Vomitory (2001)

1 - Hail to thee!!! Hope everything is going fine with you...
Considering “ Revolution Nausea “ your best work to date and being you one of the founding members, what could you tell us about the evolution of your sound through more than a decade and after the release of several demos and CDs? Do you find your sound purely Vomitory or has anyone come to you and said you resemble too much this and that band? How have been the general reactions to this grinding blood bath that is “ Revelation Nausea “?

Hi, everything is fine, thank you. What we do now is basically the same as in the beginning 'cause we have our roots in heavy metal and the European and Swedish death metal sound and that has always been our guiding star. But during the years we have of course developed a lot as musicians and songwriters and our identity as a band has naturally grown stronger for every year. But different from most long-running bands, Vomitory has turned more brutal and intense for every year. I think we have kind of our own sound nowadays, but we've never struggled to be original. We've always preferred quality before originality and I think we've succeeded with that. And even though our style never has been especially original nobody has ever told us that we sound like any other band. We have a lot of different influences so I guess that can be one reason. The reactions on the new album, “Revelation nausea”, have been absolutely great. It feels very good since we’ve changed the line-up again for this album, and since it’s our first release on a bigger label. By changing the line-up too often a band can lose its credibility but for us it seems like people feel the same as we do – the band has just grown even stronger and better than before.

2 - Do you consider to gain more and more influences, from other musical genres (be it jazz or Black or whatever, just for the sake of experimenting), as time passes by or do you think Vomitory will always stay this non compromising, no bullshit, straight forward brutal Death band (although maturing which each release) that aims more at conquering the underground by being real to themselves rather than following any trends?
(I know its something of an awkward question considering that you play brutal Death for more than 10 years when one knows that the real trends were Black - metal and Doom/Gothic yet consider this a question that aims at your future!)

It's actually a combination of both. As time passes by we get more musical experienced and catches more of other kinds of music which probably subconsciously influence us in the writing process. But never on purpose just for the sake of experimenting. Vomitory has always been and will always be brutal death metal the old-school way.

3 - Does the band’s members have any other projects? What are your musical preferences besides brutal Death (besides metal anyway)?

Only Erik has another project beside Vomitory, which is more traditional heavy metal. But they never rehearse. They only record their stuff once in a while. We listen to traditional hard rock and heavy metal a lot beside death metal. We also listen to some crust and punk as well. Personally I also like the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix as well as some classical music and soundtracks to films (big orchestras!).

4 - Metal Blade is one of the greatest underground labels world-wide and by signing to them you may be certain of a sure promotion throughout the underground... How this appeared? Were you able to leave your former label (why did it happened?) knowing that there were other ones interested in you? For how many releases have you signed? Do you have total artistic freedom on this new label? If not, why?

We were still very satisfied with the work from our previous label, Fadeless records, but unfortunately common problems with small labels are the limitations with money and distribution. We signed for only one album at the time for Fadeless so we could do whatever we wanted after each release. After the release of our previous album, "Redemption", we felt like it was the right time to take the band to the next level, so we simply sent that album out to a few bigger labels. MetalBlade was one of them and they replied immediately and were very interested in Vomitory. We were also very interested in working with them because of several reasons; big label, great bands, great promotion etc. Now afterwards it has come to our knowledge that MetalBlade had already checked us up and were very interested in signing us before we contacted them. We have signed with for one album with options on another three. They don't tell us what we should sound like or in which direction our sound should develop. They want brutal death metal from us and they get brutal death metal! They knew what to expect from us already when they signed us. But they will definitely tell us if something isn't good enough to be released on their label.

5 - You were very unlucky to have your appearance at Wacken compromised and your tour with Vader cancelled... Could you shed some light into that subject? Is it difficult to cope a busy touring schedule with your personal life and jobs (supposing you have one hehe)?

Yes, things got quite fucked up! We were promised to play at W.O.A. this summer, but after MetalBlades’ final meeting with the organisers we got the message that we couldn't play. I haven't got the complete explanation yet, but I think we had to cancel because MetalBlade have had so many of their bands playing at W.O.A. the last three years or so, and this year they didn't get many spots. So naturally they chose some of the bigger bands and not Vomitory. It really sucks but there's nothing we can do about it other than looking forward to next year and see if the situation is better. The Sweden/Norway tour together with Vader in April got cancelled the day before the start! It was all because of the Swedish organiser who didn't make sure that Vader had the right papers for the Swedish customs. Well at the Swedish border they were refused to enter the country without these papers so were sent back home to Poland. Fucking unbelievable! We don't tour that much so it's mostly no problem to combine it with our regular jobs. We only need to plan everything in time and very careful.

