OVERKILL - Blitz Interview Page 2
by Martin Popoff

"Because there was a period in there prior to these guys, let's say, taking the reins, and guys like ourselves, who were cut from Priest and Motorhead, and D.D. (Verni) and I were cut a little bit from the Ramones and the Dead Boys, and there was a whole period in time in there when people invented the shit on their own. They were cut from nobody (laughs). And I just never really understood. But now that bridge has been crossed by bands like Lamb Of God coming out and saying, 'Yeah, this is the stuff we listened to growing up, and that's why we are doing what we do now.' Very cool."

And Bobby's right. If you figure the big thrash bands experienced their biggest exposure and sales from say '86 to '92, well, right at that point you had the last year of grunge, then hard alternative, rap metal, doom, stoner rock, nu-metal, black metal, power and progressive metal. Then came melodic death, metalcore and a slightly nuanced newer incarnation of both of those, a snapback to purity one might call neo-thrash. If there's a distinction in that trio there (or none at all), Blitz is right: these are the first people who cite and demonstrate a direct influence from the likes of Overkill.

Who, as we've alluded to, have birthed a new album, Immortalis, which, butted up next to the last one ReliXIV, Blitz calls, "Cohesive. One track to the next, as opposed to a collection of songs. I think that's what makes a good record as opposed to a record. You know, the last record, obviously we don't leave the studio unless we're proud of it and digging what we're doing. But you don't really get the full picture until after the production is done. Is it cohesive or not cohesive? And whereas ReliXIV might not have been cohesive - I'm going to take it a step further and say it was not cohesive - this is. And what I mean by that is, with one song missing, whether it be 'Walk Through Fire' or 'Hell Is' or 'Overkill V', it's not a complete record. So I think what we accomplished on this record was to completely write a full record."

OVERKILL - Blitz Interview Page 3