Interview with Santa Cruz , U.S.A based death metal band Parasitic Ejaculation's Frontman Jonathan Neel

Formed in 2011,Parasitic Ejaculation is one of the upcoming Slammers from the U.S.A. from 2011 until now the band has played many elite metal bands recently they had a Europe tour. We had a short talk with their frontman Jonathan Neel  lets know more about PxE.

Greeting Jonathan how are you guys (Parasitic Ejaculation) doing these days?

Really good! We've been staying very busy, playing a lot of local shows, practicing a lot, and we're now starting to write new music too. We always try to stay on top of writing and producing new music, and now that we have a second guitarist, Parker, things are starting to sound sicker than ever with both players influences. We have about 2 new songs almost finished. How about you?

Yeah man I am good as well working for the release and universities stuffs you know final years.. so Jonathan tell us how did it all started(Parasitic Ejaculation)?

Well when the band started most of us were just friends from high school. The other 3 original members besides me were already in another band together, but we all really liked slam so they started up a new band with me, and that was pretty much it as far as the origin of the band goes. We've had a few lineup changes since then, but everything has been moving along pretty smoothly in the PxE camp. I'm just grateful I have such talented friends!

OK Jonathan tell us how has the journey of Parasitic ejaculation been so far from 2011 until now?

It's been crazy, I can't believe all the insane shows and successes we've had over the years. I never thought that we'd get to tour Europe, or open for big bands like Decapitated or Suicide Silence. I think if I did, we wouldn't have named ourselves something like Parasitic Ejaculation. I wouldn't say it's been easy though - finding time to write and rehearse every week has always been a struggle since everyone is either working or going to school full time (or both), especially since some of us have since moved away from Santa Cruz (myself included)... we are definitely not going to drop out of school or quit our day jobs any time soon for the band, we're not that big yet! But, that being said we all have a lot of life and creativity left to give, and the PxE train is showing no signs of slowing down soon. I would still say that this is just the beginning of our journey!

For sure lots of stuffs are there. Jonathan tell us how did you guys land on the Bands name?

I remember us brain storming a bunch of gross sounding slam band names with some friends once, before we even had really decided to start the band, and Parasitic Ejaculation was one that stuck with us. Josh's partner was the person who actually came up with the name.

So Jonathan tell us about the bands lineup?

The lineup is the same as it's been since late 2012, except with the addition of our new guitar player, Parker McClellan. So, that is, Josh Schwartz on bass, Donovan Dettle on drums, Michael Mostachetti and Parker McClellan on guitar, and myself on vocals. Mike recently moved to Portland, Oregon, which is about a 12 hour drive from where the rest of the band is. He's still very much involved in the writing process and will go on tour with us, but when he moved, we decided to adopt Parker on second guitar so that we could continue to play local shows with the same kind of frequency as before. So we will basically play as a 4 piece locally and as a 5 piece in recordings and on tour. Mike has come down for a few of our bigger/more important shows, as well. Having Parker join the band couldn't have been an easier transition though - we were all already good friends with him, and Donovan and I had previously played with him in another band, so we knew that his distinctive playing and writing style, energetic stage presence, and charming personality would be a perfect fit for PxE. I don't think any of us thought we really needed 2 guitars before Mike moved, but now that we are starting to write new material for 2 guitars with Josh, Mike and Parker all contributing to the riff cocktails, I think that the lineup is the strongest that it's ever been, and I'm really excited about what we've got in store for the rest of 2015. The stuff we're working on grooves and slaps harder than ever! 

Talking about Parasitic Ejaculation really loved the track Corporeal Nightmares, Rationing The Sacred Human Remains, Splitting Abhorrent Flesh, Visceral Transcendence to call few names.. We hope the new materials have the same intensity..

Thanks, those are some of my favorite tracks of ours as well. Visceral Transcendence is the only one out of those that we haven't gotten the chance to play live yet, but I hope that will change soon. Right now we're trying to slow down playing as many local shows to make time for writing new material, because at this point it's been over a year since we finished writing for Echoes. While those songs are still very new to our listeners, they've been kicking around in our heads for quite some time now and we're itching to do new things as always. And as I've been saying, I'm really excited about the new stuff we've been writing since we have more creative input from our new guitar player. I think right now we have about one song that was penned by Mike, one that was penned by Parker, and one more that was more of a collaborative effort between Parker, Josh and Donovan, all somewhat works in progress at this point. I unfortunately haven't been at any of the writing sessions since I no longer live in the same town as everyone and am always busy with school, but we are always communicating and sharing with each other what's going on, and I'm really happy with how this new stuff is sounding. Mike and Parker both have an incredible creative knack for coming up with riffs that are technically intricate and unconventional rhythmically while still sounding infectious, catchy and brutally heavy. Josh also contributed primarily to some of the heaviest hitters on the last album (Splitting Abhorrent Flesh and Parasitic Spinal Mutation, to name a few), and his strong sense of dynamics and rhythmic intensity is once again at the backbone of this new material thus far. And of course, I never have enough good things to say about Donovan's drumming. Donovan's blasting, creative fills and kicks will always be at the heart of parasitic, and in that regard, I think that this new material is a going in a logical direction from the stuff on Echoes, just as Echoes was a logical progression from Rationing. As for myself, I am always pushing myself vocally, and trying new things live, and while I am for the most part happy with my performance on Echoes, I want to continue to improve on it and display a greater variety of vocal styles and tones on the next album, and I want to spend more time with the lyrics and write some words with a little more substance than before. So, in short, I think that if you've enjoyed our previous offerings, that you can expect to enjoy our new stuff. I can't say for sure what it will be like as it's still in it's infancy, but so far it's looking to be a more advanced iteration of our sound, blending a mix of technical slam, brutal death metal, and goregrind with the energy and aggression of hardcore, full of stops & starts, tempo changes, and constantly rotating bouncy, head bobbing riffs.

