Interviews

ROTTEN SOUND is without doubt one of the best Grindcore bands there is. Being formed in 1993 gives them a lot of experience on their backs. Their latest offering ”Exit” is pure violence on CD, and after listening to it I felt the urge to write some questions to the band.

 

I feel it's natural to ask about your latest offering "Exit", a savage onslaught of Grindcore that only NASUM can compare to. I've read some reviews in the Norwegian media, and I can tell you that I've only read good ones this far. Have you been checking out the response yourself?

 

Yeah, we have checked the response through the internet and you're right: it seems to be really good around the world. Average is somewhere between 8 and 9 on the scale of 1-10, which is again bit better than it was with “Murderworks”. It's really cool to see that the media is liking the album, because we were working really hard to make as good album as we could when we were doing it. And at times it wasn't that easy to get everything together, but eventually we could be happy when everything was ready.

 

I can't help but to mention NASUM. The way I see it ROTTEN SOUND and NASUM are twin-brothers who look alike, but have quite different personalities. What are your relations to NASUM other than being produced by Mieszko Talarczyk, and how will his death affect the band?

 

We have been closely in touch with NASUM after we recorded “Murderworks” and we even made a short Finnish tour together in 2003. We have been also planning to do a split-EP with NASUM, but now “Exit” stole all of our attention for 1,5 years. And Mieszko was really close to all of us right now. The man was going to come to our "Exit" release-party and we were supposed to do a lot of things together in future. It's still really hard for us to cope with the fact that Mieszko is not going to produce anything for us anymore. It's really unfair, that probably the most talented guy in the whole Grind-scene is taken away like this.

 

With one of the most crowded scenes in the whole world, do you find it difficult to get through to people or have you found your fanbase? I guess there would be some after 12 years of grinding elitism.

 

The Finnish scene is currently awesome. Our shows are really crowded and Grindcore is coming pretty hard in general over here. Our situation is now good, because we have done so much of hard work over here and it feels pretty good to "collect the fruits" of that work now. Finnish Rock-fests are going to notice extreme music quite well again (as always) and I have a feeling that in few months we have 5-8 of them booked for this summer leaving almost no free space for other countries during this summer. And that goes as we planned: Finland and Scandinavia are done really well on 2005 and on 2006 we hope to get some changes to go to central Europe etc...

 

Metal is a special kind of music, where sell-out is considered worse than A.I.D.S. What do you think about the growing popularity of Extreme Metal, and Metal on a general basis for that matter?

 

Someone could say that RS has become "commercial" now when we are successful. And I guess that all bands, which use recording labels to release their albums are commercial. Hell, we even want to get paid from our shows and don't give our shirts for free to people. But then, when you think some more, all of RS members have to work to get food on the table and roof on top of our heads and if we tour 50-100 days per year, we need to get something from the non-working time used for touring. To me that's not sell-out, but more like keeping the band functional at all times. If more people are interested in Extreme Metal, it may grow our income at times (when we are active), but if you think about all of the investments done for this band, it takes a lot of sold CDs before we can say that we will break-even. And probably we never will, but nobody cares about that anyway, we're playing to have something important (to be proud of) in our lives and to have good time on tours.

 

I'm a dedicated game player and I couldn't help notice that you used a sample from “Blood” (the game). I thought it was “Doom” until I read elsewhere that it was “Blood”. Are you still playing video games or is it something that belongs in the past? If you are still playing I would like to know if there are any games that can be recommended, obscure ones are preferred. I reckon you already know about the infamous “Manhunt”. I would also like to recommend “The Mark Of Kri”. It's a short game, but it's on low-price so it adds up.

 

The game was “Doom”, not “Blood”. I am playing games always when I have time and I used to play much more when I was studying. Right now I'm playing “Halo 2”, “Unreal 2” and “Driver 3”. Nothing too nasty because usually those more violent ones are not that good from playability point-of-view. I've read some reviews about “Manhunt” and didn't really like that idea too much. “Doom III” was much better and I can't wait to get the XBox-version now when I'm not updating my PC anymore actively to match the HW requirements of all new games.

 

I'm always on the hunt for quality music within the Metal genre, and therefore I would like to ask you if there are any bands you would like to recommend.

