Hi Erik… This is the first VOMITORY interview for us. Do you like answering the questions of crazy, stupid maniacs, like me? Haha!
"Hello Leslie! Yes, of course we like interviews especially the crazy ones from fanzines, magazines and radio etc, etc."

Congratulations for your new album, which is killer. Do you agree with me?
"Thanks a lot, we are very pleased to hear that people like what we like, brutal Swedish Death Metal. Yes we are very pleased with the recording and the layout the sound and the mix, we mastered it once but then Henrik Larsson the producer was not satisfied and mastered it again, so now it sounds killer."

When have you started writing the new material? How were the songs born?
"I can’t remember exactly when we started creating new songs, but from the start we were supposed to record "Primal Massacre" in February but then we should go on tour (the "No Mercy 2004" festival tour in April). So we had to enter the studio in December instead. We were short of songs (as usual) so we finished a couple of them in the studio and created, I think it was 2 new songs in the studio as well, and also about 5 lyrics for the songs, so it was hard work in the studio."

Where and with whom have you recorded the new stuff? How much time did you spend in the studio? Where was the album mixed? Tell us about the recordings please!
"We recorded in studio Kuling in Örebro Sweden. It’s the first time that we used that studio with the same producer, Henrik Larsson, whom we have used for our last 4 records. We recorded for 2 weeks, had a break over Christmas and then we went to Studio Berno in Malmö Sweden for the mixing and to finish the record."

The title of the new album is “Primal Massacre”. I think the title speaks for itself, doesn’t it?
"Yes, we were looking for a brutal title and when we heard "Primal Massacre" the first time we all liked it, so we said that this would be the title of our new record, it also fits with the brutal music that we play."

Please tell us about the new songs! What must we know about the new VOMITORY record?
"The new record has 10 new tracks on it. Titles are: ‘Primal Massacre’, ‘Gore Apocalypse’, ‘Stray Bullet Kill’, ‘Epidemic (Created To Kill)’, ‘Demon’s Devine’, ‘Autopsy Extravaganza’, ‘Retaliation’, ‘Condemned By Pride’, ‘Cursed Revelations’ and ‘Chainsaw Surgery’. All you need to know is that this is a fucking killer record."

In your opinion, are there differences or similarities to "Blood Rapture"? What kind of reactions did you get on your previous album?
"I think the sound is almost the same as on "Blood Rapture" but more intense in the songs and of course there is also a couple of really heavy riffs as well. Almost all the reactions we got on "Blood Rapture" was very good so we hope on this one it will be the same. We haven’t got so much reactions yet as the record has not been released yet." (in the meantime it has of course! – Frank)

The sound became cool too. Are you satisfied with the result?
"Yes very satisfied."

The new album was recorded by the same line up, which recorded "Blood Rapture". Everything all right within the band? What do the former VOMITORY members do nowadays? Are Urban and Tobias Gustafsson brothers?
"We have had the same line up for the last 3 records. What former members are doing I can’t tell you because I don’t know. And yes, Urban and Tobias are brothers, they also have a smaller brother who plays in a another Death Metal band as well."

Your lyrics are about gore, bowels, blood etc. Isn’t it boring always writing about these themes? Could you write lyrics about love or happiness? Haha!
"We never get bored to write about these things. It’s brutal music so you need brutal lyrics to go with that. We are not interested to write about other things than that. The more blood it contains the better, that’s what Death Metal is all about, brutal music and brutal lyrics."

This is the third VOMITORY record which was released by Metal Blade. Are you satisfied with them? Do they all for the band? Of course I think about promotion, advertisement, supporting the tours etc.
"Yes, Metal Blade is doing a great job for VOMITORY in every way with commercial, advertising and all these things."

Why did you leave Fadeless Records? Does that label still exist? I have written them because of promos, but nobody answered me.
"Fadeless was a smaller label than Metal Blade is, so we felt that we could get better tours and better distribution for our record. Fadeless was a sleep for a couple of years but now it has woken again and has re-released our "Redemption" album with some extra stuff on it."

As far I as know, Fadeless has released an compilation CD and a picture LP. What can you say about these releases?
"Fadeless have released the first VOMITORY CD "Raped In Their Own Blood", the second CD "Redemption" and also a 12” picture LP when VOMITORY celebrated 10 years as a band in 1999."

