What can I say in my little introduction for this Meshuggah interview? Not much, because I’m just a little man compared to a band that by many is treated as one of the most influential groups in metal. I can only be grateful to live in times that I can listen to their music, see them in concerts and have fun phone conversations with them as if we were best friends. I don’t remember laughing so hard and so many times on the phone... ever... and this is the first time I ever spoke to the guy! Marten Hagstrom (guitar) was great, he was funny and entertaining... like his band. If you’ve never heard them I don’t know how the hell you found your way to this site...

Chris


How did idea of “Rare Trax” come to life?

Basically, it was an idea from our boss Markus Tiger at Nuclear Blast in Germany. We come back from touring after the “Chaosphere” album, we went on the European tour and went to tour with the Slayer in States and what basically happened was we had to decide what to release next. We though we would like to start working on the new album right away but that wouldn’t be finished soon enough for Nuclear Blast, so they suggested we put together a rare tracks album and we said OK, why not and that’s what we did.

What did you guys do over those three years since your last regular studio album?

The first year, actually almost year and a half was just touring and then we were supposed to finish the “Rare Trax” in just six months but we had some problems with CD-ROM staff as video footage and we also had a bit of a trouble putting together all those master tapes, finding them and putting them over to digital for mastering. So, that’s why it took so much time.

The promo letter says that in ’96 you, Jans K. and Tomas had some free studio time and you thought of doing something but didn’t know what and result is 'Don’t Speak' and 'By Emptyness Abducted' which were never meant to be released. How often do you have free time and do something like that and do you still have some songs on future rare tracks?

Not often. [laughs] I would say that pretty much was the only time. What happened back then was that Fredrik (Thordendal) was doing his solo album and that’s why we had a lot of time on our hands and we were just messing around for fun in the studio where Jens (Kidman) was working back then at that time. However, I know that Jens has some stuff that he’s recorded by himself and I have some stuff that I’ve recorded by myself when we were just messing around but it’s not like regular Meshuggah stuff. You know, for fun...

Are you saying more stuff for future “Rare Trax”?

[laughs] I hope we won’t have to release another “Rare Trax”. I guess in a couple of years we’ll have a few songs that will be laying around but 'Don’t Speak' and ‘By Emptyness Abducted’ are pretty Meshuggah like songs, the stuff that we have written since then and haven’t been included isn’t that much Meshuggah style.

It had to be quite a party since you even recorded ‘War’ for Fredrik’s 30th birthday... How did that happen?

Oh yeah, it was quite a party. [laughs] Actually we recorded an entire album with six or seven songs but every song had like a very different style. We had a ‘War’ song which is near death metal or whatever grind-core metal and we had a couple of soft songs... what we wanted to do was to make an album where all the lyrics were really downgrading towards Fredrik [laughs] ... we had a lot of fun doing it.

‘New Millennium...’ is going to be one of my all time favorite videos, it’s simply hilarious... who came up with this idea?

Thanks. Actually I can’t remember cause that idea come up when we were in the tour bus on the Slayer tour and we had a day off cause we had to cancel the show and we were just riding. We had a 10 hour drive or something like that so pretty much we were stuck in the bus and Gustav Hielm, our bass player, he had this cam-coder with him and I don’t know who come up with that idea but we were talking about how really hilarious would it be if we could make a video riding the bus, playing air-guitars and just making fools out of ourselves. [laughs] We recorded this just for our own sake it wasn’t meant to be released...

Based on ‘New Millennium...’ and ‘Tour and Studio Clips’ video it seems like you guy had a really good time during the US tour with Slayer... tell me something unusual that happened during that tour.

Oh man, what didn’t happen. You know, the weird thing is that you always remember the bad things about the tour or something like that cause it sort of sticks to your mind but one thing that was really great about this tour was when we met up with Fear Factory, I think it was somewhere in Main, the tours met up so it was like a multi-band deal. We had a party on Fear Factory bus and that night was really great cause everybody was just partying. I was like six bands just had a blast. That was a really fun thing. Another thing that was really really great was in San Francisco cause Exodus, Testament and Machine Head come around and we had a great party after the show. It was so cool... us, Slayer and all those bands... we had a blast.

A lot of bands either listen to your music or dream of playing with you. Who would you like to play with?

One band that was great playing with obviously was Slayer. We grow up on this, personally I listened to a lot of Slayer when I was young so going on the road with them was like a child's dream. We would really really like to go on tour with Strapping Young Lad cause the stuff Devin Townsend has been putting out I think it’s really cool. That would be really fun to play with live. Also, of course all of our young heroes we ever had we would like to go out on the road with, like Testament and bands like that...

Outside of the band, do you guys hang out together or each one of you lives your separate lives?

Well it all depends on the time of the year... Oh, we hang out a lot but we live in different parts of the city so it’s not always as easy to just swing by each other. When we are on the road or when we are working together we see so much of each other that when we have a holiday we’ll leave town on our separate things just to chill out but we all hang out and we all have parties together cause we’ve been friends for so long. I know Tomas (Haake) since I was 6 I think and we were friend before anything else, you know. And this same is between Jens and Fredrik. We have great friends base in our band before anything else. It comes before the music.