 

DEATHBOUND, DEATHCHAIN and TOTAL DEVASTATION are probably the most promising Finnish bands at the moment. You should probably check-out also TO SEPARATE THE FLESH FROM THE BONES. Then there are loads of good Swedish bands we like: DISFEAR (we're just touring with them), NASUM, GADGET, RELEVANT FEW, REGURGITATE. ABORTED from Belgium is also a great band to check out.

 

What do you think is the reason that metal has become so popular in Finland. Do you feel that people are into the music or after an image?

 

There's always some part of the audience, who are after the image and just follow the trends, but the percentage of those is not that high over here. There are few thing, which have made Metal-music so popular in here over the past 5-10 years: most of the Rock-festivals are taking always also harder bands, we have now 3-4 Metal fests and Spinefarm has also brought a lot of visibility to Metal bands.

 

You mentioned in your request mail that you where playing at the Tuska Metalfest. Do you play much live or are you hindered by simple reality, like bills and "serious" work?

 

We try to play quite much live because that's fun, but that does not really pay our bills when we are not playing live. Our aim is to do 50-100 shows per year and with merch-sales the income would be enough to pay our rents etc... when we are not at home, but the reality really is there when we return from the tour. So, all of us have to work to live in Finland - Scandinavian countries are just really expensive to live in.

 

I've noticed Tuska for many years now and I'm tempted to call it Finland's answer to Germany's Wacken. Is it an important part of the Metal scene?

 

It's very important right now. There are also two other bigger Metal fests (Sauna Open Air, Nummirock), but Tuska is the biggest one at the moment with over 30000 visitors (11000 / day).

 

How important is it for you and the band to be considered as Grindcore?

 

That's probably the closest "box" we can fit in, but it's not really important to be "true" Grindcore. We have wanted to make our own cross-over of extreme music and for some reason Grindcore is what comes out from that... I guess that grind is just the main common denominator with the music we listen.

 

After 12 years of releasing albums you should know something about the record industry. When I read interviews with different bands, record labels are of mentioned very often. 90% of the time it's negative criticism. Do you think some bands have to high hopes when writing under a contract, or are record labels generally to greedy for their own good?

 

It's not really that wise to go and mock your "bank" or main enabler. Record labels can invest to bands much more than most of the bands can do themselves. They are also professionals and have learned how to work in this wicked industry. There's no hard feelings between RS and Necropolis. It wasn't cool that they had to close-down, but that's normal in business. Sometimes companies just come and go and even if we didn't get proper publicity for “Murderworks”, they did their best until Necropolis went down.

 

Many bands within the different core-genres have lyrics that seem thrown together from a dictionary about the human anatomy. How important do you think the lyrics are?

 

I want to write things that are more real. I've nothing against gore lyrics, but I just don't want to do them myself.

 

Since I'm from Norway I would like to know if you where listening to any Norwegian music. Since you apparently are listening to Death Metal, I would like to recommend BLOOD RED THRONE and ZYKLON, two of the best Death Metal bands in Norway, if you haven't already heard them of course.

 

Somehow I've managed to miss the Norwegian scene almost completely. I heard BRT few weeks ago and it sounded pretty good, I guess I should check-out ZYKLON some day soon. I was listening to Norwegian BM when it was big and I still listen to some DARKTHRONE, ENSLAVED and EMPEROR even now an then. There was something really good going in Norway during the 90's with Black Metal and it would be great to get more great bands into scene from there in future too.

 

Since this kind of music is quite capable of destroying the bodies of those who perform it, do you think it will be another 12 years?

 

Music is not destroying us, but the drinking we do after the show in sometimes way more lethal. I guess we need to change our habits a bit in 12 years to survive our tours alive. But as said, playing Grind needs just rehearsing and could be compared to running some kilometres.

 

What do you think of the current mass downloading of MP3's, do you consider it as a entirely as a problem or do you see some benefits from it?

 

I think it can also help in promoting the albums. It's of course a risk for the whole industry and if recording labels start to really lose a lot of money, it'll be really hard to produce as good sounding records as bands are doing nowadays. But on the other hand, it may also lead into a situation, where bands need to evolve some more, before they can get their 1st releases our and this may increase the overall quality closer to what it was in vinyl-times. It was much easier to buy a great LP in the 80s than finding a decent CD nowadays, you know.

 

I guess I have to end this interview at some point, and here is a nice place to do it. As the polite man I am, I will give the last words to you. Thanks for your effort.

 

Check out rottensound.com for updates, new live shows to come and other stuff (videos, mp3s etc...). We hope to come back to Norway very soon!