PRESIDENTS OF THE PAZUZU FANCLUB

“Give us time… Let the girl die… I am no one… Fear the priest.” So reads what could well be elected as some of the most disturbingly horrifying lines in the black-clothed, dust-laden archives of the classic horror-movie. Often emulated but never bettered, William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist has forever left its stomach-acidic trail of cacodaemonic malice on the modern world and its naïve obsession with Old Nick and his venomous allure. The Kalmar-based death metal unit Spawn Of Possession were brutally and maladroitly heaved from the unripe uterus of a hermaphroditic hell-begotten female in 1997, and have immolated from and feasted on the most devout of human ecclesiastics on the vomit-covered bone altar of Godmother Reagan ever since. Hyperbolic bubble-gum scenarios aside – excuse me, dear sirs and madams – their much-heralded second album is after much wait from a horde of fretful death-metal fans due for release this month via Neurotic Records – and what a blastsome techfest it will be! Here is a raaather belated, if ever so relevant interview with drummer Dennis Röndum and vocalist Jonas Renvaktar conducted sometime in the earliest months of 2004 on location at the Loppen venue in Copenhagen, where Spawn Of Possession were named at the last elusive minute as the fourth act to take the ever-makeshift stage with Prejudice, Dying Fetus and Hate Eternal. Alas, as the wished-for addressees of the interview below will learn, an unfortunate blockade of administrative rules came to thwart these fine intentions…

# What led to Spawn Of Possession’s eleventh-hour inclusion on this final concert date of the Hate Eternal et al. tour across Europe – and how come the band is now not mentioned in the final running order for the show tonight?!

Dennis Röndum: “The thing was that Deeds Of Flesh, who run our label Unique Leader, were going to Europe, and we said to them that we should do at least one show together now that they were here. And they said ‘Yeah, let’s set it up!’ What happened was that the European office arranged with Metallysee so that we could do the last show on this tour. That was it! We basically just called them and they said that there was an opening on the last show because Deeds Of Flesh were not going to play anyway, so Spawn Of Possession would more or less go in and replace them. What happened tonight was that nobody, neither the tour promoters nor the managers, knew that the bands could not start to play until 22.00 in the evening – and there was a curfew at 1.00. So we couldn’t play, simple as that.”

# I heard from somewhere that Deeds Of Flesh were not able to perform tonight because they had booked the flight tickets too early due to some practical mix-up...

Dennis: “Oh, well. No, from what I heard they were told that the tour was going to end in Tillburg in Holland three days before this show.”

Jonas Renvaktar: “Yeah, this show was only announced a couple of weeks ago.”

Dennis: “This show was added to the package. It would cost Deeds Of Flesh too much money to re-book the tour, something like 600 dollars; and then just to do two or three shows.”

# What are your immediate plans subsequent to ‘what should have been’ a bone-crushing show tonight, and how far is the band with the songwriting for a follow-up to Cabinet?

Dennis: “Well, we are writing it right now and coming up with ideas. Our next move, I would say, is the No Mercy Festivals in April with Cannibal Corpse and all that, and we’ve got some other shows lined up. Nothing is official yet but we have some metal fests in the spring and summer coming up, and besides that we’re just writing and working on new songs and arrangements. But the No Mercy Festivals is like the main priority at this point.”

# And I understand you recently completed a US tour?

Dennis: “Yeah, we did something like six, seven weeks. It was a long time. We did a kind of ‘loop’; we started in California and moved all the way down south, all the way up east over to Canada and then across back to California – and then back home. We did like 27 shows. So you can say that was brutal! It was a sick tour. We have to promote these: Gorgasm, Pyaemia and Severed Savior. We also got the opportunity or privilege to play with bands like Misery Index, Anal Blast and Mortal Decay, of course. So we got to play with some really cool and good bands.”

# Was the tour with Gorgasm, Pyaemia and Severed Savior meant specifically to be a sort of Unique Leader extermination package?

Jonas: “Yeah, that was totally Unique Leader [laughs].”

Dennis: “The thing is that it wasn’t supposed to be like that at the beginning. This was the first total Unique Leader package. Normally they would be having Monstrosity, Severe Torture or...”

Jonas: “Big headliners.”

Dennis: “Yeah, exactly. But for this one they wanted to have four Unique Leader bands to push the label. So we did the tour with these bands and it was super cool.”

# How was the general reception? Did people mistake you for Americans…

Jonas: “No, I don’t think so. They took us for Europeans.”

