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INDEX
INTERVIEWS
GUESTBOOK
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OLD SCHOOL DEATH
1. Hellooo! For those who might not be in the deep underground of old school retro atrocities, a little necrography and some kind of introduction might be helpful to locate the winds of the swallowed, in space and time.
We play real death metal with doom nuances. We play slow and sometimes fast. Swallowed is me (Samu) on guitars, Ville on drums and vocals, Mika on bass. We have rehearsed about half a year with this line up and it's working good. With Ville I have jammed about a year now.
2. Your myspace page says your influences locate in the releases of Nihilist, Autopsy, Goatlord, Impetigo and other old school stuffs... Which is cool. Could you go a bit deeper in the way or under which form these influences characterize so that the livid readers could get a better idea? You might even give us the cooking recipe so that someone could recreate the SWALLOWED sound at home (Take a bit of morbid potatoes from Nihilist, mix them with some gore bowels of Autopsy, put it two hours in the furnace with a good dose of Goatlord, and then let the whole sleep for 30 minutes in the fridge under the effects of Impetigo... Lol)
Well...Autopsy has definitely been our main influence but we draw influences from other bands too. You got a good recipe there, haha! But you should go to the cemetery, open up a couple of graves, fuck those dead bodies and eat the putrefied flesh of them. Then drag those leftovers to your home and decorate your house with rotten skin and bowels.
3. Your music improved since the first demo, that was kind of very average in some extents... How long did the band exist when you recorded this first CDr? Are you still happy with the content?
Band was alive
about two or three months before the first demo I think. I don't
remember the exact time but we started the band in the end of the
summer 2007. Yeah the first demo is alright but we don't play those
songs anymore though...
4. Your second demo "Epitaph of nauseation" sounds better, and also more AUTOPSY influenced! What led to this evolution in style? You found new mines of delicious cookies? Does it better represent the face of SWALLOWED or should we wait for the next improvements?
Epitaph is more the thing that I had in my mind already before Putrefaction was recorded. It just didn't fit with our former drummer. But when Ville joined in the band the vision of our style got clearer... The sound of ours is still forming and hopefully you'll hear it on our next release.
5. DETEST Records has released this second demo on tape. Are you happy with Jerry's work? How many copies did he release and did you get a lot of reviews? Tell us more about the spirit, goals and strengths of this label.
Yep Jerry did good work... We definitely got more interest from people all over the world... Detest made 200 copies and after that I've made about 100 more so the demo is selling pretty well but I haven't seen that much reviews of it. Spirit of Detest records is great! They are supporting the underground. I can't really answer to the other things.
6. Did you choose to release it on tape, or was it Jerry's idea? Are you particularly into tapes, or is it only something cool? (After all, you might not have grown with tapes... Or you might have an old influential brother...)
I was
going to release the second demo on tape even without Jerry but
when he contacted us about releasing a demo tape I just thought
that why not. If I had released the tape it would have been only
50 copies or so.
Yes I'm into tapes. I remember when I was younger
I made mix tapes of my favorite songs and I also like the sound
of tapes.
7. Your music is influenced by the first AUTOPSY albums, but as I said in my review it's quite surprising because you kind of contain all aspects of the AUTOPSY spectrum... The doom (Both monolithic and more hypnotizing) the Death metal (Mid placed or faster and more punching), the sludgy, and also a bit of an aspect of deliria and "strange humor"... While other bands generally only take a part of it (Ex the Doomy...)... Does it result from a hard and meticulous work to recreate all these elements together, or does it generally flow all alone? How do you compose SWALLOWED songs: Have you got some weekly rituals during which you listen to lots of AUTOPSY Lps for hours, and when you're hot you take the guitars, drums, and then jam to compose some songs?
I haven't really thought about it... well it just comes quite naturally. Even though the songs take a long time to evolve into the final form. I just listen to a lot of classic doom bands like Saint Vitus, Black Sabbath, Pentagram and I also consume a huge amounts of extreme metal like Autopsy, Beherit, Xysma, Nihilist, Blasphemy, Goatlord and many other sick groups. We usually have some kind of idea or structure for the song before jamming because our jam sessions are often really really slow and kind of strange and we like to have something faster in our songs too.
8. If I'm not wrong you sent a copy of your last demo to Chris Reifert, and he seemed to like that... Tell us more about it!
Yes I sent him a copy of the demo... Before we recorded the songs I asked him if would be alright to make In the grip of winter cover and he said that's cool. He also gave me his address so I could send the demo to him. Later I got a mail from him, and yeah he seemed to like it.
9. Do you regularly play gigs, or is the band rather to be seen as a rehearsal/studio project? Did you play with other cool finish bands, and which other cool young Finnish bands could you advice to peoples liking cool old styled Death metal?
We haven't
played a single gig yet!!! We'd like to play gigs though but we
have struggled with line up issues... Now we have a line up for
playing live we just need a bit more songs and rehearsing. So there
will hopefully be some gigs soon.
There aren't too much young/new
finnish death metal bands that I personally like but I can recommend
Coprofagi to everyone! They are insane!
10. The two Axemen of SWALLOWED also play in thrash metal bands that are apparently older... So what is the sub project, and what's the most important band?
Yeah I got a thrash metal project a couple of years ago. It's pretty much dead now because I kind of lost an interest for it and we rehearsed almost never. But that's where I started from. Swallowed is the most important band for me.
11. What is one supposed to swallow? It's not cum I hope... Ahah... Maybe pain, suffering or something more abstract?
Swallowed into the eternal void where only the emptiness embraces you.
12. Since you're younger, I'd be curious to know how you discovered Death metal, did someone lend you a tape, was it on TV (After all, Finland has some gay metal on TV lol) and how did you finally came to this kind of old school sounds? Yes, I ask for the family tree of your Death metal travel ;-)
Yes there's
a lot of that mainstream metal on TV in Finland but very rarely
some real metal. Metal scene in Finland is in any case pretty gay.
No I don't complain but it seems that metal is a huge trend in here.
I
found death metal through Death I think. I first heard something
from Death's later albums like Human or Individual... Then I got
Leprosy and Scream Bloody Gore in my hands and that was pretty much
it. After that I discovered more bands and started to like the filthier
sound.
13. What does Death metal mean for you?
A lot.
14. What characterizes Finland the best on a weather's point of view? Apart from the probably cold weather, there might be special things such as very short days, great solar eclipses, translucent bears...
Finland lies in the grip of winter all around the year. It's really dangerous to walk outside because you can't tell if there's a bear front of you because those things are same color as snow. You might easily get eaten alive.
15. On the first demo you covered NIHILIST, on the second one you covered AUTOPSY... What's the next to come? Will it be featured on a third demo, or do you plan something else like (maybe) a MLP, an EP or anything? This interview is almost over, tell us about the forthcoming swallowing plans and conclude... The bears of translucence we hail!
Mmm..... I don't think that there will be any more covers on our upcoming releases. We will probably play some covers at the gigs (when we get one).There are also some new songs ready and next release might be an EP (or a demo cassette again). Time will tell. Some t-shirts will be pressed in near future so keep on looking your mail for flyers!
Webpage: http://www.myspace.com/swalloweddeath
