1. Can you tell us a little bit about the band for those who never heard of you before?
We are DEHUMAN REIGN – a death metal band from Berlin, Germany. The band was formed in 2011 after the split of HARMONY DIES, where Ulf [guitar] and Totte [drums] have been making music together for more than 10 years. Shortly after the split we found a second guitar player in Tesk and then Rouven who plays the bass. Finally in March 2012 we found our vocalist (Alex).
With the line-up complete we recorded our debut-EP during the following summer. The recording and mixing were done by Tobi Engl (ESSENZ, ANDROID EMPIRE, DROWNED) at the Englsound studio. We uploaded a rough mix of one of the tracks to our Bandcamp page in late 2012 and got positive feedback on it. There were two labels that showed interest in our stuff and so it comes that we signed a deal with F.D.A. Rekotz in early 2013. Our debut called “DESTRUCTIVE INTENT” will be released on 26th July 2013, the vinyl release will follow later.
2. How would you describe your musical sound?
It’s always hard to describe your own music, we just write stuff that comes out of our strange brains, perhaps influenced by bands of the early 90s, but not on an intentional level. Our approach is to create a pure and authentic sound without modern influences and an evil/dark atmosphere. Most listeners classify us as classic 90’s US death metal. The best way is to find out for yourself by listening to our music!
3. What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the music?
The lyrics in our songs are of a dark, philosophical nature and allow a wide range of possible interpretations. Our aim is to cover more than the usual gore/splatter themes or all the exaggerated satanic stuff, but still being evil.
4. What is the meaning and inspiration behind the band’s name?
It’s really hard to find a band name these days. Every time someone came up with a good sounding band name, we always discovered that it already existed. Finally we had a list of potential names in 8pt font size that filled a whole page! One day Totte proposed “DEHUMAN REIGN”. That was something we all could agree upon and thought it represents the evil mood of our music very well.
5. What are some of the best shows that the band has played so far and how would you describe your stage performance?
We have played several club gigs in Germany, which all felt pretty good. However, the best so far was our show at the “Grind the Nazi Scum” festival in Torgau, Germany. There was a mixed audience of metalheads, grind and crust-core fans. It was a really nice experience to see all these people enjoy our performance!
6. Do you have any touring plans for the future?
We have been booked for some single shows for the remaining year (check the web for more information). A tour is not planned at this moment. Since we don’t like the “pay-to-play” concept that’s becoming more and more usual, we prefer to play concerts for the real underground scene for now. We’ll see what the future holds for us.
7. On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of death metal?
We got excellent feedback and praise on the rough-mix-track we published through our bandcamp-page, mostly from Germany, but also from the USA, Spain, Netherlands, Indonesia, Russia and Greece. We are looking forward to get some more feedback after the release of our debut!
8. Are there any other musical projects besides this band?
Yes, most of us are active in additional projects/bands;
Uffe plays guitar in NECROMORPH (Grind/Crust/Death), Tesk plays guitar in YSPOTOPSY (Djeazz-metal), Rouven plays bass in a rock band and Totte is playing drums in a harsh black metal project.
9. What direction do you see your music heading into on future releases?
The major direction is pretty clear – DEATH METAL!
We have already some new songs in our live-set, which have been written by the whole band, even Alex [vocals]threw in some killer riffs.
We will continue to sound like DEHUMAN REIGN, just like we said before, we write music that we like and come up with cool riffs and make them into good songs. Come to our live shows to listen and experience the new stuff!
10. What are some bands or musical styles that have influenced your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
There is no specific band we could name here. We are just a bunch of guys with the same musical roots, thrash from the 80s, black & death metal from the 90s and grind-/crust-core. Apart from that every band member has his own odd preferences and favourites from all styles of music you can imagine, but that’s too much to mention. We can honestly say from Abba to Zappa.
11. Does occultism play any role in your music?
We are all atheists, but nevertheless we are fascinated by dark, demonic atmospheres. We believe that there is a kind of spirituality in every human being and that it can be triggered by music, sounds and words. So basically what we are hoping to achieve is to create a morbid, disturbing sound without applying a specific religious context.
12. Outside of music, what are some of your interests?
We are quite different personalities when it comes to interests apart from music, but we all can agree upon drinking all kinds of beer, driving with fast cars on the world famous german Autobahn and playing golf … haha, not really …
13. Any final words or thoughts before we wrap up this interview?
Thanks for the interview and thanks to the patient readers for reading this far.
Please check out our music and if you like it buy it, if not... then still buy it! :)
OBEY THE FOULING GHOUL
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