FLESHCRAWL:
Interview with Sven Gross |
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| face to face interview by dalia di giacomo | |
| 15/06/2002 - Luzern - at
Wärchhof - concert with Fleshcrawl,
The Cranium, Sudden Death, Disinfest (reportage) |
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| ENJOY EVERY DAY OF YOUR LIFE | |
 from left to right: Sven Gross and Stefan pic taken by dalia di giacomo |
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| Dalia: We are here with Sven of Fleshcrawl before the gig they will perform this
evening at the Wärchhof in Luzern. Thank you so much for having found the time for this interview with Gryphonmetal. So, the first question is easy i think: Soulskinner is metal of German or Swedish style? Sven: Of course from German but we like the Swedish style, all the older bands like Entombed, Dismember or Unleashed they are a kind of heroes for us. We listened to a lot of their music and that's the way we want to play. It is typical to play Swedish death metal or American death metal , and in my opinion the Swedish one is the better one. Dalia: What about the German scene? Sven: I think nowadays it grows. A few years ago or whatever there were only a few bands but now there are a lot of bands and they communicate with each other, so actually there is a much better communication between the bands. Dalia: So there is a good communication for organizing gigs together as well? Sven: Yes, sure. It's like "you play in my town and i play in your town", it is a real cool underground and it grows every day more. Dalia: You took part of one of the biggest and hardest death metal tours together with another great new band from Germany like Disbelief and than Bolt Thrower and Benediction. So , is this also an example of the communication you have mentioned and your impressions about.. Sven: Yes , sure, nothing was planned, we just called the guys from Bolt Ttrower, we toured last year with them only four shows and we asked them "hey what's about a whole tour" and they said "yeah , we will contact a few bands which we like or prefer and then we call you back"... and then they called us back telling us "you are in" and that was really great. I don't know what about Disbelief and Benediction. It's a typical Bolt Thrower thing. Bolt Thrower don't accept any band they don't like, they tour only with bands they like and it's their choice which bands play with them on the tour, so we are very proud to have played on that tour. Dalia: So it was a great experience... Sven: Of course! Dalia: Why have you called your last successful CD in particular "Soulskinner"? Sven: There is no typical reason for that but we thought that ...... Soulskinner was a song, we don't need an idea for the song called Soulskinner and than we thought about a name for the album and we thought that Soulskinner was great and that way we called the CD with the name of a song. We don't like just to call the album "1 2 3" but give it a name which reflects even the name of a song on CD, so there is no great reason behind. Dalia: One of the biggest German metal magazine , the "Rock Hard", has written that "Soulskinner" is one of the best, if not the best, German death metal album ever... Sven: Oh, we are proud of that. You know, when you hear you are one, or you released one of the German best death metal albums you are very proud because, moreover, at the biginning we had a lot of great German death metal bands like Obscenity and everybody released the own albums, so when you are mentioned ten times in Dinamyte and Rock Hard you have to be proud. It is a hounor for us to be under the ten best albums in one month, and that's very cool for a death metal band from Germany. In Germany they look a lot to Norway, to Sweden and America, but the German death metal scene i think is very good, but in Germany the people don't look at the German scene that much..... Dalia: The prophet is nothing worth in his own country... Sven: Yeah, thats right! Dalia: Mike and Tobias have composed most of the tracks of Soulskinner... Who will compose the next songs? Sven: I think the guy with the best idea, not only Mike and Tobias have good ideas, everybody who has a good idea for a song or a title or lyrics or a good riff, and we listen to it and we say "hey it's cool" or maybe "no, it's crap, we don't like it", so i think it is a choice of the whole band, if we like a riff we take it if we don't like it we leave it... Dalia: So, yours is really a team work... Sven: Yeah, of course! on the booklet there are mentioned Mike and Tobias, that's no problem, because they are the main composers, when we meet at the rehearsal room and play, every of us can say "that is cool but a little bit faster or slower" or "try this or that", we talk about the music we