We formed in mid '95 as a four-piece with one guitar, then added a second guitarist a year later to widen our musical possibilities. We are essentially a Death Metal band but our music doesn't follow the trends or familiarities associated with Death Metal, we take influence from many different styles of metal, not just one.
Can you name your recordings and how did the recording process of those worked out?
So far we've recorded and released two demo tapes, Tyranny of Hatred ('96) and Nightfall ('97). The first demo was recorded on a digital 8 track, it came out pretty poor but it was our first effort, it was passable. Our second demo was recorded using 16 track digital and mixed at one of our network radio & television stations. It came out pretty cool, and the response we received from this demo was excellent, we shifted seven times as many copies of this demo as we did our first one.
Go in more to the music, what is the inspiration for the band ?
When we write music, we try to give it an epic feel, or sometimes make it really heavy, not a speed orientated heavy, an often slow, overwhelming groove type of heavy, something that will inspire you to get up and bang your head. We take inspiration from music that instils an emotional response in us. Basically we judge our music on how it makes us feel when we play it in the rehearsal room. If it feels good….Play it!
Talk about the support to the band from media so far in terms of reviews etc. has it been good or bad?
Australia isn't really willing to acknowledge the existence of metal, it's all Indy crap around here. Although there is a growing underground scene, the media is slow to catch on. Occasionally you'll get a review of a metal gig in our local weekly entertainment guide, we've had three reviews in there and they've all been really good, but we were lucky. Metal is still fairly underground here, it didn't used to be that way, the local metal scene used to crank a few years ago, but it just sort of died in the ass for some reason. It's slowly rebuilding itself though.
Talk about the liveshows you have done so far, what has been the best and the worst moment on stage any great memories?
We've done about 35 live shows and they seem to get better. There have been some real shockers though, I can remember one gig where our drummers double-kick pedal kept falling apart half way through every fucking song and we'd have to stop while he fixed it each time, that really trashed all the impact of our songs, but shit happens. The greatest memory I have is of a gig we headlined back in February ('98) to Launch our new demo at the time, Nightfall. We played to over 400 locals, which is four times bigger than any local crowd we had ever played to. The energy was so intense, everyone was getting right into it….Best 45 minutes of my life.
Which bands would you compare Pathogen with ?
In the early days of Pathogen, while we were all still in high school, we used to take inspiration from bands like Carcass and Sepultura but these days we listen to a lot of European bands like Opeth, Dissection, Cradle of Filth, Naglfar and In Flames, although we often return to our 'roots' as far as our music goes. There is no one style of metal we subscribe to, it's the music we've enjoyed throughout our lives that makes it true to us.
What are your plans for the coming months and year ? Any tour plans ?
At the moment we are just working on some new material, it's been a while since we've written anything. I can't wait to put out this new release, we're pretty proud of what we've got so far. We are going to use this next recording to try and secure some record label backing. After it's all recorded and released, we'll do some pretty extensive touring around our Western Australia. Maybe think about touring the Eastern states, but it depends what kind of response we get from this new recording
Anything else that you wish to add or say to the visitors of SMI ?
Stay heavy and speak your mind!