Severe Torture
Wywiad przeprowadził Wouter Roemers
With a moniker as subtle as a kick in the groin links to genre veterans Cannibal Corpse are inevitable for Severe Torture. This Dutch brutal death metal act has garnered a loyal following all over the globe in the last decade. With two successful albums to their name and a solid live reputation thanks to several lengthy tours in both the US and Europe, it wasn't a surprise when they landed a record deal with Earache Records. On their third record Severe Torture is finally coming into their own and the result is their most brutal, mature album to date. Now that their new album "Fall Of the Despised" is out, we catched up with newly enlisted second guitarist Marvin Vriesde, who's also active in Dew-Scented and Blo Torch. 
Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. How's everything with Severe Torture for the moment?
Everything is going quite well at the moment. The new album is getting a lot of positive feedback and we're also psyched to have the new material out there.
It's been three years since your last studio output. When "Misanthropic Carnage" was released, you did a tour with Cannibal Corpse. But after that it all seemed to go downhill from that point on. Can you tell us a bit how it was in that period?
Well, actually it was just a lot of plain ol' bad luck. After the CC tour, the band was supposed to go on the road with Hate Eternal. In the meantime I joined the band and we were a 5-piece band. When the tour got re-scheduled we already were so accustomed to being a 5-piece that the rest of the band didn't feel right anymore, about doing one more tour as a 4-piece. After that we only had tours getting cancelled so we chose to stay in writing mode, deal with our old label situation and make plans for the future. We put things into perspective, worked hard and here we are with a new record.
A lot of bands have been terminating their existing contracts with Karmageddon Media, either by negotiating themselves out of the deal, or by re-issuing older material and live albums. Ever since they changed the label's name it has received a lot of negative press. Why exactly did you decide to end the cooperation with said label?
I'm not really at liberty to elaborate too much about that, but I can say that the future expectancy of Severe Torture at the moment of resigning to Hammerheart was a different one than the one in early 2004. To enable the band to grow, we had to break with the past. We were very lucky that our good friends of Exmortem were recording a live DVD at the Fee Metal Festival in Aarhus when we played there and let us borrow the equipment and Tue
Madsen to record it.
On the live album the audience can hardly be heard. Did something go wrong during the recording, to what can that be contributed, you think?
Well, the recording actually was a blessing in disguise, because it was a spur of the moment thing. After we heard the recording we realized that it would be quite a cool idea to release it. Of course, we also noticed the lack of audience but then again we didn't want to fake it by mixing in the audience of "Priest Live" or something, hahaha! There were just no ambience
mics put up so we only had the tracks from the mics on stage so we just choose to keep it pure.
I understand the album was almost entirely written prior to the new contract. How does Earache fit into the picture?
We had already written the majority of the album when the real negotiations with Earache started. Earache had already expressed their interest in the band during the "Misanthropic Carnage" period. After we parted ways with Karmageddon Media, it proved to be a logical progression for the band.
"Fall Of the Despised" differs on a number of aspects from your previous two albums. Where those were more straightforward, the new record is surprisingly progressive and thrashy in its songwriting. There's a full-on mid paced track, a bunch of others have great lead work in the guitar department. Was it time for a change after two similar albums? I reckon this material must be more fulfilling in the live environment.
Actually, it's cool you mention it like this. The band was already on the crossroad of making just another record or making their best record to date, when I joined in 2003. We stuck our heads together and started brainstorming about how the 3rd album should sound like. We focused on songwriting, different tempos, dynamics and a more natural feel in general. This immediately gave a new, fresh feel to all of the new songs we wrote and we now had the opportunity to work with 2 guitars which enabled us to create far more depth and atmosphere. We took the time to broaden our horizons and talk a lot about music in general and discover and re-discover what we all like and love about playing metal. All these elements fell together quite naturally. That's why playing the songs live is absolutely killer. The overall vibe onstage, with the new songs on the setlist is just amazing. It allows us to come alive on stage more than ever before.
This album was recorded at Excess Studios in Rotterdam, whereas the first two albums were recorded at Franky's Recording Kitchen. Why did you choose for Excess this time around?
Well, we mixed "Bloodletting" at the Excess Studio and that's how we warmed up to the idea to record the new album there. The facilities are awesome and they have a good reputation with metal bands. I myself have however never been to Franky's Recording Kitchen so I can't really tell you anything about that. The only thing I know is that this turned out to be a
record I can write home to mom about!
The cover art is also something different this time as well. It wasn't done by Joey Maloney, as it usually was. Was this done to further accentuate the progression the band has made as a collective - or were you just tired of those cliché gore artworks?
Well, the initial cover artwork was actually done by Joey and it was really brutal. But then we had to take other things into account like distribution, censorship and that kind of stuff. We then realized that staying with a cover like that would certainly limit out options to get the record out there and in the stores for the people to buy it. So we took this chance to go for a more dark and moody style of artwork, which actually fits the feel and atmosphere of the album really well. But rest assured gore-lovers, the original design will almost certainly be used for one of the new shirt designs.
Vocalist Dennis Schreurs also is more varied this time around. I really welcomed his Pestilence alike rasp, it creates an interesting contrast with his usual grunts.
It sure does, Dennis has proven to have more qualities in the vocal department than we were used to hear from him. Recording the Pestilence song for the "Bloodletting" CD really opened our eyes and ears to a entire new array of options that we could use for "Fall Of the Despised". It really came naturally and Dennis felt so comfortable with it that we just let him do his thing with it.
"Feasting On Blood" was supported by a Low Life Media produced promo video for 'Butchery Of the Soul' - will this album be supported similarly as well?
We have finished a new video for the song 'Decree Of Darkness'. It's a very bloody, almost snuff movie like video. So it's not going to be on Top of The Pops or anything but it turned out really nice. It's made by Alpha Box which are friends of us. We will make a videoclip with Low Life Media again, probably January next year. That one will be less brutal and especially for the US release we need a video that can be played on TV.
Something you'd wanted to do since the band's debut was adding a second guitarist to the ranks. This has finally materialized with this recording, tell us how, you, Marvin Vriesde (Blo Torch, Dew-Scented) were usurped into Severe Torture?
Well, after I was on the road with Dew Scented on the Cannibal Corpse tour, which also featured Severe Torture, we kinda stayed in touch. Leif, DS singer, told the ST guys they needed a 2nd guitarplayer and that they should ask me. Then he told me that I should take'em up on it 'cause the chemistry would be magic. And he was right, hahaha. It has been a blast so far, and we're just getting started!
As far as touring is concerned, is anything lined up that we should be aware of?
I cannot really confirm anything at this point but there are some touring plans for 2006 in the making, so check the website regularly for tour updates. Furthermore we are gonna do the Kaltenbach Open Air and the Party San Open Air festivals amongst others. But more dates are on the way!
In the merch section there's also a picture of local Dutch celebrity/model Georgina Verbaan, posing in a Severe Torture girlie. I mean, Verbaan's audience is quite mainstream and you guys obviously aren't. What did it take to convince her to model for the band?
Hahaha, that is quite a funny story. She got to know about us through a mutual friend of Seth's who was working with her on a movie. She seemed to be quite charmed with the darker side of life and the band. We sent her some merch and next thing we knew we got these pics of her wearing the girlies and giving us the horns up! She was totally cool with it for us to use it to promote our merch. But it was pretty fuckin'cool to see the reactions, hahaha!
Thanks for your time & talking to us. Last words are yours. Cheers!
No problem, thanks for the interview and hope to see all of you on the road. Keep
supporting death metal!
Site: www.severetorture.com
