Answered Henri Sattler.
Translated by Duzl, thank you!
Ave GOD DETHRONED! I am listening your newest „The World Ablaze „ again and again and can not get rid of it. I Think the album is really great! What is your opinion about the album now, after some time? Would you like to change something? What feedback do you have from the fans, what anout the reviews?
First of all thank you very much. I’m glad you like the album. I enjoy the album a lot and listen to it regularly. As a musician you always hear the most tiny details, so there are always little things I would like to do over but this album has very few of these moments. The feedback has been great, from fans and critics both. They like the back to the roots sound this album has.
Rutger De Vries is signed under the great cover of your album. How did you actually choose the theme for the album? Did Rutger hear you music as an inspiration? Personally, I really like this cover.
This is the third album in our WWI trilogy. The first being “Passiondale“ then “Under The Sign Of The Iron Cross“ and now “The World Ablaze“. Rutger just took the WWI concept of our Lyrics and did a fantastic job of capturing the mood of the album. He really hit it out of the park on this one.
How do you compose new songs at GOD DETHRONED? What is the process of creating new material? Who is the author of the lmusic?
I always have a lot of musical ideas and riffs lying around. I took my riffs to Henri and we started filtering my ideas so we would only end up with the riffs that fit God Dethroned the best. We ended up choosing about 12 musical concepts and writing about 4 or songs and some instrumental tracks with these ideas. Henri would add his riffs and ideas and that’s how those songs came about. Henri already had 2 songs written and he wrote 2 more to finish the album. So some songs Henri writes himself and some in collaboration with me. But every song we write has an influence from each other. So songs I write Henri would add something and in the songs Henri writes I would add my solo or leads.
Who is the autor of lyrics for „The World Ablaze“ and what they are about? Where do you get inspiration?
Henri Writes all the lyrics. It is our final album of the WWI trilogy so the lyrics cover the entire spectrum of the first world war. It’s a birds eye view of the war. We make it a point not to take sides or be political. It covers the personal drama of the soldiers in the trenches. Inspiration will come from books, movies and documentaries. It’s a well documented war so there is enough material to sink your teeth into.
The sound of "The World Ablaze" was mixed by Sander Van Der Heide. I like this sound seems to be cold, dark and at the same time legible. It looks like Sander did a great job. Would I wonder how did you create this novelty? Did you all have a saying on the final sound?
"The World Ablaze" was actually mixed bij Dan Swano at Unisound Studio and Mastered by Sander at the Wisseloord studios. I’m very pleased with the sound as well. It was important to us that the sound should be organic and heavy but still have a cold gruesome vibe. A soundtrack for the trenches so to speak We got this through using a more heavy guitar sound and made the bass play along with the drums and not the riff which made the sound more bombastic. We always have input and the final say in our productions. If we ain’t happy it’s not going to be released.
You play a typical old school death metal. You have never left this way, you are „orthodox“. Personally, this is one of the reasons why I like your work so much, but have you ever thought about playing something a bit different, to give GOD DETHRONED some variety?
I think we have a pretty wide array of music in God Dethroned. We don’t just play one thing. We have fast blast beat stuff and very slow stuff. We also play mid tempo slayer type stuff and the riffs can be very melodic or more death metal oriented. I guess it will always be oldschool death metal because that’s when the band started out. But I think we have a lot more variety than a lot of the new stuff that is being released.
The novelty "The World Ablaze" was also released on the LP. What's your relationship to vinyls ? Do you collect them? Do you have a large collection? Some bands today sell more vinyls than CDs. What about you?
I Love Vinyl. I have a collection and once a year there is a big vinyl fair in my hometown which I go to, to collect some stuff. I can spend the day looking through the thousands of boxes of records for some buried treasure haha. Our vinyl sells well but I don’t know if it sells better than the cd’s. Time will tell. It is important to have the option. A lot of people buy both the cd and the vinyl.
And what about historians, fans, etc.? Have they ever had any comments on the fact that some text is inaccurate, that you have drawn from other, "incorrect" sources, or did not call you witnesses, veterans?
I know that Henri takes great care in being as precise as possible. He always checks his facts if the lyric has historical meaning. But there are also lyrics in which he imagines how it would be in the war. These are fictional portrayals of characters and are open to interpretation.
You are the only original member of the band Henri. I look at the Encyclopedia Metallum, the crowd of musicians who have gone through GOD DETHRONED is really considerable. How do you explain that? Why such frequent changes in the line up?
God Dethroned had been around a long time. After a while line up changes are unavoidable. Sometimes members get good offers from other bands sometimes they did not want to play live anymore and sometimes it just did not work on a personal level. That’s just how it goes in this business. The lineup now is stable and we are all friends which is next to good musicianship the most important thing.
You are already a veteran Henri, who has seen a lot as a musician. The world and the music industry have changed. The internet has started and music is being downloaded, the CDs are selling less and less, the generation of fans has grown old and has a lot of other worries today than music. Death metal is not long ago "modern". How did all these changes affect the functioning of GOD DETHRONED? Do you have to make more concerts, for example, to make money?
It is more difficult than 10-15 years ago to make a living from playing in a band. Cd sales have gone down hill and we like all other bands have to make their money with playing live shows and selling merchandise at shows. We are well aware of the changes around us and we try to promote the album the best we can. That’s why we recorded three music video’s for “The World Ablaze“ and released them one month before the release in weekly intervals. We used to make one video for an album now we have three. That’s a big difference and a telling story of how influential the internet has become. And it does work because it created a lot of attention for us.
What about the plans of GOD DETHRONED in the upcoming months?
We are playing some great festivals in Germany and we are working on club shows for the autumn. We already have shows booked 2018. We are still promoting our new album and doing a lot of interviews. We hope to do a tour in the autumn or the beginning of next year. In the meanwhile we will keep writing and creating new stuff so you all won’t have to wait to long for a new album.
Thank you very much for the interview. I wish you many victories on the death metal battlefields and wish you good sales of new album, gigs full of crazy fans and tons of a good ideas. Aswell success in whatever you do in your personal life.
Thank you. The same to you.
