Feral Interview

Hook

1. Can you update us with what is going on with the band these days?
We have recently signed a record-deal with a great label (more details will be revealed on our web-sites soon) and we are currently recording our debut album. Things are going really smooth and the work with the recording is going way much faster than we expected it to do, we actually only have the bass and the vocals left to record. All the drums and guitars including solos are recorded.

2. What is the meaning behind the bands name?
Feral is a being once domesticated that has returned into it's wild state, we thought that it would be a fitting name for our musical concept and the general mood.


3. How would you describe your musical sound?
Our music is feral, returned to it's wild state. Groovy and straight forward death metal in the classic Swedish way, though in quite a few reviews people have claimed to hear a lot of thrash metal influences. That might be somewhat true even though none of us listens to that much thrash except for a hand full of bands, but I guess that thrash and death metal are such closely related genres that it's just a matter of opinion. I would call us a genuine death metal band with emphasis of the death'n'roll sub-genre, but everyone is entitled to their own thoughts around or music, if they can hear other influences I guess that's just a good thing.


4. According to a past interview I have read the band was suppose to be more black metal and ended up being death metal, and that your influences were more black metal and regular metal, how did you discover the death metal bands that play a part in your music now?
We didn't really discover that much death metal bands before we started playing it, we simply tried to write black metal and never really succeeded with it and the songs came out as death metal. People started to compare us to death metal bands and we later on started to check out these bands that we were compared with and obviously liked them a lot! We played this kind of music before we even had heard the bands that we listen to and are influenced by today.


5. How would you describe your live performance and what are some of the best shows that you have played so far?
We always play the hell out of ourselves no matter what. Even if the equipment is crap and a few people showed up to the gig there is always someone there that wants to see a god show. You shouldn't punish the people that actually showed up to the gig by giving a bad performance just because other people whimped out. If someone shows us support by paying to come to our shows and buying our merchandise we will do our best to not disappoint this person, anything else would be disrespectful and idiotic.

As for our best show, that's a really hard question. We have had a couple of really good gigs in our hometown Skellefteå the most recent times that we have played, a lot of people coming to show their support for the few local extreme bands that we have here and you really can't get enough of that. In September we played a gig in Jena, Germany together with Six Feet Under and Jungle Rot and had fucking blast! Even though we had some problems with the equipment the crowd went crazy, and when they do, so do we. About a year ago we played with Master in Leipzig which also was a really great gig with good and big crowd. Those are probably my best memories so far.


6. Are there any plans for a U.S tour?
No plans right now, but hopefully our label will be able to help us out with this in the future. We definitely want to go on the road again and playing the US would be great, especially since none of us has ever been there before. I don't know about the other guys but I personally have never been outside Europe.


7. How would you describe the lyrical content of the music?
Well, our lyrics ain't really revolutionary, usually regarding the classic themes like violence, death and religion. It would be quite hard for a metal band to pass off with lyrics about eating your vegetables and doing your homework. I don't really want any political issues or believes in my music either. There is a thin line between god and bad lyrics, I don't want then too deep, but still not nonsense, bad lyrics kill good music if you ask me. I work hard to get my lyrics the way I want them, and if I think that something sounds bad I'll rewrite them until I am satisfied. Though there are some of our lyrics that I would like to rewrite some more, especially our older songs. But when you've sang a song in a certain way for many years it's hard come up with a different way to do it.


8. How would you describe your musical progress over the years and what direction do you see the band heading into on future releases?
We are still young, but we were very young when we started the band so we have had a lot of time to find our musical direction and trying different things with the band and I feel that we have finally landed on something that works. Even though our music hasn't changed that much since we started taking the band more seriously, we have simply gotten better at writing and arranging songs. We have grown conferable in our music and I don't see us taking any drastic new direction in the future, though we always do our best to top our previous efforts and not repeat ourselves, even if you should be able to recognize our songwriting between different songs.


9.What are some band or musical styles that have influenced your sound and what are you listening to nowadays?
Obviously we are inspired by bands like Grave, Entombed and so on but also old 70's rock and metal bands like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and other bands alike. All members in the band counted I'd say that we cover as good as all metal sub-genres as inspiration and a couple of more genres as well. I personally listen the most to, as I said, Swedish death metal and 70's rock but I'm in a doom and stoner metal period right now. A lot of heavy grooves coming out of my speakers at the moment, and I think those influences are quite easy to hear in our music as well. When I'm in the mood for something that becomes almost the only thing I listen to for a long period of time until I get into something else. It keeps on like that until I rediscover the things that I haven't listened to for a while and then I start from the beginning again, with a few exceptions of bands that I listen to in all moods, rain or shine. I'm a huge fan of Grave, and collect any releases and merchandise I can come over by them.


10. Does Satanism or Occultism play any role in the music?
None of us are satanists, but these things definitely influence our music and my lyrics. I've just started to read a bit on occultism (I actually bought The Key of Solomon yesterday), really interesting stuff and surely a good source for inspiration. I consider myself a atheist, but I would be religious I guess I'd rather be a satanist than something else since Satan has horns, that's fucking awesome! When I was young I spent a lot of time in church, and that was really nothing for me, not then and not now. I've always been very interested in viking history and myths, but you will probably never hear any such themes in Ferals music, there are many other bands who does that better than I would. But I am planning some more occult themes in coming songs to vary between the "zombies coming to fucking eat you!"-lyrics. We'll just have to see how it turns out.


11. According to your myspace page, you are heavily interested in books or films, which ones are you a fan of?
Our song Howling that was recorded on both the Grim Winternight!-demo and Graverobber-demo was written when me and Valmer watched the 80's horror movie series with the same name, some nice werewolf action in those. Otherwise we watch loads of horror and gore movies, which mostly are shit with a few exceptions but all have some good entertainment quality. I think it's hard to count how many times we've watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. One of my favourite books is Bram Stoker's Dracula, a real classic, and of course HP Lovecrafts stories. I like some of the filmed versions of Dracula as well and actually have one of them tattooed on my upper arm.

12. What are some of your interests outside of music?
Haha, hardly any! I practically live and breath music. But it's standard shit I guess, hanging out with the guys and having a couple of beers, while talking about and listening to music of course. I try to go to as many gigs and festivals as I can afford, in particular the local ones. Since there are so few things happening in the metal scene in our part of Sweden you got to support everything there is, I usually go to at least one bigger festival each year as well. When I was younger I used to do some hunting with my father and some martial arts but that was interest I lost when I got more into music.


13. How has your music been received so far by the death metal community?
Very well so far, especially the Welcome to the Graveyard demo. All our demos as gotten really good reviews, though there wasn't that many for the first couple. But our latest effort hasn't gotten a single bashing so far, which feel very good, not that we would be devastated if someone didn't like it. Surely there has to be someone to dislike it eventually, but that's their problem. The reaction at gigs has been good as well, we're told that we are really good live act, it would be great to have an outer body experience so I could see us myself and get my own opinion!


14. Any final words or thoughts?
Thanks for this interview man, we really appreciate it! And thanks to all those who support us and death metal. Keep an eye open for the news to come on our website and beware because the feral beast lurks in the darkness around you!