The Metal Crypt - Desaster Interview

Interviews

Interview with guitarist Lord Infernal

Interview conducted by Wilhelm

Date online: June 20, 2001

Once every few years (if that) a truly special band emerges from the depressing and monotonous metal scene to leave their mark. One such band is DESASTER, who have been existing now since 1988 and creating their own unique music ever since. Combining traditional Black metal mixed with Heavy / Speed metal and ancient folk like melodies, the 4 maniacs of DESASTER have garnered a cult following in the scene and a well deserving amount of support among METAL fans. Classic black / thrash metal vocals, extremely heavy / catchy metal riffs and an overwhelming epic / war like atmosphere are all trademarks of this band, but devotion to making FUCKING METAL MUSIC is DESASTER's specialty. I had the chance to talk with Markus (Lord Infernal) about this and a variety of other issues and like always the German madman had much to say!

Let's start with a band bio.... Eh, Nah, scrap that. BORING! Let's start with how you crazy fuckers are doing these days!

Hail Emperor Wilhelm ! Everything's all right here at the Desaster headquarters, the beers still tastes good and the Metal is hot !

Of course We are now listening to the latest DESASTER masterpiece "Tyrants of the netherworld" released by IRON PEGASUS! I noticed that the production was a bit like it was on the "Stormbringer" mcd. Darker and Rawer I think then the previous two full lengths. Maybe you agree maybe you don't what are your general feelings on your latest Cult record?

Yes, I agree that the sound is darker and rawer this time, we wanted it to sound this way, you know that we don't like these modern overproduced sound, so we wanted a raw but powerful sound and I think we've reached our goal. The new album is another fist in every poser's face and a pleasure for every real headbanger around the globe ! Of course we haven't changed our style, we still present the typical DESASTER-sound on the new album with some Speed and Thrash songs, one more atmospheric song and some fast Black/Death Metal songs as well. Everybody who liked our previous work won't be disappointed and I'm sure that even some more maniacs who appreciate traditional Black/Thrash Metal will join the horde of the DESASTER- followers ! Yes, we are very satisfied with the new album !

Does the rest of the DESASTER fans have positive feedback for "Tyrants.." So far or have you decided to wimp out on your next album and join Nuclear Blast?

We got very good response from the maniacs all around the globe and of course this is very satisfying ! We don't give a shit about the good reviews in the big magazines, it's the opinion of the real metalheads that count for us, not the words of an editor who has to listen to 20 albums each day. Ha ha, there were really some rumors that we wimped out and join the Nuclear wimps because we had one song of the new album on a promo CD of Nuclear sellout. Fuck, we did this only to show the typical Nuclear Blast kids that there is still some real Metal circulating in the underground. So I'm afraid that there won't be a tour with Dimmu Borgir and Desaster in the future, I'm sorry, he he !

I was a bit shocked you decided to leave Merciless and join with Iron Pegasus since Merciless was obviously the bigger and more established label. But then again IP is just as much dedicated to the cause of the metal scene as Merciless! You did tell me to that Merciless were working far too slow with your albums anyways, especially "Hellfire's Dominion". Was this the reason you left? What do you think about the move and your new alliance with IP?

Well, it simply was time for a change, but there are no bad words between us and Merciless. Of course we had different reasons for our decision to change the label, but we don't want to discuss this in the public. Merciless is a good underground label and Volker (the man behind Merciless) is a great guy who has released some great underground stuff, but now with our new label there is some fresh blood flowing around which is very helpful from time to time. Costa of Iron Pegasus is really very dedicated to Metal, that's very important for us, and what is also a positive point is that he always has some cool ideas concerning lay outs and new releases.

How did you get connected with Costa in the first place? Tell us a little about your relationship to him, his label and magazine Tales Of The Macabre.

We know Costa for quite a long time now (I think for about 8 years), we are close friends with him, he's also a member of our HELLBANGERS Metal club, so we meet quite often together with the other crazy bastards, drinking beer, banging our heads and praising the Metal gods together ! Of course we also appreciate his zine "Tales of the macabre", it ever was one of the best underground zines worldwide in my opinion, far away from all modern trends, just supporting cool music. I hope that Costa still has got the time besides his label work to release some more issues of his cult zine. And about his label work: He already released stuff from SABBAT, METALUCIFER, ZEMIAL, AGATUS etc., you see: quality stuff for real maniacs ! He's not into releasing everything that could be interesting to the trendy kids of today, he only releases original stuff which he's 100 % personally into.

Do you think DESASTER will remain connected with IRON PEGASUS? (Hopefully!)

Well, we are very satisfied with his work so far, so we don't see any reason for another label change at the moment.

