Ultimately, I became aware of Disinter from Peru mainly by the fact that I was looking online for the band of the same name from the United States. However, the South Americans could inspire me right away by their great, powerful death metal, which rather refers to the American style. A good reason to talk to founder and drummer Roberto Leonardi, who has been doing his mischief in the scene with Disinter since the distant year 1993.
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Hello, how are you? How much has Peru suffered from the coronavirus, also economically? Is it going up again now?
Greetings! it was a very, very difficult time, many people died, there were many financial problems that continue to this day, many people changed, some for the better, at that time against all odds we released "Revelations from the dark past".
Please tell us about the band's history, when you were formed and so on...In which other bands did you play before and are you currently involved? What were your influences at that time? I hear more American death metal out of it, but were e.g. Mortem or Chilean bands like Pentagram (Chile) or Atomic Aggressor also an influence? Or Sarcofago from Brazil? If I see it right, your current line up consists of two original members and two new ones and you seem to have been very satisfied just with the development and productivity in the last year, right?
And yes, we are very happy with the new line-up, we have made a lot of progress. I had to make difficult decisions, but they are working out. The album has come out in Europe, in Mexico, as well as by my own record label in Peru, but above all, I am very happy because I am satisfied with the work done in every way. I did what I really wanted to do.
"Guerra eterna" (which means "Eternal war") is an album of pure death metal, it is divided
into three parts, it has nine songs, three intros and three internal covers, a
chapter dedicated to war, another to Andean paganism and ancient cults, and
another to the great military heroes of the war of the Pacific (also known as Saltpeter War, that took place from 1879-1884- note from the author).
If I'm honest, I found you because I was looking for the American Disinter, from whom I fished the outstanding album "As we burn" out of my collection the other day and listened to it again, and just wanted to see if this band still exists. That's how I found you, which was an absolute stroke of luck, I think I can also darkly remember one or the other of your album covers. Nevertheless, the Peruvian Disinter were not explicitly a term to me. Concerning extrem metal from Peru spontaneously I think of Mortem, which are also because of the German Iron Pegasus label many in this country a term. Some bands, I hope this doesn't sound disrespectful, I also place under the label "South America, and then I have to look first, where exactly the band comes from. Anal Vomit I knew for example, but I was not sure if they are from Peru. So to get to the question: how did the split release with the American Disinter come about? Who contacted whom? And wouldn't a joint tour of the two Disinters be a great thing, that would give a nice confusion in the tour posters, haha?
Well, as you already named it, Mortem and Anal Vomit are bands that have been working a lot abroad for many years, as well as Goat Semen. I further recommend Hell Trepanner and Spectral Souls, bands that have come out strong and are doing things very well.
When you started in 1993, and you were fans before that, how was it in Peru to get albums of foreign bands from USA and Europe, be it LP, CD or tape? Was it difficult, which distribution channels were there, were there also many bootlegs and unofficial releases? Was it easy to get band shirts back then or did you make them yourself?
It was extremely difficult and expensive to get material from any heavy metal band, even commercial ones, and very expensive if you were lucky, only wealthy people or with relatives abroad could do it, even someone who could show you metal bands was difficult to find. Since 1987 when I started searching for metal it has been a great crusade to find the next band, you only found copied units in the informal / black market and photocopied covers.
How do you have to imagine Lima as a city? The seven or eight million inhabitants of the city, and probably a total of twelve millions with the surrounding countryside make all German cities (maybe except Berlin) look like villages...Is there a good scene and performance opportunities?
Unfortunately, imagine it as a big mess, a big vehicular chaos, parts that are exclusive and touristy, but a lot of chaos and disorder, the metal scene in Peru is very small, Peru isn´t a less metal country, but people do not actively support their own scene, they prefer to go see foreign bands and buy their material, except for honorable exceptions. So there are few places to play and people rarely go to shows compared to countries like Colombia or Chile, so the only way to maintain a band is to go abroad. Roy Noizer from Anal Vomit understood it very well years ago and I did work very well on it.
