CHARNIER interview 2007

Really impressed I was when I heard the first demo of French CHARNIER. Not that it was absolute original death metal but the intensity of this brutal death outfit should occur some blasting promising outcoming stuff.
Here some words by this infernal trio with massive killing capacity.

1-Infernal greetings to you all in CHARNIER. Please, can you sum up the band history and introduce us to your first 2006 release “Eradication Massive”. Are you satisfied by this first carnage?
J’Hell’M : Hail to you !! The band started with the meeting of J’HellM (guitar/Vox) and Charognard (Drums) in November 2000. We began with thrash/death influenced songs, then after several changes of line up, we composed more death metal influenced stuffs…PK joined us in 2005 and we recorded our first demo in summer 2006. For a first try we can say that we are satisfied even if it’s not perfect..
PK : We are satisfied, but we know we can do something better next time, because we have learn a lot of things with the recording of this CD

2-Why do you play that kind of fast brutal death metal? I mean it’s quite uncommon in our nowadays French scene to perform such a style. How do you manage of not getting infected by metalcore or any modern metal crap some fucking greedy labels are displaying nowadays?
J’Hell’M : because we love it !! We’re a death metal band and we don’t want to play
Heavy death metal or so called modern metal. No clear vocals or female vocals in CHARNIER. Extreme music for extreme people !!
Charognard : What’s we like in that kind of fast brutal death metal, it’s that there is no compromise, and when you are listening to this, you feel rage. This rage is like our passion for this music. As you say, there is not a lot of french bands who perform an extreme music because metal bands prefer playing sweet and melodic metal. We’ll never be infected by this shit of metalcore and modern metal because we don’t make music for money!
PK : We play music we like, that’s all.

3-Do you know and like bands such as IMPERIAL SODOMY, DISASTER and KRONOS who play brutal death metal? Are you also into grindcore & grind/death? Do you feel close to these bands and styles?
J’Hell’M : I know IMPERIAL SODOMY and KRONOS and I like their work. We have a grind/death band called VAGINAL HOLOCAUST so we can say that we are close to this band and style more than melodic death metal scene.

4-“Eradication Massive” is an intense death metal demo with pounding drums. Did Charognard always have this style of drumming since the beginning of CHARNIER? Does he always have used triggered drums?
Charognard : At the beggining of CHARNIER, I wanted to play fast and brutal, but I wasn’t good enough. I played a few songs and I was tired. I have worked very hard in order to have this style of drumming and my progress encourage me to continue by this way. It’s the 1st time I use triggered sounds. But the drums were recorded with acoustic sounds. It has been triggered in studio during the mixing and I’m very happy with this pounding sound! It sounds like war and eradication!!!

5-CHARNIER remained a three pieces band. I think the adding of a 2nd guitarist unleashing some deadly guitar solos would make your music sicker. Do you agree with this? According to you which things can be improved in CHARNIER?
J’Hell’M : yes, I think you’re right, a second guitarist could bring more power and sickness in our music but infortunately we haven’t found him yet and believe me, we really try…
Charognard : Of course, a 2nd guitarist can improve our music but we’re looking for a serious guitarist for 6 years!
PK : We just need to find the good guy, that’s not easy.

6-Which bands do you feel close to musically speaking? I would name South American bands such as KRISIUN and ABHORRENCE, and US stuff like MORBID ANGEL (“Covenant”) and early DEEDS OF FLESH.
J’Hell’M : the bands you named have influenced us but we can add bands like VADER, LUCIFERION and many from European death metal scene
Charognard : KRISIUN, ABHORRENCE, MORBID ANGEL.

7-How do you intend to promote CHARNIER in the coming months? Will you focus only on the French scene or will try to get in touch with foreign countries by trading for example? How do you consider the use of internet towards promotion?
PK : We will play live concert as much as possible, we are interesting by foreign coutries too. An american journalist have recently contact us... we answer to any people from any countries, it’s very important to show that France have some great extreme metal bands!!!

8-All your lyrics are written in French. Never been interested in English ones? Is it a will of strengthening your identity? The vocals are done in the old school way; an aggressive but with an understandable manner. Very different from US brutal death metal with their gory voices. Can you comment this way of singing?
J’Hell’M : I write in French because it’s my language and I think it’s a powerful and aggressive language for extreme metal. So my English is too bad for good lyrics. For my vocals I’m more influenced by band like VADER than DISGORGE for example.

9-Don’t you fear that your extreme lyrics, your band name and the demo title can create some misunderstanding by narrow-minded people that can reduce death metal as Nazi shit? Have you ever faced censorship or local authorities because of CHARNIER extreme imagery? Some years ago, black metal had a bad reputation because of sulphurous gigs.
J’Hell’M : for the band name (Massgrave in English), I don’t know why people can reduced “massgrave” to the second world war events. From the beginning of the humanity mankind has created some massgrave in all the wars and even while the pest plague taken Europe in the middle age so it’s stupid to think that “massgrave” is a “nazi” word. We play extreme music so we write extreme lyrics that’s all. If people have some problem with that fact I don’t fucking care because that’s the way it is. They just have to listen sweet music with sugar lyrics not death metal or black metal!!
PK : We haven’t had any problems for the moment. We have no politics implication, and we don’t want it, we just play death metal, that’s all... if some people can’t understand that, it’s a good proof of their stupidity...

