Florida death metal

"is a really , , . So, it's a weird place to begin with, and then you have these kids with no place to go. So maybe death metal happened as a reaction to that or maybe it's just some energetic physics thing—a spirit that's in the air and kids tune into it if they have an artistic bone in their bodies."

"Tampa never really got the shows coming through town that New York or the West Coast got, and that created a real hunger for good music. We kind of had to create our own scene."

"Back then, we were all trying to define our own sounds and images. I don’t wanna say there was unfriendly competition, but I don’t wanna say there was friendly competition either. We were all competing for the front seat. It all started with and . You had the thing going on with and we wanted to outdo that. My goal was to be heavier, vocally especially."

"I was jamming with a few other guys in in the late 80’s, when we collectively decided to move to Florida. […] It was who actually told us about the scene in Florida before we came down. […] So we moved down in December of 1989. […] But when we first moved to South Florida, the scene was just killer for metal. That was a big reason why we moved down."

"To be honest, the early Tampa scene was very divisive, and a lot of the bands didn’t like each other or talk to each other because it was extremely competitive. No one knew that literally every single one of their bands was going to get signed."

"Back then, I really wanted to destroy everybody. I wanted people to have to work a lot harder after the fans witnessed what we had going on. I wanted to smoke people. I really believed that bands were challenging each other, trying to outdo each other and make each other quit - almost like the rivalries with East Coast and West Coast rappers. I really kind of thought people wanted to write parts that would engulf the whole world. I wanted to get onstage and have people go, "Holy shit - what the fuck is going on?" I wanted to write stuff that would make other bands run and hide. It's not really very nice, but that's what drove me."

"I didn't really see [Morbid Angel] as competition. I just saw it as someone who was shit-talking who was gonna get pounded. But after a confrontation at an airport, that came to an end. We got on a plane with them and I went, "Hey man, what the fuck is this shit about?" And there was an about-face. "Oh, we didn't say that, man." But we have some mutual friends and shit, so we know what was said. And it was like, "OK, you know what, if you want to take it to the next level, we're ready." We made peace after that and realized we were all on the same team."

"To make it fun and exciting, we kind of looked at it like wrestling. You know how in wrestling you've got these big guys and it's all competition and they've got something to say about this or that guy, but it's all in fun? The idea was to write songs that blew everybody else away and pull off the most wicked, fucking beats. But it was only in fun, and it was a motivational tool."

"It was more competitive in Florida than in Buffalo, which is where we were originally from. But I don't know if it was a completely negative thing because sometimes that competitive spirit helps bands better themselves. Everyone wants to be the fastest and the heaviest, and that kept the scene moving forward in a faster, heavier direction."

"I’ll never forget a party I went to in an old barn in central Florida. [...] Amon were playing and then Xecutioner (which became Obituary). I went to the party with Chuck [Schuldiner] and I remember David Vincent saying to Chuck, ‘Man, I love your vocals on ', which he had the advance cassette of. It seemed like every band that became influential from that Florida scene was there that night. It was just a room of artists interacting and there was a lot of camaraderie and respect. And you could feel it. It was like, ‘Whoa, this is a scene.’"

"I’d met Chuck in ’89 [...] We got in contact with him and hung out for a while, he introduced me to [producer and engineer] Scott [Burns] who was doing sound for a show at an airplane hangar. It was Morbid Angel, Obituary, Atheist, Amon and Nocturnus. That’s where I met every key member of every band. That was the first sign that something really cool was happening."

"The Florida technical death metal scene was huge for me. The mind-bending songs of Atheist were just so out of this world and even if I didn’t understand the songs back then they still resonated with me. I couldn’t love this more if I tried."

"Down in Florida, people were listening to Nasty Savage and Savatage as well as shredders like Randy Rhoads before the really heavy stuff started with bands like Celtic Frost, Slayer, Hellhammer and Venom."