I had the chance to get the low down on the upcoming Volturyon album Coordinated Mutilation by none other than the band's bassist Stefen Eriksson!
FF: How did Volturyon come to be?
Stefen: Johan and Crille started what would become Volturyon in 2005. In the beginning the ambition was to simply make as brutal and good death metal as they could. The first year consisted mainly of trying out potential band members, for example they had Tim Scott (Ex, Remenant, Hateplow) trying out for the bass, some more came and went. After some time Andreas & Stefan joined and after a vocalist change in 2007 Olle completed the line-up.
FF: What can fans of your debut expect from Coordinated Mutilation?
Stefen: Pretty much what they heard on that, this time the material is written in a shorter time and so the material is more consistent. We tried to keep the core from "Blood Cure" and develop the best part from that. When we first heard the final result after getting the master tape we almost said in unison "Faster, harder, louder", which describes the development between the debut and "Coordinated Mutilation.
FF: The new album will be released by United Guttural Records. What made you decide to make the move from Obscure Domain Productions to United Guttural?
Stefen: We simply had a one album deal with Obscure, and they did a great work for us on "Blood Cure". We contacted United Guttural on myspace, don't remember the exact details. I remember I checked out their homepage and saw that they had some releases of bands we had something to do with. That and then they have been very straight forward with us and we can have a contact with them and expect replies almost on the same day. So when you have people that you feel don't bullshit you and does good work for you, the choice wasn't that hard. The fact that they based in the US is on the plus side of course since we have received many positive comments for our music from that part of the world and the potential market there is huge.
FF: Are there any plans for a tour in support of the new album?
Stefen: We didn't get so much time to prepare for this spring, and it's hard to get to organise any tour that would be possible to do without having a headline band such as Kataklysm or something of that dignity, and that leads to getting to pass through the needle eye of booking agencies. So for such reasons we have only a few things planned mainly in Sweden and a road trip booked for Ireland in May. We had to turn down a offer of a European tour, we simply didn't have the money for it at the moment. But we have more plans for the autumn, we looking at going to Portugal, have been asked to come to do 4-5 shows in the UK, as well as we hope that we might be able to get on some support act tour.
FF: You've played at the Sweden Rock Festival in the past, do you prefer the festival atmosphere or is a smaller audience more appealing?
Stefen: Both of them in their different ways. Festivals is good in the way that you can get people that not necessary are your fans to be able to check you out. But in the other hand, club gigs where you get closer to your audience is more fun to play since you develop a better contact. We're fans of music ourself so doing everything you can to make the crowd fell special, that they are the reason why we're there and we can do no less than 100%, if anything they are the one who should be put on stage and we should bang our heads of to them.
FF: When did you start the writing process for Coordinated Mutilation?
Stefen: The process started in the middle of 2008, we have a few songs that didn't get on the album. The last song we actually did the same week as we went into the studio,we where pretty sure we would have 9 songs on the album, but then Andreas and Olle came up with this song that we thought where to cool to exclude. The first song we wrote was "Ravaged" and the last one was "Intense convulsions"
FF: Is writing more of a collaborative process for the band or do you all just write your own parts?
Stefen: The process is like we have a riff or 2, put some drums of that and sometimes we can get half a song written in one rehearse. It starts off there, we record it and Olle gets into writing the lyrics, then on the coming rehearsals we puzzle things together. What we try to do is not be all 5 of us initially as it tends to slow down everything before we even have got to try out the riffs
FF: Have you played any songs from the upcoming album live yet?
Stefen: We have played Euphoria through execution, Ravaged, Sanguinolency & Savage gluttony live before.
FF: What kind of response did they get?
Stefen: They received a very positive response actually. Euphoria and Savage is quite straight on songs who's easier to get hang of than faster songs. We did some of the song in the UK and people there is less held back and restrictive so they went nuts!
FF: Would you say the band's sound has progressed since Blood Cure?
Stefen: Yes, the most obvious fans will notice is that we detuned the guitars and that the production is more in your face. The detuning was a bit of a try out as we wanted a heavier sound, but without compromising the aggressiveness you get from a non detuned guitar. We have tried to get it closer to the live sound without loosing the sharp edge and definition. We wanted more "muscle" in the guitar sound and get the drum sound more organic, as far as it's possible since we need to have the precision in the sound.
FF: Do you have anything else you'd like to add?
Stefen: Thanks for showing interest in the band and in Coordinated Mutilation, we're proud of it. Hope to see you all out at a club, festival or so and bang our head together some day!
-Stefan
Volturyon
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