Chase Fraser is a busy man. You would be too if you were holding down guitar spots in not one, but two full-time Technical Death Metal bands. Since 2010, Chase has been holding down the rhythms in Decrepit Birth, and was already the mastermind behind the super group Continuum, featuring members of Son of Aurelius, Flesh Consumed, Arkaik, and Deeds of Flesh. Continuum’s new release “The Hypothesis” is described as “highly calculated”, “neck-breaking”, “concise” and “devastating”.
He’s also yet another one of the metal players to discover what a brutal combination Duncan’s Nazgul and Sentient pickups are in his guitars. Just in time to track some of his parts for the upcoming Decrepit Birth release, too. We recently caught up with Chase for a moment to see what he thought after having some time to record with the pickups, as well as get up-to-date on Decrepit Birth and Continuum happenings.
Can you recount for Duncan readers your formative years as a guitarist, influences, and the events that lead you to leaving your former band(s) and joining Decrepit Birth?
Well I started playing classical guitar 20 years ago which quickly led to electric guitar and trying to imitate bands I was listening to back then like Cannibal Corpse, Sepultura, and Morbid Angel. I went through a few bands before joining the Bay Area metal band Animosity in 2002. Animosity was my first touring band and let me see the world and gave me a tremendous amount of experience, not to mention having a great time with four of my best friends traveling to places as far as Eastern Europe and Russia. We accomplished a lot of amazing things with that band and by 2009 we thought the band had run its course and felt it was time to move on to other things. In 2009 I worked on the debut album by Son of Aurelius titled The Farthest Reaches on Good Fight Entertainment and did a little west coast touring for the album, then in 2010 I got the call from Decrepit Birth asking if I’d like to join on second guitar starting with the 2010 Summer Slaughter tour. I’ve already been good friends with Decrepit Birth for years since we’re from the same city and Animosity did some touring with them in 2008 so the choice was pretty easy to make. The album polarity had just come out on nuclear blast records and since then we’ve done two Summer Slaughter tours, two trips to Europe, and countless tours through the US and Canada with bands like Suffocation, Obituary, Morbid Angel, Cryptopsy, Decapitated and many other bands that really influenced me a lot in my early years.

Photo from TechDethMetal.com

When you joined, how difficult was the musical transition, learning your respective parts? How long did you rehearse before started playing shows with them?
The transition to playing Decrepit Birth songs was actually very smooth. I was already familiar with playing death metal at fast tempos with previous bands and Matt had all the guitar parts tabbed out on Guitar Pro which made learning the material much easier to slow down and learn every part before turning the tempo up slowly and getting everything up to tempo. I think I had about a month or so to learn all the songs before rehearsals started. Then after about a month at the practice spot we hit the road.
How do you and Matt determine parts/leads? Do you split things equally, or are your roles more pre-defined?
Well Matt is definitely the lead guitarist and I’m the rhythm guitarist. I have 3 leads live, two in “Symbiosis” and one in “Gathering of Imaginations”, other than that Matt does all the leads. Matt writes almost all the music so he definitely already knows which leads should go where so it’s mainly pre-defined but every now and then he’ll have an idea to have me do a lead to switch it up a bit.
Can you please give us a rundown of your current rig? Guitars, amp(s), pedals, etc.
Right now I’m using a brand new LTD M-1000vns with a beautiful natural maple finish that ESP just sent me which I’m completely in love with through an Engl Powerball 100 watt head which I’ve been using for about a decade now and completely swear by. I’ve always used Marshall cabs with Celestion G12T-75 speakers and for pedals all I use live is a Boss noise gate, Boss tuner, and Boss DD-5 delay for leads, but I’m looking forward to trying out Big Joes “Saturated Tube” pedal they just sent out to me for a little boost during leads as well. I’ve heard great things so I’m curious to see how it will work with the Powerball and the Sentient neck pickup for solos.
You’re using the Nazgul and the Sentient? What do they add to your tone?
Yeah I was totally blown away when I heard the Nazgul bridge pickup through my Engl Powerball. I’ve been searching for the perfect pickups for decades now. I actually started with Seymour Duncans as a kid switching out the stock pickups in my Strat for an Invader and JB jr. then the Livewire metal pickup before going to an EMG combo in Animosity. I used that pickup combo for years and still know why I liked it: they’re extremely consistent, high gain low noise tight sounding pickups. But they definitely leave something to be desired in the dynamic and articulation departments. In 2011 I started using Seymour Duncan pickups again starting with the Blackouts and the EMTY Blackouts which I really think mixes the best qualities of the original Blackout and the best qualities of the EMG 81. I still wanted to try a high gain passive pickup though which led me to try out the Nazgul and Sentient pickups. I’m definitely surprised at how tight and punchy the Nazgul sounds especially for being a passive pickup. You get all the dynamics of the attack of the pick on the string which gives it a more “real guitar” sound than the active pickups I’ve tried, while still being high gain low noise. It’s definitely a very rewarding sound to hear every attack of every note being played in more detail and clarity while still maintaining an aggressive bite.

