“From the Archives”
“Funebrarum and Trepenation’s Sam Osbourne’s Meticulous Evisceration”. Sam Osbourn is a musician who lives out in Portland, Oregon. He is in a band from Seattle, called Cauterized and did a demo and shows and things of that nature with them. He mainly plays in Funebrarum, Trepanation, as well as in Undergang from Copenhagen, Denmark. With Trepenation acquire the Meticulous Evisceration split. The newest Funebrarum release was the Pestilential Winds Split. With Undergang remember to pick up DØDEN VAR KUN EN BEGYNDELSE…
BM: Are there any new recordings of Undergang in the near future?
Sam Osbourne: I just got back from two months over in Copenhagen doing some touring and what not with those guys and just recorded a new ep. We just recorded a new album that is going to be coming out that will be coming out later this year on Dark Descent later this year for our US Tour in July.
BM: What are some of your favorite albums that inspired your love for music as well as albums you really care about right now?
Sam Osbourne: My favorite album of all time whether it be metal, punk, hardcore, rock or anything would be Immolation’s Dawn of Possession. It is just an absolute riffer, it is the most top notch best record of all time. Really though growing up in punk rock, I have been influenced by everything from One Way System to Oi Paloi. Oi is hardcore punk rock. Everything surrounding that before getting into metal. As far as death metal all the greats, Autopsy, Immolation, Repulsion, Cannibal Corpse. As far as everything that got me into music Immolation’s Dawn of Possession is #1.
BM: Please speak about the history of Funebrarum?
Sam Osbourne: If you really want to track the history Daryl Kahan is really the legend at work behind the Funebrarum name and history. Nick Orlando actually started a project called Funarius that did one demo in I believe 1993. He ended up forming Evoken and Funebrarum later in the 90s. Funebrarum was actually formed in 1999 when Dario Derna from Infester which was from Seattle. Infester did the Darkness Unveiled demo and an album on Moribund Records called To the Depths and Degradation. He ended up moving to New Jersey and ended up meeting with Dave Wagner and Nick Orlando from Evoken as well as Daryl Kahan formerly of punk rock bands Born Against, Citizens Arrest. He ended up forming Taste of Fear in the early 90s and did a brief stint as vocalist for Assuck from Florida. He really had so much going on already and then he ended up forming Funebrarum in 99 in Clifton, New Jersey. The bands had tons of lineup changes. The band put out Beneath the Columns of Abandoned Gods in 1999 and it came out in 2000-2001. They did the Dormant Hallucination ep in 2003. They originally recorded the Sleep of Morbid Dreams in 2007 and it came out in 2009. We ended up doing a new mini ep The Exhumation of the Ancient and did a Euro tour with Internment. We have some new recordings on the way.
BM: Can you give any shoutouts to the rest of the members of Funebrarum?
Sam Osbourne: The Triumphant Ascent demo which was the first demo that Funebrarum yielded which was the brainchild of Daryl, Dave Wagner, Nick Orlando, and Dario Derna. Dario left after that and Nick is really the guy whose riffing has created the Funebrarum sound. Beneath the Columns and Sleep and The Sleep of Morbid Dreams have so far been really been stamped with his sound. He is a key member and living in the Carolinas somewhere down South. He’s not with the band anymore and I don’t believe he plays with Evoken anymore either. Now we have Yuri Kahan, no relation, who is from Sacramento, California but lives up here in Portland as well. He used to be in bands like Burn Pile, he’s in Trepanation with me, he’s been around and has been doing music around here. Charlie Koryn, he plays drums in Ascended Dead from San Diego originally. They are doing an album out on Dark Descent which should be coming out pretty soon. Kyle Winslow our bassist, he is from New York City and is in Mutant Supremacy. Him and Daryl do a lot of the writing out there. As far as the new lineup, people from all over the country, lots of flying… It can take awhile before we all get together, but it is some really cool stuff.
BM: You came into the band in 2015, how much writing did you get to contribute to the Exhumation of the Ancient EP and the Pestilent Winds split?
Sam Osbourne: The tracks for the split and the Exhumation of the Ancient ep were written on a trip. We had ideas and correspond with one another a lot. I actually joined the band when Shawn Eldrige was still on drums. We had Brian Gawaski on guitar and Dave Wagner Funebrarum’s original bassist we did Maryland Death Fest and did some rehearsals out there. The tracks for those releases were recorded when we ended up meeting in New York and doing some rehearsals for a few weeks. We decided to try our hand at doing something with the new lineup and keeping the sound alive and I think it was definitely achieved. We recorded it out at Volume 4 Studios with Chris Pierce in New Brunswick, New Jersey. We ended up writing those based on ideas but pretty much on a whim because we figured we really needed something for the tour, and we figured we had come up with some pretty good quality stuff.
