Interviews - Live 4 Metal

Interview with Joakim Sterner of Necrophobic
June 2006 by Chris Kee

Sweden’s Necrophobic have just released a veritable death metal monster with their new album ‘Hrimthursum’. So Live 4 Metal got in touch with long standing drummer Joakim Sterner to find out what has prompted the creation of this devastating record.

Congratulations on the new album, I’m assuming you must be very pleased with the results?
Yes and the things that we have read about the album look great too.

There have been a lot of very positive reviews of the album so far haven’t there?
Yeah it seems very much that the magazines and the fans are both liking it.

Has the reaction been better than to your previous albums?
The thing is we are used to getting good reviews, but this time there are a lot more of them – and even in bigger magazines. I can even say that when we started this band, a lot of years ago, we got a bad review in one of the evening papers and we didn’t get any more reviews in those newspapers. But this time both the biggest evening magazines gave us 4/5 and even in the morning papers, in the culture parts, we got a good review there.

Do you still care about press reviews? Do they matter to you?
When an album is released you care because you are eager to know. When you come out of the studio, you have been working with this material and you love it and everything but you want to read the reactions to it. I know it maybe doesn’t help because it is the fans that have to be pleased, but this time, like I said, it seems that both the press and the fans are pleased.

One of the first things that impressed me was the fantastic production you have. I believe you have finally changed from Sunlight studios now, to House Of Voodoo.
We have been thinking about changing studios for a long time but we haven’t really found a place to record in. We really don’t want to travel to other cities or other countries to record an album. We didn’t know where to go to in Stockholm. We had been thinking of using the studio that Fred of Dismember worked in but we were never pleased with the way that Dismember’s sound turned out. Even though we are not the same band you have to hear a good record before you want to go there. This time, this is a private person who has a studio in his basement and we have heard one project from there in which we saw the potential. So we asked him if we could do a test recording before deciding if that was the studio we wanted to record in. So we did a test recording there in October last year and the way it turned out there was no question about it.

Was it an enjoyable recording process?
Err…it was over a long time, but when you put it all together it was like a normal recording process – three weeks. We recorded in different sessions so it was very relaxed situation but very much focussed on what we were doing. But yeah, it was a great experience.

Am I right that Frederik from Unleashed was helping with the production?
Yes. The technician that owned the studio had never done anything with death metal before, so Frederik came to the studio while setting up the drum sound and setting up the guitar sound. Then of course he did all the mixing.

The album is out on Regain. What brought about the end of the deal with Karmageddon?
Well we signed to them when they were called Hammerheart, back in 2001 and the album came out in 2002. The first impression of that label was really professional – when we compared it to Black Mark which was, you know, like shit. But after the tour in 2003 rumours started that the economy in the label wasn’t so good and finally we got a message that they were putting Hammerheart to rest and reforming as Karmageddon. Then we started to think ‘no, no this is not feeling good’. So we never signed anything or said that the next album would come out on Karmageddon. So in the end of 2004 Regain asked us if we were interested in becoming part of their label and we had heard a lot about them. So we approached Karmageddon to resolve this and, ok, nothing happens overnight but the procedure was…well, kind.”

Going back to the new album, various members of Live 4 Metal staff have been wondering how exactly you pronounce the title…
If you skip the first ‘h’ how would you try it out?

Rim-thur-sum?
Yeah something like that…it will do, you know?

And what does it actually mean?
It’s an Icelandic word and it means ‘the frost giants’.

And how does that relate to the songs on the album or the artwork?
Well I haven’t written so much of the lyrics this time, but the main theme is cold, winter and stuff like that. It’s also about religion…again. How we don’t want it to exist. So those giants, it doesn’t have to be, but it can be viewed that we are the frost giants, the band.

Speaking about lyrics, you have always had a dark, anti-Christian element to the lyrics and the imagery of the band. Does that reflect your personal beliefs?
Well I can only speak for myself. No one in this band is religious in any way but I am the one that writes the more straight in your face lyrics. They could be interpreted as childish, but then also vice-versa. The other guys include a lot more about magic in their lyrics because they have the knowledge about it. To be in this band you have to state that you are not Christian or anything like that.

