Creeping Death is just about to release their latest record and first-ever full-length, Wretched Illusions on eOne this Friday, September 27th. The Texas Death Metallers hit St. Vitus in Brooklyn, NY, during their recent tour, and I had the chance to talk with Reese and Trey (the vocalist and guitarist, respectively) of Creeping Death, about the latest album, their signing to eOne, their musical backgrounds and connection with Power Trip, and just how an internet role-playing game has influenced their music (well, maybe just a track or two…). Check it out below. 

Creeping Death, here tonight in Brooklyn at St. Vitus, you recently kicked off the tour with Inter Arma, so to start off, how’s that going?

Reese: It’s going really great, actually, all the shows have been sweet, all the bands have been super into it, a lot of new people are hearing our music, so that’s awesome. Can’t wait for the rest of the shows.

Trey: Inter Arma also is a sick band, they’re really heavy, I love seeing them every night, it’s been a real treat.

Awesome. So you’ve already had two major releases with eOne – I mean, one’s still on the horizon, hasn’t come out quite yet, but you had the EP Specter of War and now we’re heading toward Wretched Illusions, can you take us through some of the process, almost like a “point a to point b”, from the EP into this one?

Trey: Yeah, so basically, we self-released the EP earlier in 2018, we had written it in 2017, and then they picked us up in the summer and we were all completely surprised, and they wanted an LP, so we kind of had a deadline, but we work really well with deadlines, so we knocked it out in the span of 10-12 weeks.

Reese: And then decided to re-release in the meantime. 

Trey: Yeah, and they re-released Specter in the meantime when they picked us up, so it was all really sick, it all happened really fast, and we just kept the momentum going, and we want to keep that going indefinitely. 

Of course! So when you were working on the EP, were you already thinking towards the next step, the full-length, or was it more like taking things one at a time?

Trey: Actually, the plan was to ride on Specter for a little bit longer, I don’t think we really planned on doing an LP until 2020, but then eOne comes a’callin’, and you answer that phone! So we were like, “Yeah, let’s do it”, put everything into hyperdrive and knocked it out. It was really a fun process, we’re really proud of how everything came out. 

Awesome, and it is the first-ever full-length for you guys, can you talk about how that was for you guys compared to some of the shorter records you’ve done, in terms of more songs, more content, going into a full-length?

Reese: Well, for me, I feel like I was most affected by having to write content for ten different songs, I never had to do that before, and I had to write them all way faster, so I was like, “Where are these ideas? And how do I elaborate on them?” But yeah, it took three weeks of staying up til 5am to figure it out, but I did it and it’s done, so that feels good.

Worth it in the end. 

Reese: Oh yeah.

Trey: For me, I was in college for the entirety of the band until 2018, so basically, for this LP, I actually had free time with all my other bandmates to write everything all at once, all together, and I think that really comes through in the music. Before, you assemble it in pieces, because college, work, and all this stuff…now, a lot more free time, we dedicate it to the band, and it really shows.

Yeah, you guys are killing it so far, so good job.

Reese & Trey: Thank you.

I’ve noticed some people have been referring to your music as sounding like it has some old-school Swedish death metal influences, it’s a very specific reference, does that ring true for you, is that one of your sources of inspiration?

Trey: Oh yeah, one of the biggest influences is Grave, so it makes complete sense. 

And, for you, Resse, I’ve heard that Creeping Death is actually your first official formal band, but did you have any experience or involvement with music beforehand?

Reese: I mean, I’d been going to shows forever, but no, aside from playing stuff here and there as a kid, I didn’t really do anything before, so I decided to hit up Trey and get something started. Since then, I’ve played bass, guitar, drums…not very well…but yeah, this was my first endeavor and I’m really happy to see where it’s going.

Absolutely, got to ride the wave of it out there. *laughs* And what about you (Trey), what’s your music background?

Trey: I played drums in a hardcore band prior to this, I’ve always been a hardcore kid, but I’ve always been super into Death Metal – I started playing guitar about 2 years before the demo cam out, so I was just kind of going along, and the band has kind of progressed along with my guitar playing skills, still kind of learning as I go. So every day I’m getting better, the more I play, the more I feel comfortable with this, because I still considered myself a drummer, that’s what I think of when I tell people I’m a musician, it’s like, “Oh, I play drums! And…guitar, too.” 

“Oh, and that too, by the way”, *laughs* That’s cool though, you guys are developing things further that you already had in you. Now, I do want to talk about one other “label” I’m hearing people giving Creeping Death, “Runescape-inspired Death Metal”?

