Rockezine.com interview with Ribspreader on Jul 15, 2004

with Rogga on Jul 15, 2004

..And then there was ribspreader. Another Project of Dan Swano? No, not a project, but a band with 2 ex-paganizer members in it (Andreas Karlsson and Rogga Johansson). Ribspreader`s intention? Making old school death metal from Sweden. Most people know enough and already have this album in their collection. I interviewed Rogga via e-mail and asked him some questions about Ribspreader and grapefruitjuice.
		So, how it’s a few months after the release of ‘Bolted to the Cross’, how are the reactions to that cd? The reactions have been totally killer, almost everyone who´s heard it seems to like it. Of all reviews I´ve read I think only two or three rates the album average, all other reviews have been very high in the ratings which feels really good. We had no idea really that the album would be received so well, we just released it as we liked it and thought it would be cool to do (yet) another death metal album so the reactions are far better than expected to say the least.
		You guys go back to the old school death metal sound, is that cause the last few years there hasn’t been much quality released in that specific sector? Not really, we play this music just because it´s the most fun stuff to play. None of us, not even Swanö I think, is able to play this supertechnical music that some bands do today, and even if we could none of us are interested in it. We want the music to be both catchy and brutal like in the old days when Carnage, Death and many other bands wrote their best material. I mean, why be innovative and sound like shit when you can be uninnovative as hell and still manage to write good songs?
		Is this a project or a band? It started out as a project but it has evolved into a band. Naturally we will have session members with us live as Swanö has too much stuff to do to be able to join the band on gigs, but nevertheless we are a band now and not a project.
		How much time did it take to make ‘Bolted to the cross’? Maybe a week or so to write the music, and some riffs I already had laying around wich had been left over from Paganizer. Then it took us a day to record the vocals and guitars and bass and then some days more for Dan to record drums and solos and finally mix the album. All in all it didn´t take very long and that´s the way we have always worked with Paganizer and this time around it was the same. I don´t like to spend too much time on writing or recording stuff, then the spontantious feeling gets lost and you might start to rewrite stuff wich never really turns out as you want anyway.
		Are there any touring plans? I personally think a lot of (death)metal-fans are waiting to see this kind of music live again. Yes we have plans, just nothing solid yet. Karmageddon want us to play and we also want to play, but we just have to wait for the right opportunity. None of us in the band want to lose any money on getting out playing gigs as all of us are unemployed now except Swanö which isn´t joining us live anyway. So I guess we´ll be coming to Europe and playing sometime this winter or early next year depending on if anyone offers us any gigs around that time. I´m really excited to play our music live as it´s the perfect shit to bang your head to.
		Are there any new bands from Sweeden which we should listen to? I don´t know many new bands, but there are of course really great bands like Kaamos, Verminous, Butchery, Nominon (these guys are defiently not new, haha), Visceral Bleeding and many more. As always the underground in Sweeden is boiling over with great bands and it´s a real shame that many albums you hear sound like shit when there are so many great demo bands unsigned.
		Who’s idea was it to found Ribspreader? It was my idea. I helped Swanö out with the growls on "Crimson II" and after a few beers during a recording session I asked im if he wanted to do some drumming on something and that´s how it started. After that it was just a matter of putting together some material and then the album just kinda created itself. A really cool feeling as we had no expectations at all on how it would turn out.
		What do you think of grapefruitjuice? I don´t like it very much, I´m more of a orangejuice man myself.
(Friso Veltkamp)