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| December 8th 1999 |
& AVULSED, one of the biggest (if it's not the bigger) totems of Spanish metal scene, have returned with an death metal massacre with the new album "Stabwound Orgasm". Brutal stuff, with a shocking cover, and we're expecting from them. Dave Rotten, the band leader and also the runner of biggest Spanish extreme metal label Repulse Records, tell us about the final result of the album. Are you entirely satisfied with the final result of recordings? Yeah, definitely! For this new output we tried to do our best in every aspect, starting from the compositions, which are way more mature, then the recording, which took place at Spacelab Studios in Germany, the mastering in San Francisco with James Murphy, and the cover art & layout which was done by danish artist Robert Sindermann. Everything was treated the best way possible to guarantee the best result, and in the end i can tell you that everything came out perfectly, just the way we expected. Tell us a little bit about your recent compilation "Seven Years of Decay". "Seven Years Of Decay" is just a CD which contains all our demos and rare stuff during the first seven years of existence of Avulsed. It was a Colombian label called Quirófano Prod. who  asked us to do this and we gladly
accepted. This is more a released dedicated to our most die-hard fans, because
it doesn't represent the current sound of the band, but shows our progression
during all these years. Looking back, tell us about the early days of Avulsed. When we started back in january '92 we were just three guys without any kind of musical experience, but with the addition of two guitarists and hard rehearsing, the band was taking form. It was easier back then, because the support in the underground was better, it was easier to sell demos, but now it seems like every band is releasing CD's and that demo-spirit is lost in some way. How is it going your side project Christ Denied? It's going well but slow. We did our first 7" EP/demo back in '94 and then recorded our first full legnth CD in late '95, which was released in '96. Since then, the only thing we've done was a 2-song recording which was supposed to be a split /"EP with Mortican, but now it's gonna be with Aborted from Belgium. Right now we're working on the composition of our 2nd CD which should be out in the year 2.000. It'll be the most brutal Death Metal recording ever done! No bullshit! Why did you quit all the experimentations you did in "Cybergore". How the fans accept that album? Just because it was that, just an experiment! We never intended to change our original style with Avulsed. "Cybergore" is just something we always wanted to do, but now, with the new album everybody can see we haven't changed our Death Metal roots! Fans have reacted in many different ways. Well, mainly in two ways: They loved it or they hated it. There was almost no medium point, but we knew that, so it was our risk! Why did you go to record "Stabwound Orgasm" in Germany instead your homeland? Because we were tired of always getting average productions. With our first album it was OK, people liked it but everybody complained about the weak production. Now with a strong produciton, nobody can complain about it, only about the music itself, but so far everybody likes the new album, so now everything's perfect! Initially the album was planned to be recorded at Sunlight Studios in Sweden. Why did you give up in using this studio? Well, initially we wanted to go to Abyss Studios, but then we didn't like such clean & sinthetic sound. After that, we thought about Sunlight, but we didn't want to take the risk of sounding like these typical Sunlight-bands, you know, so we decided to use these German studios because nobody recorded there before, and they were good enough to guarantee a good production! How was to have James Murphy mastering the tapes of the material. How do you see the meaning of his work? Actually it was quite easy to contact him. Once I found his telephone number, I simply called him and asked how much was it for the mastering. The price was more than reasonable, so I didn't hesitate it, because he's a guy with a big experience in the Death Metal camp and also he would give us another point of warranty to our work. His job was excellent, he got our album and made it sound thicker, wider and really powerful! Do you have a lot of the band's olf stuff available only in vinyl format. Do you plan to put these materials available in CD format too in the future? Well, actually that stuff is on CD now! A colombian label called Quirófano prod. offered us to release all our demos & rare stuff on a CD and the result is a nice digi-pack called "Seven Years Of Decay" containing 16 songs of the band that shows our development since '92 until '99. Why did drummer Furni quit the band? He didn't really quit!! It was in september '98 that he told us to start looking for another drummer because he wanted to play guitar in another musical project. Then, after three months and testing five drummers, he asked us to re-join the band, because he didn't find anything for his project either. In fact he never left the band, because he continued rehearsing & playing live with us during these three months. How many drummers were tested? Yes, as I told you, we tested five drummers. Some didn't fit our style and others, despite the fact that they were good drummers, didn't fit with our mentality. You know, it's not just a matter of how good you are, but also how are