This week’s featured Meet The Band artist is the New York blackened death group Fleshspoil, whose member resumes include groups including Arsis and The Final Sleep. Their debut full-length is The Beginning Of The End. Drummer Mike Van Dyne introduces us to his band. The interview was conducted prior to the death of vocalist/guitarist Jeff Andrews, who passed away earlier this month at the age of 51.
Chad Bowar: Give us a brief history of Fleshspoil.
Mike Van Dyne: Jeff Andrews (guitarist/vocalist) and I played together in a band called The Final Sleep for about 8 years. We had a great run, released a couple albums and played shows with some amazing bands. By 2020, The Final Sleep had run its course, but Jeff and I kept in touch regularly during all the pandemic stuff. He sent me some cool ideas that he’d recently come up with, as well as a few older ideas he’d written years prior, but never had an opportunity to use in any of his previous bands.
By early 2021, we decided to start our own thing to make use of all the great ideas Jeff had laying around. Once we had some basic song structures demo’d out, I recruited my buddy Dan Saltzman from Illucinus to play bass, and he was the perfect fit. We also had some talented friends contribute a couple guest solos and embellishments once we got rolling.
Describe the songwriting process for The Beginning Of The End.
Since Jeff and I have a lot of similar music tastes and already played in a band together for years, the Fleshspoil songs pretty much wrote themselves. We basically went into it with a mindset of “no limits,” and started working on some of the riffs he sent me during the previous months. We also came up with a lot of cool ideas while jamming in the room together. At a certain point, there were so many ideas that we just decided to hone in on the 6 main album tracks, and we put some of the other riffs on ice for another time.
What will be your strongest memory of the recording of the album?
Probably just the joy of being creative with my friends, and having a lot of laughs during the recording process! We made the album basically cost-free, and recorded all the guitars and vocals in my basement. Our friend Brett Portzer mixed the album little by little in his spare time over the course of about a year, and it’s always a total blast working with him too.
What was the biggest challenge in its creation?
Writing and recording the album was pretty seamless, we just took our time with everything and had the attitude of “it’ll be done when it’s done.” After recording and touring all over the world with Arsis for years, and then playing with The Final Sleep for a number of years after that, I honestly didn’t plan to do anything more band-wise… so probably the biggest challenge for me was just deciding whether or not I had another recording in me after playing in bands for most of my life. (laughs)
How would you characterize its style/sound?
That’s a tough one because we have so many influences, and didn’t go into this with any specific sound in mind. At the end of the day, it’s death metal; but with a lot of melodic, doom, and black metal influences incorporated into it.
What inspired the album title?
Jeff came up with the title, and it just seems to fit the music and a lot of things going on in the world currently. We chose an old public domain painting from the 1600’s by Salvator Rosa to use for the cover. Translated into English it’s called “life’s frailty,” and sums up the themes Jeff covers in his lyrics.
What lyrical topics do you cover?
Like a lot of the music for this project, Jeff’s lyrics are a combination of some old ideas and new ideas all interwoven together. Most of the songs mainly just deal with life’s challenges.
What led you to go the independent route for its release?
Digital distribution for this on all major platforms outside of Bandcamp will be handled courtesy of our friends at Death Farm Records. They did an amazing CD and cassette release of the last album by our old band The Final Sleep, so we’re very happy to be working with them again! We’re keeping options open to possibly have a physical version of The Beginning of the End available in the future.
What are your goals and expectations for the album?
I’d say we already achieved our goal with this, since the only intention was to just be creative and have fun. I don’t think we really have any expectations for this overall. If some people end up enjoying our tunes, that’s a huge compliment and all we could really ask for.
Do you have any plans to play live?
No plans to play live at the moment, but who knows, we’d certainly entertain the idea if an offer came our way.
How did you get started in music?
I always loved music ever since I was a little kid, but getting Guns ‘N Roses Appetite for Destruction right around the time it came out when I was 9 or 10 was a game-changer. The attitude and everything about that album made me want to play in a band, so my parents got me a little drum set at a garage sale down the street, and I started playing in a lot of terrible bands all through my teenage years.
It was great fun though, and the only thing that really brought me out of my shell when I was younger. I’ve always preferred starting my own bands from scratch and creating something from nothing… riding on the back of someone else’s creation was never of any interest to me. So when Jim Malone and I started Arsis around 2001, that was really the beginning of my professional music life.
Who were your early influences and inspirations?
I’d say the albums that had the biggest influence on me as a teenager were Judas Priest – Painkiller, Racer X – Second Heat, Slayer – Seasons In The Abyss, Queensryche – Operation Mindcrime and King Diamond’s Abigail and Them. From there, I got really into all the killer bands that were hitting their stride in the 1990’s – At The Gates – Slaughter Of The Soul and Terminal Spirit Disease totally changed my life.
Death’s Human, Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic albums, Carcass – Heartwork, Cynic – Focus, Cradle Of Filth – Cruelty And The Beast, Testament The Gathering, Dissection – Storm Of The Light’s Bane, Arch Enemy – Wages Of Sin… the list goes on! But those are still a lot of my favorite albums to this day, and the drumming is fantastic on every single one of them.
What’s the first metal concert you attended?
Metallica, Danzig, and Suicidal Tendencies in June of 1994. Rocky George is one of my favorite lead guitarists of all-time, and I’m so glad I got to see him back then with Suicidal. A few months after that concert, I attended my first club show, which was Fear Factory around the <em era.
What are some of your non-musical interests and hobbies?
Mainly just reading and being outside as much as possible. I was out in Breckenridge Colorado a few months ago, and did some awesome hiking with a good friend of mine who lives out there. I work as a CT Tech in a busy Level 1 trauma center here in N.Y., that’s been my actual job for around 13 years now.
Anything else you’d like to mention or promote?
I’d just like to say thank you so much for reaching out, we appreciate your support!
(interview published March 29, 2025)
