Few have been as influential in the world of death metal as Chris Reifert. Scores of young bands take this gore-covered, zombie-crazed genre for granted. They wouldn’t be able to do so without the advances made by Reifert in the late ’80s and early ’90s, first as the drummer for Death and then as the founder of Autopsy. Today, Autopsy continues their murderous musical rampage, unleashing a full scale death metal blitz on their latest album, Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts. We sat down with Reifert to discuss this new album, the rift between punk and metal, and the struggles of touring early on. We also geek out over Queensrÿche, so crack open a cold can of blood and get ready for some “Critical Madness”.
Greetings Chris and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?
Chris Reifert: I’m doing very well! How about yourself?
I’m doing great! It’s an honor to be speaking with you, especially with a ripping new Autopsy album in the wings.
CR: Right on! Awesome man! Have you got to hear the album yet?
Yes, I was lucky enough to get the promo a few weeks back. As soon as I got it, I couldn’t click on it fast enough.
CR: Oh cool! There’s a lot to click from these days, so cool.
The last time we spoke, albeit briefly, was on March 7, 2020 at Reggies in Chicago. It was the last show before the world as we know it essentially ended. Being that this is a Chicago based webzine, who are some of your favorite Chicago bands and what memories of the city stand out to you?
CR: Oh shit man. *laughs* There’s a lot to pick from! I can just start with the ones we’ve played with recently like Cianide, Cardiac Arrest, and Molder. We can go back in time to Master and Death Strike. Fuck man, it’s deep. We love Chicago! We’ve played Reggies like 5 or 6 times now. We keep going back. They keep pulling us back in. It’s a lot of fun. It’s a very metal city, as we all know. The crowds are super cool. Just a bunch of beer drinking, coolass people that wanna fucking check out metal and have fun. Good times every time!
Of course I’m based because I was born and raised here, but that is most definitely the spirit! And like you said, whenever Autopsy plays Reggies, we all come out. Nobody’s missing that show.
CR: Nice, we don’t like to miss shows there either.
Speaking of Molder, they wanted me to tell you they say hi!
CR: Oh! Tell them I say, “Yo!” *laughs*
We are roughly a month away from the release of a brand new Autopsy album, Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts, which is quite the feat considering we’re all still recovering from last year’s onslaught, Morbidity Triumphant. When did things start coming together for this album?
CR: Pretty much beginning of the year-ish. We kind of did the same thing last year that we told ourselves that we wouldn’t, which is to come hot off the heels of playing shows and then immediately dive into an album and book studio time before we’re ready to record, and then force ourselves to get ready to record *laughs*. We did that with Morbidity. We did it again this year. We got done playing a bunch of shows which meant just having the songs from the set on our minds, then having to switch gears and work on new stuff.
We even did the thing you should never do which is to book studio time before you’re even finished writing the album. So we did that, but that’s what kind of makes us go sometimes, deadlines. Looking at your watch and at the calendar and going, “Oh shit! We gotta do this!” Then we do it. Getting back to your actual question, it was probably around the beginning of the year or so that we started seriously getting ready. We gave ourselves a couple months to get in there and do it and pulled it off somehow, again!
It’s incredible considering in today’s day and age, especially with some of the veteran bands, you’re lucky if you get an album every 5 years. Autopsy is spoiling us!
CR: *laughs* We try!
This is the second Autopsy album with bassist Greg Wilkinson. What’s it like having him in the band and how has he impacted the group musically?
CR: Greg’s great! First of all, as far as kicking another album out this year, that used to be normal. Shit, you go back to some earlier decades, like the ‘60s and the ‘70s, bands were putting out 2 albums a year, at least! Then it just sort of dwindled down oddly. When all this technology is at our fingertips, people are doing less and less. Maybe they don’t have to work as hard nowadays? I don’t know. That used to be normal. We’re trying to just keep that thing going, not let ears sail by.