Have you ever bit the crap out of the members of another band?

[laughs all the time till the next question] No, we haven’t. I don’t think we ever felt like it either. We’ve come along with all the bands we’ve met. We’ve never been in any great fight, not among ourselves and not with the other bands.

What’s your favorite alcohol?

Right now... Beer.

Who’s the craziest and most unpredictable member of Meshuggah?

I would say that we all are but it depends on when you’re asking. I mean Fredrik is pretty unpredictable sometimes but I would say that we all have our moments. [laughs] If it’s something I learned during all those years it’s very hard to predict what anyone in this band will do and I can’t even predict what I’m gonna do myself [laughs] It’s pretty hard...[laughs]

Do you realize that you guys are probably the most unpredictable band in a whole world?

Thanks, I take it as a complement. I mean I never though of us as being the most unpredictable band but we always do whatever comes into our minds. It doesn’t matter how silly, strange, weird or whatever it is. We only consider one thing and that is ‘do we like what we’re doing, are we having fun?’ If we come up with an idea that we thing is good we go with it and I think that’s what keeps it interesting for us being in a band.

Is anyone of you involved in any side projects right now?

Not at the moment. Right now we are not doing any side projects that I know of. Jans has been writing some stuff on his own and I’ve been writing some stuff on my own and I know that Frederick has a couple of thing lying around but nothing serious. Nothing that is a band or even going to be an album.

When can we expect new studio release? Do you have any songs written yet?

We have stuff written but not that much but we have all the lyrics and we have a couple of great cover ideas so I would say if we’re lucky and everything goes the way we want it to we’ll be able to release it in like early 2002, first half of 2002.

Any plans to promote this CD with a tour?

No, not at the moment. It might happen that we would but I’m not sure. You never know, we might swing over to the States for a week or do a couple of shows here in Europe but the way we see it, it’s a way better to our fans to get a real album real soon and then we’ll tour on that one really extensively instead. Cause if we go on tour now and tour this “Rare Trax” album I think that it would take too long for us to complete a new album.

I guess that would be all, it was a pleasure to talk to you. Any last words?

Thanks a lot man it was great. It was nice talking to you too. As for the last words; come check us out next time we are around and buy all our shit so we can get rich anytime soon. [laughs]

US thrash legends Vio-Lence just released a new EP called "Let The World Burn" 29 years after their last full-length "Nothing To Gain". In my eyes this EP is a very uncompromising and brutal thrash release and quite fortunately I got the chance to have an interview with their guitarist Phil Demmel via Skype. So here you get to find out more about the release and some more info about the band and Phil's involvement in some other projects. Enjoy the read!

Michael

Hey Phil, how are you doing these days? How's Covid going on in the US?

It depends on who you talk to. I think it's pretty normal other than the kids have to wear the masks in school and our business is back to normal pretty much so everything's okay.

Vio-Lence is back on the stage of thrash metal since 2019. Maybe you can tell a little bit how this happened?

When I left Machine Head I'd filled in for Slayer really quick and then after that Sean asked me if I wanted to do when we get together do some Vio-Lence shows. So, we did in the beginning of 2019 we got together in Perry's (Strickland; M.) living room and started banging out some songs and have some fun. It was pretty rusty but pretty good. I've been playing pretty consistently but those guys haven't. It was pretty fun in this new kind of them discovering themselves as musicians again. We did some awesome amazing home shows sold out really quick and there was a lot of interest, so we started doing some festivals and going through the states and playing these cool things – we get these 70000 Tons of Metal cruise and played in Puerto Rico- so we had some fun for the first year. The it looked like we're going to take a step further and do some mini tours, record some new music and it turned out then that a couple of members weren't really up for that commitment and weren't able to move forward with us, so we brought in Christian Olde Wolbers from Fear Factory and Bobby Gustavsson from Overkill on board and wrote these five songs, recorded them and here we are man.

Did Metal Blade come to you and say "Alright guys, we wanna sign you" when they got to know about your reunion or how did you come to that label?

I think it was the opposite. I was in Vegas playing with the band Nine Point and I texted Brian Slagel, I think he lives there, and we talked about some things I was doing but mostly just like "Hey, I wanna do a Vio-Lence record and want a deal with you." Just give us an admire record which doesn't have to be any big deal with you. Just give us enough money to record, it doesn't have to be any big haggle over numbers, or anything like that. If you wanna put this out, we'd love to do it. I wanted to do it with that label that was so steeped in metal history. They were there from the beginning of it all. Brian Slagel has seen so many things (laughs) to metal. Metallica was on the first Metal Massacre record in the beginning of it all. It was that. I said we're thinking about doing some songs and he just said here we are. So, it was pretty easy like that.

In 2020 you released a single 'California über Alles' by Dead Kennedys and in March you just released a new EP called "Let The World Burn". Why didn't it become a full-length album? Did you have so few ideas in all the time to just write a five-track piece?

