Mortal Sin On Their Nine Date Resurrection Tour
‘We were there right at the beginning. You read the books, you read the Metallica autobiographies, you read all Dave Mustaine’s books, and you lived in that era. Kids of today, they’re learning all that as their history. We lived it. So, it was an exciting time then. It’s an exciting time now.’
Mat Maurer of thrash metal legends Mortal Sin discusses the bands career on a day they announce a nine-date resurrection tour around Australia, starting at Froth & Fury Festival.
‘Well, it’ll be fifteen years by the time we play our first show. It’s like riding a bike. You get in and you have rehearsals and it’s like, oh yeah, I remember how to do all of this. Don’t ask me to write new songs though. That’s the hardest part! We’ve had quite a few rehearsals now and it’s sounding fricking awesome, man. All this new technology, we’re just sounding a hundred times better than we sounded fifteen years ago, mate, and that’s an honest assessment from me and I’m the hardest critic. If I didn’t think we are better, then I wouldn’t say it, but we’re a hundred times better!’
Formed during the time trash metal begun to snot and sneer itself in denim and leather onto the musical world on the 80’s, Mortal Sin took Australia’s flag and represented with gusto, with debut Mayhemic Destruction and follow up Face Of Despair landing the band fantastic touring spots, Metallica included, as Australia’s premium trash band. However, in an pre-internet age, Australia’s seclusion to the world was the biggest hurdle.
‘I came across a whole bunch of reviews and in the early days it said, ‘Mortal Sin, Australia’s answer to Metallica’ and all of this. But the funny thing is, probably the biggest hurt for us was that we came from Australia and being so far away from where everything was happening. Yes, we’ve got a major record deal, but we kept crying out, come on, take us to Europe. Take us to Europe. Oh, you’re not ready yet. By the time that we did get to Europe in 1990 for the Testament tour and the Faith No More Tour, I personally feel like we missed, not missed the boat completely, but we got on a bit late. So, bands like Testament and Death Angel and all of those, we probably felt we could have been their equals had we gone to Europe in 1988 or 87 when we signed the contract. We kind of lost three years where we got basically left behind.’
During this period, one famous comedian turned out as a regular drummer of the band in Steve Hughes, ‘I’m hoping he’s okay. If he’s in Australia, hopefully we can run into him somewhere?’ before the band embarked into the 90’s and subsequent changes through the decades, eventually going into hibernation in 2011. Which brings us to the resurrection of a jam-packed touring of 2026, the fortieth anniversary of Mayhemic Destruction. The touring world has changed in that time.
‘The technology is improving all the time. We don’t even use amps. You tour on the road and it’s like you don’t have to carry heavy bloody boxes around everywhere you go. Look, the bass player used to carry those fricking Ampegs around mate. He’s got a little thing that fits in the palm of his hand now. That’s what makes it great and wearing in-ears. It’s like you’re in a recording studio, you’re playing on a stage, but I’m hearing things exactly how I was hearing ’em in a recording studio and now that we’re hearing it all, we’re going, wow, is that what we used to do there? Especially for me as a singer, when you’re playing live on stage, sometimes you get a shit mix and the monitors are off or something. You can’t hear your drummer, you can’t hear the guitarists. You’re running around stage to try and hear parts, things like that. Well now, I can be anywhere. I can be a hundred metres out in the crowd and I can still hear it. That’s the amazing part of the technology that’s made us all improve so much.
The tour starts at Froth & Fury, and takes in eight other dates across Australia. Then the band have quite a few dates over in Europe at various Festivals and with Kings Of Thrash. The band set lists need to be adaptable.
‘We’ve got four different sets organized. Froth And Fury, we only get forty minutes, so it’s going to have to be a best of. How do you fit forty years of history into forty minutes? So, our aim is to pretty much just go out there and smack everyone in the face with the best of our songs. Then when we do our own shows, we’re looking at maybe 70 or 80 minutes. So, you’re looking at a decent set which will have songs from every album basically. I think the Froth and Fury set, I think seven songs is all we get to play because our songs are too bloody long.’
Two original members are back, followed by two returning members, however in the seat behind the drum kit, George Delinicolis from Livewire steps up to the challenge.
‘George is an absolute beast on drums. If you’ve ever seen him play drums, he smashes those fucking things. When I showed the guys a video of him playing live, they all agreed, oh shit, yeah, we’ve got to ask this guy. I asked him did he want to be a part of Mortal Sins fortieth anniversary? And he’s like, yeah, yeah. I don’t think he understood what we were asking him, but he said, yeah. Maybe a day later he is probably thinking, shit, what did I just do?!’
For a younger generation that have never seen or heard Mortal Sin, what can you expect?
‘People will hear us play, even if they’re not where we are, they might go, geez, that sounds fucking good. Let’s go and check this band out. That’s all you can do. We’re lucky that we got really catchy songs and we got really popular songs within our fans. So, if it’s popular within our fans, then surely we can make new fans. That’s the goal with Froth and Fury. Basically it’s either going to be a train wreck or it’s going to be so brilliant that people are just going to go, oh my God, fucking Mortal Sin were unreal. That’s what we’re aiming for.’
Interview By Iain McCallum
Catch Mortal Sin on the following dates with Hidden Intent, tickets HERE…
And at Froth & Fury in Adelaide, tickets HERE…
