday 28th October and opening for Mordhau and Cryptworm. Both Kings of the ODSM sound, in their own right! Don’t forget to bring your chainsaws!
Other than that, check Desecrator out on Facebook, Spotify, Bandcamp etc. We have fat riffs to desecrate your eardrums to, as well as a small run of shirts, if any of you all out there want to help us out! Our new EP, Invoking Thy Eternal Reign Ov Torment, should be ready and out by end of 2022/beginning of 2023. We can’t wait!
https://hyperfollow.com/DesecratorMusic
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(The actions and imagery of Richard Moynihan and/or his feet are not supported or sanctioned by the rest of the band. His views are his and his alone…)
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SADISTIC SCREAMS 