Jim Fergades | MORBID SAINT | The Kevin Powell Podcast

KP talks with MORBID SAINT guitarist Jim Fergades about the band's history, reunion and new album!

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Hey guys, welcome back to anotherepisode of the podcast. I'm Kevin Powell.
Love talking to bands, love talkingto bands about anything and everything.
And I got another heavy band here. These guys have been around a while,
they were round, they took alittle break, now they're back.
I'm talking to the guitarist from MorbidSaint. We got Jim, Jim,
how are we doing today? Lootinggood? Thanks for having me. Absolutely

(00:28):
love the discography that we're seeing behindyou, and we're going to get into
all that stuff here in a littlebit. So we got Jim, the
guitar player from Morbid Saint with meright now, and I just want to
say thanks for being on today.I love talking to bands. I love
getting to know a little bit moreabout any band at all, and I
love getting their name out to anybodythat maybe want to hear about them.

(00:48):
So who all is in Morbid Sainttoday? And where is everybody? Kind
of from myself, Javiser, theother original guitar player at le and our
original singer, and then we haveBob's Abel on bass and DJ Bogomil from
I think it's Bogamel, but it'sit's a weird last name he'll he'll kill

(01:14):
me for murdering it. But DJand Bob have been with JA. I
wasn't in a band for a while, so he's they've been around for a
long time. And we're all basicallyright from Sheboygan here. I live not
even a mile from j Bob's not. We're all real close. I love

(01:36):
to hear it. You got threediscography albums behind you, and again we're
going to get to those here ina little bit. You guys started win
way back in the day. It'sright around eighty three eighty fourish is when
we i think officially got together asMorbid scened and what really led to the

(02:02):
resurgence of the band. We havesome scattered releases going back from the eighties.
What kind of brought everyone back togetherofficially broke up or round again?
This is also long ago, soit's it's that we're a little vague on
these dates, but between somewhere aroundninety three ish ninety four, and it

(02:24):
didn't it did. The band didn'tbreak up because you know, anything bad,
just things have changed in everyone's livesand and uh, you know,
you gotta you gotta feed your familyand and pay your bills. And you
know that kind of stuff. Sothen in twenty ten, Ja got the

(02:46):
band back together. I think hehad Pat right from the start, and
the rest of the musicians were alldifferent guys. That's when Bob joined the
band, and he he got theband together, I think because there was
there was a he could see onlinethat there was there was spectr but Death

(03:07):
was starting to get kind of afollowing, and you know, he thought,
you know, it's like, hey, if we can get this together
and people, you know, playthis stuff for people live, you know.
I think that was his motivation behindit at first, and so he
did that up till with various members. Pat had left because Pat moved out
of state for a while. Sohe did that untill around I believe right

(03:32):
around twenty twenty. He kept theband going and in that time the official
release Destruction got officially released in thattime. Then in twenty twenty, the
band they they split and at thattime I was unable. I jayde always

(03:52):
I always wanted to play with theband, and Jade always asked me to
join the band, but I justwasn't unable to do it because I own
my own business. So right aroundthat same time, I had sold my
business and so I had the time, and Pat relocated back to Wisconsin to
Sheboygan here. Sheboygan Harriet, he'sright around here, so he had asked

(04:14):
us and it just worked out andwe were able to keep Bob and DJ,
which is awesome because they're both justunbelievable musicians. And we got back
together and started jamming for a while, and our intentions was to write an
album right from the start. Youknow, I kind of said that if

(04:36):
we're going to do this, wegot to put an album home. So
we we pushed to do that.It took a little longer than we had
anticipated, but yeah, that's kindof the just of where we're at.
Good things always take time. Andyou have a brand new album out just
came out. It's called Swallowed byHell. Now. Whenever I was researching

(04:57):
you guys, of course, Istarted with your first album. Man.
I was like, Wow, theseguys are really rashy. I love that
kind of stuff. And then Ilistened to the new album. Wow,
what a difference, and not adifference as in, wow, these guys
have changed in a bad way,but what a progression over the years.
Right, So with that, whatwas the writing process kind of like for
this new album Swallowed by Hell,we wrote, we wrote everything, right,

