Interview - VOMITORY

English text

Martín: Hello! How you doing? VOMITORY is a long career band. How do you feel about all these years?

Tobias: Hello, all is good here. We're preparing for the upcoming combined release- and 20th anniversary party here in Karlstad/Sweden next Friday (29th of May). It feels great to know that we have had this band for twenty years now and also just have released one of the best, or in my opinion the best Vomitory album. We've had both ups and downs, but I mostly remember the past twenty years in the band with joy.

M: “Carnage Euphoria” is your new creature. Is it hard to giving birth a new VOMITORY album?

T: Yes, it's a great challenge every time and I think it gets harder for every album. But that's also part of why we still enjoy doing this. And even though it gets more difficult for every album, I think that we get better at it each time. That's a great feeling and a necessity to get the motivation to keep on going.

M: Tell us about the recording sessions and the production of “Carnage Euphoria”.

T: The recording session for this album was a bit tougher than we're used to. Sure, we're used to work under hard pressure before and during the recording sessions, but this time was something extra. We had to finish a lot more of the material in the studio than usual, and we had more problems with getting the actual working schedule to fit with free time from our day jobs, the producer Rikard Löfgren's other projects that he worked on parallel to our album, and so on. We also had more technical problems this time around as well. That is something that we - knock on wood - almost never have encountered during the recording of an album. So I guess it was time for it now, haha. We had to spend a lot more time, one full day, to get the right guitar sound for Peter this time around. Usually that's done within just a few hours. We also missed one day of Peter's guitar work, thanks to a crashed recording software and hardware. But in the end, the extra hard work obviously paid off since we all think that the new album turned out great. For this album we aimed at getting a warmer, wider and more 'natural' sound than on our previous album. The drums for example, are all my own acoustic drums - well mic'ed - and not replaced by other sampled sounds, which is the case in 95% of the metal productions today. The drum sound on Carnage Euphoria is fantastic and I think that affects the sound image of the whole production to the better. The bass, guitars and vocals sound awesome too.

M: Is it difficult to find inspiration writing always about Death Metal topics such as death, blood, destruction...?

T: Both yes and no. We have all such things around us on a daily basis in the everyday life. You constantly see what's going on in society and in the world - war, murders, sick shit etc. But also the fact that we have death metal around us all the time too. We listen to other bands and get inspired by their lyrics. So finding the inspiration is usually not a problem. What's difficult is to find something to write about that you haven't already done. And also, to not try to use the same words, phrases and terms over and over again. But that's what make us develop our craft. And I won't make a secret that in Vomitory, we have always considered the lyrics to be second to the music. The music always comes first. The lyrics should of course complete the music in the best possible way, but we don't have any kind of ideology or agenda that we want to spread with our lyrics. Brutal music calls for brutal lyrics - simple as that.

M: Many extreme bands are making videos for its songs. Are you planning to make a video for one of your songs?

T: We've been thinking of doing a proper video for years now but for some reason it never happened. Mostly because of the money. But now we're aiming at doing at least one video for one of the songs from the new album, probably "Rage Of Honour".

M: What can we expect about VOMITORY’s live on stage?

T: A powerful death metal performance, with songs from all eras of the band. No bullshit, no rockstar attitude, no short haircuts - just metal the way we like it.



M: Sweden is one of the most important countries for Death Metal. How do you see the scene from the inside?

T: I think Sweden still delivers top quality music, even though I personally don't like even half of it. But it's still great to see that new bands keep coming up and deliver top-notch stuff. Too bad that the live scene isn't quite what you'd think it be in a country like this. People don't go to shows anymore as much as they used to. I think that part of that problem is that most of the fans in Sweden are musicians themselves, regardless on which level they are. Another reason for it is probably a change of generation. In the early years of Vomitory for example, we didn't have the Internet. But now, a whole new generation has grown up with Internet as the most natrual thing in the world, and I believe that has changed peoples attitude quite a lot. Going to live shows is one thing. Going to the movies or just simply seeing people and socialize have also become more rare these days, compared to how it was twenty years ago, I believe. But yeah, the scene is still pretty strong and I can recommend to check out Tribulation, a new old-school death metal band from Arvika/Sweden.

M: Can you choose two bands or artists that influenced you to be a musician?

T: Damn, can I only choose two?! Dude, I could talk an hour straight about bands and musicians that have influenced me so much! But sure, Iron Maiden was probably the band that inspired me most to become a musician. Iron Maiden has been of huge importance for my entire view on music. And as a drummer I was really inspired by Nicko McBrain. Also, Saxon, Judas Priest, WASP and Metallica inspired me a lot to become a musician. In fact, all the bands I listened to in the mid to late '80's did that - Ozzy Osbourne, Slayer, Dio, Kiss, Running Wild, Sodom, King Diamond, Queensrÿche etc. I also must take this opportunity to mention Krzystztof Raczkowski, more known as Doc who was the drummer of Vader. He never influenced me to be a musician (I was already playing drums since many years when I first heard him with Vader), but he inspired me tremendously to become a better death metal drummer. I was devastated to hear about his passing in 2005, since he was, and in fact still is, a huge source of inspiration for my drumming. I had the honour to meet him in person several times on the road and at some festivals while he was still in Vader. I cherish those moments.

M: What is your opinion about music in our days with the internet and mp3 downloads?

T: Having sites like MySpace is awesome. You find most of what you need to know about a band on one single site and you get to listen to new bands without buying the album first. That's great for both the artists and the fans. I think downloading is great too, IF it's done the right way, i.e. legally! But that's a problem I think. It's difficult to make people understand that downloading without paying for the stuff they download, is stealing and not the way to go in the long run. This is the same problem I talked about earlier, regarding people's attitude and the rise of a new generation. Music isn't free! It never was. Why is it OK to pay 3 Euro for a stupid cell-phone ringtone but not OK to pay 1 shitty Euro for a song with your favorite band??!! That makes no sense whatsoever to me. Money is needed so artists can spend time in the studio to create and record new music. People buy the new music and more money can be spent the next time so more new music can be recorded and released. If the record labels - big or small - don't get that, I think the quality of the music and the recordings will decrease in the long run. But the bottom line is: Buy your music to support your favorite artists! Metal people though, are pretty loyal and still buy albums I believe.

M: Thank you very much for your time. Here you have space to write what you want as farewell.

T: Thank you for having Vomitory! Check out our new album Carnage Euphoria, and all our other albums as well if you're not familiar with Vomitory before! www.myspace.com/vomitoryswe is a good place to start! See us live Europe in September and October during our European tour together with Malevolent Creation. Cheers!

http://www.myspace.com/vomitoryswe
http://www.vomitory.net