Professional Documents
Culture Documents
April 2015
What separates Ulcerate from the rest of death metal scene?
What makes us unique? That's incredibly hard to answer from within the
band - all I can say is that we've always tried to craft and hone our own
personality, and just create ideas that we feel are our own. We've never
been afraid of dynamics and subtlety, and we're very aware of
suspending a palpable atmosphere.
Do you feel like Ulcerate is still an underground band, despite your terrific
discography?
'Underground' is a relative term though you know? Underground in
comparison to what? We're certainly not in the mainstream
consciousness, but I understand that our profile is growing and to some
that means that you're out-growing your initial starting point... We see
this happening all the time, even a band like Bolzer are starting to get
weird backlash as they grow in size, even though stylistically,
aesthetically and philosophically nothing has changed. I really don't have
the energy to devote to pondering these kind of things at this point, you
write what you write and let journalists and fans make up their minds if
they like it or not.
What was the hardest point of your career? NY incident perhaps?
To be honest, even though something like that was demoralising, within
an hour or 2 we had decided to soldier on and focus on the task ahead.
We all lost money in the long-run obviously, but it's just money, it can be
recouped. No-one was hurt. For me personally the hardest point of
playing in this band was during our last North American tour - my
grandfather suddenly passed while we were stuck in a traffic jam outside
of Chicago, so it was incredibly hard trying to decide whether or not to
continue the tour.
Would you rather relinquish using blast beats or double bass drumming?
I don't see the point in relinquishing either. If it suits a part, then it suits. I
would never ever use either outside of metal, but in-context it's just
another stylistic device.
What is your favorite drum-beat?
Half-time shuffle. Not appropriate for death and black metal, but when
slowed right down you can get away with it sometimes haha. I use a very
broad version of it in Clutching Revulsion towards the end of the track.
But it's typically used in blues/funk, the most 'famous' use of it is by Jeff
Porcaro in Toto's 'Rosanna'.
There are 2 kinds of drummers : typical dummer and a musician. The former
is playing a a couple of beats while the latter is really using his brain instead of
just beating the shit out of drums. Do you agree with this?
100%. A musician plays for the music and augments the atmosphere. If a
part calls for almost nothing at all played on the kit, then that is what
should be played. We've run across a couple of people (not necessarily
drummers) in bands on tour that are very technically proficient but can't
seem to make anything remotely interesting come out of their instrument,
it's always just a flurry of robotically tight notes. There's no individuality
and no connection with the person listening. Drummers in this style are
notorious for this, just pure focus on speed and nothing else.
What is the hardest job for a drummer in general?
Learning your place as the backbone of the music. An entire band's
sound can be ruined by a drummer playing too much (or too little) or not
having the solidarity needed to provide a solid base for the other
instruments to feed off. This encompasses feel, tempo, meter, tones etc.
Basically developing great ears. Knowing what cymbals are suitable for
certain passages, knowing how to tune drums for incredible punch, being
able to strike the drum exactly as you intended every single note. A lot of
drummers in metal these days can reach very high tempos, but very few
feel great (read: punishing) while doing it.
How dedicated death metal drummer must be to reach ,,an octopus level ?
It's an entire lifestyle, you really do need to give your life to it, or at least
early on at least. So that means a lot of sacrifices in terms of spare time.
But long-term it's incredibly satisfying to reach goals you set maybe 10
years before, and being able to execute ideas freely without needing to
actually figure out how to physically manage playing them.
Is it possible for a death metal band to play more than ~ 75 minutes live?
Personaly, I think not because of both vocals and drumming.
Yeah for sure no problem, all our rehearsals are 2 hours straight. I think
it's more fatiguing on the audience more than anything. Same with album
lengths, it can be very draining to push beyond the 1 hour mark. So live
our sets work out to 7-8 songs, which for us is usually 1 hour, maybe 10
or 15 minutes longer if there's an encore call.
Who are your biggest musical influences?
For the band's direction - when we were younger bands like Immolation,
Cryptospy (old), Angelcorpse, Gorugts, Today is the Day guided the
initial direction. On a personal level guys like Kai Hahto, Tony Laureano,
Derek Roddy, Dave Weckl, Chris Coleman, Jojo Mayer, Benny Greb,
Thomas Lang...
Can you name some of your favorite albums?
Currently:
Immolation - 'Close to a World Below'
Gorguts - 'From Wisdom to Hate'
Arkhon Infaustus - 'Orthodoxyn'
Ascension - 'Consolomentum'
Bohren und der Club of Gore - 'Black Earth'
Deathspell Omega - 'Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice'
Angelcorpse - 'The Inexorable'
Clutch - 'Earth Rocker'
Today is the Day - 'In the Eyes of God'
Yob - 'The Unreal Never Lived'
Ulver - 'Messe I.X-VI.X'
Vomitory - 'Redemption'
By the way, is there any chance of Ulcerate touring Eastern Europe again?
Sadly, I missed a show in Budapest. Next time, you must come to Belgrade,
Serbia! You have small but loyal fanbase here!
Yeah for sure, we love Eastern Europe, always the best shows. We'll do
our best for sure.
// J