(05:19):
We only practice once a week,so you know, that's not a
lot of time to really sit andand and write, you know, and
put a lot of stuff together.So we did. We we worked off
of WhatsApp. We started a WhatsAppgroup and we would send little videos,
you know, clips of guitar partsor ideas, and you know, Pat

(05:40):
would bring words and lyrics and sendyou know, pictures of those. And
we kind of just worked that wayand pieced stuff together, you know,
on on the computer. You know, took little bits and you know,
we all have have reaper, youknow, so we just kind of threw
stuff together. We kind of buildthe song that way and you know,
bring little rough drafts in and youknow, so that allows us to kind

(06:00):
of work not all the time,but a lot more than just a one
day at practice to structure the songsand once we were all happy with it,
then then we would concentrate on puttingit together, you know as a
band. And that's that's pretty muchhow we wrote. Everything on this new

(06:21):
album was pretty much written that butyou know, we bound stuff around that
practice also, but a lot oftimes it would be you know, if
somebody would bring something, you know, we'd quick, quick, bring on
my phone and record them, youknow, because then I can see what's
going on and you know, andremember the part because we are kind of
old now, so it's a littleharder remembering all this stuff. There's so

(06:43):
many different ways now to write andrecord, and I got to hear it
from you. Is it easier thanwhat it was back in the eighties.
Absolutely that way. It's it's thatyou know, we you know, some
people like you know, things aredifferent. Everybody looks at things different.
But we kind of, uh,there's a there's a lot of technology out

(07:05):
there. It's just crazy, andwe we embrace, you know, embrace
that. You know, if ifif there's something out there that can help
us make our job easier or moreefficient, whatever, we're all we're all
for it, you know. Andnot only with that, you know,
like with even with our equipment.You know, we we're big two bam

(07:29):
guitar players, you know, wewe have it's got to have a good
two band, but we don't playwith two bams anymore. You know.
We run models now, which it'sjust it's lightweight, You got your guaranteed
sound every time you hook up.Is it as good as a two bam?
Absolutely not, but it's close enoughfor for the the benefits outweigh the

(07:51):
negatives. Everything's a lot easier nowwhen it comes to just everything. I
mean, you guys can you hadyour what's happened to just kind of collaborated
that way. Some people kind ofget together in one room and you know,
piece together stuff right there and thenI mean, there's just so many
different ways, and honestly, Ilove hearing that the differences made everything a
lot easier for bands that have beenaround for as long as you guys have.

(08:16):
So we talked a little bit aboutwriting, We talked a little bit
of recording. You you are theguitar players, so I want to talk
a little bit more about gear.What kind of gear do you like to
play live recording? You talked alittle bit about modelers, So is there
any special ones that you like touse anything at all? Ge and I
we're the two guitar players. Wedon't there's not We're not a band that
has like one main guitar player.We kind of have two, you know,

(08:39):
so we both run Quod cortex andmodelers we have. We have some
fractal stuff, which I like themboth. You know, it's really I
think the Quod cortex their capture featureis whether it's the algorithm in there or
whatever, maybe it just it reproduceswhat you capture very well, which is

(09:05):
why we went with it. Butso we both run that, and we're
running captures that that we made ourselves. Jay's got Jay's got a whole rack
full of camps, you know,the modified fifty on fifties and and all
you all the good stuff. Sothat's what we run. Guitar wise,
we both play solo guitars and andwe play those, but but they're not

(09:31):
like exclusively. We kind of bounceback and forth. I actually had a
couple of custom guitars made by agentleman over in Finland. It's called I
can't pronounce it because it rolls oursand I can't do that. But it's
like Curius Curra's instruments. I foundhim on YouTube and I just he had
some build videos that were just amazing. I watched his detail, so I

(09:52):
had I had a couple of thecustom guitars made by him, and that's
what I'm playing now all the time, and Bob runs solar Base. That's
pretty much it, you know,just the hand modeler and and uh,
we each run a couple of stacksand pretty simple. It's not a lot