I was in for a whole record these days. I've listened to old records that I got through, but the attention spent now and I've got three kids at home and I didn't want to delete any of the material and I wanted to focus and really concentrate on those. I wanted to do three songs originally and they turned into four. One song I wrote – 'Upon Their Cross' – I didn't know if it's a Vio-Lence song or not. It didn't sound like a Vio-Lence to me, so I was getting to keep it for like a solo thing or one of my other things I was doing. Sean put these lyrics, this vocal line and this huge hook to it and it sounds so fucking good. It doesn't sound like any other Vio-Lence song we've ever done before. I just wanted to be those five songs to be perfect. I wanted them to be the focus. I didn't want people to lose focus and listening to a thrash band for more than half an hour it's a lot (laughs).

Can you tell a little bit more about the lyrics? Their music sounds quite brutal and so does Sean do, too. It reminds me quite a lot of the sound of Oppressing The Masses.

This is definitely a Sean question. Well, I know that 'Flesh From Bone' is about Vlad the Impaler and about war time and brutality. 'Screaming Always' is about today's sign. Everybody is just load and trying to make their point and screaming. 'Gato Negro' is about Edgar Allan Poes story "The Black Cat". 'Let The World Burn' (laughs) is pretty self-explaining, and I don't want to explain Sean's lyrics.

By the way, how is he doing? I read some time ago that he suffered from liver cirrhosis. Is all fine again with him?

He is. He really got healthy and got his strength back. When we were playing, I was pretty concerned that he would be able to because I've seen him before and he didn't look it. He was bloated, set a belly and really gaunt looking and really gaunt looking – he was deep in the throes of this. He got this transplant and I think there were some complications after, and it took a bit for him to really take it but he did. He got it together.

Who produced the EP? Was it one of Vio-Lence or was it anybody else who did it?

I think that we self-produced in the sense Juan Urteaga engineered it and we recorded all the basic tracks with him. He has done all the local handsome international acts like Exodus or Machine Head. I did the solos in my home studio and Bobby recorded some of his solos in Florida but for most parts we all tried to be at the studios with one awesome vibe and we got some really great performances with Perry and Sean whose vocals were done there. Then we had Tue Madsen who started to harden it and I think a lot of Swedish bands he mixed up came up great. A really aggressive raw mix, just what we wanted.

You have two new members in the band in 2020. It's Christian Olde Wolbers (ex-Fear Factory) and Bobby Gustavson (ex-Overkill). How did it come to this?

Like I said, we needed those positions filled and Christian was actually gonna fill in for some shows that Dean was not able to make it to so there someone asked him. Dean wasn't gonna be able to make it and then Covid hit, and everything ran away and he just became a permanent member. I kind of reached out to him because when Dean wasn't able to do some shows, I told the others: "Hey, I reached out to Christian, he is a monster bass player, total pro, loves Vio-Lence" so it was kind of a no-brainer for the guys. It's the same thing with Bobby. He was Perry's buddy. We all knew Bobby but Perry had close contact with him over the years and so Perry said: "Hey, I've got a guitar player ready to go". The same thing…. monster player both guys have the pedigree, the craft and they're awesome humans, good dudes to be around with.

Are you going to do some more video stuff or tour in the next months? What are your plans?

We did a video for 'Let The World Burn' which actually dropped probably just 20 minutes ago. So, it should just be live. We are gonna do the Bloodstock Festival, the Alcatrazz and we are gonna do some shows in the US with Coroner from Switzerland. We'll do some fun stuff!

In 2018 you quit Machine Head and joined Slayer on their final tour for some days. Why did this happen and how did you come to that honor?

Rob and I couldn't be in a band together anymore. The day after I quit, Gary needed to come home because his father was dying, and he wanted to come home and spend some time with his dad. I learned the songs and I went out and played with them for four shows (laughs). They needed a guy and I think Paul Bostaphs girlfriend had known that I was home or that Machine Head was home and available and so Kerry reached out.

How long did you take to learn the songs?

I got the call on Sunday, on Monday I went and picked up all my Machine Head gear because it was time to clear up my stuff from the studio and on Tuesday, I was on the flight to Germany to their last Berlin show. So basically, I was ready to play after a couple of days.

You are engaged as a live guitarist in Overkill. Will you also be playing on their next album or is it just for live gigs?

I'm doing some shows with Overkilll, I'm gonna do with them this tour in March. Whenever they need somebody, they call. Dave is not doing some shows and it's not really my place to say why or why not but for the shows that he is not in, I am when I can. There are some shows I'm not gonna be able to – the same with Lamb of God.

Finally, which thrash album (or any other one) that was released in the last couple of times has really blow you away?

The Exodus record is really fucking good!

Do you have any last words for our readers?

Check the new Vio-Lence record out on March 4th – Let The World Burn and look for us doing some special shows here and there. Thanks for being Vio-Lence fans over the years and we're looking forward to rocking it!