Since I last interviewed you for one of my old zines you also released the cult double LP "10 years of total Desaster", and should I say it was EXCLUSIVELY on the vinyl format! Hails! While it contained some unreleased material, live recordings and old favorites it did not contain the whole 1989 reh. Tape, except for 2 songs! Will there ever be any plans to release this old piece of German Metal history? And didn't you tell me there was also a reh. from 1988 w/ you and Creator Cassie?

Well, we wanted to include one or two songs from every Desaster release on the anniversary double-LP, so we also put two very old rehearsal songs from 89 on the album. Ha ha, I won't speak of "a piece of German Metal history", because at this time we were hardly able to handle our instruments, so the old songs weren't really good. Back then we decided not to release the stuff and only taped the songs to some of our friends, first of all because it really was too bad and second because in that time nobody was any more interested in Satanic stuff. I remember that every mail-order sold the old Venom records at the end of the 80s for only a few bucks, unbelievable nowadays ! Yes, I also have some rehearsal tapes from 1988, too, but the quality of the songs is really not good enough that we could release them. Sometimes I play the old stuff and you can see me sitting here with a big smile on my face because I remember the good old crazy time I had with my companion Creator Cassie, ha ha, but I don't want to torture the Desaster fans with this old noise !

And since we are talking about the vinyl format what are your general feelings for it? And how does it compare with CD's, tapes and now the ultra shitty mp3's that people download from the Internet?

We are all vinyl-fanatics, this is the original and the one and only format that suits perfectly to Metal music. What can be better to put a record on your player, open a beer and smoke a cigarette, have a look on the large cover, listen to the good old scratchy sound and remember the good old times ?! So it's clear that every DESASTER- release must be out on vinyl as well or on vinyl only, these are collectors items and we always try to make our records a jewel for every collection. I must say that also the sound of a record appeals much more to me than the sound of a CD, it has much more feeling than the digital and often sterile sound of a CD. I don't have anything against tapes, I also work much with tapes and don't forget that tape trading ever played an important role within the underground. About MP3 I can't say anything because I'm not into this Internet stuff, I simply don't have the money for a new computer, ha ha!

Now that we have finally kicked this interview into high gear I'd like to hear EXACTLY how you formed DESASTER, w/ Creator Cassie I believe. Is it still true that DESASTER are the first German band of the Black metal variety or what? In a time you say Bermuda shorts and skateboards were in DESASTER were playing the kind of music to make ears bleed! Ha!

Well, let's go back in time: I started to listen to Metal in 1986, first bands I heard were WARLOCK, JUDAS PRIEST, ACCEPT..., but then in 87 I met Creator Cassie every morning at the bus station to drive to school and he supplied me nearly every day with harder stuff like SLAYER, CELTIC FROST/HELLHAMMER, BATHORY etc. and so I got more dedicated to the extreme and satanic stuff. It were really crazy times back then, we were even drinking beer before school in the schoolbus, throwing the bottles on the pupils who were into Pop music so that they soon changed to another bus so that we had enough place to bang and stagedive in the bus, ha ha ! And after school we immediately went to the local record store to listen to the newest Metal records, buying the best and most extreme stuff, driving to Creator Cassies home, banging our heads the whole day long ! I think it was already in 1987 when we had the idea to form our own band, I think it was because we saw Venom s Live Video ("The 7th date of Hell") and we were so impressed by this because we had never seen a Metal band live or on video, so we decided to form our own band to produce as much chaos as Cronos and Co. did in the past ! At the end of the 80s nobody was any longer interested in our favorite stuff like Venom and Hellhammer, everybody was into this Anthrax bermuda short stuff, even former satanic bands like Sodom or Destruction tried to change their image to gain as much success as Metallica did back then, but we hated this and wanted to stay extreme, satanic and wild like Metal was meant to be in the past ! I remember that we had discussions about our name, we thought about "Eternal Torment" or something like that before the Destruction song "Total Desaster" brought us our bandname, I remember that we also had a saying "Let s go to town and cause some Desaster !" and I thought "why don't we call our band DESASTER ?!" It perfectly fitted to our wild and crazy characters. So the band was born before we had songs or even instruments, ha ha ! It was in 88 when we had our money together to buy some cheap equipment, but a drummer was still missing. Creator Cassie knew somebody from his school who played drums, so we asked him if we could make some noise with him and he agreed. So we rehearsed with him from time to time and wrote our first songs, then in summer 89 we performed our first concert, a still remembered event in our region ! Unfortunately Creator Cassie wimped out in 1990 so that I had to search for other maniacs to continue and I found them in 1992. So this was the story about the very beginning of DESASTER.

