Doomed Confessionary: Rio Mariucci (Primal Scourge)
Primal Scourge is a death/doom metal duo from Knoxville, Tennessee. Formed by lifelong collaborators Austin Asmus (guitar, bass, vocals) and Rio Mariucci (drums, vocals), Primal Scourge rose from years of shared musical history, reuniting in Knoxville to create death metal that feels as massive and inescapable as a collapsing star.
Primal Scourge dropped their debut album »End Of Eden«, the apocalyptic soundtrack to a world in collapse, on November 14th, 2025 via Iron Fortress Records.
Invoking a tempest of extremes, »End Of Eden« opens a portal to a damned land, where frenzied tremolo-picked riffs and savage blast beats collide with colossal mid-tempo passages that heave forward like a doomsday engine driven by thundering double-kick.
Across nine tracks, Primal Scourge conjures sonic Armageddon, where tension coils and builds, rising like the floodwaters of the end times, before boiling over into seismic death doom sections that drag everything into their whirling vortex.
Can you please say a few words about your band?
Our band is a passion project between two best friends. We’ve made music before but both of us have been in different places doing different things for years until about 2023.
What was the biggest challenge for the band?
The largest current challenge so far is having to turn down shows because we’re only 2 people. Otherwise, almost everything else is a bit easier for us since we’ve known each other since we were 5 years old.
We’ve already had our scuffles/trials/tribulations, so we know how to navigate our personal and professional problems.
What can you be most proud of so far?
Besides getting married: Having the opportunity to put out a full-fledged album.
What was your biggest regret?
Long story short: not using free time correctly. The issue is screen time in my down-time and not being more musically active. No excuse but to show up, am I right?
What was the best concert/tour so far and why?
As far as Primal Scourge goes, we’ve only had one show so far, which was opening for Suffocation late 2024. (I know I just said we were two people but at that time we got a ball rolling on some guys we knew who helped us get on stage. Massive thanks to them!)
Everyone who played that show got to use Suffocation’s gear since the stage was so small, and it was super cool to meet and BS with some of the guys.
Derek Boyer loves drum gear to which we spent a lot of time talking, and Eric Morotti was incredibly chill with letting everyone use his drum set. Great experience.
What was the biggest surprise on the music scene for you?
I may be dead wrong, but from what I’ve witnessed: Knoxville seems to have a lack of venues for metal bands.
The last few venues I’ve seen or been to have basically closed down, or only host tours/larger bands when they’re able to swing through.
Of course there are cover bands everywhere and the hardcore scene since I know folks in that scene, but I don’t hear about other sub-genres of metal.
Like I said, I could definitely be wrong. In fact: I’d love to be proven wrong, I just may be out of touch.
What is currently in your heavy musical rotation?
I’d almost hate to say this: but I listen to our own album, End of Eden, at least twice per week to keep the songs fresh in my memory.
Otherwise it’s a mix of bands if we’re talking “heavy” as in just the music genre. For example: Mgła, The Black Dahlia Murder, Crowbar, Spectral Voice, Behemoth, After The Burial, The Acacia Strain, Emmure, Meshuggah, Amon Amarth, Pantera, Septicflesh, Aborted, and much, much more…
But if “heavy” means “what you listen to on the daily,” then a lot of the time I’ll go heavy (genre wise) but switch to synthwave or vaporwave, or something else that’s chill to give my ears a rest. Speaking of…
What was the best advice you’ve ever been given as a musician?
This advice came from a Swedish producer/guitar player that my family met and then my brother passed it on to me: “Give your ears a break.”
When you’re constantly bombarding your ears with noise, it’s a good idea to stop every once in a while to give them, and your brain, a break.
While we were practicing and pre-recording our album: sometimes we’d go too hard in the paint for the day, and have to give it a rest, sometimes for a few weeks since we both have our own personal schedules and at the time, our practice space was a ways away… That time off actually helped the process.
What are your guilty pleasures?
I mean, they’re only guilty pleasures if you let them make you feel that way! Otherwise I’d say the closest thing here is that I have a playlist on spotify just full of video game and meme music. When I hear a song and I like it, I’m gon’ find it!
Can you say something more about the current music scene in Knoxville?
I sort of aired that sort of dirty laundry in question 6.
I would love to have more metal shows pop up on my radar. Knoxville is a large place, there’s no reason for me not to look into it as well, but we all get busy and need a reminder sometimes.
Where can we see you live this year (concerts/tours)?
Since we are just two people, it’s sort of hard for us to answer this question, but I will say it is not outside our realm of possibility to get a ball or two rolling again.
What are your plans for the future as a band?
Keep making the music we like to make, and let the world take a listen.
How can people best support your band?
Firstly: huge shoutout to Iron Fortress Records for putting our physical album out there.
Secondly: Find our Bandcamp (Google will pull up Iron Fortress’s, but we do have our own) and keep checking the Iron Fortress website.
We DO have some physical merch sitting around, but will be handling that ourselves until we’re completely out of our physical stock.
Do you have any message for your listeners?
We all have our own demons to face, so just be excellent to each other and yourselves.
Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well