Rockezine.com interview with Fleshcrawl on Sep 13, 2007

with Oliver Grbavac on Sep 13, 2007


		Please introduce yourself and the band. Hi there! My name is Olli, 25 years old and guitarist in Fleshcrawl since 2002. Fleshcrawl was founded in 1987 and the first EP "lost in a grave" was released in 1991. Since then we did many tours, gigs and released another 9 albums, including one best-of, which was released without asking us by Black Mark, our former record label.
		The last album was 3 years ago released,why took it so long before this new release? The songwriting for Structures Of Death began in early 2006. After some problems during 2006 the songwriting process was hold on ice for a while. Well, some problems weren`t problems at all. During this time our drummer Basti married his girlfriend and became father of a cute girl.Of course he had to focus more on his young family and it took some time till things got back to normal. Also Mike, guitars,had some health issues which needed time to get fixed. After leaving all these problems succesfully behind, we continued where we stopped.Writing killer riffs for some ass kicking old school death metal! This time Mike and me took over the most part of songwriting due to the leaving of Tobias Schick in 2005.
		The new album is much faster and more extreme was this planned. We never plan how an album has to sound when we begin writing new songs. We all come up with some riffs or ideas in the beginning and try to merge the best riffs together to one song,add some death metal lyrics and that`s it. I think that we also develop as musicians and as band. This could be the reason why the songs are faster.
		You recorded this album in your hometown. Did you know that this is such a good studio? That`s right,for the first time in the bands history we didn`t record in Sweden, but in Studio Toninfusion in our home city Ulm/ Germany with Martin Schmitt behind the desk. We didn`t know much about the studio and the man behind it. We just checked out some local studios and found it to be the right place!The clear and heavy rough mixes already proved our decision to be right! Pelle Saether at Studio Underground in Västeras, Sweden mixed and mastered the album once again and delivered the perfect job!
		Do you think that this is your best album so far. Yes, I do. It`s a lot of different songs in there, we also tried new things out like the acoustic guitar in Ïnto the Fire of Hell". I think it`s a really good album you don`t get tired of listening to.
		Which bands these days you listen to. I like a lot of the old Swedish stuff like At The Gates, Dismember or old In Flames. I also listen to American Death Metal bands like Suffocation, Nile or Cannibal Corpse just to name a few.
		Did they influence your new album? I think, every musician is kind of influenced by some band even if they deny this. We are influenced by old school Swedish death metal, like we always were. You will never see Fleshcrawl changing their style.We stay where we come from and try to develop this style in our own way.
		Do you like touring or is this just to promote the album? Of course we like touring.Imagine hanging around with other metalheads from other bands for some weeks,having party,drinking booze and playing shows every night.That`s what it makes us to go ondoing this stuff.You don`t earn money with Death Metal when you`re not a big name in the business.We have to use up our vacation days from work to go on tour or record a new album.
		Can you tell me how you manage to sound like a Scandinavian band. Good Question.I think the major thing is the guitar sound. This unique "Swedish" sounding guitarscome from a distortion pedal which all the Swedish sounding bands like Dismember or Entomned use. It`s the BOSS HM-2"Heavy Metal"pedal. With a certain setting you achive this chainsaw guitar sound.
		Is it important to you that the fans like the new album or it important that you like the album? First of all we have to be fully satisfied with the album before it`s going to be released. Of course, it`s also important that people like it but you never know whether they will like it. Until now we got good reviews for "Structures of Death" which is a good sign for us. We`re on the right death metal way!
(Peter Vierwind)