S:T ERIK interview 2008

This interview is a quite special one. How it happened is really incredible. I was attending at a gig in a dirty cave of Bordeaux when I met two guys among which one is a member of DEVIANT (death metal band from Sweden). We talked a bit about his band and ended up talking about his new project S:T ERIK in a totally different style, more doom metal oriented. I kept in touch with Magnus (guitar) to know more about it and here are his words.

1-Hi Magnus! To start this interview, well give me your comments about your life in Bordeaux (France) as you are actually there to learn some French, right? How do you behold the way of life there, the people and our habits? Are you accustomed or are there things that you don’t understand or can’t stand?

Hey there, well, you’re right I’m right now living here in Bordeaux for almost half a year to learn some French and to experience some of your culture and the French way to do things, like a vacation with benefits you know. I do appreciate and like the things we’ve been up to this far in France, what can I say – most of the people I’ve met have been really nice, you have a lot of beautiful places to visit and a really nice countryside and of course a lot of cheap booze (at least compared to Sweden)! But what’s up with all the dog-crap in the streets? That’s fucked up, hehe.

2-Some people may be surprised but you’ve been a member of the Swedish death metal DEVIANT which has recently released a 3”CD called “Apathyphus” on Nuclear Winter Records. Is it your last recording, a kind of testament from the band, or do you have some more songs left for further releases? What led to the decision to put an end to such a promising act like DEVIANT?

I wouldn’t go as far as to declare Deviant as dead, it’s more like we are not that much of an active band nowadays and we don’t have any actual concrete plans for the future. ‘APATHYPHUS’ was written when some of the members of the band were suffering through some physical conditions as well as some personal lows, something that you might have noticed if you’ve read the lyrics to the EP. It was the band at its best regarding the aspects of composing music and making ourselves useful when handling our instruments, a much more structured and tight recording if you compare it to our debut album, Larvaeon. That’s how Deviant looked like back then in Jan ’06. Shortly after the recording session me and my brother, Johan (lead guitarist), fed up with our home town, left it and we haven’t really been home at the same time since and I guess that’s one of the pieces of the ‘Deviant-puzzle’ that needs to be in place if some new music is going to be made and recorded.

3-“Apathyphus” was the second release with the cooperation of Nuclear Winter Records. This label is mostly dedicated to old school and obscure releases. DEVIANT mixed old school elements with more modern ones and with an intense approach at the edge of brutal death metal. How came you get offered a deal with Anastasis? Do you like the stuff he released so far?

I think it was Johan that got contacted by Anastasis through some friends that we had in common. It should have been by the time we released our first demo, not sure though. Anyway, he told us he liked our shit and since our home made CD-version of our debut demo sold out really fast he offered us to release the demo CD on tape, then named “Tools of Termination”, same name as the first track of the demo. I think it’s sold pretty well and we really appreciate the work and support Anastasis have dedicated to our band, great guy.

Yeah, Nuclear Winter released and is still releasing a lot of cool stuff, Nuclear Winter (the band) just to mention one of them. I remember how we listened a lot to the DELVE and VERMINOUS releases and I remember we really thought they hade some serious good shit going on, don’t think they are still active though which is too bad.

4-About the “Apathyphus” format, who choose to release it as a 3”CD, quite a surprising small release, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you put an option for a 7”EP for example or a split CD would have been cool too?

Don’t think we had anything to do with the decision behind making the release a 3”CD, Anastasis just asked us if it was OK and we thought it sounded kind of funny and since we’d never released a CD in that format before we went for it. We’ve been talking of releasing some of our material on vinyl, so if there’s an underground label out there that wants to put out the ‘APATHYPHUS’ EP on a 7” vinyl or something, throw us an e-mail – haha! A split CD would have been cool too, but I think I and the rest of the guys prefer “proper” one-band releases actually.

5-Sweden has always been prolific concerning the death metal scene and today it’s still the case with conservative bands like VERMINOUS or KAAMOS (RIP), and with more brutal bands like INSISION or VISCERAL BLEEDING. Can you name some worthy newcomers? During our talking you mentioned SEPTIC BREED; can you tell me more about them?