Jonathan coming beyond PxE tell us how your journey in metal begun?

When I was 13 or so I started developing my own tastes based on stuff I heard on the radio and through friends, and I liked a lot of nu-metal bands that were popular at the time like Slipknot, System of a Down, etc. And it was more or less all down hill from there, so to speak. I got a guitar when I was 14, and I still remember immediately after picking it up for the first time, trying to learn metallica songs online. By 16 I had met Donovan, our drummer, in high school. He had already been drumming for a long time at that point and we immediately became friends because of a common interest in metal. We would sometimes jam in his garage with friends, and went to a lot of local death metal & deathcore shows together at that time. Donovan is also the person who got me into slam, through bands like Devourment, Vomit the Soul, Abominable Putridity, and Short Bus Pile Up. If it wasn't for Donovan, this band wouldn't exist.

Well that's for sure. Well Jon until now I was not able to interview upcoming U.S based bands out of the 3 interviews I took 3 were renowned in their genre. Tell us how hard is for a upcoming metal band like PxE to sustain via metal even being from a country having a healthy metal scene and some renowned metal festivals..

Being in any kind of band is hard, and metal is no different. When we tour, a lot of nights we're playing to crowds of like 15 people, which is fine because we love what we do no matter how many people we play to, but we're not exactly rolling in dough. However I do feel like we're starting to become somewhat of a recognized name in the slam scene, and I think that's in part because slam is such a niche, supportive scene, and in part because we have always presented ourselves in a professional and consistent manner - we try to put out music at least once a year, we always get professional art done for the band, we get high quality recordings, we always have a variety of merch, we show up on time to shows, etc... most of these factors that have contributed to our success were/are expensive and came out of our own pockets when we were starting out. Writing good music that is catchy and original is obviously the most important thing in getting your band noticed, and certainly our number 1 concern as a band, but without quality recordings, merch, promotion, etc, no one will know it. So I believe that the hardest part about being in a band in the USA is just getting noticed and standing out from the thousands of other bands in your respective scene.

Well that's for sure Jon recently you guys toured Europe. How was the tour??

It was a lot of fun! I know I'm not just speaking for myself when I say it was the highlight of our lives so far. Everyone was super nice, we played some really amazing shows, made a ton of new friends, and got to see some beautiful cities and sites. But we also learned a lot. Having booked the tour entirely ourselves, it was very much a DIY venture and there were definitely things we could have done better. The main downside was being detained for 8 hours at the border of France and the UK. We were prevented from entering the UK for lack of a proper visa - but even that was a blessing in disguise because it gave us 2 days off to party in Bruges, Belgium, which was really fun. I miss all the bands and friends we met there, and I want to go back very badly!

It is said that tours make the band much better how are you guys feeling now after your tour??

Well, playing a set every night is just great practice, and I think that our performances definitely get stronger the longer we are on tour and the more we hit the road. It's also a chance for us to bond and get closer as people, so it's great for the band in that regard too. I wish that we could tour more, but we're pretty much limited to summer, winter and spring break tours while we get through college.

Yeah that's for sure studies for the 1st priority. Jon tell us regarding bands upcoming gigs. Please tell us about it..

We have a few things booked right now, some of which I can't talk about yet unfortunately, but I'll say what I can. On April 18th we are playing a show in our hometown with Continuum (featuring members of Animosity, Decrepit Birth, and Son of Aurelius) for their CD release, which should be dope, those guys are really incredible musicians. Then we're taking some time off to write, but in June, we are playing in San Jose with a dope band that we met in Europe, Placenta Powerfist! Which should be really cool. Dysentery, Stillbirth, and Cognitive are also playing, so it's a really stacked bill. In July we are playing Bay Area death fest which is going to be one of the coolest shows we've ever played. Pretty much all of our favorite local brutal bands are playing, like Aethere, Splattered, Logistic Slaughter, and Scepticemia, along the likes of No Zodiac, Disentomb, Condemned, Epicardiectomy, Party Cannon... The list goes on. Theres too many sick bands to name them all but there's not a bad band on the lineup! After that we're hitting the road on tour with Epicardiectomy and Party Cannon, and while those dates aren't all announced yet, I will say that if you're anywhere between Texas and Oregon in the Western half of the US, chances are we're coming for you! it's going to be a really good summer for us. Lastly, in August we're playing with Defeated Sanity in Ceres. It's been a long time since we've played at the workshop, and Defeated Sanity is one of our biggest influences, so that will definitely be one to remember. If you follow us on facebook, you'll hear all about these shows as they come up!

Well I am pretty sure practices are going on a massive way. So Jon any message to the metal world beyond states?

Be open minded, and don't take yourself too seriously. That's all I got!

So Jonathan a space for you and PxE to ask if we SNRMB team has forgotten to ask. Space all yours..

I can't think of anything. Thanks for anyone reading for taking the time to read this, and thanks to you for talking to me, I look forward to hearing your compilation!

Thank you Jonathan.. Thank you for your time..