But back to that guy, Greg! Greg’s killer, man. We’ve known him for some years before we ever thought he would be in the band or anything like that. He was always a friendly face we would see in the hallway at the rehearsal building because he has a room right across the hall from us. It was always cool just seeing him around. When he finally got in the band, it was a perfect fit. He’s a super cool person. Super laid back and easy to get along with, easy to jam with. He’s a hell of a bass player too. He not only plays the songs, but he adds his own dimension to them on bass, which is how it should be. It’s great. He’ll fill in some voids where we didn’t know they could be filled in. Very cool!
As always, this album is filled with some of the most repulsive song titles and lyrics on the planet. At this stage in your career, where does the lyrical inspiration come from? Is it movies, literature, real life experiences, perhaps all or none of the above?
CR: It depends on what album you’re talking about. This album is all completely made up stuff, not about movies or comic books or novels or what have you. It’s all just shit I made up. I love that part, having to stretch my brain and think of things that not only I haven’t written before, but anyone else has. A lot of times I’ll come up with a title or something and I’ll search it on the internet. If it’s a title or something a bunch of bands have already used, I’m not gonna do it. We’ll come up with something like “Rabid Funeral” or “Throatsaw” or “Marrow Fiend”. It’s like, “Oh! Those seem to be fair game!” So we stick with those visions *laughs*. It’s a good exercise to keep things fresh.
Expanding upon that last question, looking through Autopsy’s catalog, do the lyrics vary from album to album depending on the music being played? For example, on one hand, you have Mental Funeral, which is an extremely doomy album. On the other, you’ll have Acts of the Unspeakable, which is pure vile insanity. I guess in other words, do you write your lyrics around the music itself?
CR: Actually, yeah! That’s a good question and a valid point. The music is usually there before the lyrics. I might just have a page of song titles I wrote down, just to have in the back pocket and stuff like that, but yeah. I like to listen to the riffs and the music and absolutely go, “These riffs in this song sound like it could be called this. These lyrics would sound good around this atmosphere.” Stuff like that. Yeah, totally. It’s gotta match up.
This album also boasts all the musical elements one would expect of an Autopsy album: The flesh-ripping death, dismal doom, and pissed off punk, the latter’s influence more than evident on the short and anything but sweet “Toxic Death Fuk”. When did you get into punk rock and was it taboo at the time in your scene to be into both metal and punk?
CR: Man, you’re dishing out the good questions here. Honestly, I got into punk around the same time I got into metal. I was into anything fast and aggressive. It all started with the progression as a kid, from being into KISS, Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, AC/DC, Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath. By the way, I’m seeing Alice Cooper tonight. I’m stoked! Then on to Iron Maiden and so on. Once the really fast stuff started coming around, I was all over it.
Metal and punk, anything that had fast drums and fast guitars and all that, so around the same time. Once death metal started coming around, I kind of didn’t care about anything else for some years *laughs*. That was the craziest thing there was, so everything else took a backseat, even though I like certain things. I don’t know man. Just anything aggressive and ripping and fun and fast. That’s always been my thing.
Not to go off topic, but I saw Alice a couple weeks ago myself. You’re in for a treat!
CR: Oh I’m sure! I’m a sucker for all things Alice. I’ll never say anything bad about him. I’ve been into him since I was a little kid and I still am!
You make a great point though about metal getting faster and louder, eventually leading up to death metal because you are somebody who was there at the very beginning. When did you first hear the term “death metal” used to describe a band or sound?
CR: There were a few places I heard it first. It might be a tie because there was, of course, Possessed. I heard the Possessed demo before the album and it had the song “Death Metal” on it. Weirdly enough, there was also a compilation album out called Death Metal that came out in ‘84. It wasn’t really a death metal compilation album. I’ve got it here. Although it’s got Hellhammer, it’s also got Helloween, Running Wild, and Dark Avenger. It’s kind of weird. That was called Death Metal.