Dennis: “Yeah, they knew about us. It was weird because I got the feeling that people knew about our sound and our music.”

Jonas: “Actually, it was even more so in the US than back home.”

Dennis: “Yeah, we got more response there than on the first European tour we did. But then again, our album had not been released in Europe when we did that tour, so... [laughs].”

# I received a decent pile of ‘hate mail’ from local Jutes at the other side of Denmark when it was announced that Spawn Of Possession would perform exclusively at the Copenhagen date.

Jonas: “And now you can send it back since we won’t play after all! [laughs]”

# Yeah, good point! Generally, it appears that Cabinet has been received very well by the different metal communities both in Europe and overseas. How does that correspond with your expectations for the success of the album?

Dennis: “To be honest, we knew we had our fair share of fans at the time because of the demos. But we thought: ‘Okay, we’ll put the album out because we like it and that is what we care about. Then, of course, if someone picks up on the album it’s certainly going to be a good feeling.’ Apparently, it sold really good and people were really enthusiastic about it. We got a lot of positive shit from Denmark and generally a really good response from Scandinavia – and all over the world, actually. We’re playing this kind of tech-death thing, as it’s called, and we have received really good response to it. We didn’t really have so many expectations because we didn’t know how people would respond to it. The production is for instance a little bit different as we didn’t put so much bass in it like bands usually do to make a fat sound. We had a more clean sound to make sure that you could hear the guitars, especially the harmonies and all that.”

# I suppose that a clean production is more or less crucial for music with a distinct technical side to it?

Dennis: “We thought so, and that is without stepping on any other bands because I have so much respect for older bands in death metal, big or small. There are bands where you can really hear they have a really good thing going on, but you can’t really sort it out because the sound is crappy, you know. A lot of bands tend to put a lot of bass on their albums so you can’t really make out what is going on with the guitars. For us, I would say that the guitars were more or less the number one thing.”

Jonas: “The guitars are totally essential.”

Dennis: “Yeah, if you can’t make those out, you will lose the feeling that we have when we write it and what we want to express. So that’s why we decided to work on a not-so-distorted sound, making it more so that the listener can get a hold to it.”

Jonas: “The sound is very user-friendly compared to that of a lot of other metal bands.”

Dennis: “Yeah, and it’s for each and every individual to figure out their opinion, because not every person likes it. They want it sludgy or whatever while other listeners want it cleaner to make sure that they get every little detail. It’s hard, you know, and you can’t please everybody.”

# Cabinet in its entirety was written over a period of five years. Am I wrong to assume that there must be a few traces of progression in those newly conceived riffs, structures and arrangements mentioned earlier?

Dennis: “There is, definitely. Back when we started to write the first songs for Cabinet, we tried to take a different approach with each song in terms of the riffing and the structures. I’m not sure if that is so apparent on the album but that is what we had in mind. And for the new album we have a completely different approach because every song is entirely new. The songs, the production and the sound; everything will change with this album – but in a good way. We’re not going to start playing fucking rock’n’roll bullshit. We’re still going to push the limits of brutality and technical playing. Those elements are there, but we are still going to be groovier and all that stuff. We have so many visions about the new stuff that we’re writing. Hopefully, it will all work out. We don’t have so much material finished yet, but the stuff we’re working on is really weird. It’s sick stuff! [laughs].”

# What is idiosyncratic or distinct about Spawn Of Possession compared to the rest of the bands on the Unique Leader roster?

Dennis: “Well, Unique Leader has a wide range of bands – maybe a half or a third of their roster – that are simply pushing brutality to further extremes. But we’re part of that little group of bands that like to take the sound a step further and not just simply go on in the same circle. Personally, what comes to my mind is the sound of the album. I would say that the sound makes the difference from a lot of other Unique Leader bands. Of course, Psycroptic came around and they have more of a sound like us, and it’s super-tight, amazing and impressive stuff. Those guys are really, truly amazing. Besides Psycroptic, I would also say that the European sound is kind of different to the American sound.”

# Brutality is not the only keyword?

Dennis: “No, we have so many levels in the whole aura of music that we want to explore and it’s not only brutality or speed. But apart from that I don’t really know what makes us stand apart. I don’t know!”

Jonas: “We are certainly more technical than a lot of them, excepting bands like Disgorge and Deeds Of Flesh, but they are technical in another kind of way.”