10-You are from “Les Bouches du Rhône » (13), how is the scene in your area actually? Which bands do you share the stage with and sound promising? Can you give us some infos about black metal band URIS ASTYR.
PK : There’s some great band here... ARTEFACT, MALLEFICUM ORGIA, NOT A BRAIN, and many more. But the problem of most of these bands is that they don’t see further than our region. MALLEFICUM ORGIA is an excellent band, and it’s one of the older french black metal band, but they are unknown out of our area... We recently share a stage with ANNIHILATION, it’s a good new band from Marseille, their music sounds good and they are very young, I think they will do a good stuff in future. URIS ASTYR is the band I come from before playing with CHARNIER, it’s a good symphonic black metal band which was created on 1997. I started to play with them on September 2004 and I have recently left the band because I have not the time for 2 bands, so I was obliged to make a choice... I have chosen CHARNIER because I have an intense feeling with this band... but it was a difficult choice, I love URIS ASTYR too, these 2 years passed with this band will stay in my mind forever...

11-Are you supported by local metalheads? Can you briefly talk about the “Bataillon Thrash” association? More widely, do have any interest in our death/black/thrash French scene?
PK : Yeah! Local metalheads support us, and we thanks them for that all the time we can! (this is one more!) Let’s hope that French metalheads will support us too! About Bataillon Thrash, they organize concerts and support the local bands, they done a good work.
Of course we have interest in metal french scene, I support and buy the CDs of many artist, we have a very good scene, I love bands like CARNIVAL IN COAL, MALADAPTIVE, STEREOXYDE, HEOL TELWEN, ANOREXIA NERVOSA, CRUSHING BLOW, and many more... All these bands could have a bigger succes if the french metalheads have a minimum of interest for french bands, I have heard that CRUSHING BLOW have sold more albums in Brasil than in France... isn’t it incredible?

12-You covered VADER‘s “Carnal” song. Do you like the actual musical orientation of VADER? Are there any other covers you have done in the past?
PK : I love their last album “impressions in blood”, it’s one of the best death metal album I have bought recently.
J’Hell’M : yes their last album is a killing album !! “Carnal” is the only cover song we have done for the moment.

13-Do you feel concerned by veteran bands; for example what do you think of latest releases of SLAYER “Christ Illusion” and DEICIDE “Stench of redemption”?
PK : “Christ illusion” is a good SLAYER’s album I think, but as strange as it can seem, I prefer “God Hates Us All”...
J’Hell’M : yeah it’s strange…”Christ illusion” is a good album but my favourite is still “Reign in blood” the latest DEICIDE album is one of the best they’ve done since many years I think.

14-Can you understand this so called crisis where labels complaining about download abuses and CD rips even though these same labels keep releasing dozens of albums every month with a certain amount of shit?
PK : I think someone who download and never buy CDs is not someone who will buy CDs anyway... before internet there was audio tapes... if someone want to copy a CD and don’t want to buy it, with or without internet he will find a solution to do it... For the other people (the most) downloading is just a way to listen an album before buying it. I think that true metal fans buy the CDs they like. So the downloading abuse is a false problem, and as you say, the day the labels will sell less shit, they will sell more CDs... But the problem is that the labels are the only ones who decide which band is shit and which band is not... Hope that one day, they will decide that we are not shit!

15-What are you listening to while answering my questions? Do you have any album to recommend to our readers?
Charognard : I’m listening to KRISIUN : Live Armageddon, Fucking Hell!!! You may listen to BENIGHTED. It’s a french brutal death band. Their last album is really excellent.
PK : KATAKLYSM “the arms of devastation”, KATATONIA “the great cold distance”, HEOL TELWEN “An diez ruz”, MALADAPTIVE “maladaptive”, VADER “impressions in blood”, DIR EN GREY “Agitated screams of maggots”, METALLICA “...and justice for all”... that’s the CDs I listen the more these last times.
J’Hell’M : I listen SUFFOCATION’s latest album….personally I recommend the first LUCIFERION album “Demonification – the manifest” which is for me a death metal cult album !!

16-I let you conclude this interview by talking about your projects for 2007. Thanks for your time. Keep it fucking brutal!
J’Hell’M : For 2007 we hope many shows everywhere in France and why not in foreign countries…we work for that. A second demo will surely be released with more songs in few months.
Thanks to you for the support!! And don’t forget that you’re welcome in the delicious world of CHARNIER!!
Stay brutal!!!

http://www.myspace.com/charnierdeathmetal