The Metal Crypt - Bleeding Edge Interview

Interviews

Interview with vocalist Carl Fulli
Interview conducted by Luxi Lahtinen

Date online: April 8, 2025

Sacramento, California has long been a hotbed for musical innovation, and now with the arrival of Bleeding Edge, the city is poised to add another powerful chapter to its storied metal legacy. Led by Carl Fulli, known for his work in bands like Epidemic and Killing Culture, Bleeding Edge is a fierce new project that blends the raw energy and aggression of '80s old-school thrash metal with the brutal, sonic complexity of '90s death metal.

Fulli's musical evolution over the years has led him to craft a sound that pays homage to the pioneers of metal while also pushing it into fresh and exciting territories. Bleeding Edge is the culmination of his vision—an aggressive, high-octane force that doesn't just relive the past but builds upon it. The band's ferocity is evident in their debut release, The Devil's Door EP, which showcases four intense tracks that capture the essence of thrash's speed and death metal's heaviness.

With The Devil's Door, Bleeding Edge proves that they are more than just another band in the crowded metal scene—they are a new breed. The EP is a perfect introduction to what the band has to offer: ripping riffs, skull-crushing drums, and Fulli's unmistakable vocals that tie it all together with a palpable sense of urgency and grit.

As Bleeding Edge continues to carve their path through the metal world, it's clear that Carl Fulli and his bandmates are ready to unleash something truly special—a fusion of old and new that will captivate fans of both thrash and death metal alike. Prepare yourself for a journey through The Devil's Door, where the sound of metal's past collides with its future.

Good midday, Carl.

Carl: Yes. Nice to meet you.

Are you ready for a couple of questions?

Carl: Absolutely.

THE BIRTH OF BLEEDING EDGE

Good, let's get straight to the subject matter then. Can you tell me about the formation of Bleeding Edge? What inspired you to start this new project, and how did you come up with the name?

Carl: I had been out of music for quite a long time. Being in Epidemic, putting out a couple albums in the early '90s and being a part of the Bay Area scene in the late '80s and early '90s was a really great time. As you know, the Bay Area was very hot for many years in the '80s and '90s, lots of great bands came out of there. It was a fantastic scene. There were shows every week, sometimes two, three and four shows every week, be it national acts or local acts. It was just a really fun time. Being a part of Epidemic was a lot of fun.

I don't play an instrument. I have zero training in music, but the guys in the band were always open to my ideas, so I was always able to contribute both music and lyrics to our songs. I'm the kind of guy that when I'm involved with a project, I like to be creative, and I like to have my own input. I really missed all that. After being married and my wife and I raising our daughter, I had the creative itch to get back into the game.

My father died a couple years ago, and I thought about all those life events and regrets and things like that. I thought, "I really want to do music. I don't want to regret not playing music again and giving it one more shot." I set a goal for myself to write four songs by myself, both music and lyrics, without any other input. I called my buddy Scott Sargent, who's played with Lȧȧz Rockit, Skinlab, M.O.D., to name a few. I had worked with him on a couple demos for his project Killing Culture in the mid '90s.

He ended up getting a record deal out of that, and they put out an album on Edel Records or Edel America, I believe it was. They did a short tour in Germany. I had told him at that time I wasn't going to tour. I was happy to sing but I wasn't going to do any type of touring. They got another singer and did that, but it was nice to know that it was my singing on those demos helped get them signed. That was the last thing I did.

I knew that if I wanted to do something now, I could just call Scott because he and I have been close friends for well over 30 years. I asked him, "Hey, I want to do a four-song EP. Would you play guitar on it?" He said, "Yes, absolutely." I started writing and I would submit the songs to him. The way I would write, since I don't play an instrument, is I would utilize MIDI on a keyboard on my computer. I also got Superior Drummer 3.