BM: Tell me about your band Trepenation and its history?
Sam Osbourne: I believe I formed Trepenation in late 2012. I originally played in a band called Bone Sickness, which was a death metal/grindcore influenced band. After my departure from Bone Sickness I ended up forming Trepenation in a town in Washington called Tacoma, where I was briefly living. I ended up meeting Yuri Kahan, Adam Fanning (Bass), and Chase Grillo(Guitar). We ended up forming Trepenation solely on our love of bands like Funebrarum, Incantation, Alter No Flesh Shall Be Spared Demo, Crematory. We all decided we would form a band and bang around in the basement and everybody got their gear together. We recorded The Meticulous Evisceration demo in January/February 2013 and doing a full US Tour with Undergang from Copenhagen, and Church Pestice from Seattle (Ask Sam Osbourne to correct this) in July 2014. After a number of lineup changes, the band ended up falling by the way side we recorded a new mini LP that has yet to come out. There is a lot more in the works for Trepenation for this year and next year. We are hoping for a Summer release. We have spoken to a few different labels, and have a few things in the works. The music is already recorded, it is just getting everything else lined up and that takes time.
BM: I imagine you guys are big horror movie fiends, when I hear the word evisceration I instantly think of that part in Hellraiser II with that doctor that is fighting the cenobites, what are some of your favorite horror movies?
Sam Osbourne: I am a huge horror movie fan, but also guts and gore. I mean like anything that reminds you of your own mortality. I would one say one that really influenced me from a very young age. I remember being really young and a buddy of mine, we were about 10 or 11 years old, we rented Don’t Go in the House. For me that is right up there with Maniac and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It is one of the most depraved films. I can’t recommend it enough. There is this scene where he ends up taking this woman home and hearing these voices of his dead mother. It is really psychotic stuff and he ends up charring her alive with a flamethrower. That scene to me literally is burned into my mind.
Other movies I enjoy are Cannibal Ferox, Cannibal Holocaust, all the stuff that sprouted from the Mondo film in the late 70s. For me I like horror but I really am a big fan to this day of the Traces of Death series which is a very distasteful thing to many people. I can still watch it and feel my stomach churn.
BM: My favorite rare movie that I always tend to shout out is Evil Dead Trap, it is a Japanese horror movie. It has the most ghoulish soundtrack. It had 80s synth and like nobody does that. I hear they rip off a lot from Italian horror movies but the evil vibe of the soundtrack just sucks me in completely. I feel like any really great horror movie you have has to have a phenomenal soundtrack.
Sam Osbourne: A great horror movie and a great soundtrack are really one and the same.
BM: You can find that on sites like Putlocker, it’s pretty easy to find. I believe there is a Criterion Collection of it but before buying that watch it online first so you can decide if this movie is really the film for you, it is though. “laughs”
Can you tell me a bit about the sets Funebrarum and Trepenation will have for people who will be introduced to your band at Famine Fest?
Sam Osbourne: The Trepenation set will be … one release that was widely available at one point was our Meticulous Evisceration demo from 2013, we’ll have copies of that… We have classic Funebrarum tracks like Dawn of Hallucination, Misery… We will be playing a real big mixed bag of all sorts of stuff. Who knows… we might be doing some Grave or Abhorrence covers as the band has been known to do in the past. With Funebrarum we will be playing a mixed set with tracks from Exhumation of the Ancient ep.
BM: Final Words?
Sam Osbourne: As far as Funebrarum we are recording a new mini LP. We will be going over to Europe. We will be doing a tour with Friendless from Copenhagen who are some really good friends of ours. We will be over for touring for 2 weeks in Europe as well as playing the Finnish Metal Maniaxe Festival in Finland which should be really cool as well, along with the Helsinki Death Fest which will be killer. There are a lot of new things on the horizon for Funebrarum.
As far as Trepenation, we actually have a new lineup from the demo and from the tour. It is me, Yuri Kahan, the guitarist who is another founding member. We have Eric Alsterhold on bass (fix spelling check metal archives) She plays in Necrosis, as well as Skullex , and extremities and will be doing a tour with Assuck a little later in the year. On guitar we have Casey Linch, who used to be in Alderbaron and is a Portland staple and a real good friend of ours. I think the fest should be a real good time for everybody, and hoping to see lots of East Coast faces out there.
We did do Netherlands Death Fest with Internment between Morpheus Descends and Desolate. It was a real honor to play with those bands on such a huge stage in Tilburg and Holland. Lots of respect for everyone who does Netherlands Death Fest. We had a really great time and that is why we are going to go over and do it again.
Interview By Nick Perkel