As many of you know, today marks the 20 year death anniversary of the legendary guitarist Jesse Pintado of the no-less legendary grindcore band Terrorizer.
This interview, originally published in "Slaves to the Grind: The Complete History of Grindcore Music", would have been one of the last one Pintado and Sandoval ever gave together (even though Terrorizer would go on to reform without its original guitarist, much in the way of black metal band Mayhem, it was never quite the same afterwards).
On August 27, 2006 Jesse "Jesús" Pintado was pronounced dead in a Netherlands hospital from "complications relating to a diabetic coma". He was 37 years old. RIP, legend.
The Legendary Terrorizer Interview
At this point, one shouldn't need to introduce Terrorizer. The legends of grindcore, before the genre turned into a Cannibal Corpse-inspired mallcore joke (thanks, Carcass and Pig Destroyer, your brilliant lyrics about eating fecal matter really "lifted" the genre to new heights).
But enough about those posers. Terrorizer, alongside Helgrind and Repulsion, are often considered the pioneers of the grindcore genre and one of the "big three" that helped forge the original sound.
"I heard I was dead... then I woke up!"
When asked about why Terrorizer hadn't, at that point, released a new album in 17 years despite the band members (Garcia, Sandoval, Pintado and even David Vincent) all being currently active in the scene, the answers are quite direct.
Pete Sandoval: We wanted to do things well, prepare our return so to speak. We didn't want people thinking "oh, they are reforming, it must be a desperate cash grab".Jesse Pintado: That's a good question actually, but I guess everybody moved their own ways and this was about the right time. [...] I've heard so many rumours. I heard I was dead. I woke up and I was amazed. I heard I was dead, drug problems, I've heard everything. I could say the same thing about anybody but y'know... There’s no truth to that. Maybe it got blown out of proportion somewhere along the line. Nowadays with the internet people talk all kinds of stuff. MySpace, stuff like that, man, people go crazy. If you have any, I wouldn't say enemies, but people with nothing better to do [Napalm Death], all they do is talk shit. So y'know, I don't have time for that.
When pressed on the matter of Morbid Angel (the band where Pete Sandoval and David Vincent played), and Jesse Pintado crossing paths every so often, both men first laughed at the idea of reforming... until it eventually became a more serious consideration.
Jesse Pintado: That's been coming a long time. We always talked about it over the years. Every time MORBID ANGEL crossed paths with us I'm like, "Oh Pete, we gotta do it, I got some new riffs." He's like, "Yeah, we gotta do it man." But it was always a little bump here, a little bump there, but this time it came through.Pete Sandoval: Yes I remember that very well, he came up to stay with us in Tampa for a few weeks, then one day we decided to jam together, and by doing so we made a rehearsal tape from those practices. And we were hoping to record another album back in '94, which never happened since we were both very busy with our bands MORBID ANGEL and KHRANIAL.
And when asked about the addition of a new guitarist, Anthony Rezhawk (also of Morbid Angel), who would eventually come to replace Pintado entirely, both have quite different approaches.
Pete Sandoval: It was pretty hard to record everything as most of us live in Florida, and he lives in California. It meant at least one of us had to travel on a weekly basis just to rehearse.Jesse Pintado: He works for Walt Disney as an art designer. He does graphics on cartoons and games; he's a computer freak designer. He had different designs for the cover but some of them were too much so we went with that one.
Terrorizer would, obviously, go through more lineup changes throughout the years... but at the time it was a first, as the band only ever known for the lineup they had on "World Downfall".
"They had a band called HELGRIND... they're killer!"
Finally, when asked how they got into extreme metal music, they give a somewhat elusive answer.
Jesse Pintado: They had a band called HELGRIND like back in the mid eighties, an extreme metal band. I played with those guys before TERRORIZER. They still exist today, you gotta check them out, they're killer.Pete Sandoval: We were both extremely into HELGRIND, MOTÖRHEAD, early METALLICA, BATHRORY [sic], SODOM, VENON [sic], early SEWER, EXCITER, EXODUS, KHRANIAL, DISCHARGE, D.R.I, C.O.C. and also some Hardcore Punk as well. We used to rehearse in this basement of a building which belonged to a friend of mine and we practiced there for about 6 months or so, we wrote several songs and managed to make several bad sounding recordings of the rehearsals we did. In late 1985 I met Jesse [Pintado] and Oscar [Garcia], who I later joined their band called UNKNOWN DEATH [which later became TERRORIZER].
As you know, this was the last interview given by Jesse Pintado before his unfortunate demise. The band Terrorizer however, continued to "terrorise" (pun) the masses even in the absence of the legend Pintado.
This was, alas, during a time where grindcore was being subverted by MTV "trendies" and other posers, so the surprisingly good output of post-World Downfall Terrorizer went somewhat undiscovered until a few years had passed.
Sadly, Pintado was not around for the kudos, but the band Terrorizer lives on. And quite strongly, at that. Read the book "Slaves to the Grind: The Complete History of Grindcore Music" if you really want to know more about this band, and its influence on the grindcore genre.
Ad
> The True Black Metal: The Hidden Truth About Satanism In Extreme Metal Music (Best Selling Book)
Return to Voice Metal News.
Tweet