Reese: Oh, God bless.

As a former – haven’t played in a long time – but long-time Runescape player myself —

Reese: You played it too? YES!

Trey: Oh, GOD.

— I HAD to ask about this, I had to! *laughs*

Trey: Oh God, here we go!

Reese: YES!! You should play again. So basically, I was unemployed for a month like, two or three years ago and I was like, “Wow, I have literally nothing to do”, so I started playing Runescape again because they re-released the servers from how it was back in 2007.

Oh cool, that was when I was playing it.

Reese: So there’s Runescape 3 and Old-School Runescape…like 78% of the player base is on Old-School, it’s so sick, and it’s awesome, and that’s all of my free time.

So how does that connect in any way with what you’re doing with Creeping Death?

Reese: I like to write about fantasy, that’s what I’m into, so I kind of use some themes from Runescape. I mean, here’s the deal, I write it in a way that it doesn’t sound like it’s about some stupid borderline 16-bit Java-based game from 2007, but I guess you could take some inspiration from it considering I literally wrote the longest song on that album about it. But yeah.

Trey: There’s other topics, though.

Reese: Oh yeah, for sure. There’s one song about Runescape.

Of course! I think it’s well-disguised because when I was listening to the album, I didn’t pick up on anything, but I did read something that said “Runescape-inspired Death Metal”, and I was like, “Oh, I’ve GOT to ask them about this”. 

Reese: *laughs* I can’t tell you how many people took a screenshot of that headline and sent it to me and was like, “Bruh”. 

Trey: I mean, I said “Bruh”, and I’m in the band. Like, dawg, I play sports, I don’t know, what are you doing?

You’re over here saying, “They weren’t supposed to know that part!”

Trey: No, no!

Reese: Ah, let it be known. 

All right, so back to you guys in your touring cycle, you just came off of the RPM fest in Massachusetts, I know that’s a pretty heavy festival, can you talk a bit about how that was?

Reese: That was really, really cool actually, they had three crazy stages, one was in a tent, it was crazy because a band started with two songs left from another band, so you played your intro, and it went from 12 to like…200 people in a heartbeat. In like three measures! So it was really cool, everybody really vibed with it. It was a sick fest, yeah, I had a really good time.

Trey: The locale was also really beautiful, it was really nice pulling into Western Mass and seeing all the trees, playing in the middle of the forest, that was really cool.

Especially for you guys, coming from Texas, a very different scenery and setting there.

Trey: Hot. Flat. That’s about it.

Now, you’ve also got the tour with High on Fire and Power Trip coming up later this year, some thoughts looking toward that?

Reese: Oh, I can’t wait, that’s going to be so sick. We’ve been friends with Power Trip for as long as they’ve been doing it, so it’s really cool to finally go out and get with them. High On Fire is going to be insane, I’m going to yell at Matt Pike a lot, that’s going to be cool. I’m really stoked though, that tour is unreal, it really feels like it’s not real, so we’re excited.

Trey: Yeah, it’s not every day you get to tour with a band that won a Grammy, so it’s crazy, and like Reese said, Power Trip, those dudes have been our homies for a while, so it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Cool. You both mentioned the connection with Power Trip there, and for this record, you also worked with producer Daniel Schmuck, who has produced Power Trip as well, talk about that experience a little, that connection?

Trey: Daniel, he is my boy. I’m actually in another band with him, I play bass in a band he plays guitar in, and but he has recorded every single thing that we’ve done since the demo. So we’ve asked him for more and more each time, and every time, he delivers. I love the production on all of our stuff, you see a marked improvement each time that kind of goes along with the band. This time, he recorded, and Arthur Rizzik mixed and mastered it, he just made an incredible mix, it sounds heavy as hell. It sounds really good, it sounds full and big, and I really like it a lot. 

Reese: Yeah, I’m so happy with the masters.

Awesome, I mean, I’m into it too, so I agree with you guys, it sounds great.

Reese: Sweet. Thank you.

So again, we’re here at Vitus and you’re taking the stage tonight, and just to wrap things up here, what’s on the horizon for Creeping Death?

Trey: Lots of tours. We really just want to keep going as hard as we can.

Reese: Take it as far as it takes us. 

And have fun along the way, right?

Reese: Yeah!

Trey: Exactly, yeah!

Awesome, good stuff. Thank you guys for your time, this was cool.

Trey: Thank you.

Reese: Thank you so much!

Wretched Illusions is available now via the Creeping Death Bandcamp Page and iTunes (affiliate link). Keep up with the band here.