Blotted Science
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Instrumental music is an area of music where a free form jam session ventures into uncharted territories and unique ideas begin to evolve. It takes musicians with solid chops and a real connection between the players involved to create something special.
Blotted Science was created by Ron Jarzombek, the veteran guitarist who is best known for his work in Watchtower and Spastic Ink. He collaborated with Cannibal Corpse bassist Alex Webster in creating an instrumental record that introduced a technical death metal style with Jarzombek’s technical guitar style. The two of them, along with Behold…the Arctopus drummer Charlie Zeleny rounding out the trio, have created music that challenges how extreme music and instrumental music is viewed.
Jarzombek talked about the origins behind Blotted Science, its unique sound, and whether its growing fanbase will get to witness the band live.
Blistering.com: Where did the idea behind Blotted Science come from? Was the final result anything close to your original idea behind the project?
Ron Jarzombek: The initial idea was pretty much mine. I wanted to go in a heavier direction musically but still retain the progressive, technical edge of my previous albums. Really the thing that gave me the kick to Blotted was because I got tired of all the other cookie cutter prog metal out there. I wanted to do something that was challenging and different and would stand out from what I call ‘keyboard metal’, which is all these bands that think they’re progressive but are really not. And, yes, I’m pretty happy with the end result – I think we all are – especially considering the detours and delays involved with drummers dropping out and having to do this long distance. Charlie, Alex and I met for the first time ever a few weeks ago at the NAMM Show!
Blistering.com: How differently did you approach the writing behind Blotted Science, versus the Spastic Ink material?
RJ: Well, the second Spastic Ink album, Ink Compatible, was pretty much a solo thing where I did everything, whereas Blotted was a collaboration with Alex (Webster) from the get-go, kind of like the first Spastic Ink album was with my brother Bobby which is what I was looking for. It wasn’t a total 50/50 thing but Alex’s input was really important because it helped shape the direction from the ground up.
Blistering.com: You brought in Alex Webster, who is well known as the bassist in Cannibal Corpse. How did you bring him into the project? Were you a Cannibal Corpse fan?
RJ: I wasn’t a Cannibal fan per se, mainly because death metal vocals still give me trouble, but I respected their musicianship a lot – those guys are great players. Watching a video of “Frantic Disembowelment” is actually what made me want to work with Alex. He blew me away! So I posted a message on the Spastic Ink/Watchtower forum to see if anyone knew Alex and about a week or so latter I got an e-mail from Alex himself. A friend of his had seen my posting and let him know about it. Luckily, Alex was not only into working with me also had the necessary time to do it so we started sending sheet music and mp3s back and forth and began the writing process.
Blistering.com: You went through a few drummer candidates before settling on Charlie Zeleny. Was it tough to find a drummer that fit the project? How did you find Charlie?
RJ: It wasn’t so much finding a drummer but finding a drummer that stuck! When I started to write for Blotted originally, I had Chris Adler (Lamb of God) in mind because he was gonna be the drummer at the time. But then he had to bow out because his schedule with LoG simply did not allow him to set aside enough time to do this project properly. And he didn’t want to hold us back either so we parted ways. Alex then brought up Derek Roddy from Hate Eternal who was all into it at first. But then the recordings didn’t progress in a timely manner because Derek had other things going on, plus he wanted to change around the drum parts too much which I wasn’t into because they were already written for the most part. So Derek ended up quitting as well. The Dysrhythmia guys then turned me onto Charlie Zeleny from Behold….The Arctopus who turned out to be the perfect fit. Charlie is not only a slammin’ drummer, he can also read music and communicates really well which was essential for Blotted Science since we all recorded our parts separately. As they say: “Everything happens for a reason.”
Blistering.com: The music behind Blotted Science features a lot of wild time signatures that is not common for most music listeners. Where do you find the inspiration towards writing this style of music?
RJ: Well, I did immerse myself into Lamb of God and Cannibal Corpse quite a bit because I wanted those elements in Blotted along with what comes natural to me. So I listened to and studied that stuff in order to get into the proper mindset for the writing. But, progressive music has also been a major influence of mine going all the ways back to when I began playing. I grew up on Rush, Yes, King Crimson and UK as well as Kiss, Priest, UFO, Sabbath and old Scorpions. As I got older I really got into cartoon music and film scores - love guys like Carl Stalling, Danny Elfman, Raymond Scott and Jerry Goldsmith. That influence is probably less notable with Blotted Science than the Spastic Ink records but there are some quirky parts in there as well.
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