I would program the drums, write the music on MIDI with the keyboard, and then record my vocals, and send it all to him. He would then transcribe it to the guitar, and then he would give me his input on certain things like arrangement - things like that, and give me some of his ideas that he thought about where I might be able to improve it. Ultimately, he ended up producing this and helping me out that way. Plus, he was very instrumental, obviously, in playing not only the guitar, but he ended up playing the bass on it.

He also got the drummer, Lennon, who currently plays for Insight, to play the drums on this. He got Kevy Rojas from By Any Means Necessary to do some of the leads. Then he also was instrumental in getting Juan Ortega to do the mixing for us. He was a really big help to me, and this wouldn't have happened without him. He knew that this was a passion project for me and a real creative need that I had. Like I said, he gave me his input as a producer. He didn't step on my toes. He didn't say, "I think you need to put a different riff," like something that he wrote. He knew that I wanted to do it all by myself.

I was really happy with the way it turned out. Working with Scott is always good, because we've worked together a number of times over the years, like I said, on Killing Culture. Plus, he produced Epidemic's second album, Exit Paradise. We've played around in the past, just in our free time, messing around, doing some recording, and crap like that. That's how it all came about, but it was up to me to make sure that it actually got released and got out there. I'm essentially a one-man band, but with a lot of supporting people helping me out along the way.

Did you want to explore different sounds or themes compared to your previous band Epidemic, also adding in something entirely new?

Carl: Not necessarily. I wanted to keep it very much like classic thrash and classic death metal combined, which is what Epidemic was. Epidemic was very much a thrash band in the beginning. We morphed to include some death metal influences. I wanted to keep that feel and that vibe, but I also wanted it to have a modern feel about it. I didn't want it to sound dated. I didn't want to sound like it was right out of 1988 or '89, something like that. I wanted to have that vibe there, the energy, the rawness, that feel that you got from back in the day with both the thrash and the death style.

I think we achieved that. Having Juan mix it brought out more of that modern edge. We did a couple of things like using a chorus effect on a couple of different songs, which is something that Epidemic never did. In that regard, yes, that was a little bit different, but it wasn't something conscious, like I wanted to go way outside the box and do something completely different. I really wanted to do what I did best and come up with something really solid. I think I achieved that.

THE PROCESS BEHIND THE DEVIL'S DOOR EP

As you said, The Devil's Door EP has some seriously heavy tracks on it, combining '80s thrash metal with '90s death metal. How did you approach writing and recording this EP and what were your goals for the sound and vibe you wanted to create?

Carl: I've always been the guy that, since I don't play an instrument, I have riffs that just come out in my head. I could be listening to ambient music or classical music, and I will just get ideas. Things will just pop into my head. I don't really get that from listening to other metal per se even though I'm very much influenced by, say, Slayer or Metallica, Obituary, old Sepultura, things like that. I'm very much influenced by that. That really comes out in the style, because that's the era that I come from. I really wanted to write some stuff with those influences.

For instance, the last song, "Cold Dead Hands," that's got a lot of syncopated rhythms in it. That's the Metallica influence. Then you've got "Frostbit," which is very fast, but has a very heavy mid-section. That's very Slayer-influenced. "The Devil's Door" has a Sepultura vibe from Beneath the Remains a little bit. I was influenced by that. All of those influences just came together and it just naturally evolved. I'm not the kind of person that could say, "Hey, I want to write something like a particular band per se." It just comes out naturally with the influences that I have. These riffs, like I said, most of it is in my head and I have to put it down into the computer via the keyboard and MIDI.

What does your creative process typically look like when writing music for Bleeding Edge? Do you approach songwriting differently now compared to your past band like Epidemic when you were still a part of a band?

Carl: Yes, it's different. There are some similarities, of course, because back then I did have some ideas in my head, and I would try and figure out what the notes were on the guitar on a very basic level. Then I would take it into practice, and I would show one of the guys, either the guitar player or the bass player, and say, "Hey, here's a riff that I got. It goes like this on the guitar," and then I would vocally hum it out for them, and then tell them how to play it, say, "Play this muted, play that open." That kind of thing. It would work like that.

