Interview with death metal band from Sweden - DEATH REICH.
Answered Christer Bergqvist (guitars), thank you!
Translated Duzl, thank you!
Questions prepared Jakub Asphyx.
https://www.deadlystormzine.com/2023/03/recenzereview-death-reich-disharmony.html
Ave DEATH REICH! I haven’t found any interview in the Czech language with you, yet. So please, first introduce the band to our readers who don’t know you. You could start from the early beginnings and describe the whole DEATH REICH history.
Hi! This is Christer, guitar player of Death Reich. First of i just want to thank you for showing an interest in our band.
The Death Reich story began with Jonas Blom wanting to start up a new death metal band. He recruted Marcus Fors and Robert Axelsson. They started to rehearse some songs Jonas had written and looked for a second guitar player. We are all friends since way back so Robert asked me if I wanted to join. It felt like a cool project with good guys so I said yes at once. We then asked Johnny Letho who also know since forever to join as singer and that was when we had our first full line-up. That was back in 2018. We recorded a three song demo which we didnt do anything with becauce we where not satisfied with the result. Marcus desided to quit shortley after that. To get the band to move forward Jonas then started to play the drums insted. He hadnt played drums for a long time so he started practising alot. We then recruted Babic to replace Jonas on the guitar. At that time we desided to change the direction of the music to a more straight forward and agressive sounding type of death metal. That resulted in a couple of songs that we put out on YouTube. The songs where called Domination and we are you. These songs where the real starting point of what we would become as a band.
I’m just listening to your new record „Disharmony“ and I feel like as if I am closed in some tomb together with MORBID ANGEL, OBITUARY, MONSTROSITY, BRUTALITY or ENTOMBED. The record has a great massive sound. Where did you record it and how satisfied you are with it? Did you have the "last word" concerning the resulting sound?
Everything was recorded in a studio that we have access to where we rehearse called Musikhuset. The drums where recorded by Fredrik Wester who also playes guitar and sings in the excellent thrash metal band Warfect. Everything else was recorded by me exept for the intro and outro that where recorded by Jonas. The album was mixed and mastered by Johan Bäckman at Raven noice studio. He is great to work with and listens to what we want but still produces a sound that is better than we could ever imagine. We are all verry satisfied with the sound on Disharmony.
How was the new material for album „Disharmony“ created? How exactly DEATH REICH writes the music?
Almost all the music on Disharmony is written by Jonas except for Atrocity and Hysteria which are written by me. We almost exclusivly write songs individually. We useually put up demos of the songs on dropbox and film the riffs so everyone can learn the songs before we rehearse together.
„Disharmony“ has dark and morbid cover art. Who is an author? I really like his work. How did you actually choose the idea of the cover and what exactly illustrates?
The cover art is created by psychopart and for us it represents total collapse, deaspear and disharmony. We had already desided that the album was going to be called Disharmony and we neaded a motive that captured that. I think the cover art is fantastic and serves it purpose realy well.
Could you reveal us who is an author of the lyrics and what is their background? Where did you take inspiration for certain topics?
Im not realy shore who wrote what lyrics but Johnny and Jonas wrote all the lyrics on Disharmony. The lyrics are mostly about the evil of mankind, war, suffering and abuse of power. I think the inspiration comes from our own world view and what we se and read on different medias.
The new album was released by Non Serviam Records. This label has a very good name in the underground scene and does a very good job. However, didn't you want to release a record in some bigger label? Did you ask some other label? How you are actually satisfied with Non Serviam Records?
We are friends with Ricardo since we started to release records thru NSR with Grief of emerald. NSR was the first label we contacted because we know the Ricardo is a realy great guy that that what ever he can to promote the bands he signs. I think we are realy lucky to have him backing us. If a bigger record label shows interest in the future we have to take a decision based on the pros and cons about a deal like that but for know we are more than satisfied with NSR.
You play typical, classic old American death metal. But you're not afraid to venture into other areas. Why this style? Each of you plays in other bands, was it hard to determine the direction? You're great musicians and everyone has their own opinion for sure.
I think we are all on the same page on how we think Death Reich should sound. We know what style we want to play and we have learned with experience what way we should play to get the fealing we are after with the music. I think we all realy enjoy how we sound at the moment. We all listen to metal in all kinds of styles and genres but we all want Death Reich to sound like we do. This might change in the future so its posible that the next album will have some other elements added as well. It seams to be that way with the new songs we are working on.
When I look through your albums, you really made a long journey. It is obvious that you as a band are still working on yourself. How often do you rehearsal together? Are you a "hard-working" band, which practices regularly or are you more „punk“ in the rehearsal task?
Damn, i should have read this question before i answered the last one…as I was saying we are happy with the way we are sounding at the moment but every new song we make we try to make diffrent from the last. At least thats how i try to think when I start writing a new song, that it should bring something new but still fit our sound. I think its importent to not make the same song over and over again. We used to rehearse once every two weeks but now we try to rehearse once a week. However there is often something that gets in the way for us all to meet.
In the case of your band, it is very good to see your development, each album is better, and you are also gradually better and better musicians. Do you have some goal, which you would like to achieve? Someone wants to release an album with a large label; other wants to play on one stage with some famous band. What about you?
I think our goal is to have fun playing music, sell some records so we get money to record new records and to do smaller tours in europe. It would be realy cool to do some festival shows aroud europe aswell.
Can you recommend some new albums, which impressed you at the latest time?
I think our label mates Catalyst’s new album is great. I think its technical but still realy aggressive and with a great not over produced sound. Also i like the new Defleshed album which i think have a great sound with sick and blasty death/grind/thrash songs.
Do you know and listen to some metal bands from the Czech Republic?
Sorry i cant say that I do. I dont have the time to search for bands these days so I nead to be fed thru social media or by recommendations by friends. I had to google what bands you have in Czech Republic just to see if I recognized anyone but I didnt.
We are slowly approaching the end of the interview so I would like to ask one more philosophical question. How would you define the death metal style? What represents this music for you and why did you choose exactly this genre?
I would define it as death metal plain and simple. As I said earlier we like different types of metal so the music contains some other elements such as black metal, thrash meta and grind core. But I think 90 % is death metal. To be philosophical i would say that our music represents the soundtrack of our lifes and I guess that is way we want to play this way.
What DEATH REICH is planning for the next few months?
We have alot of new songs that we want to learn and rehearse. We have some live shows coming up and we plan to make a video of some kind.
Thank you for the interview and I wish you a lot of sold CDs, hundreds of crazy fans and tons of great ideas.
Thank you for that and thanks for your support!
Recenze/review - DEATH REICH - Disharmony (2023):
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