DECAPITATED

TARTAREAN DESIRE WEBZINE

This interview with Martin – the bass player of the Polish death metal band Decapitated – was done by James Ashbey backstage at the London Underworld, before the band performed with Thus Defiled, Rotting Christ and Anata on Saturday 28th February 2004.

In the second wave of Polish death metal to follow upon the worldwide success of Vader, Decapitated has distinguished themselves as one of the most prominent ones. Starting out at a very young age they attracted the attention of Earache Records who signed them to their sublabel Wicked World. Now they have released their third full-length album "The Negation".

Firstly, how are you enjoying this most recent tour, and life in general?
This tour has been great. It’s just been a short one but we always enjoy playing in the United Kingdom because we always get a good response.

And you’ve enjoyed playing with these other bands?
Yes, and it’s a really diverse package as each band plays completely different music, so it helps to get more people to the shows.

So how do you expect the fact that your country is joining the E.U in May to influence your lives as Polish citizens and Polish musicians?
It’s not so important for me. This band spends many weeks around the whole of Europe, going to almost all the countries in Europe except for Scandinavia, so I don’t think anything will change for us, whether we are in the European Union or not.

With regards to creating music, how do you usually go about writing songs? Do the ideas begin with riffs, lyrics, or a mix? Does any one member take the lead role?
We always start with a riff. Vogg – our guitarist – he is always responsible for the whole song writing process. He’s the main composer. But we all make riffs to start, and then the drums, bass and vocals follow.

When the band formed - while you were all in music school I believe – how broad were the influences from which you drew? Presumably you were very influenced by bands such as Deicide, Napalm Death etc. but how far into other genres of music did your tastes and inspirations go?
We all listened to many different types of music. Of course, we all listened to a lot of death metal, because we play death metal, so you just have to know what’s going on in the death metal scene. But also we listened to classical music, jazz…you know, a lot of strange things, like electronic music.

In terms of the media, how have you responded to the response you’ve got?
Recently when The Negation was released we got only positive reviews! It was really strange, because I haven’t seen any negative reviews regarding The Negation, so it’s just a great feeling for us that almost all people seem to enjoy our music.

And how is your relationship with Earache Records? Do you feel they have helped you a lot in your success?
They’ve helped us a lot, no doubt. We’re sure that they’ve helped us a lot. We’ve never had any problems with their corporation – it was always simple. They understood us, and we understood them, so it has been pretty pleasing.

And now to more light-hearted discussion – if you could only save one album if you’re house was on fire, which would it be?
Just one? That’s really hard. Does it have to be some death metal album?

No, any album.
Well then I would say Bjork – ‘Homogenic’. It’s nothing connected with metal, but it’s one of my favourites!

From a personal perspective you music is a great inspiration to me – what advice do you have to anyone trying to create their own music?
Only one piece of advice – just practice as much as you can, it always helps. It’s all about practice.

Thanks very much for your time. Was there anything else you wanted to add?
Buy our albums and keep supporting metal!

Thanks very much, and good luck with the show!

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