A Dirty Dozen with WRETCHED – October 2025

Photo credit: Dania Ramos

According to a recent press release: “Radiance” is the pummeling new single from Charlotte, North Carolina’s WRETCHED. The track appears on their long-awaited fifth full-length, Decay. A conceptual masterpiece that blends haunting melodies with progressive complexity, the record will see release on October 17th on Metal Blade Records. Decay may be WRETCHED’s most pristine-sounding recording, but it’s still raw with a live feeling in the performances. It sees the boundary-pushing lineup breaking past defined walls of their four previous releases. Lyrically, Decay delves deep into existential themes, D&D-inspired mythology, and personal loss.” We get the band to discuss new music, influences, and more…

1. Tell us a little about your latest release.  What might a fan or listener not grab the first or second time they listen through?  Are there any hidden nuggets you put in the material or that only diehard fans might find?

Billy: When it comes to lyrical / story content, I make a few references that anyone who is a fan of Beyond the Gate will absolutely recognize if familiar with that albums lyrics/story. In the title track and our first single from this new album DECAY, the opening lyrics are “I call upon Elturiel” which is a direct reference to a character in BTG. Along with that in the story portion I mention a character named Xzorian, the hellish domain Uraitahn and the talisman(s). Also in the track “THE ROYAL BODY” I say “beyond the gate” twice. This is all in the effort to tell a story set in the same world as BTG, yet 1,000+ years in the past. An origin of the “last talisman of Xzorian.”

Marshall: Decay is complex in song concepts, and the sounds and recording. On first glance you’ll see everything on the surface, but with every listen you’ll tread deeper and darker waters. There are lots of different textures and layers to create a 3D space and you as the listener are right in the middle of it.

Andrew: This album is unique in that, at first listen, the riffs may not seem overly complex—but once you pay closer attention, the intricacies become clear. The real challenge lies in crafting transitions and melodies that feel natural and accessible, while still embedding a high level of technical sophistication within the subtleties.

2. What got you into music, and can you tell us about the moment you realized you wanted to be a musician?

Billy: Like most of us, I wasn’t immune to being under the influence of my parents’ musical tastes. My father would always play albums from Black Sabbath, David Bowie, The Beatles, Alice Cooper, Jimi Hendrix, Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin. My mother, while she enjoyed Bowie, Hendrix and Zeppelin often played albums from bands like Bon Jovi (specifically Slippery When Wet), Def Leppard, The Doors and Fleetwood Mac. Once the early 90’s came around she took a strong liking to grunge, introducing me to Alice In Chains and Soundgarden. Once I turned 10 in 1995 I finally began to get into bands on my own starting with Green Day, No Doubt, 311 and then progressively got into heavier bands like Tool, Korn, White Zombie, Nine Inch Nails and others to the likes of those. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but I recall maybe around 7 or 8 expressing to my parents that I wanted to be a frontman, singing for a band to which they laughed due to my dads inability to carry the greatest tune. Haha. Sometime during high school is when I realized I didn’t care about that “curse” and started doing vocals in my bedroom to albums like Get Some by Snot, Slipknot and System of a Down’s self-titled releases amongst others. I then decided to start a band called Chyme with some friends, carrying that effort for several years before trying out for another band in the local scene called And Since Forgotten. Once they told me I would be their new vocalist, they said the name would be changing to Wretched. Now we’re here!

Steven: Metallica. When I discovered Metallica – that’s the band that did it all for me.

Marshall: I have such vivid memories growing up watching music videos on MTV,  one such memory is hearing the lyrics “the world is a vampire” and then drumming along on the armchair of the couch. My sister played snare drum in band (she is a few years older than me) and I would love to hit that thing. It was so loud, such a complex sound, never heard anything else like that before. I used to ask for guitars for Christmas and I would always get plastic toy ones that were the equivalent to a modern day Guitar Hero controller. They would always get stepped on or break some how. One year I boldly asked for a drum kit and there it was. My little red drum kit that I would attempt to bash along with music videos – “Enter Sandman,” “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Just a Girl,” “Basket Case,” etc.

