John Tardy: Well, you'll see the Ozzfest that has pretty good attendance to it. I think the Warped Tour maybe does alright. But, you know, I'm not really sure. I mean the States are just spread out. So if you put a festival somewhere it's kind of hard to get kids to come in from to, to far. Most of the kids here won't travel that far. You put a show in Germany and you get kids from the Netherlands, Belgium, you know. It's surrounded by other Countries. Those kids will jump on those trains and they'll go in. They will make the travel. They'll take that trip and make it there to get to some of these festivals. Here if there is a show in Tampa, it's not like we are going to get anybody even from Georgia driving in. (laughs) If it's in Tampa, you might get some kids from maybe Orlando. But even as far as Miami, I don't think you are going to get kids to come in for that.

So the shows we do here are obviously a lot smaller. Most of the clubs are just converted night clubs. The House Of Blues is always great to do because they are built and set up specifically for Music to be played there. They're nice to do. You find yourself playing some pretty shitty places going through the States sometimes. And the crowds just aren't as big as what we get when we go through Europe. They're still fun and we still have a good time with them (though).

SplatterTribe: You and your brother have also recorded two albums recently. One with your Obituary band mates and another under the name The Tardy Brothers. Did you record those simultaneously or at separate time?

John Tardy: No, they were done separately. Donald (Tardy) and I, we've been working on (our album) for years. We've just never had the time to do anything with it and certainly didn't have the time to set around and get into the studio to record the stuff. Now we actually record all of our music here at my own studio. It was an easy thing for us to do, to find the time now to finish these song, put'm together and get them recorded.

We finished that and then pretty much started working on the Obituary record shortly after we got done with that. It was a lot of work doing those two records and trying to finish them up before we left. We got them all done and then went (away) for a month. So by the time I got home I was ready to take a little break.

SplatterTribe: So what makes the two albums distinct entities of their own?

John Tardy: (laughs) I take it you haven't heard the Tardy Brothers?

SplatterTribe: Actually I hate to admit it, but I have not yet heard the Tardy Brothers album.

John Tardy: That's alright. It's out now, hopefully you come across it (laughs).

Well, I mean it's me and Donald, so it's gonna obviously sound something like Obituary, but we weren't going out and trying to be as heavy or heavier that what Obituary is. That hits the extreme of what we can do. The Obituary stuff kind of gets about as heavy as really, what we can do. It's not quite as heavy. I think maybe the guitar sound is one of the big differences. It's a little bit cleaner. It cuts through, choppin' it a little bit more than what Obituary does. We were able to do some other stuff. There's a ton of guitar solo's. We had four different guitar players doing leads on this album. There's just a ton of great guitar leads, if you like that stuff. We have some acoustic parts and things like that. Nothing to soft. The album is heavy, but it just has a couple of music parts that aren't quite as heavy as what Obituary might do. It's fun. It's got a lot of groove to it. There not to, to much fast stuff. There's one kind of fast song, but for the most part it's kind of a mid-tempo, driving kind of sound. Unless you're just a serious, diehard Death Metal fan and want it to be as heavy as you possibly can.......It really come out sounding really good. It's got a ton of good leads, which to me make's it great.

SplatterTribe: Who all played on the Tardy Brothers album?

John Tardy: Donald and I pretty much wrote and recorded all of the music. Donald actually played all the guitars and drums on it. (He played) all the rhythm guitars and stuff. We wrote the whole thing. It's just neither one of us are lead guitar players. Ralph (Santolla, current Obituary guitarist) was an easy choice because he's so good. He can play just about anything you ask. I think at heart, Ralph is a little bit more of a Hard-Rock person. You know, if he really had his choice of what he wanted to play. So I think his leads actually lay in better with some of these songs than maybe some of the songs he would do with us (Obituary) or Deicide.

We got Jerry Tidwell who was actually one of our original Executioner (original name for the Obituary band) guitarist from way back when. That was an interesting story in itself. We hadn't seen Jerry in probably 15, 20 years or something like that. I ran into his brother one day and started talking to him. He told me how Jerry still plays guitar all the time. I know back when we played with him in the Executioner days that he was good then. I was like, "Hmm, he still plays all the time. That's it. He's got to come over." (laughs) So it was cool. We called him up and he came over. It was good seeing him again after all of these years. He's just so good. His style is different, but still good so it makes it go really well together.

Then we had this young, Chinese kid by the name of John Lee which you may or may not have heard of, but you probably will eventually. He's just an incredibly gifted guitar player that Ralph actually used to give lessons to. He kind of mentors this young kid. Ralph was like, "I couldn't teach him anything else, so now we're just kind of friends." (laughs) So, he was really good.

Then we had another local, friend of mine Scott Johnson that's just been a friend of mine forever and ever. He doesn't do much recording but he's just a good guitar player and he put a little something down too.

SplatterTribe: So is there any chance of an Obituary and Tardy Brothers tour?

John Tardy: I doubt that. I don't think I could handle that much singing in one day (laughs). That would be a lot. Donald and I will definitely, and it all depends on what Obituary's scheduling has up it's sleeve, but when we can clear a spot of the calendar, we'd love to get together and go play some shows with this music. We do have plans on doing that, but we'll see what happens.

SplatterTribe: I know it's early and it was just now released, but is the Tardy Brothers something you will be expanding on in the future?

John Tardy: Yeah, I think we definitely are..We still have more songs and stuff, ideas and stuff that we already have started working on. Like I said, we have the studio here so he pretty much comes over everyday and we'll be kicking around, doing something. (We're) always coming up with ideas and things in our head. We kind of plan on inviting other people, different guitar players, different drummers, maybe different vocalists, who knows? We'll put together something. It's just fun to write the music. The Tardy Brothers thing gives us a little more flexibility. Obituary has kind of got itself pinned into a corner a little bit, but not that that is a bad thing. We just have a bunch of fans that come to expect a certain sound from Obituary and if we stray to far from that......not that I'm afraid to do it a little bit in kind of each direction. At the same time, we're not going to do any quiet, acoustic parts like we were able to get away with a little bit on the Tardy Brothers stuff. (it would be) to much for Obituary. So it does gives us that flexibility to kind of spread out and do something a little bit different other than just straight up Death Metal.

SplatterTribe: So getting back to Obituary, tell us about the new album.........