Interview with death metal band from Switzerland - VOMITHEIST.
Answered Yannick Wöhrle (drums), thank you!
Translated Duzl, thank you!
Questions prepared Jakub Asphyx.
Ave VOMITHEIST! Greetings to the underground. I hope everything is fine with you. It should be because this year you have released a first long-play full-length album in your band's career. I have to admit it has literally blown my mind. It is dark, energic and as if it cuts by the sharp edge of the knife. I can hear from the record you did a really good job and you added a big portion of the talent, too. How do you perceive the new album in comparison to the previous work? Where did you want to move and in what are these two records different?
The new Songs are one or two steps forward in every case. The songs are better and more varied. After all those years we know each other better and the songwriting is more fluent. To be honest, there wasn’t a specific plan on how the album should sound. In the end, we just tried to write Death Metal Songs, that we like.
„NekroFvneral“ includes all attributes of good death metal. For me personally, it represents the record, which I really like to listen to. How did you produce it? How look the writing process of new material in the case of VOMITHEIST?
There are more or less two ways we write our songs. Mostly, one of us comes up with an idea for a riff or a build up for song. From there we start working around that idea until we have something that crushes or we have to admit its total crap and we ripp it to pieces. Sometimes it also happens more by accident while jaming and all of a sudden there is a part we really like and then we start working from there. Our own „quality test“ while we rehearse are the grimm expressions in our faces that show up when a new idea ripps! If that doesen’t happen, its probably not good enough.
Who is signed for mixing and mastering? I have to confirm that the sound literally kills. It keeps making me turn up the volume on the hi-fi tower. The sound is really harsh, raw and dark and animalistic at the same time. What studio did you record in and how did it all work?
The Album was recorded and mixed by Yvo Petrzilek at Verwaltzen Productions in Switzerland. As you can hear he did a really good job. At least we think so. We tried to record everything live and then just did a second run for guitar and bass with the idea that it should sound like you would experience it at one of our live shows.
After the mixing was done the files were sent to Trakworx Studios where they were mastered. All thogehter we are really satisfied with the reslut.
An important part and a kind of extra bonus for fans today is the physical LP. You will release the new album at Transcendig Obscurity Records, and it has a corpsy cover art. Who is the author? How did you choose the motif and how does it relate to the music at the record?
The artwork was designed by Aesthetisk Art. The guy behind it is a friend of ours and at the beginning we didn’t even know that he is such a talented artist. One day he offerd us that he would design a cover artwork for us so we just let him creat whatever his twisted mind could come up with and the artwork turnd out to be absolut sick! But he didn’t just deliver the artwork. He also desingnd the tracklist matching with the cover and added an absolut stunning shirt desing on top. The Artwork itself doesn‘t stand in a special relation to the music. Its just good death metal imagery wich fits perfect for to sound we creat.
I have been wandering the underground for over thirty years and I still go to Switzerland for music with certainty (CORONER, HELLHAMMER, CELTIC FROST, MESSIAH, CREMATION, REQUIEM). I think we have a similar nature and taste when it comes to metal. I like your bands a lot and I monitor your scene carefully. Maybe I envy you a little, because we only have a few death metal bands that are worth it. How do you explain that death metal are doing so well in your country? How do you perceive your scene, fans, labels?
Death metal has always been (with a view exceptions) an undergroud phenomenon. This is probaly why it works so well in Switzerland because our secene is quit small and doesen’t get any representation in public or even support from governmental funds. We have to keep our secene alive by ourselfs. Almost everyone we know within the scene plays in a band, organizes shows or even runs a small label. Alltogehter it makes our secene very lively and to see what other bands we know achive is a big motivation for ourself the keep working on our own musical abominations.
You play death metal influenced by, among other things, the old school. Today, the band can't avoid comparisons, but I would like to know how the idea to start VOMITHEIST was born, who was and is your metal idol? Where do you want to move your band? Are you attracted to large foreign festivals, for example, are you willing to go on tour with a more famous band?
