Before we go into more detail, here is a short overview of what the band has achieved since its origin. Originally, the whole story goes back to a project that Alex had planned, where he asked Martin (guitar / vocals) and Jacek (bass) if they could help him out. However, since those joint rehearsals went so well, they decided to turn it into a permanent band, so that the official starting point for PUNGENT STENCH is February 1988. In April of the same year, they already played at a festival in Wolfsberg (Austria) together with XYSTER, EXCRUCIATION, BLASTED, DISHARMONIC ORCHESTRA, OVERREACTION O. C. (Jacek’s old band) and INVADER. The performance could be described as successful and PUNGENT STENCH already decided in the very same month to record their first demo (“Mucous Secretion”), which was released in May. It was a five-track rehearsal tape that generally achieved good to very good reviews and allowed the name PUNGENT STENCH to circulate in insider circles. A short time later, they played various gigs in Austria and at a two-day festival in Poland, where they performed each day as headliners in front of about 2,000 to 3,000 enthusiastic fans. In August 1988, the trio went to England to record their first real studio demo there, which, however, was never to be released. But more on that later. After numerous concerts in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, PUNGENT STENCH received an offer from Nuclear Blast Records, so they already went into the studio in May 1989 and recorded a split LP (together with DISHARMONIC ORCHESTRA), which was released by Nuclear Blast Records in June. In September, the trio released the recordings made in England as a 7″ EP under the title “Extreme Deformity” and also played at a festival in Germany together with labelmates DISHARMONIC ORCHESTRA, ATROCITY, CHRONICAL DIARRHOEA and others. In December 1989, they went into the studio again to record their first full-length “For God Your Soul… For Me Your Flesh”, which was finally released in May of this year (1990) and presents the band from their best side so far. It only still has to be mentioned that PUNGENT STENCH have dedicated themselves to Grindcore / Death Metal and should therefore only appeal to the fans of the heaviest stuff, especially since they also deal lyrically with splatter and gore themes…
“We actually only released our first demo because we thought that the recording turned out incredibly well, since we had just placed a tape deck in the rehearsal room to record five songs… Ultimately, a cover and lyrics were added, and we officially sent it out to test what the reactions would be. And they were truly incredible! I sent this tape to two magazines and was just preparing to send it to more when I already received mail from people who wanted to order it, so I had to get things ready for them first. Within a very short time, it seems to have circulated through tape trading to such an extent that an incredibly large number of magazines wrote to me, which I had never heard of before and which all wanted to have this demo. The feedback was then so overwhelming that we spontaneously decided to record a second demo.”
Which you recorded in England… why exactly there?
“We definitely did not want to record in Austria, and since I had already planned my vacation for England at that time, we decided to do it there. Through good connections, we then found a studio where we got a better sound than in the Austrian studios.”
But then there were some problems, as rumors say…
“Yes, we never intended to approach record labels with our rehearsal tape, because we didn’t think we stood a chance with it; therefore, we wanted to release our studio demo as a 7″ EP ourselves, or make a split 7″ EP with UNSEEN TERROR for an English label, since the band had helped us a lot in the studio. But nothing came out of that, because they simply had too few songs and then didn’t do anything else either, and furthermore, the English label lost interest as well. We then decided to do it on our own and release this EP together with DISHARMONIC ORCHESTRA. But nothing came out of that either, because we couldn’t get hold of the original master tapes. We did receive the tapes from the studio, but they were newly remixed – the old recordings had been deleted and the new mix was totally bad, so we couldn’t do anything with it. We then wrote to the guy from the studio telling him to send us the old recordings and that we would mix them ourselves, but we never heard from him again. We didn’t want to release the whole thing as a demo anymore either, because some time had passed in the meantime.”
But it did end up being released by Nuclear Blast Records, didn’t it?
“Yes, that was actually just supposed to be a promo 7″ for the planned tour with RIGHTEOUS PIGS and DISHARMONIC ORCHESTRA, and since we don’t have good possibilities to record anything in Austria, we thought, why not use the England recordings? We didn’t have the master tapes, but we had a cassette with the four songs, and three of them were pressed onto this single directly from the cassette, so the sound is naturally very bad…”
Is that why you only used three of the songs, or did that have other reasons?
