Death Dealer: A Conversation with Choosing Death Author and Decibel Editor Albert Mudrian

In 2004, Albert Mudrian’s Choosing Death: The Improbable History Of Death Metal & Grindcore hit bookstores tits-first. Following the genesis of the twin (and often incestuous) genres from far-flung locales like Florida, England, Sweden and Flint, Michigan to the world stage of major labels, MTV and semi-mass appeal madness via over a hundred interwoven interviews with key figures, the tome quickly became the definitive account of extreme metal’s origins. Fast forward to right about now: Mudrian has unveiled an all-new hardcover edition of Choosing Death, featuring tons of new material (including three additional chapters), a killer redesign courtesy of Decibel art director Bruno Guerreiro, and gloriously retro cover art by legendary death metal album-cover artist Dan Seagrave. “It’s Choosing Death on steroids,” Mudrian enthuses. “You could squash a bug with the original, but you could break somebody’s fuckin’ nose with the new one. This is what the book always should have been.”

Mudrian is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Decibel, the highly influential monthly metal magazine that first appeared the same year as Choosing Death. In the interest of full disclosure or whatever: I’ve been writing for Decibel since issue one, and a few of my photographs appear in Choosing Death (I was not paid for them, so I have no financial interest in the book). But if I have a vested interest in this interview—and I obviously do—it’s that I believe wholeheartedly in what Albert is doing for so much of the music we both love.

NOISEY: How soon after the first edition of Choosing Death was published did you know that you wanted to update it?
Albert Mudrian: From the day I got my finished copy of the original version and flipped through it and saw some mistakes, I thought, “I really hope I get to fix this shit someday.” Presumably, that would be through an updated version. I mean, I was aware that history continues and there’d be more stuff to write about, but it depended on whether anyone gave a shit about the original book in the first place. After a couple of years, when it was clear that they did and the book would have an extended shelf life, I figured I’d have the opportunity at some point. But then Decibel took on a life of its own and its demands increased every year. And when I started a family, it seemed like it would probably never get done.

You’ve said that the Carcass and At The Gates reunions were pretty much the tipping point when you knew you had to update the book.
Yeah, those were the big ones. But there were other things leading up to it in terms of subgenres like technical death metal and retro death metal really solidifying themselves as movements. Then Carcass and At The Gates announced almost simultaneously that they were gonna start playing live again. At first, there was no promise at all of new records—in fact, in At The Gates’ case, there was a promise of no records—but it turned out to be that it wasn’t the case at all. But that was what, 2007? I didn’t start working on the new material until 2013. That was when my wife and I found out she was pregnant with our second child, so I knew that it was now or never. Or at least now or five to six years from now—and that seemed like too long to wait.

Legendary death metal album-cover artist Dan Seagrave did a killer piece for the cover for the new edition. What was your plan B if he wasn’t available?
[Laughs] There was none. It was gonna be Dan Seagrave or it was gonna be the same fuckin’ cover from before. But I really didn’t have a plan B. I interviewed Dan for the original book, but I didn’t meet him in person until about a year ago, when I was about six or seven months into this new version. I did my best to contain my fanboy-ism—and failed miserably—but I just floated the idea to him. I wanted the cover to have the feel of his early record covers, and he had this idea to make it a kind of prequel combination of [Morbid Angel’s] Altars Of Madness, [Entombed’s] Clandestine and Left Hand Path and [Dismember’s] Like An Everflowing Stream. When he started sending me progress shots, I must’ve forwarded them to every death metal nerd I grew up with, like, “This is what’s happening now!” He did an incredible job. And he’s gonna be at the Decibel table at Maryland Deathfest this year, hopefully with prints of “Origins Of Madness,” which is the title of the painting.

Choosing Death has a unique relationship with its subject matter in that the original book actually inspired some of the events that you write about in the updated version. For instance, former Entombed drummer Nicke Andersson was inspired to start the band Death Breath by reading Choosing Death while on tour with his decidedly non-metal band the Hellacopters. The book itself played a part in the history you’re writing about. Is that a strange position to be in?
It’s weird, yeah, and I’m not entirely comfortable talking about it. But what you’re saying is certainly true in the case of Nicke Andersson. When I started to write what essentially became the first new chapter of the book, I kind of started with the formation of Death Breath—which was a little meta, I guess—but it just seemed like the right way to do it. I know what you’re saying as far as the book playing a part, but I think things were heading that way anyway. Maybe Choosing Death accelerated that pace with some of these people. But it’s flattering, obviously, to know that someone who influenced you so greatly at a period in your life has read something you’ve written—even if it’s just about their own history—that has gone and influenced them to do something.