Definitely Macchu Picchu, but you must stay at least a month in Cuzco. There is much more to see there than Machu Picchu, Mountain of seven colors, Ollantaytambo Sacred Valley, the city of the same name and surroundings etc. Cuzco is wonderful, then near Lima in Ica there are the Nazca lines that are a great mystery and we will write lyrics about that soon, the Peruvian jungle is wonderful too and in the north you have dream beaches, just do not get into the traffic in Lima or your lung will explode, hahaha.
Let's move on to the social and political situation in Peru and Lima, is there still a very big difference between rich and poor? My father was in Peru in 1988 as a tourist for mountain climbing and told me about Lima, on the one hand about "gated communities", where you could only enter by authorization, and on the other hand about huge areas where there were only corrugated iron huts without water supply. Has there been any improvement in this regard in the last decades?
Many areas that your father saw in the 80s as terracing with cardboard shacks now have water and houses of better material but not because of the state but because of the work of the same people. However there are new ones that are more impoverished and dangerous than the old ones and also without water or electricity, there are new more exclusive areas and also new poorer areas. There are some new transport routes but they are already overfilled, there's a lot of disorder that doesn‘t allow the city to grow properly and all this due to an enormous corruption that precisely feeds on disorder.
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„The current situation is bad because a highly corrupt pro-left party entered the government that only dedicated itself to to open a hate gap between Peruvians, it's really very sad to see how progress against racism and discrimination has been destroyed and people hate each other more every day.“
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I read that you studied history. With your background in history, how do you judge the current political situation in Peru? Is the terrorist group called "Sendero Luminoso" still active, are there big tensions between population strata -or parts or even within families, depending on the political orientation?
It's true that many people have fought with their relatives and friends concerning the political issues, and I feel that the division between people from Lima and the provinces has grown, but Peru is united soon we will get out of all this shit.
Please tell something about the lyrics, what are they about? I understood that you want to pay more tribute to the indigenous people of Peru, the Incas, but also to other groups and their cultures, right? When did you start writing the lyrics in Spanish?
Then we had one more song with spanish lyrics on our album "Hell Gate", and our split album "Disinter/Disinter" included several revelations, all of them re-recorded in Spanish and the last one completely in Spanish language. Our lyrics deal with pagan blasphemies, great warriors and heroes of the wars that have experienced our country, they are about great and majestic gods of this part of the world. With time it seemed to me that our lyrics and their message sound better in our mother language, and their content reaches our brothers more easily, who I hope feel as proud as we feel of what we are.
Have you ever been to Europe as a band? Were there or are there any current offers or opportunities? With which bands have you already played and what are your future live plans?
Well, we haven't gone to Europe yet, it would be great to go at some point and we'll work towards that. Our next step is to play more in South America this year. We've played with most of the bands from Lima, Mortem, Hadez, etc., and we've opened for Sodom and many other bands.
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„The way of narrating battles, weapons and situations in Sodom's "Agent orange" has impressed me deeply, like the track "Magic Dragon" for example, it has really marked me and I try to explain things that way in some epic historical and destructive songs.“
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What do you think about German metal? In an interview you mentioned Sodom as an influence, what do you think about Kreator, Destruction or German death metal bands like Morgoth, Atrocity or Torchure?
Many European bands say that South American audiences are very appreciative and fanatical and they really burn for the cause. Is that the case? Is that a mentality thing or mainly also due to the fact that maybe just in the past not so many international bands came there, and such a gig was of course something very special?
Are there certain ideas, wishes and goals that you would like to realize with Disinter? Furthermore, you can say everything you would like to say now!
I would like to tour around the world and turn Disinter into a benchmark for death metal in this part of the world. I am working hard so that people listen to us and say that it sounds Andean, without the need to fusion with native instruments, but above all to keep expressing death, paganism and darkness. Get our new album "Eterna Guerra", now available in Europe by Pest Records or in our bandcamp. Thank you very much for the interview - I enjoyed it very much. Eternal existence to the insane and brutal death metal!