Andrew: I started playing bass when I was 9 years old. My friend played guitar and recruited my brother and I to join a band. He was like “you play bass and you play drums.” My brother still plays drums too. He’s in a sick doom metal band called The Osedax.

3. Building on that, is there a specific song, album, performer, or live show that guided your musical taste?

Billy: I would bring it back to the first band I discovered on my own. I was sitting in my room at the apartment complex we’d just moved to in North Carolina after leaving Arizona. I had MTV on and Green Day was doing a lengthy performance of material from their most current album Dookie and their then upcoming album Insomniac. That pushed me onto the path of music I chose to enjoy, flirting with more punk, ska, nu-metal, leaning back into traditional metal and then eventually getting into progressive metal, death metal and much later on getting into a multitude of bands so very far away from the heavier genres.

Steven: Kiss, Van Halen and Metallica would be my top three favorite bands of all time for most of my life. Each band has a catalog full of material that really hits home for me at all times.

Marshall: Bands like Metallica and Slayer were really what gave me the bug sometime in middle school. I wanted to be that cool, too. Some other bands I’d love to mention are System of a Down, Deftones, Hopesfall, Engine Down, Radiohead.

Andrew: The Melvins. I saw them back in 2006, their first tour with the 2 drummer lineup. I left my earplugs in the car and it ended up being the loudest set I’ve ever heard. I’ve seen them countless times since and you never know what kind of Melvins show you’ll get – riff heavy popular songs or weird abstract new lineup show. As far as their writing I love the fact that Buzz Osborne has no rules. He’s a punk guy at heart but his riffs are more stoner metal but he’s just writing anything he likes. If it doesn’t work, just write another album. I love that if he likes to recycle riffs. He’ll be like “fuck it, let’s put that sick bass line on this album too.”

4. If you could call in any one collaborator to do a song with, who would it be, and why?

Billy: Living, I would love to collaborate with Casey Crescenzo from The Dear Hunter. His vocals are incredibly versatile, he’s an amazing lyricist and songwriter and his writing style in the sense of creating a concept spanning 5 albums so far with their ACT series really inspired me to take on the challenge of doing something similar. Hence leaving our new album DECAY on a total cliffhanger, which I very much so plan on continuing over the next 2-4 albums. So long as my ideas don’t dry up. Haha. However, if David Bowie were still alive, I would likely have chosen him as my answer to this question. He pushed so many boundaries, was incredibly artistic and was never afraid to take a chance. Upon release, his final studio album Blackstar very quickly became one of my favorites of his. The dark tone / nature of the music and lyrics and the foreshadowing of an impending end. The day he died was incredibly hard for me, only met very recently by the passing of Ozzy Osbourne. Not to mention that Jim Henson’s Labyrinth is one of my all-time favorite films. But now, after saying all of that, collaborating with Ozzy would have been an incredible opportunity.

Steven: Mike Oldfield. I love all of his work, his work ethic and approach to creating / writing. I definitely tapped my Oldfield influence on Decay in the song “Behind the Glass.”

Marshall: If I could call on one person to collab on a song with, would be Robert Glasper. I’m so fascinated by the thought experiment of what kind of sounds we could come up with alongside his expertise.

Andrew: Trevor Strnad. He was always supportive of our band and his energy and vision always inspired us. Collaborating with him would have been an honor, and his influence continues to motivate us in what we create.

5. What is your favorite activity when out of the studio and/or not on tour?  What do you like to do to unwind?

Billy: While writing, tracking and touring are very hard to top in terms of what genuinely makes me happy, when not doing those things I enjoy my long drives back home to Georgia after converging with the guys in North Carolina, during which I’ll listen to audio books. Once home I’ll spend a lot of time playing video games such as Elden Ring and Nightreign (though I don’t know if you can necessarily consider those to be peaceful and experiences one would have to unwind, haha). I’m incredibly excited for Jurassic Park: Survival to be released! I’ll also touch on games that I’ve loved for years such as old SNES and NES ones and the Gears of War and Bioshock franchises, along with Metal Gear Solid (easily in my top 5 of all time). I have an adapter for the PS2 on my radar so I can replay games like Dino Crisis 2, Full Metal Alchemist and the Lord of the Rings games as well. Besides gaming, watching things like Farscape, shitty movies on Tubi and great movies with my roommate stays a highlight in my day to day life.

