|
main
index
contact
email
reviews
interviews
|
Blood Tsunami Interview with Pete Evil
by ©Scarlet of www.whoresofchaos.com
April
17, 2007
Scarlet: Hey, congrats to you and Blood Tsunami on the
fantastic response you received on your new release ‘Thrash Metal’. As you
know, I’ve been a fan for awhile so this was very exciting news!
Pete: Thank you very much. I’m glad you like our stuff. We
have been a fan of you for a while too so this is really good news... he
he.
Scarlet: How did it feel when you got the call to play
Inferno 2007?
Also, Blood Tsunami has come a long way since the 2004
demo, would you care to tell a bit about what you attribute this to?
Pete: To be asked to play at the
Inferno festival was of course very flattering, because it means that we
have a really good thing going… What I felt? Hm, well, I can remember
saying. "YES!!! Fucking great!" The first demo back in 2004 sounds awful,
at least do I think so. Back then it was a different drummer and another
guy on bass. Both of them had to go after the first demo and then Faust
and Bosse joined the band. The demo from 2005 is way better than the first
one! It wasn't before Faust (Bård G. Eithun)joined the band that we really
started to sound good. It's a cliché, but it really was the perfect
match!
It was "magic"! Ha, ha.
Scarlet: The amazing cover art of your new release is as
high impact as your music- a real throwback to the 80’s! Why did you
choose something so retro and dramatic? And do you feel that it best
represents ‘Thrash Metal’?
Pete: Yes, I wanted a cover that would reek of metal! He,
he.. I wanted to bring back the era of the handpainted album covers from
the 80’s. Violent dramatic album covers and yes, I grew up with album
covers like Kreator ’s ”Pleasure To Kill” and ”Endless Pain”. I wanted to
capture some of that vibe and I think we managed to do just that... We
have gotten a lot of negative comments about how we have ripped off
Manowar's cover art and so on, but fuck them. I don’t care. Manowar has
also just ripped off Conan and any Franzetta painting there is anyway. I
had the idea of how I wanted the cover to look like, with this warrior
standing on a pile of corpses, in front of a blood red sky. Faust also
liked the idea, so then I got in touch with Alex Horley, a great Italian
artist and he took the job.
Scarlet: You've stated that Blood Tsunami takes more
influence from the Bay area thrash bands of the 80's but I hear some
German thrash influence coming through here and there, in other words it
sounds like there's a very thin sparse layer of blakk metal dust over the
tracks that (to my ears) compliments the dirty Bay Area elements of your
sound. Do you feel the less technical the thrash is, the more
brutal?
Pete: Hm, we are probably equally influenced by both
American thrash and German thrash... bands like Kreator, Slayer, Testament
and Destruction are probably the best thrash bands there is... at least in
my opinion, and I guess since I am such a big fan of those bands this will
probably always shimmer through in the music that I make. It is not my
intention to sound like or copy any of those bands, but I am absolutely
influenced by them. My voice may give our music a touch of black metal,
but then again we also have the death growls goin' on in there so, hell,
…I don’t know. We have our own touch to it I guess. I don't consider us to
be neither very technical nor totally primitive, I believe we are
somewhere in the middle of the scale... The German bands were a bit less
technical in the beginning back in the 80’s, but after a few releases they
also developed the same skills as the American bands... I don't think that
any lack of technique will make the music more brutal,..more primitive
maybe, yes, but it all depends on how you use your riffs, and of course
the production has a whole lot to do with the brutality of music. It's a
difficult question to answer... Since music is almost always about the
feeling instead of technical skills.
Scarlet: Do you feel that the advances in internet
technology which has made it accessible to so many around the world has
changed the future of metal? Have you discovered music you might not have
otherwise via the internet? If so, would you say that the internet is good for metal?
Pete: I
think that the internet is a very good thing for metal. Fans of metal are
always on the search for new bands and will never be content with just
being served what is hot or trendy at the moment. The internet has just
made everything so much more easier than it used to be... remember
tape-trading? It was of course the thing to do back in the eighties, but
it was also a whole lot of work.. And one important thing about
metalheads, is the fact that they are collectors, I guess we’re born that
way... he, he. We wanna own the records, not just download some track from
the net and be satisfied with that. The internet is a great tool that can
help you find and get into new bands and of course it is perfect for
promotion and networking. But in the end of the day I guess metal fans
still will head down to the record store to pick up the real album of
bands they have discovered and really like. This makes the internet
probably a better thing for metal bands than for people who play stuff
like pop or techno... because the fans of those genres don't care if the
product has got any soul or not. I discover new stuff and bands I like on
the net almost every single day. I listen to them on for example Myspace
and if I dig the shit... well, then I try to get my hands on some of their
albums, demo's or whatever...
Scarlet: In your opinion, why
is thrash on a rampage at this point in time? Is it maybe something about
the general social, religious and political climate of the
planet?
Pete: I have no clue why the hell there's all of a
sudden this thrash metal revival going on, but I like it, and I can't deny
that I am a part of it. When Blood Tsunami formed back in the beginning of
2004 there wasn't many thrash metal bands around, but it is amazing to see
that bands I have been into since the mid eighties, when I was just a
little kid, still is going strong and still are able to release killer
albums today. I guess that the kids out there have realized that thrash
metal is very fresh sounding and damn vital compared to many of the other
metal styles out there. I don't know if it has anything to do with
political, religious or social stuff, at least Blood Tsunami sure isn't
political or religious or anything, but no matter what, thrash metal can
be seemed as a solid dose of vitamins in the metal world today... I am
into this music because it is what I grew up with and what I love,
alongside NWOBHM, punk and death metal, but thrash has always been my
favorite music, so let me assure you, I am not into thrash metal because
it's a trend right now...
Scarlet: What's on the horizon for
Blood Tsunami this year besides Inferno 2007?
Pete: Well, Inferno turned out great for us. We did a
damn good job in front of a very mixed crowd, both geographical and
musical, but everybody seemed to dig our music. Like I said, thrash metal,
and Blood Tsunami probably felt like something new and fresh compared to
all the death and black metal on the rest of the festival that night. We
are heading over to England in May together with our friends in
Zyklon and that will of course be a blast... Then we will
do some shows around Norway and then the plan is to tour Europe
during the fall before we once again hit the studio to record
our next album.
Scarlet: Thanks for this interview..it
was exciting to see the name of Blood Tsunami go up in lights
this year!!
Pete: No problem! Thank you!
Scarlet: With global warming upon us, any last words before
the big flood?
Pete: Run for your fucking lives! Ha,
ha.. Or just bang your head to pieces against the stage!
We’re all gonna die sooner or later
anyway. Thrash till death!
Cheers!
www.myspace.com/bloodtsunami
|