How would you describe the German scene nowadays when they have all taken the initiative to play extreme metal music? To be honest I haven't heard many interesting new bands from Germany except for MAYHEMIC TRUTH and IMPEDING DOOM, a lot of it goes by unnoticed. But I think a band more or less like ABSURD has brought a lot of attention to the German scene thanks to the book Lords Of Chaos describing their murder of a young student. What do you think of this and the ABSURD group? I think they're somewhat over hyped if you ask me.

You are right, this story of some stupid kids watching horror movies is much too over hyped and I really don't care for this shit because it has nothing to do with METAL ! Unfortunately the German Metal scene has nothing exciting to offer any more, you're right. It s a fucking shame if you remember all the German bands that ruled the Metal world in the 80s !

DESASTER also seems to be connected to various other bands around the world as well, like SABBAT for example! Actually I hear they attended a DESASTER release party! Are they to Japan what you guys are to Germany? What do you think about them and other old Black metal hordes still existing today (Nunslaughter, Mortuary Drape, Varathron etc...)

I don't know about SABBAT s position in Japan, I only heard that the Japanese fans don't pay much attention on their national bands which is a pity I think ! Yes, we are in good contact with Gezol(ucifer) from SABBAT (METALUCIFER). I don't know if you heard about it yet: the new METALUCIFER is a German-Japanese CO-production, also our drummer Tormentor plays on the new album ! So Gezol came over to Germany last year to records the basic tracks for the album and when he was here we just had our release party where Gezol, Tormentor and Blumi (the guitarist of the local Metal band METAL INQUISITOR) performed some META LUCIFER songs which was really great ! I must say that I was never much into Varathron, but Nunslaughter, Mortuary Drape still kick some fucking ass !

Give me some general opinions on the older gods of black / occult metal like- MERCYFUL FATE, WITCHFYNDE, VENOM, BATHORY, HELLHAMMER etc.. I know these bands play a heavy influence on the DESASTER sound along with the German ones!

It would take too much time and space to mention all the bands that had an influence on the music of Desaster because I think every music you like to listen to also has an influence on your own playing. I must say that I'm more into the old 80s stuff than into all the modern Death or Black Metal bands. You must know that I've witnessed many trends coming and going through my 15 years being into Metal, every trend brought us some fucking great new bands but unfortunately also many bad copy bands, too. I especially think of the Death Metal explosion 1989/90 and the Black Metal hype from 1992. There are few bands from this period I still like to listen to today, but there are much more bands I still adore hailing from the 80s, I think the quality of the music (necessary to get a record deal) in that time was much better.

I see that a lot of people compare you to KREATOR, SODOM and especially DESTRUCTION. I think you guys obviously sound a bit like them but you also have a special trademark in your music that I'll get into on the nest question.. What do you think?

I feel honored when people say that we are the heirs of Sodom, Kreator or Destruction, nobody can deny that especially these three bands had inspired us a lot. We have various Thrash songs in the traditional vein, but you are right, these songs only show one side of DESASTER.

I think one thing that sets DESASTER apart from any other band in our scene today is your use of folk inspired metal guitars to open up certain songs and then the epic feel of tracks like "Teutonic Steel", "Tyrants of the netherworld" or "Battle Oath" for that matter are a big factor in the music. I truly feel this is a special way of making music as most bands would rather not use such elements in their music. Comments?

Yes, some of our songs also contain some medieval- sounding tunes and melodies. I think they have become another trademark of DESASTER. We always pay much attention on variety, so we not only have some straight forward Thrash songs, but also some epic and medieval sounding songs as well. I think that especially these songs prove that you can produce atmosphere also without keyboards, only with the traditional Metal instruments played with passion and feeling. You know that we are dedicated to many different Metal styles and so we absolutely feel not limited in making music we like. We have songs that start with a Black Metal inferno and have an epic Manowar-like part in the middle of the song. As long as these different influences fit together we don't hesitate to combine all our inspirations to our very own DESASTER-mixture and I think that is what makes our music to something special. We havn t invented something very new within the Metal scene, but I think you can nevertheless hear that there's DESASTER playing, no matter if it's a fast Black Metal song or an epic mid-tempo banger !

And what would you say to a wimp that's never heard DESASTER and would say "They are just nothing original.. I like Cradle Of Filth the best." hahahahaha! Fuck that!

I'm not interested in what way people judge our music or our position within the scene, I don't care at all. We never wanted to become the "best band in the world" and get recognition from all sides, we are fans of Metal music and try our best to bring good Metal music to the maniacs all around the world, if somebody likes it or not, I don't care ! Of course it's fucking great if you get good response from the people, but first of all we play the music for ourselves, to satisfy our own metallic desires. So if somebody prefers to listen to Cradle instead of banging his head to the DESASTER sound it's his own problem !

