Interview with death metal band from Sweden - DISRUPTED.
Answered Mikael Hanni (vocal), thank you!
Recenze/review - DISRUPTED - Stinking Death (2025):
Ave DISRUPTED! Greetings to the Swedish catacombs. First, let me pay my respects. I've been following your band since 2014 when you released your first EP "Heavy Death" and you've been one of my favorite bands for a long time. But you are not very well known here in the Czech Republic, we are a small country with a small underground community. How did you guys get together and how did DISRUPTED come about?
Hello and thank you for reaching out. This is vocalist Mikael Hanni answering to your questions.
The band originally came together around 2012 from a hardcore band that me and guitarist Thomas Liljekvist played togheter in since around 2008-2010 i believe. We came to talk about how we both wanted to evolve the sound of the band and since we both had a common ground in HM-2 death metal we just got hold of a copy of the legendary distortion pedal and all of a sudden we were playing death metal.
We all come from the same region in Sweden(Dalarna county) so we have known each other since forever.
This year you have a new album "Stinking Death" out, which is again full of pure true death metal. With what feelings did you go into the studio? For example, did you have a plan where and how you wanted to move on from the last record? Personally, I find the new record to be more darker and colder at the same time. I have to admit that the atmosphere of the whole album literally captivated me.
We wanted just what you experienced actually. Without going to much afar from what I suppose you can call our usual sound we still wanted to add just a bit of atmosphere. Being the 3rd record that is supposedly the hardest to make we didn’t want to go completely crazy, yet still don’t copy the old formula from the last albums to every extent, and I think we managed quite well.
With the addition of another guitarist permanently in the line up in form of Johan Kvastegård it was easier to add some extra layers of sound to the songs that easily falls flat when performed if you just use one guitar.
Who is responsible for the mixing and mastering? I admit that when I listen to your band I feel like I'm buried in the catacombs forever. It's cold and dark at the same time. The overall sound is great, it reminds me of 90's records, was that the goal?
Like on our previous album „Pure Death“ we worked with sound wizard Christian Larsson once more. This time he did both mixing and mastering and we’re really satisfied with the sound. We wanted a raw and gnarly, but also clear sound. That might sound a bit contradictory, but to clarify we want every instrument and riff/melody to be heard clearly without losing any heaviness and Christian managed perfectly.
I'm a big fan of CD artwork as well, and I really like your covers. Who is the author on the new album "Stinking Death" and what exactly is it supposed to express? I really like the motif a lot, just please tell us how it relates to the music, how is it thematically interconnected?
The artwork for „Stinking Death“ was made by the same artist that made the „Morbid Death“ artwork. It’s a tattoo artist from our hometown of Ludvika namned Marcus Hansson. We just give him the title of the album and then he has full artistic freedom and as you say the results are really good. He knows what it’s all about and we never have to explain or change any details when it comes to the design.
I would be interested in the process of how a new song is created in DISRUPTED. Are you classical musicians who lock yourselves in a rehearsal room and jam or do you use modern technology and send ideas to each other? Do you even go out for a beer together?
As for the music it’s mostly Thomas that does the writing out in his garage. For our latest album Johan Kvastegård also contributed with some songs. So usually Thomas have a complete song with music that he sends to the rest of us so that we can listen to it.
As I mentioned earlier regarding our vision of a bit more atmosphere, Thomas and Johan sat down toghether with a few of the songs to add some extra layers of guitars and that is something we’ll keep working on in the future.
As for lyrics we usually come up with all the song titles first and then I take inspiration from there and write the lyrics while also listening to the song.
Since most of the members have families and the fact that I live about 2,5 hours away nowadays we don’t have the time to get toghether to write music, since we rather focus on rehearsing when we’re all gathered. I don’t see that as a bad thing since we‘re still are able to produce new material and this kind of song writing process works well with us.
You are experienced dogs who play your own way. You have your own handwriting, which is something that is sometimes forgotten nowadays. A lot of bands just sound like copies of other bands. Are you sure you had any role models? Who influenced you as a musician and who was your role model? When and how did you actually start playing? What was the first impetus for you picking up an instrument?
We’ve been playing together for quite some time now and I suppose that’s our way of finding our own sound. Personally I started playing guitar after discovering Iron Maiden when I was around 12-13 years old and had them as idols, or role models if you will, but that doesn’t influence the music I’m involved in today i think. As for Thomas who does most of the writing he has been listening to The Beatles a lot and often mentions their way of forming songs as an inspiration.
So to answer the question I wouldn’t say we have any specific inspiration for our music other than the HM-2 pedal and of course bands like Entombed and Interment who formed Swedish death metal into what it is today.
