1. Hi there, Okkulto!
I’m glad that you are to answer a few questions. Want to move back to the past,
to Desaster’s “Stormbringer” minialbum. You were after the release of “A Touch
of Medieval Darkness”, Thorim left the band replaced by Tormentor. How do you
recall that time between these two releases?
Well let´s got back with the time capsule to
the years ‘95-´96. I think this was an important time for the band. We got more
and more gigs, Tormentor had returned on drums. He had improved a lot casue it
was always his dream to play in DESASTER on a permanent basis. So we became a
real unity, doing also a lot of things together in the spare time, aside from
band things. When we came to gigs, we appeared as a real serious unity, not
some of this childish weekend-warriors, which were around at this time. Black
Metal had become a huge trend meanwhile. There where countless zines and bands
popping out each week. Even the big magazines couldn´t ignore it anymore. But
every little youth band was trying to jump on that. We were really pissed off
by that, cause to us BM had to be dangerous, wild and extraordinary, not every
mothers darling. So we were writing more material which was a bit anti-trend
containing less „Black“ but more „Metal“, haha. Stronger rooted in the 80´s
glorious Thrash Metal times.
2. “Stormbringer”
might be considered as a bridge between the first and the second album, your
started to shape your original sound, your vocals changed a bit as well. Could you
share some memories on the process of writing this material and influences that
accompanied you back then?
Yes, as I said, we were really fed up with the
whole trendshit. One could publish some evil photos in the mags, but when you
came to gigs, seeing the guys in reality, you had a good laugh. So we wanted to
distance us from all that money-printing train which was rolling faster and
faster. We just wanted to produce some dark underground metal songs. On a
meeting with some friends from the HELLBANGERS one guy put on KREATOR´s
„Endless Pain“ CD. This was like a rebirth! in a moment there were 20 guys
standing in a circle banging their heads off during the whole album from the
first to the last song. We were all electrified by this old nostalgic feeling.
From this moment we started to re-discover many of the old records trying to
soak up the feeling of this pioneers of the mid-80´s, like when they were in
their youth. Also going to many 2nd hand markets, buying rarities or some more
obscure stuff from that period. This all influenced our songwriting and thinking
for the next years. We always tried to distance us from all the trendriders and
typical new BM-outcomes.
It was always difficult to find a nice cover,
fitting straight to the titles. In this case I went through some book stores,
searching for medieval/historical stuff which could reflect the title. When I
saw it, I knew directly that this would be what I was looking for. Showed it to
the other guys and they also liked it from the first moment as well. Still a
good choice, as you said, representing our musical theme very good. I prefer
simple but effective covers with not too much details. So this one here could
also represent the energy of our music very good.
4. You seemed to be
the one in the band who was more into black metal, the same with Odin. Am I
right? What bands from that genre were and are the most favourite for you, the
ones that had the most significant impact on you? You and Odin were the ones that
used corpsepaint.
Haha, this is a question often asked. It just
came from our demo times, I guess. The painting was just not Infernal´s „thing“
so to say, while Odin and me were very, very deeply into black in the early
days, so it gave us a special aura, a special feeling. We did it also at some
specials out there at some meetings in the wilderness. Later it became
something like a trademark that half of the band is painted, half not. You
could see it also as representing our special mixture of BM and oldschool
Thrash Metal. But the other members also listened to the black stuff as much as
we were Thrashers. But I was taking things very, very serious at this period.
More serious than many others did maybe. I was completely into it, always
looking for the darkest stuff. I liked DARKTHRONE a lot with their „Under a
Funeral Moon“ album. This was very influential to me. Also BURZUM was a
highlight, ‘cause it was so special in it´s riffing combining melancholic aura.
We soaked up everything, even some obscure demo´s or 7”.
As I said earlier, we just tried to distance
ourselves from that trendwave, which was getting bigger and bigger. It was
clrear that this would blow in pieces one day. We had ever seen us as an older
band with a history rooted in the end 80´s. So we just wanted to point out that
we are not a completely new band.