I've been hearing some wild and crazy stories about the Hellbanger's Moselfranken! Like the fact you are the most feared group in all of Germany! Hahahahaha! But something worries me.. I have heard that the official drink of the group has been switched to KinderBeer? Why doesn't Jagermeister or Heineken have a part in the MoselFranken anymore.

What the hell do you mean with KinderBeer ? Our favorite beer is Bitburger Pils, a normal German beer sort but definitely the best beer around ! Of course also other drinks are appreciated by the maniacs in the club, no matter what it is as long as it causes some alcoholic excesses, ha ha ! Uaarghh, Heineken is definitely not a good beer, also the Dutch people we know don't like it at all, I think it's only appreciated by some Americans who don't know how a good fresh beer has to taste, he he ! (Hey! I will drink ANY beer except for Pale Ale! -Wilhelm) Well, it's true that the Hellbangers don't have the best reputation here in our region, it's possible that especially the trendy local clowns also fear our crazy and wild gang of real metalmaniacs, he he ! But I must say that it's not our aim to cause trouble all the time, we are here to enjoy Metal in first sight, that's the main reason why we formed the club.

You recently told me about this new 7" recording you have been preparing. Is it going to be a split or a single?

Well, our label boss Costa had the idea to release another split single (this time with ZEMIAL) which is called "Four track attack" which means that there are 4 songs (two songs each band) recorded on a small four track recorder. We want to show the people with this 7" single that good Metal music doesn't need a big production in a big studio, you can also catch a great atmosphere at the rehearsal room if the music is really good. We will have two brand new songs on this 7", one song will later be on the 4th album and one is exclusively recorded for this split. I think it will be released about autumn 2001.

The DESASTER horde is also going to be playing at the 2001 Wacken!!! Are you going to be playing alongside the likes of DESTROYER 666 and who else? What do you think this experience will be like? Is the Moselfranken going to raise hell or what?

It s cool to play on the big Wacken open air (about 25.000 people), we usually go there every year, so this year we can save the 50 $ for the entrance and spend it on beer instead, ha ha ! Of course it's great to play in front of more than the usual 100-300 people which are coming to a normal DESASTER-show, but we don't feel like "rockstars" now just because we can play the Wacken open air, ha ha ! We play the gig in Wacken because we want to enjoy ourselves and not to get recognition, bucks and girls ! There are some great bands playing at Wacken this year (DESTROYER 666, MOTÖRHEAD, SAXON, PAUL DI`ANNO & KILLERS, EXCITER, EXUMER, WARHAMMER, VOIVOD) but of course also a lot of shit and trendy bands like DIMMU and HAMMERFALL - we don't care.

I just have to ask this... What do you think of the movie Conan The Barbarian? I don't think movies get much more "heavy metal" then that one. Conan Uber Allas!

Yes, the first Conan movie is a great one, it has a great ancient feeling but of course it's just fantasy and has nothing to do with historical facts about the ancient Germanic tribes. (Of course not. How many of them do you think were pumped / oiled up with 22" guns? Hahahaha! - Wilhelm)

Ok, my friend Markus AKA Lord Infernal. My utmost hails and support go to you metal brother maybe you could release some important details to the wimps reading this before we kill them! HATE!!!!!!!

Thank you Wilhelm for the support you gave DESASTER over the years ! We appreciate this very much ! Possibly there will be another EP released besides the mentioned 7" single with ZEMIAL before the 4th DESASTER- crusade will be unleashed in 2002 !

Bang or be Banged !

Contact:

Desaster
C/o Lord Infernal
Jahnstr. 76
56218 Mulheim Karlich
GERMANY

Get in touch with DESASTER and get everything they released!

Desaster-Discography:

1993 "The fog of Avalon" demo (sold out)
1994 "Lost in the ages" demo (sold out)
1995 Split-7" with UNGOD (sold out)
1996 "A touch of medieval darkness" CD/LP (CD $14)
1997 "Stormbringer" MCD/picture-MLP (sold out)
1998 "Ride on for revenge" picture-7" (sold out)
1998 "Hellfire s Dominion" CD/LP/picture-LP (CD $15)
1999 "Ten years of total Desaster" DoLP ($19)
2000 "Desaster in league with Pentacle" Split-10" (sold out)
2000 "Tyrants of the Netherworld" CD/LP ($15)
T-Shirts available for $15

Other information about Desaster on this site

Review: Tyrants Of The Netherworld

Review: Hellfire's Dominion

Review: Divine Blasphemies

Review: Satan's Soldiers Syndicate

Review: The Arts of Destruction

Review: The Oath of an Iron Ritual

Review: Churches Without Saints

Review: Bringing the Storm to Rotterdam