And then Onslaught has a song called “Death Metal” on their Power from Hell album, but that’s not a death metal album. It’s kind of confusing. Possessed probably has to wear the crown. They used that term and were death metal. Pretty soon, Chuck (Schuldiner) from Death started using the term “corpsegrinding death metal”, so I don’t know man. It’s a weird fucking cauldron of chaos.
Thinking back to what you asked me a couple minutes ago, it was taboo to be into metal and punk in certain situations. At certain shows, crowds would hate each other. For example, I saw Possessed open for D.R.I. in San Francisco. D.R.I.’s fans threw fucking eggs at Possessed. I was like, “Oh man! What the fuck?!” I wanted to see both of them. It was weird. There were fights and shit like that, but everyone figured shit out eventually. There we go. I had to go backwards in time and answer that for a second.
Speaking of punk, would you ever consider doing Abscess again, even if for one show?
CR: We can’t because Clint (Bower) is not in the picture anymore. He’s faded out. I don’t know whatever happened to him. Without him, we can’t do it, so no. We’re also super busy with Autopsy, so there’s not really any time to think about alternate universe situations or anything like that. We’re just happy we got to do what we did. It’s fun to look back like, “Yeah, that was completely insane.” It’s crazy we’re still alive *laughs*!
Back to Autopsy there’s no shortage of gut-wrenching riffage on here, courtesy of Eric Cutler and Danny Coralles. Off the top of your head, what are some of your favorite riffs in the Autopsy catalog?
CR: I can never pick. Not to sound generic or like a copout, but I love them all. We don’t keep anything we don’t love and bring into the studio and see through. I can’t really answer that. I’m just pretty stoked for all of it. If I listen to a song and I’m like, “Man, we shouldn’t have recorded that.” or “That’s not as good as this song.”, then we’re fucking up.
On that note, I feel like there are some bands who will write 30 songs and pick the best 10, and others who write 10 killer songs and nothing more. Does Autopsy fall into the latter category?
CR: When recording?
Yeah.
CR: We only have enough to record. We never have extras when it comes to writing or anything normally. We have just enough to…like I said, sometimes we book studio time before we’re finished writing, so there’s not a lot of time for excess. We’re lucky if we can see through what we bit off. There’s never B-sides or rarities or whatever floating around that you’ll see in the future. It just isn’t a thing with us.
In other words, fans shouldn’t expect in 20 years, the definitive Autopsy rarities/demo box set?
CR: *laughs* No, no. There’s none of that. It would just be something blank.
The cool thing since Autopsy got back together is that you’ve been able to tour all around the world, which is something that didn’t happen often during the band’s initial run. In fact, Autopsy’s first proper US tour wasn’t until Acts of the Unspeakable. What were the circumstances behind not touring here for Severed Survival or Mental Funeral?
CR: Well we toured for Severed Survival twice. We went to Europe in 1990 twice. We went out for 4 or 5 weeks with Pestilence, Bolt Thrower, and Morgoth. Then, a few months later in that same year, we went out back to Europe for 2 or 3 weeks, whatever it was with Paradise Lost and Benediction on a couple dates, so there was that. We played scattered shows here and there after that. Acts of the Unspeakable, that was the big one, which also destroyed the band *laughs*.
We did a US tour in ‘93 for…fuckin’ hell. Two and a half months? Three months? Something like that. I twas long. It was good and bad. We had some good shows that were killer packed. A lot of funny and goofy shit happened. We had some bummer shows too that no one came to because there was just no promotion. This guy booked this tour for us and he had us zig-zagging all over the country, back and forth. It made no sense. We didn’t know better to say, “Hey, this is dumb. What are we doing?” We just kind of got through it and fucking did our thing.
Also, there was some pretty fun stuff and cool stuff that happened, and some weird shit. We got hassled by the cops quite a few times. Those are funny little stories on their own. Some of it was completely insane *laughs*. That was the one where we got home and were like, “Let’s not do this anymore. I think we’re done.” It’s all part of the experience. There was some funny ass shit that happened too, and some sick shows. It was a mixed bag.