Septic Breed has been dead for a few years now which is too bad since they were a really promising act and really nice guys too. One of many promising underground bands that you’ve got to listen to is INVIDIOUS (ex- KATALYSATOR). They play old school death metal in the vein of all the evil and dirty bands that were around when the scene took shape. Their recordings sound like they were recorded back in ’91 or something. This is kinda interesting since I don’t think any of the guys in the band have turned 18 yet, but be sure to check it out – really evil and retro death metal. Unfortunately, I haven’t been digging deep into the Swedish underground lately so I’m not as up to date with all the new bands and releases as I used to be… bet you know a lot more than me when it comes to Swedish underground death metal!

6-Let talk about your actual project which is called S:T ERIK, some doom metal oriented stuff, started out by ex-members of DEVIANT and DOUGLAS FIR. What kind of music DOUGLAS FIR was playing before their split? When was born S:T ERIK? What is the moniker’s meaning?

Douglas Fir was a stoner/rock ‘n roll band that grew tired of the music they made and decided to start up a new band with me in the line-up, this in mid ’06, then called DOOMKYRKAN (I guess you have to be Swedish to really appreciate and understand that name). We rehearsed a couple of times, added EB (Deviant) to the drum spot since the first drummer moved to Australia. We then entered a friend’s studio and recorded the four finished songs that we had back then, three of ‘em can be found on the demo that we released in March ‘07.

S:t Erik was an old Swedish king that lived in our hometown Uppsala in Sweden around 1000 years ago. He went north in the name of god a couple of times, trying to Christianize Scandinavia and Russia, killing a lot of people, got killed himself and was made a saint by the pope at the time. It’s an interesting story; check it out on wikipedia.org or something if you’re into ‘medieval’ history and shit. Oh, and the name of our singer is Erik too. The demo title, Upsala, is the ancient spelling of the name of our hometown.

7-So in November 2006 was recorded a three tracks demo in a traditional doom metal way, reminding some BLACK SABBATH, CATHEDRAL, REVEREND BIZARRE, etc… The sound of this promo is rather good and I guess a full release is planned in the coming months, right? Beside alcohol and the bands mentioned above, what is the main fuel for members regarding inspiration and song-writing? Also can you give us few words about the lyrical contempt?

A full-length is being written, composed and decomposed as we speak but we’ll take our time and will when time allows us release something that’s going to blow peoples heads off. We want it to be something worth listening to more than a couple of times, and I must say the shit we’ve made this far is pretty damn good, haha.

The main fuel behind composing our music is a lot of thinking about, listening to and talking about different kind of music. We all listen to a great variety of music but Erik and Tomas who are the people behind most of the riffs are really into 70’s rock and also different kinds of evil music. The lyrics on the demo were written in an hour when we entered the studio and realized that we needed something concrete to spew out in the vocal-booth. Nothing much to talk about there, the lyrical aspect of the music is something that we’ve focused a lot on with our more recent material which also will show, hopefully.

8-The two first tracks of “Upsala” demo are rather doom metal oriented even though the third one is a bit more extreme, be it musically or vocally? How S:T ERIK can be situated in the doom metal sphere of today?

Good questions, I have never thought of it that way. The songs on the demo are greatly influenced by the fact that they were written and recorded during the first weeks or months in the bands existence. The last song, ‘The Green Hunter’ is a result of us wanting to make a really metallic doom-song built around an idea of how we wanted the ‘refrain’ to sound like. The most recent material we’ve created is still in the vein of the demo recording but more ‘doom’ if you will. The main part of us making music is the fact that we know what borders there are regarding the things we know that we don’t want to do. We just enter the rehearsal place and create the kind of music and noise we like and find interesting, I mean, there could easily be parts with blastbeats or twenty minutes of painful noise in our future recordings.

9-Wasn’t it hard for you to go through some different way of playing guitar? I mean you originally use to play some extreme death metal and now you are into some more rock n’ roll feeling with a different mood. Have you always feel easy playing both styles or did you need to adapt a bit before joining S:T ERIK?

Of course it’s different but not too hard, I’m not that talented or may I say skilled when it comes to technicalities and how to play things in a certain way and never really thought about the vast difference in terms of song structure and style of riffing. It just came naturally and I have never been playing exclusively death metal but rather a lot of different kinds of music, which maybe gives you diversity and a certain way to do things musically. Ok, that turned out to be a really stupid and indistinct answer, but I guess you get my point, not that interesting anyway, heh.