Dennis: “Also, we are always prepared to fuck with harmonics. We really like to do the light harmonic stuff and the clean open notes so that you can really hear what we’re doing. It’s daring in a way, because there are not many death metal bands who like to do that; they want to stick to the low-key things.”

Jonas: “Yeah, it almost makes Spawn Of Possession kind of... melodic! At least in some sections. That’s the big difference. A lot of the other bands are more focused on speed and brutality.”

# Certainly, Deeds Of Flesh incorporate a lot of harmonics in their arrangements as well, but most often they are based on the same basic riff pattern, whereas it is much more apparent that there are two separately functioning guitars in Spawn Of Possession.

Dennis: “Yeah, definitely. But with all respect; I fucking love the bands on Unique Leader. They are all fucking great. This is just what we do and what they do. Plus, in the long line I think we want to write music that we haven’t heard before. We want to write something that we want to hear, if that makes sense. The things that we write should be something that we want to put on and listen to! [laughs].”

# And fill out a niche on the death metal scene?

Dennis: “Sure, what’s the point in sounding like another band that you like? I can appreciate that some people want to sound like their idols and all that, but in the long run there’s no point in doing that. Try to find your own measurements and your own standards. Push yourself. That’s it.”

# At one point it looked as if former Mortal Decay vocalist Kelly Izquierdo would become the new permanent vocalist for Spawn Of Possession, but apparently Jonas has taken over the diaphragm duties in the band, at least for this tour?

Dennis: “Yeah, we just decided that it wouldn’t work with Kelly in the band. It was basically due to the fact that he lives in New York and we live in Sweden. That’s a pretty big thing! Also, Jonas did like four or five shows with us before, we knew him already and he lives about an hour and a half drive away from us so he could come and practice with us. So we thought: ‘Why even contemplate it?’ We brought Jonas in to do the tour, and so far it has been going killer. Jonas has been with us for every show and really added to our performance. He knows the songs and what it’s all about, and everybody is down with him. Kelly was actually never in the band. I know that it was put on the website that he was supposed to be the new member...”

Jonas: “That was the idea at first, but he couldn’t make it to the shows.”

Dennis: “It was more like a plan that never came out.”

# Kelly never played a single show with the band?

Dennis: “No, we never even practiced, never even met him! So there you go. He said that he really wanted to be in the band and this and that, and we were supposed to do the European tour. It was all set and he had the CD to work with that. Vocally, Spawn Of Possession is rather complex stuff, so we felt we had to practice. Still, we were cool and said that he could do the first five shows and then we could see what happened. But he never showed up on the tour because he couldn’t make it or whatever... What could we do? So we brought Jonas in and he did a kick-ass job and that’s it.”

# How do you manage then, Jonas, to fulfil the commitments for both Spawn Of Possession and your other band Disruption?

Jonas: “That’s quite easy because Disruption is probably splitting up [laughs]. I don’t know. It’s sort of at a standstill, so I’ve been hanging out with the Spawn guys. The bass player in Disruption still works on it, and we have a lot of demo recordings, so if he can get something out of that, we may work something out. I’ll join in if I have to, but my main priority is Spawn Of Possession.”

# So there is in fact a full-time commitment between Spawn Of Possession and Jonas?

Jonas: “Well... [laughs]”

Dennis: “To be honest, we actually talked about this a couple of weeks ago. Jonas had done two tours and is doing the third with us now in April where we will do some shows here and there. For me, because I can’t speak for the band in this question, I can say that I really want Jonas in the band. But then again, how many practices have we done? Five or six?”

Jonas: “Yeah.”

Dennis: “We have to work more together first before we can take the final decision. For the touring, it works perfectly in practice. I couldn’t imagine another vocalist.”

Jonas: “It’s sort of a problem, actually, because I have in fact never heard my death metal voice on tape. Because I usually sing in a different way. We have never recorded it, and that’s what I want to do.”

Dennis: “Yeah, we have to record Jonas’ vocals, because in the band we have sort of set our minds on how we want the sound and the vocals to be. So we have to record with Jonas to find out how his death metal, and I mean death metal, vocals sound on tape. We have to see how it goes with the music and see if it’s the right thing, and if it’s not then we will have to find out what we can do to work with it. I believe that Jonas has found his voice during the tours with Spawn Of Possession. He has definitely found his ‘Spawn live vocals’. It’s really too bad that we can’t play tonight because then you would have heard...”