What progressions and improvements do you think this album shows from ‘Blood Hymns’?
I think there are a lot but trying to describe it… The music is a bit more straight even though there is more talent in the playing. It sounds easy, which is a good point because when you listen to it you will get the music without any trouble, you can headbang to it. Also I think during the years we have learned a lot about song structures. Even though there are quite a few long songs on this album you never feel like they have a long playing time. Sound wise, recording in a new studio automatically gives you a new sound and working the way we did this time we made the progression in the sound even better. We got input from people outside and we demonstrated the sound we wanted and together we brought this new ‘big’ sound to the band. We also had a bit more time to try out other stuff with other types of vocals which brings more dimensions to the music. All of these things together make for a very powerful album.

There has been quite a long gap since ‘Blood Hymns’ came out, why was that? Was it down to the label change or other factors?
Well we have always been a little slower at writing music than many other bands because we really want to release an album with only good songs on it, no fillers so to speak. This time though I had to take a break for two years, concentrating on my education. I started doing graphic design at one of the best schools in Sweden and I couldn’t do anything with the band. But then again it was also the trouble with the record label. In 2003, when we stopped playing tours and headline shows for the ‘Blood Hymns’ album I went to school for two years. Also 2005 was the year when we came together and worked out the new songs and signed to the new label. Hopefully now we can see a brighter future than we have had in our history. I guess that the music will come to us more easily because it is hard to struggle; it makes you feel down and not so creative.

With the new album and the new label it is sort of a new beginning for the band. Do you have any particular hopes as to what you can achieve with this new beginning?
Well I think it is time for the world to get to know Necrophobic now…really! With our back catalogue, it’s not like we have done bad albums it’s just that we have worked with the wrong people. Now we are enjoying the attention although that isn’t the main reason for doing this. However it is nice to get some credit for the long years of hard service.

You’ve been going seventeen years now. Have you achieved what you hoped to when it all began, or more than what you imagined?
I don’t know. When you start a band you are happy to record a demo. Then when you have had that you are looking for a record deal. When you find a record deal the first thing you think is ‘right, now we’re going to get rich!’ Then you meet the business, then you meet the business people…then you meet Black Mark who never give you tour support and you get stuck with them for three albums. The goal was always to play live and to play live in many different countries. And yeah, we’ve played in a few countries but we want to play more.

You’ve just done a short Spanish tour I believe, how did that go for you?
Well it was good in some ways. The crowds that were there were really dedicated but the promoter told us that this scene is dead in Spain now. He talked about the other bands that had been there before us and none of them were getting good crowds. But it was a good experience and we met a lot of Spanish fans, had a really good time and we hope to go back there too.

Do you have any other touring plans lined up yet?
We have set the dates for the European tour. It will begin on September 29th and will end on October 15th. But which countries and towns is not set yet.

Any chance you will be playing in England?
Hopefully yeah. Otherwise we will use our contacts to come there.

You’ve just done a new video for the track ‘Blinded By Light, Enlightened By Darkness’, are you pleased with that?
Yeah we are fucking pleased with that!

Was it actually as cold making it as it looks?
Yeah it was cold. It was freezing, very cold. The winter goes all the way to the end of May here in Sweden. We call it summer but it barely reaches 15 degrees!

How do you hope to use the video?
Ah, just spread it as much as we can. We are telling everyone that we know to download it and burn it from the website. We are getting Regain to send it out, you know? Hopefully some TV stations will broadcast it. It has this good quality to it so hopefully it will be played…and maybe played twice even!

I would say that the new album has some of your finest music and best personal performances since the band started. Why do you think that happened now? What inspired you to create this album at this point in time?
Well we can’t really put our finger on it, but I guess we are older now and more experienced as musicians. Also it is not that these songs are so fucking great, it is more that we really believed in this, with a new label and we have worked with great people in every way. We actually worked with a professional photographer for the album. We are on what we think is a professional label that will really push us. We have worked in a new studio, everything is like a new beginning and we are more focussed. I guess all that is why the album sounds the way it does and why we have performed the way we have.

What’s coming up for Necrophobic in the next few weeks and months? What’s your immediate schedule?
There is only one show now, which is at a festival here in Sweden. Then we decided not to do any other summer festivals. We were offered a few but we turned them down. Sometimes it’s hard to say no to a festival but they couldn’t pay what we wanted and some of the arrangements were not the best. Also we know we are going on tour in the autumn so we want to keep a low profile for a while…let the album come out and let people get really familiar with it for a while. Then when we go on tour most people don’t stand there like question marks when we play a new song.

When most of those songs from ‘Hrimthursum’ are blasted out live I’m sure there’ll be no standing around like question marks or anything else – it’ll be frenzied headbanging all the way!
www.necrophobic.net