you as person and your availability for gigs, etc... it's not that easy to find a musician for a band that wants to take things a little bit serious. How are the things going on with the new line-up? Do you believe that this line-up is established now? Our last line-up change was our bass player in November '98. Now I think the line-up is established because we all are really good friends and have enough musicla habilities to do what we really want. I don't know if this situation will change in the future, because you know, sometimes your life changes because some factors that has nothing to do with music. Which were the best shows you already did? I think the two shows we did in Venezuela back in September, were really good. last weekend we played one in sevilla which was one of our best. Also in the Czech Republic, with Deeds of Flesh and Incantation, it was a great show! Regarding the future tour plans, tell us more about it. We're actually touring Spain. We're playing 9 weeks one after another (only on weekends) and we'll continue after x-mas, but in the year 2.000 we might be touring the whole Central and South  América,
who knows! We also might be touring Europe for the third time along with
a big band, but that's not sure yet, we'll see. I believe that the lenght of almost an hour is rare to see in a brutal Death Metal album, like "Stabwound Orgasm". Tell us more about the decision of making a long album. Initially we just wanted to do a 40-45 minutes album, you know, the typical thing, but when we recorded all the songs, we decided to include them all because our fans deserved more than just a typical album. There has been a long period of three years between one album and another and we wanted to offer only Avulsed songs to our fans, no covers! Also the fact that our music is a mixture of brutality and melody, helps, because when you listen to our album, you see it's pretty catchy, and you can listen to it during more than 50 minutes without getting bored! Who created the cover of "Stabwound Orgasm"? A danish artist called Robert Sindermann. He already did the cover for Anasarca and I knew that he was really good with computer designs, so I asked him, explained what I wanted, and he did a perfect job! Not only the front cover, but the complete layout as well! Don't you believe that this cover will shock some people? What do you expect regarding reactions from censhorship, for example? Yes, that's exactly what we want to achieve! We want people to get shocked when they wee the cover. I think an album is such an important thing for a band that it has to be taken in a serious way. It represents a lot for the band! I'm sure that many people will get interested in the band because of the cover! As for censorship, I don't really give a fuck! I still haven't got any problems about that... How would you compared "Stabwound Orgasm" with your previous material? The new songs are much better structured. They're more catchy, more intense, they have more brutal parts and also more melodic riffs than before. The vocals are more varied, always on the brutal side, of course. We tried to do different songs, I mean, when you listen to the entire album, you can see that each song has its own identity. One song is not like the next one and that one not like the next, etc, but they all sound like Avulsed! How is the scene in Spanish nowadays? Quite good I'd say! We're getting more and more good bands everyday, but the problem is that they don't know how to promote themselves outside of Spain because they don't speak any english at all. What are the favorite bands of current scene in your opinion? The best bands in my opinion are Night to Die, Wormed, Golgotha, Chamber of Shred, Reincarnation, Cerebral Effusion, Asgaroth, Amalthea, Uncreation and of course Christ Denied! Which are the acts that influenced on your style? We're influenced by everything we listen to, not only Death Metal, but well, basically let's say that we're more influenced by early 90's Death Metal bands. However, we try to avoid sounding like any other band in concrete. Are you the frontman of Avulsed and also runs the label Repulse Records. Tell us more about the label, which seems to be growing each day past. Do you have time available to sleep? [laughs] No, I don't have that much time to sleep [laughs]!! But I try to work with both things at the same time. I just practice with Avulsed 2-3 days a week after working at Repulse and I play gigs only on weekends, so it's not a big problem. Only sometimes I go on tour, but that's only once a year or more. What are the future plans of Avulsed and Repulse Records? Future plans for Avulsed includes a live CD for the year 2.000. We're probably going to record it here in Madrid on December 4th and it should be released by Quirófano Prods sometime next year. As for Repulse Records, we're actually going to release the 5th album of Gothic Sex, "Rarities", and after that the debut of the legendary Nunslaughter, "Hell's Unholy Fire", and the 2nd album of the Mexican Disgorge, "Forensick". Please leave us your final message and thanx a lot for your attention. Thanx Alonzo for the interview! I hope the new Avulsed will be well received in Brasil and let's see if we can play over there some day! It'll be great! If we have played in Venezuela, why not in Brasil? If we play, beware, you'd better prepare yourselves! For any info on the band, just send us an e-mail or check our website! URL: http://www.repulserecords.com/. | ||
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