In your opinion, is it worth to release compilations? Sometimes they suck, because there are no new songs on such albums…
"I don’t know what you mean? If you mean cover albums where Death Metal bands do covers of other bands I think sometimes it can be a good idea, but then I think the covers should be done on a band that doesn’t play Death Metal so the song will have a totally new sound. But of course we have done covers of Death Metal bands but that is more in a way to celebrate these bands for being our influences over the years."

Do you prefer CDs or rather vinyl? Are you a collector? Do you collect or order vinyl?
"When I started listen to music there was only vinyl so I have a couple of them but I prefer CDs. That is what I collect cause they sound better and don’t take that mush space, but nowadays the prices of vinyl is much higher on the internet and so on, so maybe I will sell them and by more CDs instead."

Please tell us about the Death Metal scene of nowadays. What do you think about it? This year there’s releases of awesome Death Metal albums, like yours or CANNIBAL CORPSE, SUFFOCATION, INSISION etc.
"I think the Death Metal scene is better today than a couple of years ago when every band who played Death Metal could get a contract. Today the scene has a higher quality and only the best bands get a record deal. But also there is a lot of bands that have played for a very long time so we will see how they will continue to spread sickness and death over the world, hopefully for another 20 years."

I have got the promo version of the new CANNIBAL CORPSE album and in the songs was whistled. The label said, they have done these whistlings because of downloadings from the internet. It disturbs me very much. What do you think about downloading of music from the internet? How often do you use the internet?
"I use the Internet every day at work and since the internet and especially the email system arrived I think it saves a lot of time instead of sending letters, but the bad side is that people always expect you to be in touch with email, cell phones etc.etc. About the downloading I can understand that Metal Blade tries to stop it for at least a while but on the other hand as soon as they release the record it will be on the internet anyway. I don’t know what the downloading does to the record sales but I hope that Death Metal fans like the music so much that they buy the record anyway. Nowadays there is more and more extra material like live DVDs and interviews and so on that you get when you buy a record. That way the record labels hope to sell more records."

What would you say for example about the newest DEICIDE album? In my opinion, since the release of "Insineratehymn" they have made weak records. Do you like them? "Insineratehymn" wasn’t the best too…
"I like the new one, it’s more DEICIDE than in along time, still not as good as the earlier stuff but much better than the latest stuff. If they can go back to the earlier sound again I think the next album will be even better."

This year sees the return of OBITUARY and SUFFOCATION. Besides these bands other great acts have returned, such as EXODUS, NASTY SAVAGE, ASSASSIN, IRON ANGEL etc. How would you comment on this process? Do you like Thrash Metal too?
"I grew up with Thrash Metal, so of course I like it, but there is also too many shitty Thrash bands out there riding on the new wave that has come today when a lot of older bands play again. But I really like OBITUARY so I hope they will still stick around for a couple of years ."

What could you say about the Swedish scene. The Swedish scene was always strong, awesome bands are working in your country. What would you say about it?
"In the earlier years there were a lot of good Swedish bands like Entombed, Unleashed, Dismember and my personal favourites Grave, At The Gates and so on that really made a name for themselves and for the Swedish Death Metal scene. Than the second wave of bands arrived and Death Metal was here to stay, unfortunately the quality of the music got lost. But I think that we should blame the record labels cause they signed too many bands at the same time and could not release everything. So they only released the coolest band and not always the bands with the best music. Today Entombed plays Rock’n’Roll, Grave and At the Gates is no more (well, GRAVE are still around – Frank), Dismember and Unleashed sound crappy, but a couple of new bands from Sweden sound really great like KaAmos and Godhate so I think the scene from Sweden will still be great."

I know, the Swedish government supports the Metal bands. Why and how does the government support the bands? What kind of advantages have these supports? I think, is it a good idea to support the Metal scene.
"The Swedish government has never supported the Metal scene and never will I guess, so wherever you heard that, it’s wrong! The only thing they do is to invent new taxes, so musicians can’t live on what the do."

Do you have some information about GRAVE? Are they working on a new record?
"From what I heard Jörgen left Entombed and now plays in some other band but it was not Grave, hopefully I’m wrong."