A lot of times I would come up with a single riff, or two or three riffs for, say, an intro, or things like that, whereas this time around, I challenged myself to write all the songs entirely. I would have a basic riff and I would just build on that. Sometimes it would come very quickly. Say, for instance, "The Devil's Door" was the last song that I wrote for this project. The reason I had to write that song is because the fourth song that I had written for the project, Scott told me that it wasn't really working, it wasn't vibing. He thought that the riffs and everything were cool, but all together, it just didn't gel.

He told me at first, "Go ahead and try and refine it." I did a couple of times, and he said, "I think you'd just be better off starting from scratch writing a new song." I said, "Yes, I think you're right. I think it would be a better vibe." I sat down, and I had the main riff already in me; I do record riffs now and again. When they come up into my head, I hum them into my phone. I took that riff, and I laid it down in MIDI, and from there, it just spiraled.

I wrote that song in probably two days. It came across very, very quickly. Whereas others, like "Cold Dead Hands," for instance, I had completely different music for it. It was a very fast song, had a huge intro, a completely different song. This was before I even showed it to Scott. I decided that I liked the lyrics, but I really wasn't keen on the music, and that I felt that the music needed to be different. In that regard, the music came about really based on the lyrics and the rhythm of the lyrics. It's varied how I approach writing.

What could you tell about the lyric video for "Frostbite"?

Carl: That was the second song I wrote for this project. I had the midsection riffs already. I just recorded those at one point, laid it down. I knew I wanted to write a fast song because I really wanted the EP to be balanced. I wanted to have two fast songs and two mid-paced songs so there'd be some variation. I had come up with the beginning of "Frostbite" in the verse and the chorus. I thought, "Okay, this works really well." Then I thought, "Wait a minute, I've got this midsection that would work perfectly with that."

Sure enough, I put them together, and it worked really, really well. That was another one of those things where I had a couple pieces lying around or some pieces lying around, and then I brought up something new, put them together, and it snowballed from there. I definitely had Slayer on the brain when I was writing that song, for sure. I really just wanted that fast, impactful beginning with that very heavy midsection. It turned out great, because I had arranged that song to have that solo at the beginning, and then the solo before the midsection, and then the longer solo section in the middle. Then just going right back to that fast part and just punching it at the end. That really worked out well.

I just thought about the lyrics. The subject matter was, hey, "Frostbite" came about because I had watched an interview probably 20, 25 years ago on 60 Minutes, and it was about a world-famous mountain climber who was climbing, I want to say it was Mount Everest. He was caught in a blizzard, and he knew that he did not have the ability to probably survive throughout the night.

He called his wife. He had a satellite phone, and the wife was telling the story about how he had called her to say that he probably wasn't going to make it back. He was basically saying goodbye to her and their very young child, who was only like a year or two old. This woman was, of course, very emotional, telling the story, and it was grim. I thought, "Wow, that was pretty intense." When I thought about this song, for some reason, that popped in my head, and I thought, "That's what I'm going to write the song about." It's a pretty intense subject matter. I wrote it about basically the perspective of being that person.

Has it crossed your mind to make Bleeding Edge a full band someday?

Carl: I think that would be fun, but logistically, it's a bit difficult. For instance, I live in Northern California, Scott lives in Texas, and so getting a band together would be difficult. Plus, we're getting older. Scott doesn't really want to play live and do that anymore. He's more about songwriting and producing, which I completely understand. I would like to do that. It just takes a lot to get a band together, practice. I'm the type of person; if I do something, I'm going to go 100%, and I want to make sure it's done right.

That would mean I would have to practice at least two or three days a week, have the guys here locally, have the right guys so we could gel and have some chemistry. If I could find the right guys, and it was one of those things where it worked out where we could do that, it would be fun to do. It's just a very difficult thing at this age now that you've got a mortgage and bills to pay. It was a lot easier when I was 18, 19, 20 years old, and I didn't have all these responsibilities.

