Detonation
Wywiad przeprowadził Wouter Roemers
With an impressive debut to their name and a couple of extensive tours behind them, their second album "Portals to Uphobia" seemed to improve on about every aspect of their already classic debut. Dutch blasting melodic death metal formation Detonation are rising stars in the international extreme metal scene and with the lasting impression that "Portal to Uphobia" left, I caught up with vocalist/guitarist Koen Romeijn to discuss the new album, the debut and everything else related to Detonation.
Hi! Thanks for taking the time to do this interview. How's everything with the band at the moment?
Hi there as well! It's actually pretty quiet here in the Detonation camp. The hectic period that followed the release of "Portals" is behind us now, most interviews have been done and reviews have been given, so we're chilling at home right now waiting for the next tour or something else to come. Until then, we're working on some new material already for the next album.
Your second album "Portals to Uphobia" has been out for some time now, are you satisfied with the reviews and press it got thus far?
Yeah absolutely, it's been good so far. A lot of people seemed to enjoy it, which is good to see, of course. Also, the first time for us to have an album released officially in the US, so we were anxious to see what kind of reactions we would get from there, but it has been nothing but positive. No complaints really!
The album had been postponed, it was originally scheduled for the beginning of this year, but eventually it got released in September, please tell us why?
Basically, the album got finished too late to be able to release it as scheduled in April 2005. It was already April when the album was shipped to Osmose, so they didn't have enough time to print it before the release, let alone distribute the promos. Why the album wasn't completely finished before April was due to a number of factors and happenings. The studio was completely booked at the time, schedules were overlapping each other and we didn't plan the whole thing as we should have, so that's the basic reason. But we thought that Osmose would release "Portals" in May or perhaps June, but we soon found out that they couldn't do that, September was actually the earliest opportunity. But looking back at the whole thing, it was probably for the best. Better to do things right and proper than to rush things and deliver an album at the wrong time without preparation, right?
From what I gather, you already have 8 tracks completed for a third album, due to the postponement of "Portals to Uphobia".
You have been well informed, haha...it's true. Due to the delay we were standing with empty hands and nothing to do. Why not start working on new songs then? We actually got very motivated and inspired due to all the shit we had to endure the last year, so plenty of new tracks have been created in the meantime, almost enough to fill the next Detonation album with. But we're taking things extra serious this time, the next album must be the best thing we have ever done, on all aspects. We're driven to deliver something extra special next time.
I get the impression that "Portals to Uphobia" is all about the choices one faces through out life. Can you elaborate a bit on the lyrical side of things?
That's correct. I started to work on the lyrics right after we released "An Epic Defiance" in 2003. I tried to keep focused throughout the writing process, tried to maintain awareness of the concept I had in mind. In the end the lyrics turned out dealing with numerous things but the main theme is indeed about making choices and decisions in life and facing the consequences they lead to. Just like the lyrics on our debut, these lyrics are primarily based upon our own lives and experiences, so there are no made up stories actually. But we did alter the lyrics a bit to make them more suitable with the music and accessible for people to understand, otherwise things would get too vague probably.
Acoustics form the important facet of your sound, and a couple of tracks prove in volumes that this is Detonation's strength. Of what importance will these acoustic interludes become in the future, as far as songwriting and direction is concerned?
We all love working with melodies as you probably have figured out yourself by listening to our music, hehe. It's just that some melodic parts work better when played acoustic or clean, the atmosphere can increase drastically. We like to experiment with that usually, that's why we often try different ways of playing a certain riff before choosing one. Some parts remain acoustic that way. It also creates a lot of diversity in the music, diversity is a good thing in our opinion. No doubt that we'll come up with more of this stuff in the future.
How were the recording sessions at Excess Studio in Rotterdam, were they better than with the first album?
Not necessarily better I think, but different nevertheless. Some things went a lot better than before, while other things went perhaps less good. That's the usual mystery when you record an album, because you basically never know what's going to happen and how your album will turn out. We had more time for these recordings than with "Epic" and also a larger budget, which took away some stress, of course. We took our time with everything, which was also necessary because a lot of parts deserved some extra attention before being tracked down. In the end it was a rewarding and stimulating experience, as always in Excess Studios I must say. It's a great studio to spend your time in.
Niklas Sundin was once again at helm for the artwork, how is it working with him?
It was cool to work with him again, and he did another outstanding job as well. All we did was sending Niklas the title for the album, which was enough for him to start working on it. A short time later he mailed back to us with a few samples from which we had to choose our favourite to further work with. We're really pleased with the way the whole thing turned out, hopefully we'll be able to work with him again in the future.
How's Osmose Productions treating the band? Overall, are you happy with the marketing, distribution and promotion they're putting into Detonation?
Both on a business and a personal level, things are cool between Osmose and us. We're pleased with the way they are pushing "Portals to Uphobia", I know for a fact that a lot of effort has been put in advertisements and setting up interviews. But in the end it is up to us, the band to get our music noticed out there, by touring as much as possible. We've had a few tours in the past, but we need a whole lot more to really get things moving.
