Who told you Norwegian Metal scene is dead?! It’s alive and kick ass still! DEATHHAMMER!
1.Prepare to suffer morbid torture!!!! You are almost a new band, started only in 2005, however you have managed to release many stuff! Can you comment something about this fact? How easy or hard enough is to compose and record new songs? What is the process??
Sadomancer: I don`t feel we are a new band since we have been thrashin for almost 8 years now and we have only made like 50 songs and thats not much since we are two people taking care of the riffs. Makin new riffs is neither easy or hard, it just comes out when the time is right. I`m always in a metal mode but sometimes a good riff waits for months to come out and other times I can make two songs in a couple of weeks. We would never release anything half-assed we weren`t 100% satisfied with just to get something out there and I have waited several years for one single riff to be complete, although that was an extreme case hehe. Forcing things rarely works good in any situation, except rape of course.
2.How did you decided to turn from a simple metaller to a member of a band? Why did you want to form DeathHammer?? What were your goals back then and what do you think have reached now???
Sadomancer: I always liked to pound the hell out of the drums and I guess when we met up late 2005 to rehearse some riffs Salsten had made which didn’t fit into his other band Warfield (which was more like total german thrash and not as black and hellish as Deathhammer) we though this is it. We actually started as a punk-band called Hevnerne but we quickly found out that evil metal was our call. It got even better (for me) when Salsten showed me how to do the mighty powerchord and I could make my own songs too. Deathhammer never had a goal or a plan, we just follow our hearts and let the darkness lead the way. The riffs are still good and I still feel very inspired so we have no plans of slowing down. The torture never stops!
3.What is your Metal history? Tell me how the fuck did you was possessed by Metal!? It is some of the most important questions for my zine Legion of Torture and also now in this contribution for Antichrist zine!!. Speak or die!!! And also, in what way does Metal turned important (or not so important maybe?) for your lifes??? In what did you and things changed since you entered into the Metal Legion??
Sadomancer: Haha or not so important?! Metal is a total lifestyle for me which I will live to the death, its the only way. Metal and music is important to me because listening to music is definetly the thing I enjoy the most, and metal is my favorite music to listen to so there you go. The great rush of power I feel in my veins when I`m listening to my favorite metal records is more sacred than anything else. It`s also great to be a part of making metal music so I can do more than “just” listen, I can take action with my axe too. How I got possessed by the metal gods have to be when I discovered how great Iron Maiden was when I was younger. That was life-changing and they are still one of my favorite bands. I think the first Maiden-album is the most important album for getting me seriously into metal and from then on there was no looking back.
4.You have a “buddy” in the covers of the first demos and then I think he got some kind of evolution or mutation (colors, etc). Can you speak something about this buddy?? I remember, when some German friend sent me your demos I liked that drawings because they seemed so primitive; then it encouraged myself to make a self cover with a so primitive / 5 y.o. kid drawing for some of my DIY productions… haahahha… It was amazing…
Sadomancer: It was just something I drew at school when I was bored (bored now even talking about school) and we ended up used him on all our releases. I even made a 4-page cartoon of him back in the day which I still have but I will never show it to anyone hehe. I call him Tormentor and he`s sort of our “mascot”. Maybe one day when we are filthy rich we can make a big robot-version of him running around on the stage when we play and turn down the volume on the other guitarists amp, that would be killer.
5.Riffs are shredder as possible and I like this chainsaw!!! Can you explain me what are the feelings that you get when you compose a song??? I mean do you need to get a special moment to make it, just take your guitar and what the fuck!!?? And also, about lyrics, you seem to be very nice speaking about flowers, butterflies, rainbows and that. From where comes these shiny inspirations???
Sadomancer: Haha! As I said earlier, riffs just come when the time is right. Having listened to some raging metal on beforehand doesn’t hurt either. When a song is really taking shape and I got a good mainriff and chorus it is a great feeling, one of the most rewarding things about making music. Lyrics have to fit with the riffs, but I would say the riffs are 95% of a song and the lyrics 5%. That does NOT mean we just write lyrics for the sake of having some random lyrics and that we write something without inspiration or we don`t stand for of course, but if a song don`t have great riffs it simply have no use. A lot of nowaday metal bands seems to care more about the lyrics and image than the actual riffs, specially black metal bands. I say the riffs itself should be enough to create the images the lyrics are meant to convey. Also you have some bands like Ghost who is extremely visual and definetly a lot about the image and “the whole package”, but as long as the music is great that`s no problem at all. Anyway when I got a song ready it`s not hard to come up with words who fits the feeling of the song afterwards. I don`t write many lyrics now (only two on the new album) but when I do, I do it 110%. Our lyrics mostly deal about darkness, destruction, death, metal and hell. On our new album we even got a poser-bashing song called Mutilated Poserflesh which we havent had in many years. We hate posers and we believe in metal darkness. Our new album will be so merciless that all the shiny things in the world will turn to shit.