I was curious about your perspective because a few years ago, I interviewed Brad Buldak from Morgue. I recall him saying something along the lines of it being “the best of times and worst of times”, and that one day a movie needs to be made about it.
CR: *laughs* Yeah, that’s not inaccurate! He was there too. Morgue, fuck, they were like 16, 17 years old. They were kids. I can’t believe their parents let them go and do that, but they were fucking hardcore troopers man. They were in the trenches through the best and the worst.
I wanted to ask you about your involvement in a supergroup that I don’t hear enough people mention, The Ravenous. How did that project come together and what are your favorite memories of Killjoy from Necrophagia?
CR: It came together because Necrophagia had reformed and put out their comeback album, Holocausto de la morte. I think I just found it in a record store and bought it like, “Woah! They’re back? Cool! Great! This is fuckin’ sick!” I had been in touch with Killjoy back in ‘86 when I was staying at Chuck’s house in Florida. We actually called him up on the phone because we were getting into the Power Through Darkness demo. We were super into that and just hanging out. Chuck was like, “Let’s call Killjoy!” So we called up and talked to him.
I was a fan and they came back. Somehow I got a hold of him. I can’t remember if I found an email or something, but I just wrote to him like, “Hey man!” Just like, “Hi! I’m glad you’re back!” We just started talking and then were like, “Hey, let’s do a fuckin’ recording or something.” It all just kind of fell into place. He was a lot of fun to hang out with, record with. I’m glad we got to do what we did while we could. Obviously, we can’t again. It was a cool moment in time.
Right on. I love those albums. They’re just pure death metal insanity.
CR: Thank you! We got to play CBGB’s too towards the end, so that was cool.
Was that your first time playing there?
CR: First and only, yeah. They closed not too long after that. Yeah, it was definitely one off the list.
Next year marks the 35th anniversary of what I and many consider to be the greatest death metal album of all time, Severed Survival. Are there any plans to commemorate this milestone?
CR: Not really *laughs*. We still play most of it live these days. I don’t know. We still like those songs. They’re fun to play and they’re ingrained in our minds. I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about that. Now you’re gonna make me think about it. As of now, not really, but we’ll see what happens.
In closing, what are Autopsy’s plans for the end of this year and going into 2024?
CR: Well, we’re playing Mass Destruction Fest in the beginning of November. That’ll be cool. It’s a super good lineup. Fuck, we got Coven, Vulcano from Brazil, Immolation, all sorts of good stuff. We’ve got that. We’re playing Hell’s Heroes Fest in Texas.
I forgot you’re on that lineup!
CR: Yeah, I can’t believe it either. I’m sharing a bill with a lot of bands from my teenaged discovering metal years. Sodom and Queensrÿche and Candlemass and all kinds of stuff. That’ll be completely insane. We got that. There’s another show we just locked in. We’re going somewhere we’ve never been before, but we can’t announce it yet. There’s talk of some other stuff and if all goes well, we’ll go into the studio and work on a new album, but not rush ourselves like last time. We’ll take our time a little bit more, but not too much. That’s it so far. We’re a little bit on the spontaneous side *laughs*. We don’t think about the future too much. We’re very much in the moment.
Queensrÿche doing the EP and The Warning in full no less. Man.
CR: Dude, yeah. That’s like…that’s good shit *laughs*! When I was a young lad in the very, very early ‘80s, that Queensrÿche EP was one of the early discoveries. It was like, “Oh fuck!” To hopefully be able to see that live, depending on scheduling and all that, man, that would be incredible. I’ve never seen Sodom before after all these years. That should be pretty amazing. They’ve been a favorite since I was 15. Yeah, it’s gonna be cool. I’m super excited!
The new Autopsy album, Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts, is available now on Peaceville Records. For more information on Autopsy, visit www.facebook.com/p/Autopsy-Official-100050176223094/.