DeathThrasher back to Interviews

DT: Hello DAVID, how are you?.
Steve: Hi. I’m answering the questions instead of Dave. He’s – once again – too lazy to stand through all these questions, hehe. And yeah, things are allright roundabouts.


DT: Do you like the Old Heavy Metal?.
Steve: Hm, not really. But there are some few bands I still like to listen to, like old Iron Maiden, Venom, Celtic Frost, Voivod and the likes.


DT: Tell us about your Split with AGATHOCLES please.
Steve: This was our first split-7” and I guess it’s one of the 7”es that did us a real good job in the scene. It brought our name on the table. It was Dave who organized the whole thing because he’s in contact with the guys and has all of their stuff and I guess we are very lucky we could do this thing as one of the first.


DT: Do you like H.P. LOVECRAFT?.
Steve: I read most of his stories and yes, I do like him – even if there are some other authors I prefer. But I guess he is still one of the most important writers in the horror genre. I also like to read stories (and watch movies) based on his writings.


DT: How did the idea of "The Theatre Of The Macabre" (Promo 2002)?.
Steve: I leave this question to Dave for answering.

DT: Do you like the Art of H.R. GIGER?.
Steve: Since Giger is Swiss like we ourselves are, this fact fills ourselves with a little pride. Marco’s art is influenced by him (Marco is our singer and does the most of our cover artworks), and Giger’s work for Alien is unforgettable, I think. I was also in his museum some time ago. It’s in Gruyère this very little village on top of a hill, and it is worth a visit.


DT: Were you into Punk Rock? What do you think of the Punk Rock Scene of the Late 70’s?.
Steve: I do have some Punkrock LPs of bands like Hard-Ons and some German Punkrock like Slime, Terrorgruppe, and other more or less known bands from that nation. But it was never the absolut thing for me. I liked more the Hardcore, mostly English bands like Doom, E.N.T., Heresy etc., but also Scandinavian bands (G-Anx, Filthy Christians) and some of the American stuff like Septic Death and so on.

DT: What topics do you consider in your current lyrics?.
Steve: The same as ever. Gruesome tales taken out of life, but this is Marco’s resort. I guess he could tell you more about the actual situation. There is a song planned about a man who was eaten by a crocodile, I can’t tell you more about the songs we’re just now writing, because some of them lyrics aren’t written yet and the rest I won’t know until we go into studio.
But for those on the last record: the title song is about sport pros taking hormons from human cadavers, children playing with bags of ash and bones a local crematorium buried at the beach, six little corpses stuffed into a cupboard found by the police in Tokyo, a German who cut off his tongue and penis while under drug influence, a kid dying of suffocation in a sandbox while playing burial, and so on.

DT: Your opinion about THE CHURCH OF SATAN?.
Steve: I never had much to do with it. Since I don’t believe in any gods or deities, it doesn’t matter to me anymore. I was a little interested in satanic stuff in my youth but with growing older it all vanished. I more or less detest religious things no matter what styles, influences or directions they have.

DT: Do you like CARCASS?.
Steve: Definitely one of my past favourites, I still like the Symphonies Of Sickness album the most!


DT: Which is your relation with JIMMY SANTI?.
Steve: Who the hell is Jimmy Santi? Maybe Dave can answer this question.


DT: What can you talk me about "I Can Smell That They Are Dead"?.
Steve: Well, this was just a little Audio-CD-Rom with some songs to sell at gigs. All the songs were or will be released on other occasions (expect the two live-songs). It was made at the start so we had any stuff on CD for fans to check us out.


DT: Are you into Serial Killers?... your opinion about RICHARD RAMIREZ, CHARLES MANSON and TED BUNDY.
Steve: Fact is I do like morbid stuff. So I’m also interested in the nature of serial killers. It’s not as if I would glorify what they did or even think it’s cool. As a matter of fact it’s a disgusting thing to kill people (and do some gross stuff to them) – nevertheless there’s some fascination about the question, why someone does such things.
One of the most morbid tales I heard so far was the one about Ed Gein, whose deeds influenced the movies Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Silence of the lambs. The motive of most of the others you can find in fairytales, like the sexual urge who drives the wolf, or the cannibalistic one in the stories about witches. There are also a lot of legends about cannibalism in chronicles (as well as murder without reason) – so (serial) killings were never so uncommon.


DT: What do you think about the Norwegian Black Metal Scene and about Anton Szandor La Vey?
Steve: Not much. I never read anything of LaVey so far, maybe if I’ve a little spare time – but it’s nothing urgent.


DT: How do you describe your "Sweet Chainsaw Melodies"?.
Steve: Raw and bloody, just freshly sawed off, hehe. We always try to achieve a brutality through mixing very fast parts with some slow to midtempo riffs. I guess there’s not much difference about that to our other stuff, only the production is better. We still do some old Grindcore-style with Deathmetal and Hardcore elements, nothing much technical or complicated. There won’t be any big changes in this in the near future, either, I guess.

DT: What do you know about Peruvian and South American Scene?.
Steve: I have a deal of LP’s of bands from Brasil – Stuff of Sarcofago (still a fave), Vulcano, Korzus, Dorsal Atlantica, Sepultura etc. I really liked them back there and still do, some of them were very brutal for their time. But since I’m not into collecting all possible stuff anymore I’m not up to date about bands from there.

DT: Do you like drink Chicha de Jora with Pomalca Limon for you Rituals?.
Steve: Never heard about that! Sounds like a drink? But I don’t drink alcohol anymore except on very rare occasions.


DT: Your fave European bands?.
Steve: G-Anx. Extreme Noise Terror. At The Gates. To name three.


DT: CHICHO FERRANDO is your current Manager?.
Steve: I never knew we even had a manager! DAAAAVE! Why, he didn’t even mention it in a word! Uuuh… maybe he goes on tour alone under our name and gets the money all for himself? Gawd… this sucks. Guess we’ll have a very, veeery serious word with him, hehe.


DT: Which one do you think is the best EMBALMING THEATRE album?.
Steve: That’s difficult to say. When you’re playing the stuff it gets boring faster than if you’re just listening to it. After studio you’re just lucky if you get a little rest from them songs. Anyway, I guess Hormones from the dead is the best so far, even if some of the old songs are very cool too.


DT: Of all your productions, which one has given you the most satisfaction?.
Steve: Hmmm… the Hormones from the dead session, even if we hadn’t so much time to do it – we had the songs together about a month before going to the studios, so it was a lot of stress, in a way. But it all went very well and the sound is the best we got so far.


DT: Your last growl for DEATHTHRASHER's Readers?.
Keep on grinding in a free world!
Thanks for reading this, if you got through to this line, you are a true fan, hehe.
And thanks for the interview for DEATHTHRASHER, even if it took me a while to finish it.

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