# Spawn Of Possession virtually became a cult band on account of the two demo releases, The Forbidden (2000) and Church of Deviance (2001). Both tapes have been out of print for years and it appears there is a high demand for them on the death metal underground scene. Will the material surface as bonus tracks or be collected on some sort of compilation in the future, and are there any plans of re-recording that exclusive track entitled “Dead & Grotesque” which is featured on the first demo?

Jonas: “We would have played that song tonight! [laughs]”

Dennis: “If we had been allowed to perform tonight, we would have played “Dead & Grotesque” as an experiment for future shows. About releasing the demo tracks: we will, we will! I can tell you that we are going to release those songs, but I don’t think we will re-record any of them. We are going to put the two demos together along with “Dead & Grotesque” on one disc. We were basically supposed to do it this spring, but we decided to wait because there are seven songs in total on the demos, and six of those songs are on the album. In different versions, sure, but still with the same fucking riffs. So we felt that we should save it and make a whole new fresh album and then after that we are going to release those songs.”

# Maybe as an appendix to a live album or something?

Dennis: “Yeah, maybe. We have been talking about that too. After people have heard the album, everybody wants to see us live. They want to see us play. I don’t know why! [laughs]. The demos will be re-released; not as bonus tracks, I think, but hopefully together with a video or something because we are working on that right now. They will be put out, but the next album will probably consist completely of brand new material.”

# As far as I can understand the demos were sold out in no time and have practically become collector’s items.

Dennis: “The demos disappeared pretty fast. I think we had 400 copies of the first demo and 200 of the second one. The reason why we didn’t make more copies of the second demo is that we got signed to a label. So we felt that there was no need to put out any more demos. We are going to make an album. We knew that we were going to use the songs on it so it was like: ‘Okay, cut it off. Don’t put it on anymore.’ But yeah, those demos sold out pretty quickly. So hopefully we are going to make some sort of package or special thing. We just felt that it was a bit too early at this point. We are talking to our label about it and thinking about maybe recording a couple of covers and a live track or maybe even a full live album. We said to ourselves: ‘Let’s wait until the second album is released and then we’ll do it.’ For sure.”

# Let’s briefly turn our attention towards the lyrical themes on Cabinet. In my opinion, what makes the lyrics interesting is their story-like, narrative form rather than being lines of words thrown haphazardly together. The album closer “Uncle Damfee” is perhaps the best example...

Dennis: “[laughs]. Everybody talks about “Uncle Damfee”, and we don’t want to talk about that one! I mean, our main priority for the lyrics is to write a story and keep it to the subject, which is ‘demonic possession’. For Spawn Of Possession that is the main idea, pure and simple. You know, fucking demons that possess people, The Exorcist and so on. For the lyrics that I have personally written to this album, there is a story. I’m not sure why; it’s just the way I’m writing it.”

# Well, it’s no real secret that Spawn Of Possession is a demented bunch of horror buffs, and the aforementioned timeless classic The Exorcist, in particular, is a favourite in Camp Spawn...

Dennis: “Fuck yeah! The Exorcist, Amityville and those films with haunted buildings and people. I love that kind of horror. To me, The Exorcist is probably the best horror movie ever because it’s...”

Jonas: “Dirty.”

Dennis: “Yeah, it’s a little dirty and it has some really cool lines in it. A whole lot of bands have taken shit out of that movie and put on their records as intros and so on. It’s the same thing as with Evil Dead and Hellraiser. Actually, the song entitled “The Forbidden” on the album is about the third The Exorcist movie. And I can tell you this much as a little trivia: the first track “Swarm of the Formless” was supposed to be about the first The Exorcist movie; I almost had the lyrics ready and the song was to be called “Pazuzu”. The thing was that they re-released it on some fucking ‘Twentieth Century Fox’ thing, and I felt that people would think something like: ‘Oh, they wrote some lyrics about the new release of the movie!’ That wasn’t the case but I felt that people would perceive it that way, so I decided to do something different. It just turned out to be about some evil demon or whatever! [laughs]. But the whole album is more or less about demons.”

# And the band name is directly derived from that theme?

Dennis: “Yeah, it comes from that. Spawn Of Possession is all about that.”

