With „We Owe You Nothing“ FORGOTTEN TOMB were more than ever inspired by Sludge and Stoner Metal. Bandkopf Herr Morbid explains where these influences come from, why the album has still become a typical FORGOTTEN-TOMB-album and what he expects as feedback on the album.
Your new album is entitled „We Owe You Nothing“ – whom are you referring to? Whom do you owe nothing?
The title-track is the most aggressive one lyrically and it‘ slightly different from the other songs, it’s kind of abstract, it doesn’t address anyone or anything in particular but it’s more of an outburst of generalized hatred towards life and people. It’s like a big „fuck you“ to the whole concept of existence, to life itself, to death itself, to hypocrites, it’s like saying „I don’t owe life anything“ and the concept was extended to the band, therefore the „We“ in the title and lyrics.
Where does that feeling come from, what made you feel like that?
The future of the band was uncertain for a while after my accident due to various reasons, so It’s like being a unit again and marching on against all odds like a gigantic middle-finger. The album was supposed to have another title in the beginning, but after surviving the car wreck, slowly getting back to play guitar and finally getting the band back on track, there was this feeling of being us against life itself, against misfortune and against the constant letdowns, therefore the title. It’s a title that is open to many interpretations though.
The title could also be understood as referring to your fans, since the new album is musically very different from what many might have expected?
Frankly these days I don’t have many problems with people who love our older albums, I’ve been the same with some of my favorite bands, it’s a peculiar Metal thing to do. The typical “I only like their first 2 albums” thing, you know. It just happens, some people don’t like changes or they simply have a different taste. But still, if someone gets so upset when you do something that sounds a bit different it means he still admires you very much for what you’ve done in the past, therefore I take it as a sign of appreciation for at least some of my work.
I just don’t like people who criticize everything you do for a personal prejudice while probably they never did anything to actively support you, so if we are still around after 18 years, we owe some people nothing for sure. I respect everyone’s opinion but if you’re around just to talk shit about other people’s hard work you can shove your opinion up your ass, as far as I’m concerned. Anyway fans come and go, it’s a natural process. I think if people liked “Hurt Yourself and The Ones You Love” they shouldn’t be too shocked with this new one, since we just took the sludgier and heavier parts of that album and basically took things to the next level. I don’t think it’s a total stretch from where we were coming with that album.
How do you expect the fans to react?
You will never see unanimous reviews or comments with our albums, cause we are a band that divides both the audience and journalists alike since day 1. It has always been like that, these days people think “Songs to Leave” or “Springtime Depression” are cult-albums but when they came out the backlash was even worse than our recent albums. Same goes with “Negative Megalomania”, which a lot of people these days deem as their personal favourite, while many thought we were dead and gone with that album when it came out. Time always proved us right cause we tend to be always kinda ahead of trends. We’re just a honest band which doesn’t follow trends and goes its way like it always did.
When we started out the whole “depressive” Black Metal thing basically didn’t even exist, we were among the first ones to use that definition, that imagery or playing like that, now you’ve got thousands of bands doing that. Same goes for some of the elements we introduced on the albums that followed, like Rock-oriented guitar-solos, clean vocals, Post-Punk influences, Sludge influences and so on. Being looked upon with suspicion is part of our history, cause that’s what happens when you’re different or forward-looking, or simply musically open-minded.
How important is feedback to you, how do you deal with criticism?
As said before, fans come and go, so you’ve got to stay true to yourself cause that’s what keeps a band going. There might be good or bad times but a sincere band will always be recognized, while a band that tries to follow trends or to please the audience is a fake and it’s destined to fail, cause real fans will notice that. We got fans that buy every album we put out cause they know they’ll like it, regardless of the direction the album takes. I call them “silent majority”, cause they’re the ones who don’t spend their lives complaining on the Internet, they just buy the albums, come at shows and support the band. Also, I’ve got a few friends I trust and if they say the new album rocks it means it does, cause I know they wouldn’t lie to me. That’s the only judgement or seal of approval that I need, everything else is just Internet blabbering.
The album is way more sludge/southern metal then black metal – would you subscribe that, and if not: What makes it Black Metal for you? Was that your intention, so did you search for that sound to strengthen this atmosphere?
Well, it’s more in Crowbar’s territory than in Darkthrone’s territory, to pretty much sum it up, though I think it still retains many Black Metal elements and atmospheres. We have our own sound and it’s everywhere on the album, simply the approach this time verges more on the Sludge/Doom side than on the Black side, but this is something that has been going on for most of our albums from „Negative Megalomania“ onwards. We always had this duality and some southern influences, some albums were more Black, others more Rock, others more Doom, but we always mixed things up quite a bit. This time we wanted to go heavier, but you can also find Punk influences and other elements that are quite typical of our trademark sound. I think there are elements from all of our discography in these songs, with an emphasis on the doomier side of things.
