18.01.2006 

  SEVERE TORTURE :  interview with Seth

 

questions by Haavard Holm ___    

interview shared with Metal Norge

www.severetorture.com

 


 

 

A TITLE THAT WOULD FIT THE "MISANTHROPIC" ASPECT OF THE BAND

 

 

 

The Dutch scene has always been a rather brutal one, with quite many good Death Metal bands through the times (who can forget Pestilence ?). Today there aren't many left, but Severe Torture is one of the clearly better ones, and did with their Earache debut "Fall of the Despised", one of the best Death Metal albums in 2005. Quite impressive, so I had a chat with Seth, who could tell me some more of the new album.
 

 First off I guess it's a good start to praise your new album "Fall of the
 Despised" as one of the better brutal death metal albums of 2005. Really
 good job there guys, especially after listening to a few other Dutch DM
 bands this fall that were far from that impressive. How do you see yourself
 now in the Dutch Death Metal scene from your creation and until today ?
 
 First off all, thank you for the kind words on our album.
 We built up a strong name in the Dutch metal scene but we don't consider
 ourselves a big band or something. We are very proud of all the things we
 did so far but we still look up to bands like Pestilence and Gorefest. We
 still feel like there's much more inside.

 


 How do you currently find your other partners in crime in Holland, do
 you feel there is a good quality among the bands ?
 
 Yes, I think there is. There's a lot of diverse, good quality bands playing
 in Holland. Like Disavowed, Putrified, Arsebreed, God Dethroned etc.

 


 "Fall of the Despised" is your third studio album, do you see it already
 as your better work and a natural development of the bands sound ?
 
 Yes, I think there's an obvious change on this one. Not only in
 song structures but also because we added an extra guitarist to the band
 (Marvin Vriesde). Marvin wrote the whole album together with us and
 everything was a bit different from the start.

 


 It's also the first time you have used the Excess Studios for the
 recording of this album, and the sound has a very good punch in it. Why did
 you select to use this studio this time around ?
 
 Marvin had some good experiences with Hans Pieters from Excess with his
 other band Blo-torch. We checked the studio out by mixing our Live album
 Bloodletting there. For what we wanted that was the best studio to go to at
 that time.

 


 Something that I felt was very interesting with "Fall of the Despised"
 was the fact that some of the vocals reminds me a lot of Pestilence glorious
 works from the early 90s. And I notice that you also do a cover of
 Pestilence on your live album. Am I wrong if I guess the band has had a
 certain impact on the band from before ?
 
 We are all huge Pestilence fans. Dennis likes old-school a lot including
 Death, Obituary, Gorguts etc.. So this is his way of doing this kind of
 voice. He also wanted to show more diversity.

 


 It's a quite cool artwork for the new album I must say, still very
 different and with a lot less typical gore than your previous releases.  Why
 did it turn out like this? Also, how did the albums title come along ?
 
 We wanted the cd to look a bit more mature so we chose this artwork. Thijs
 came up with the title, we all liked it. We wanted a title that would fit
 the ''Misanthropic'' aspect of the band.
 


 You also this year released a live album, something which not many death
 metal bands actually are able to do. Why, and do you in general think live
 albums is a necessity for a band as yours?
 
 We had to release this, to fulfill our contract with
 Hammerheart/Karmageddon media. We did not want to release Fall of the
 Despised there.

 


 You are now signed with Earache Records which surely is one of the
 stronger forces within the extreme metal scene, all when it comes to
 promotion until distribution. Must be great to be on a company which can
 ensure you the right handling, or what?
 
 We are honoured to be on Earache, because off all the great bands that are
 and were on that label. They show a really big interest in the band
.
 


 You also changed from Karmageddon over to Earache for this album, was it
 due to the fact to move to a more established label?
 
 Yes. We were always treated good by Karmageddon but we wanted to have decent
 distribution worldwide.

 


 And this time around you'll also get your album released in the US in
 February. Still some time since the European version has been released. How
 do you feel about a own US version, and do you think that the fact it is
 already available in Europe will have some effect on the albums impact over
 there?
 
 I think it doesn't really effect the albums impact because promotion in the
 us starts later too. I think a US version is quite common.

 


 In the past there has also been a number of vinyls available from the
 band, will we ever see a vinyl version of "Fall of the Despised"? Are the
 guys in the band vinyl junkies, therefore all your previous vinyl releases?
 
 We've been talking about it again, I hope we can do it again. Vinyls are
 nice because of the big cover. I barely play them. My favourites are picture
 vinyls.

 


 Over the years you've done quite much touring, but I guess now with a
 stronger backup from a label this will increase further, mostly I guess in
 territories you've never played before. What do you think of touring? Any
 plans, and most of all, will we ever see Severe Torture to do a gig in
 Norway?
 
 We are doing a tour starting February 24th with Krisiun and Hate. It will be
 the first time for us in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and
 Hungary. So we are really excited about it. It will be our first tour as a
 five-piece band. Cant wait to play..

 


 What's your greatest memory from touring?
 
 There's too many to mention. Just the fact of being on tour with bands like
 Cannibal Corpse and Macabre is great!
 


 For the more underground bands the typical cycle for a band is to do
 2-3 albums, tour a lot and then be buried six feet under, after the members
 have had their share of wear and tear. Do you also see this within Severe
 Torture, that the members develop over the years, and it gets harder and
 harder to make things go on?
 
 I hope we can continue this for some time cause we all are very dedicated to
 it and we like this too much to do something else. If you play in a band and
 want to achieve something you have to work hard for it and make choices.

 


 2005 is coming to and end here now, what will you remember from the
 year, both according to what Severe Torture has done, and also for music in
 general? Was there something from 2005 worth remembering in the future?
 
 Of course releasing our album together with the Earache deal.
 


 So what comes next in line now for Severe Torture? Touring, more
 albums? Will 2006 be a real Severe Torture year?
 
 As said before we'll do a European tour with Krisiun and Hate from Feb 24th
 to Mar 27th. In May we'll fly to the US to play the Maryland Deathfest.
 Kaltenbach open air in Austria and PartySan open air in Germany. There will
 be added more I hope. We will start writing new stuff of course. We just
 can't wait.
 Thanx a lot for this interview!

 
 

 
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