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INDEX
INTERVIEWS
GUESTBOOK
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SATANIC DEATH METAL +
OPEN
WIDE THE SACRIFICIAL CUNT!
1. This
is an introduction: When was GRAVEHAMMER born and what were the
first goals? How long did it take to make the band work correctly
and when did you begin to write your first songs? Was it immediately
this kind of death metal, or maybe you begun with something a bit
more thrashy?
Hi Gab. Gravehammer
was born in early 2007 or late 2006, don't really remember. Since
it was I (H.K) and V.F who started it, the goals with Gravehammer
was to play fast and extreme music.
At first it was only me,
V.F and J.K. Later, D.Ö joined in on second guitar and at last,
A.B took over the bass and V.F concentrated on doing the vocals.
I wrote songs from the very beginning, but first we just played
covers. Our music was not what I would call Deathmetal at first,
but som kind of black..thrash maybe, I don't really know. It sounded
kind of shitty anyway.
2. GRAVEHAMMER is a quite subtle name héhé. Does it rather stand for the hammer that crushes the grave's door and enlightens the cadaver, or the hammer from the grave that will punch your faces?
It stands for nothing other than being a cool name, and i guess i took it from norse mythology.
3. Contrary to many new Swedish bands, GRAVEHAMMER doesn't sound Swedish but rather American... You doesn't seem musically too close to the usual ENTOMBED/ GRAVE/ DISMEMBER worship as your sounds would much strongly remind of old MORBID ANGEL... Where is the trick? You don't want to follow what everyone do, you prefer Death metal to be more infernal/ hateful than obscure and morbid? It's a bit surprising to me (But it's not a problem at all...).
Your are right in this observation, and there is one singel reason to why we might sound more "american" than "swedish": The american bands are much, much better than the swedish bands, and all in the band shares this opinion. It was just naturally we didn't sound "swedish". We're also more inspired by south american and easteuropean bands than Swedish bands. Swedish bands are in general also much slower, and we don't have time to play midpaced crap.
4. Between your first rehearsal (That got a very nice "shitty" sound) and the first real demo entitled "Morbid obscurity", I noticed a cool evolution! Yet, this last release left me a little feeling it was still a bit made in a rush... Maybe at the level of the recording, I'm not sure, but there's some emergency somewhere... How many time did you spend recording this demo? How many time was spent improving between the rehearsal and the first demo? Does the last demo show the real face of GRAVEHAMMER?
You're right
about this to. The step between Grave Metal and Morbid Obscurity
was kind of big. I guess the demo was kind of rushed, as you always
want to record you new songs as fast as possible. It maybe took
5 hours maximum to record. Of course we should have worked on the
songs a lot more, but we're all stupid.
The timespan between
the two demos i'm not really sure of, but i'm guessing half a year
maybe.
Morbid Obscurity does absolutely not show the real face
of Gravehammer, but it shows an evolution in the right way. We evolve
and progress with every release, and our new stuff won't sound like
Morbid Obscurity.
5. Now GRAVEHAMMER has found a deal with IRON FIST records. Tell us more about the kind of release it will be and what kind of songs the listener will find inside! Will there be strong improvements compared to the previous demo and how will it materialize? (It might be faster, more blasting like Pete Sandoval or maybe contain new necro influences?)
Our new release will contain longer songs, some old, som new ones, but none from previous demos. It will be at lot heavier, faster and extremer than our former releases. Altogether six songs.
6. What did IRON FIST offer special for you to sign with him? Is it a one-release only deal, or maybe a bit longer? Did you mail him everydays during months to convince him you're motivated and able to kick the ass? Ahah
Ironfist offered
us a one-release deal. Not for a fullength if i am correct, but
for an mcd..mlp, wich was fine with us, since we didn't wanna do
a fullength anyway.
Haha, actually he mailed us after hearing
one of our recordings on myspace. We knew the guy behind the label
since earlier, because we used to buy records from him, and we still
do. He explained the situation, and we recorded some songs.
7. Metal archives says the "Rehearsal of Death" CDr is a bootleg and shouldn't be enlisted. Does it mean you aren't happy with the music it contains, or the production sucked... Or maybe it wasn't meant to be released at all? If I remember well, someone close to the band sent me few copies, so maybe he was wrong and doing some illegal black market stuff héhé
That whas V.F
who wrote that, and actually i don't know what he meant by it. It
was a rehearsal we passed out during a gig in 2007 to the people
who attended the show.
Haha, no, he did nothing wrong, but in
hindsight, i wouldn't release the tape, because it doesn't sound
that good. It was just cool then.
8. What does
Death metal mean for you?
If there wasn't Death metal, what
would you choose or imagine to replace it?
Well, since a
few year back, i guess death metal has become a lifestyle to me,
and to all of us in the band. It is what we do constantly, 24 hours
a day. I won't go into to detail, cuz that woud take fucking long
time, but i'm guessing you know what i's like, hehe. It's more than
music anyway, it's a lifestyle.
