During the most lengthy hiatus in recent memory, Indestructible Noise Command was in danger of becoming a once-successful band that time had forgotten. In 2010, they made their triumphant, violent return to the metal world, and everything has been trending up since. Fresh off the release of their newest album "Terrible Things," we sat down with guitarist and ideaman Erik Barath
D.M.: Let’s start with how you feel about “Terrible Things.” How does it separate itself from your previous albums, and what’s on there that fans won’t have heard from you before?
ERIK BARATH: On Terrible Things, we went back to our roots. It’s really a pure, old school thrash album so the fans that have been with us from the start will find it a familiar road they are traveling upon.
D.M.: It seems there’s less of the groove we saw on “Heaven Sent… …Hellbound,” (or “Black Hearse Serenade,”) and what feels like a return to traditional thrash – what made you go that way?
EB: Our music is dictated by whatever flows out of me. I just wrote “Fist Go Rek” and that opened a doorway in me. The rest of the album just followed that track as if it were an out of control freight train. We are very comfortable with where we are right now. I think we’ll live here for a while.
D.M.: As you’ve gotten a little older, has the thrash writing process changed for you? You can’t be the same person you were twenty years ago. What’s your headspace like when you’re writing?
EB: Well now with the digital age, we don’t have to all cram into some dank rehearsal space and try and hash out a song. I can now record the song complete in my little studio and the boys just run with it from there. Much easier.
D.M.: One of the things that I appreciate about Indestructible Noise Command the most is your incorporation of the piano or a classical overture to enhance the sense of the moment – where does that come from? What’s your influence in those moments?
EB: That probably comes from my first obsessions in music, which were Queen and The Beatles. Those bands showed there are no restriction or rules to rock n roll. You can make any other style or genre fit if you are clever enough and I love the challenge of making all the styles I love and feeling streaming through me fit together in one neat package.
D.M.: I believe I described the lyrics of “Identifier” as “deliriously random.” It’s the album’s best song (one man’s opinion,) but what’s going on there?
EB: The song focuses on the madness following the 2016 elections so at the surface it’s political, but I approached it with poetic comedy. You will get it if you read between the lines. I left it as a bit of a puzzle.
D.M.: Talk about your band’s guitar tandem. It’s one of the great pairs working today – if you were to compare them to the great metal tandems of then and now, whose company are you in?
EB: Oh I don’t know, Anthony [Fabrizi] and I are so different from each other and I especially from anyone else because I have no proper training, I know no theory so I learned to play my own way, which at times is unorthodox and chaotic, I think that’s why it works and has the sound it does.
D.M.: Once and for all – what happened that the band decided to go on hiatus in the first place?
EB: We had some really solid success with our first two albums in the mid-‘80s and wanted to get with a bigger label that could get us to the next level. Epic Records offered to sign us, and the deal was worked out and ready to sign when the head of A&R got fired. Our deal got cancelled. Then time just kept passing and we were lost at sea with wind in our sails. Being we were just over 20 years of age, we started fighting with each other and eventually called it quits.
D.M.: INC now has more albums post-hiatus than pre-hiatus. What does that feel like? Does it feel like you’ve crossed a threshold?
EB: It feels great. We actually feel like we’re at the top of our game and getting better. I have new material written already for the next record and it will be massive.
D.M.: What changed in the industry that made it the right time to end your hiatus and begin the second phase of your career?
EB: Oh, the industry sucks more than ever, it wasn’t that. I just started writing and it just started sounded better and better and it sparked the fire in the band. We do this for us and for the hard core fans that are still with us. The industry is a nightmare these days. And by Industry I don’t just mean record companies, I mean the overall business. It’s a money pit and recouping is harder than ever.
D.M.: Describe your hiatus as it relates to the band members – was there ever a falling out, or was everyone on board no matter how long it took?
EB: There had been talk of [a comeback] for years and years but it was always presented as getting together and playing some shows and I wanted to do a full comeback with new material, the whole 9 yards. It wasn’t until I started writing that it all clicked.
D.M.: As you look around in the modern version of a genre you helped foster, who gets it right in your opinion? Who are the young thrash bands that are carrying on the torch properly?
EB: Municipal Waste are very cool. Kinda has the fun thrash thing that we were doing back in the ‘80s. Havok is a really solid thrash band as well. I am sure there are others that slipped my mind. The thrash scene is always pretty healthy with newbies carrying the torch.
D.M.: Okay, I gotta know – your band is from Connecticut and your bass player is Dave Campo. Now, the Dallas Cowboys used to have a head coach named Dave Campo, and he’s from Groton, Connecticut. Is there a relation there? How many Campos can be there in such a small state?
EB: You know I have no idea [laughs]. I wish, he could hook us up with some sweet tickets [laughs].
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