Interview: RAVAGER

RAVAGER is a young thrash metal band, founded in 2014. Aggressive, fast oldschool thrash. In 2015 their first EP ‘Alarm Clock Terror’ was released and in February their debut album ‘Eradicate … Annihilate … Exterminate …’ is out also. So we talked to RAVAGER about a band, creating process and forthcoming album.  

Who are RAVAGER? Why did called the band this name and what does it means?

First off we’d like to say hi and thank you for your interest in our band. RAVAGER is a five-piece Thrash Metal Band from Walsrode, Germany, members are: Marcel Lehr and Dario Rosenberg on guitars, Justus Mahler on bass guitar, André Sawade on Drums and Philip Herbst is doing the vocals. Marcel came up with the name when he heard the song “Ravager” by the Brazilian Death Metal band Krisiun. He thought «Yeah, that’s a cool name for a band» and everyone else agreed. Since the also Brazilian band Ravager (of whom we learned shortly after that, when we searched the internet for Bands with such name) had split up in the early 2000’s the name was «vacant» and we decided to use it for our new band (and we hope everyone is cool with that). RAVAGER sounds mean, is succinct and stands for intransigence and aggressiveness. It fits our music perfectly!

Why did you decide to play an oldschool thrash metal rather than some trendy music like metalcore or deathcore?

Thrash Metal happens to be the music we all love and we discovered it’s great fun to play. And that’s what it is about for us – fun! We like to play music that is technically challenging but at the same time straight forward and aggressive. If it makes us want to hop around and bang our heads it’s just right.

How is creative process going in your band? Who is writing the music? Lyrics?

Most of the time Marcel starts writing the songs at home. Usually then he already has an approximate idea for the lyrics, lead guitar or the drums. When he is happy with the arrangement (that might take a while, when writing songs there is always something you are not a hundred percent happy with) he shows the rest of the band what he has come up with and together we continue working on the songs. During that process the songs may change slightly or some riffs by Dario are added. With him having a different style of playing the two guitars mostly complement each other quite well. We then try to figure out what bass and drum parts fit the song. Basically every cool idea a band member has is being tried out on the spot. Then Marcel usually writes the lyrics for the songs which for him is easier to do at this point. Once all that is done the writing process is basically through but things may still be changed over time.

As I see, you’re quite ambitious band. What do you want to achieve with the music?

If we could choose it would probably be more peace and fairness all around the world but with that seeming pretty much impossible (unfortunately) we just keep making music as long as it is fun for us. Of course we hope you folks out there like our music. There is nothing more motivating for a band than seeing people go crazy over their music.

Soon your debut album ‘Eradicate … Annihilate … Exterminate …’ will be released. Do you yourself satisfied with it as an end product?

Of course we are satisfied otherwise we would not publish it (haha)! It sounds tight, the cover and booklet look great and we like the songs that are on it. Surely there are always some minor things which could be improved but to us the album is more than just a record. It helped us gain experience and we all learned a lot.

Tell more about an album please. Music creation and the whole recording process.

The whole process of music creation we covered already. For the recording process it was as follows: after we recorded our EP ‘Alarm Clock Terror’ together with Basti (who did all the recording and mastering) we knew that we wanted to work with him on our album as well. He is a nice chap who pretty much lives around the corner and that made it easy for us to coordinate everything, we always could get together on short notice to record or to work out changes. After we had ten songs we felt being «worthy» to put on an album we worked out a click track for each song. We then recorded the drum tracks, then guitars and bass and finally the vocals. We could do most of that in our rehearsal room which was very convenient for us. The recording was done from March to July 2016. It was not always easy, sometimes even a bit frustrating but all of us stayed motivated and we eventually grew closer as a band.

Your ideal gig is …?

A mission impossible! The ideal gig probably does not exist but that might be because as musicians we never are fully satisfied with ourselves. But that on the other hand keeps us motivated to carry on and try our best every time.

Who or what inspires you as musicians?

Most of us find their inspiration in the music they like to listen to but inspiration really can be found anywhere. See our song “Alarm Clock Terror” for example – it was inspired by Marcel’s wife’s alarm (which was not turned off when they were on vacation together).

Heavy music in Germany nowadays, what can you say about it? Is it still popular or is it in decline?

The Heavy Metal scene might not be the same as it was 30 years ago but with a look at all the concerts, festivals and all the great young bands popping up we think Heavy Metal it’s still very big in Germany.

What do the RAVAGER members do in their free time from music (if you have any)?

Basically RAVAGER is what we do in our free time. All of us have an everyday job from which we sometimes need to relax by playing some Thrash Metal music. But of course there are other things we do in our free time. André and Marcel for example Have their own families, Dario likes riding his motorbike, Justus does stuff with his girlfriend. We all like to hang out together at festivals, concerts or in bars every now and then and just have a fun time with friends.

Share your future plans, please.

First of all we can’t wait for the release of our debut album! Soon we will also release a music video to our song “Dr. Mad” to promote our record. There will be some gigs to play in the near future and in the meantime we are writing some new stuff. We almost have five new songs ready and they are really kicking ass.

And finally, spare few words for our readers.

A big thank you to all who like our music and support us! We hope we could give you a brief image on who we are and what we do and are looking forward to rock the stages together with you! Thanks to Antichrist Magazine for the interview! Thrash on! RAVAGER.