Steven: Playing metal is a really loud and chaotic matter entirely so when I’m not on tour, I like peace and quiet time. I work at a record shop for an old friend of mine named Noble Records in Matthews, North Carolina. I enjoy collecting records and spending time with them, digesting the music in full. It’s an active listening experience whereas with streaming, etc it can easily become a background noise element taking your focus away entirely from the music.

Marshall: I love to play with cameras. I often develop my own 35mm color film, and do my own scans. Photography is purely a hobby. I also really love to do video. Filming, editing, playing with light and color, movement, everything. I do a lot of Wretched video work and I’ll also produce other bands music or live concert videos.

Andrew: I love playing basketball. Its my therapy. I’ll get on a court and play for hours, whether with others or just going through my workouts. It’s a great took to stay in the moment and get out of your head.

6. How would you describe your music to someone who’d never listened to you before? What is the one comparison a reviewer or fan has made that made you cringe or you disagreed with?

Billy: In Wretched we like to use the phrase “we’re music for the musicians”. Now, that’s not to exclude anyone at all. This new album, while still holding some similarities to past albums, is quite different. We had a lot of time to write this one so our attention to detail really shines through. Personally, I like to say “we’re metal for people who don’t like metal”. This release touches on so many different emotions musically and lyrically. There are extreme highs and extreme lows in terms of how this one is going to make you feel, whether its elation, sadness, or despair you’re looking for, this one has it all! We did decide to end this album with a track called “THE GOLDEN SKYWAY”. I refer to that one as our pop song. Haha. While it isn’t in that genre, it’s quite catchy and does bring with it a sense of hope and maybe some slight confusion yet overall ending an otherwise dark and gloomy album on a bit of a higher note!

Steven: We’re a metal band. The one thing that really makes me cringe the most is when we are labeled as a Deathcore band. We are in no way a Deathcore band, nor have we ever been. We don’t sound anything like Deathcore yet we’ve been consistently and inaccurately labeled that for many years now. Its really annoying.

Marshall: I would describe Wretched as a pretty eclectic mix of styles and sounds. It’s a little hard to put us in a box, I feel like we just fit under the general umbrella of “metal.” We have elements of aggression, speed, as well as purely blissful moments, ambience, and plenty of dynamics written into the music and displayed in the mix that Johann helped us create. Decay is complete journey musically and lyrically. Billy’s lyrics take you to distance worlds and alternate universes while the music creates the soundscape.

Andrew: “I’m here with The Wretched.” Always a greenhorn who calls us The Wretched.

7. When your band is hanging out together, who cooks, who gets the drinks in, and who is first to crack out the acoustic guitars for a singalong?

Billy: While in our practice space, The Basement, Steven’s wonderful girlfriend Dee often cooks us AMAZING dinners to end our sessions perfectly. When it comes to drinks, give me all of the water and I’ll be ecstatic! Haha. However, in a situation like when we tracked DECAY with only the four of us (Steven, Andrew, Marshall and myself) to almost 100% at a North Carolina beach, Marshall and Steven did the pretty much ALL of the cooking, unless we were eating Hot Pockets or any other microwaveable treats. Those didn’t really require any expertise and Andrew and I were fully capable of tackling those feats on our own. Hahaha. Marshall is the king of bringing along a variety of instruments, one being a ukulele which often seems to appear out of thin air.

Marshall: We love a family dinner! Sometimes I cook, Joel (guitar on Exodus of Autonomy, Beyond the Gate, and Cannibal) used to cook a lot, and our partners will often help with dinner, too. Andrew or I will crack a first beer usually. John (guitar on Son of Perdition and Beyond the Gate albums), is the human juke box. If there is a guitar in sight, there will be music played on it, and whatever you request!

Andrew: Me or Marshall. When John Vale was in the band, he was by far the most likely to crack out the guitar. To a fault lol.