# What about the album title Cabinet?

Dennis: “Well, you’re from Denmark, right? Yeah, so you can probably follow me when I say that the word makes me think of ‘vaxkabinet’ [Swedish for ‘waxwork show’]. A real sick thing! And to me a cabinet is something you open and enter, and there is something in there. That’s it. We wanted to name the album something like ‘box’ or whatever, but that would be kind of lame. Also, there are a lot of things going on with the word ‘cabinet’ in that it can mean very different things. ‘Cabinet’ – it sounds weird and the word sticks in your head. So we kept that in mind when we named the album because it’s important to make something that stands out. Spawn Of Possession is a good band name and we’re happy with that, but the first time we thought about an album title, it wouldn’t really fit with a title like Killing of a Man or whatever. It would be all ‘blah-blah-of-blah-blah’. So one word, one name: Cabinet. Pure and simple, right in your face. Also, the lyrics for the album turned out to be really weird. When I wrote those lyrics, they ended up in a totally different way than what they were supposed to. I was inspired by the author Dean Koontz when I did that because he has some really sick stuff going on about dreaming.”

# Any specific novels or short stories?

Dennis: “No, I’m not sure which book it is. Actually, I don’t read books; I was told the story of one his books by our guitar player [could be either – Misereion], because he has a big collection of horror books. It is a book about a certain amount of people that do weird stuff at night. One guy goes up to his typewriter and writes ‘I’m scared’. He fills a whole bunch of blank papers with those words, and that really frightened me. That’s creepy! And all that stuff about the subconscious and dreaming inspired me. In that perspective the title Cabinet encompasses the whole album. Don’t fucking open the cabinet if you’re not prepared for it!”

# Sort of like Pandora’s box?

Dennis: “Something like that, yeah. Something like that.”

Jonas: “You remember what happened in France? That was cool...”

Dennis: “Oh yeah! Well, you can tell him about that.”

Jonas: “In France we met a couple of guys from a band called Eradicate who were really into Spawn Of Possession. Cool guys! And they said: ‘Whut u call ur album? Oh, Le Cabinet? It meens toilet down hir. Oh, Le Cabinet – fokking cool, eh!’”

Dennis: “So we’re going to play ‘The Toilet Song’ now! [laughs].”

Jonas: “They all thought it was some kind of gore/porn shit.”

# Talk about faecal attraction?

Dennis: “Yeah, they thought we were a gore/porn band. On the other hand, they don’t fucking speak English so...”

# At the end of last year, I did an interview with Jacoby Kingston from Deeds Of Flesh/Unique Leader who briefly name-dropped Exmortem from Denmark and Aeon from Sweden as the label’s latest death squad signings. Now, UL recently re-launched Exmortem’s most recent album for the American territories complete with six bonus tracks on the fittingly entitled US Berzerker Campaign. But what about Aeon?

Dennis: “I have a very good contact with Aeon and I recently talked to their guitar player. They are not signed yet; they haven’t signed the actual agreement.”

# Still negotiating?

Dennis: “Still negotiating, but I’m quite sure that they will be signed to Unique Leader, and I truly hope so. I’ve told them millions of times that they should sign. They are brutal. They are an amazing band.”

# Apart from thumping the toms in Spawn Of Possession, you handle the vocal duties in one of Sweden’s finest brutalities Visceral Bleeding. From a musician’s point of view, how do these two bands complement each other?

Dennis: “Well, the thing is that I do the stuff that I think is fun to do. It’s the same thing with Spawn Of Possession and Visceral Bleeding. Both things are fun to do. I love to play the drums and I love to play with these guys. These extreme guys who are fucking amazing guitarists, bassists and vocalists, and I love to play the drums and be a part of that. Visceral Bleeding is not that technical but it’s still raw and extreme, and there’s a lot of aggression and brutality in the music. I really want to do the vocals for it and I love to do it. I just like that it’s a different way of expressing yourself. Actually, I’m getting a bunch of copies of the new album tonight. I picked up the master yesterday. Nobody has heard them; they’re brand new. We have the cover for the album but we don’t even have the inner sleeve yet. The new Visceral Bleeding album is really furious. Pure hatred! I did some new screaming stuff with my vocals and it came out really good. The new album is definitely going to be brutal!”

# What have the been the most enjoyable moments or single tour highlight for Spawn Of Possession so far?

Jonas: “Uh, we’ve had a few of those...”

# It’s hard to pick one?

Dennis: “It’s really hard but we’ll pick one.”

Jonas: “Most Canadian shows were actually killer.”

Dennis: “The Canadian shows were good, fuck yeah. They were brutal.”

Jonas: “Death metal is apparently not underground music in Canada, which is perhaps not something you would expect.”

