Rockezine.com interview with Vehemence on Sep 20, 2002

with Björn on Sep 20, 2002

Vehemence is one of the latest signings to Metal Blade Records. They recently released an impressive album entitled “God Was Created”. Björn made some time to answer a couple of questions about the latest album, tour etc. And the interview starts, of course, with the inevitable how are you?
		Great man! Just got settled into our new rehearsal studio, working on some new songs and preparing for our next tour!
		How have the reactions on your "God Was Created" album been so far? I`m asking you this because I`ve read some excellent reviews and some negative reviews as well. It looks like ‘love it or hate it’. Overall, the response has been amazing coming from all over the world. It`s great when fans write, email, or instant message us when we are online. Just to express their enthusiasm for our band. It is a very rewarding to us, to know that there are people that truly appreciate our music. I have noticed however, many reviewers are quick to "pigeonhole" as just another Satanic death metal band...
		However, if one took the time to read the lyrics, they would discover that "God Was Created" is a concept album, and all the lyrics are from a character`s point of view, not ours.
		The lyrics are, I must say, pretty sick, specially "Christ, I Fucking Hate You" and "She Never Noticed Me".
		I mean, we live in a pretty liberate country ( The Netherlands ) and I can`t imagine that these type of lyrics/songs will get any airplay if they were in Dutch. How about the U.S.? Yeah, the lyrics are pretty extreme to say the least. But as far as radio airplay, it’s mostly the college stations. There really isn`t a place for death metal on mainstream radio here in the states. All I hear on the rock radio stations is stuff like Puddle of Mudd, Papa Roach, you know that nu metal stuff.
		Personally I was impressed by your album and I compared it with an extremely brutal equivalence of a band like Opeth because of the huge amount of melodies in your songs, your comment please. I have noticed a lot of reviewers making the Opeth comparison, but we were never influenced by them. To tell you the truth, I was not familiar with their music up until the reviews started coming out for “God Was Created”. So many references to Opeth were made, so I had to check them out. They are definitely a great band, but our main influences would be bands like At The Gates, Suffocation, old school Florida shit, and even some non-metal influences.
		And your personal influences? My personal early influences were bands like Metallica, Testament, and Sepultura. From there I moved onto bands like Carcass, Suffocation, Cannibal Corpse and Malevolent Creation. After high school I started listening to more melodic stuff, bands like At The Gates, In Flames, Soilwork, Dimmu Borgir, etc...
		Nowadays, I get influence from different styles of music as well. Bands like ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Sunny Day Real Estate, old shit like The Who, and the previously mentioned all influence Vehemence`s music.
		Are you satisfied with the way the record turned out, and are you planning to use the same studio and producer in the future? We are all very happy with the way our album turned out. There are some things I wouldn`t mind doing different the next time around though. We produced “God Was Created” on our own, but we`d like to work with a producer for the next album.
		I`d also prefer a more natural drum sound, and of course being the guitar player, a more "in your face" guitar sound. Overall though, I think it turned out great. And since I`m the band`s biggest critic, I`ll always be nit-picking at our music. I think every musician does that though!
		You just finished an U.S. tour with bands like Incantation, Impaled and Decapitated, and Dead To Fall. Tell me, did you guys enjoy it, and was it a successful tour? Hell yeah that was fun as hell. All those bands are great guys... We definitely made some great friends on that tour, and met a lot of interesting people! Overall the tour was great, although could have been better. It was kind of put together at the last minute, and we didn`t even get our final tour dates until we were already on tour! It was a great experience none-the-less, and we can`t wait to do it again!
		What about Europe, are you planning a tour here as well? We`d love to tour Europe! We are aiming for summer 2003... We`d even like to record our next album there, we`ll see what happens!
		Your self released first album "The Thoughts From Which I Hide" is this one still available, or are you planning to re-release this one through out Metal Blade in the future? It is still available, but only from us. The only places you can get it is from our website vehemence.brutaldeath.net or at our shows.
		There are no plans for Metalblade to release it, but we would like to re-record some of those songs in the future for a possible Metalblade release. There is one track from "The Thoughts From Which I Hide" which will be on an upcoming Metalblade Boxed set due out later this year.
		Anything to add, or Rockezine forgot to ask? Be sure to check out our website vehemence.brutaldeath.net and pick up our latest CD, God Was Created! Join our message board at www.ultimatemetal.com , or if you just want to email us, get a hold of us at vehemence@brutaldeath.net. Thanks!
		(Gerlach Timmer)