1. Hi SEVERE TORTURE. Mit wem habe ich das Vergnügen?

Hello Clement, this is Thijs and I’m playing guitar in Severe Torture!

2. Kennt ihr www.amazon.de? Wenn euer Name eingegeben wird, erscheint "Kunden, die diesen Artikel gekauft haben, kauften auch SUFFOCATION, GRAVE, IMMOLATION und SINISTER". Willkommen im Old School Death Metal!

Yeah, I know the .com version. Cool to see that people who like us also like other cool bands and don’t buy shit like Nickleback or Maroon5, hehe!

3. Ihr werdet oft als CANNIBAL CORPSE Coverband beschrieben. Was sagt ihr dazu?

Of course it’s a compliment if people compare you with one of the greatest and best death metal bands of all times and I can totally understand it when you listen to our first or second album. But when people still compare us with CC after listening to our 3th, 4th or new album I can’t really understand them. Of course it doens’t sound like a compliment if people call you a coverband. I remember that we did a Hammer Smashed Face cover during our first European tour with Macabre in 2001 but after that we stopped playing covers live. But, anyhow, it’s better that they call you a Cannibal Corpse coverband than they don’t call you anything I guess...

4. Meiner Meinung nach zeigt euer neues Album "Slaughtered" in der Tat starke Parallelen zu CC`'s "The Bleeding" und vor allem zu den letzten MONSTROSITY Outputs, denn neben Härte baut auch ihr vermehrt Melodien (vor allem in den Gitarren Soli), akustische sowie harmonische Passagen und Groove in eure Songs ein. Seht ihr eure melodische Seite als Verschnaufpause vor den nächsten Blast-Attacken oder stellen sie eine größere Bedeutung für euch dar?

Not really a bigger meaning or anything. We just think those melodic parts sounds cool if you combine them with those blast attacks. And if you play fast all the time it doesn’t sound fast anymore... I can understand the comparison with The Bleeding beause of the variety but to be honest I haven’t heard a Monstrosity album since Corpsegrinder left them so I don’t know if we have parallels with their latest albums.

5. Ihr geht einerseits sehr nachvollziehbar, andererseits sehr technisch vor. Bereits nach ein paar Umrundungen können eure Songs vollumfänglich erschlossen werden. Meint ihr nicht, dass dies zu Lasten der Nachhaltigkeit gehen könnte?

I actually think it’s good that after a couple of listenings a song stays in your head. We like to play a little bit technical stuff but we also try to be catchy. We try to give all our songs a certain hook that grabs you before you can turn off the cd, hehe!

6. Wer schreibt bei euch die Songs, wie setzt ihr die Ideen im Studio um?

The biggest share of riffs is written by our bassplayer Patrick and our other guitarplayer Marvin. I throw in a riff here and there. In our rehearsalroom we work all the stuff out and jam until the songs are complete. Marvin and our drummer Seth write the lyrics and also make the vocalpatterns for those lyrics. In the studio we all play our own parts and we add some extra layers and solos.

7. Was steckt hinter Songtiteln wie "Deride Jesus", "Unholy Misconception" oder "Inferior Divinity". Transportiert ihr eine Main Message?

For those lyrics you have to talk to our drummer cause he wrote them but basically they are against religions. We don’t have a main message but we do like to tell what we think about organized religions. Some of our other lyrics are more horror/gore, it just has to fit the music.

8. Was erhofft ihr euch von SEVERE TORTURE? Habt ihr euch Ziele gesetzt, die ihr mit der Band erreichen wollt?

We don’t have big goals. We know that we can’t make a living out of playing death metal so we dropped that wish a long time ago. I hope we get the chance to play at some cool places were we’ve never been before like Japan & Australia and a proper US tour would be cool to do again.

9. Welche Bands müssen unbedingt angehört werden?

Immolation, Misery Index, Kylesa, Grand Magus, Converge, Baroness, Grinderman, Watain & Enslaved.

10. Wie kommt es eigentlich, dass es so viele, sehr starke Death Metal Bands in den Niederlanden gibt? Kann das erklärt werden?

Maybe it’s because everyone wants to play in a band and practices really hard, hehe. I don’t know, I guess it has always been like this. Every town has a couple of places were bands can practice and perform so there’s enough oppertunity to rehearse and do you first shows. Don’t know why there’s so many death metal and not a lot of black metal for instance.

10. Wie weit kommt die Niederlande bei der WM?

WM? World Championship soccer? I don’t know, I hate soccer so I hope they don’t make it far......

11. Das muss noch gesagt werden:

Thanx for the interview Clement! Hopefully see you at a show in Germany next year, buy our newest album Slaughtered and drink some beers on us!! Cheers!! Thijs

Ich danke dir und wünsche SEVERE TORTURE alles Gute!