Cianide
Wywiad przeprowadził Wouter Roemers
Formed one year after the release of Death's seminal debut "Scream Bloody Gore" long-standing American death metal stalwarts Cianide have consistently been putting out quality albums. In '92 Cianide release "The Dying Truth" which by insiders is often called a classic in their niche. After their 2002 split with Nunslaughter this year Cianide released their "Hell's Rebirth" album through Displeased Record subsidiary From Beyond Productions. The album certainly did hit its mark and we here at Masterful Magazine found it to be time to talk to one of lesser known gems in death metal. Cianide bassist/vocalist Mike Perun was prepared to answer the questions we lined up for him."Hell's Rebirth" has been released for a while now. How would you describe the reactions to the new album in the international metal press?
The majority have been positive. At least the ones I can understand. Seem to be a lot in languages that I can't read. Maybe that's a good thing. Negative reviews that I've seen are usually from technical thrash or power metal nerds - people whose opinions I don't value and/or would never associate with. That and lame-asses complaining that the vocals aren't loud enough. Like the music we play is R&B or something. Other than those few goofballs, I can agree with everything I've seen. Which boils down to the best fucking album we've ever done.
I especially like the track 'Death Metal Maniac'. The lyric for this track perfectly embodies the lifestyle and is instantly accessible due to its familiarity; great gimmick was also to include the naming of all classic bands in the genre. Whose idea was to mention these bands in the song?
Hey, you know when you're stuck for lyrics, why not just rattle off your favorite bands. The title is an obvious (to us anyway) homage to Exciter's "Heavy Metal Maniac". I think we're through with the Metal anthems though. But who knows.....
'Wormfeast' does definitely bring back memories of Autopsy, Bolt Thrower and the likes. Is this a counter reaction to all bands that want to play at inhuman speeds these days?
Nah, we began as a predominately slow, sludgier death metal band. No matter how fast people think we've become on our later releases, we can never lose the death/doom aspect of our sound.
Can you explain the story behind the Venom alike band picture in "A Descend Into Hell"?
The picture was taken as a spoof of the "Welcome to Hell" photo, though it wasn't necessarily meant to be thé photo for the album. That was just one of many photos we took that day, and it turned out to be the best in the lot. Who says nothing good ever comes from alcohol abuse?
Splits with Spanish death/grind combo Machetazo (Hell's Headbangers) and The Chasm are currently either in the works or nearing completion. What can we expect from these two releases?
The Machetazo split should be out by the time you are reading this. It contains one brand new track from us called ‘Black Earth' and two new songs from Machetazo. The cover and sleeve are going to be circular die-cut which should look pretty spiffy. The Chasm split is still in the (drunk) talking stages at this point, but it's going to be a 10". I think the theme is going to be one cover of a Chicago band from each as well as some new songs. Sempiternal Productions got dibs on putting that out. Realistically, it probably won't see the light of day until early next year.
Cianide is a band with a rich history and an impressive discography, yet the band is still fairly unheard of by the general public. Where would you contribute this to? A regression of interest in old school death metal?
I would think we're fairly well-known within the metal underground, which is all we're concerned with. We realized some time ago that we're never going to be any kind of rock stars, or even metal media darlings. We just do what we do now. While it would be nice, being popular doesn't mean that much to us anymore.
Almost all Cianide albums have been released on different labels, was this just due to bad luck on that aspect or is it just really difficult to properly market the band due to its trendkilling attitude?
Circumstance more than anything. Our first two releases were really on the same label, but they changed their name. We're not the most demanding band around. Just pay us for the recording, send us our copies and the label does (or should do) the rest. We would like nothing more than to stick with just one label, but apparently we were too demanding for Merciless Records.
From Beyond Productions released "Hell's Rebirth". Can you tell us something about how the deal came to be?
"Hell's Rebirth" was supposed to be put out on Merciless, but Volker kept taking his time, and ultimately told us he didn't want to/couldn't afford to put it out. We previously posted on our website that we were planning on putting out all of our demo's on disc and for any interested labels to contact us. We did get a few responses and From Beyond offered us the best deal. So while we were already in contact/negotiations with them regarding that and the vinyl release of our live/studio "Dead and Rotting", our new album remained in limbo. Being the brain surgeons that we are, we came to the conclusion that if FBP was interested in putting out those two releases, maybe they'd like to give our brand new album a shake. The final outcome of that is now obvious.
