The term “Jungle Rot” refers to the infection of the feet, which normally happened during jungle wars, such as the U.S. war in Vietnam. So, it’s no surprise that the guys in the Kenosha, WI band Jungle Rot would include album titles like “Warzone” and “What Horrors Await” through their nearly 20 year career in the death metal world.
The band, founded in 1994 by Dave Matrise, the band has delivered an intense and pummeling brand of death metal that kept the band in the hearts and minds of the hardcore death metal faithful. After self releasing their past two albums, the band hooked up with Victory Records last year to help give the band to set a new path for the band after all of these years and released their eighth album, “Kill On Command” last summer.
The album is full of full assault ragers like “Rise Up & Revolt” and “Blood Ties” and shows those signs that the band has hit a creative resurgence and passion that has only intensified over the years. Jungle Rot will be embarking on one of their biggest tours in years as they open for death metal legends Deicide through March and April for an evening of punishing music.
A few weeks before to the start of the tour, I had a chance to speak with Matrise about the band’s latest album and what is coming next for the band.
Here’s my interview with Dave:
AM: How has the reaction to “Kill on Command” been since it’s release?
DM: I think it’s been the best we’ve had ever. Working with Victory Records has helped us big time on this album; it’s nice to have a label who makes you a priority and cares about the band moving forward. We did a tour with Immolation last fall, which went really well and can’t wait for this Deicide tour coming up.
AM: How do you see this album being different from the past few albums lyrically and musically?
DM: We went back to what we do best: making leads a much bigger part of the songs than previously. With the past couple of albums, it was pretty much straight forward aggression. When we got back to doing those leads and got into the flow of things, the songs just started to pop and it really came together quickly at that point. Lyrically on the fast ones, we pretty much killed everybody (laughs), there were no more people to kill. But there are some of the usual war & gore songs on there as well too, but we wanted to show some variety on this album as well.
AM: The band is back on a label for the first time in several years- do you prefer life on a label versus self releasing an album?
DM: Looking back at those albums, those last albums were a joke. The last time we had a real label was when we were on Century Media years ago and Victory has shown us a lot of respect and feel like things are going well again.
AM: Given the state of the music industry and touring, how has the band coped with life on the road?
DM: It’s still the same to me. Touring is generally going to be the same for us. The whole music industry in itself is wild and intense. There is so much competition to get on tours, things are so cut-throat and you just try to deal with the whole scene out there. But given the industry, I always say that we’re more in the t-shirt business than the record sale business (laughs).
AM: How does the band keep sane when on the road?
DM: When we are on the road and being cramped up in a van all day, we try to give each other space and know when we get to a venue, everybody has their own jobs to do. I keep busy doing lots of press and doing some book reading while out there.
AM: How far ahead is the band on material for the next album?
DM: We’ve got 4 songs in the demo stage at this point and will continue to write more before and after this upcoming tour. We are going to hope to have the next album out probably later this year.
AM: What can fans expect from the set opening for Deicide?
DM: I think it’s gonna be us doing what we do best. We have a 40 minute set on this tour and we’ll be pushing the new stuff, but there will be some of the old ones for fans to get into.
Jungle Rot opens for Deicide at Blondie’s on Friday, March 9th. Tickets are $20 and are available at ticketmaster.com. Additional tour dates and band info can be found at www.victoryrecords.com/junglerot.
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