Resurrected
Wywiad przeprowadził Michał Kowalski
Resurrected is a quite unknown band in Poland, but it doesn't mean they are young, unexperienced metalheads. This band exists about 10 years and now, after releasing three brutal death metal albums they're ready to crush your face! So be prepared for their attack - first read this interview with Thomas. Hello Thomas! It's your first interview for Masterful'zine, so let's start by introducing yourself and the other guys from Resurrected.
"Hi Michal, thanks a lot for this interview. Yes, it´s the first one for Masterful. I´m the guitar player of the german death metal band RESURRECTED, I´d describe our style of music as brutal US death, perhaps a little bit New York Slam in the vein Suffocation did. Carsten Scholz is responsible for the vocals in our band, he does the lyrics and song titles either. His younger brother Michael is our drummer, he does the songwriting together with our bassplayer Stefan Bays and me."
You've just released your third album entitled "Butchered In Excrement". Give our readers some details about it. What they can expect from that piece of raw meat? he, he
"Hey man, you can expect a right-into-your-face death metal record. It´s a raw piece of meat as you said correctly, I really like this album. I´d say it´s definitely our best work so far. The music is brutal as hell and the lyrics are… ok, I´d better don´t talk about this weird shit, haha…"
People very often claim that the third official release is band's 'be or not to be' album. Do you think your third CD - "Butchered In Excrement" - will be the turning point in your existence?
"I don´t think that “Butchered in excrement” is really a turning point in our existence. It was really an important album for us, that´s for sure, but it isn´t a turning point, the new material we´ve written after the recording sessions for “Butchered…” is still in the same vein but a little bit more structured, complex and heavier. It´s a development, you know. Personally we see our forthcoming album as the “be or not to be” album, we want to do a great step again and increase our number of fans as good as possible without changing our style of music. But if that does not work out, we don´t care about it, haha, the world keeps turning…"
Your flyer says:"the slaughter has begun...". How many victims do you expect? he, he. Do you think, is Resurrected well known band on the international death metal scene?
"The flyer was developed right after finishing the album, that was in april last year. There were a lot of victims so far man, a lot of slaughtered bodies in piles of excrement. I don´t know if we´re well known worldwide right now, but I know we have a lot of fans in Germany and the US, I´m not really sure about the other countries unfortunately."
Let's talk about the band's previous albums. In my opinion debut CD - "Raping Whores" (98) - sounded much better, heavier than the second album from 2000. Do you agree with me? If so, what went wrong during the "Faireless To The Flesh" recording session?
"You´re right. The problem with the “Faireless…” recordings was that we did it alone in our own studio. Our experience in recording was not so big at this time. We had a good sounding mix during the mixing process but we heard the grass growing and threw it away. We worked too much on it afterwards instead of taking the good mix. I think that´s always the problem if you try to care too much for a thing like this…"
There are three demos in your discography: "The Darkside Of Reality" (94), "Sinner Of An Unable God" (95), and "The Lament Configuration" (96). Did songs from those tapes feature on your debut CD, or if "Raping Whores" consists of completely new stuff?
“Raping whores” consist both of demo and new material. “Pray to Lord Satan” for example was on the “Sinner…” demo and “Wide open cunt” appeard on the “Faireless…” tape and our 7” “Bloodline”. Material from our first demo wasn´t used ever. Even “Faireless to the flesh” consist of demo material, there were three demo songs on it, “Denomination”, “React with hate” and “Unceremonious promiscuous”, all from “The lament configuration” demo."
What bands inspired you to play such a brutal music? What is death metal for you: only music or maybe something more? Do you listen to different to metal music styles?
"Death Metal is my life. I cannot imagine to live without it. In the late eighties/early nineties bands like Entombed, Carnage, Carcass or Morbid Angel were our favourites. Deicide was a very important band for us that time, without them we wouldn´t have started RESURRECTED in 1993, they were my biggest musical influence. Carsten and Michael have been playing in a band since 1991. They were influenced by Deicide either, but moreover by early Death and Napalm Death. Nowadays our influences have changed a little bit, there´s not so much Deicide influence any more. I think there´s a lot of Suffocation or New York Slam in general to be found in our music, we admire Suffocation a lot. I think their split is a big and unhealable loss for the death metal scene."
You have recorded Suffocation and Deicide cover songs on your albums. What caused you to do that? I mean your versions are good and 'kicking right into face' but too many bands do it nowadays, don't you think?
"Yeah, it´s really a cover-mania these days, especially in the pop scene I think it´s just all to make cover songs of old hits of the 70ies or later. No creativity any more. But cover songs have always been a part of our musical life since the beginning of RESURRECTED. So why should we change it just because others do it now as well ? In 1993 we covered a lot of songs like “Hung, drawn & quartered” from CANCER, “Leprosy” from DEATH and many others, but we didn´t record them. But we´re sure to cover “Mass appeal madness” from NAPALM DEATH for our next record. It sounds brutal as hell, watch out for it."
I guess you do not sing about the weather, the Pope's ass, and other shity themes, he, he. Your lyrics are just like they should be in death metal: full of blood, excrements, and other tasty things!
"They´re just extreme, that´s what I can say about it. Carsten does not do complete lyrics very often, he mostly uses lyrical fragments. For the last album he wrote four complete lyrics, the other songs consisted of fragments like Obituary did in their early days. The themes of the lyrics are different from song to song. But in general it´s all about Carsten´s weird phantasy, women, hating & disgusting bullshit you know, hahaha…"
It's hard to understand what does Carsten sing about. So I'm wandering why haven't you printed lyrics in the CD booklet?
