The combination of Denmark and thrash metal immediately brings to mind genre pioneers Artillery. While they are still going strong it has been more than a few decades since they could be considered „newcomers“. This label has long since been passed on to others, among them KILLING. The outfit from Djursland has just released their debut album „Face The Madness“ and were able to secure a deal with Mighty Music. We talked to band leader Rasmus Soelberg about his band, old school thrash and – of course – the ever present corona situation.
Hi Rasmus and thanks a lot for taking time for this interview! We have a rough (and weird) one and a half years behind us. How are you doing?
Hey man! Thanks for having us and having interest in our little danish band! The last one and a half years? Tell me about it? What crazy times to be alive. Well, we lost a lot of good gigs, some big ones we were looking forward to. But we made the best of our time and finished writing our album and recorded it at „Dead Rat Studio“Man kGitarr, got a record deal with mighty, oh and by the way i also became a dad to my first born little Ludwig during the covid19 times. And Snade has a little one in its way too. So we havent been wasting our time, so to say.
KILLING have been around since 2013 but here in Germany we don’t know a lot about you guys yet. Tell us a bit about the band’s history!
Well, it started with me asking the other guys to make a thrash band together, Snade and Skousen were playing in End My Sorrow at the time, so they didnt have all the time in the world, but they finaly said yes after some time. Ralle was not in a band at that time so he was ready to give it a shot. We first met to a rehearsel in december 2013 with some of my riffs and then the other guys brought some stuff to the table, and suddenly we was ready to make our first EP. And then we got alot of shows and attention around Denmark and even from some other countries. And here we are 7-8 years later with our full lenght album, luckily we play faster than we work.
With „Face The Madness“ your first full-length album is about to be release. What can you tell us about the record?
Its the album that defines KILLING, our madness and style. Its by far the best music we ever made, so far. We wanted to show the world what keeps us going and why we play this style of music. It have always been natural for us to play old school thrash metal, because thats what we have been listening to all of our lives. Also we have always been told that we bring some madness to the table when we play Live shows, so we also wanted to have that feeling on our album.
How would you say has your sound evolved since „Toxic Asylum“?
We recorded and mixed and mastered Toxic Asylum all on our own alongside with Raise Your Anger, and it was the first real production Snade ever made, so we really think he did a good job. Our music got better during the time and we decided to get a professionel to help us record and mix/master it, so we could concentrate about the music and not turn buttons and so on while doing it. Our sound is still old school but we got the result we wanted on the record, dry and old school, just like we love it.
How did the songwriting and recording process for „Face The Madness“ work?
We have some old songs and some new songs on the album, we wanted to make a record with variaton but still with a clear red line. Therefore we have fast slashers and some some slow tunes like “Killed In Action”. We wrote “Killed In Action” because we felt the record needed a slow song to complete it, just like albums that came out in the 80´ies and early 90´ies, they always had a slow groover. And also it was really funny to create a song that was so different from the rest. We booked time at Dead Rat Studio with Jacob Bredahl behind the buttons and that went really well, we love the result we made together.
Your music reminds me a lot of second wave thrash bands such as Demolition Hammer and Morbid Saint. Would you agree?
Its an honor to compared to those bands, they have that classic old school sound that we like. So yeah, there is something about it.
What other bands and styles influence your sound?
We have alot of Slayer, Annihilator, Kreator, Exodus and Metallica in our sound. Thats mainly because those are some of our favourite bands.
„Face The Madness“ will be released through Mighty Music. How did this collaboration come to pass?
We are fortunate and lucky enough that Mighty Music had interest in our music and saw some potential in us. Michael took contact and we came to an agreement, and here we are now, out with our first album on legendary Mighty Music.
Worum bWhat topics do you talk about in your lyrics?
Mostly we move around the classic topics like; Death, War and destruction. But we write about whatever we feel like, scary enough what feels most natural for our writing process is when we write about horror and death haha. We also have a song about a sea monster on our album, so everything is possible in the killing universe.
Once it’s possible again: What about your concert schedule? Can we expect to see KILLIING in Germany some time soon?
We played in Germany once with Durothar and CO. Great evening that ended with car problems and a cold night on the roadside during winther and what felt minus a thousand degrees. So we really hope that we can play in Germany soon with better luck perhaps? Ist one of our goals.
The COVID-19 pandemic affects all areas of life but it seems that venues and touring bands are hit especially hard. How do you feel about this, one and a half year into this mess?
We missed playing live, but as mentioned earlier, we made it to something positive and used the time to finish our album and get kids. We are starting to open up like in the old days in Denmark, and it feels AWESOME! Live shows with moshpits and alot of people attending the shows. We love it.
Thank you for the interview! Please let us do a little brainstorming in the end of this interview. What’s the first thing that comes to your mind reading the following terms:
Epidemic Of Violence: Demoliton Hammer, very fitting album title these days.
Old School: Is the right school.
Lockdown: Re-opening.
Morten Stützer: RIP one of our greatest EVER in Denmark. Soundtrack to our youth!
KILLING in 10 years: More albums, less hair? Perhaps a tour in Germany?
Once again thanks for your time. The last words are yours – is there anything left you want to tell our readers?
I wanna thank you for having us here, it means the world to us. Also i wanna thank everyone who listen to our music and give us the great support we have recieved from our debut album. Thank you all so much! Without you we would be nothing.
Keep it fast and keep it loud!
30. November 2021 Thomas Meyns
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