Metal Mayhem UK

Metal Mayhem: Since this is your first interview with Metal Mayhem, and no doubt some readers might not know much about you, I’ll start with some background questions...Could you tell us briefly who the band are and how and when you formed?
Koen from Damnation: Hello, and Of course! Mike, Thomas and I started a band called Infernal Dream in 1997. When Otto joined in 1998 we decided to change the name to Detonation, this sounded more cool and also suited the musical style we had better. Around the same time we recorded our first 2 songs for a Dutch compilation CD, from which 1 of those songs can be heard on our new albums' multimedia part, if you like to check it out...in 1999 we recorded our first 4 track EP, Lost Euphoria, which gave us the opportunity to play loads of gigs throughout the Netherlands. In 2001 we agreed to look for a record company to sign us, so we recorded a 3-track promo CD in order to get some labels interested. Unfortunately this did not work at the time, so we moved on and recorded our debut full length album in 2002. An Epic Defiance was recorded in studio Excess in Rotterdam in 2 weeks time, and afterwards we decided to launch a promo campaign to give it another try with the companies...luckily it worked this time and in January 2003 we signed a 3 album deal with Osmose Productions. A lot of things have happened since then, too much to mention actually! We played shows and had a European tour in 2004, afterwards our drummer Thomas got an arm injury and we were forced to hire a substitute drummer, and now we are back with a new album "Portals to Uphobia", which has just been released!

MM: What are some of your influences guys?
Koen:Our main influences when we started this band were bands such as At The Gates, Edge Of Sanity, Dismember, Dissection, Morbid Angel etc, but we are influenced by all kinds of music. Our only criteria for listening and enjoying music is that it has to be catchy and good in general! Today our influences do not come from metal music any more, because we do not want to be influenced by bands doing the same kind of music, so we listen a lot to classic stuff and pop/rock music to evolve ourselves as musicians. Of course I still enjoy listening to metal releases, but I try not to get influenced by it too much...

MM: How would you describe your sound to someone who hasn’t heard you?
Koen: Hmm, that shouldn't be too difficult I guess...melodic, diverse, aggressive at times and fast! But you can pretty much expect every kind of metal style in our music, we do not feel restricted at all!

MM: Your style reminds me of the classic thrash and death metal bands and in particular the melodic death sound. Are those influences?
Koen: Yeah I think so. But we also had other influences like I stated before, for instance, Mike and Thomas listened to a lot to bands like Metallica and Megadeth before we formed this band, MIke is 50% American and he didn't even own a cd from an European metal band before we started Detonation. But from the beginning we always wanted to make metal the old school way, but with way more melodies.

MM: Both An Epic Defiance and the new cd Portals to Uphobia have received excellent reviews. Do you guys worry about reviews or do you just get on with it?
Koen: Of course it is always a set down when you get a bad review, but fortunately we didn't have that many bad reviews yet! Good reviews get you motivated without doubt, but the bad ones are good in a certain way as well, we try to learn from negative comments we get, and see if we can improve ourselves on the next album. But of course, you also sometimes get comments which are totally not interesting to us, and most of the times it all comes down to the taste in music of the reviewer, and that is something I don't care about, or try not to care about. That's beyond our control...But I have to tell you we are pretty nervous at the moment concerning the new reviews, the new album has just been released and you never know as a band how other people will respond after listening to your new songs, even if you like 'em yourself.

MM: Like most bands touring is obviously a pretty big part of your life, hows the latest tour been?
Koen: Yeah, we're touring like crazy at the moment, and it will just get more and more in the future. It's the only good way to get your band known out there. At the moment we are still touring more or less, but I'll say more about that later. The tour we had last year with Dimension Zero was absolutely great, even though we played for an average of 50 people a night. We did 11 shows throughout Europe from which most gigs were in Germany, but also some in the UK, Holland, Austria and Switzerland and Italy. This was actually our first real European tour in a nightliner, so it was already a succes for us not concerning the gigs! And some of the shows were great as well, so it was a good first tour for us.