8. When was the last time you were starstruck and who was it?

Billy – The first time I was ever too timid to approach someone in the fame category was when I was at the Ostrich Festival in Chandler, AZ. It was the end of the day and pretty much everyone had gone. I went onto the “fun house” ride and some kid in front of me was just taking his time, holding me up and led me to feeling frustrated. Once I got off my dad asked “do you know who that was in front of you?” and pointed in his direction. The Ostrich Festival always had one famous guest per year, and this year it was Zachary Ty Bryan who played Brad Taylor on the television show Home Improvement. I shut down immediately as my dad suggested I go and talk to him, then a woman who I presume was his mother stated with a smile “he’s a normal kid, just like you.” But to appropriately answer the question, I was maybe 15 with my friends Shawn and Scott walking through Concord Mills Mall in Concord, NC. We had just left F.Y.E. where I’d purchased the new Dave Navarro album Trust No One. We were walking past a Starbucks when I stood dead in my tracks. My friends turned around asking me what was wrong to which I replied “do you know who that was?” Their response, “no”. It was Dave Navarro who had just released his solo album Trust No One and was in town to play what was called 106.5 The Ends Weenie Roast. Learning from my past mistake I decided to follow him and his guitarist into Starbucks and approach. I introduced myself, told him it was wonderful to meet him and then they invited us to come talk to them outside while they smoked a cigarette. I had him sign the cover and disc I’d just purchased and he asked if we were going to the fest the next day. I stated that we unfortunately didn’t have any tickets for it so he took all of our names down and put us on his guest list. Scott and I ended up going and waiting a while outside of the amphitheater for his GL to hit the ticket booth, finally gaining entry. Dave Navarro didn’t have to extend his hand like that for us, but his actions created such a great experience for us and really made a lasting, positive impression on me.

Marshall: I have to admit that I got totally starstruck when I saw Lars Ulrich walk by our show in SF outside of DNA.

Andrew: I met Jack Nicholson a few years ago and it felt like I was looking at a wax museum version of him because he’s just so iconic and he was exactly like I’d imagine. He said “Andrew, it’s an honor to meet you.” He obviously had no idea who I was but it was hilarious that he would say that.

9. What is the best part of being a musician? If you could no longer be a musician for whatever reason, what would be your dream job?

Billy: For me, the touring aspect truly makes me happiest. While I love the push to create what I do within my lyrics and storytelling, there’s nothing like waking up in a different city every day, meeting and connecting with new people and just having great conversations talking with anyone about their passions, answering their questions about mine and just having an overall positive experience. I love to entertain while on stage and to in turn be entertained by the crowds of amazing people on a nightly basis. We recently had a full US tour get cancelled and while there’s the business side of things, specifically not being on tour to support / promote our upcoming album, the biggest downer for me on that is the feeling of having let down everyone who was excited to see us again, excited to see us for the first time and to play for the people who’d never even heard of us. If I weren’t where I’m at now with Wretched, my dream would be to continue creating the fictional stories I do. Putting out a book of short stories, writing a series of novels based on projects I’m working on and even writing scripts for graphic novels, helping my ideas come to life complete with visuals.

Marshall: The best part of being a musician is overcoming a challenge and getting to the point where you are just in a “flow state.” It’s mental and physical, It’s rewarding to get to the other side of where you’re trying to go. When I’m playing music, all of the other noise my mind goes silent and I can get lost in it. My alternate reality without music would be somewhere in engineering. I am obsessed with taking in as much information as I can in physics and chemistry. I lust to understand the world around me. I’m also fascinated by infrastructure and city planning and how we’re able to make everything around us work so well that we can all just go on about our day. It blows my mind how easy it is to take for granted everything around us- roads, side walks, dams, buildings, everything is there, and it works and we usually don’t have to think twice about it. It’s insane to me what we are capable of.

