In a recent interview with Nikki Blakk of San Francisco's 107.7 The Bone, Death Angel and Kerry King vocalist Mark Osegueda opened up about why Death Angel had to pull out of its planned fall 2024 tour with W.A.S.P. and how the decision fueled fan criticism of his dual-band commitments.
Osegueda confirmed that scheduling conflicts with Kerry King's solo project ultimately forced Death Angel to withdraw from the W.A.S.P. tour. Armored Saint was brought in as a replacement, but Osegueda insists that he had made his availability issues clear from the beginning.
"Since this whole Kerry band happened, and still being a major part of Death Angel, there was some backlash from a lot of Death Angel fans, thinking that [my involvement with Kerry] might be the end of Death Angel or it's taking away from Death Angel," he explained. "And then there was a tour that Death Angel had to drop off of, and it was because there were conflicting dates with Kerry," Osegueda shared.
"But when that W.A.S.P. tour was offered to Death Angel, I had put it out there to the powers that be that, 'Okay, but I can't guarantee I'll be available for the whole tour. Just know this in advance. So if you take it, I will have to do shows with Kerry if they get booked, and it looks like they very well may.' And still my words were taken and with enthusiasm, they just heard, to a certain degree, people thought, 'Well, let's do it.' I said, 'Okay, let's, but once again…' I mean, every bit of communication we had, I would reiterate that."
"And we still went for it, throwing caution to the wind, and the wind blew back eventually, so to speak. And I said, 'Hey, what we didn't want to happen is happening. But we all knew this going in advance. So this is what we can do.' And I actually, being someone — I do try to troubleshoot for Death Angel all the time because there's been many years that Death Angel has been self-managed by me, Rob [Cavestany, Death Angel guitarist] and Ted [Aguilar, Death Angel guitarist], and we've also had management, but we always work with management very well. And so I tried to troubleshoot, and I said, 'Look, I could think of a few singers that could fill in,' and I gave some names and whatnot, just as an option. 'Cause I didn't want them to lose the tour."
Despite his transparency, things didn't go as planned: "But the reality is what the reality was. So eventually, what came back when that was offered to the W.A.S.P. camp and booking agents, whatnot, they just basically said, 'Well, we don't want a fill-in for two particular times,' 'cause I would have missed two batches of dates, and they didn't want that to be the case… That's pretty much the stance they took. So, then, from there on, push came to shove, and they got Armored Saint, which I think it's a great bill. I mean, who's to say that W.A.S.P. and Death Angel wouldn't have been a great bill? A lot of people were looking forward to it."
Things took a turn once fans realized Death Angel's absence from the tour was connected to Osegueda's commitment to Kerry King's project. That's when criticism against him intensified.
"Prior to [Death Angel pulling out of the W.A.S.P. tour], there was not much negativity about me being in Kerry's band, but when that hit, then the floodgates opened," he continued. "And that's when a lot of people started saying negative things about me and my character and how it was affecting the band they love. Unbeknownst to them, believe it or not, I love that band more than they do."
Another source of frustration for some was that Osegueda didn't inform his Death Angel bandmates about his involvement with Kerry's band until the news became public. He explained that non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) prevented him from sharing details before the official announcement in February 2024.
"I couldn't really tell the guys 'cause of NDAs [non-disclosure agreements I signed] and whatnot," he said. "And I know people will say, 'Well, that's your blood. Those are your bros.' But it's an NDA. It's a legal, binding contract that I signed and I respect that. And wording in NDAs are kind of daunting."
Osegueda admitted once again, that keeping the secret was particularly challenging in the tight-knit metal community, where word spreads fast: "The metal community is a hen house," he remarked. "It really is. And just, bap, bap, bap, bap, and word just gets out, and it's just like rapid fire. And Blabbermouth or not, it just takes someone from one crew, one band, and they find out and it just goes around And we had to go out of our way to keep this basically the biggest secret there was. Because everyone kind of had an idea of who was in [Kerry's] band, but for the most part, no one knew who the singer was. They all assumed it was Phil [Anselmo]. And it was just kind of quite a big secret to keep down. So that was hard. And I understand that. And I explained that to the guys when I did tell them. And there you go."
Despite the miscommunications and the backlash, Osegueda insisted that he had been upfront with Death Angel's decision-makers about potential scheduling conflicts with Kerry King's band: "But again, as I said, when we took the W.A.S.P. tour, I did tell the powers that be that make the decisions for this band, me being one of 'em, what could occur," he reiterated. "Now say the powers that be within the band, or people that don't have the power in the band to make the decisions, they might not have known that I had prefaced this with management and the guys who make the business decisions.
"And not everyone in this band is a decision-maker when it comes to this band. And that's just the pecking order of how this band works. Some of us have longevity and priority and some of us don't. And that will always be the case, even if it goes down two decades from now. Rob and I still have two more decades more history in the band. So that's just the case."
"And it's a better way for a band to work. We've tried with the original Death Angel lineup to do it as a democracy, and it doesn't work. It just doesn't work. It just breeds more chaos and more tension, strife. [Too many cooks in the kitchen] — with everything, from writing, to setlists, to everything. So, there needs to be some sort of set structure, at least with this band. It works better that way. And most bands I've seen that have longevity, it tends to be the case as well."
Asked which singers were considered as potential fill-ins for the tour, Osegueda avoided naming names but confirmed that he had suggested several options to Death Angel's management: "Well, I don't even know… I shouldn't go down that road, but I suggested a few names, and then I think management and people were looking into people as well," he said. "And it just wasn't, I guess, jelling, especially with Rob.
"Rob and I had a few conversations, and he's, like, 'It's just not the same.' And I'm not saying it is or isn't for any band, or it's different for any band, but it is hard, and I'm not saying the importance of a position, but it is hard in a lot of bands to get a fill-in singer. "It is. It is, 'cause people are used to him or her being the front person and how they engage with the crowd, and how they work, and the voice — everything. And so that's another thing Rob was really concerned about, which makes absolute sense."
"And in our personal conversations, he was saying, 'It'd be easier for us to find a fill-in for me for a few dates than it is for you.' And he said that selflessly, but basically when it boils down to it, everyone in Death Angel is a crucial part of Death Angel, but I know as a fan of different bands, if you went to go see Death Angel without me or Rob for that one show, there's gonna be a great deal of people out there that say, like, 'Well, I got kind of robbed.' That sucks. And that's just kind of the nature of the beast and the nature of the history of this band. With all bands, that's just how it is. It's like if you went to see Sabbath and they had a fill-in for Tony Iommi. You'd be, like, 'Oh.' And they're an exception."
"There have been bands that have replaced lead singers. Obviously, AC/DC and Sabbath are the two primest examples. And Iron Maiden. There's a handful. But it's not a common occurrence that it works out so swimmingly and successfully."
