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INDEX
INTERVIEWS
GUESTBOOK
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OBSCURE
& BIZARRE DEATH METAL!
The
dead will eat you, the dead will eat you, the dead will eat your
soul!
1. Hailz! Since you play in a pretty young band, an introduction to the nauseance, its music and concepts would be a needed first step to enter the bowels of this interview.
War. Well, Nauseant began in late '04 with me, albert and our old bassplayer Per. I knew back then little about the death metal scene so I guess Albert (drums) was back then main force, creatively. Though, I remember quickly growing a liking to its ruthlessness so I also started contributing pretty much at once. The musical influence has always been old-school death metal but we've always intended to do something unique with it. I know I atleast wanted to disgust people in an aesthetical way, I wanted to see a troubled face that reeked of the words "What the fuck is this?!" when "regular" people listened to it. That was my motivation.
2. You seem to be younger than most of the old farts listening to old Death metal, and you do not play the same kind of old styled Death metal many youngers (Especially the Swedish ones) choose to exhume nowadays… What is your metal background (First metal and death metal records etc) and what lead you to this kind of rotting musical conclusion taking the form of NAUSEANT?
Yeah I guess so, though I recently got in contact with a fan of Nauseant who is one of the biggest death metal geeks I've had the pleasure to talk to, and he's like sixteen, seventeen so I strongly believe there's a hope for this obscure genre. As for my metal background I, like most, began with a Metallica album my brother bought and then passed on to me for some unknown reason, so that was the first thing near metal that caught my attention. I hate them now though, showanistic fucking corporate-dinosaur sluts. In their early days, when they stood for something, they actually made some great stuff, I can't deny that, but now, crawl up on under the porch and die, please. What changed my music taste forever was when I purchased one of the greatest albums of all time, Dissection's Storm of the Light's Bane, in the sixth grade and that was the first time music took me to a really epiphanic, wonderous place. As for death metal, I came in touch with Death's album Spiritual Healing pretty early and from there on I found myself listening to their classic album Leprosy which then took me on the path of Morbid Angel, Suffocation, Possessed, Obituary, Incantation, Autopsy, Demigod and it got to a peak when I, through Albert, found Demilich. That changed almost everything.
NAUSEANCE
AND PUTREFACTION REVEALED
3. There's something strange in your music that doesn't sound Swedish, but tastes much more like if you were born in Finland, and eaten a lot of DEMILICH LPs for years... I think about creeping riffs, bizarre dissonances, mixed with the obscurity of some IMMOLATION… How to define your music correctly? What are the main influences?
Our influences are mainly from Finland, Demilich by that beeing the greatest. We've always aimed for a strange, disharmonic and above all a cryptic style of music. I mentioned our main influences above, but to add on Albert behalf I know that he has taken a great influence from, among others, Deicide and Morpheus Descends. But it comes a time in every musicians life when his own music becomes more important than any, so therefore, in atleast my case, my specific influences are irrelevant. To define our music is a real bitch. We used to go with simply technical death metal, but that isn't really sufficient since we're not that technical speedwise, we're technical in a rythmic way, we play around with time and dissonances and that is what, in my opinion, makes it all interesting. As for a definite name for our style, then I'm stuck, if you find something fitting, please let me know.
4. Your lyrics also seem to be influenced by DEMILICH, the titles are long and shares the same kind of bizarre absurdity… Since the texts aren't included in the booklet of the demo, tell us about the subjects it deals with, as well as the form it might take (Is it composed of very long sentences that looks like necro-prose with many playing on words?)
The lyrics are available on our website http://www.nauseant.tk. The lyrics on Abysmaltician deal pretty much with oddities in mainly my life since I've written all of them. The first song, "Inhale the Manipulating Ghost-Mist of the Distressed Disease", was a text I wrote when I was still back in school. It's about a thick, thick mist that makes people die in a strange confusion while vomiting up their bowels. This one, aswell as all the other texts, are written metaphorically and has a deeper meaning, but this particular text what about how I wanted a specific person to die. So it was pretty much written out of amusement. The second song, "The Decayed population of the Polluted Planet" is about hallucinations caused by mushrooms and it's about how I reacted on things at that peroid. "Inside a Black Vortex that Dissolves and Transformes the Living" is a text I wrote in Geneva after I had a daydream of the exact same thing which the lyrics describe. And I figuered it happend somewhere in the U.N. council, don't quite remember since I wrote it when I got back to Sweden, but I think so. It's a very transcendental track.