6.Deathhammer appeared on 2000, maybe involved in what people wanted to call “retro-thrash” (I know many people hate it and others hails it, but it is a history apart…). In your opinion, what could be the differences between the Thrash scene of the past and the currently? Do you think still there are things to discover or re-invent for Thrash Metal?? In this way, what could be the contribution of Deathhammer, musically speaking???
Sadomancer: Retro is a lame word, you do whats in your blood that’s the only way. If I was a teenager in Germany in 84 I don’t think I would have played reggae-music, if you see what I mean. But of course coincidences have a lot to say, like parents feeding you rock instead of disco and giving you a drumkit instead of a panflute and such things probably helps a lot. I wasn’t into thrash in the 80s, I was barely into breast-milk, but the first difference I could think of now would be that we will never again have a record like Show no mercy just appearing out of the blue to kill us all, and it`s not much you haven`t heard before nowadays. There`s still so much left to discover from the ancient days though, so I`m not complaining. There are always some new great metal bands who does things in a original way like Negative Plane, Black majesty or Faustcoven, but in thrash metal I don’t think there are things to re-invent or take further. It`s all a matter of writing the best riffs possible, that’s what it should be for every metal band anyway. Deathhammer`s contribution to thrash metal I hope is not gonna be seen as just some kind of tribute or homage to the old bands but genuine raging metal for the true maniacs. Also we don`t limit our sound, we use whatever riff that fits whether it sounds like black, heavy, thrash or death metal. We don`t limit our music to any genre, but the riffs got to have a certain hellishness to it.
7.As far as I know, you are fans of old Bathory. What did you feel when you know Quorton was dead???
Sadomancer: I remember I saw the norwegian band Enslaved live some days (?) after his death and that they dedicated one of their songs to Quorthon but I didn’t think much more about it since I wasn’t into Bathory at that time. I first got into Bathory a short while after when I bought The Return album and Bathory has been my favorite band ever since. Nothing beats listening to Bathory alone in the dark, that’s the best feeling ever. Hail Quorthon eternally!
8.It seems you got some kind of support of Fenriz / Darkthrone. Can you explain how did you meet this guy??? In what way do you think his positive words towards your band have helped DeathHammer???
Sadomancer: I always get this question.. He showed up at our first gig where he got our first demo and he`s been kind of supporting us since which is cool since he got excellent taste. I don’t think it have been very crucial to how “popular” we are today because people who wants to listen to Deathhammers music are people into underground metal and would have found out about us sooner or later anyway.
9.Your current label is HellsHeadbangers from USA. How is the deal??? What did they offered to you??? What do you consider a fair deal??? Is OK just some royalties??? Would you ask for studio payment???
Sadomancer: The deal in short is that they release our albums and we get a lot of LPs and CDs to sell for ourselves as payment. They also do merch, tapes and layout and such boring things and we are totally satisfied with them even though they fucked up the tracklisting for both the first and second pressing of the onward lp hehe, damn! Studio payment isn`t needed since we record in my basement-studio, but studio-fuel (alcohol in large dozes + milk for the vocals) would be nice to get covered. Maybe ask them about that next time.
10.You told me that you only “sell” your items and don’t trade. Why this??
Sadomancer: Haha, I trade but not against fanzines I`m interviewed in of course. It`s normal for the zine to give a copy to the band they interviewed, that’s what I`m used to at least.
11.What is the meaning of the words UNDERGROUND METAL for you???
Sadomancer: Metal for die hards. Metal for the ones who doesn’t like the modern way of producing music, triggers, pro-tools, over-compromizing etc. Real sound and real metal! I like evil metal to stay underground but I don`t mind if bands sell millions of albums as long as they stay true. Also I know that a band like Vomitor is not for the masses anyway, there are simply some things normal people will never understand no matter how hard they try, hehe. If Deathhammer sold 100.00 albums we would still make the same music with all fuck-ups included, but I don’t think we have to worry about THAT.
