Legendary Texan grinders Insect Warfare are gearing up for a reunion show at this year’s Obscene Extreme festival – but don’t get your hopes up for a new record, because as guitarist Beau Beasley tells Terrorizer in this exclusive interview, this is strictly a one-off thing…

What was the reasoning behind your original break-up, and why did you decide the time was right now to reform?

“There came a point where I truly felt I had written the best material I could with Insect Warfare. I was seriously feeling I was repeating myself with my writing and I really didn’t want to just keep releasing record after record of the same sound. We did the noisecore record [2009’s ‘Noise Grind Power Death’], which is still my favorite to this day, and I felt that was a good way to close our discography. I just want to be able to look back and feel we left a strong discography behind and not become one of those bands just pumping out record after record because they can.”

Have you guys been keeping busy with any other projects over the past couple of years?

“Yeah, Rahi [vocals] has been very busy with War Master. They are working on a new full length with Dobber [Beverley, drums] on drums and are doing European and Japanese tours this year. Dobber has a progressive metal group called Oceans Of Slumber that I recently joined as a keyboard player to help fill their sound/atmospheres out. I have been busy studying piano/composition as well as fucking around with punk, noise, etc.”

On your last UK tour, you had different vocalists filling in for Rahi. Why did Rahi decide to sit that tour out, and how did you convince him to come back on board for this?

“Rahi and I have buried old problems of the past and realize we just want to do one more show together as IW to put it to rest. FOR GOOD!”

What made you choose Obscene Extreme as the place to stage the reunion? And why the European edition as opposed to the American one?

“In my opinion, OEF is the most brutal fest for this kind of music in the world. It is legendary. Curby has been a friend of IW for many years and sadly we never got to accept him on any of his offers to play OEF before we broke up. When we began talking of doing a ten year reunion show we all decided OEF Europe was the only place we would do it. We chose Europe because we never got the chance to do a proper European performance with Rahi.”

Who else are you looking forward to checking out at the festival this year?

“Without a doubt I’m looking forward to Dead Infection, Incantation and Sodom of course. There are so many great bands that I am very looking forward to seeing as well as just hanging out all weekend and seeing as many bands as possible. I am also looking forward to meeting many of the people I have been in correspondence with in Europe over the years but never got to meet in person.”

Do you think you’ll be tempted to play any other shows after this, or is this very much a one-off thing?

“No, this is truly the last show. We are all very busy with our new bands and I think it’s safe to say that we all look forward to pushing ourselves with new challenges with our new bands instead of riding the shoulders of the past. I hope we can come out and completely destroy the stage to the best of our ability and then bury IW in its grave for good.”

So we can forget about hearing any new material following the gig?

“We are not doing any new recordings. I would like to state though that if I were to do grind again it would definitely be on the noise side akin to bands like Gore Beyond Necropsy and Arsedetroyer. I just feel that is the most extreme you can make grindcore sound.”

It’s almost been a full decade since the original release of ‘World Extermination’. How do you feel about the album looking back on it? Were you at all surprised by the huge amount of critical acclaim the album received?

“To be honest I am very surprised. I got off the internet for about five years when I began studying composition/piano and when I returned I was really amazed to see how much people connected with that record. It makes me feel great because when I wrote those riffs I was truly in a dark side of life and it was cathartic to channel that feeling into the music. It makes me happy to see other people relate to those feelings on that record because it makes me realize that I am not alone and we all go through the same shit.”

How do you feel about the bands that followed directly in your wake and took a large amount of influence directly from you guys – to the point that some grumpy armchair pundits would accuse them of “ripping you off”? Bands like Cellgraft, Violent Restitution etc.

“HA, we just ripped off Warsore, Napalm Death, and Discordance Axis so I feel completely fine with people ‘ripping off’ my band. I just see it as influence. I’m glad I was able to write something that someone felt was worthy of reproducing though I’m sure the bands you mentioned have their own identities and would be just fine and productive if IW never existed.”

What does the future have in store for Insect Warfare? If you are intending this to be a one-time thing, do you have any other bands in the works?

“This is it. I’m trying to apply all the things I’ve learned from traditional composition into making the most repugnant downtuned death noise I can make. Hopefully I’ll have a demo out for OEF to pass out to friends. War Master will also be playing OEF this year and I highly recommend anyone at the fest to go check them out because they crush fucking skulls live.”

Obscene Extreme takes place from July 13-17 at Trutnov Battlefield in the Czech Republic