Godhate aka Throneaeon are one of my favourite Band when it comes to American inspired Death Metal from Sweden. Some months ago Swedish Fuckers released their second full length "Godhate" and I hope you all got a copy! If not: DIE!!! Walzing, Blasting, Roling Thundering - you all get it here! I was in contact with mainman Tony Freed speaking bout Throneaeon, "Godhate", Blasphemy, Christcrushing and other thing which makes life so wonderful and positive, hahaha. Read On!!! (Interview was done one day before Gay-mas 2003 - Marcus)

Hahaha Tony, you rotten Bastard of a Swedish death metal lunatic, what's up in your hometown and how do you feel now?

Hahaha, speaking to you, you madman, feels like having a knife towards my throat… Well, it´s shitmass tomorrow and that is as always… A mess. Too many obligations and restrictions. I just like it in front of my TV with a nice drink. I actually hate it when it comes to the social point of being forced to be nice to each other. But on the other hand. We have a lot of snow today and it´s really cold outside. The way I like it.

What's up in Godhate camp actually? Tell me and our readers some blasting news!

There´s a lot going on… first of all and the greatest news are that the latest album, “Godhate”, that was put on hold is finally about to be released. It will be released during the beginning of 2004. The bassist on the Godhate album has been replaced because of major attitude problems. The new member is the angry man himself, Clabbe Ramberg. And we are now working on new material for a follow-up to “GODHATE”.

Your new Longplayer “Godhate” is a fist in every Christians face but I think you know that, hahaha. Congratulation from my side for the album!

Thanks! My fist goes out to all organized religions that denies mans free will. Christianity, Islam or whatsoever… And my power and resistance are focused against the authorities of god more than on the separate individual. Priests, prophets or whatsoever
that uses religion to abuse mans insecurity. And this goes not only for the Christian authorities , even though they come in the first place as I live in a country with such people around me.

You had several line up changes in the last months! Who is gone? Why they are gone? Who is new? And who is now in Godhate?

I don´t know anything about several… Our drummer has been a bit dizzy and have had a hard time to decide whether to be a part of GODHATE or not. But our bassist Mange Wall is gone. He had some fuckin´ bad attitude and I couldn´t keep my mouth shut. So it turned out that he joined another band and we had to replace him. Hahaha. I´m more than happy about that! The new bassplayer is Clabbe Ramberg. And the other members are me, Tony Freed-guitars & vocals, Jens Klovegård- guitar and Roger Sundquist- drums.

4. The ultimate question: Why did you change the name from Throneaeon in Godhate?

I had have that idea for a long time… I was satisfied with the name Throneaeon, but sometimes I felt frustrated when people asked me more than twice what I said and what it meant. It was obviously a too complicated name, which probably restrained us from reaching new fans. And after more than 10 years in the scene we saw this result clearly. People obviously and understandable found it to hard to understand, spell and pronounce. So it should have been stupid to continue with a name just because we have had it for so long. I still like Throneaeon, but I accept the fact that we can´t gain more with it. Godhate is still the same band and the same music as Throneaeon, so no one should be disappointed.

You changed the label. From Hammerheart now to Forensick! The reason that you changed the label? How many copies did you sell from “Neither of Gods”? What do you expect from Forensick?

Nothing really. I mean, of course I expect the album to be available for those who are interested, but nothing more than that. And as mentioned earlier, the album has been put on hold and we will decide in a few weeks what label that will release the album. But we decided to leave Hammerheart records because we couldn´t come to an agreement that would satisfy us both, even though I think that´s what they wished for. I`m not really sure about the sales figures, but the “Neither …” album sold about 3000-4000 copies or something like that. Not so good, but it got released at the same time as Hammerheart had their major releases so we had some heavy albums to compete with.

6. What went wrong in your childhood that you only write satanic worshipping blasphemous lyrics and lyrics about slashing Christians, hahaha? Tell us a little bit about the lyrics on Godhate?

Hahaha. I have as long as remember been “evil” and the dark side has always enchanted me. It´s just who I am I guess… In my youth I got in contact with christianity and I didn´t fit in there so they made themselves enemies to me. It wasn´t my fault… They tried to stop me from all my “wrongdoings”, everything from masturbation, harming animals, hehehe, and asking too many negative questions about god. I found out that what they did wished for was to restrict me and limit me from evolution so I just told them to thrust their wicked faith up their asses. And it felt great!!! I´m blasphemous against all things that limits my will to live and evovle. Things that kills the living thought. But the subject in my lyrics is enlightenment. They are about my inner journeys. I have as far as I´m concerned only two songs on the new album that is blasphemous. That is “In loathing (for your god)” and “Genocide in Grace”.

Tony, some weeks ago (spring 2003) you should play in Wermelskirchen together with…Shit, forgotten, hahaha. You didn`t play there. What was the reason for that? Will you play in the near future in Germany? What are your live planes touring Germany?

As for now we are focused on writing new material and to get this album released. But of course we can do single shows or short tours. Nothing is planned though. Hopefully we can make some shows as soon as possible… The reason to why we cancelled the last tour was because I got sick and due to risk of infection.

The sound on “Godhate” is way more brutal than on “Neither of Gods”. Did you change the studio? Who did you record the album or was it your experience, so that you know what is god for Godhate and what not?