Your debut "An Epic Defiance" got some pretty positive critics in the US, is that market opening up further with your latest effort?
Totally, especially since "Portals" has been officially released by The End Records under license in October 2005, so that's definitely an improvement for us. The reviews from that area of the world are absolutely great, and I'm curious to see how this will further evolve from here.
Through out your music, I suspect At the Gates, Dark Tranquillity and Edge Of Sanity to be primary influences. Would you agree?
You might say that, but we don't really have any primary influences. Our main influence is metal in general, hardly any exceptions. It is a fact of course that our style has most in common with those kinds of bands, and we're not ashamed to admit that. But you have to understand it wasn't a choice we made. We just started creating music, and this is what comes out naturally, which gives us the advantage that we feel that we can do whatever we want, because we are not restricted to one certain genre. We mix whatever influences we like in our music, although it's always done in a subtle way.
You also contributed ‘Under a Serpent Sun' to an At the Gates tribute on Drowned Scream Records. How did that come to be and did it fare well for the band?
Honestly, I hardly noticed any response coming from that. We did it because we all dig ATG a lot, and the opportunity was there at the time. It's a shame that the CD got neglected like it did. I think I probably found 1 or 2 reviews about the compilation, and I really did my best to find them...so a shame, but still a cool experience to participate in for us. We recorded the song in 1 day in Excess Studios, and we learned the song 2 days before. We first wanted to do ‘Cold' from the same album, because we played that one live before, but 2 other bands did that song already...
Tell us a bit about the European tour you did a while ago, with Polish technical death metal formation Decapitated and UK death/grind monsters Gorerotted. I understand there were some logistic problems, the tour bus being too small, etc?
Yeah, it was a wrong bus because it had only 18 beds, which wasn't enough to fit 22 people in, haha. Somebody fucked up and got the wrong bus in the beginning of the tour. We and Dam joined the tour 2 days later, so nobody had a single clue that there was going to be a problem! We managed to do the first 4 shows and nights, breaking our backs and necks by sleeping in places you should not sleep in or at. After those first couple of shows, the organization took the decision to kick one band off the tour bus, because stuff wasn't insured this way, which made sense to us. We felt fucked that they threw us off the tour and not the first band of the bill, Dam. We 
had no choice and went home after the gig in Ghent, Belgium. Luckily we were determined as hell to make the best out of the situation and with the help from Tim from Gorerotted we managed to do a bunch of the remaining shows of the tour by arranging our own transport and accommodation. Things turned out pretty ok in the end, we did a couple of great shows in the UK and Germany which we wouldn't have wanted to miss! Thanks to a lot of fans that supported us at the shows, we managed to do this. We've learned a lot from this whole situation, for a next time
Please describe the experience of touring Europe for the first time with Dimension Zero, in retrospect, did the tour with Decapitated turn out better in the end?
Our first tour through the western part of Europe with Dimension Zero was incredible, a wonderful first experience for us as a band. Not ideal and far from perfect, since the promotion was crap for this tour and the number of visitors each and every night were mostly disappointing. But nevertheless, it was great. You might wonder why, but the reason was that we got along really well with DZ, and we had a really cool 2 weeks with them. And we played some cool shows and made a small number of new fans. The last tour with Gorerotted and Decapitated was better if you look at the turnouts at the shows, several were near sold-out, which was great. But due to all the shit I mentioned earlier it wasn't really a positive experience for us, even though we had a good time with the other bands, especially Gorerotted.
Are there any international tour plans in the pipeline? I guess a lot of fans over here in Poland wouldn't mind seeing Detonation at some stage.
You can count on it. We are more motivated than ever to tour everywhere this coming period. Keep you eyes on our site www.detonation.nl for any updates on the touring matter!
Detonation has also been featured on local television station. The program depicted metalheads as illiterate no-goods and was quite condescending to say the least. Why you agreed to that certain interview?
I was already afraid this question would pop up somewhere! It's a long story so I'll try to keep it short. This whole thing took place at the Baroeg venue in Rotterdam. This guy from a local TV station was there to give his narrow-minded registration of a metal concert. He asked me to do an interview after our show and I told him to fuck off, because he was only there to make fun of the metal scene. But a few hours and beers later during Decapitated's show he asked me again, and to get it over with I basically said yes. I wanted to come across as seriously as possible, perhaps even too serious, haha. I thought the interview went pretty well, actually. But when I saw it on the internet I noticed that half of my words were edited out, they only kept the parts where the interviewer comes across as a funny motherfucker...but anyway, fuck it. I couldn't care less actually about these kinds of things, haha.
Alright, that pretty much covers it, I think. Thanks for answering our interview. Cheers!
My pleasure, thanks for your time and support. Check out our new album if you like and let us know what out think about it. Cheers and keep thrashing!
Photos: Tim van Veen
Site: www.detonation.nl
Info/booking: losteuphoria@hotmail.com
