Coffin Rot: Death Metal Dream Warriors

With just two albums under their belt, Coffin Rot already has a storied history nested in an impressive Portland death and extreme metal scene. Formed in 2017 by brothers Hayden and Derek Johnson—vocals and drums—with guitarist Tre Wilz, they immediately went to work on a few demos that, over the course of a couple of years, transformed into a split with Chicago band Molder.

By 2019, the band added bassist Brandon Martinez-Woodall to record their debut, A Monument To The Dead. The album gave immediate impressions on death metal fans with their underground fury and nod to inspirations like Grave and Immolation. Each song showing strength and developing a root system, Coffin Rot impressed to the masses their reputation for quality musicianship with organic speed.

But the band needed to go deeper. The pandemic only fueled their momentum and a new agreement with Maggot Stomp from their original label, Rotted Life Records in the United States and Blood Harvest in Europe. But in the meantime, the band churned out another split, this time with a ravaging cover of the  Sepultura song, “Troops of Doom.”  But again, they needed more. Enter second guitarist Jonathan Quintana of Decrepisy, Thanamagus, and Ascended Dead fame.

Dreams of the Disturbed was birthed in a realm that showcases an enriched classicism to the death genre. And they do it flawlessly while balancing momentum with their own stamp that makes them uniquely a leader in the genre.

Hayden and Tre dive into what made Dreams of the Disturbed a horrifically fantastic experience for the band.

Dreams of the Disturbed dives deeper into the band’s psyche; what methods and inspiration brought this out of the band?

Hayden—We wanted this record to sound like a Coffin Rot record but we wanted everything to be more extreme. Faster and more aggressive riffs, crazier solos and lyrical concepts that were more intense and brutal. Aside from the final track “The Howling Man” which is based off of a Twilight Zone episode, most of my influences for the lyrics came from either real life events or horror films.

Possessively modern, the group tends to look back at the forefathers of the death scene for that spark. Coming from the 1990s death scene, it’s why Dreams of the Disturbed caught my ear. What is it about these bands that you find attractive?

Hayden—My biggest influences have always been bands like Cannibal Corpse, Obituary, Autopsy, Suffocation, etc and those bands had a sound that seems to be missing from a lot of new music today. You’ll hear bands do Suffocation-esque breakdowns and stuff like that but that speed and savagery those bands have isn’t showing up enough now and we’ve always wanted to bring that back. Disgusting riffs and disgusting lyrics forever.

Tre—The pioneering death metal bands of the 90’s had a nearly perfect blend of macabre atmosphere and musical proficiency. Bands like Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation were responsible for the most disgusting and perverse lyrical content, but they were also pushing the musical boundaries of metal at the time. That blend of dark lyrical content and musical proficiency is highly influential to our sound.

How did Charlie Koryn help amplify the direction of this album?

Tre—Charlie is the go-to guy for recording extreme metal bands in this region of the Pacific North West. We’ve worked with him since the early demo days. Not only is he an excellent engineer, he is an outstanding musician in his own right. He understands this style of death metal arguably better than most, and since he’s worked with us from day 1, he knows exactly how to achieve the right tones and atmosphere that fits each recording.

Adding second guitarist Jonathan Quintana, how has his experience played into the creation of this album?

Tre—Most of the album and riffs had been written before Johnny joined the band, but he recorded some killer solos and had some great input while we were arranging the last three songs we wrote for the record. The doom riff that plays throughout the bridge of “Slaughtered like Swine” section was his. The big climactic outros of “Predator Becomes Prey” and “The Howling Man” were all arranged based on his suggestions. His style and approach to guitar solos led to a cool contrast between both of our lead styles.
His leads have a great blend of melody and chaoticism while mine tend to lead more into the melodic aspect. It’s basically floating tremolo solos vs fixed bridge solos.

Tell me more about the album cover and the artist behind the look?

Hayden—Originally the artwork was supposed to be done by Skadvaldur again, the artist who did our first record, but ultimately he was unable to do it so we had to go a different direction. Brandon and I were really impressed with the artwork Wyrmwalk did for the Abraded full-length so he was the perfect choice. He took all of our ideas and did his best to incorporate them all and totally nailed it. We couldn’t be happier with what he did for us.

The Portland scene has some influential death bands like Toxic Holocaust, Aenigmatum, Blood Freak. How did the local scene help shape who you are as a band?

Hayden—There were a lot of local bands that I was really impressed with in my early days of wanting to play music and those bands really influenced what I wanted to be doing. Some of those bands were/are Witch Vomit, Torture Rack, Arachnid, Smut, Cemetery Lust, Nekro Drunkz and many others. They were all making killer music and at the time, I definitely wasn’t so those bands helped get me on the right path.

The song titles on the album gravitate to a Swedish death metal vibrancy of damp dungeon-like horror. What led to this element of horror in the album’s aesthetic?

Hayden—As I said before, I wanted everything to be more amplified from the first record, so a lot of thought went into finding gruesome and shocking things to write about. Cannibalism has always been a topic I like to dive into so there is more of that on here, and it will always be a heavy topic for this band, and then most of the other songs are ideas that I made up that just seemed cool. Like “Predator Becomes Prey” which is about a woman that kills her abusive boyfriend and then hacks him up and buries him in the yard. Death metal is such a fun type of music to write lyrics for because you can never really go too crazy or anything like that and it’s really a great creative outlet.

Did you have any challenges making an album like Dreams of the Disturbed? What was the favorite part of the process?

Tre—We wanted the second record to be a progression and not a repeat of “A Monument to the Dead”. We had a lot of downtime both due to the pandemic, family, and health issues over the last five years. During that time each member of the band spent countless hours pushing their technical abilities with their instruments, which was by far the biggest challenge on the musical side of things, but also super fun.

Hayden—The biggest challenge for me was training my voice to go lower to match our new lower tuning and also just lyric writing process in general. I wanted to do new things and really hyper-fixated on making the lyrics be as awesome and well written as possible and I think I resulted in my best work yet. My favorite part of the process was just watching everyone step up their performances in such a huge way. I’m really proud of all these guys for what we were able to do.

What makes death metal so appealing to you?

Hayden—Death metal has no real limits and that makes it a really fun type of music to work with. You can incorporate just about any kind of style of music into it and you can make something really interesting and refreshing. No other type of music would allow me to write songs about cannibalism and murder and all these other awful things without dorks on TikTok trying to cancel me.

Tre—We’re all lifelong fans of metal music, and death metal to us is the broadest form of metal. It’s the subgenre of metal that mixes the best with other forms of music. It’s also the style of metal that’s the least impeded by the pressure to be more accessible to a wider audience due to its abrasive sound and dark themes. By its nature, it encourages creativity.

What’s the next level for Coffin Rot?

Hayden—Tre already has some tunes demoed out for the next record but in the short term, we want to just focus on getting out there and trying to play some new towns. So, if you want to see us, tell your local promoters to hit us up!