5. Your first demo is cool, it has both interesting and quite original ideas, as well as a good obscure atmosphere… But few things could be perfected in my hears: For example, I occur to think some high pitched leading guitars do not always sound totally in tune… Was it volunteer, or was there a problem during the recording or something? Are there some things you'd like to improve in this first demo, or are you globally satisfied?
That's a thing that has been coming up a few times and the villain in all this is actually my guitar. I own a Jackson DX10D with a faggy Floyd Rose-bridge so when we tuned down the guitar for recording it didn't really cooperate. But, it was in tune, no doubt, it's just that it may sound a bit strange when it hasn't "settled" quite yet. And I think it sounds awesome! If I could improve anything it would be a thing I heard on "Inside a Black Vortex..." which I found a few months ago, and I would also record it on another amp, but all in all, I'm satisfied since it got that old-school, hardcore, first demo feel about it.
6. Is there a main composer in the band, or do every musicians contribute?
Myself and Albert are Nauseant. We are the main force. But as of late, Axman, our bassplayer, has become more and more of a contributor. And even though he's ripped on At The Gates records he has provided some great riffs. Although, me and Albert made 95% of all that is Nauseant.
Is it always easy to build structures so that every riffs fit between each others? How long does a song generally need to be finished, or almost done… When a song is done, do you keep on improving some ideas from time to time, or does it remain untouched and frozen in ice once it's recorded?
That's where Albert is great to work with. I mainly come up with alot of ideas for riffs and stuff and then Albert make them fit together and lay down the drumpatterns. So, it's really a two person progress. We do this mostly at his place and we always improve, but when we've recorded a song which is on an official demo, we don't change a thing. But a song generally takes a month or two to finnish. We take our time, there's no rush.
INTO
THE ABOMINABLE AND UTTERLY PUTRID ROTTENNESS
7. Sometimes musicians have an interesting way of viewing their music, some peoples see it as some kind of animals or more abstract manifestations (Such as strong waves of dark energy, black holes…). Have you got something particular to say in this case? And what kind of things do you see when you rehearse, are there special pictures that come back on a regular basis (As some songs might have a deeper personal meaning…).
When I rehearse with Nauseant, and when the songs are tight, everything releases. It's a meditative state with a clear mind on a simple mission and different smells actually become more evident and sometimes, very rarely, I visualize a yellow smokish fog. But if I had to mark Nauseant with a specific manifestation it would be a whirling black vortex.
8. Is NAUSEANT the first incarnation of the band, or did it initially progress and evolve under other monikers? Did you record demos in these possible other outfits and what were the kinds of metal?
Nauseant is my first band and has kept it's image from the start. We evolve all the time, but not in terms of genre or style. Althought the sound on our first track "Öpööl" is pretty far from what we sound like today.
9. Few years ago, DEMILICH came back for some gigs… Did you have the opportunity to see these gigs (Or maybe hear some bootleg live recordings ?). What is your opinion about it, and do you hope they will record another album some time?
We had plans to catch Demilich play their final gig in Kuopio but something, I don't know what, came in the way so we missed it. Would have been awesome though. I've seen some videos and listened to a bootleg from their show in Texas, but that's about it. I personally wouldn't mind if they recorded another album, but the impression I've got from Antti Boman is that his intrest for Demilich is pretty much dead, which I totally respect so I don't really see a new album coming. And I'm perfectly satisfied with what they have accomplished.
10. What's your opinion about Black metal? It has became so abused in there (Not to say " trendy ") that many youngers have no clue about what real Death metal is (They often mistake Ultra blasting brutal death or usual Cannibal corpse rehash for Death metal, which is definitely not the same thing!!) and without any kind of knowledge of what could be much more obscure, powerful and deadly, they prefer to devote themselves to the cult of white excrements and listen strictly to average black metal or bad Darkthrone copies… Don't you think something is wrong in this shitty case or maybe you actually dig some elements of this tiring black metal scene?
