INTERVIEW WITH RICKY GARCIA BY KEVIN STEWART-PANKO
People who have been disappointed after meeting their heroes will tell you to never meet your heroes. Ricky Garcia begs to differ. So far, so good, claims the Dead Heat guitarist, who is batting 1.000 in the ‘meeting your heroes’ sweepstakes. The past handful of years has seen the Oxnard, CA quintet take to the road supporting Municipal Waste, Exodus, the Cavalera Conspiracy and Necrot, and Garcia reports nothing but good about the experiences.
“I love playing guitar and being in a band is awesome,” he gushes. “There’s nothing like being on a stage, surrounded by your close friends and bands that have been around for 30-40 years who are still out there hanging out and having a good time. Being able to tour with dudes I’ve been listening to since I started getting into metal is insane and there’s most definitely an appreciation and gratefulness there.”
In addition to the praise heaped on his heroes and influences, Garcia acknowledges the inspiration and lessons those elder statesmen provided in the creation of the band’s third and latest album, Process of Elimination.
“You see the speed of [Exodus guitarist] Gary Holt, how Iggor [Cavalera] is still the greatest drummer of all time and seeing dudes who still have the ferocity puts the idea in your head that our stuff can last that long if it’s done well enough. Those bands set the mark for us and we want to pay respect by continuing on being a band like them.”
In addition to being a turbulent slab of taut crossover thrash, Process of Elimination also happens to be Dead Heat’s Metal Blade debut after releases on Triple-B and Tankcrimes.
“The last EP [2023’s Endless Torment] with Tankcrimes was awesome for us; it opened up doors and paved the way in trying to find where the next level would be. Each release has been on a different label since the beginning, so once we hit Tankcrimes with more metal sounding stuff, we wanted to find someone that would appreciate the direction we’re going and Metal Blade was it.”
So, in the chicken vs. the egg schematic, which came first: did Dead Heat start writing the more metallic sounding Process of Elimination after Metal Blade was in the picture? Or were they heading in that direction already?
“[Guitarist] Justin [Ton] and I had already thrown ideas and riffs around. It wasn’t necessarily like, ‘Ok, we’re going to do this on this record.’ Actually, the record is five and five; I wrote five songs and Justin wrote five and the day before we went into the studio [drummer] Yogie [Rodriguez] wrote the drums, which is pretty crazy. I had the majority of my songs written from like 10 years ago. I wrote the title track when I was like 16 or 17. ‘By My Will’ was the first song I wrote a long time ago; the intro riff was from when I was like 15 years old. The songs just needed the right drummer, a good rhythm guitarist and great vocals to fill them out to make them what they are now. I originally demoed those songs with like iPad drums, but when I showed the guys, they liked them and it worked out, in my unbiased opinion!”