Will Decrepit Birth be doing any tour dates this summer/fall?
Right now Decrepit Birth is writing and making pre-production demos of new material for the new album so it doesn’t look like we’ll be touring until the album is completed, we should start recording drums in late summer but a release date is really hard to say at this point. I did get to use the Nazgul and Sentient pickups in a live setting at the Continuum CD release show last week though and I was very pleased with how the pickups performed.
You’re a prolific writer, with multiple musical projects going. Can you outline your home recording rig for our readers?
Thanks a lot for the kind words, my home recording rig is pretty simple, I use an iMac with two Presonous Firestudios as interfaces with eight channels each through KRK V8 monitors. For guitar I use my Powerball head through one of my Marshall 1960A cabs with a Blue Baby Bottle condenser mic and a Shure SM57. For direct guitar I either use my Line 6 Pod XT Pro or the Bias desktop plugin which I’ve really been into lately. The options are ridiculous, you can even change everything from the tubes to the transformer. A lot of great amp models to choose from too I highly recommend it for direct guitar. And for drum programming I use Superior Drummer 2.0 mixing the Avatar kit with some of the metal foundry snares.
Describe your writing process to our readers. Do the riffs come first, or do you come up with a concept and try to write around it?
When it comes to songwriting nowadays I’ll just come up with a riff or two while I’m playing guitar and I’ll record it onto my iPhone with an iRig into GarageBand using the Bias app for the tone so I don’t forget the riff. Then once I have enough riffs I think would go well together in a song I’ll start programming drums on my iMac and recording real demo guitar and start moving around the structure of the song to hear how the riffs flow into each other. When it comes to my band continuum me and the singer discuss the concept of the lyrics then he writes the lyrics to the demo MP3s I send him so the concept is primarily separate from the riff writing process.

Continuum-“The-Hypothesis”

Can you tell us more about your supergroup Continuum? I know you wrote all the music but can you elaborate for readers about putting it together, assembling musicians, etc.? Did you give/allow them any input, or were their parts completely mapped out for them? Is it a one-off project, or will there be future releases?
For the Continuum album we just released on Unique Leader records titled “The Hypothesis” I mapped out everything except lyrics and vocal patterns which our singer Riley McShane handled. I also wrote and played all the guitar and bass parts on the album except the guitar solos which me and our other guitarist split half and half, four solos each. And yeah, Continuum is definitely a real full time band that will be touring and releasing future material which will have more input from the rest of the band, our bassist and other guitarist have already been contributing some amazing riffs for the next continuum album so I’m already looking forward to recording again.
How do you see the music “industry” evolving, specifically as it relates to heavier music styles? Are you & the band relying totally on social media, or is it still possible to get any sort of label support, particularly for touring?
Even with the drastic changes happening in the music industry lately both of my bands still definitely get a lot of support from our labels. Nuclear blast has always been amazing to Decrepit Birth, they definitely help out with tour support whenever we’re in trouble on the road, and Unique Leader records couldn’t be better to Continuum even with all of our busy schedules they really helped make the release of our new album go as smoothly as possible while getting us in touch with people like publicists and booking agents, it definitely helps to have a good open communication with your label obviously, and it also helps when the people running the label have been in touring bands before and know how it works from the other side of things.
How would you advise a fledgling band in your genre?
I would just say to really take your time and write the best material you can and to just do what really inspires you and what you actually enjoy doing because at the end of the day it’s all about what makes you happy. If you can find something you’re really excited about, chances are other people will be too.

Continuum, on Unique Leader Records