Interview with Ken Padilla of Impaled Offering

Impaled Offering is a three piece band from New Mexico that plays a sickening blend of grind, death metal, and black metal. They were just recently signed to Pathologically Explicit Records and they plan on putting out their debut full-length soon. In this interview we discuss the history of the band, DIY merch, and many other things with the band's guitarist Kenneth Padilla.

Foul Feast: How did Impaled Offering come about?

Ken Padilla: Impaled Offering came about, shortly after I saw Ben Segural(Drums) Playing with his old band Virulency. I was extremely impressed with his skills, weeks after that show, he left Virulency. Right away I got in contact with him. The 1st time we jammed was at my friend Dom Dimas of Torture Victims house after a Warbringer show, we just messed around with random jams to test one another out, the guys from Warbringer thought we had been a band for a while, that basically told us we had something and to continue jamming, shortly after we picked up Joseph Chavez on Bass and Vocals. Joseph picked up the songs quickly and was more than a perfect fit. Thus Spawning Impaled Offering

FF: You guys recently got signed to Pathologically Explicit Recordings, how do you feel Impaled Offering fits in with the rest of their roster?

Ken Padilla: Well that's a hard one cause ,now we have to prove our work, due to the wicked line up Pathologically Explicit records contains , I mean fucken Gortuary is on it, Flesh Throne, Iniquitous(mike smith of Suffocation drums for them), Human Rejection and more............ I guess the way we do differ is we are the only Progressive blacken Deathgrind band on the label.

FF: How long had you been together before the label picked you up? And had you guys been in contact with any other labels before this?

Ken Padilla: We where a active band for about 9 months before we got picked up, so it was a pretty quick process from being local to signed ,Especially for a New Mexico band, not many labels look this way. Yeah we did send a lot of facebook links and demos out to various labels, the only one that actually talked to us 1st was Severad Records, but it didnt go through. Maybe a month later we contacted Pathologically Explicit Recs and Fernando offered us the deal. All I gotta say is thanks to the awesome extreme scene we are part of, all the cool peeps we have networked , or worked with. Without such a down to earth scene we would have never got so many fans and friends in such a short time.

FF: In the past you guys have made your own merch, now that you are on a label is that going to change or are you going to keep going the DIY route?

Ken Padilla: Our merch sich was crazy and still is at the moment, we just made a one color screen printer and printed very limited shirts and patch’s(and now our screen printers dead), so we will be getting merch help from the label, and hope to have merch on the labels site and at shows soon. I believe we will continue doing a lot on our own once we get more revenue

FF: How has the demo been received so far?

Ken Padilla: So far we haven’t got any thing but awesome feedback on it, and none of the feedback has been negative so far, the only thing we personally where not happy with was the quality of the recording, but it gets the idea out for now

FF: It's clear when listening to the demo that you guys aren't afraid to break barriers and you can't really be boxed into one particular genre. Is this something that plays a role in the writing process for Impaled Offering or does it just come naturally?

Ken Padilla: Well its a bit of both sometimes, due to the riff, tempo ,and genre changes. The riff writing itself comes naturally , putting the puzzle together that’s the more involved process. The way we approach every song is by not letting any riff sound the same or even use the same patterns, make sure it flows, and never repeating riffs in a song. I also have had a philosophy for a while, on the sound I want to create, I believe death metal should create chasms of sound that replicate transcending life and death , it's chaotic and savage but at the same time contains a certain elegance. So it's not just about being brutal, our writing style calls for a certain amount macabre, dissonant and tech tones.

FF: The plan is to have your first full-length out in 2012 according to the labels site. Has the writing process for the album started yet?

Ken Padilla: The album itself is ready to go to the studio, besides two songs in need of lyrics, we plan on releasing an album with 7 fully written songs, 5 on the spot grind tracks(we play 4 made up on the spot grind tracks every show to involve fans and friends on vocals), and 3 sound scape tracks. The only thing holding us back now the money to go record in a real studio, we plan on recording either at Arcane Studios in Arizona, or the the studio Noisear recorded Subvert the Dominant Paradigm

FF: Within your short time together you have already had a chance to share the stage with some brutal bands, is there any show that comes to mind that stood out the most?

Ken Padilla: I helped Cephalic Carnage run their Vapor fest 2011 in ABQ , due to the fact that they had to cancel coming down, and it was awesome meeting Disgorge US, and Rottenness of Mexico, there where also 7 other local acts on it that all killed it. But in general House party’s are the funnest to play cause they're so personal, and the energy’s right there in your face.

FF: Is the metal scene down in New Mexico strong?

Ken Padilla: The New Mexico scene is starting to build up, but it is still very weak. We have some wicked bands out here (Noisear, Torture Victim, Suspended, Dread, Laughing Dog, Intoxicated,Echoes of Fallen, Daemonius) and a hand full more, the bands mentioned back each other as much as possible. But the problem with New Mexico is a lot of bands say they wanna do it but don’t put in the effort, or make contacts, and also hate on every other band in town instead of making a strong scene

FF: Is doing a tour after the full-length release something you could see happening?

Ken Padilla: Yes we really want to get one going, at the moment our friend Joe Tapia bassist/vocalist of Noisear (Relapse Rec) wants to help us book a tour in the summer of 2012, due to the tons of huge bands and venues the guy knows . He has been a huge help in getting us connects and a great mentor to me personally, so I send mad props out to him, he will also be doing guest vocals on the album.

FF: Are any of the members of Impaled Offering in other bands that are active at the moment?

Ken Padilla: At the moment no, but we do play and listen to a vast variety of genres outside the the Extreme scene, just to keep our mind fresh and creative, such as jazz(not elevator)Folk,Classic rock, Bluegrass,Underground hip hop, World musics, Classical ect................

FF: Any final thoughts?

Ken Padilla: Just want to say support your local bands, the scene , throw any deathcore albums you may own in the trash , and pick up some real shit, grind, crust, punk, thrash, death metal, doom, metal, black metal ect.... get out to shows staying at home and just buying albums don’t support touring bands or the scene in general. Also shout out to all the Tyrants we hang with!!!!!!!!!!!!!!