MM: I heard you had some problems with the new tour bus that effected UK dates with Decapitated and Gorerotted, what happened?
Koen: A lot happened actually! We were supposed to tour 3,5 weeks with them all throughout Europe. Our first show was in Arnhem, Holland where we would get on the nightliner to join the tour for real. When we got at the bus it turned out there were 18 bunks to sleep in, while there were 22 people on the tour including crew and drivers! So there were 4 bunks short...the tour manager told us there had been a problem with th eoriginal 22-bunk bus, and that they had been forced to take this bus at the last moment, because they had to start the tour...we joined later in Arnhem, and they pretty much told us we had to find a solution ourselves. We did more or less by sleeping in places where you normally do not sleep in a bus, and slept several nighs there. The first band of the tour was going to relive us from those places with the help of a schedule we made. Then all of a sudden we were told to leave the tour bus completely, because there was a huge problem with insurance and stuff, and the management decided we were the band that had to go instead of the first band, DAM. Don't ask me why, I don't know the exact reasons at this moment. But we were screwed, that's for sure! We, however, decided we were not going to let it all end here just like that, so we arranged our own transportation and secured a couple of UK dates of the tour and a Dutch date, by driving ourselves in a rented car, and sleeping at homes from friends we have in the UK. We actually just returned form these days, and we're now working hard to be able to do the last 3 German dates of the tour this weekend!

MM: You have played in the uk a few times now how do you find coming over to the Uk?
Koen: It's the best! The UK has one of the finest audiences for a band like us. We always enjoy ourselves in the UK and meet wonderful people, I can't wait to get back there again! We're actually trying to return early next year for a long weekend, so beware! We missed the shows in Brighton, Nottingham, and in Ireland and Scotland due to the bshit that happened with the tour bus...but we'll make up for it as fast as we can. Bookers can get in touch with us if they are interested in letting us do a gig in your neighbourhood ;) Just send us a line at info@detonation.nl

MM: How is the scene in the Netherlands at the moment?
Koen: It's a good scene over here, absolutely! There are really a lot of bands doing their thing, especially Death metal bands. Some of my favourites and also good friends of ours are Severe Torture, God Dethroned and Disavowed.

Of course there are also other metal bands doing other styles from which Callenish Circle, Textures Orphanage and Virulent are highly recommendable! The Dutch scene is a healthy one, although I feel there are perhaps a bit too many bands around at the moment, that simply don't have enough talent in my opinion. But everybody has the right to make music of course, I encourage that 100%!

MM: You seem to be a real “fans band” I first heard about you guys via the internet, how do you feel about the web as a band? Do you think sites like myspace and fan sites really help?
Koen: Well, it helps us a lot without doubt. We are a pretty young band, and the whole tape trading thing was pretty much over when we got together as a band, so we had no other choice than to get ourselves noticed though the internet! Today it has become big business, and we're using every aspect of it to let people experience our music.

MM: Could you tell us a bit about the lyrics and where you get your inspiration from?
Koen: On "Portals to Uphobia", the general topic behind the lyrics is about making choices in life, especially the wrong ones in this case. The word Uphobia reflects the words Euphoria, Utopia and Phobia combined to display the main key words of the album, while the portals relfect the different choices we can make in our lives. As with An Epic Defiance we wrote all the lyrics from a personal point of view, that's the only it works for Mike and I, we write all the lyrics. For this album I wrote 80% I think off all the lyrics, and I took experiences from my daily life as a source of inspiration. It turned out pretty personal and emotional this time, I guess I had a lot on my mind lately ;) But I didn't want to get to specific about my personal shit of course, so I made every lyric a bit less transparent, so that everybody who reads them can get somethingout of it for themselves to identify with.

MM: Finally guys any shouts or thanks you want to give out?
Koen: Thanks a lot for the interview, and take care! Hopefully we'll return to the UK as soon as possible, but till then please make sure to check out our new record, "Portals To Uphobia", or visit our site http://www.detonation.nl. See you all on tour!