Do you listen to sludge /southern metal yourself, and if yes, which bands do you like most?
I sure do, since a very long time actually. I’ve always been into everything’s southern, it’s really nothing new for people who knew me for quite a while. I pretty much like most of the Louisiana-based bands as well as other bands such as Buzzov*en, Sourvein, Weedeater, -(16)- and such. I don’t really like Stoner Rock though, or the whole Doom revivalism which is raging these days. Not interested in copycats, so I basically stay with the classics.
Did you have any albums as reference? Any albums you wanted „We Owe You Nothing“ sound similar soundwise?
We had Chris „Zeuss“ Harris to mix and master the album this time and he needs no introduction I think. He did Crowbar, Six Feet Under and a few other albums that we really liked and he showed back interest in working with the band, so among a list of producers that we had in mind he ended up being the chosen one. He actually did some very modern-sounding albums in his career though upon receiving our material he agreed that we needed a more organic sound, therefore we didn’t use any triggers on drums and tried to limit as much as possible all the digital stuff. We kept things pretty much raw and loud, we didn’t want it to be too polished or overproduced. I just wanted it to have big guitars, big drums, solid bass, in-your-face vocals and a nasty general approach.
The cover shows a hand holding a pigheart – what’s the idea behind that artwork, and where is the connection to the album-title?
Well, it’s a pig heart but obviously it’s intended to be a human heart, which of course we couldn’t use, you know. (laughs) We usually do a brainstorming to decide the album’s cover-artwork and since the other guys can read my lyrics they are able to come up with some ideas about it. This time we finally came up with the whole heart idea cause it sums up the general meaning of my lyrics for this album, it basically means life and all the pain it brought me tore my heart out.
It’s like my heart’s on the cover cause this album and all the suffering it brought along with it tore my fucking heart out. You have probably heard I’ve been in a life-threatening car accident in the end of 2016 and it affected the album lyrics and mood very much, as well as other personal problems I had to face during the whole process of writing the album, so the bleeding heart stands as the symbol of all the suffering I put into this record.
Are you planning to go on tour with the album and if yes, are there any german dates planned?
We’ll have our first show in over a year in Romania at Rites of The Black Mass II festival in a couple of weeks, then we’ll probably tour Europe in Spring 2018 supporting the new album. Germany will be on the map as always, I still don’t know how many shows cause mostly it depends on the routing and offers. We’re also fixing some festivals, both indoors and outdoors. We’ll also see if we manage to finally tour the US. We’re going for a “less shows, more quality” attitude recently so we’ll see what happens. I used to like touring but I don’t anymore these days for a variety of reasons, so at least I’d want to have a good time while I’m at it. In Europe we’ll probably go for a 20-shows tour or something like that but we’re cutting down on single-shows, unless it’s a good festivals.
Thank you for the interview! Please let us do a short brainstorming in the end of this interview. What comes in your mind first reading the following terms:
Germany: Lots of Metal fans.
Donald Trump: I’d rather not comment about him since I might want to spend some time in the US in the next months. (laughs)
Soccer: Not really interested in it, I might watch the World Cup matches from time to time though.
Facebook: Something you need for promotion these days, like other social-networks. I’d rather live without these things, but that’s how the world goes these days.
Your favorite album 2017: It’s been a good year. I think some albums like the new Eyehategod are still to be released, for the moment I particularly liked the new Unsane and the new Danzig too. Primitive Man album is fucking heavy, too.
FORGOTTEN TOMB in 10 years: Hah, hard to say, there are too many factors at play. If I’m still around I hope I won’t be a total wreck though.
Once again thanks for your time. The last words are yours – is there anything left you want to tell our readers?
If you like heavy, nasty and dark stuff you should check our new album, so give it a spin. Thanx for the interview.
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25. Oktober 2017 Moritz Grütz
Nettes, informatives, aber auch ein bisschen zahnloses Interview. Viel Blabla um den Stilwechsel, aber wenig wirklich Relevantes. Da fand ich beispielsweise euer (wahnsinnig tolles) Interview mit Dzö-nga kürzlich viel interessanter.
Eigentlicher Grund für den Kommentar: hat sich Herr Morbid eigentlich jemals von der Nähe seiner Band vom NSBM distanziert, also zB dass sein Bassist mit dem Typen von Ad Hominem rumhängt? Weiß da wer was?
Naja, der Stilwechsel ist musikalisch das relevanteste, was in der jüngeren Bandgeschichte passiert ist. Was das zweite angeht: Ja, hat er, vor längerer Zeit schon auf Facebook.