6 - Where do you feel more comfortable: on a rehearsal room or on stage? What do you like best while on stage? Anyway, do you have any more concerts planned throughout the year? Any one here in Portugal? hehe

All four of us love to play live, but we're very comfortable in our rehearsal room as well since that is our escape from the sometimes very boring every day life with all what that brings. But touring and playing live is what we like best 'cause it's really a special feeling being on stage in front of an enthusiastic audience. The best with playing live is when I'm feeling that I'm playing good and the other guys do that as well and then push us that little extra. We will do three festivals this summer, Falkenberg/Sweden in the end of May, DIST festival in Forshaga/Sweden in the end of July and Party-San open air/Germany in August. There are unfortunately no gigs in Portugal planned. But we'd love to play there since we haven't done that before. In December we will also do the X-mass festivals in Europe together with Cannibal corpse, Kreator, Marduk, Nile, Dark Funeral and Krisiun, which will be total chaos!

7 - How the release of the first two CDs on vinyl appeared? Are you vinyl fans? Have you been in contact with The Plague for some time? Was it easy to get the copyright laws from Fadeless Records? Is it you or Hammearheart/The Plague that has it now?

After Wilko, founder of Fadeless records, discontinued his work with that label he started working for Hammerhearts sub-label, The Plague. It is still Wilko who is re-releasing our first two albums, both on CD and vinyl, but under a different name. So basically it's no difference for us. We just had to sign new contracts for the re-releases. Both Wilko and us wanted to make vinyl versions of both "Raped in their own blood" and "Redemption" from the beginning when he had Fadeless records, but it was too expensive. Now when Hammerheart is involved it's possible to do this, and yes, we love it! We love vinyl so this feels really good.

8 - Do you always play live older songs from the first CD, or previous releases, or do you consider it to not representing your sound nowadays? Tell us all about your 10-year picture anniversary disc released by Fadeless Records...

We try to play songs from all albums live, but we naturally focus on the latest release. I think it's important to play songs from different periods, 'cause all our songs represent Vomitory in any way even though some might be like eight years old. The 10" anniversary picture mini-LP, simply entitled "1989-1999", was released in late 1999 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Vomitory. We thought it was a cool idea to do something special after spreading death metal for a decade and Fadeless liked it as well so we chose a few songs that are connected to Vomitorys ten year history in some way and recorded them in Speedball studios in Karlstad/Sweden. The songs are "The art of war" (1999), "Undivulged" (1992 from our first demo), "Extremity retained" (Napalm death - a great source of inspiration), "Dead cold" (1992 previously unreleased) and "Christ passion" (Sodom - we played this song on the very first gig in 1990). It's limited to 667 copies and I think they're sold out by now.

9 - By now, you must have composed some more songs for your fourth release... If you compare them to the excellent “ Revolution Nausea “, what can you say about it? What are your plans until the end of the year?

Ha ha, to be honest, we haven't one single song completely finished yet! We have three - four songs that are almost finished and so far it looks like we're following the same track as on "Revelation nausea", E.I. fast and brutal stuff! We plan to record a new album in November or so and have it released in February/March 2002. We will most definitely use Henrik Larsson and Berno studio again for our fourth album.

10 - Will you have any more special guests on your next release like you did on your current CD with Cliff from Driller Killer? Will Erik maintain the vocals and bass duties or are you thinking in adding someone else to the band?

We don't have any plans for special guests on the next album, but we'll see. It's nothing necessary. Cliffs appearance on "The art of war" on our last album was a cool thing to do since we are Driller killer fans and to make this recording of the song different from the one on our 10" mini-LP. This current line-up is the strongest ever so we have definitely no plans to bring in one more guy into the band. And Erik is doing the vocals so good so there's absolutely no reason. We are far more comfortable with four guys in the band than five.

11 - In the lyrics ( what are you trying to portray with the CD’s title? ), there’s always a representation of a decomposed scenario of bloodthirsty war, although some of them are written on a gorish way ( The Corpsegrinder Experience; maybe a tribute to Cannibal Corpse’s frontman with which you’ve toured recently? hehe ) while the others are more simple yet surrealistic... Does the band consider it to be more appealing to their own tastes or is it due to the music that you play?

Mostly, as you say, our lyrics deal with war and death. Yeah, "The Corpsegrinder Experience" is kind of our greeting to George and Cannibal corpse. George and his ideas heavily inspire the title, ha!

12 - Have you ever thought in doing a conceptual album or albums that could inspire you to write even more brutal and tenebrous songs? Well, for an example: all the horror and gore that was going on the 1st and 2nd World War and an hypothetical 3rd World War appearing on a tenebrous future...

No, we’ve never thought of doing a concept album, but it would be cool to do it, though. But with our speed with writing songs a concept album would probably be finished in 2055 or so, haha! But one should never say never… The wars you mention are possible topics to write a concept album about, and for some of our existing songs we’ve got inspired by them.

13 - I really enjoyed the cover and artwork of your latest CD ( I only saw the cover of your second CD on your site and thought it was really great also ) ... Could you tell us who has done it and what is its meaning related with the CD’s title?

Cool that you like it! It’s a painting made by a good friend of ours, Peter Wallgren. He also did the cover artwork for “Redemption”. Actually, he has been involved in all covers for Vomitory, including the demos. The cover artwork on “Revelation nausea” shows a person, who is feeling deceived by his God due to his/her extremely strong belief in something that’s no real, crucified with a demon swirling around the cross. The title, "Revelation nausea", deals with Christian fanaticism and how such people are completely blind to the reality.