“No, we did that because the fourth song, ‘Rip You Without Care’, was already featured on the split LP with DISHARMONIC ORCHESTRA, and we didn’t want to release any song twice.”
To what extent do you actually take the musical style you play seriously, because I get the impression when listening to the vocals at the beginning and the end of ‘Molecular Disembowelment’ on the 7″ that you are making fun of it…
“Well, first and foremost, I have to say that this music is the only real thing for us, and we couldn’t even imagine playing anything else. And making fun… yes, we do make fun of a lot of things, and that might have been a contributing factor, but primarily it was a coincidence and happened quite spontaneously in the studio. It wasn’t planned as a parody, but somehow you can interpret it that way, of course, because there are really bands out there now that take it too far.”
What about the lyrical side of your songs, do you stand behind it?
“How do you mean that? Whether we practice it or what? For us, splatter lyrics are simply entertainment, just as it means entertainment for Clive Barker when he writes a book like “Hellraiser”. We just dig those kinds of movies and like to read those kinds of books; there’s nothing to it, it might be a bit sick, but also meaningless and funny at the same time. We don’t want to convey a message with our lyrics; you can do that through interviews as well.”
So you have nothing against the conventional food supply, since you deal so much with the consumption of humans? You don’t want to switch to human flesh?
(Laughs) “No, no! We don’t even eat animal meat, but there are plenty of cannibal movies that I like. That’s probably where the idea comes from!”
I can still follow you there, but how one comes up with such a tasteless cover is truly a mystery to me. I’m assume that it’s a real photo, right?
“Yes, it is a real photo! And you find that tasteless? For us, it is a work of art, and we are totally proud that we were allowed to use it. It is by an American artist named Joel-Peter Witkin, who does galleries and publishes books, and he only takes photos like that with deformed cripples, body parts and all that kind of stuff. He photographs very aesthetically and has exhibitions all over the world, makes a hell of a lot of money with it, and lives very well off it. For him, it is a work of art, because he became totally famous with it! There are many tasteless things in this world. For example, I find it very tasteless when I see the meat lying in the sausage department at the supermarket…”
Part II
Alex, what exactly was going on during your European tour with MASTER and ABOMINATION?
“The tour was more or less a success for us, because we basically had the best audience reactions out of the three bands, and not just at one show, but on the whole tour. We also spoke to a lot of people who said they only came because of us, and looking at it that way, an audience average of about 300 people is quite satisfying for a relatively unknown band, which we still are. On the negative side, however, I found the reaction of the press in general, because there wasn’t a single live review from this tour, which I thought was a real shame. As far as the relationship among the bands is concerned, I have to say that the problems were definitely not to be found with Mr. Speckmann, whom a lot of people consider to be an arrogant asshole, but much more with the drummer! We actually got along great with Speckmann; he talks a bit much, but otherwise he was quite okay, whereas the drummer acted like a superstar. You could easily say that ‘people with muscles have nothing in their brains instead’, which definitely applied to him. He was eating all day long and then probably burned it off again in the evening. Humanly speaking, he was an absolute asshole. He absolutely did not tolerate the session guitarist from MASTER, who was then always drunk, and he always insulted the other one as a fat pig and the like. When you have a guy like that with you, you just can’t build a friendly relationship; that guy simply should have been eliminated! For example, when we were all eating together, he stole all the meat and then just put the side dishes in front of our people, which is simply unbelievable! And then there was the manager, who also behaved outrageously and watched every penny that might belong to the bands – since he, in turn, got 20% of it. So he was the one who made the most money on this tour. Impossible and completely childish are actions, like going to the merchandise stand and breaking our singles! We then drove separately at first and later canceled the whole thing entirely. In Hamburg, for example, we weren’t allowed to play, but in return, we didn’t let them play in Sweden. Therefore, some shows were canceled. The debacle was rounded off by the tour manager, a German, who basically wanted to rip everyone off their money, but after various threats, he did pay the bands – but relieved Nuclear Blast of 1,000 DM! We can only be glad that the whole situation only escalated at the very end of the tour, since we had bought our equipment on credit and practically paid it off through the tour. If more dates had been canceled, we would be quite in debt right now!”