From what I understand a demo anthology will be released in the nearby future by From Beyond Productions. Can you fill us in on the details of this release?
It's going have all of our "official" demos along with other recordings that we just did for ourselves. A few different variations of songs here and there plus some total, never before heard, unreleased stuff. Going to be out on double CD and triple vinyl formats. Something for the whole family. Should be out this fall. Looking forward to getting this myself!
One gig a year is the modus operandi for Cianide - while there's hardly any financial gain in playing extreme metal of this kind, would you rather play live on a more regular basis or do you prefer to remain with the financial stability that having a full time job brings?
There isn't any reason for a band of our stature to play gigs. A majority of bands seem to love playing live and I'm happy for them. It's just not our bag. The pros far outweigh the cons when it comes to playing shows. I have zero desire travel to any gig (it could be right next door to me and it still would be a pain in the ass), lug my own gear around and set my own shit up at some club who are just dying not to pay us anything, (not even free beer most of the time) and treat us generally like shit. All just to play to people who probably already like us, anyway. I doubt we would convert any new fans with our style. People may say that we're lazy and they are absolutely 100 % correct. At this point in my life, my couch and my TV mean more to me than playing some stupid show. Having said that though, I'm glad the band is still not a "job" for us. If anyone's that hard about seeing Cianide in our natural habitat, buy us some beer and come see us practice. I can guarantee it would be a much better time.
The last few years have seen a rampant return of new (mostly all-star) band playing old school death metal and receiving accolades for it. While some of them bring quality products to the table, the originators - like yourselves - do not always get credit for the genre they help invent. Do you agree?
While we have been around a lot longer than some of these supposed "supergroups", I humbly wouldn't consider Cianide as originators, out of respect to the true pioneers of Death Metal. (I'm not going to name them as we all should know who they are) But I suppose compared to most bands out there, we are friggin' old-ass relics. I've seen so many overly hyped bands come and go in my time. I guarantee we'll still be around when "old school death metal" becomes trendy yet again for 5 minutes or so as everything goes in cycles. Everybody will be tired of their gay industrial, jazz, operatic, disco side bands and go back to proclaiming how cool "old school" death metal is. Yeah, whatever. I always stick with what I like. I'm weird like that.
Celtic Frost - a band that carries great importance to Cianide, I believe - have apparently re-formed and work on a new album has commenced. Any particular thoughts or comments you want to share on this matter?
I'm not expecting "Morbid Tales part II", but I'm still curious enough to give it a listen. At best it'll probably sound like "Vanity/Nemesis" which I didn't care for at all. Not really into Warrior's newer "Elmer Fudd" vocal style. I got all the old albums and they still sound as fresh to me as they did when I first heard them. That's all I really need. But if it does kick any amount of ass I'll be the first to say - "Ehh, what's up doc?" while chewing on a carrot.
A lot of technical bands have arisen over the last few years. Bands like Cephalic Carnage, Textures, Dillinger Escape Plan push the envelope of the genre by including parts of jazz, fusion etc into their extreme metal. What is your take on this subject? Does it contribute to the loss of atmosphere and emotion, etc that metal usually is linked to?
Nothing makes me want to jump out a window more than the use of the word "jazz" and "metal" in the same proximity. I'm not knocking the people who genuinely are into jazz; they're not going to be reading this anyway.
I'm talking about the rich, pretty boys (who are always desperately trying to ugly up themselves - growing "wacky beards" and shit) who feel that they have to take metal to the next "level" or something. Like these baseball-hatted, tribal tattooed (though Caucasian) short-baggy pants wearing, fuckheads were ever into fucking metal to begin with. Go back to your alterna-shit, pretentious "everything's cool, dude" rock scene. Maybe you can fool the people at Relapse that you've been into metal since day one. You're not fooling any real fucking metalhead, and your music sucks ass.
But hey, what do I know? Those bands get press and praise in every major metal zine you can shake a stick at, while we're slugging away in obscurity. Where do these people find the time to listen to "different kinds of music" anyhow? They obviously must not work any kind of real job. Gotta be rich to begin with I'm guessing, or rather their parents. Only smug, pretentious, rich cocksuckers like to trumpet their "diverse musical tastes". I hate other kinds of music besides metal.
Thanks for doing this interview! Last words are all yours.
Think I went on enough. Thanks for the interview!
Band info:
Site: www.cianidemetal.com
