A few questions - interview with death metal band from USA - MOFSED.
Answered by Zakk Thonen.
Ave, can you introduce your band to our readers? – When was it founded and what style of music do you play etc.?
Mofsed was founded back in 2011 with my good friend Randy Teresi on drums and my old guitar teacher Mike Clements. Our goal was to write and play old school death metal with traditional heavy metal guitar solos. We wanted to combine heavy, brutal, thrashy music with that anthemic melodic quality of the lead section from bands like Judas Priest or Mercyful Fate. But we don’t play “melodic death metal.” It’s still uncompromising death metal, with a new take on some more traditional elements.
Where and under what conditions were you recording the new album? Who was in charge of sound, production and mastering?
We recorded this album ourselves with the help of our friend/engineer Fenris Wulf. Fenris was employed at a local radio station and had a bunch of studio equipment he needed space for. We needed a studio to record in and had extra space. So we moved everything in and actually constructed the control room and everything for the studio in which this album was recorded.
How many copies were released and which medium was used for this new edition (CD, digital, vinyl, cassette)?
Right now this album is digital only. We are considering ordering some CD’s. If we do make CDs the first pressing will probably only be around 100.
Who is the author of the lyrics and how were they created and about what do the lyrics deal with?
I write almost all the music and all the lyrics. The songs on Rattenkrieg! are heavily influenced by history. We have songs that cover various conflicts from the first and second world wars, a song about the egyptian book of the dead, etc. There are also a few songs that dabble in philosophy or politics a bit.
Who created the logo of the band, and who took care of the graphics and the website? What about you and social networks? Do you consider these things important?
The band logo was created by our guitarists wife Sandy Thai, and our cover art was done by Sólrún Svana Pétursdóttir. Of course graphics and image are important with any band. However, I think sometimes bands and fans can get a little too wrapped up in the imagery.
It is of my belief that without question, the music comes first. Album art, lyrics, logos, costumes, everything else should all be there to support the music. When handled well, these types of things have the potential to really bring out a lot of awesome qualities in a musical project and overall enhance the experience. But I think if you spend more time and/or effort on any one of those things than you do on the music it really shows.
Which label did you choose for releasing your album and why this label? Are you satisfied by how your label represents you and takés care about you?
Currently Mofsed is an independent band. Right now I handle all the managing, promoting, or whatever on my own. We are looking to work with a label in the future though.
Did you send your record to some Labels - which are the labels? How was the response?
The release of this album took a really long time. It was actually recorded back in 2013-2014, but due to other commitments I wasn’t really able to coordinate it’s release until now. That being said, I did send a few pre-mastered promos to various labels, particularly the big death metal labels like Dark Descent, Blood Harvest, etc. We haven’t heard much back so far, but that’s ok, we’re still just getting started. Rattenkrieg! has some cool stuff on it, but we’ve got a lot of new material in the works right now and our next few releases are going to be more and more badass.
Which bands do you idolise and where do you get your inspiration?
This question is a little weird to answer since as I said this record was recorded back in 2014, my music taste has changed a bit since then. First and foremost King Diamond is my favorite band/musician and probably always will be. I’ll also always be a huge Judas priest fan. At the time I wrote and recorded Rattenkrieg! I was listening to a lot of Bolt Thrower, Vader, Master, Death, Cancer, and The Chasm. You can hear a lot more of that traditional death metal influence in the songwriting.
Nowadays in addition to King Diamond some of my favorite bands are Chthe’ilist, Demilich, Timeghoul, Master’s Hammer, Demented Ted, Gorement, etc. In contrast these bands have a lot darker or more mysterious sound, which is exactly what you can expect from our future material.
How many gigs have you played? Which type of gigs do you prefer, whether it's (clubs or festivals) and which of your performances would you consider as the best?
Playing gigs has been a bit of a challenge so far in Mofsed’s lifespan. The band was formed 8 years ago and since then I’ve spent 1 year living in Sweden and 3 years living in China. Those years gave me a lot of time to work on my songwriting and expand my influences, but haven’t left a lot of time for gigs. We’ve of course played some local gigs with other neighboring metal bands like Minenwerfer and Embodied Torment.
I just love to play so usually any gig is fun for me. We haven’t played any festivals yet but that is definitely a big goal of mine. My favorite gig we’ve played was probably with Negura Bunget and Dynfari. Although our styles aren’t too similar, the frontman of Dynfari was a good friend of mine when we were in Sweden so it was fun to catch them on their tour and play together!
What about your plans for the future? What do you want to achieve with the band?
As I said Mofsed is just getting started out, so we’ve got lots of plans for the future. We recorded an EP back in 2016, but right now we’re going back over that and making some improvements. We’re almost done finishing up the lead guitars and that should release hopefully in early 2020. Beyond that we’re also entering the studio very, very soon to record another full length album of material I’ve written in the last year or so. Our sound is going to evolve a lot between these releases, especially on the next LP.
How and where can your fans contact you? Can you provide some contact information?
Our social media links are:
Rattenkrieg! Will be entirely pay-what-you-want on bandcamp. So please download it for free and show it to a friend!
If you have any questions, inquiries, love mail, hate mail, etc you can contact us at MofsedOfficial@gmail.com or message us on facebook!
Thanx for the interview.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to our record, and talk with us about it!
