Dead Rhetoric: There’s a lot of ideas musically or lyrically differ from your usual territory with Deeds or Arkaik. Was it nice to be able to go in your own direction – as you were saying before, there are certain expectations with a more established band?
Peters: That was one of the main reasons that I wanted to do something else. Even when I was in Arkaik, when I did Metamorphignition – even if I never made another record again after that one, I would have been happy. I think we broke some new ground with that record, and I think we did a lot of different stuff than some bands were doing back then. With Deeds of Flesh, they have their following. It’s definitely cool to be able to add to that, and bring some new ideas to that because Deeds of Flesh is one of my favorite bands. I remember when Erik [Lindmark] asked me about joining I was just like “what?” I remember when I first heard Deeds of Flesh opening up for Cannibal years ago!
But just having the freedom to do whatever I wanted, yeah, it’s a lot of fun and musically inspiring. Any little idea I have – not that I’m against being a band, and bouncing ideas off someone. But when it comes to my own music, it’s just nice to be able to go off. Anything I want to do – total freedom. Not having someone go, “eh, that’s okay…but I really feel this crushing part coming after that.” It’s like…scratch that. I wrote “Sirens in Electric Veils Part II,” which was the first song I had ever written all the way through for Arkaik. I remember bringing it to the band, and not that I was scared that they were going to hate it, but just the fact that I wrote this whole thing. Everyone wants to put something into an album, and everyone wants to express ideas. That was the first song I had written that way, so writing a whole album was a daunting task. I was not only writing it, but then I was writing lyrics, and then recording it. Then hoping all the recordings sounded good and getting the right levels – there are so many little layers to it. It was intimidating but I feel like it threw me into the fire and it was like, well…get it done.
Dead Rhetoric: So doing it all by yourself, does it give you that drive to make sure everything is perfect, since you don’t have anyone to bounce those ideas off?
Peters: I’ve always been sort of a perfectionist in a certain way, but at the same time, I’m trying not to be a perfectionist. You can zone out on one note for hours. Even when I was in Arkaik, I definitely took a lot of the weight, as some of the guitar recordings went. Sometimes it’s just easier for one person to record it all – everything is tighter. It’s just the nature of the beast in certain bands. I would play that album back to back to back – both guitars, over and over. That was before having my own studio – so you have to get it done in a certain amount of time, as money’s on the line. I like having the pressure of going to a studio, but it’s nice to have the comfort of…if I record something and listen to it and say, “well I could have done that better,” you just go and re-record it. It was a lot easier to make sure everything was right, or at least try to anyway.
Dead Rhetoric: Is Destroying the Devoid just project, or is this something you’d like to be able to perform in the live setting as well, given the opportunity?
Peters: That’s funny – that’s actually the question that I’ve been getting the most lately. It’s cool that people want to be a part of it. At first, I just wanted to write some music and I did. I’m very thankful that it’s been released. If someone was like, I can pay for this whole thing – make it happen. It would be great. I think it would be cool to play these songs live. I think they would go over well. Especially for the people who are into it – they kind of get what I am trying to do. I think they would appreciate it musically. I would love to play live given the opportunity, but it was definitely an afterthought. I wasn’t writing to make these songs standout – like “oh, I want this song to be a live song.” It was just like, I’m going to just write it.
Dead Rhetoric: Anything coming up on the Deeds of Flesh front?
Peters: We are pretty far into the writing process for the next album. I’m thinking that it will hopefully come out early next year. Right now we are wrapping up the bulk of the writing, we have about a song and a half to go. We have to record some more guitars – the chunk of how the songs are going to be are done. It’s just going through adding extra guitar parts and solos. I think our bass player is working on bass parts. Our new drummer Darren [Cesca] has been doing pre-production and sending it to us to see what we think. I feel like when people get the new album they are going to be like, “damn.” It’s definitely expanding upon Portals [to Canaan] for sure…it’s [Portals] one of my favorites, not just because I’m on it, but it’s just such as heavy album. To me, it’s like the best of everything that has been Deeds so far. This album is sort of taking Portals and pushing it further and adding some newer elements. I think people are going to dig it.
Dead Rhetoric: Have you gotten any sort of reactions from Destroying the Devoid, that are used to what you’ve done with Arkaik/Deeds of Flesh, that are like, “whoa,” either good or bad?
Peters: Actually I saw one comment somewhere that was like, “what the hell, this sounds nothing like Deeds!” In my head, I was like – that’s the idea. That’s the whole point of a solo project. I want the reaction to be that people think that it sounds like nothing I’ve done. I hope that is their reaction. Or otherwise what’s the point? One of the responses that I have been seeing is that Destroying the Devoid sounds pretty unique – that it covers a lot of musical ground. I wanted to change gears and bring in more melodic ideas – not just go 200 mph the whole time.
Dead Rhetoric: What can we expect from Destroying the Devoid now that the album has been released? Do you plan to do more for Destroying the Devoid or will it sit on the backburner for a bit until Deeds of Flesh is taken care of?
Peters: I definitely plan on putting out more stuff with Destroying the Devoid. As far as Deeds goes, it’s more about getting the record out. I’m not sure what the future holds as far as touring goes. For me, I already have probably 30 minutes of music for DtD already. Once the writing for Deeds is done, I will go into pre-production mode for my own stuff again. I already have a concept in mind for what I want to do. It will be a full-on concept album. I’d like to get some other people in it – I’d like to get a real drummer this time. I’d like to do some guest vocals or guest spots too. I’d like to bring other people on it for sure. That, to me, is the next evolution of the band.
I programmed all the drums this time, and having a real drummer would bring the next album to life. Let them experiment with writing some of their own parts – just bring that aspect of it more to life. The next album will be darker and more cinematic. It will be more of a horror movie-type. It will be going in different directions. I have all these ideas floating in my head, so when I start working on it – we’ll see where it goes. Once you start working on it, ideas come to life. I’m very excited to start working on it.