"They´re very personal to Carsten. Even we do not know completely what it´s about in detail, he just gives us a short overview. I just remember the refrain parts in most of the songs, I just have to laugh then because it´s so crazy, haha. So I understand why he doesn´t want to print them."
About your latest album's title - "Butchered In Excrement"... Do you think it's possible to butcher someone using a shit? he, he.
"Butchering somebody in pounds of shit may be a funny thing perhaps, why shouldn´t it be possible? I´ve seen so many things in my life because of my job. I know there´s really nothing impossible in this world."
"Raping Whores" was the first one released by Eaststar Records and then re-issued by Perverted Taste. Since that moment you have been cooperating with Perverted Taste. Are you satisfied with the job their do for Resurrected?
"Yes, they did a hard and good job for us in the past and at current. They promoted us as good as they were able to. It´s a small label but they do a lot for their bands and we have thank them for the last years."
You have toured across Europe together with Fleshgrind and Coercion. Where the best concerts on that tour took place? What was the most funny thing that happened in those days?
"The best shows were the “Protzen Open Air” and the “Fuck the Commerce III”. There were a lot of crazy metalheads there watching our shows and they´ve partied like hell, we´ve really enjoyed it. Oh man, we did so many funny things there, I remember the first evening. Rich from Fleshgrind smashed some german beers with me and as he wasn´t used to that beet he got drunk very fast. He was so drunk that his guitarist had to pick him up from the toilet, he wasn´t even able to pull on his trousers. Haha, this was a funny view… We had a nightliner for that tour which was very dusty and dirty, we´ve painted “Bungplow European Tour” on it with our fingers and at the front door “Sluts report here”, haha, we´ve seen very funny faces then passing the bus reading that crap. There was so much funny shit, it´s not enough space here to put it all up, haha."
You have not only been playing live with Fleshgrind but you've also released split EP with this band. Whose idea it was and what do you think about that piece of vinyl?
"We recorded our both shows at the Fuck the Commerce III. The sound was very good so we decided to take some songs for a split. The idea was born very fast but it had last eighteen months to realize this project due to a lot a label and license bullshit. I really think this record has become a fine thing at all, even if the show recorded wasn´t our best on that tour."
You've appeared playing live on the legendary Milwaukee Metal Fest in USA. What other bands played on that great event? Who paid for your trip to the USA?
"That was an awesome event for us. We’ve played with bands like King Diamond, Destruction, Immolation, Dying Fetus, Deeds Of Flesh, Macabre, Gorguts, Disgorge and lots more worth to mention. Half of the flights were paid by our label, we had to pay for the rest ourselves. But it was worth the money. We were happy that we didn’t have to pay for the Festival itself, most of the bands had to pay 1000 US$ just to play there. Bogus, I wouldn’t pay just to play a festival."
What time have you played there? What was the response for your music from American metal maniacs? Can you compare them to the European listeners?
"We had to play quite early because there were some problems with the time schedule. We’ve played on Saturday at one p.m. There are four stages and the stage manager at the stage we had to play didn´t know about our band, who manages Milwaukee Metal Fest, knew us and wanted us to play at 6 p.m. But there was a misunderstanding between Jack and our stage manager. We were forced to play at one p.m. then, the stage manager said otherwise we won´t play at all, we´re gonna be scratched 
from the bill. So we played that early, the hall was nearly empty as we started, but as soon as we played our first chords the people came running inside. Obviously they were quite surprised that we had to play that early. So the hall went full very fast. The people were totally crazy, they were “marching”, that means they run in circles and beat each other up with their fists – totally insane I can tell you. But as I heard that´s just normal up there, haha, a totally different audience than in Europe. After we finished our show the stage manager apologized for “his mistake” as he said and offered us to play again at 19 p.m. But our singer had a lot of problems with his health and IMMOLATION played at 19 p.m. on the main stage so that we didn´t expect a big audience in front of our stage. So we decided to leave it as it was – just playing once…"
In Europe we have got fantastic death/grind festival too - I mean Fuck The Commerce in Germany. It's not surprising me, because German death metal scene is very active nowadays, don't you think?
"The 'Fuck the Commerce' is very famous here, I was there as a visitor in 1996, it was the first issue. It has changed a lot since 1996, I think it isn´t the old spirit anymore. The ticket prices have increased 20 Euro but there were less good bands this year as I think. Cannibal Corpse and Monstrosity as headliners in the last years for much less money, Disgorge and Deeds of Flesh this year for more money this year, I do not understand that… The scene is quite active know you´re right, I hope that will last a long time. We´ve seen very bad times some years ago over here I can tell you."
What will the future bring for Resurrected? You're on the death metal scene since 1993 and how long you are going to stay here?
"We’re going to stay inside as long as possible. We´re preparing for our next record right now, we will enter the studio in November. Hopefully the new record is out February or March next year. We want to play a complete tour again next year, we´ll see what time brings. But there will be a big party next year when we celebrate our 10th anniversary, a “Decade of brutality”, hahaha…"
OK my friend, that's all I wanted to ask you about. Thank you very much for your time. The last words are yours...
"Thanks a lot Michael for you nice interview, I enjoyed answering your questions. Hope to see you on the road perhaps. To all you fuckers out there listening to brutal stuff: keep the underground alive!