# The link section on the official Spawn Of Possession website is huge and bears witness of the band’s devotion and passion to the death metal genre. Notwithstanding Spawn Of Possession’s own high-profile status as future pioneers of the genre, what is it like to tour with legendary bands that have inspired (and corrupted) you for years and years?

Dennis: “That’s what you think it is, if you know what I mean. The way you imagine it to be is how it feels for us. We’re still fans, totally. Of course, we’re in a band but we don’t see ourselves as rock stars; we see ourselves as fans of the scene. We really wanted to do this show. Hate Eternal, Dying Fetus and Prejudice... All of them are amazing bands, and we played some shows in Sweden with a couple of bigger bands. We have played with Iniquity once – and hell yeah, they’re amazing. It’s an amazing thing and it’s fun. Most of the people that are in this business are super cool. Sure, they sold this and that many albums, but they’re still down-to-earth.”

Jonas: “There is no place for rock stars in death metal.”

Dennis: “Right, and if there is they don’t fit in. They can just go and kill themselves. They don’t belong. We haven’t come across any of those yet, fortunately. The Dutch guys that we toured with, Disavowed, are our brothers for life. They’re super cool! Pyaemia, Inhume, Mangled, all the American bands... They are all brothers to us. The guys from Deeds Of Flesh are super cool, and we toured with Severed Savior, Gorgasm and Vile of course. Great friends and we are brothers now. On tour, people are just super cool, and the same goes for the bands that we have played shows with, as well as the people that we met tonight.”

# Back in my days as a newborn death metal fan, I remember talking to Pat O’Brien from Cannibal Corpse when the band played at this exact venue back in 1998 together with Dark Funeral and Infernäl Mäjesty. He just came right over and addressed me and a couple of my friends, and whenever there is a death metal band performing at this venue the same thing happens. They can just step down from that stage over there and meet the kids head-on. Is that something which is particularly express on the death metal scene?

Dennis: “I think it’s a tight community. When you step into it, there is no competition and you all do it for the same reason: because you love the music. That’s it. And I mean, Cannibal Corpse... They are just beyond. Actually, that is the reason why we’re on The No Mercy Festivals package. Because Cannibal Corpse invited us. We went to a show in Gothenburg, Sweden, where we met them and gave away a couple of shirts. The next thing you know their new DVD-thing comes out, and when we put it on, one of the guys was wearing a Spawn Of Possession t-shirt. Woah! We see our t-shirts on the fucking magazines and everything. It’s like: ‘Boom!’ And then Cannibal Corpse invites us to join them on The No Mercy Fests. That’s the way they are because they don’t care. Obviously, they could have toured with a bigger band and made more money, but they care about the bands. They want younger bands to come out, and that’s the attitude we’ve been having. We’re going to be just like that. When we do shows, we always make sure to call our friends and try to get them on it. And there are a lot of bands in Sweden that are working on getting a reputation. That’s the way I see it anyway.”

# I spoke to Pat about Cannibal Corpse’s latest album release The Wretched Spawn about a month ago, and we briefly touched upon the same issue. He told me that the procedure was often to tour for a period of time with a bigger band like Dimmu Borgir and then afterwards do a follow-up tour with a handful of underground acts. Is that an ambition for Spawn Of Possession as well?

Dennis: “Yeah, not many bands start up there. Most bands start down here. Like Cannibal Corpse, they started from the fucking gutter. They came from nothing and just worked their way up, and that earns them respect. They have earned their name and they have earned their success. Fuck, they are probably one of the biggest death metal bands.”

Jonas: “They are the biggest death metal band.”

Dennis: “Yeah. They are pure fucking brutal death metal. They know exactly the drill and they have their own sound and their own songs. They know exactly what to do. They may not be pushing all the technical stuff that we do, but that’s just an aspect of your band. If you want to do that, then you can do that. It’s death metal no matter what.”

Jonas: “They don’t need to push it any further because they’ve already pushed it so far.”

# Right, guys. I’ll let you off the hook now. Curse the coordinators for their blunder tonight! If nothing else, I’ll cross my fingers for a speedy return of The Spawn to a local venue.

Dennis: “Hopefully, we’ll play in Malmö if you can make it over the bridge. We’re probably going to do a tour with Visceral Bleeding and there might be a third band, but I’m not sure about that. It will happen after The No Mercy Festivals in April sometime.”

# Any last words of wisdom?

Dennis: “No, not really... Well, sorry about tonight. We’re going to see the other bands and get really fucking loaded [laughs].”

Conducted and written by Misereion.