your question:

02/22/2024 Byron Dunbar

Do you differentiate between speed metal, thrash metal, and death metal? I hear Trey Spruance describing the Raging Wrath stuff as death metal, but he also uses the terms speed and thrash interchangeably with it while you seem to either go with just metal or speed metal to describe your current output.

my answer:

When we were growing up in the ‘80s it was just metal. Then came Speed and Thrash, then Death. I think we sort of used those terms interchangeably because it was such a small world back then, all overlapping. I would still call The Raging Wrath Speed or Thrash, I suppose and I’m not really sure what the difference is. The nature of the subgenres has become so diverse in metal that I’ve lost track of what is supposed to be what. We were certainly influenced by bands like Possessed and Venom when we wrote that music and I guess you could say those are early prototypes of Death Metal — maybe a song like Sudden Death has more hints of Death Metal in it, but to me it’s just easier to say metal. When the guy next to me on a plane asks what kind of band I play in I usually say “a rock band”.