12.Comment about the “drummer” issue in the band. I think it was a topic not so easy, isn’t it???
Sadomancer: Not a problem at all. I play drums on the recordings as always and we have had a loyal live-drummer for years now which works out great. Check out his band Nekromantheon and their latest album Rise, Vulcan Spectre, it will kill you!
13.What about the Asian gigs you played?? How it was possible??? What was the deal??? What did promoters offer to you??? With what bands did you share stage?? How was the experience to make this trip??? Did you “hook up” some Asian bitches?? And what about that gig with Sabbat?? I suppose it was a good experience at all…??
Sadomancer: Singapore ruled! Only a bit too hot. Sweaty days. And we only played like 5 songs and stayed there for a week so that sucked a bit when i think about it, but was great as long as it lasted. An arranger (hails, Khalid!) contacted us and asked if we could play and he bought our flight tickets and booked us a place to sleep so it was very smooth. Not much asian bitches, you have to ask Onslaught and Desecration about that he he. It was cool the first day we arrived there, we went to a local bar in a shopping mall of all things and hijacked the stage and played a song or two. I remember I bled from my face on the floor and shit after the performance but can`t remember why. The guards looked really scared haha. The Sabbat-gigs was godly. specially the London-gig since I was exhausted and in fucked up shape in Oslo. Waiting on airports a whole night without sleep etc is beyond shitty. We also saw them in Berlin at the Nuclear war now festival the following weekend where they reigned supreme!!
14.What do you know about Peru in general (culture, life, society, etc)??? What do you know about Peru, talking about Metal??? In your opinion what are the most valuable bands and releases of SouthAmerican Metal in all history???
Sadomancer: Haha, don`t know anything about Peru actually. The only band I got in my collection (as far as I know) from Peru is Mortem. They released some good death metal with too clean drums. Also I know Anal Vomit, their first album is great as far as I remember. I`m a big fan of several south american bands, I guess most of them are obvious and no namedropping needed. My favorite south american metal-releases of all time would be INRI, Bloody vengeance and the 3 first Sepultura-releases. Parabellum, first Sextrash and first Abhorer albums etc are stellar too. There is a lot of great evil intense stuff from the south.
15.You also belong or have belonged to Black Magic (hails Jon wherever you are, I still have here the tape you sent me!). Comment about this. In what way it could be useful for then turn for Deathhammer?? As far as I know you have some parallel bands, so speak about they too…
Sadomancer: Yeah, Black Magic started when I heard Jon was going to my town in 2007 and I knew he had a one-man thrash band called Bestial purity so I contaced him on the net and arranged a meeting at my place where we jammed and decided to form Black Magic. We have released two tape-demos and played a few gigs and some years ago we recorded an album called Wizard`s spell which will be released very soon on high roller records and that will be the end of the band since Jon doesn`t listen to metal anymore. Yes I play in some other bands, one is Conflagration which is me and this deathrash-maniac from my neighbourtown who makes most of the music and we play death metal in the vein of Merciless, Slayer, Autopsy etc. We got one demotape out called Morbid dissonances and will record an album this year so beware. I also play in a punk/crust-band with some sleazy old guys (one of them is the Deathhammer-live guitarist) called Avfall which got one democd out called Das system, we will release something new in the coming future. Gateways is another band with a friend of mine which is some years old now, we are only waiting for one song to be complete and then we will record an album. Black metal. The newest band is called Satan`s hell (with Salsten and an italian lunatic) and we play speed/heavy metal in the vein of Running wild, Savage grace, Agent steel etc with some Show no mercy throwed in. Will release a demotape soon I hope, even though everytime we get together we tend to get wasted instead hehe. I`m also doing live drums for Ghoul cult the few times we decide to get together and do a show and I have played guitar on 3 gigs with the german black metal horde Occvlta now. Hails to them!
16.Can you mention some of the better current Metal acts there in Norway? What about distros or paper zines currently??? I have not hear anything recently… Why do you think is this silence in this activities??? Also, what about Heavy Metal from the past?? Thrash Metal from 80s??? Honestly I did not listen anything!!!
