Metal
Steve Asheim, Deicide’s drummer and main songwriter, releases “Volume Two”, his second classical piano album, on 27 November. He plays Rachmaninoff, Chopin and Liszt: a prelude by the first; the funeral march from the Sonata Op. 35 and two preludes by the second; and “Chapelle de Guillaume Tell” and “Funérailles” by the third. He quietly put out the first volume on his Bandcamp on 20 April.
He has also used material from both albums to score “Faust – 100 Year Special Anniversary Edition”, a DVD and Blu-ray of F. W. Murnau’s 1926 silent film. “Learning classical piano pieces in order of difficulty over many years, finding old demos and realizing you have enough material for an EP, then deciding to make new recordings to beef up the running time, then realizing that with enough running time I can score a silent movie that I saw two weeks previously?” he says. “Things unfolded in just the right ways, at just the right times.”
Asheim is self-taught on piano, as on guitar and drums, and has never played it at a concert. “Not yet anyway, but maybe someday,” he says. “I have played in front of people. My folks and friends, and a few strangers at places like airports.” He had already slipped the odd piano piece onto his metal records, such as the outro to “The Pentecostal” on Deicide’s “Scars Of The Crucifix”.
Both volumes are out on vinyl, the first blue and the second red, and can be bought bundled with the film. He mixed and mastered the second with Taylor Nordberg at Smoke & Mirrors Productions. Deicide’s latest album, “Banished By Sin”, came out in April 2024.
Text by Roger Estivill