Translated and questions prepared by Duzl, thank you!
Hi Anoxide!
Hi Anoxide!
Hello Deadly-Storm and thanks for taking the time to interview us!
You have been operating on the London metal scene since 2012. At the beginning you've made some small changes, but you keep basically a stable line up of members. How did you put the band together? Before you worked under the name "War Machine" why the change to Anoxide?
The band was started by Markus, Michael and Callum. Michael and Callum are brothers and they met Markus at school. James was the next member, Markus found him through a cover of a Municipal Waste song he’d done on YouTube and Alex was next after being recommended through a mutual friend (Billy O’Niell from Domitorem). The name change occurred because we basically thought “War Machine” wasn’t a very good name. We felt it was a bit immature and didn’t represent the music we wanted to create.
As far as I know, this year there has been an important change on the vocal post, when Markus was replaced by Ben, who is also a member of Divine Chaos. What is behind?
Markus decided to leave the band last November mainly because he just doesn’t really like metal that much anymore. He wasn’t feeling the music and wanted to explore other avenues of his life. We then held auditions, Ben approached us saying that he wanted to give it a shot so he could try a different style of music and use different parts of his voice as to what he was doing with Divine Chaos. He nailed the audition and we think when people hear him on our future stuff they’ll see the how he adds a different element to Anoxide’s music.
Did you know from the beginning that you wanted to play death metal, or did you gradually work on this genre? Which bands are have most influenced you and why?
Funny you ask this. When Alex first joined there was a divide in the band between wanting to be a thrash band or a death metal band. The “Master of All” EP was already recorded and released by this point, that’s why you can hear a lot thrashier vibes on that EP. 3 of us wanted to go down a death metal route and 2 a thrash route, obviously we chose the death metal route which now 5 years on we all agree was the right choice.
There are three recordings in your discography. Two EP and one demo. When we talk about your debut EP "Master of All" how was the recording going on? Who is the author of the music, who is a author of the lyrics? Do you have a split role in the band or you all doing everything?
The first EP although released under “Anoxide” we like to think of it more as a “War Machine” EP. Alex and James weren’t on that EP and had nothing to do with it and our style has changed immensely since then. The current way we generally write is that Alex will get a rough outline of a song, putting all the riffs together. Then once we start jamming and playing through it we will change certain sections, how parts are structured etc. As far as lyrics, historically Markus wrote 90% of the lyrics then Markus and Alex would figure out the patterns to fit the music. With Ben we haven’t had enough time yet to figure out what is the best way of working but we imagine it’ll be something similar.
The second EP "Purge the Idols of Illusion", was released in April 2015 and Jack Stephens and Richard Worrall took care of the sound and production, why did you choose their "Envy studio”?
We heard about “Envy Studios” through Ben Ellis (who recorded the guitars) now of Scar Symmetry. We listened to some of the stuff they had recorded and produced, liked it and thought they were the guys.
The author of the cover for your second EP is the well-known artist Guang Yang, who also created the covers for bands like Bacteremia, Carnality, Beheaded, Putridity and many others. Why did you choose him? Did you give him the freedom to create the cover or did you have a clear idea of how the cover should looks like? I really like the cover of your album I think it's exactly correps with the recording. Is Guang at the same time the author of your logo?
We chose him because we’d seen work he’d done for other bands and really liked his style. We wanted high quality artwork as we’d put so much time, money and effort into the music it would’ve been a massive shame to then cheap out on the artwork. We gave him freedom in the sense that if he had an idea we were definitely open to hear it but we did have a very clear image of what we wanted. We just needed an awesome artist to bring it to life and make it look insane. Below is an image of what we sent Guang and what we got back.
How long has the material been made on the last record? And is it possible to perceive "Purge the Idols of Illusion" as a classic conceptual album -EP?
“Purge the idols” took us about a year to write. We were and still are very new to this whole game so it took us a while to write a bunch of songs we were happy with and wanted to release. I think in total we wrote around 12 songs before we got the 5 we wanted. That being said the new material we have been working on we feel is definitely a huge step up. We are still very proud of the Purge EP but we know we can do a hell of a lot better. I wouldn’t say Purge is a concept album, or at least we didn’t set out to write it that way. There’s definitely an under lying theme, that being very anti - everything, (Markus had a very bleak view of the world) but it doesn’t tell a story or anything like that. We chose the tittle, “Purge the Idols of Illusion” as we feel that sums up the theme perfectly.