I once wrote for a internet fanzine in which I stated that black/death metal HAS to be taken to a new level. It has to be as demonized as when the Count did his rounds and when the newspapers wrote in horror about Per Yngve Ohlin's bloody, obscene, decadent performances. I don't know if Nauseant is the tool to make these changes, I don't even care about that, since I've got a taste of what the real scene was. But is has to be some kind of revolt, that's for sure. And for the record, I don't really dig around anymore in the "new" metalscene since I know that there isn't anything really attractive anymore, it's either high pitched guitar masturbation, cookie jar wanna be death or a desperate try to be unique and unlabled. So, my answer to your question in short is that there has to be a change in ATTITUDE. Black/death metal has to be punk again (punk is not a style of music, it is a state of mind). That's what made it big once, and what it needs a refill of to create it's reform. And no, I don't like any elements of this tiring black metal scene.
11. Are you into paper zines? Or do you prefer to read webzines, since it's easier, faster and costs almost nothing? There are still a lot of zines everywhere around the world, but considering some editors' state of mind, I wouldn't really be surprised to hear negative feedbacks… Some of the editors have a too strict idea of what a fanzine should be, a too narrow-minded vision resulting from an invalid (Cultified?) idea of how things were during the first years (Back then, fanzines were much more free of speech, opinion and evolution… It really tasted as pure obscure freedom, while many current zine editors are ways too bound into useless principles and finally make so short articles, so speechless interviews, show so few personality that it becomes worse than some webzines…). Are there some cool paper zines from Sweden or Scandinavia you'd like to advice our putrid readers? You might even be involved into some obscure paper publications! Do you?
To be honest I'm not to engaged in zines of any kind. I've always had geeky friends to do that search for me. But I think that the narrowmindedness you're talking about is a plague in our time. Everything has some kind of censurship label on it, but they call it something else, and it pisses me off. "If you don't fall in line, no one will notice you... ever!". Sadly the only zines nowadays that I know about are the NSBM focused zines and the only site I regularly visit: http://www.anus.com. Not only is it a hell of a great site with tons of awesome articles, but I also got a lot of musical recommendations there from. That's a site I wish to promote. As for me, I actually wrote for a crummy little internet fanzine a few months back. I had faith in it from the beginning, but then the people I worked with didn't really share my view of things so, I'm not to active there anymore, so to speak.
12. Could there be an underground without mystery or eventually " occultism "?
I'm not sure I'm the right person to answer that question since I'm engaged in an occult order, but I strongly think so. the underground can survive without the occultism per se, but it needs the image, the manifestation that occultism has provided for so far. Altought I think the labels "forbidden, unauthorized, dangerous, unorthodox" is something in it's manifestation it needs anyhow, to survive.
13. A second demo is announced on your website… Could you introduce the songs to be recorded? Will there be major differences or would it simply be an improvement of the first recording? How long will it last? Have you got other future plans?
The songs on the demo are the following: "Inverted Daimonion (Forthwith the Path of Affliction)", "Subterran Dominion", "Odd Gargoyle Formations" and "The Emetic (a Multicolored Nimbus of Scaly Grace)". It's a really awesome demo, atleast Odd Gargoyle Formations and The Emetic are instant classics. I head many differences, especially a more established band with more qualitative ideas. But then we recorded this demo on better amps, with better equipment, except for the growling, so my hopes are high. The run-time is about 15 minutes. As of now we are not sure about Nauseant, a lot hangs on this demo. If we get recognized and people want more then we'll make more. Myself, I have several other projects on the go aswell so I'm divided in how things will work out. All I know is that if it gets to rough and it becomes more of an obstacle to play with Nauseant then I'm not interested.
14. Thanx for the answers, feel bound to conclude!
Thanks for reading. Send me a mail our go through our website if any interest in a demo! We've plans on releasing "Iln" in mid December, a note will be put on the website when the time has come. War!
Website: http://www.nauseant.tk
