VOLTURYON (Eng.)
– Hi , thanks for taking your time. What are you currently up to? As your latest album was released several months ago; are you already working (or do you already have) new ideas?
We’re actually in the middle of the writing process for the next album. It’s a bit early to tell really but I think that we’ll keep on doing what we did on Coordinated Mutilation, but maybe we’ll mix in the experience from what we did on Blood Cure a bit as well.
– As I said, your latest opus, «Coordinated Mutilation», was released some months ago and, though this is your second full-length album, I would like you to make some history of VOLTURYON.
Well, it started off in 2005 when it was more of a project, the ambition was to make the best brutal music we were able to. In time as we progressed with the songwriting and the line up was set we got more and more the form of a “real band”. We recorded a demo, sent it to some labels and not long after we got a deal for our debut, Blood Cure. Following the album release we did some quite high profile shows in Sweden and a number of shows abroad. Things went on suprisingly easy for some time with shows peaking with a Swedish tour. Then in late 2009 we recorded “Coordinated Mutilation”, it took us more than a year to get it out, a year of a lor of frustration and agony. But here we are…
– As «Coordinated Mutilation» came out almost a year ago, how do you now see the album and what does it currently mean to you personally?
It’s more of an album rather than a bunch of songs put on a cd. The songs for Blood Cure was written during a long period of time including the time when we still were a bit into finding “our stuff”. Coordinated have more of a consistent feel and for us we can really tell that it was written during a shorter time span and we don’t stray of in different directions as much, thou I think it’s more versatile than our debut.
– In my eyes «Coordinated Mutilation» is more aggressive than «Blood Cure», as well as less technique, less melodic and heavier. Was this a direction you consciously took?
I think if you listen to some songs on Blood Cure and then put on Coordinated you can tell it’s pretty much just a logic step as the last songs written for Blood Cure could as well been a part of what’s on Coordinated Mutilation. It’s simply that we found our style of writing music by that time, so Coonrdintaed it’s just a evolution from the last songs from Blood Cure. We never took like a decision “let’s make songs like that and sound like that!”. We had quite a good image how we wanted to progress soundwise, that’s all.
– You have played, throughout this year, several shows in support of this new effort; how have they been? How has the reaction toward the new songs been?
We’re still a quite small band unkown for most people, so except from a few die hard fans we mostly been breaking new ground. People didn’t have a clue wich song is new or old before and during the show, hopefully we had enough impact on them so next time they’ll know. Considering this the reactions have been very positive, I think we got a good step with creating a bit of a fan base with the touring we’ve done last year.
– After its release, Olle decided to left the band; how do you think has (or will, for your next album) affected this to the band? As, If I’m not mistaken, he was the main responsible for lyrics.
To be honest, we haven’t been thinking about it that much. For the lyrics we feel confident that we’ll keep on what we’ve done so far and on the same level. True that Olle wrote the main part of the lyrics for Coordinated Mutilation, but for Blood Cure almost all the lyrics was already written when Olle joined the band, that saying that we have some in the band already capable of coming up with lyrics.
– And what has Alex brought to VOLTURYON?
As a vocalist his vocals are a bit more brutal and deeper. He jumped straight into a real steelbath as his first thing as a vocalist was to learn a 40 minutes live set and jump start with fronting the band on a proffesional level, he did a really good job with that, it took him perhaps 2-3 shows before he were into it. As a person he’s a really easy going, open guy who loves to hang out with everybody. There’s not an easy thing starting off with jumping on a bus with a bunch of guys living in a very limited space for 3 weeks, you get to know each good and bad sides and it really takes a certain social skill to be able to cope with each other, but with Alex it felt like we’ve done it 10 times before. Off touring Alex is as easy going there with anything understanding what being in a band is, more than just rehearsing.
– «Coordinated Mutilation» is your first album with United Guttural; how’s everything going with them so far? I guess working with a small label may have some pros.
All has worked out smoothly, we have very good contact with them. Being on a small label has many advantages compared to bigger ones,it’s easier to get in direct contact with them, you don’t get any bull hidden in golden words written by some well payed lawyer. If you make a decent record and show interest you get the labels attention and they make sure you’ll get the best exposure they’re capable off. Of course there is “down sides” as well, but in the end you have to make a reality check for yourself and find a label that’s on the same level as you are as a band.
– I think this time production sounds more dirty so, considering it was produced by Jonas Kjellgren again, I guess this may be something you were looking for, didn’t you? Maybe it fits better this heavier sound?
We decided to detune the guitars a bit more as a test, and it worked out so we kept the detuning. It’s always a risk of changing tuning that you change the feeling of certain riffs in a song. But Kjellgren is the man when it comes to engineering and mixing. We just had one clear ambition with the overall sound, it was to make it more organic, the drums is sounding a bit more rough and then we wanted more punch and power in the guitars, and I think we managed that quite ok with this one. Of course you always find things you would liked to change, but that’s a part of the fun, the evolving of our sound.
– In fact, If I’m not mistaken, the artist for the artwork this time is different. Would you mind to elaborate a bit (who crafted it, what does it mean, etc.)?
We got word about a Polish artist through some friends of ours, Lukacz Jazak, We checked his portfolio finding that he had done some covers for Blood Red Throne and we really liked what he done for them. Said and done we contacted him, and he did and awesome job, he’s a true artist so what you see on the cover is nothing but him diving into the world in our lyrics and it’s his iterpetation of it, and we can really see his side of the lyrics. The guy on the cover is actually Lukacz himself from a photo session he made for the artwork. We simply handed over the lyrics telling him some thoughts we had, and he went off from that. We had a thought about some guy with this thing for when dismembering his victims he transformed body parts into art, and the coordinated part is simply that in the middle of this morbid thing he still has a thing for arranging in some kind of logic, symetric or just “tasteful” way.
– There are certainly a lot bands palying Death Metal in Sweden, though you guys show better your technical skills and also have certain Thrash elements. Maybe this is something that can make you stand out?
We’ve played for a long time now in different bands, but three of us have been playing together since 1995, so we know each other really well and we followed each other in many ways as our skilles increased. We origin from a old school background based in thrash and the early death metal so I think we have a bit different view of things. For us, we’re not the best indivual musicians or the fastest playing band, but I think we do what we do somewhat good, and we do it as a band, it’s not about BPM’s, how complex stuff you can do, or the deepest growl. We’ve been outplayed many times by speedfreaks, but they forgot about the fact that they’re playing a song. It’s impossible to stand out today, there will always be bands playing what you do, we can only do it to the best of our ability and leave the judging to others.