14 - I imagine that those who hear your CD for the first time may become surprised to notice that you’re from Sweden as the scene over there tends to dwell into the more melodic spectrum of Death metal... Anyway, could you describe to us the brutal death scene where you live? How is it to perform on a brutal Death band on a country that has more to do with melodic Death and Black? Have you passed through some difficult situations?

Yes, it might surprise some people, since a lot of the Swedish bands are pioneers of a new, more melodic sound of death metal. There are not many brutal old-school death metal bands around these days anymore. A lot of the good ol' bands either split up or wimped out and got softer, while Vomitory has remained faithful to our style and never compromised. That makes us one of the oldest remaining brutal old-school death metal bands from Sweden. But now it seems like the old-school style is on its way back. Bands like Kaamos, Throneaeon and Insision are brutal Swedish bands that are really good and are definitely worth checking out. But the death metal scene in our home area isn't really blooming. The interest is pretty good though, but there are hardly any bands or truly dedicated people with magazines, radioshows etc. But the average metalscene is pretty good though. There are quite a lot of metal and hardrock bands around and most of them are of very high quality. When we play in Sweden we mostly get really great response from the audience. There are still some dedicated freaks out there who like brutal shit! We haven't been in any difficult or strange situations concerning this with the different death metal climate in Sweden as far as I can remember.

15 - Could you tell us your point of view towards the underground at the time of your formation and now? Do you think that now with technology’s evolution and the maturity of a vast amount of underground projects ( be it bands, fanzines, magazines, distros, labels, radio shows ), the future couldn’t be described as nothing less than bright?

Back then everything was new, very exciting and the whole atmosphere was different. People were more friendly and more supportive than today. Since a couple of years I get the feeling that people seem to compete with each other instead of supporting. That sucks, but times change and we all grow older and start to look different upon things, which I think is one of the biggest reasons. The music develops and so does projects around it (magazines etc) and there are better possibilities nowadays with effective tools like the Internet. But one have to remember that in the end it doesn't matter how much helpful the new technology is as long as one not have the talent to use it in the right way.

16 - What do you think will be the future of Metal (especially Death metal)? Maybe we could compare Metal with Classical music, which has many styles be it baroque, waltz and others... In that way, could one re - invent the notion of what’s Metal without loosing some of it’s spirit to that crappy techno shit or, one day, we will face a dead end? To you four, what will the future of Vomitory be?

One thing is for sure - metal will never die completely. And I don't think death metal will either. Metal has been around for so long now and metal fans are the most dedicated fans of all music genres so that's nothing I worry about. We look very bright on the future of Vomitory. We have the opportunity to release albums and tour so we're really enjoying what we're doing and we will continue as long as we think it's fun.

17 - Do you have any opinion about the world at this moment? Do you think there’s no stop at the exploitation of the 3rd World countries by some of the developed ones? What do you think about all that science has brought us? Is cloning a valid way for the future or should we give space to the future generations?

There are too many idiots around and the worst thing is that the stupider and more incompetent people are, the higher positions in the society they have. With a world that is built up that way we can only head one way - straight to hell! The difference between rich and poor will grow much bigger and the exploitation of the third world countries will continue to a certain point when everything has reached the very bottom. Then it will be too late to do something about it. Science has brought us a lot of very good things that humanity will depend more and more on in the future. Other things are quite scary, like cloning. It can have catastrophical consequences if it gets in the wrong hands. But if we can use it in the right way it can help mankind in many ways. To get rid of terrible and deadly diseases, like cancer for example. But it's not the ultimate solution for making this planet a better place. No, what we need to do is to teach us to use common sense. That alone can take us far!

18 - Does some of you have a special inclination towards literature and the discovery of one’s meaning through life? What is your ideology or life’s philosophy? Do you practice what you preach?

I would like to read more but I haven't had the time, but I've promised myself that I will take time for it 'cause it's really relaxing and stimulating. Erik (bass n' vocals) is the one that reads most of us and I guess it's most fantasy and such. Sooner or later I think everybody will discover the meaning of his or her lives, but we have to live a little longer and get more experiences through life before that. I don't think I have any special philosophy, but one thing that I think is very important is to take care of one's friends and surround yourself with people that you like and don't take too much notice of the idiots in the outskirts of your surrounding - life's too short for that. Honestly, I don't practice what I preach completely, but I don't think there are many people that actually does that to 100% anyway. I do my best.

19 - Well, we’ve reached to an end and I sincerely hope you can still think I’m a nice guy after this avalanche of questions... hehe All the best to you and Vomitory! That they can still vomit their guts around for a great bunch of years... Just drop some final bloody remarks...

Thanks for the opportunity, Jorge, and all the best from Vomitory with your work and your mag! For those who want to find out more about Vomitory, don't hesitate to visit our website, www.vomitory.net. Cheerz!
Tobias