Andrew: The best part is just having this whole other language to communicate with others and on so many different levels than a linguistic one. Whether writing, improvising, the connection with the fans, all of it. That and performing live. There’s nothing like it. I could have a serious injury bothering me but when I’m playing I won’t feel any pain. There isn’t a drug that can do that. My dream job would be a Quantum Physicist. I already can’t get enough learning about quantum physics. I’m obsessed, but I’m a casual Novis. I would love to get paid researching and teaching this stuff. Every quantum physicist is just trying to figure out what the hell is going on without fully knowing but the whole thing is just so incredibly fascinating.

10. What is one question you have always wanted an interviewer to ask – and what is the answer? Conversely, what question are you tired of answering?

Billy: I can honestly say that I never go into an interview with the hope of hearing any specific question or the hope of not hearing a specific question. Even if I’m answering a something for the 10th or 100th time, I know that the outlet I’m speaking to is likely going to put my responses in front of the face of someone that has never previously read or heard my response to any question. I enjoy speaking on my craft to anyone interested or willing to listen. Ask me the same question over and over again and I’ll happily respond each and every time!

Marshall: Honestly a dream interview might be Nardwuar. I like his element of surprise as well as his ability to dig deep and find some good lore.

11. Looking back over your career, is there a single moment or situation you feel was a misstep or you would like to have a “do over,” even if it didn’t change your current situation?

Billy: I’d say the only thing I’ve second guessed was my decision to leave Wretched at the end of 2010 after releasing Beyond the Gate. I always wondered what my lyrical and vocal approach would have been to albums like Son of Perdition and Cannibal (though Adam Cody did an amazing job at taking on the reins of Wretched’s vocalist during that time). Despite that second guessing, I know that it was absolutely necessary for me to take the time away to regain my passion for writing and performing, not to mention maturing and growing into the human that I’ve become over the past 15 years.

Steven: Yeah. I’d go back a decade or so and be 100% more responsible with drinking alcohol. I let it become a dependent in my life for some years and I feel it ruined things that are dear and important to me. I’m now almost 6 years sober and free of alcohol.

Marshall: Yes and no. Without being too long winded, hindsight is always 20/20, but that’s the info to take into present and future. If I could go back, I would just be even louder. Let me explain – Wretched has always been a wild animal, we play by our own rules and I’ve always sought out to be as bold as possible with our choices. Everything is intentional. So, as I get older and go deeper into songwriting, I’m more open to trying even wackier stuff that younger me might have felt would have been “goofy.” For example, I’m all about trying to incorporate a disco beat now days, but back then I might jokingly do it only for a laugh. Now I’m encouraging our music to want to make our bodies want to move more. I don’t know what I was afraid of before.

Andrew: Man, we’re always learning so I’d change a lot of the little things. When you get to one milestone in your career you think you have it all figured out then a few years on you look back and you’re like “what the hell were we doing?” There’s a lot of great advice from the touring veterans over the years and I try to hold onto as much of it as I can. Ben from Goatwhore could write a book about all his tour hacks and philosophy.

12. If you could magically go back in time and be a part of the recording sessions for any one record in history, which would you choose – and what does that record mean to you?

Billy: Going back in time to be a “fly on the wall” during the recording sessions for Black Sabbath’s self-titled album would have to be the most appropriate answer to this question. My dad played that album as much as, if not more than, Paranoid in my youth during car rides to comic book stores in Arizona. I remember getting him the cassette of the self-titled for Christmas one year and he’d stick it into his Walkman, take a seat on his drum throne in the garage and play along to it. Along with those fond memories of our car rides and his joy garnered from that album, it truly was the starting point for heavy metal as we know it to be today. While we as Wretched may still be involved in music today with its absence, we and the rest of the world’s metal bands surely wouldn’t be the same without those four guys taking a chance and releasing that killer album!

Marshall: Man oh man, I would absolutely love to be around for any Led Zeppelin recording. Of course I would have to be in the room for Pink Floyd’s any one of their albums, but I actually have a few questions about some production things they did on Animals specifically.

Andrew: The Beatles Sgt. Pepper. It’s just such a gamechanger in the music industry. It was No. 1 on the Billboards for 27 consecutive weeks, and they weren’t even touring anymore at that point. I would have loved to even just play the triangle on a song during that session.

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Category: Interviews