DEATH TO ALL, the all-star tribute act celebrating the music of CHUCK SCHULDINER's pioneering DEATH, have once again ruled out the idea of writing original material — insisting their mission is to honor the catalog, not expand it.
Drummer GENE HOGLAN, who played on DEATH's landmark "Individual Thought Patterns" and "Symbolic," was characteristically direct. Writing new music "doesn't make a ton of logical sense," he argued, because any original compositions would immediately raise thorny questions about whether the result was truly DEATH or merely "music inspired by DEATH." For Hoglan, the cleaner path is to keep doing what they do best: delivering DEATH's songs live, night after night.
Bassist STEVE DIGIORGIO, another DEATH alumnus, echoed that stance. He noted that the members are "super busy" with their many other projects and view DEATH TO ALL primarily as "a live gig" rather than a creative entity in its own right. "There's no real need for it right now," he said.
Hoglan also pointed out that the band already gives fans an exhaustive experience, performing roughly "two hours of DEATH music" every night and drawing from every album in Schuldiner's discography. In his view, that comprehensive setlist is more than enough to represent the legacy without diluting it with new songs that could never carry Schuldiner's own creative stamp.
The position reflects the delicate balance DEATH TO ALL has always maintained. Founded with the blessing of Schuldiner's estate, the project exists to keep the late visionary's music alive on stage following his death from brain cancer in 2001. Writing original material under the DEATH banner would risk overstepping that purpose — a line the members appear unwilling to cross.
DEATH TO ALL's current lineup is a who's-who of extreme metal talent: Hoglan (also DARK ANGEL, DETHKLOK) on drums, DiGiorgio (also TESTAMENT) on bass, longtime DEATH guitarist Bobby Koelble, and CYNIC's Max Phelps on vocals and second guitar. For now, the band remains content to serve as a living monument to one of death metal's founding fathers.