In your texts, you are focusing on government, society, religion ... the name of the last album speaks for itself. Can you clarify the philosophy of your lyrics? Why did you choose these themes,… it's something you're struggling with, or just "bored" by the classic death metal lyrics about death and hades ... ..Are your lyrics respond to the current world situation?
There’s definitely an element of, as you put it, “being “bored” by the classic death metal lyrics.” Not that we have anything against that there’s just plenty of it out there. We want our music to actually mean something – to actually have some sort of message if you will about the way in which we perceive things. Growing up in this day and age (especially in London) has definitely influenced what we want to write about. For instance, the song “Omniscient” is all about how you’re constantly being watched everywhere you go and with everything you do, be that in public, online or even at home it’s easy for people to watch you. Another example is the song “Hour of Sedition” which is about the London riots in 2011. This was aimed at the people though rather than the establishment. People going around smashing up small shops and businesses where they’re destroying someone’s lively hood and setting busses alight. You might think acts like that are “sticking it to the man” but who’s going to have to pay for that? It’ll just force things such as fare prices increasing.
London and the UK have recently hit several terrorist attacks, have this acts impact on your work, will be this reflected in your lyrics? You are against the religions, what is your statement about refugees from Arab countries?
In reality, what happens in London and the UK is always going to have some sort of impact on the way we write. Whether we focus on terror, politics, religion or anything else for that matter has not been set in stone as of now but be assured all those things will come up at some point in our future lyrics. Fleeing from war-ridden countries is something nobody should have to experience and the people in these situations are in extremely terrifying circumstances. However, having an open-door policy to allow anybody into your country is just a massive security risk and in reality problems will arise. The new year in Germany (2015/16) is an obvious example of such problems.
How do you feel the British metal scene from the position of the death metal band? It is clear that the British scene is heavily influenced by Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Napalm death and punk. Do you perceive it somehow?
As for the underground metal scene in London, it seems to be quite an exciting time. There is always an awesome band to discover through the many shows that are put on every week or so and there will always be a decent turn out to (even on weekdays).
I assume that you are also listeners of music. Your band has a bandcamp, are you supporters of various streaming services, or do you prefer physical medium? Do you collect CDs, vinyls, tapes etc.? What's your most valuable (don‘t mean financial value) album in your collections.
Ben is the only one who actually collects vinyl’s (his collection is pretty sick) but besides that we all love to listen to new artists and we think the best way to do that is through digital platforms. The convenience of being able to find a huge variety of bands that are all doing their own thing is incredible.
Do you remember your first concert, when and how did it happen?
Our first gig as War Machine took place at Facebar in reading. It was completely nerve-wrecking but was unbelievably fun! Our families were there to support us (and give us a ride as we were still school kids at the time) and we had a good laugh with a decent crowd. We did play Facebar quite a lot when we were first starting out. When Markus was in the band he was always the one who sorted getting us on some shows. So he simply messaged the promoter he knew of there and got on the show!
What are the plans od „Anoxide“ for the future? Except the UK tour that awaits you in December alongside Sodomized Cadaver and Damim? Will there be a classic full version of the album in a shorter horizon? What stage of production do you currently are at and when will you go play abroad?
At the moment we are currently balls deep in writing our debut full length album. Obviously Markus leaving has pushed us back massively in writing it. Not having a full time vocalist and being uncertain of the future meant that we weren’t particularly inspired to get into the writing process. Now having Ben on board though we have been smashing it out. We are in the process of recording a single to be released in the next few months but hope to record the album we have been writing later this year. As far as playing abroad that is definitely a goal, once the album is released and we have a fresh batch of music it’s something we will definitely be heavily looking into.
Which London Club do you think is best in the underground scene?
Our favourite that we’ve played has got to be The Underworld. Feels great to play on a stage so many of our idols have played on. Also it’s a good sized stage…we like to move around a lot. In terms of going to weekly local events it’s hard to look past The Unicorn. It’s great to catch up and coming bands, free entry, generally always a good turn out and most importantly, cheap pints!!
Thank you for your time and answers! I wish you a lot of success on the metal scene at home and abroad, hope to see you soon somewhere on the stage and the last words are yours guys…
Thanks a bunch! Once we have fresh new music out there you’ll definitely see our name bounce around. You can keep up to date with our shenanigans on Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and basically everywhere else. Cheers!