(10:13):
to what we do. That's perfectlyfine. There's a lot of a lot
of different modelers out there and alot of pros and cons the boat.
So hearing you know that you guyslike quad Cortex is awesome. I used
the kemper for a while and thenI don't use the member anymore. So
just so you know, you guysjust had that release swallowed by hell.
What was the reception like for that? Any old fans coming back, any

(10:35):
new fans, anything, anything atall. It seems to be pretty decent
so far. There's a lot ofreviews people reviewing it that the response so
far as has been we couldn't,uh, I guess hope for anything better
than what it's been. You're alwaysgoing to have people that that ain't gonna
like it, and we were wewere kind of hoping that we would we

(10:58):
would please the fans of Sectrum enoughthat they wouldn't like hate us, and
hopefully gained some new fans. That'sthat's Ultimately, the you know, the
goal is always to get gain moreyou know, more more listeners and people
who like the music, and andyou know, the more people who like
the music, the bigger shows we'regoing to get and stuff. So it's

(11:20):
been good. Uh, it's youknow, we knew right from the start
that no matter what we did work, we're getting compared to Spectrum. Because
that's that's that's how it is.Yeah, that's I you know, and
and and that's that's a tough that'sa tough tough thing to follow. But
for us, we don't you know, we don't a lot of people ask

(11:41):
us about the writing and stuff,and we don't really intentionally think of you
know, we don't we don't makea conscious effort to just say, you
know, let's write something that's justso brutal and so fast and whatever.
We just what we write is howwe play. It's how we write.
It's it's just this is this iswho we are, you know. When

(12:01):
we wrote Spectrum, that's that's howwe play. You know. I mean
there's nothing and nothing else that reallycould have came out of us, you
know, and saying what now thisis? You know, there's like I
said, there's always going to beyou know, could we have could we
go more extreme than what we are, probably, but but ultimately this is
really where we are right now.So this is just it's just a natural

(12:26):
thing for us to write. Thealbum was just you know, we didn't
write any throwaway songs. These songswere all written with about a year and
a half and we wanted ten songsand we wrote ten ten best songs that
we could write right now. Sothat's what it is, perfect answer what's
coming up next for the band?We got some shows coming up. We're

(12:46):
starting to get you know, thingsare trickling in. We're not a touring
band. People always ask us aboutthat you're gonna go on tour and you
know, we're not a touring bandbecause everybody in this band has jobs,
you know, Mark Margaret sand isnever supported us, you know in any
way. So you know, wegot you know, between families, jobs,
everything like that. We're limited onwhat we can do as far as

(13:09):
show. So so our our ourbig thing is is to you know,
we'd like the ideas of the flyout for the one show on you know,
festivals and things like that. That'sreally what we what we want to
concentrate on but we also you know, like later in the year, we're
playing up in New York and we'redoing like a three day stint there with

(13:31):
we're doing like uh, I thinkPhilly, Washington and New York like Thursday,
Friday, Saturday, and we'll driveback home on Sunday. So we'll
do stuff like that. But asfar as getting on like any kind of
extended tour, we don't. Wedon't have any don't have the ability to
do that for one. And we'rewe're we're all happy with doing the one
offs and and driving for little youknow, extended things whatever like that.

(13:52):
But that's about the extent of it. But all you said, stuff's trickling
in now that the album dropped.I guess we'll we'll wait to see how,
you know, how it goes,and and uh with it some more
some more festivals. We got Hell'sHeroes down in Texas coming up in uh
March, we're playing that. Andthen we got some shows over and we
got to show in the Czech Republicin October. I don't know, wow,

(14:16):
that one's yeah, And then andnow we're we're in the talks with
another one over in Milan really anduh, but that one's just that's not
set. Ye, we're kind ofstilling the talks about that one. But
so there it's it's trickling and amongstsome other smaller things. Okay, so
let me pick your brain for asecond. Let's say money is non issue.
Let's say times on issue. Whodo you want to tour with?