If there wasn't death metal,
i would be a restless wreck, driven insane by my own creativity.
There's nothing really to replace it, i guess. It's just what we
do.
9. Your website being a myspace page, I can't find so many infos... But at least it says you'll play a gig in January, with PAGAN RITES... How many gigs did you play so far? Did you like all the bands you played with or maybe you had to violently kick the ass of some modern metal posers who even didn't achieve to make their keyboards sound right? Héhé
We've tryed to
establish a real website, but it just won't work, so myspace will
have to do. Yes, i guess we've played quite a few shows with the
guys in Pagan Rites..Devil Lee Rot. The gig will be at Henriksberg,
also with Irrbloss, some kind of vikingmetal band.
I havent kept
count of all our liveshow, but all in all we've played ten gigs,
maybe more. Haha, no, we've really not liked all the bands we've
played with, but we havent destroyed the ones we didn't like either.
We let our music destroy their shitty wimp-music instead.
10. Your vocalist Viktor also runs a little label/ distribution list. What kind of nice recordings did he release? Does it help to promote the evil sounds of GRAVEHAMMER and does he make a lot of cash at the end of the month?
V.F no longer spends time on his distro, what i know of. He released a lot of stuff, mainly thrash demos from europe i guess. Yes, it helped spread our demo very much, and i think it's thanks to his distro that our demo has sold as well as it has done. I don't think he made a lot of cash, since all cash was required to put out demos.
11. Your myspace page says your sound like "Ear torture and noise pollution". Héhé, in fact this description could as well work for some harsh noise sounds... Do you listen to such kind of weird sounds, or are you strictly devoted to metal as you wish to keep pure golden metal ears till you get married? (Huh? At least you'd need to find a pure metal woman, whish isn't so easy...).
A very weird question, haha, but no, we don't strictly listen to metal. We like a lot of other things too. Myself, I like old and new 70's music as much as extreme metal, D.Ö listens a lot to classical music and A.B only listens to Rush and Thin Lizzy, haha. But apart from D.Ö and his classical music, we pretty much only listen to "rockbased" music, if you know what i mean.
12. Few years ago, the musicians of GRAVEHAMMER used to play in various sub-projects, whose musical styles where varied.: Death, thrash, death grind, grind... Apparently is has slowed down... Tell us more about these projects and are some still active? Maybe you focus more seriously on GRAVEHAMMER right now?
Yes. Myself,
D.Ö and V.F has all played, and plays, in various other bands. I
don't know if it really has slowed down though. V.F played in thrashband
Toxin a while, also with D.Ö, wich now doesn't exist any longer.
Me
and D.Ö both play in the grindcoreband Hellhole, but since we don't
have a drummer, we can't do shit. We've recorded a demo, but since
it sucked, we didn't release it. We released a reh.demo as Chernobyl
though, but that kind of sucked to.
I also play in Slumber, together
with Acke from stockholm (also in Putrid, Karybdis), a death metal
band, maybe with a more swedish sound. We have also recorded a crappy
demo wich we didn't release. I don't see why you shouldn't play
in a variety of bands, since the best thing i know is to play music.
Each band brings more experience you know.
13. There's currently a quite "big" old school Death metal wave in Sweden, at least many new demo bands are awaking and opening new myspace pages... Can you advice us few of these bands? Which of these bands do you think will become bigger in few years? (Maybe some are more hard-working than others or might be more talented (You don't always see it at the first recording...))
Yeah, i guess
there is a lot of demobands..underground bands hailing from sweden
nowadays. Maybe it's because we've had a first wave of underground
extreme metal in the late 80's, early 90's, and this is a natural
development. This is just a guess though.
The bands i fancy
(speaking only for myself) are Tribulation, In Solitude, Undergång,
Necrovation, Invidious, Invocation, Decapitation, Eviscerated, Sonic
Ritual, Bastard Priest, Vanhelgd, Graveless, Modorra, Styggelse
and so forth.
I wouldn't say that bands become bigger, but rather
better. Of course, the better the "bigger", i see what
you mean.
Of course some bands are more talented than others.
And all bands develop. I thought i.e Styggelse sucked at first,
but their upcoming release is fuckin great, so bands can really
surprise.
14. This is the red question, so feel free to say something that has to do with the red color...
THE MENSTRUAL FLOW OF A THOUSAND WHORES!!!
15. Tell us about your future plans, and everything peoples need to know about GRAVEHAMMER! Cheers.
Our future plans are to release our MCD than the MLP (wich contains the same material, it's just a different form of output) and to play live as much as we can. We would all like to play outside of Gothenburg, since this is something we haven't done yet or maybe even abroad. Then we'll release another record (not a fullength) and play even more live. All you need to know abot Gravehammer is in our music. Thanks for the interview Gabe, all the best.....H.K
http://www.myspace.com/gravehammerswe