I guess even the BM-Hardliners respected us as
a old band, cause everyone who saw us in real could see that we were completely
serious, not any kiddies.
Yes, we fixed an own position in that whole
circus back then. When we were playing live there were 3 or 4 bands before us
who just played blast-beats the whole time, so the audience was finally taken
away from that when we entered the stage, playing real riffs, with real rhythms
to bang your heads to. The live-set mostly ended with a cover, for a long
period this was „Tormentor“ by KREATOR. We
presented a good mixture to the audience, not just fast stuff the whole time. I
think we became in a way famous for that, so the live shows became better and
better. We´ve grown a lot with that as a unity. Years later, at the time of „Tyrants
of the Netherworld“ we were nearly perfect in that. It´s the image as a band,
as a whole. A band has to be a unity on stage, otherwise it´s just like 4 guys
playing some instruments.
6. You were the author
of Desaster’s lyrics during the period you were in the band. You seemed to
share the passion towards the dark side of the medieval aesthetics that
Infernal had and still have. What themes/sources from that specific area
inspired you mostly when writing lyrics for “Stormbringer”?
We have a lot of castles here in our area,
which was always a great source of inspiration. Aside from band-things we were
meeting there from time to time just to soak up the aura. So this surly was a
huge inspiration to be put into the lyrics, as well as historical myths or
simply black aggressive „hate-stuff“. You know, we were young and really wild,
metal was around us 24/7. We wanted to distance us from the „normal“ society as
much as possible, being metal outlaws, but being proud about that, haha.
7. When it comes to
the vocals itself. What where your most favourite singers, those and had any
special inpact on you and they way you shaped your voice?
On the fist recodings I started with more black
metal-like vocals but I realized that there are simply too much singers in
that, to get an own identity. So I tried to bring in more and more of my own
voice into it. One can hear that with each release I think.
For sure I always like Quorthon’s voice and the
dirty raw expression in it. Later Nocturno Culto made it perfect on „Under a Funeral
Moon “ but also Cronos was great, early Tom Araya, Evil Chuck, Jeff Becerra,
Stace Sheepdog. So as you see, one can just learn from the best!
With the years, I think, I found my mixture of
raw extreme vocals in combination with my own voice and higher screams. Also
important were all those „uuh´s“ and „ahh´s“ which were mostly a homage to the
80´s. It all had to be still natural, not in a wannabe way. Many guys sounded
very extreme on their records in the 90´s, but seeing them live, they lost
their voice after 2 songs, so it all was faked. I never got problems with that.
So the people at the gigs realized that we were 100% serious in doing what we
did.
8. You started to play
live more and more, cloud you share any gig stories/ tour stories from that
time? Infernal told me, while talking about “Hellfire’s Dominion” that is was a
great adventure despite many problems.
Yes, gigs were always an adventure so to say,
hahaha. You know, when we started, we were driving hundreads of kilometers in
our little VW-Polos completly full of stuff. Mostly me and Odin were sitting on
the backseat and we had a Guitar-case on our legs for a trip of 400-500km. Music
from cassette-player (mix-tapes mostly) was always playing, 4 guys smoking into
this car and it could happen that we were drinking the first beer at noon
during the driving. The difference, in my opinion, in comparison many other
bands today, is that we lived this thing 100%. With the feeling that no one
could stop us. Many guys today are simply to „nice“ for that I think, haha.
There was no real organisation, most gigs were organized by other fans. We were
just sleeping somewhere in the dirt, but happy to have played a good gig and
meeting other great metal-guys.
The gigs made us a unity and we became more
comfortable in our playing with each gig. It could happen that we had to sleep
in a backstage room or on the stage itself, after a trip of 400km, gig playing,
partying the whole night until 4:00-5:00 o´clock, then driving home 400-500km
the other day. This was just normal. A total chaos but in the end it made us
stronger and stronger as a real band. We had suffered the dirt and all the
difficulties a band could get through, as well as shitty clubs or soundwise
chaos. So waht else should come after that?
