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BIO | INTERVIEW
2007 - Tobias Gustafsson about ‘Terrorize Brutalize Sodomize’
Hey Tobias! Congrats to your new album ‘Terrorize Brutalize Sodomize’! A good feeling to have the final product in your hands, right?
Yes, it's totally awesome! We've been waiting for this for three long years now. We are extremely happy with the result, and choosing to work with a new producer in a new studio proved to be a very successful move for us. Rikard Löfgren of Leon Music has done a teriffic job with the sound for us, the production is top-notch! The songs and our performances are also among the best we've ever done. Eriks vocals are just mean! Can't wait to have the final CD with the sick artwork and everything in my hands!
It’s been a long time since your last album ‘Primal Massacre’, three years. What did you do in between?
Once that album was released we never did any proper touring to support it. We did the No Mercy festivals right before the release and a few festivals during the summer of 2004, but after that we did just nothing. I guess we sat around waiting for too long before we realised that we needed to get the machinery running again. The second half of 2004 and the major part of 2005 was a pretty discouraging period for us. Nothing happened and it seemed that nobody wanted anywhere with the band, not at least myself, as well as we found ourselves in some kind of musical vacuum. Nobody was writing anything, nobody had any ideas etc... But then we got a couple of small tours in the UK, Ireland and The Netherlands confirmed for November 2005 and we began to feel a little better about the whole thing. Then long time guitarist Ulf Dalegren decided to quit the band in September 2005. Personal life is more important than a band, and Ulf made the tough decision to leave the band on good terms. We hated to see Ulf go, but now in retrospect, it was good that something this significant happened to the band. It definitely was a wake-up call for us and we had to solve the problem and ask ourselves where we wanted to go from there. Lord K Philipsson of THE PROJECT HATE and GOD AMONG INSECTS helped us out on the November 2005 tours and after that, we recruited Peter Östlund (also in THE LAW) as a new guitar player. That was a great energy injection for Vomitory! Most part of 2006 was spent writing and working on the new album that we just have finished.
’Terrorize Brutalize Sodomize’ turned out to be more varied than its very fast predecessor ‘Primal Massacre’. How did it come to that?
What we were very aware of this time around was that we wanted to have more heavy to mid-tempo parts in the songs and even have entire songs that way. Because we always complain to each other that we never have any slower or heavier songs to play live to get a good mix within the setlist. We always end up playing almost only blast songs, which in a way is totally cool, but very challenging for us to play and for the audience to listen to an entire show. With that in mind, we wrote a couple of heavier pieces, which turned out really cool. Peter Östlund has contributed with some material which is a very important factor as well.
Guitarist Ulf Dalegren left the band in 2005. A replacement was found in Peter Östlund. How was he already involved in the songwriting of the new songs?
Peter began writing as soon as he joined the band in early 2006. He has already contributed with three new songs on the new album! This feels really good, since I used to write all of our music alone. Having Peter as a second songwriter is nothing but positive. It takes some of the weight and pressure off my shoulders and it brings diversity to our sound.
Some time ago there were some additional rumours that bass player/singer Erik Rundqvist wanted to quit singing. Luckily he still does. Were these rumours true?
We did search for a vocalist some time ago, that's true. Erik was a bit uncomfortable with being the frontman when the rest of us put a little too much pressure on him. At that point we thought the solution was to get a new vocalist and having Erik to continue with the bass only. There were a couple of interesting guys for the job, but luckily we never got that far. We had a band meeting and let everyone say what they had to say, which always isn't an obvious thing in a band. It changed our perspective on the whole situation drastically and we came to the conclusion that we shouldn't change a thing! Everyone of us, including Erik, were very satisfied with the decision. I am so happy today that we never got that new vocalist, especially when Erik's vocals is up there with the best of them!
A title like ‘Terrorize Brutalize Sodomize’ stands for itself. Are there any persons or experiences to which this statement is addressed?
Well, nothing or no one in particular, but it sure can easily be addressed to a lot of shit going on around us or/and complete idiots that constantly cross our or your paths.
Your album will be released before the summer festival season. Will we see you destroying some festival stages this summer?
Yes, there are a few festivals coming up, but only one so far that I can officially confirm: Maryland Death Fest in Baltimore, MD U.S.A. in May. That will be the first time for Vomitory to play in the US, so we are really looking forward to it! The other festivals are in Europe, but unfortunately I cannot confirm them just yet.
How would you describe VOMITORY with only three words to people who never heard of you guys before?
Death Fucking Metal!
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