PERSONAL MUSICAL PHILOSOPHY

What keeps you passionate about making music, and what message or feeling do you hope to convey through your projects like Bleeding Edge?

Carl: I've always really loved music in general, and I'm very much a metal head. I still listen to many, many albums that I bought when I was 13, 14, 15, 16. I still listen to all those early Metallica albums, the Slayer albums, all that Bay Area thrash. I'll throw on Possessed, Seven Churches. I'll throw on Bonded by Blood. I'll still listen to things like early Sabbath. Iron Maiden, of course. Still listen to a lot of Iron Maiden. Then, of course, I'll listen to all the other stuff like that, as I kept going on like Entombed, Carcass, of course, Obituary, those older Sepultura albums.

I still love all that stuff, and I still listen to that on a regular basis. I also am a big Rush fan, so I listen to Rush. I like other things as well. I listen to ambient music, and I like some electronic music and some things that aren't metal, of course. I really dig certain albums by certain bands. For instance, I'm not a symphonic metal fan, per se, but I'll listen to Nightwish Century Child and really like that. I'm not really a Nightwish fan, but I love that album. I'll throw that album on at least two or three times a year.

My tastes vary like that. One band I really like is Enigma. I like more of their things that are beyond the first two albums. I like some of the other albums without the Gregorian chant and the sort of New Age feel. I like some of the other stuff that they do. I really dig that. I go back and I'll listen to AC/DC, for instance. AC/DC is one of the first bands I got into when I got into heavy music. I'll listen to that and really enjoy that. I love all that. Music is a feeling of power. That can be not just from something that's really fast or really super heavy. It's just invoking an emotion.

I hope that, with the music I write, when I write it, I feel something from it. I hope that that is conveyed and that when other people hear it, they feel that too and get something out of it in their own way. The beauty of music is that what I get out of music, somebody else might get something different. We can both equally like something, but we'll like it for different reasons or have different feelings about it that are both really good. That's what I really like about it. When I write the songs, it's just about that energy and the power, especially when it comes to metal, that I get out of listening to those songs. Most of the time when I'm listening to metal, it's just that heaviness that's so wonderful. If it's really fast and energetic, the power that you get out of it and the energizing feeling that you get out of it. I hope that that is conveyed through the stuff that I write when people listen to it.

GOALS FOR BLEEDING EDGE'S FUTURE

Looking forward, what are your goals for Bleeding Edge? Are there some plans to record a full-length album someday? Do you think you may record another EP or something?

Carl: It really depends. The timing was right to do this EP at the time I did it. I had a little extra money to spend on this project. Right now, I'm just trying to promote it, get it out there. I don't have any wild expectations of any kind. I hope that I can sell a few CDs and digital copies, things like that, which are on sale at Bandcamp. If you go to bleedingedgemetal.com, it'll redirect you right to Bandcamp to check that out. I hope I can get the support there. I'll be getting some T-shirts ready to go so people can order those as well.

I hope that maybe I can record another EP if things really work out. I was just laid off from my job the week before last. Right now, I'm looking for a job and trying to get back in the groove and hopefully get to the point where I can save up a few bucks and do it again, because this was 100% funded by me. I paid people to perform on the EP. Even with getting fantastic deals and people doing their portions for a discount, it still was a fair amount of money for me to put out just to get these four songs out. I really respect people who make their own music their own way.

I also respect all the bands that still do it today. The guys who are all in their 50s and some in their 60s who are still out there doing music and performing. It's very commendable, because as you get older, it just makes it tougher to do things physically. Then the landscape in music, it's not the same as it used to be. I'm taking this from an old school feel like where you would go in, you would record your demo, you would make your demos, you would sell them yourself and try and get your word out. I'm doing that here in the same fashion, albeit in the way that we do things today with digital music and streaming and that type of thing while still offering a physical product, which is the CD.

