The Metal Crypt - Pyaemia Interview

Interviews

Interview with Anton
Interview conducted by Barbara Williams (Crowley)

Date online: January 29, 2003

Interview with Anton Barbara Williams (Crowley) 11/8/02

Where are you guys from?

We are from Holland and at the moment we live spread out over the country in Tilburg, Amsterdam and Spijkenisse (near Rotterdam).

Please tell me when you guys formed and if any of you came from other bands.

We formed somewhere in 1995 and none of us had any band experience before that. To be honest, most of us actually picked our instruments up back then for the first time.

Who are the members of your band, what do they play, and when did they join? I know there have been some changes in your line-up and I don't have all the current information on this situation.

Robbe - Drums, starting member
Joel - Guitars and vocals, starting member
Worm - Bass guitar (joined us in May 2002 after starting bass-player Frank left us in February/March 2002)
Anton - Guitars and backing vocals, starting member

How did you feel when two of your band members left to be with Disavowed? Had there been conflicts or is it just one of those things?

Well, nobody left for Disavowed, we're just one huge pile of inbreeds, basically. Robbe drums for Disavowed as well and Joel used to play guitars and do vocals for Disavowed back when they were still Nocturnal Silence, but neither one quit Pyaemia for that. Which is good; saved me the trouble of beating them senseless... :)

You just had a new album out, Cerebral Cereal (Congrats, by the way). When was it released? Is that your first time under Unique Leader Records?

It was officially released somewhere March 2001 I think. Dunno for sure anymore, but it's been around for quite some time already.

What other albums do you have, including demos?

Well, we had a free recording session somewhere in 1997 where we recorded two songs. That was a good taste for us of things to come. In 1998 we went into the recording studio for real and came out with Cranial Blowout in our hands, a 5-track demo CD that we distributed ourselves for a while and sent out to record labels. Then in October 2000, we got into the recording studio again after we had signed a deal with Unique Leader Records of which you know the result.

Why Pyaemia? Who came up with the name?

Joel just dug up some nasty disease out of a medical encyclopedia. It has a certain catch to it (and no, not just because we like slumber parties); so we picked that as our name.

You have been likened to Suffocation. How would you describe Pyaemia to someone who's never heard your music before?

Well, to most people that ask, I would simply say "kankerherrie", which is the shortest possible way in Dutch to describe death metal to a non-metal head. To a metal head I would describe it as Suffocation- style death metal (without having any delusions of grandeur and claiming our music to be as good as theirs). I think it describes us well. Brutal death metal with groovy parts as well as shredding blast beats, without being clone- babies...

How do you get the inspiration for your writing your lyrics?

Joel wrote most of the lyrics for Cerebral Cereal and gets his inspiration mainly from horror books and movies. Currently I am working on the lyrics for our new one, and well... They're different. :) Quite different actually! I mainly derive inspiration from emotions, feelings, ideas and ideals... Although I try not to loose our brutality in the process...

How did the change of members in such a short period of time affect the evolution of the way you put the songs together?

Well, it didn't at all actually... We still work the same. Come up with tons of riffs, have tons of them ditched and the rest worked out into a song, after which lyrical patterns get smeared on top...

The music scene really changed between the 70's, 80's and 90's. What would you say has been your strongest influence?

For me that totally would have been the rise of bands like Suffocation. I was into metal before '91 but listened to other shit as well and albums like Human Waste and Effigy really got me into death metal. Of course, Dutch bands like Sinister were a huge influence as well, pulling us into the metal scene...

Which bands are on your list of favorites? If I were to look through your CD collection, what would I find?

I can be really short about that one. Oh no, I can't... On top are Suffocation for being master composers. These guys write the most complex songs and NEVER ever loose their groove. Just fantastic! But other than that, at the moment I listen a lot to Disgorge (US), Brodequin, Cinerary and, last but in no way least, fucking Devourment! That stomping metal of theirs just makes ya wanna tear shit up every single time...

Whom have you played with and with whom would you just LOVE to be playing?

Phew, hard one... I'll stick to the more well-known names. :) We played with Vader, Disgorge (US), Deeds of Flesh, Monstrosity and shitloads of other big ones at the "Fuck the Commerce Festival" last year... And I hate to get back to them ALL the time, but IF Suffocation really gets back on the road and we could do a show with them, that would be so intense... Yeah, I'd really love that...

Which cities have you played? Any plans to go on tour? If so, where and when and with whom? And, I have to ask this, any change we might be able to see you here in El Paso, Texas?

Erm.. shitloads. :) We might go on tour somewhere march/April next year, but that is still such a big IF that I probably shouldn't even mention it... Well, we played Austin, Texas on the Bloodletting N/A Pt. II, so who knows, we just might. :)

How do you compare the Death and Black metal scene here in the States and in Europe?

Basically the same actually. :) However, Europe has the advantage of being very densely populated so that it is pretty easy to arrange mini-tours or just single international gigs.

Outside of playing Metal, what kinds of things do you enjoy doing?

Erm, going to metal and listening to metal, heheheh. Well, I do that a lot in the weekends, but besides metal I am the biggest computer nerd myself, playing a lot of online Quake...

Do you consider yourself an Underground Death Metal band?

Well yeah, I do... I mean, we just put as much time as our jobs and education let us put into our music, which basically sounds like Underground Metal to me... Although I have to be honest about one thing: If some big-shot label-owner came up to me and said he'd sign us if we'd give him a blow-job, I'd probably start brushing my teeth. :) But seriously, we would never change our music into more mainstream metal, or whatever, to be able to get a wickedly nice contract.

Who designs your CD artwork? Who has the final word on what actually goes on the album cover?

The cover artwork for Cerebral Cereal was done by the great Jon Zig, practically your neighbour. :) Joel did the rest, he's the main graphics man although everybody gets their say on the end result.

What are the future plans of your band?

Play as much as we can, hopefully record a new CD somewhere next year although we got set back big-time by the change of bass player and a wrist injury which took Robbe out of the game for a couple of months, but that's about it... Meet people, play for people and hope those people will like what we do. :)

Do you have or are planning to have a side-project?

Well, I do have a teeny side-project and both Robbe and Joel are in more than one band. Apart from that, there is so much talk about dozens of side-projects that never see the light of day that I will leave it at that. :)

Thanks so much and thank you for your patience.

No problem and thank you!

Greetz,
Anton (Pyaemia)