|
SEVERE TORTURE
|
Coming straight out of Holland with blood and guts dripping down their chins, Severe Torture have become one of the best loved underground death metal bands of all in recent years. Newly signed to Earache, the Dutch destroyers have a new album on the way (‘Fall Of The Despised’) and no shortage of enthusiasm for taking their gore-drenched gospel to the people. We spoke to bassist and founder member Patrick Boleij about new albums, new labels, cancelled tours and the perils of sounding quite a lot like Cannibal Corpse…
It’s been a long time since ‘Misanthropic Carnage’ came out…why the delay?
|
Patrick: “Yeah, it’s been nearly three years. We had a really shitty period, to be honest. ‘Misanthropic Carnage’ came out and then we did a tour with Cannibal Corpse right away, so we had a pretty good start but then after that it just went to shit. In the last three years we had like five or six tours that have been cancelled on us, so that’s why we haven’t been doing that much, just sitting around writing a new record. Finding a new record deal was obviously very important to us. I think we needed to do that, otherwise we’d just be stuck where we have been for the last few years.”
Do you think the first two albums would have done better on a different label?
Patrick: “Actually, we were very surprised by the response we got for those albums. Are you kidding me? We started out just as death metal fans and we wanted to play death metal. We never could have imagined that so many people would like us. |
 |
Maybe for people who like our band, they expected us to be big better but we’re happy with what we’ve achieved so far. I just can’t wait to see what Earache can achieve for us. I’m very curious about what this new album will do.”
So why did you choose to sign with Earache?
Patrick: “A couple of years ago Dan Tobin contacted me to say that he liked Severe Torture and nothing more. He knew that we were signed to Karmageddon and Hammerheart Records. But then that thing started to not be so good for us. It kinda went slow for us, so we had to work something out. We did that and then Earache were the first label that we contacted and tried to get signed to. The bigger companies, or the ones that are doing better right now like Century Media and Nuclear Blast, they wouldn’t sign a band like Severe Torture. Earache’s been signing some death metal bands recently so it was really good for us. It made a lot of difference that Dan showed interest in the band and that he liked what we were doing three or four years ago. That was a big reason for wanting to sign to Earache.”
Did you grow up listening to all the old Earache classics?
Patrick: “Yes, I probably have nearly every CD from that back catalogue, from the early Earache days. If you ask me they are the most important record label for death fans. There’s bands like Cannibal Corpse on Metal Blade, of course, but Earache had so many death metal bands, it was just amazing.”
Has being a Dutch band been problematic? Most of the scene’s big names are from America or Scandinavia…
Patrick: “In the early years we had to work hard, of course, but what we did was to get in contact with a lot of bands from America. A lot of people in America like us and touring with bigger bands gave us a little bit of exposure. We’ve never really had any big problems. In fact Holland has a really good name in the underground, as far as death metal bands are concerned so really it helped a lot to be from here.”
You always get compared to Cannibal Corpse. Does that ever bother you?
|
Misanthropic Carnage
|
Patrick: “Well, when we recorded the album we figured that to be compared to Cannibal Corpse is never bad because they’re the biggest death metal band around, but after a while we did kinda get fed up with it. We’re trying to do our own thing, especially on ‘Misanthropic Carnage’. We felt we’d found our own style. Of course it’s based on other death metal bands. The first reaction we got from everybody about the album was that it was like Cannibal Corpse. The Cannibal Corpse guys don’t think that way. They could hear our own style in there. But those other comments made the new record for us, actually. We went out of our way to make sure we have our own unique style this time, so that’s why, hopefully, no one will compare the new record to Cannibal Corpse.” |
What should people expect from ‘Fall Of The Despised’?
Patrick: “We have the same brutality going on and the same technical stuff going on, but we’ve tried to write more songs than we used to in the old days. We’ve tried to do more recognisable stuff. We even wrote a song without a blast beat. That was pretty scary, to be honest! But people who’ve heard it so far think it’s really good. It shows more the different sides of Severe Torture. It’s still brutal, and someone who doesn’t listen to death metal will think it’s brutal all the way through, but it’s definitely a more diverse album.”
Is it more exciting stuff to play for you as musicians?
Patrick: “Oh yeah, it’s way more exciting. Right now, when we’re in the rehearsal room and we play the old songs, it’s so brutal and fast all the time it gets a little boring, especially after so many years, but the new songs are sometimes more groovy and laidback in some parts, so when the hard parts come they’re more fun to play. It gives us more possibilities to move around on stage as well! We don’t have to watch the necks on our guitars as much! (laughs).”
So what’s the new album artwork like? Nice and gory, I hope…
Patrick: “Well we did have the same kind of artwork as before but we got it done, last year I think, and after looking at it for a while it made us think that people will think we haven’t changed, so we thought we’d make an alternative version for the new album and decide whether we like it more. To be honest, we like the new one more. The first version had so many bodies on it we thought people might not take it seriously, so we made it a bit more neutral.”
The last few years have been really good for death metal and there’s a lot of good bands out there, so how will Severe Torture stand out from the crowd?
Patrick: “I don’t know. I think we’re a little bit lucky that we started out when death metal was on its way back. We jumped right on and we were ready for the big wave, so a lot of people know us already. But there’s a lot of new death metal fans now so we’re just gonna have to play our asses off! Now we’re with Earache we have better promotion and distribution so that’ll help us to stand out. A lot of the new bands, they’re so brutal and our new stuff is a little bit more catchy now, so that should make us stand out too.”
Are there any bands that you’d really like to tour with?
Patrick: “We’d love to tour with Cannibal Corpse again, of course. Suffocation, too. They’re my favourite live band right now. There’s so many bands. I’m curious about the new Cryptopsy with Lord Worm back in the band and I love Immolation. I’d love to tour with all of them, for twelve months of the year but that’s not possible right now! (laughs)”
You’ve played some of the new songs live already. How did they go down with the fans?
Patrick: “Not knowing the new songs, they weren’t really active when we played them, but afterwards we had a lot of good reactions from people. They realised what we were trying to do with the new songs, be brutal but be catchy and write good songs, you know? We have leads in the songs for the first time. We only got positive reactions from everybody.”
What new song titles can you reveal?
Patrick: “There’s ‘Consuming The Dying’, ‘Decree Of Darkness’, ‘Endless Trail Of Cadavers’, ‘Sawn Off’, ‘Unconditional Annihilation’ and ‘Enshrined In Madness’. They’re all on a website somewhere, I guess.”
So you’re not singing about politics or flower-arranging this time then?
Patrick: “We always had a combination of anti-religion and the slaughter thing. We always combined that a little bit. We’ve done that this time again. There’s songs that are more horror-style and brutal and there’s some that are more anti-religion, but the main overall theme is that we’re a bunch of misanthropic motherfuckers! (laughs) That’s always the main source for lyrics. Of course we didn’t start writing love songs. Maybe for the next record…”
Finally, what are your plans for the rest of 2005 and beyond?
Patrick: “Well, we were supposed to go on tour in September but that was cancelled, of course. So now we’re waiting for the release of the album and we’re looking for some tours. We’ll probably start early next year and hopefully we can do a lot of shows next year. It’s been three years since people saw us in Europe. We’ve done some single shows, but I want people to see how we’ve grown as a band. We’re such a tight band right now and we want to show people. The plan is to tour a lot.” |
|
|
|
