Culture
Morbid Angel’s Steve Tucker on growing up in Ohio, touring after a three year pause, and the enduring power of heavy metal
By: Nicholas Kobe
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Morbid Angel is headed to Ohio with an April 7 show in Cincinnati at Riverfront Live (4343 Kellogg Ave.) and an April 8 show in Columbus at The King of Clubs (6252 Busch Blvd.) WOUB’s Nicholas Kobe interviewed the band’s bassist and vocalist, Steve Tucker.
Listen to our interview with Steve Tucker on-demand by clicking play in the Soundcloud widget above. Find a transcript edited for length and clarity below. This conversation contains explicit language.
Nicholas Kobe:
How would you describe Morbid Angel to somebody who’s never heard of them?
Steve Tucker:
Death metal. Morbid Angel is one of the bands that forged what death metal is, and I think pretty much influenced I’d say, one in five bands that consider themselves to be extreme metal.
Nicholas Kobe:
What’s going through your guys’ heads as you’re getting ready for this upcoming tour?
Steve Tucker:
Well – for me, I live in West Virginia on the Ohio River. I’m freaking out a little right now about what’s going on up in [East] Palestine, Ohio as well as getting prepared to go out on tour. Wondering what’s gonna happen with that as I’m leaving home.
Nicholas Kobe:
Absolutely. Current events seem to have an impact on Morbid Angel’s music. What’s going through your head in that sense?
Steve Tucker:
This is pretty much what we write about, how disgusting human beings are, how they put things like making a profit above thousands of people’s lives. They just fucking destroy the land they live on, the water they drink, they don’t give a fuck because they made 10 extra dollars, man. That’s more what we tend to write about — what’s beyond just flesh and what the flesh wants and what the consuming soul desires. To me, it seems that if you’re a human being, the number one thing that you would not want to do is destroy the planet you live on. I mean, it’s just fucking common sense, in my opinion, but it’s not common sense. That’s why at 52 years old a person can still just feel completely pulled away from what society tries to feed you – that’s how you end up still playing metal. In my short time here, all I’ve seen is this planet just get more and more disgusting, and the people on it get more and more hateful towards each other and towards the planet itself. Man, it’s pretty mind boggling, honestly.
Nicholas Kobe:
So, it’s not just that you started out with this fire, it’s that this has just kept growing as you’ve kind of seen the way the world has changed in your lifetime?
Steve Tucker:
I was one of the rare people as a youth that looked around me and took things in. I grew up in a very bad part of Cincinnati called Price Hill — it’s the hood, and it was always the hood. When you grow up like that you experience things like having your bicycle stolen, or seeing your buddy get beat up for his gym shoes — when you grow up with things like that, you might start to see life a little bit different than the kid that lives in the suburbs. My perception, my awareness of what was around me was extremely high. It shook me at my core. And honestly, I think, music from the very beginning for me was always about expressing something that was tearing me down. If you don’t have a way to release this in some way, it’s gonna destroy you from the inside.
Nicholas Kobe:
What specifically about heavy metal do you think makes it your outlet of choice?
Steve Tucker:
It was something I just fell into. Bands like Iron Maiden and Dio, who were writing these, Dungeons and Dragon landscapes, if you will. That’s what really brought me in. And then, beyond anything else, the driving beat, that’s what heavy metal’s about. The power of it. Growing up, I was exposed to a lot of different music. I grew up very urban, and I grew up in a time when bands like NWA and Public Enemy came out and exploded and literally changed the scene. I was personally the “satan heavy metal guy,” but you were that, or you were glam but after hiphop exploded, there were a bunch of guys that were actually gangsters. The whole landscape changed when that music came out. To be honest with you, I could have probably just as easily gone into rap or something, but I mean, I just loved heavy metal, that drive, that power, that victorious feeling. I have always loved the symphony. I used to love as a kid to go to see the symphony at Cincinnati Music Hall. The symphony sounds incredible there. And when you hear it, it blows your mind that actual people are making these sounds. Honestly, heavy metal, for me, is pretty close to that.
Nicholas Kobe:
Do you feel that having a symphonic appreciation of heavy metal affected how technical your playing style is?
Steve Tucker:
It’s one of those things where, as you age a little bit, you start to think, “God damn, why did it have to be this technical?” Nature catches up with everybody. You have to try extra hard, even if you’re playing something that you played at 25 years old with no problem at all. I fell into being a bass player out of necessity. I knew 10 guitar players better than me. My heroes were James Hetfield [of Metallica] and Tom Araya from Slayer. One of ’em plays guitar and sings, one of ’em plays bass and sings — either way, just as cool for me. We needed a bass player, so I started playing bass. To be honest with you, other bands that I always loved were Motörhead and Venom. All these guys had bass player singers. So honestly, I just kind of fell right in line with that. Once I started to do it, I really embraced it.