Finding a transition from such a disastrous tour to something positive is not exactly easy. Perhaps it works best when you hear that PUNGENT STENCH played some larger shows in Poland and at “Monsters Of Death” in Vienna following this tour, which were a complete success. Another success promises to be the new album – the best PUNGENT STENCH work to date! “Been Caught Buttering” is the name of this LP, which contains nine songs and was recorded in an unknown small studio in Vienna. Alex reports on the recordings and the reasons for this.
“There were problems here too once again. Actually, we wanted to record the LP in a completely new studio near Vienna, which is equipped with the most modern gear, but the guy in the studio had absolutely no clue and still had to flip through brochures and instruction manuals just to figure out the mixing console. We were there for three days, already had all our instruments in the studio, until we realized it made no sense. As an alternative, we chose a small studio in Vienna whose guy also mixes our live sound. He had never done anything like this before and had always only worked at live shows. In that studio, there were also various difficulties because something kept breaking down, since the studio is already quite old, and we then needed a week longer than originally planned. Ultimately, we finished the LP in three weeks now, including the mix. You really shouldn’t have seen that studio, and it was partly grueling, but we are very satisfied with the final result now!”
You did not want to go to a renowned studio because you wanted to have a very unique sound…
“When I listen to all these Death Metal records from Sweden or Florida nowadays, they truly bore me to death, regardless of whether the band is quite good or not. They simply all sound the same, and we want to avoid that.”
That it was the right decision you easily can hear yourself when you’re buying the album. The band recorded two additional songs in that studio that will not appear on the LP.
“One of them will appear on the “Death Is Just The Beginning Part 2″ compilation by Nuclear Blast Records, and the other one will go on a compilation that I am currently putting together and which I will also release myself. It is an Austrian underground compilation with DISHAMONIC ORCHESTRA, DISASTROUS MURMUR and PUNGENT STENCH, plus some weird groups that have nothing to do with Metal. Both compilation songs will be put together with one LP song on a single that will only be out in Japan. It will be released by a friend of ours there, who is a total PUNGENT STENCH fan.”
But back to the new LP. The cover features a photograph by the same artist responsible for the previous cover photo, and it is sure to cause quite a stir once again. Despite these covers, it becomes clear in PUNGENT STENCH’s song titles / lyrics (this time more clearly than ever before) that they don’t take all so seriously. Song titles like ‘Splatterday Night Fever’, ‘Happy Re-Birthday’ or ‘S.M.A.S.H.’ probably speak for themselves, don’t they? What exactly does ‘S.M.A.S.H’ actually mean?
“Actually, we intended to offer a different solution for this in every interview. What is certain is that this song is dedicated to a person I cannot stand – therefore, it could mean, for example: ‘Smell My Ass Shit Head’! The working title for this piece was originally ‘Hate Song’, and the lyrics are written by me. Actually a completely untypical PUNGENT STENCH song, although the person it is about does get chopped up at the end anyway.”
Two more things need to be explained that were giving me a headache… First of all, this familiar-sounding melody in ‘Splatterday Night Fever’. Where was that stolen from?
“There is a series running on cable TV that should actually be known to you guys as well: “Twilight Zone”. The melody is the theme melody of that series.”
And then there’s those strange new promo photos on which your bass player looks pretty strange. Did he have an accident, is that his real skin, or perhaps a mask?
“That is a mask, I can reassure you on that. I am doing my civil service at the Samaritan Organization, and they have ventilation masks that look so incredibly sick, I just had to steal them because I thought it suited us. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get hold of three of them – but there are photos of each of us wearing this mask.”
www.facebook.com/pungentstench.official
Frank Stöver