The band are between labels at the moment and are writing a follow-up to their 2011 debut.  They have a few label offers on the table right now, but are taking their time in making their decision due to concentrating on the new material and some shifts in their line-up.  The band has a boatload of merchandise and have opened for some major acts, already.  If you love death metal played as brutally as possible, but with a sense of purpose and catchiness you really need to add Ingesting Putridity to your collection at once.  It is one of the best releases, in brutality, these ears have heard over the last several years.  So get a bushel of crabs, turn off the Ravens and read my interview with Travis Werner, from Visceral Disgorge.

Since the release of your debut cd, over 2 years ago, what has transpired in the Visceral Disgorge camp?

We hit a rough spot a few months back if anyone remembers. We have taken a pretty hard blow with our drummer Dan leaving to pursue his education and just a few weeks later one of the founding members Eric (one of our guitarist) decided that it was time to part ways as well, due to some personal reasons; he no longer had the time. So me and the other guitarist Steve found a bassist (finally, our first), a new drummer and a new guitarist. Currently everything is going well. The new lineup is working out great! We get together 2x a week and we are working on our 2nd new song. We hope to have 8 songs ready for studio sometime in 2014. Our contractual obligations to our record label have expired and we are currently shopping around for another. Labels like Relapse/Prosthetic and MetalBlade came highly recommended by our merchandising representatives at indiemerch. Our goal is to write,record,find a suitable label, and jump on a national tour as direct support/support within a years time(hopefully) give or take. At the moment  there are 5 labels interested in signing us for a follow up to Ingesting Putridity. We are taking our time and holding out until we finish writing the new material for the best offer. New merch will also be available soon so everyone hold tight!

How is the writing going for a sophomore album and do you think 2014 will be  the release of the album? How does the newer material sound, compared to the debut?

Writing is going well. We are working on the music and arrangement for our 2nd new song right now. The newer material still has a lot of the same elements as Ingesting Putridity, however we have gotten a lot faster with the addition of our new drummer.

How/when did you discover you could do such low guttural vocals and how do you think you can expand on your vocals?

I guess I discovered that a long time ago when I tried to emulate bands like Napalm Death and Cannibal Corpse back in the mid 90’s. As far as singing I can sing and emulate various types of styles and have done so with various local bands in the past 16 years including crust punk, black metal, grindcore, thrash etc.

The cover of Ingesting Putridity is truly exceptional! What is the theme around the cover and how it ties in with the lyrics?

Thanks; the concept was my idea and the artist Tashihiro Egawa brought it into life over the span of a couple months. I just wanted something sick. Humanoid like figures transmutating and being consumed. I mentioned the idea of the John Carpenter movie The Thing as an example. The artworks only correlation is with the album title as opposed to lyrical content.

What’s with all the crazy song titles and violent lyrics?  Are they more fantasy driven or do you believe in what you write about?

The lyrics are fucked up I agree … I personally wrote them. However death metal lyrical content has or was never meant to be taken seriously. Its the natural progression of the style. You had bands like Cannibal Corpse writing similar lyrics 25 years ago, with such classics as ” I Cum Blood” and “Stripped, Raped and Strangled” etc. Death metal essentially is about death and all the unsettling things that the human mind can conceive. Even bands who had a change of heart with lyrical content….bands  like Dying Fetus for example, still to this day (20 years later) bare the name that reflects the mentality of the death metal scene. Death metal has always had a tough time struggling because it is kind of a moral or social stigma. It’s not intended for the easily offended!

You guys have been fortunate enough to get on a lot of killer gigs, opening for great bands, like Wormed, Deceased, Dying fetus, etc…, has this done wonders for your fan base?

Well someone like yourself I’m sure can relate, it depends a lot on the people you know, the contacts you accumulate and the amount of promotion. I think that the fests we have played(MD Death Fest IX ,Las  Vegas death fest, Metal Domination fest in Puerto Rico, New York death fest etc.) have all been awesome, I want to set our sights on trying to land a fest in Europe.

When performing you wear a baseball hat. Do you have a different hat for different live shows and why wear a baseball hat when you sing?