I'm trying to take some of that spirit not only musically from back in the day, but also entrepreneurially, if you will. The feel of back in the day of the old tape trading days where you'd make your tapes and you'd sell them to folks through the mail, that kind of thing. That part's been fun. I hope to get a lot more exposure in Europe. I'm trying to work on that, see what I can't do. Like I said, having lost my job, I have to go be careful how much money I spend because I won't know how long I'm going to be out of work.

REFLECTING ON EPIDEMIC

Talking about your past a bit, Epidemic was, of course, a big part of your past. What led to the end of the band and how do you reflect on the time you spent with Epidemic?

Carl: The demise of the band happened somewhat organically. After the first record, we did a two-week tour with Malevolent Creation and Suffocation in late 1992. Then, in early 1993, we did a full US tour with Cannibal Corpse and Unleashed. That was a lot of fun. Then about roughly a month after we got back from the tour, we asked one of our guitar players to leave the band, which, in hindsight, probably wasn't the best thing to do.

Then we proceeded to go ahead and write for the second album. We already had a few songs at that time, but we finished writing the second album. We recorded it and we did not get another guitar player to replace him, which also, in retrospect, probably wasn't a great idea. Then the label support really wasn't there the way we thought it should be. For instance, we had some ads, and we got the tours, but the touring situation was rough and every band goes through that, right?

Yes, that's so true indeed...

Carl: I'll give you an example. We were making $100 a night on the Cannibal Corpse tour.

Oh no, that's basically... nothing!

Carl: Right, even in 1992, that wasn't very much money. We were allowing ourselves $5 a day per diem for food and what have you. There's $25 gone. That left us with $75 for gas and anything else that might come up. The only reason we were able to actually do that tour and survive was because Unleashed utilized our backline, our drums and our amps. They said that they would buy us a hotel room every night of the tour for the use of our amps and our drums. That helped us out tremendously because if we had to try and buy our own hotel rooms, I don't know that we really would have survived. [*laughs*]

It would have been tough between $75 a day, having to drive and get gas and then pay for a hotel room. We would probably be sleeping in the van a lot. It was still winter, it was February when we started that tour. I can remember one time being low on gas and pulling over to a gas station at like 4:00 in the morning and it was closed. We thought, "Hell, we better stay here until they open because we might run out of gas." I remember having to sleep there for two or three hours and it was freezing. We would turn on the van to warm it up. It was miserable in that respect.

That was a lot of fun. We've got stories and that's an experience that not many people have, touring the country like that. That was fun and I look back on that fondly. After we kicked out our guitar player, we did the second record, and it didn't seem like the record company was going to do a lot for us. Then at that point, we didn't have any tour offers. We just weren't feeling it as a band and our drummer quit.

At that point, I thought, "I'm not really feeling this anymore either." I felt like we were back to square one. Even though we were a signed band to a notable metal label, I felt like we were having to do things on our own. At one point, when we played Montreal in Canada, people were coming up to me saying, "Yes, you guys were great. I wanted to buy your album, but I can't find it in the stores." I thought, "Wow, why are they not being able to find it?" When I asked about it, they said, "You should call up record stores and get your album in the store. You should call up distributors and tell them to put your album in the stores and things." I thought, "What is the record company doing? Don't they want to sell records? Don't they want to make money, too? Don't they want to get their money back?" It put a sour taste in my mouth. That was the other thing too, is I always said that if I was going to do music again, I would do it myself, that even if I took a loss on it, at least I wasn't giving things away to somebody else. I got to do everything the way I wanted. I have nobody to blame about anything except for myself if something goes wrong. It was one of those natural progressions. As fun as it was, it started not being fun. A lot of people will say it starts becoming a job and a business and this and that, and it just takes the fun out of it. To a certain extent, yes, it should become a job in a way, because if that's why you're trying to earn a living, that's a job, but it took the fun away from it. It was still fun to write music and be creative. For me, between that and actually playing live, those were the best parts. It's just everything in between that was difficult.

