The Ordher
Wywiad przeprowadził Wouter Roemers
After releasing their commendable debut "Weaponize" in 2007 a couple of months ago The Ordher released their second album "Kill the Betrayers" through Los Osos, California death metal specialist label Unique Leader Records. "Kill the Betrayers" sees The Ordher upping their assault on every conceivable level and sounding more hostile than ever. Masterful Magazine caught up Fabiano Penna Correa (rhythm/lead guitars) to talk about their latest album, their European touring stint with Vader and Marduk and how the addition of a new drummer has added to their sound. 
Hi Fabiano! Thanks for doing this interview with us! "Kill the Betrayers" is out for a while now, how have the media and fan reaction been to this new record?
Hey Wouter, thanks for the support once again, it's a pleasure. Well, "Kill The Betrayers" was released a couple of months ago and the response has been great. A lot of people who did not know about us have got this new album and they got surprised because they did not know about The Ordher before. Also all the people who knew us before, people who got "Weaponize", everybody with no exception have said that "Kill The Betrayers" is way better than our debut, even magazines and websites. So, we're pretty happy with that, we know we're on the way…
Couple of weeks ago you returned from the "Funeral Nation" European tour on which you supported Swedish black metallers Marduk and Polish death metal titans Vader. Was this the first lengthy tour for The Ordher? How was it getting on the road for a number of weeks?
Yes, first long tour for us. We played several shows in Brazil from 2007 until now promoting our debut, but you know that in Brazil there are not long tours, the country is too big but there are only a few cities where you can really play with a decent structure. So it's impossible to play like 30 shows over here, no way. On 'Funeral Nation' we played 30 shows over 9 European countries, and it was great, specially because we supported great bands such as Vader and Marduk. We just want to thank to everybody who was involved on that tour in some way, it was great for us.
In May 2008 the addition of new drummer Cássio Canto was announced. What were the reasons for parting ways with original drummer Mauricio Weimar?
Mauricio was completely involved with other projects, such as music classes. He plays several different instruments, besides drums he plays guitar, acoustic guitar, piano, violin. He had too many students with him, and it was really hard for him to have time for the rehearsals, and especially for the gigs. So, before we had a long tour to do, he left The Ordher. Right after this he moved to Iceland to work in a music school over there, he's still there working nowadays.
The drumming on "Kill the Betrayers" is phenomenal. His speed, endurance and dexterity are impressive. Was Cássio Canto involved in any bands before that we should be aware of? What made him the ideal choice for the new incarnation of The Ordher? What does he add to the band that Mauricio Weimar couldn't?
Cássio never played in a real band before, he plays drums for 10 years already and was one of the students of Mauricio, one of the best ones. When Mauricio left The Ordher, he said that Cássio would be a good choice for us. We checked some of his videos on YouTube drumming and I called him immediately. He was really happy with our offer and a few days later we started to rehearse together. He did an excellent job in "Kill The Betrayers". It was his first recordings experience ever, so he was really excited with that. I think that the fact that he's so young is the best thing for having him in the band. He put some new energy that we needed for this new album.
Describe the atmosphere within the band now. It's apparent there has to be a strong level of chemistry considering how well-written and expertly performed the new album is…
Since Cássio joined the band, we did several shows together and already started to work on the new album. We wanted to prepare something stronger than our debut in every sense, so we worked hard writing the new stuff and rehearsing it for several months. To be honest, I think that all the process was much faster than it was when we prepared "Weaponize". For our debut we recorded the stuff several times before the final recordings for the album. For the new album we just recorded a demo of one song a few months before just to give some experience to Cássio and then we focused on the recordings of the album. Some of the songs were not even rehearsed. I recorded some demos at home with the songs and gave to the other guys a few days before we started to record the album. In the end, it was an unusual process for us, but it worked out very well.
The new material is significantly heavier and more aggressive than anything that I think The Ordher has probably done in its existence. I think 'Retaliation' is probably the best track you have written to date. What brought on this newly envenomed attitude?
Yes, the new stuff is more aggressive, that was our intention when we started to prepare the album. 'Retaliation' is curiously one of the songs that we could not rehearse, it was written a few days before we started to record the album. We worked on this song in the studio only. Most of the drums recordings, we did like a rehearsal, me and Cássio in the studio playing together, with a Marshall really loud in the room, that was really relaxing for him. We were playing together with no compromise. We had not the pressures that drummers normally have when they are recording alone in the room with the metronome in their ears.
The cover art for "Kill the Betrayers" was created by Marcelo HVC while on "Weaponize" it was done by Rafael Giovanoli. What made Marcelo HVC such an obvious choice to represent the visual side of this new material?
Nowadays he's just the best artist for metal bands in Brazil, and probably one of the best in the world. He's worked with bands such as Gorgoroth, Obituary, Vader, Belphegor. He's one of the best ones, for sure and we're friends for a long time. To be honest, I don't know why we did not choose him to work on "Weaponize" as well. It doesn't mean that I dislike that artwork at all, but for sure Marcelo would have done it much better. Anyway, all the artwork in "Kill The Betrayers" is killer. We're just proud to have him involved in our work someway. He's also the responsible for our MySpace layout and shirts.
This new album is once again recorded at El Diablo and Estudio 100. What made you record in your own home studio instead of going someplace else? Besides the obvious financial benefits what makes your home studio ideal for The Ordher?
