Hi Tobias, Marcus from German Carnage'zine here. What's up in VOMITORY camp? Tell us some news!

Hi Marcus! Right now we're busy with rehearsing for our European tour, which takes off in a week and a half from this writing moment. The other bands on this tour are AMON AMARTH, CALLENISH CIRCLE, SINS OF OMISSION and DIABOLICAL. We will be out for about a More good news is that we will play at Wacken Open Air this summer. It'll be the first time we play there so we're really looking forward to it! We're also having the release-party for "Blood Rapture" tomorrow (Friday 12^th of April), which will be a helluva blast! We'll put some pictures from the party on our website, www.vomitory.net, afterwards. So anyone who's curious just surf in our site and have a look.

Congratulation to your new bonebreaker "Blood Rapture". Thanx a lot that you didn't write a lame track, lame tracks destroy the atmosphere of a real death metal album! Since "Redemption" you'll give only full speed ahead. Where do you get the inspiration and aggression to write only fast and brutal stuff?

Thanks for those kind words! We get inspiration from everything we listen to, in one way or another. But there are a few bands that are more important to us when it comes to writing songs, and some of those are SLAYER (of course!), VADER, NAPALM DEATH, TERRORIZER, BOLT THROWER, old ENTOMBED, GRAVE and CARNAGE. I think we really found our style around "Redemption" and "Revelation Nausea" and we're really comfortable with it. We think death metal should be fast and brutal so that's just the way our songs turn out.

The sound is fucking mindblasting. Henrik Larsson did a great job again. The vocal sound is definitely better as on "Revelation Nausea", louder. Are you satisfied with "Blood Rapture"?

Yeah, we're really satisfied with the production on "Blood Rapture" and we think it's the best sounding Vomitory album so far. It really works fine between Henrik Larsson and us and we will most definitely work with him on the next album as well. The material on this one feels even more solid, yet more varied, than any of our previous albums. The vocals are not only louder on "Blood Rapture", Erik has also developed a lot as a vocalist.

How are the reactions from press and fans at this time?

Excellent! The press people we've talked to in interviews so far has been really excited about the new album and we're dying to go on tour and see how the reaction from the fans will be. Are you satisfied with the work from Metal Blade? Yes, they're doing a great job. They seem to care a lot about every single band on their label. After we signed for Metal Blade things started to happen for us. We

got the possibility to go tour with bigger acts and the promotion for our albums are really great these days.

Where do you see the differences to "Revelation Nausea"?

As I mentioned earlier, the biggest differences between "Blood Rapture" and "Revelation Nausea" are that Erik has a far stronger voice, the whole production sounds better and the songs are more solid but slightly more varied.

I think Vomitory is a live killer act. As I saw you on the x- mass festivals in December last year you blow the other acts away with your tight and aggressive performance. What were the reactions from this tour with Cannibal Corpse and Dark (haha) Funeral?

Thanx! The reactions were pretty good but it's quite difficult to be the opening act on such a festival with those bigger acts. But sure, it was fucking great and we had a great time, part from Erik and me got sick the last week of the tour. Both Cannibal Corpse and Dark Funeral are really cool guys and it's a true pleasure being on tour together with them. On the X-mass festivals we had the pleasure to share bus with Marduk and it's very difficult to get bored along with them!

As I met you on that tour in Essen Frederik was very drunk. I think later he puked the bus from cost to coast, right, haha?

As I remember it, most of us were drunk in Essen, ha! Erik was really drunk that night and almost broke his leg when he fell in the stairs in the Cannibal/Krisiun tour bus. And Vomitory, Dark Funeral and Marduk had a serious party backstage!

Tell us a little bit about the lyrics on "Blood Rapture"!

Erik and Ulf write all our lyrics, alone or together. Actually, we don't consider the lyrics that important to us. The music is the most important to us, and to have a good vocal arrangement so they fit the music in the best possible way. We consider the vocals as an extra instrument that adds brutality and intensity to a song, rather than a voice that carries forward a message or opinion that we want to spread. We don't have such lyrics. We write about war, death, gore and some religion. But of course we still try to write as good lyrics as possible, definitely. Still we get surprisingly lot of good comments on our lyrics, which is fucking great!

