Death Angel Undergo Numerous Lineup Shifts for New Record

Lately, the world of Death Angel has resembled a game of musical chairs. In January 2009, original bassist Dennis Pepa quit and was replaced by Sammy Diosado (ex-the Sick). Then founding drummer Andy Galeon bailed and ex-Vicious Rumors drummer Will Caroll joined the band.

"Dennis and Andy are my bros all the way from day one, but for them there was not enough money to be made and the hard life of touring was getting to be too much for them," guitarist Rob Cavestany told Noisecreep. "Each of these guys have had their second kid lately. I have one kid and it's incredibly difficult to manage this life with the amount of financial success that we're not experiencing."

Tension caused by the lack of finances reached a peak when the band was on the road to support 'Killing Season.' "We were starting to get a lot of bad vibes between them because they were dealing with trying to survive. It's easy enough if you're on your own, but once you've got family at home and a couple kids and you're gone for months at a time it's much harder. And when you come home there isn't as much money to contribute it's nearly impossible. It was just getting really heavy for those dudes. The sands of the hourglass finally ran out for them and one by one they left."

Galeon recently co-formed the Bay Area band the Inkos, which played their first show in Berkeley, Calif. on Jan. 29.

Death Angel were planning to head into the studio to record their new album with Caroll and Diosado, then after nearly a year of touring, Diosado quit.

"By the time we came to write for this next album and laid out our plans for 2010, it just freaked him out," Cavestany said. "He didn't realize what he was getting himself into. We have big touring plans for the next year and he just perceived that it was going to be too much for him to handle. He didn't want to be gone from home almost always."

Late last year, Death Angel hired former Scarecrow bassist Damien Sisson, who performed his first show with the group at the Speedfest festival in Eindhoven, Germany.

"Damien Sisson is a Bay Area cat who played with our rhythm guitarist Ted [Aguilar] in one of his side bands for a while," Cavestany said. "And he jammed with me when I did some acoustic side stuff. The guy's an amazing musician, probably the most hardcore musician of us all. I'm totally stoked to work with him because I've never collaborated with somebody that was so musically inclined."

Death Angel are currently in Audio Hammer studio in Sanford, Fla. with producer Jason Suecof. They plan to have the album finished by early April. The yet-untitled CD is tentatively scheduled for release in September.