Blackened Horde: How did the band get started?
Yuri: I was at this Bone Sickness show when Sam approached me about jammin’ for the first time. He was planning on moving down to Oakland at the time, so initially we only set out to make a little 4-5 song recording project. Of course, our jams were sick as fuck so we decided to keep going.. Sam knew this metal head guitarist dude named Chase living out in Kent that he said would be perfect. The three of us had a few practices that were all stellar. One weekend that Chase couldn’t make it down to Tacoma to practice we (Sam and I) asked my buddy Adam who plays bass if he wanted to jam some stuff and we ended up writing two songs in about 2 hours. We were playing basically the same music with these two different dudes, so it seemed only natural to combine them.
Sam: We finally found some people who loved desecrating graves at the local cemetery as much as we did.
Blackened Horde: What kind of music do you play?
Sam: We play Death Metal. Tacoma has not had a rich death metal history over the years, even though a few influential extreme metal acts have called Tacoma, WA home (NME being the most prominent). Trepanation is our attempt to change that. Playing Death Metal is our favorite pass time, so, it was only a matter of time until we formed this band.
Blackened Horde: How has the fan response been?
Sam: The response that we have received in the 3 months that we have actually been playing as a real band has been extremely positive (at times overwhelming, even). We just sold out of all 100 hand numbered copies of our “Meticulous Evisceration” cassette. We’re hoping that a label will want to pick it up and re-release it sometime soon (we’re all too broke to do another round).
Blackened Horde: Where did the band name come from?
Sam: The name was Yuri’s doing.
Yuri: My memory is a little fuzzy on its exact origin. Around the time we all started jamming I was taking this class that was all about 17th century witchcraft trials. I spent a lot of time digging around history texts and ended up finding a ton of cool words that I thought would make killer band names. Trepanation just seemed like the coolest one.
Blackened Horde: Introduce the band members and what they do in the band. Who writes the music? Lyrics?
Sam: I’m Sam, I play the drums and do vocals. I generally handle the writing of lyrics.
Yuri: My name is Yuri, I play guitar and do back up vocals. The rest of the band isn’t here right now, but Adam Fanning plays bass and Chase Grillo plays guitar. As far as writing goes we tend to do a good amount of work as a group. A lot of times Chase or I will have a bunch of riffs that are mostly organized and then the rest of the group will help us put it all together and make a few edits. Sometimes Chase and/or I will just write a full song that’s done and ready to go, but this is a little bit rarer of an occurrence.
Blackened Horde: And where do the lyric ideas come from?
Sam: I tend to cover a lot of different territory when writing lyrics. For instance, the second song off of our demo, “Sawn Off”, is my take on what I believe to be the mindset and overall mental state of someone who kills and enjoys the mutilation of their victims, while the lyrics to “Rot in His Image” cover my own feelings about religion and pride in being a blasphemer from birth.
Blackened Horde: What is your view in Satanism and Occultism?
Sam: I began reading the writings of Anton LaVey when I was very young and his words definitely made a profound impact on me. I don’t consider myself a “Satanist” or anything, though.
Yuri: I think that Satanism and Occultism are largely misunderstood and misinterpreted. I was definitely into what I thought Satanism was when I was a lot younger, but the more I’ve read about religion in general, the more I’ve realized I really don’t care.
Blackened Horde: How many albums/CD’s have you released?
Yuri: So far we’ve release our “Meticulous Evisceration” demo onto cassette tape. A split 7″ with Chilean maniacs Putrid Evocation is in the works.
Blackened Horde: Tell me about some the songs on the latest CD?
Yuri: They rule.
Blackened Horde: Do you have any side projects?
Yuri: I have a few other projects I’m working on at the moment. I’m in another killer death metal band with Adam from Trepanation, Tony Wolfe from Owen Hart, and my buddy Andrew Osborne. Its called Burn Pile and it fuckin’ RIPS. A lot of bass, way more technical than Trepanation. I know a lot of people aren’t into the tech things these days, but I could give two shits. Playing hard music is fun. I’m also in a black metal band called Lichen with Adam, Andrew and our friend Gabe. My other band doesn’t have a name yet, but I’m playing drums in a post/punk goth-ish style band with Sarah Moore from Porcelain God.
Sam: Trepanation actually started as a side project to my other band, Bone Sickness. Bone Sickness started in my hometown, Olympia, and has been around since late 2009. Our first full length album, “Alone in the Grave” is coming out on the US-based 20BuckSpin Records in late April. I also play in a Seattle based death metal outfit called “Patibulum”. We just did our first set of recordings and are planning on releasing them as our 7″ debut.
Blackened Horde: Who are some of your musical influences?
Sam: My main influences with Trepanation are mostly early Finnish Death Metal acts like DISGRACE, XYSMA and ABHORRENCE. I have also been listening to a lot of DEAD, DISSECT and early INTERNAL BLEEDING lately, too.
Yuri: For Trepanation i try to channel the vibes from bands like Cannibal Corpse, Considered Dead era Gorguts, Autopsy, Incantation, Immolation, and of course, Morbid Angel. Morbid Angel are probably my favorite death metal band. I like every thing they’ve done except the new album.. divinia whatever the fuck it is. Won’t even touch that. Heretic is one of the albums that got me into death metal in the first place.
Blackened Horde: Which current bands?
Sam: I’m a huge fan of a lot of the death metal coming out of the Bay Area in California (SCOLEX, NECROT, MORTUOUS, DISINHIBITON, etc. etc.). Right now there are some really incredible bands from all corners of the globe (UNDERGANG from Denmark, SWALLOWED from Finland, EATEN ALIVE from Chile, GRAVE RITUAL from Alabama, LIVING DECAY from Georgia, TORTURE RACK from Portland).
Blackened Horde: What is the band like when you play live?
Sam: We’ve only played one show.
Yuri: Hard n’ heavy.
Blackened Horde: Have you guys ever played in another country?
Sam: We’ve only been around for 3 months or so, so we haven’t had the chance to play out of the US yet, but, we hope to play up in Canada soon. Maybe we’ll go overseas? Who knows.
Blackened Horde: How big of crowd shows up at shows usually?
Sam: The only show we’ve played so far was at the “House of Gore” right here in Tacoma and it was killer. A ton of people showed up, everyone got incredibly fucked up and went crazy.
Yuri: Yeah that show was sick as fuck. Bunch of dirty metal heads trashed my house. It was awesome.
Blackened Horde: How is the crowd response when you play?
Yuri: People seemed really into it. Really positive response. Can’t wait to play some more.
Blackened Horde: What do you think of the US Black Metal/Death Metal scene?
Sam: I’m really pleased with the scene here in the US. I can’t say that I’m to up to date with the state of the “Black Metal” scene, but there are a ton of great Death Metal bands that are already established as well as lots of bands that are popping up every week.
Blackened Horde: What do you think of the Overseas scenes?
Sam: I couldn’t really say much about the state of many overseas Death Metal scenes other than that I tape trade with a lot of bands in Sweden/Germany as well as all over Europe and I hope to someday (very soon, I hope) get to experience all of those bands live.
Blackened Horde: When do you guys plan on writing any new material?
Sam: We are constantly writing new material and plan to keep the ball rolling with new releases.
Blackened Horde: What does the future hold for the band??
Sam: Hundreds of trepaned skulls.
Contact them at:
https://www.facebook.com/trepanationusa
http://www.trepanationusa.bandcamp.com/