No I don’t have a secret stash of baseball hats. Although, our guitarist Steve and drummer Bill have an array of asinine hats they wear to practice on occasion lol. I just stick to the baseball caps. I wear them a lot when it’s hot outside to keep my long hair from sticking to my face, neck and mouth it irks the shit out of me and the same goes for onstage(most of the time)

You do a lot of promoting for the band, with merchandise, gigs etc…do the other band members help out and how can the scene in Maryland be promoted more?

I am the one who handles all of the booking, designing, merch, public relations, promotions etc. the other guys don’t really help with that. As far as the Md. scene goes I think if more Md. bands got out there and started being more active outside Md would help, but it’s hard even for us sometimes… unless you work directly with an agency. I think MDF does a good job at bringing attention to Md. especially from the industries top acts and agencies.  I also think (for bands/labels) a healthy promotions budget couldn’t hurt. I am actually looking into a PR agency now. People are under the impression if they post something on facebook once then that’s “promoting” haha. I played in my first bands and had my experience playing venues before the internet existed so I learned the hard way of how to promote our shows. The internet is convenient for promoting if used properly, besides facebook I post to all other social media and even to craigslist in the musicians section and email the city paper events and anyone else who I think may be able to spread the word. Also I don’t think most fans realize the power of word of mouth and what a integral part of the equation they are for the bands they support. SUGGEST/TELL YOUR FRIENDS, REPOST EVENTS,INTERACT ON BAND PAGES, GO TO SHOWS, BE PROACTIVE IN THE SCENE etc. is all very crucial!

Your style of music is best defined as brutal slam death metal.  You know how much I love your debut cd and part of that is due to you guys writing memorable songs that have depth to them. How difficult is it for you guys to do that and separate yourselves from the rest of the brutal death metal scene?

Most of the material comes pretty natural to everyone. Theoretically we could probably write an album in a couple months time, but we like to weigh our options with everything take our time with the arrangements and sometimes play a part a few different ways until we find the most brutal way to play the part in question. The more thought we put into something the less “cookie cutter” it will sound. We have all grown as musicians and finally have a solid lineup everyone has great ideas and we recently started messing around with some stuff that’s a little “techier sounding” so some of that will be present in the new material.

Outside of the band, what do you do for work and how often do you guys practice together as a band?

I have been doing commercial electric for the past few years. We get together 2x a week most of the time. Unfortunately, we can’t get together any more than that because our drummer plays in another band

Do you do any vocals exercises and how do your vocals hold up when playing several days in a row, in a live setting?

I shredded my vocal chords in my early band days. As a teenager I learned the techniques that I still utilize today. Of course over the years I have picked up some tricks to the trade so to speak. My voice holds up pretty well on a day to day basis. I’m pretty sure my body would give out before my voice does haha.

Any tours planned for the winter or 2014?

I guess that all depends on a couple different things. We were contacted by Ingested from the UK to do a full U.S. tour in 2014 which we were considering , but that kind of fell through on their end with the booking agency. If everything goes according to plan with writing/label/promo campaign and I contact the right people I don’t see why we wouldn’t honestly. It’s all about the right timing.

How far do you want to take Visceral Disgorge?  5 years down the line where do you want to see the band go?

Ideally I would like to take the band as far as possible….Europe, Asia, South America etc. As long as there are fans who support and care about Visceral Disgorge I will milk this motherfucker for everything it’s worth. I would like to see a total death metal resurgence and I hope we can play a role in contributing.

Any final comments/thoughts for the readers?

Thanks for the interview and the support. Thanks to all our fans world wide and people who have supported us over the past couple years. Go check out and grab some gear over at our official merchandise page at:

www.indiemerch.com/visceraldisgorge

https://www.facebook.com/visceraldisgorge

http://www.last.fm/music/Visceral+Disgorge

http://www.purevolume.com/VisceralDisgorge

http://www.reverbnation.com/visceraldisgorge

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=1203030

https://twitter.com/VisceralDisgorg

http://www.youtube.com/visceraldisgorge