make and so i think it's team work. Dalia: Your projects for the future?... studio, next album? Sven: At the moment we don't have an idea at 100%, when we want , i say want, to do the next recording, but we had a really good experience last time, it was a cool atmosphere and the producer was like a brother in metal, you know, he was the sixth person in our band, he told us "hey that's wrong" or "hey you can do it better" or something like this, so in my opinion we want to do our next album in the Studio Underground too, because it was really good, and other gigs we have planned or something like that: we play at Wacken and that's on my birthday and i'm very proud to play at Wacken on my birthday, it is the best birthday present i could imagine. Then we have planned to play in America and Japan and doing, after recording the new album, another European tour, but nothing is already fixed, we want to do a lot of shows, specially the solo shows on weekend because you can have party and meet a lot of people. When you are on tour you don't have to drink, you have to be cool, but on the solo shows you are relaxed and you can have party with the people, meet people like you guys, and it's very cool to talk with you, and that's the thing i like on the scene you know, because you can talk about metal for 5 hours and you don't get tired... Dalia: ... On the weekend shows you don't have the pressure from the tour management, which is dictating you every step you have to do next...... Sven: Yeah, on the single shows you are very relaxed, you can sit down and talk with the people, but it is cool to be in tour as well, tours are important as well, but it is another feeling you have with the crowd and the scene. Take this gig today for example.... you can meet the main scene without any probs and the people came here to hear Sudden Death and Fleshcrawl...there is no big band behind....... Dalia: ... You are a big band, you are well known in the scene....... Everybody's laughing Sven: Well, death metal underground, that's the way i prefer..... Dalia: .. if you look around here, all this people know well who you are Sven: Yeah, that was what i meant, that's a cool way of underground ...................................... ..... we have a break: a friend (g.m. the Crow of Profound) reached us, so we had a small talk and drank together a glass of a nice Toscan wine offered by Sven..... (we really had fun!) then g.m. the Crow of Profound is leaving us ...................................... Dalia: K', lets go ahead? Sven: Yeah, cool, lets go ahead... Dalia: so it's really cool that you want to maintain the contact with the base , the scene , your die-hard fans. Is that useful for you, for your ideas, for your way to be, this contact with the base? Sven: I think its useful, but ...don't really know , but when i write an e-mail or a letter to a fan and i get an answer i'm satisfied, the correspond to me and that's the cool thing about and when i write to friends of mine in Berlin they talk to me about the scene there and i tell them about the scene in south Germany, and that's cool: the contact. Dalia: last question, but it's a "very philosophical" one!! i have found in your official website , which is also very original, one sentence "death is certain, life is not" So, what do you think about a life without death, in both meanings, the musical one and the real one? Sven: In my opinion it is a very hard life, i get my whole power for the whole life in metal music, it is not typical death metal music, i like all heavy metal stuff. I grew up with Slayer, AC/DC, ..... so for me it is important to listen to all metal not only to death metal... About a life without death, i think its very boring, everybody has his time on earth, maybe 17 maybe 80 years, nobody knows, you know, everybody has to go, and the earlier you think about this ,the earlier you can manage this, everybody has to die, and even if you are 17 years old! but you make the best every day, and that's the meaning. People they think "i have a whole life, why do the things now" fuck them: it's the wrong way, you have a whole life and you have every day and i think you have to enjoy every day of your life, you have to do your will and you have to do your own party every day, and i think than it is no problem if you die with 20,30 or 40. When i die tomorrow, i'm satisfied: i don't want to die tomorrow, but if it happens i can look back on a fullfilled life. I think that's the meaning of it, to enjoy every day you live.... Dalia: Great, great.... ! thank you so much for the time spent with us of GryphonMetal for this interview! Sven: I thank you for having asked me questions and for your interest in Fleshcrawl! |
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Niederrohrdorf
- Switzerland