In a new interview with Bloodstock TV’s Oran O’Beirne, OBITUARY drummer Donald Tardy was asked if the veteran Florida death metallers are still planning on releasing a new studio album in 2026 or 2027. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “In the rock and roll industry, you make plans and nothing ever sticks, and getting pushed back, it happens always. So I don’t wanna tell people that there’s gonna be a new album, ’cause is there? We don’t know. We’re having a damn good time. My brother [OBITUARY frontman John Tardy] and I are having a blast.
“Should there be one more record? Possibly. Possibly for the fans,” he continued. “Going on a 40-year career, we’re wondering, where do we go with this career of ours? And how much longer? Do we wanna do it? Can we do it? And should we?
“And so to answer the question, we love writing music and we love the idea of a new album, but we will definitely take our time and write the best songs we possibly can, just like we did with ‘Dying Of Everything’,” Donald added. “So ’26 and ’27 will be a writing process, and then the recording of it. So, we’re looking it as, if we’re still on this side of the ground and we could do it, there’ll be another one, simply because the fans deserve it. And we’re still having a good time doing what we do.”
OBITUARY recently celebrated the 35th anniversary of its second album, “Cause Of Death”, on a North American tour. Support on the trek came from NAILS, TERROR, SPIRITWORLD and PEST CONTROL.
OBITUARY‘s latest studio album, “Dying Of Everything”, came out in January 2023 via Relapse Records.
In 2022, Decibel Books released “Turned Inside Out: The Official Story Of Obituary”, the fully authorized biography of OBITUARY. The book was written by David E. Gehlke, author of “Damn The Machine: The Story Of Noise Records” and “No Celebration: The Official Story Of Paradise Lost”.
In a 2023 interview with Invisible Oranges, Donald stated about the six-year gap between 2017’s self-titled album and “Dying Of Everything”: “COVID had everything to do with it. We’ve been sitting on this album for two years; we started writing it five years ago. When we did the SLAYER tour in Europe, we were hell bound to get home and write an album. The plans were to obviously ride the coattails and get back to Europe on a headlining tour and talk about a new album. But then COVID took everything out. So we realized that we had a fucking awesome start to an album, so what are you gonna do when you realize you’re gonna be home for more than just months? We were home, so we just really focused on the songs that we had; wrote some more songs and really focused on, how can you make them killer? And then the recording process… we really took our time because we knew that we were not going to put an album out when we’re sitting on our couches because of COVID. So a lot of bands released records when they were sitting at home.”
He added: “I’m not 20 years old anymore, and there’s not that many more albums coming out of OBITUARY. This was the 11th one; this was the one we knew was super important. And so we’ve been sitting on it for two years. It’s been finished and in our back pockets waiting for the world to open up, especially Europe. Because Europe hadn’t seen us since 2016.”
Regarding OBITUARY‘s longevity, Donald said: “My brother says it in a lot of interviews, and I don’t often repeat him, but we’re doing something that we’re having a good time doing. And if we don’t have a good time doing it, we’ll find something else to do. I think that’s a great way to put it.
“My brother and I moved to Tampa, Florida from Miami, Florida in 1980. Within minutes, I met Trevor [Peres, OBITUARY guitarist] and I was only a 10-year-old kid. And by the time we were 12 years old, we already had the bug and we knew what we wanted; we wanted to be a band. And we’ve been best friends for 40-something years. And the longevity of the career with this band is simply that we’re all brothers, we kind of get along, beyond just bandmates. We’re lifetime friends, and, genuinely, we have a good time together. We’re fortunate that we found each other in life, and we’re good friends. And that’s the success plan that kept OBITUARY together now for going on 35 years.”
That same year, Donald told Kerrang! magazine that the extended hiatus he and his OBITUARY bandmates went on in 1997 was a positive experience. “Hindsight is 20/20,” he said. “At the time we didn’t know if that break was going to be one year, two years, six years or whatever it was. But, looking back, it was fantastic for us to step away and recharge, to get away from the music industry and that scene at the age that we were. And we were gone for long enough that we were hungry again when we got back onstage. It’s weird to look back at how long ago that was. Our ‘second career’ has lasted longer than a lot of bands’ entire existences.”