Years later in the times of „Tyrants...“ we
were able to play as a headliner with getting 300-400 (at times more) people,
which was very good for that time. So after working so hard for many years we
were seeing that something is returning to us, you know, we putting so much
energy in that.9. “The Swords will
Never Sink” and “Sacrilege” are my favourite songs from “Stormbrniger”. Could
you share with me the story behind both songs and tell me which ones are your
favourite and which you prefered more to perform live?
There were just dark myths, like for example in
the title-track, where the Stormbringer is a warrior of revenge. „The
swords...“ is more about regaining back our land, which has a heathen/ germanic
tradition, from before the chains of christianity. „Sacrilege“ is just a
straight „blasphemic“ lyric, which is about the fact that we don´t accept any
holy indoctrinated rules of the church and destroy the chains of slavery while
having our own believe, so to say. Many times it was this theme of breaking shackles
of the christian laws of the church, keeping the people down as eternal sinners
instead of full human beeings with own powers and inelligence. Oh, I ilked them
all. We had a good repertoire with that, some faster, some thrashy... Good
bangers which the audience liked a lot! The strenght was that one song not
sounded like the other.
10. There is a
cover Kreator’s “Tormentor”. Why you
have decided on this one? Were you all fans of this cult band? Seems old
Kreator stuff was always with you during 90s.
As I said in the beginning of the interview, KREATOR´s
„Endless Pain“ started a phase of re-dicovering in the mid 90´s for us, when
the BM-trend became so huge and we were really, really fed up with seeing all
those countless young bands jumping on that. Even many bands who started as
Death Metal went into a BM-outfit later.
So playing such cover by the old Thrash Metal
heroes was more like a bit of an anti-trend thing, showing where this music is
rooted and what is our personal fave-stuff at that time. We played that song
for a long period. That was the very last title, people were totally full of
sweat and a bit tired, but activated all their powers once again for this one
to scream along with me into the microphone. A better end of a show one
couldn´t have. Infernal was wearing often a „Pleasure to kill“shirt on stage
and also got the huge backpatch on his vest. „Pleasure to kill“ is still one of
the best Thrash Metal albums ever done. It´s wild, raw, that aggressive outcome
was also a huge inspiration for us. So you see, KREATOR was alsways with us in
a way. Later resulted in a guest appearance of Mille.
11. “Stormbringer”
introduced your new drummer back then – Stefan “Tormentor” Huskens. How it
turned out that he was to replace Thorim and you got to know each other?
Thorim was a very young, talented drummer, but
he was a bit unhappy with the whole gig-thing, driving hundreads of kilometers
and so on. He had another musical background which he wanted to follow instead
of all the chaos and the extreme people he met with DESASTER, haha. It was a
real loss at that time, cause he had a great talent. Then Tormentor returned, who
was a friend of the band for years. He
had helped us out in demo times, so after really improving a lot, he was the
first decision for the position of our drummer. The fact that we were all
friends before made things much easier. He brought in a lot of his energy for
creating a new rehaersal room, organising gigs or recording stuff. He was
hungry for rehearsing every day, so that man was the right guy for us.
12. Around that time
you have also issued the 7’’ “Ride on for Revenge”. There was another cool
artwork and great songs. Why you have decided to issue this EP. Were the songs
written especially for this release not to be published anywhere else?
Looking back now I regret a bit, putting 2 of
our best titles just on a 7”. We should have put this on an regular album,’
cause they simply would have reached more attention. But at this time there
were tons of releases by bands popping out, which were never in the
underground. They never released a demo or a 7”, but were pushed by huge labels
directly into the magazines. We, on the other hand, were rooted strongly in the
underground. So releasing such a single was a bit like a statement against all
the fashion, the huge advertisments all these bands getting into the magazines
and the way they were hyped by the media, coming from nowhere.
As you see, as the time passed, no one talks about most of them, nor the
labels anymore. But the underground with it´s vinyl-hunters is still there. Yes
the songs were written exclusively for the release. We were in good shape and
one can hear that we improved a lot. They would fit well to the „Hellfire´s
Dominion“ material as well, but that became another chapter.
interview by: Przemysław Bukowski