(14:39):
Just name any band that's the faceI wanted. That's yeah, that's a
hard band, you know what.You know, that's hard in the sense
that a lot of the bands andpeople this is maybe cliche or whatever,
but you know, when you're anolder musician, you tend to I'm not

(15:01):
saying there's not a lot of greatbands now, there are, but but
you tend to be still kind ofstuck to the old stuff you really grew
up, you know, and thatso like I mean, obviously, if
you go with that, it's likewe'd open up for Metallica, you know,
if I look at it that way. But when you get into the
reality of things, uh, Idon't I I I think it would end

(15:28):
up being older bands you know thatare that are still doing it, you
know, which is kind of we'rewhere we fit in. You know what
I mean, I don't think wewould, you know. I mean if
we could open up on the youknow, Lamb of God, Pantera,
you know two ur thing that's goingon. You know, I've seen that
that was great. You know,obviously stuff like that would be I mean,
anybody would you know, jump atthat kind of stuff. But I

(15:50):
really couldn't pick one. It wouldjust be the older, older bands,
you know. And and and it'sfunny because you said that one of my
one of my favorite bands from backin the day is Overkilled. I really
like Overkill and this show in Milanthat I mentioned that that's we're talking in
talks with Overkills headlining show. We'dbe playing like one or two bands.

(16:15):
So that's going to be if thatcomes through, that'll be like a dream
bucket list type thing, you know. Whatever we get to open for Overkill,
which is cool. But yeah,I really couldn't specify any any any
anybody to open up for. That'sokay. I just wanted to pick your
brain have some fun. Last thingI want to wrap things up with here,

(16:37):
do you have any advice for bandsthat might be just starting out,
maybe maybe they've been around a coupleof years, and they're just looking for
that little piece of advice to kindof break through that glass ceiling. You
guys have been around a while,You've had your fair share of shows and
good times, bad times. Anyadvice at all, I guess. I
guess the first thing is you probablydon't want to take advice for me,

(17:02):
because we we put an album out, you know, every every decade or
two. So you know, I'mnot saying that that we know, we
know the proper way of doing things, but I would say, you know,
for now, and I think allof them don't even need this advice.
But like you know, like Isaid, embrace the technology, use
it nowadays with social media. Youknow, when we were back in eighty

(17:25):
eight ninety when we really spectrum,you know, none of this was here,
you know, so it was itwas very hard to get ah,
you see, any kind of recognitionor you know, to get your name
out there was very hard. Itwas. It was not like it is
now now. It is. Yougot you know, band camp and all

(17:47):
these things that that you know,exploit the hell out of that stuff,
you know, because it's sort ofthere, you know, get get get
the stuff out and get people listening. To it as far as what you
know anything as far as music wise, you know, you just do like
I said, you know, wedo this is this is what we do.
We don't, we didn't, Wenever changed for for anything. But

(18:07):
that's why we're not making a livingoff of this either. So that's what's
like I said, you know,you know if I don't want to take
advice for me, but now Ijust say, you know, use use
you know, and work hard,work hard, you know, to practice
all the time and practice practice,practice, and and yeah, that's I
mean, that's like I said,most is pretty kind of common sense stuff.

(18:32):
But that's all I could say isto use use the tools that are
available to you as much as youcan. You don't don't don't say you
know, we don't, we don'twant to do that because that's selling out
or doing anything like that. Whatever. You know, just just do,
you know, use it and dowhat comes from comes from inside you.
You know that make that's where that'swhere the best stuff comes from. You

(18:52):
know, don't try this on acertain way. Just just come make what
comes naturally. Very well, saidJim. I. I like ask every
band that question because everyone has adifferent answer. Because I think they never
know what to say, and it'sa lot of fun listening to it.
Any final things you want to sayto fans as we wrap things up,
just you know, hop I hopeeverybody who gets a chance to listen to
the album likes it, and Ihope we don't piss our old fans off,

(19:15):
you know, I don't think so. We tried to make the album
well, you know, relatable asmuch as it's going to be to Spectrum.
Obviously it's thirty some years later,but this is it and I'm more
happy with We love the album,and for any fans of Morbid Seene,
there's a very good chances of notour last album and you won't have to

(19:37):
wait ten years for the twenty yearsand thirty. Thank you, Jim.
I'll talk to you here in alittle bit off air. Okay, alrighty,
thanks for having