Swedish death metal act Taetre had just finished recording their latest album "Psychopath" when Nordavind had a chat with their front man, Jonas Lindblood.
Nordavind: You recently recorded the followup to your 2002 album "Divine Misanthropic Madness". Tell us a bit about the album.
Lindblood: The album was recorded and mixed in Los Angered Recording during the period July to November 2004 and will be called "Psychopath". It'll contain 10 new tracks plus an intro and an outro, and is more varied than earlier albums have been, songwise. The last album was very much "straight ahead", and so is this one, in a way, but the tempo varies alot more and the tracks on our new album are perhaps more mature as a whole than anything we have done before. But I wouldn't call it a sellout (laughs). We play as best we can, and we have pushed our limits a bit extra, which makes this album harder to play than our earlier ones, although we have easier parts in there as well.
The last album I think was a bit onesided, looking back at it, which I can't say about "Psychopath".
The lyrics are about my view on life and the reality that I live in, and my hate towards humanity and all of its miserable and pathetic forms. Not really MTV material.
N: What else is going on with Taetre?
L: At the moment, that's about it. We have a track on a new At the Gates tributealbum called "Slaughterous Souls", where we do an interpretation of the track "At the Gates", off of their "Gardens
of Grief" mini. This is something we did because we had the time, and we really wanted to be able to influence this album, mostly because people - in my opinion - people only ever talk about At the Gates' later material, whereas the earlier material is at least as good, in my opinion.
N: Any liveshows?
L: Live... Well.. We have played a few liveshows with different bands, through the years,
but it's not until after last year's tour with Diabolical and Defleshed that I think we got to a rather good level of live experience. Taetre has played about 40 gigs all in all, but the two weeks with those two bands was a great experience for us as a band. We got more routine, and of course it was really great to get out and play and to meet people that sang along to the songs and almost knew the lyrics better than us. (laughs) Sign lots of stuff. I felt a bit bad for a bunch of Germans that arrived too late to the gig and missed us. They came up to us after the gig and said, now we'll never be able to see you play live, but I said, sure you will, in about 5 years or so! (laughs)
Nordavind: You recently recorded the followup to your 2002 album "Divine Misanthropic Madness". Tell us a bit about the album.
Lindblood: The album was recorded and mixed in Los Angered Recording during the period July to November 2004 and will be called "Psychopath". It'll contain 10 new tracks plus an intro and an outro, and is more varied than earlier albums have been, songwise. The last album was very much "straight ahead", and so is this one, in a way, but the tempo varies alot more and the tracks on our new album are perhaps more mature as a whole than anything we have done before. But I wouldn't call it a sellout (laughs). We play as best we can, and we have pushed our limits a bit extra, which makes this album harder to play than our earlier ones, although we have easier parts in there as well.
The last album I think was a bit onesided, looking back at it, which I can't say about "Psychopath".
The lyrics are about my view on life and the reality that I live in, and my hate towards humanity and all of its miserable and pathetic forms. Not really MTV material.
N: What else is going on with Taetre?
L: At the moment, that's about it. We have a track on a new At the Gates tributealbum called "Slaughterous Souls", where we do an interpretation of the track "At the Gates", off of their "Gardens
of Grief" mini. This is something we did because we had the time, and we really wanted to be able to influence this album, mostly because people - in my opinion - people only ever talk about At the Gates' later material, whereas the earlier material is at least as good, in my opinion.
N: Any liveshows?
L: Live... Well.. We have played a few liveshows with different bands, through the years,
but it's not until after last year's tour with Diabolical and Defleshed that I think we got to a rather good level of live experience. Taetre has played about 40 gigs all in all, but the two weeks with those two bands was a great experience for us as a band. We got more routine, and of course it was really great to get out and play and to meet people that sang along to the songs and almost knew the lyrics better than us. (laughs) Sign lots of stuff. I felt a bit bad for a bunch of Germans that arrived too late to the gig and missed us. They came up to us after the gig and said, now we'll never be able to see you play live, but I said, sure you will, in about 5 years or so! (laughs)
N: On the track "The Razor Dreams" the lyrics have been written by somebody not in the band (namely me!), is this the first time that has happened?
L: Yes, this is the first time that somebody not in the band has done an entire song. We had another person writing parts of the lyrics for the song "Die With Me" off of our second album, and I finished it. As I told you, but the readers obviously don't know, your text fits very well into the whole concept and also fits my personal view on life. So it was an easy choice to use it. And I think it worked great.
N: You don't have a contract at the moment, any idea when "Psychopath" will be released?
L: Yes, that's a problem. The faster we get a record deal, the faster the album will be released. But if we were to sign a deal today it would still take some time before everything is ready. The album has to be pressed, covers have to be printed, and the whole promotion thing has to be set in motion. Our goal is that it should be available before the summer. If we just get a deal that we are satisfied with,
people will be able to buy this piece of gold called "Psychopath".
N: I find traces of both Slayer and Merciless in Taetre. What and who are you inspired by?
L: Both of those bands are favourites of ours. I might sound like a dictator when I say that my influences come first, but then, I write 99% of the music, arrange the songs, and write all the lyrics (apart from "The Razor Dreams", obviously) so what's in my head weighs a bit heavier than that of the rest of the band. I like Merciless, and I like Slayer. Maybe not their latest releases, but the early thrash stuff. I also listen to bands like Deicide, Dismember, Necrophagia, Dark Funeral, Static-X, W.A.S.P., Cathedral, Entombed, Carcass, Exhumed and alot of other bands. That should contribute something, at least. The lyrics are inspired by my own rotten life. My hate and my aggressions and my contempt for everything helps me to write personal lyrics about stuff that many choose not to write about. There's too much silliness in the Death Metal scene, and that is something I don't want Taetre to contribute to.
N: The Death Metal scene obviously isn't what it once was. Are there any bands you have noticed lately?
L: I'm not that involved anymore. These past few years I've mostly been busy drinking, threaten people and behaving like the fucking idiot that I am, but there are a few bands that I have noticed, but these bands are mostly bigger ones, that I just didn't listen to before. One example is Necrophagia, which I think are really good. I also listened to Godhate today, and they sounded real good as well.
When it comes to Black Metal, I heard a song by a band called Frostmoon Eclipse that I kinda liked. So, now I've spread the word about them as well.
Long ago, by Nordavind
Addendum: The album remains unreleased to this day.
Addendum: The album remains unreleased to this day.
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