Well, we have the studios. We work with recordings for the last 14 years more or less, so I doubt we would be able to get better sound in any other place in Brazil. Of course, if we get an expensive studio to produce our music, we will have more chances to sound better, but we would have like only a few days in a studio like that with the budget we have for the album, what's not good for recordings. I mean, we record our music pretty fast because we rehearse a lot and stuff. It's always good to be able to work with no pressures in this sense, we start recordings early and we just end it when we're tired and we think the results are not cool no longer. Anyway, we think about to get a producer for the next album. We like to produce our music, but we think that if someone else does that, maybe we will be able to focus more on the music itself and this producer could get a sound that we cannot…
Lyrically, this new album once again deals with themes of war, betrayal, extermination of the weak and religious. In what ways do you feel you have improved compared to The Ordher's debut, lyrically?
That's a hard subject to talk about. I write most of the lyrics, in "Weaponize" I wrote them all, and in "Kill The Betrayers" I wrote 90% of the lyrics, Fabio wrote 'Silent Enemies' and I did the rest. I believe that lyrics on the new album are in the same level as in our debut, at least I can't notice so many differences in the texts. All the lyrics are very strong, and I personally like the way they fit in our music, with a lot of rhymes, strong refrains and stuff like that. I think that it has to sound good in the end, you know? Some bands have good texts with good ideas, but it does not sound like music in the end, only screams in the music. We like to make the lyrics sound as good as possible, that people can really 'sing' them while listening to the album. I remember that this was one of the reasons for me to be fan of bands like Morbid Angel and Deicide when I was a teenager, I love their lyrics and the way David [Vincent] and Glen [Benton] sang that.
The album title "Kill the Betrayers" sounds very aggressive and militant. Who are the betrayers that you want killed: former band mates, record labels, promoters that screwed the band over?
I think that in any situation you'll find a betrayer. In the album conception, the betrayer is whole mankind, who has done wrong things over the centuries, who has worked against themselves for so much time, betraying the whole race. It appears through religions, politicians, media domination and many other smaller forms of control.
One of the features carried over from your days in Rebaelliun are your typical fast and hellish screaming leads/solos. They get a prominent place on "Kill the Betrayers". Doing leads/solos was becoming something of a lost art for a lot of modern extreme metal bands in the last couple of years. What makes a good lead/solo, according to you?
I love guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and Steve Ray Vaughan, who were masters in the art of solos. One of my main influences as a guitarist is Slayer, so I grew up listening to Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman on those great duels of solos. But to be honest, I don't consider myself a lead guitar player. It took a lot of time for me to feel really comfortable to play leads. In Rebaelliun Ronaldo [Lima] the other guitar player was the main lead player - he was damn good, at that time I was just trying to sound like him… And with The Ordher, since I'm the only guitarist, I have to do the job someway, haha. For me a good solo is that one that people can remember and literally 'sing' after they hear it. Just like the solo in 'Eyes To See, Ears To Hear' of Morbid Angel, that's one of the best examples of a good solo in extreme metal.
You mentioned earlier that you mirror Ronaldo Lima's style of playing and doing solos. Have you considered inviting him to join the ranks of The Ordher?
Not really. He moved to another city many years ago and he definitely quit playing guitar, playing metal. Even in the last months in Rebaelliun he was not motivated with the music we played and the whole scene of metal in general. We maintained Rebaelliun only for 4 years, and during this time he left the band two times. I mean, I could not trust him no longer even if he decided to play metal again.
This is your second record for Unique Leader Records with whom you signed in late 2006. How have they been treating The Ordher? Do they have any plans to set up a tour for North America in support of this new record?
In general we have a good relationship with Unique Leader. Of course it's not perfect, we think, we should have better promotion at all. You know, we will always be claiming for more, that's the way. About a tour in North America, that would be killer, but there's nothing in mind yet.
Any concrete plans on how you will promote the release of this debut outside of Brazil? How is the touring cycle for this album shaping up so far?
Well, the first 'big' step was done. It was the tour with Vader and Marduk across 9 countries in Europe, that was a good beginning to support "Kill The Betrayers". Of course, we will be working hard to be able to be on tour in Europe again as soon as possible, playing live is just the best promotion ever and we love playing live too. Besides, we're doing interviews and stuff like that to let people know about our music.
The Brazilian death - and black metal scene has always appeared to be very diverse and productive. How is it doing nowadays? Any up-and-coming bands we should know about?
Yes, we have some killer bands down here. Of course, Krisiun is the biggest act from Brazil nowadays and everybody knows them. But there are some other good bands such as Unearthly (best Brazilian black metal band ever), Ophiolatry (one of the best extreme metal acts from Brazil) and also Andralls, a good thrash metal band that sounds like a mix of Slayer and Sepultura.
Okay, that about sums it up. feel free to end this interview in any way you like. If there's anything of importance we might have forgotten to mention or anything you'd like to add, just go ahead. Thanx a lot and all the best to all of you!
Thanks again for the interview, we really appreciate your support, man. To all of you who read the interview and still don't know our music, we invite you to visit www.theordher.com to know more about The Ordher. Hail and kill!!
Info: www.uniqueleader.com
MySpace: www.myspace.com/theorderextreme
