Interview mit Joakim Sterner von Necrophobic

Your new album is your tenth studio album. Congratulations! Would you ever have dreamed that NECROPHOBIC would one day celebrate their 35th anniversary with the release of their tenth album?
Thank you! No, I did not think that this band would be still existing for as long as we have existed, back then when we started. But I never thought in those terms back then, if you know what I mean. It was all new, and you just wanted to spread the name and music everywhere.

Your debut „The Nocturnal Silence“ is still a classic today – although the cover with the purple and red pentagram takes some getting used to. How did this cover come about, and how do you feel about it today?
I had become friends with an artist, Urban Skytt, who also was the guitarist of the Swedish Death Metal band called Crematory … I guess this Crematory was founded before the German Crematory. I liked his style and asked him if he could create art for NECROPHOBIC. He did four artworks for NECROPHOBIC. The demo „Unholy Prophecies“ from 1991, the 7-Inch „The Call“ from 1992, the „The Nocturnal Silence“ album in 1993, but also the artwork I used for the compilation album „Satanic Blasphemies“ in 2010. That artwork was already created in 1993, but right now, I don’t remember what it was for. I think the artwork for „The Nocturnal Silence“ is iconic. A very good airbrushed painting for a debut album. I have the original painting, 50 x 50 cm, framed, on my wall.

Your follow-up albums were also all very well received – but you never had the big commercial breakthrough that Gorgoroth or Dark Funeral had. Why do you think that was – and do you regret it, or are you happy with where you are now?
It all has to do that we never to manage to go on a tour at that early time. We tried, but we hadn’t got a booking agency back then and our label, Black Mark Production, did not help us that much with that sort of business. In a way, I regret that it did not happen, but not nowadays. We are at a good level now, and we have worked hard to get there. We get bigger and bigger, still. That is actually pretty good, considering we are a 35 years old band. Most bands tend to drop in popularity in the later career, but not us. We get bigger.

After „Death To All“ you had a split, Johan Bergebäck and Sebastian Ramstedt left, on „Womb Of Lilithu“ only you can be heard from the current line-up. How did this split come about?
We had played a lot between 2000 and 2010, and Sebastian and Johan wanted to have a break/time out from the band. Tobias, our former bassist/singer, later on just vocalist, started to feel restless after a couple of months and told me that he didn’t want to wait for Sebastian and Johan anymore and told me that he wanted to continue with new guitar players. At first, I did not like the idea, but Tobias is a very persuasive person and a short time later we had two new guitar players and a support slot for the European tour with Morbid Angel. After that tour, we recorded „Womb of Lilithu“ and it was released in 2013.

After the album, the band split with Tobias Sidegård after a domestic violence incident became public. Did that open the door for the new formation, not only with Anders Strokirk, but also Sebastian and Johan?
It happened that Alex (bass) met Anders in a pub, where Anders told Alex that he had just buried his band Blackshine. Alex told me about it and I said that this is perfect timing. Let’s recruit Anders and so we did. And we started to play shows again around the world. Two years later, I started to have contact with Sebastian and Johan again, whom I missed a lot on many levels, and it led me to take yet another hard decision. And on New Year’s Eve 2016, we presented the new strong line-up.

The resulting two albums were so visually similar that they almost seemed to belong together, both showing a dark portal in a fiery glow. There were only two years between the albums. Now it’s taken you four years, and even the cover is completely different – have you started a new phase with „In The Twilight Grey“?
Like you said, the albums „Mark Of The Necrogram“ and „Dawn Of The Damned“ are connective to each other, because they spring out of the same creative process, more or less. After that, the pandemic came, which led to an unnatural break, so when all was over, we reset to a new start and with a new creative phase, and we decided that we could not continue doing any more album covers, for instance, relating to that castle, originally from the artwork for „Darkside“. The music, of course, is still NECROPHOBIC, yet with some new paths, but we decided to try something new for the album artwork.

The picture was created by Jens Rydén, who previously only took your photos. Why did you decide to have a cover done by him this time instead of using a picture by Kristian Wåhlin again?
We decided to give all work to Jens, since we all like his work. I have worked close to him on the layout and telling him how I want photos and layout to be, but giving him also the opportunity to create artwork for the album cover. He did a fantastic work, and it feels great to have something out of the ordinary looking on the album cover. It stands out!

AI artwork is a big topic in metal at the moment. How do you feel about it – do you think it’s legitimate to use artificial intelligence to create a cover, for example?
I don’t know how to comment that at this early stage. New stuff always makes people react bad, because it is unfamiliar to them. I think it has not been the best artwork so far, but the technique is at a very early stage. I think that a great artist with interest for the new technique and patience would be able to come up with great and sick artwork. Just wait and see.

The album is your first with Tobias Christiansson on bass, the change is very audible, the bass actually sounds different, casually buzzing. I really like that – was that his decision, or did you want it different anyway?
He is the most skillful bass player we have ever had, so of course we wanted him to shine. But we also decided to let this new production to be as „clear“ as possible, to be able to hear what every instrument is doing, without missing out of the rawness. I think we succeeded very good with that.

I have the feeling that you have reduced the thrash component a bit – in parts the album is almost a bit cheesy, one might say, „As Stars Collide“ comes to mind as an example, with choirs and swaying melodies. Is there an explanation for this subtle change in style, did you write the album differently or pursue a different goal than on the last two?
You can not decide what comes out in a creative process, but what you can do is to choose what from that creative process to be used and recorded. Yes, there are some new ideas that made it to the album, and we went for it, because we felt strong for the material – and the music that is a bit of a „new“ path still sound very NECROPHOBIC. Otherwise, we had never recorded it.

The limited edition has two bonus tracks – „Blackened The Horizon“ and „The Torture Never Stops“, which is a cover version of the W.A.S.P.-song inspired by the Frank Zappa song with the same name. What’s your relationship to W.A.S.P. and Zappa?
I have W.A.S.P. as one of my absolute fave bands, but I have not so much relation to Zappa. The cover of the W.A.S.P song was not planned. I decided to surprise all the other members with that song. I had some extra time when I had recorded all the other drum tracks for the album – and we have talked about doing that cover since many, many years ago, so I just told the producer to put that song on and said to him to record my drums. The rest of the band went crazy when they heard it.

Which track of the album would you play to someone who has never heard of NECROPHOBIC to convince them to buy the CD?
Probably „Shadows Of The Brightest Night“. That songs has very much of the elements that is what NECROPHOBIC is about. The cold, dark and grand feel and the eerie melody.

And which one to a long-time fan?
The same song, of course.

Speaking of CDs: For many years, some of your albums were not available at all or only at collector’s prices on used CD platforms before they were finally reissued in 2022. What happened there?
We have had different record labels during our career, and some oft hem don’t exist anymore. Lately, we took an overall grip on that, and now we own all our albums ourselves. In 2021, we took the decision together with our label we have now, Century Media Records, to put out the entire back catalog, once and for all and to have all formats available to please our fans – and new fans. I worked my ass off for one and a half year with those reissues.

Thanks for your time – let’s finish with a short brainstorming session:
Judas Priest: One of the best Heavy Metal bands in the world
In Aphelion: They will release their second full length album later this year. Great music!
Slayer reunion: I don’t think it will happen.
Artificial Intelligence: Too early to have a worthy opinion
Grave-Split: Sad.
NECROPHOBIC in 10 years: First band to play in space!

Publiziert am 5. Mai 2024 von Moritz Grütz

Fotos von: Afra Gethöffer-Grütz