10-On the info sheet with the demo, there is a curious thing about the line-up; I mean the guy named Mats deals with what you called “noise”. What is that exactly? Is he holding keyboards or any effects like on the track “Voodoo dollhouse”? Are there boundaries you wouldn’t go over with the use of keyboards? I mean some bands sometimes really use keyboards with such awful sounds it can waste the music, not only black metal but more progressive acts like DREAM THEATER or more popular bands like CHILDREN OF BODOM have sometimes some puking sounds!

Mats place in the band is to be seen much clearer in a live situation where he’s building up a really evil and unpleasant atmosphere that fits our music like a glove. We try to use his sounds as a separate instrument or layer of the music rather than a instrument that goes hand-in-hand with the music. We chose to keep him and his noise on the down-low during the demo recording because we couldn’t really make it work as it was supposed to work in the studio. To clarify my point - we don’t really use keyboards; we rather use different kind of sounds, noises and sound effects to fortify or drown different layers of our music. You won’t see us using the keyboards like the bands you mentioned, that’s also the reason we don’t use the word keyboards because it’s just one of the elements in the noise-making process.

11-The fact you actually live in France, does it put S:T ERIK on hold in Sweden, or are you eventually replaced if the band play some gigs? Have you ever think of planning any gigs in France? If so, how would you set up the line-up?

Nah, the other guys are continuing as usual with song writing and the few shows we have booked are handled with some of our friends from Mother and Sun and Jeniferever stepping in as stand-in members. We actually planned to set up a show with S:t Erik here in Bordeaux but for some reason this town seems to be at the end of the world and you’ll have to pay a lot of money just to get the other guys here… I guess we’ll have to return when we are in this region at some tour or whatever in the future.

12-Do you see some cool gigs in Bordeaux recently? Which French bands you recently discovered attract your attention, whatever styles they play? Do you know the French RISING DUST? They have released a good album and it’s sometimes close to S:T ERIK, because of similar influences I think.

Yeah, we’ve been attending quite a few local shows actually. I like the fact that there are a lot of concerts and music related stuff going’ on all the time, even though we’ve come to realize that most of the concerts are completely uninteresting. The band that have impressed me the most is a band called BERLIN vs. BROOKLYN, guess you can label it as some kind of post-rock even though I don’ like to place bands in specified genres. Anyway, really cool music and such nice guys too. We will of course attend to the ENTOMBED show that some guy’s setting up in Pessac later this autumn. We’ll also go to the SUMA concert at the Heretic club the 19th of November, that’s some really heavy Swedish Doom and I would like to recommend everyone to go there and experience it live.

I’ve never listened to RISING DUST, but I will surely check ‘em out if I can get hold of some of their material here in Bordeaux.
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13-S:T ERIK’s style is 1000 miles away from DEVIANT’s one, but I would like you to ask if you could play in another extreme band in a near future? Are you tired of the extreme metal scene? Do you still find enjoyment in listening to new bands or do you consider the scene to be saturated and that everything has been done before, it’s just repeated again and again?

Yeah, I must say that I’ve grown tired of the extreme metal scene the last couple of years, why? Because there’s a lot of bands just repeating themselves and there’s really not much new, fresh extreme metal being made anymore. With this I mean all kinds of extreme metal even though I really like the new Old School Death Metal revival that’s going on nowadays. Recently I’ve been listening a lot to the very first MAYHEM and IMMORTAL releases, extreme metal when it was still kind of raw and had a special feeling to it all I you know what I mean, haha.

I have also been thinking of digging some more into the French underground, but until now my French have been non-existing so I guess I’ll have to look into that.

14-Magnus, let’s close this chapter of S:T ERIK beginning history (and about the epitaph of DEVIANT). I wish you the best with S:T ERIK. Hope you will improve your French, uh? Thanks a lot for your time and maybe see you next time in another improbable place in this improbable world! Last words are yours! Cheers!

Thanks for the interview, it was great fun. Yeah, my French is improving really fast, guess we’ll have to speak French next time we meet?!. Please do check out www.myspace.com/sterik and www.myspace.com/deviantsweden for some quality (?!) metal. Keep it real!