Stay Metal!

Suiciderock: For people not familiar with the band, Defuse, how did the band come about?
Corpse: When we started the first time  we had a different line-up as we have now. We started in 1997.  At this time I didn`t live in Kuopio, I lived in the country side somewhere in Finland and we had this band called „Winterwolf". I think we played about 5 years under this name, we made some demos and than I moved to Kuopio and we got a new line-up and changed our name into Deathchain and got one demo out, which was called „Poltergeist". Than we got the record-deal with Dynamic Arts Records and now we are here.

Suiciderock: Why did you change the name?
Corpse: Ahm, because the old name was the name of the old line-up and we wanted fresh wind in the new line-up. We changed the name and actually the old band Winterwolf is still existing, but it`s a seperate thing from Deathchain, so we changed the name only for the new beginning.

Suiciderock: In your opinion, what's the biggest milestone for the band since you started out?
Bobby: Well, I guess both albums are surely the highlights of our career, but I think that the gig at Tuska Festival last summer on the mainstage was a huge thing for us and of course the tour with „Candlemass" and „Destruction", which we did before last christmas. I think that's it.

Suiciderock: Is there a band that had major musical influences on your career and your music or any idols?
Corpse: Of course, there are a lot of idols but you can't hear them so much in our music. For me the biggest band is „Iron Maiden", but the bands who have influenced our style and you also can hear in our music are for example the old Slayer, Sepultura, Destruction and Creator, Status from the USA, Cannibal Corpse and so on. Mainly old school trash metal and also death metal.

Suiciderock: How do you feel that you have developed as a band through the years?
Bobby: I think we are a lot better as we were when we started as a band and as individual players, because we have played so many gigs, we did so many rehearsals together so that it feels like a real band nowadays. I can only speak for myself, but when I started to play I never played in a band before. I have developed as a player. It's always different to play only for yourself at home than to play as a band on stage. I guess we`re getting better and better all the time.

Suiciderock: After listening to your band, what do you want people to walk away with?
Corpse: Maybe I want that the people relate the sound of our band to old school metal. We want to remind the people on the bands of the 80's, because many of the kids today don`t know the old bands. They only know the big names like for instance „Slayer". We wanted to remind that old school and underground music is still existing. It's very strong nowadays. We want to remember the people the rules of extreme metal.
Bobby: Of course, when we are playing life we give 110%. We want everybody to be happy.

Suiciderock: What do you think about the state of metal music today?
Corpse: I think it's much more better nowadays. If you take the music of Nightwish, Children of Bodom, HIM, they don`t play the same style and with the help of the big bands also the smaller bands get a chance to come up. The finnish metal scene is really big at the moment. I think it has never been so big before.
Bobby: There are hundreds and hundreds of smaller bands playing different styles: power metal, speed metal or whatever. I think it`s really great nowadays. There are so much more bands to come up and it`s just like Corpse said that the fact that bands like HIM or Children of Bodom broke through in Europe and the USA, more and more people get interested in the Finnish music scene.
Corpse: You can see it also when you go to the Tuska Festival, the biggest metal festival in Finland, and I hope that it will stay as good as it is at the moment.  

Suiciderock: Who is responsible for the lyrics in your band?
Corpse: We both write the lyrics. Of course, we also write the lyrics seperately. Nowadays our singer also made some lyrics, but mostly it's our job.

Suiciderock: What inspires you for your songwriting?
Corpse: Horror Movies or for me especially H.P. Lovecraft. I really love his works. For me it`s the ocult literature. That's where I get my kicks from.

Suiciderock: What comes first the text or the music? What is more important for you: The lyrics or the music?
Bobby: I think that the music is more important. When I buy an album I always want to read the lyrics, so I think they are important but I think the music is more important.
Corpse: When I write a song, it`s really important for me, that the lyrics and the music match together perfectly and we care a lot of the lyrics.

Suiciderock: You mentioned your new record, can you tell us something about it?
Corpse: Yeah of course we can. It's titled „Deathrash Assault", it came out at the end of last year.
Bobby: And there are 9 tracks on it.
Corpse: It's really straight forward aggressive. Hate and trash metal combined together. Also some more guitar sounds and stuff like that. It's really straight forward old school, it`s really fast.
Bobby: A bit more tempo changes and stuff like that. I think it's a lot more better than the first one. I think that we have done all our gigs in this fall, it's time to concentrate on the new album. Let's see what comes out of it, but we hope that we can do a better one.

Suiciderock: What would be your favourite line-up for a festival like for example Rock Cock?
Corpse: Old Sepultura, maybe King Diamond, Sodom.
Suiciderock: And you would be the headliner?
Deathchain: Of course, of course.
Corpse: It would be really great to see Sepultura with the old line-up. I don`t like the newer stuff of them. Of course also King Diamond, Iron Maiden, Motörhead...
Bobby: ... There are hundreds of bands.

Suiciderock: Your future plans for the band?
Corpse: Like Bobby said: We will concentrate on the new album. Hopefully we will be ready to go in the studio and maybe we will release the albun early next year. Hopefully we can do a new European Tour, some Summer Festivals and so on. It's like every year, you hope for a new album and for a new tour. Just try to get better and better.

Suiciderock: Some last words for the readers of suiciderock.com?
Corpse: Check out our new album and visit also www.deathchain.com
Bobby: Stay Metal!