You have taken part on the "No Mercy Festival"… With which bands did you play together? How was the tour? How were your gigs?
"It was our second time on the "No Mercy" festival tour and this time we played together with Cannibal Corpse, Hypocrisy, Carpathian Forest, Exhumed, Kataklysm and Spawn Of Possession. On the last 3 gigs Pro-Pain also joined the tour (I don’t know why), a Hardcore band from the US. We played 14 gigs together in Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium and France. All the places were sold out and the gigs went really good. We knew a lot of these bands before already, so we knew we were supposed to have a good time. Everything went really good and we had no problems this time. Of course someone was a little too drunk but that always happens on a tour like this. Anyway we had a really good time and it was a good chance to play a couple of new songs for the ordiance."

On what kind of festivals will you still play this year? How can we imagine a VOMITORY gig?
"We will play a couple of festivals in France and Germany this summer, maybe some in Sweden as well. Then we will do something this Autumn but nothing is decided yet. A VOMITORY gig is 30 to 45 minutes pure blast that hopefully makes you shit your pants. We try to make it as intense as possible when we play live, that is a VOMITORY gig."

You have never played in Hungary. When will you play here? Do you know something about our country or about our Metal scene? Do you know maybe the legendary TORMENTOR?
"We would like to play in Hungary very much but unfortunately the booking agency never books any gigs in your country. I don’t know why, maybe too long travelling. I know very little about your country and your music scene. I’ve heard the name Tormentor but I can’t say I ever listened to them."

Don’t you think about recording a VOMITORY live album? Will you release a DVD in the near future? In your opinion will the DVDs squeeze out from the market?
"We were supposed to have a live show or at least a live album on "Primal Massacre" but some fucking idiot (soon to be dead) sound engineer fucked up and destroyed our recordings so we had to release the CD without any extra material. Too bad, cause we would like people that have not seen us live get a chance to do so. Maybe next time we can get a proper recording and don’t involve this shitty asshole idiot that calls himself a sound engineer and get someone professional instead. I think the DVDs will grow more and more and in a couple of years totally replace CDs, at least in Sweden it seems like that."

DVDs are more expensive than CDs, but also more popular. What do you think makes them more popular?
"DVDs can hold so much more information than a CD and also have a better sound and picture quality. Back in time when CDs arrived they were also very expensive but today you can buy a CD for nothing and I thinkDVDs also will be cheaper when more people use it."

How would you describe the career of VOMITORY? In my opinion, you were always devoted to your fans. Is VOMITORY a popular group? Did your dreams come true?
"I was not in the band when they first started, but I know VOMITORY first started because of SODOM! The very first VOMITORY gig they only played SODOM songs. But then they started to make own songs with a mix of blast and the typical Swedish sound. And after a couple of years they had a record deal (every band’s biggest dream) and released the first CD "Raped In Their Own Blood". Then there was some trouble in the band, no bass player and no singer. But then me and Jussi Linna joined the band and we recorded the second CD "Redemption" and made the first European tour (the second biggest dream) and from there we made a new European tour and had a new record deal with Metal Blade where bands like SLAYER and METALLICA had been released (our third dream). Another European tour together with Cannibal Corpse followed, joined by the No Mercy Festivals together with Deicide, Immortal, Cannibal Corpse, Vader, Marduk, Dark Funeral and Hate Eternal (another dream). From there it just continued with tours and recording new CDs ("Revelation Nausea", "Blood Rapture" and our newest one "Primal Massacre"), so our dreams have come true as long as we talk about Death Metal. But still we play because we like it and if other people also like it it’s even better. Therefore I think we can say we have stayed true to our listeners and always will. And now we will probably do a US-tour this winter and hopefully play in Japan and then another dream comes true, but we will see."

Erik, thank you for your patience and for your cool answers. What would you say to our readers at the end of the interview? VOMITORY rules!!!
"Thank you Leslie! Without people like you, devoted to the Death Metal scene we would not be this successful! And to all the listeners of brutal and extreme music out there, we salute you, stay fucking sick! Hopefully we will play in Hungary someday. Until then, thanks and see you."

Interview: László Dávid
Live pics: © – Caroline Traitler / www.photopit.com