Sadomancer: Töxik Death got a new album on their way and I heard some new reh-tracks which totally slays! Also Condor and Lobotomized will release their debut albums soon, Gouge got a great 7″ out and I heard rumours about a new heavy metal band called Flight which got to be good. No new distros I have noticed, paper zines have not been big in norway since the old days sadly. Also I hate to say it, but the metal information one wants you can easily find on the net anyway. New releases/releasedates, interviews, bios, reviews etc etc. Still it would be cool with some good ol zines again. I remember a paper zine years ago called bloody vengeance which was very good and hostile. Hmm I live in norway and are in contact with many metal bands here so I haven`t noticed any silence I must admit hehe. Oh yeah, about old metal it`s almost “only” black metal we can be proud of but of course if you dig you can find some great releases in other genres aswell like Black Angels with their demo, EP and their godly Destroy 7″. They play great primitive heavy metal like Running wild, Accept-style. The Destroy-song got to be Norways best heavy metal song ever! They are even singing about burning churches in 84. Also check out the Norway rocks-LP with some great heavy/speed metal bands and of course old TNT. For 80s thrash, listen to Equinox – Auf wiedersehen.
17.How is the relation of metallers with people from standard society? Having in mind what happened before with the arson events, murders, etc – some people maybe have terror when they listen something about “Metal music”. So, how hard (or not) is to be a metaller in Norway, after all the well known events happened in your scene??? What is the idea – in general – that standard society and people have about Metal???
Sadomancer: I think nothing is shocking these days so people doesn`t react to metal music or Satanic images etc anymore which is fine by me, I don`t dress up to provoce reactions. Only the standard sceptical look from old people and regular people thinking you are stupid for having long hair and wearing a dirty leather jacket and such but to hell with them.
18.Give your opinions about: A)Euronymus, B)Dead, C)Varg Vikernes, D)Metallion, E)Anders Breivik.
Sadomancer: A: I worship the music of old Mayhem and I hail his quote “Har du spist penger?”. Also it`s cool that he threathened poser-bands to quit from what I heard but I didn`t know him of course so I dont have much to say about him other than that. The spirit of old Mayhem will live on forever. B: Great vocalist and great lyricist. Hails to Repugnant for keeping the morbid-legacy alive. Wonder how the hell they got the lyrics for another vision, hehe. C: Untouchable black metal. His new albums are also great, especially Belus. D: Slayer mag rules! Got an Arne Babb-patch on my vest. E: Don`t have much to say about him. If you`re not a metalhead you might as well be dead!
Sadomancer: I hate posers because they are infecting the true metal scene with false attitude and bullshit. Nobody into any musicstyle likes a poser. They represent everything thats wrong with metal like more focus on image/clothes than music and trying to fit in and feeling safe in the crowd so fuck them and their wimpy ways. The best way to kill a poser I could think of now would be to shoot them in their intestines and then steal all their records (posers often got good record-collections because they have rich parents and tries to buy all the “right” stuff to fit in) and then take their hairspray and spray it all over them and set them on fire. One example of a true poser: One time I asked a chick if she was into Bathory and she replied yes I just got a Bathory shirt and I asked which albums she liked and the answer was I dont own any records, its just a matter of priority. Haha. stupidest answer I have heard in my life. DEATH TO POSERS!!!
20.Something related: what is the meaning of Metal for you? Do you have some special ideology, interpretation or ideas about Metal!?
Sadomancer: Metal is the meaning of living. DIE BY POWER!!!
21.MMMMMmmmmm… Going to the end (end = death; so curious…). I wanna dig more about what happens in the past and the current reaction about it: Do you think people of “Inner Circle” were real soldiers that raised the banner of Satan and make their mission?? Maybe they were just poor kids looking for attention??? How does your entire scene think about those guys??? Are they respected??? Hated??? Anyway, release more deep ideas about this topic…
Sadomancer: I don`t know or care but I don`t think you could call bands like Darkthrone or Burzum who still goes strong “poor kids looking for attention” to say the least, but I guess there were some posers there in the back of the ranks as everywhere else.
22.I’m fucking burned!!!!!! What is coming for the future of DeathHammer?? Die in some post-apocalyptic war maybe?? It’s the end of the morbid torture!!! See ya in the abyssal depths!!
Sadomancer: TOTAL DEATH. Our new album will kill all of you.
https://www.facebook.com/deathhammerofficial
By Morbid Devastator
(Death Invoker band / Legion of Torture zine / Evil Spirit distro – PERU)
legionoftorture@hotmail.com
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