Pestilence’s Technical Wizard: Patrick Mameli
By: Mike Sloan
Pestilence has been kicking around the death metal skull for 25-plus years and has released some of the strongest and most challenging albums in history. Guitar virtuoso/vocalist/founding member Patrick Mameli has seen it all throughout the Dutch band’s lifespan and is psyched to have finally released Doctrine, the follow-up album to Pestilence’s critically-acclaimed return record Resurrection Macabre.
Everybody knows by now the jagged history of the band’s lineup changes and eventual exodus from the metal scene for 15 years and then the triumphant return, so the only option now is to look forward. In the interview Mameli did for Blistering.com, that’s all he could talk about was looking ahead and how Pestilence will once again alter the landscape of extreme metal. Read on:
Blistering.com: Let’s talk about Doctrine. I’m sure you’re very proud of how it turned out, but what are your final thoughts on the album? Are you 100% satisfied with the end result?
Patrick Mameli: Well, if I told you that I wasn’t totally satisfied, I’d be lying to you because … come on! This is the best Pestilence album ever! And when I say this, I say this with such a convincement about it. I guess it might have hurt some of the old fans, though. There’s always been sort of like two (different) camps with Pestilence: the camp that likes the Martin Van Drunen-era and the camp that likes the Testimony of the Ancients era. What I’ve tried to do with Doctrine is try to capture all the elements of all the albums and come up with the best Pestilence album ever. And I think Doctrine is.
Blistering.com: I guess I’m in the minority because I honestly like all eras of Pestilence; both with Martin singing and with you. But when media and fans continuously come up to you and ask about Martin or that era, etc. doesn’t that get annoying after a while? It has to wear on you quite a bit, to hear the same topic over and over.
Mameli: Well, to be honest, with music it’s very personal to people. When I make music, it’s very personal to me. I know all of the pre-production and production that goes into making an album and when we made Consuming Impulse, I had to really help make Martin a better vocalist and do what he did on Consuming Impulse. He’s bad-mouthing me a lot and I don’t think that’s nice because I gave him so much credit for recording that album when I really taught him to sing on that album. People are always entitled to their opinion because music is always about opinion. You always feel strong about music and I think that Doctrine is the best Pestilence album ever. Since this is the last album we’ve done with Mascot Records, hopefully a major label will pick us up. And hopefully Doctrine will be like a step up from what will be like a new generation of metal that transcends bands like Meshuggah and comes up with stuff that is even more intricate and crazy and has their own flavor to it. [I hope] that Pestilence will become like a stepping stone of the 21st century.
Blistering.com: Since you are clearly pleased with how Doctrine turned out, what are your realistic expectations of the album in terms of reviews from the media, fan reactions, overall units sold and global tours, etc?
Mameli: Well, you have to realize that the album has already been available to the fans in Europe for some time now and it’s been received pretty well. But I’ve always been a guy who doesn’t play sunshine because I’m always dealing with truth. That’s just how I am. There have always been people who talk bad about Pestilence. We’ve had some bad reviews as well like it’s not the real Pestilence without Martin Van Drunen, blah blah blah. That’s just my stigma and it’s something I have to live with. Those are people who are just stuck in the past. This is Pestilence 2011 and we’re just trying to deliver some good music. That’s what it’s all about.
Blistering.com: After having listened to Doctrine several times now, especially compared to Resurrection Macabre, there is much more of a groove to the songs and about half the album has a slower, more powerful crunch to them. It sounds like this current lineup has really hit its stride and there is stability. The music feels more flowing and natural. Is that accurate?
Mameli: Yes that’s very accurate. It’s like having a new drummer-… Peter Wildoer was a great drummer for us and I guess he did the audition for Dream Theater, which makes him an über drummer; he’s awesome. Having a guy like Tony Choy in the band for Resurrection was great because he’s an über bass player. For me, it was very difficult to top that shit but then when I started to realize what makes a band good or big or whatever, is that there has to be a real band feeling. And that’s what we have right now. It’s an all Dutch band.
My new drummer, Yuma Van Eekelen, he comes from Brutus and The Old Dominion and they opened up for us on the Resurrection Macabre European tour. And I noticed him and I was like, “This is the guy for the band.” And then having Jeroen Paul Thesseling back in the band, who did Spheres, it’s like magical. So now I have like three-quarters of the Spheres album lineup together and this means that I can go beyond any limits, really. I makes me feel really good about Pestilence and about the music and about the direction we’re going. I guess you’ve heard Doctrine a bunch of times now and with this lineup, we’ll go beyond limits on the next album. That album will again top all previous albums and it will be astonishing. I have a bunch of songs already ready and I’m playing it for the guys. It’s like über difficult and it will destroy, like, Meshuggah and it will destroy any other band that’s out there right now.
Blistering.com: Well, you just answered my next question about having anything written for the next album.
Mameli: [Laughs]
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