It’s not like Nicke was the only musician from death metal’s old guard affected by the book. If you ask Scott Carlson from Repulsion why he thinks there’s been such a massive resurgence of interest in his band over the last ten years, he’ll give two reasons: Albert Mudrian and the Internet. And he’d be right on both counts.
[Laughs] I think the book definitely helped bring more attention to some of the more unsung bands of the movement, and Repulsion would definitely be one of those bands. I think Siege would be another one. Those bands are on the radar of a lot more people now, but I really believe that would’ve happened anyway. A big part of that is Scott’s number two reason, which is the Internet. Nothing can be obscure anymore. Again, maybe Choosing Death accelerated that, but to be fair: Relapse reissued [Repulsion’s] Horrified about a year before Choosing Death came out. The book may have been a catalyst [for people’s interest], but that’s what it was supposed to do. The book was meant to acknowledge this music, what it means, and where it came from. And it did that, so to me it’s a success.

That attitude has obviously carried over to Decibel. I think a lot of people would agree that the magazine has been hugely influential in terms of taste making and driving the conversation about metal over the last 11 years.
I’m trying to use my powers for good more than ever before. We’ve got Noisem on the cover of the new issue, and Lucifer on the cover of the issue after that. After 11 years, we’ve put ourselves in a position where we can do things like that without worrying about negative long-term ramifications. If anything, there’s only positive long-term ramifications as far as I’m concerned. And I wanna do more of that—putting my money where my mouth is. When I say we really like a band, we don’t just really like them for five minutes. If they’re good, we’re gonna stick by them and do everything we can to make sure people hear them. It isn’t even necessarily some kind of an agenda or anything. Our job is to tell people about cool stuff, expose them to cool stuff, and to do it in the coolest way possible. That’s why we had Noisem in the opening slot of the Decibel tour in 2014, and then they had a flexi disc in the magazine. And now they’re in a position where we can get a little brazen and do a cover story. If you’re a reader of the magazine, you’re obviously a follower of this movement, and you can see how that makes sense. That’s how this stuff moves forward. So I guess there is an agenda in that respect, but it’s not super calculated.

In the past you’ve said that you don’t ever see the print version of Decibel going away, even in this hyper-digitized age. As an old fart who still prefers printed magazines, I found that reassuring. But I gotta ask: How the fuck is that possible?
[Laughs] I think there’s two things that we have going for us. One, we’re a niche publication, which are the only publications that can survive in this climate. Two, the niche we’re in is probably [comprised of] the most dedicated music consumer there is. Metalheads are probably the most deeply invested music fans there are, and they’re also collectors. They want tangible goods. And I think there’s a real honesty and understanding between us and our audience. I think our readers can pick up the magazine and feel, “This really is for me.” Not in a serial killer way, like “He’s talking to ME!”—though we do have an alarming number of incarcerated subscribers—but in the sense that we really do know our audience and we know what they want.

We never had an aspiration to have a circulation of 500,000 copies or anything like that. And that was before we knew that wouldn’t be a sustainable business model eleven years down the line. It’s a metal magazine. It’s what we like. It’s what we know. And I think our audience appreciates that. So we’ll put Noisem on the cover. We’ll put Lucifer on the cover. But at the same time, our audience probably knows they’re gonna get a Slayer cover at some point. And they like that, too. To somebody invested in this kind of music, that’s a pretty diverse approach to making magazines. It seems like people appreciate that, based on what we’ve been able to accomplish.

As you mentioned, the Decibel crowd is largely a collector crowd. You’re contributing to that impulse now with the Decibel flexi disc series. Was there a noticeable increase in subscriptions and/or sales when you started including flexis with the mag?
Yeah, and it was almost immediate. But the truth is we didn’t know if it would be a sustainable thing because flexis are very expensive to produce. When we started the series, we had Scion on board as a sponsor for the first disc. It was my hope that they’d sign up for a year of flexis and we’d be able to save on the production costs. But they only did the one, so we had to figure shit out. We got sponsors here and there and signed some contracts to keep it going. It turned out it was a gamble worth taking, because people are really excited about the flexis. And you potentially open yourself up to a whole new audience with a flexi. Like, people might seek out the issue with the Pallbearer flexi because they’re Pallbearer fans. Maybe they weren’t familiar with Decibel before that and they accidentally fall in love with us and continue to buy it or tell more people about it. Whenever we come out with a flexi from an established band or a particularly cool new band, we get tweets and comments from people going, “How did I miss the first five years of this?”

I recently did an interview with NPR about the resurgence of flexi discs, and my favorite part of the entire piece is when the writer acknowledges us as the first major flexi publisher, I guess you would call it, and then says that Jack White and Dave Grohl followed in our footsteps. That was very satisfying.

Sounds like things are going great. So when am I getting a raise?
Wait a minute, you write for Decibel too?

J. Bennett has been writing for Decibel for 11 years and is still broke.