Nicholas Kobe:
How do you interplay your vocals and bass playing in a way that you can do both at the same time, but also not just make them the same thing?
Steve Tucker:
I really kind of wanted to do the best I could, you know, to not always make things syncopated on the beat and things like that – to separate the vocals from the bass. That’s a whole other challenge.
Nicholas Kobe:
How did you develop your vocals for death metal?
Steve Tucker:
I had a music teacher tell me, back in like fifth grade, I sounded like I was trying to sing rock ‘n’ roll! I just always had this big, boisterous, loud voice — especially when I’m excited. I just always had this voice, and it just kind of just became one of those things where, “what’s it sound like if I push a little bit more?” Honestly, it just kind of came naturally. The way I sing, honestly, I don’t think it’s very different from the way I actually talk when I’m sort of excited. It’s the same sort of barking.
“I had a music teacher tell me back in like the fifth grade that I sounded like I was trying to sing rock ‘n’ roll! I just always had this big, boisterous, loud voice — especially when I’m excited. […] The way I sing, honestly, I don’t think it’s very different from the way I actually talk when I’m sort of excited. It’s the same sort of barking.” – Steve Tucker
Nicholas Kobe:
We kind of touched on this already, but specifically how did being from Cincinnati kind of impact your musical trajectory?
Steve Tucker:
Heavy metal was really big in Cincinnati when I was 14, 15, 16, 17 years old — during my prime learning years. There were bands coming through like Testament and Exodus playing Cincinnati every two, three months. Everybody was coming through Cincinnati at that time. If there was a show, no matter what night it was, it was pretty full. Heavy metal at that time seemed like it was all around me, man. Like I said, there were the glam guys, and then there were the rocker guys that were still wearing Zeppelin shirts, and there were the dudes like me, who were kind of pushing it. I was always one of those guys that was kind of pushing it. I also always had friends who were a little better off than me in life and had the money to do things like buy Metallica tapes, buy Slayer tapes. And that was how I first heard those bands.
Nicholas Kobe:
Now you’re on the other side of the coin, creating the music, how have you kind of seen the culture around heavy metal evolve from your days back in Cincinnati to where it is now?
Steve Tucker:
I think that back then it seemed like scenes happened, and now every town seems to have its little scene. It’s a little clique now, heavy metal. I’m glad, very happy to say, and very surprised by the way, I would’ve never guessed when I was young that heavy metal would actually become 35 or 40 year tradition that constantly involves new generations. I still know some Cincinnati bands. It’s very cliquey. For Cincinnati, there was always a little bit of that cliquey competitive nature. And I have to say, for me personally, dude, it pushed me a little bit. It’s all different. When we play a show, for instance, in Cincinnati, there will be people from every generation there. There’ll be the young metal scene kids, and there’ll be dudes that were going to shows with me way back in the ’80s. One thing I’m really glad about is things like the vest coming back. So you can see dudes with their busted out, old ass vests with their old ass patches, and that’s badass. For me, that is like a pride thing. And it’s good that when we get to play now we get to see generations of that. Each town has their scene, and those aren’t old guys, man. Those are young dudes. And that means that they’ll just continue being bands like this, you know?
Nicholas Kobe:
It’s pretty clear for me also as a younger person that heavy metal has been through so many generations and at this point there’s nothing that’s gonna stop it. It’s here to stay.
Steve Tucker:
Yeah, man, it’s crazy the way that the influences come in over the years too, dude. You’re not only just influenced by bands like Morbid Angel, Decide and Cannibal Corpse. Now you also got another generation influenced by those as the old guys, but also bands like Black Dahlia Murder and a Job for a Cowboy and Suicide Silence. And then you got the next generation that came out, like Whitechapel and all that. What happened is it was made for some really talented people. There’s more talented guitar players in metal than ever.
Nicholas Kobe:
Do you think that’s because of the competition in an age where everyone can make music or is it just because of how many influences people can pull from now?
Steve Tucker:
A little bit of both. I think it’s an evolution. When people first heard Eddie Van Halen, it was like a fucking alien. That was in the ’70s, which was a long time ago. I myself believe that once people see things done, it’s doable. Guys are now learning how to play Eddie Van Halen’s stuff at 12 years old on YouTube.
Nicholas Kobe:
I saw somebody online say, “no matter how good at an instrument you think you are, there’s a 12 year old online who’s better than you.”