So obviously, we like the old Swedish bands like Entombed and Dismember. The specific idea to do that Stokholm Sound was at a Grave Concert and also was heavy influented by Bloodbath. But of cours, there are other heavy influences like Autopsy, Obituary, Discharge, Morgoth, Nirvana 2002 and others.
We don’t have specific ideas about where to move our band, we just take step by step and see, what time brings. As the Cowboy-Dude in The Big Lebowski says; “Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes, well, the bear eats you”, so we take it as it comes. And of course, it would be great to play larger festivals and tour with more famous bands, who wouldn’t like that.
When I started my blog six years ago, I had a vision that I would try to support bands that are not so much popular, or they are lost in underground. To let the world knows about them. I think I'm doing quite well, at least according to the responses. How do you approach the promotion of your music? Do you rely upon the label or do you send the CDs for various reviews by yourself? For example, I buy albums that I really enjoy. What about you? Are you also fans who often support your colleagues? Do you go to concerts?
For „NekroFvneral“ we mainly rely on Transcending Obscurity Records. For our older records we sometimes worked with small promiton agencys, used the connections we have in our local scene or we just used the possibilitys of the internet to gain more attention for our releases.
And sure, we support our friends whenever possible. We buy their records, go to their shows and attend as many other shows as possbile even tough a thing called...jobs...prevents us to spend even more time in the scene.
On the one hand, today the new band has a lot of opportunities to make themselves more known, but on the other hand, there are a huge number of groups and the fans are getting lost in this big metal sea. A lot of people just download mp3s from the internet and instead of to visit the concert they prefer to spit poisonous saliva on Facebook. How do modern technologies affect you as VOMITHEIST? What do you think about downloading music, google metalists, streaming music, etc.?
Well there are pros and cons to this trend. The internet gives smaller bands the opportunity to spread their music around the world. The downside of that is, what you mentioned before, an overflow of bands where the fan can easily get lost. Of course we are using the newer platforms like bandcamp and spotify to spread our music, but as metal-fans we like vinyl a lot. Each of us owns a vinyl player and likes to buy vinyls instead of just listening to some random music playlists on spotify. Listening to playlists is cutting down your horizon of getting in contact with new music and new artists. We’re also very untalented when it comes to tenical stuff. We recorded the NekroFvneral-Demotape (its called „Sinister Leader Of The Vomit Cult) live with a taperecorder simply cause non of us knows, how to handel a modern recording programm on a computer. Of course that gave the demo its own old School vibe, which is, by the way, very cool.
I like to ask the musicians what death metal means to them. How would they define it, whether it is more the philosophy and lifestyle thing for them or "just" relaxation? What does it mean for you? How do you perceive and experience it?
Death Metal is an integral part of each our lives. Of course, that doesnt mean that we are walking around killing people, just cause its written in our lyrics. We just experience the music as very intense. We still love what we are doing even after 10 years of Vomitheist. In a world that wants you to behave like a proper „adult“ all the time it helps us to preserve the childish idiot in us, that just wants to drink beer and listen to Cannibal Corpse. At least a little bit.
Finally, a classic but important question. What is VOMITHEIST planning in the upcoming months? Where can we see you at the stage?
Next show to see us live would be the Transcending Obscurity Fest in Prag on the 5th and 5th of May and tow weeks later we have a small album release show in our hometown. Until then we are currently working on new songs which are planed to be released on our second full length sometimes in the future.
Thank you so much for the interview. I wish a lot of success to the new album and let the number of your fans expand as much as possible. I will look forward to seeing you somewhere live again. I wish you a lot of success both musically and personally. I'm going to push „NekroFvneral“ into my head again!
Thank you very much for the cool interview and your support, thats abspolutly awesome. Greetings to all Death Metal Fans out there. Cheers everyone.
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