It's the same studio (Studio Underground) and the same engineer (Per-Olof Saether) as our previous albums. I rather say that it´s a result of experience. 𠇍ynamic” actually became the key word during the recording so that´s why the sound is so fucking great. What we did to find that out was to go back in time. We listened to the old AC/DC album Highway to hell and other old heavy metal albums and found them very dynamic. Most of the new death metal albums are so fucking flat, but these old AC/DC, Kiss, Judas Priest and Ozzy albums really had it. And it made us think of the possibilities to recapture old wisdom into present. So we increased the value of the bass guitar and made it work together with the bass drums. Our music has always been focused on the vocals and the drums and this was how it became obvious to us that we should stay on that line.

On “Neither Of Gods” were only a handful of songs in the vein that you follow now. I mean, tracks like “Oblivion”, “In Loathing (For Your God)”, “Laid To Waste”, “Genocide In Grace”, “Divine Soul” and at least “On The Highest Throne” are ways more straighter than your earlier material and standing on an higher level. This pure razorsharp walzing aggressive riffs kills me and the straight drums gives me the rest not to forget the blitzkrieg bass which pounds with no remorse on and on, hahaha. Is this the new Godhate way of playing Death Metal? Was this art of songwriting your vision for Godhate?

Yes, in the same way as it was a natural evolution. We wanted to do an aggressive, blasphemous and more straight forward album, but we knew it could result in a monotonic end product. So we had to be more open-minded than before. And it came natural for us to allow more different beats and riffs in order to find something that felt fresh for us. This resulted in for example “Divine Soul” which is one of the most different tracks, and “Blackwinged” along with “To forever be” which became the slow, emotional and dark tracks for the album. It was not an easy way to develop our sound, but I´m really pleased with the result.

Tell us a little bit about the scene in and around Västeräs! Are there other acts that were worth my mention? What`s up with playing live there? How many gigs did you play till now?

I guess we have played something like 100 gigs in and around Västerås. The scene is growing, but when it comes to signed bands there is only Godhate and a cool band called Vicious (you better check them) that perform this kind of music.

What was the best gig till now and what was the gig which will you better forget?

My best memory is the European tour we did with Benediction in 2001. It was a fantastic experience with a lot of drinking. But playing with bands like Dark Funeral, Entombed and The Haunted has been great moments too. The show I´d rather forget would be a gig we did in Karlstad, Sweden. I had a little too much booze and just happened to say some stupid things…hahahaha

What shows us the cover from “Godhate”? Is there a message behind?

The cover symbolizes “Heading Inwards” (second track on the album). The face symbolizes the awakening of a man. The blurry face is his fear. The hands symbolize the fusion of good and evil leading to the higher level of knowledge. And you can see a hand of a child trying to pull him back, symbolizing strength inside yourself and the innocence we inherit as a newborn child. It´s fucking hard to describe the cover and you can probably find a thousands of different meanings, but this is what it means to me.

Some reunions are here and there! I think about Death Angel, Nuclear Assault, Exodus etc. Did you see one of them in Sweden. How do you think about the reunions now? I for myself can say, I saw Death Angel back in 1990 and I saw them now and they are killer like years ago! One of the best live playing bands I ever saw? And, they can bring a fresh wind to the scene! Are you into Old School or should I ask, are you Old School?

I'm unfortunately very conservative when it comes to metal and I really like the old times better than the present. I prefer the old bands such as Slayer, Sodom, Dark Angel, Kreator, Vio-lence and the early death metal bands like Entombed, Funebre, Carnage, Nirvana 2002, before the new era. The spirit was more alive back then.
So in one way I'm against re-unions as it happens in this present, and in one way I like it. So if this is old-school, I haven't seen any of the reunions in Sweden.

How do you think about the U.S. megablast bands with a frog on vocals? Is this music for you?

Generally no! What I´ve heard 'til now, with few exceptions, has been pathetic garbage and I do not support it!!

Some years ago the press said about Throneaeon that you play in the Deicide vein, now we say that your guitars are more in the Vader vein than ever before and you lost the Deicide path! Can you live with that?

I guess I have to live with it, no matter what I like about it. But I would say you´re way out with this comparison. Some riffs may remind you of Vader, but overall I think it´s more varied than that. It might be true that the songs are less Deicide oriented but I think we´ve kept the spirit alive. I think the guitars are more personal and they cover a greater spectra. And our goal with this album was to make a varied, but still aggressive album and that is what it is. It follows in the footsteps of the “Neither of gods“ album, but more mature and with a more aggressive sound. But you will probably always be compared with others.

Tony, we at the end! You can tell us the best records you`ve bought in 2003, hahaha.

I bought some rare stuff like old Judas Priest and Accept on CD. I have had them on vinyl and unfortunately got myself rid of them. Today I bought “Bark at the moon” on CD which is one hell of a rare album.

What is your goal with Godhate?

World domination

What means Death Metal to you as musician and as person?

A lot of hard work and dedication for a few bottle of beers.

Ok brother in Darkness, that's all! Enough shit we have talked about, hahaha. Hope you are proud that you're again in our mag!!! Thanx for answering my boring questions! God luck for you with Godhate! See you anytime in Germany!!! Last word are yours!

Thanks to you Marcus!! And you guess I'm proud!!! Anyhow, hope to see you guys in Germany soon!!! All the fuckin' best from GODHATE to you true warriors out there. Keep supporting the true underground. Hail Satan!

Interview: Marcus