The cover from B.R. is fantastic. It's the best cover from VOMITORY till now. Which idea stands behind the cover? Is there a reference to the title track?

Cool to hear that you like the cover artwork! I talked to a guy last week that thought it looks childish! Well, people are different… I agree that this is the best cover artwork we've had so far. Until "Revelation Nausea" we've used the same guy for all our covers, including the demos, and now we felt it was about time to try someone new to do the cover. Ulf came up with the original idea for the cover and made an awesome sketch, from which the artist started. The cover relates to the lyrics to the title track, yes.

The playing time is really short. Why not one more track or a coversong?

Yeah, it's only 32:43! We like when albums with brutal, fast and intense music are quite short. If they're too long I think it's a risk that it'll be too much for the listener and I definitely agree with you that if there's too much material on a death metal album it may take away the brutality and intensity. So we prefer to make short albums, with other words – Hard Death Metal Fists In Your Teeth! To have a cover song on the album just to fill the playing time sucks big time.

What do you think about the scene in Sweden? In the last time you have so wonderful acts like Immersed in Blood, Nominon, Throneaeon, Insision (hä,hä) or Kaamos.

Nowadays it seems like the Swedish bands, and not only the death metal bands, are trying to find their own identity and sound more than they did earlier, and that's a very good sign. I also think that the average quality of Swedish music has increased as well. But the Swedish club scene is still a disaster! There are almost no good venues to play at in this country, except for the bigger cities like Stockholm and Gothenburg. The audience is also a lot different compared to the rest of Europe and I think that maybe is because the audience here includes so many musicians, which makes it a bit more reserved and in a way very boring. We've played with Kaamos and Throneaeon a couple of times and they’re really good live acts.

What's up with KAAMOS? Do you have some news about them?

Last time I talked to the guys was in February when I saw them live. Then they had just finished the recording of their debut album. I don't remember when it was going to be released or on which label, but I'm really looking forward to it!

Do you know something about your former members?

Ronnie Olson (vocals 1989 - 1997) is now playing bass and singing in a band called TURBOCHARGED. Bengt Sund (bass 1991 - 1993) is married, have kids and short hair. He doesn't play at all anymore. Thomas Bergqvist (bass 1993 - 1996) lives in Gothenburg, wears trenchcoat, short hair and makes a lot of money at his job. He doesn't play anymore either. Jussi Linna (vocals 1997 - 1999) doesn't play in any band, but has a few solo projects I guess.

Something others. Are you into ice hockey? Which is your favourite team?

I’m not into sports that much, but I really like ice hockey. My favourite hockey team is Färjestad, which hails from Karlstad where I live. Last week they won the Swedish championship. Hell yeah!

What are you hearing at that point?

The brilliant "British Steel" from JUDAS PRIEST.

Tobias, you are drummer but you write all tracks for Vomitory. Usually guitarists write songs. Are your guitarists so lame songwriters, can't they write songs, aren't they interested to write songs or are you to fast in songwriting? Tell us a little bit about the songwriting process in Vomitory!

I also play the guitar so it's not that strange that I write most of the songs. All of the others contribute with stuff here and there as well. Urban used to write some really brutal stuff back in the demo days, but lately he hasn't come up with anything. I don't know why. I have nothing against writing all our songs, I really enjoy it and maybe the others feel comfortable with having me to write the songs and don't want to interfere. Usually I finish a song completely (except the lyrics) before I play it to the others. Then we rehearse it and feel how the song feels so we can do any necessary changes before Erik or Ulf starts writing the lyrics to it.

What will the future bring for Vomitory?

Well, first off is the European tour in April/May and then we look forward to Wacken Open Air. After that we'll probably start writing and rehearsing new material for our fifth album.

O.K. Tobias, that's all at this point of time. I wish you good luck for the tour (see you in Essen again). Greetings to the other members! Last words are yours! Cheers and Grind`on!
Marcus

Thank you for the opportunity, Marcus, and hope we can have a beer together in Essen! People are very welcome to visit the official Vomitory website. Cheerz & hail Satan!

Contact:
www.vomitory.net

Interview: Marcus