The other part is that we were a true democracy in that band where all five guys had a say. It was difficult for us to make decisions without having to contact everyone and get their vote on a particular item that we were contemplating, for instance. Almost always it was a three to two vote. There were always a couple guys who weren't necessarily satisfied, but you had to go with it because sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. That also makes it difficult to have a clear vision of where the band's going.

I am, as a fan of Epidemic, curious to know if there are any particular moments that stand out to you from that era when you were a part of the band?

Carl: Oh yes, absolutely. I'd been in the band about a year when we got to open for Slayer. That was 1988. That was absolutely amazing. The venue was literally down my street, like three blocks away from my house. That was amazing. The show was absolutely packed. They oversold it. The fire marshal came and threatened to shut it down. There were so many people there. By the time they came, there was no way they were shutting it down. They let it happen. That was one of the hottest shows I ever played. That was amazing.

The thing is, in the late '80s, there were so many good bands. There were so many tours coming through. Living in the Bay Area, there were multiple venues where you could go see bands. One night you might go and see a local show like Testament, Vio-lence, and Forbidden and then maybe the next night there'd be a national act coming through, like a Slayer or a Death, for instance, or Sepultura, or somebody coming through.

We got to play a lot of those shows. We opened up for Death on the "Spiritual Healing" tour. We opened for Sepultura on the Beneath the Remains tour. Both of those shows were really great, packed shows, very energetic shows. The vibe was just great because back then so many people would come out. You knew so many people, some of your really good friends, and then people that you only saw at shows, but you got along with, and it was great to see them. It was really, really fun back then. It's much, much different now. Much different than now. Of course, because we're all so much older and times are different.

Even the local shows with the smaller bands, even before we were signed. We could headline The Stone in San Francisco and bring it to 90% capacity and have a really killer show. A lot of unsigned bands did that as well. You would show up and see a lot of people and there was a lot of support. People would go and people would buy demos and buy T-shirts and things like that.

There was a really big community supporting all the bands. It was a lot of fun. That really stands out. The fact that there were just so many good shows. It was also reasonable. It wasn't so expensive as it is today. For instance, my very first show, I went to see the Day on the Green at the Oakland Coliseum. It was Scorpions, Ratt, Y&T, Metallica, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Victory. That was $18.

Nowadays you can pay something like $160-$180 for a show like that.

Carl: Oh, at least. For instance, the Aftershock festival here in Sacramento, that's a three- or four-day event. It's huge. That's like, what, $150, $200 for one day or something like that. I just looked at the ticket prices and I thought, "There's no way I'm doing this." Plus, it's just too long for me. It's 12 hours, tons of people. Frankly, there are only a handful of bands that I want to see over the course of those days, so it just doesn't make it worth it for me. I get why people do it. If I was 19, 20, I probably would go to a day or two of those. I don't know how people afford to go all four days, and there are a lot of people who do that, and they're spending like $1,000.

Okay, I have one last question for you and then I will let you go to do whatever you had scheduled to do today. For those people who have not heard Bleeding Edge yet, can you tell them why they should seriously consider checking the band out?

Carl: If you like classic thrash, '90s metal, but with a modern flair, please check us out. It's got everything you want; speed, heaviness, death-style vocals, but still very thrashy. I hope that people will check it out. Out of curiosity, if anybody liked the style of those bands, you're into Bay Area thrash, you're into some of the older styles, check it out, because I think you might be pleasantly surprised by what you hear. If you do, I would be very grateful and appreciate all the support. Thank you, Luxi, for having me on and providing me with time to do the interview. I really appreciate it.

Thanks for shedding some light on my questions regarding the story behind Bleeding Edge, and your experiences with Epidemic and Killing Culture - and all the best to you and, of course, to the future of Bleeding Edge!

Carl: Thanks Luxi, I appreciate the time with you and doing the interview. I really appreciate the support. Cheers!!!