Steve Tucker:
Oh, that, that kid will shred me under the table, you know what I mean?
Nicholas Kobe:
They’ll shred us all under the table! How have you guys at Morbid Angel been taking in those influences and trying to evolve what you guys do?
Steve Tucker:
Lyrically I’ve evolved the most. Instead of just writing about Satan, it seems like there’s scarier shit out there now. Musically, over the years, Trey [Azagthoth] has taken in some different influences and things like that. Trey’s a pretty amazing guitar player and he comes up with some pretty weird ideas.
Nicholas Kobe:
How have your lyrical ideas and his instrumental ideas met in the middle?
Steve Tucker:
Well, since Gateways [to Annihilation], we do demos at home. Trey will come up with a guitar riff, or I’ll come up with a guitar riff and I’ll write drums for it on my iMac and then we’ll send a basic idea that might be, you know, 45 seconds, a minute and a half, two minutes long. Eventually those demoes become songs. The way it usually happens is just about the time you start to think, “yeah, this is there,” you end up getting another edit and the song’s completely different. Bringing the computer back into it, it enhances the whole writing experience. It gives you the ability to really get to try things and do things that used to cost so much money to waste time doing. A studio like the legendary Morrisound Studios, was like something like $1,200 a day. It was a working studio. They didn’t care. It was just a product. It was really about the bands that came out of there. That’s really what even turned that place legendary. I mean, it’s kind of crazy that Morbid Angel, Decide and Obituary would all come out of the same, like 15 mile radius.
Nicholas Kobe:
I mean, one of the big reasons people know Abbey Road Studios is because the Beatles named an album after it.
Steve Tucker:
Exactly. And that studio was there way before the Beatles, and there’s been a lot of records that have been done there that weren’t fucking Beatles records, bro. But they never became anything like what the Beatles did there. The studio is a tool, and it’s about how you use it. Mostly what we do are really good demos now, by the time we record a record, man, it’s already been recorded four or five times by that point.
Nicholas Kobe:
And you guys doing demoes virtually, like sending them back and forth, is that a pre-pandemic thing or was that a product of the pandemic?
Steve Tucker:
Actually, we were doing it pre-pandemic, we’ve been doing it since 2000 or so, before we started that on Gateways [to Annihilation]. Actually, Karl [Sanders] from Nile, I’ve got to give the guy a pat on the back. He’s the guy that turned me on to actually using your computer as a recording tool. Karl was really big into that, Nile was doing all the synthesizer computerized stuff when there were a lot of people who didn’t even have ’em. It made recording an inexpensive thing where you can just spend time experimenting and that’s great. You know, like the Beatles wrote a bunch of pop stuff, and then once they decided ‘fuck this touring stuff, and fuck all this pop stuff,’ they just had unlimited studio time, and they did records like Sgt. Pepper’s and Abbey Road. I’m not saying we’re anything like the Beatles, I’m just saying that they had the money to experiment, and they had the money to go in and say “Hey, man, let’s see what it sounds like if we stick these two songs together.” And what they ended up doing was the legendary stuff.
Nicholas Kobe:
When people come to see a band like Morbid Angel that has been around for so long and has so many songs and eras, how do you guys kind of try to balance that out in a set list?
Steve Tucker:
We just try to just do whatever songs are feeling right. A lot of times it’ll just be Trey and myself just talking about which songs we want to do and stuff. We’re always kind of trying to change it up and do songs that people would expect to be there too. There’s some songs that are in the set because we know that people expect to hear these songs. And we try and make sure it isn’t the 1000th time we’ve played those songs, at the same time. We want it to be 100 percent fucking powerful and exciting every time.
Nicholas Kobe:
What’s next for Morbid Angel?
Steve Tucker:
It’s time to do another record. I kind of wish we’d done one during the pandemic, but it just didn’t happen. It was one of those things where we got a couple false starts where we thought we were going out, and then we didn’t, we had setbacks and things. Life happens, and we didn’t get to do it, but I personally would like to jump on another record pretty soon here.
Nicholas Kobe:
Anything else you’d like to say before we close this out?
Steve Tucker:
No, thanks, man. I know that you guys are out of Ohio and it’s good to talk to some people that are out of Ohio. I’m from Ohio. When I was young I hated Ohio. And now I have to tell you, I think Ohio is great. I’ve lived in a lot of different places since then, and to be honest with you – I really just realized how beautiful Ohio is. We don’t have oceans, but we got lots of everything else, man. You go up to the lake, you could be convinced it’s an ocean, you know?