I think the biggest reward for any band is the reaction of the fans. I like smaller clubs the most, where the musicians and fans are close to each other. How often do DISRUPTED actually perform? Do you tour, for example? I've searched the internet and haven't found much live footage of your shows. So how are DISRUPTED doing with concerts? How about a tour in Europe? I would love that.
You’re absolutely right about that. Unfortunately we haven’t hade the chance to play as much as we might have wanted for various reasons, but as of now we are working together with Hellbilly tourbookings that hopefully will result in us playing live more often and also outside of Sweden.
I think that since the start we’ve been doing about 2-3 shows per year, not counting the Covid-19 years of course.
Finding time to do longer tours is out of the question for us I think, but some shorter runs for a week or so is something we’ve been discussing. Time will tell!
Our readers are always very interested in how your scene is doing. Sweden was a powerhouse in death metal in the nineties. How is it today? Do you see new bands too, or just the old veterans? You come from Ludvika, which is a small town. Do you have your own scene? Here in the Czech Republic we have the idea that, according to the number of Swedish bands, every second person in Sweden)) must play in a death metal band. Is that true? What about the fans?
When we were starting out around 10-15 years ago the music scene in Ludvika was alive and well with a bunch of bands around. Not only death metal but most musicians hanged around and knew eachother. Today I don’t think thats the case, but on the other hand there are quite many younger bands rising in other parts of Sweden right now that are very interesting.
It’s totally true that when you look at the population up here and compare it to the number of metal bands there sure are alot of extreme metal musicians around. The long, dark and cold winters combined with the forest landscapes must be some kind of inspiration to that since we have that in common with Norway and Finland.
People up here are more reserved and calm overall, so when at shows the majority of the audience stands with their arms crossed, bobbing the head in sync with the music. Of course there are always so called front row bangers at most shows but in my experience shows further south are a bit more intense. I’m not saying either one is better than the other, but that’s just how it is up here.
Underground music has always been spread by fans as well as by small labels and labels. There are a few in the Czech Republic, but it's mostly the work of one or two enthusiasts. I wonder where you sell the most records? At a concert or through a label? Do you have an overview of that? I'd also be interested in the ratio of physical to digital.
Without having any numbers I’m pretty sure we do most of our sales through our label. Since we don’t play that often we don’t sell much records at those times compared to the distribution of our labels online store.
Since we’re in the underground scene we don’t do any bigger batches when producing physical records, but I think we can be pretty confident in that the first pressing of around 300 vinyls will be sold out eventually. With that in mind I hope that is more sales than a digital format.
I've always wondered what kind of music musicians actually listen to. Do you have any albums that you like to revisit often? What about any new releases from the last few years? Anything that intrigued you enough to buy a CD?
Personally I have a huge interest in extreme metal and do still buy vinyl records, altough I wouldn’t say that I’m a collector. I mostly listen to black metal and personal favourites that I always come back to are the Swedish bands „Craft“ and „Funeral Mist“.
Recently I’ve also been listening a lot to the latest releases from „Black Curse“, „Wrathprayer“ and „Avmakt“.
Apart from that I enjoy other styles of music as well, ranging from „Allan Holdsworth“ to „Queens of the Stone Age“.
Death metal is my favorite style of music. I'm fascinated by the darkness of it, the dusty smell from old graves. Then also the power and the pressure. When I listen to a good record, I'm literally energized. What does it mean to you? How does it influence your life, your worldview, how do you perceive it as a creator?
I think that especially for me as a vocalist it’s a way of relieveing the mind from everyday stress and fully devout to the massive force of the music. Both listening and performing music is essential for my well being and I don’t know what I would do without it.
Creating new music is especially rewarding when we get the opportunity to perform it live but of course it’s a special feeling to hold a physical record in your hands that was created by your own band.
And the necessary question at the end. What are DISRUPTED planning in the next few months? If you want to say something to fans, promoters or just everyone, here's the space.
Thank you again for reaching out! Right now we focus on rehearsing a few new songs and we already have more shows planned this year than ever before, so hopefully it will continue in that direction during the year. Playing live inspires us to write more music so maybe it will result in us releasing something new sooner than the previous 5-year cycle we’ve been in.
Promoters should get in contact with Hellbilly tourbookings (hellbilly@hotmail.se) if they want us to come and play and of course the Czech Republic is a place of interest for us!
We also want to thank the fans of undergound death metal for their undying support for the music and keep buying our merch and records. You are the reason we can keep on doing this.
Thank you and stay dead!
Thank you so much for the interview! I wish not only the new album "Stinking Death" but also the whole DISRUPTED a lot of success. I'm going to listen to the album again! It's really great. Good luck in your personal lives.
about DISRUPTED on DEADLY STORM ZINE:
Recenze/review - DISRUPTED - Stinking Death (2025):
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