INTERVIEW MORTEM

"Perhaps it's in our blood!"

Here you can read an interview with the Peruvian underground institution Mortem, who have been haunting the underground since the distant year 1986. Read here what founding member, drummer and vocalist Alvaro Amduscias has to say about the band's beginnings, influences, goals, upcoming gigs and a new Mortem album.

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Hello Alvaro, best regards from the Rhineland in Germany, how are you doing at the moment?

Hi Gerald. Thank you very much for this interview! All good, here in the burning desert of Phoenix, Arizona.

Can you tell us which were the first bands that initially led you to heavier music and which inspired you to create your own dark sounds with Mortem?

The first dark/heavy band my brother (Nebiros) and I listened to was Black Sabbath in the ‘70s, in particular, a single 45 rpm taken out of the "Paranoid" album, because our father loved the song "Iron Man". He got it when he was a grad student in the U.S.

As for the bands that influenced Mortem, I would say that the first wave of bands were Slayer, Death, Mercyful Fate, Sacrifice, Infernal Majesty, for sure, and maybe even some Dark Angel and Necrophagia in the early eighties.

Later on, I would say Morbid Angel, Deicide, and Pestilence also had some impact in our music.

The last album "Deinós Nekrómantis" from 2016 is now eight years old - is there any hope of another Mortem album?

It's old, indeed. It took a long time to record that one as well! As for our current song inventory, we have complete songs like "Spewn from The Mouth of Hell" (originally "No More Room in Hell", but Possessed beat us to recording it), "Worse Than Death", "Morbid Fascination", "The Hut of Baba-Yaga", "Death’s Icy Grip" and "Summon the Fire Witch", and working projects like "De Masticatione Mortuorum", "Devil-Driven", "Death Came from The Sea" and "The Shrouded Evil". Hopefully, we can record them in 2025.

What I always appreciated about Mortem was the authentic sinister, dark old school sound between Slayer, Sadistic Intent, old Sepultura, Sarcofago, Morbid Angel and Possessed. While half the metal world tries to play old Swedish death metal these days, which isn't a bad thing by any means, there aren't enough bands like Mortem in this world! This ancient sound seems to be in your blood? Do you agree?

Thanks for your kind words! Well, as you can see from our influences, we are more into metal from the Americas, hence the difference with the sound that other bands are pursuing.

I have to say that we founded Mortem to play only dark and occult music, and we labelled it "Black Metal" in the eighties, before the term was exclusively applied to nineties Scandinavian metal. Therefore, we don’t use all the scales available, but we limit ourselves to using minor and diminished scales. Also, the lyrics and thematic deal only with the occult and "evil" or supernatural horror, which we will never stray away from. The music and lyrics as a whole try to convey an atmospheric, gloomy yet savage output.

Perhaps it's in our blood!

You formed in the distant year 1986, in two years you can celebrate the 40th anniversary of the band... Do you have an idea what you  still could or want to do? And when you think back on this incredibly long band history, how do you feel about it? What were the highlights, what were the deep hits? Are there any special anecdotes that you could tell the readers of this magazine, particularly funny or dangerous ones?

Yes, It’s been a long ride! Well, for starters, we want to deliver an album before our 40^th anniversary, always following the path that we have traced: dark, gloomy, atmospheric, savage, fast, heavy and extreme metal, with plenty of tempo changes and guitar solos.

Going back in time, it feels unreal to have been running the band for so long. The highlights have been to play with and meet so many bands/members whose music we enjoy and respect. Playing for South American, U.S. and European audiences has been another important highlight that we could have never ever dreamed of when we started Mortem.

As for the lows, perhaps having so many line-up changes and having being forced to turn down tours and gigs because of work constraints. In addition, our first albums lacked pre-production stages and we were on tight budgets, which limited their outcome.

Regarding anecdotes, the one that comes to mind is that, after playing at the Gathering of the Bestial Legion in Hollywood, 2007, the legendary maestro drummer Gene Hoglan (Dark Angel, Death, Testament, Forbidden) approached us and congratulated us because he liked our set. Now, how cool is that?

Mortem as the forefathers of Peruvian death metal, even if you used to call yourselves black metal, were and are certainly an inspiration for legions of Peruvian or South American bands or adolescents to form a band themselves, right? Are there often stories from fans or musicians who tell you how much they were influenced by you?

There are some bands that tell us that, which is quite flattering. At the beginning, in the dawn of the Peruvian metal scene, bands like Mortem, Hadez or Hastur were regarded as rather noisy, since the audience was still catching up, being stuck with Sabbath, Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Maiden and Priest. We were the underdogs, and the melodic bands stood out as the scene’s metal heroes. So the fact that after decades of consistency metalheads appreciate our music and attitude is quite rewarding.

Even though you never became a really well-known band, everyone who's at home in underground death metal knows the name Mortem. Do you feel something like pride because of that?

Yes, indeed! And our pride is exactly because of that underground status. When we started listening to Slayer, Messiah, Black Shepherd, Deceased, Thanatos, Sacrifice, etc., we liked the fact that they were not as popular, say, as Judas Priest or Iron Maiden. There was no need for them to put out songs like "Living After Midnight" or the cover "Women in Uniform": they could just record brutal and uncontrolled stuff. Back then, nobody could guess that Slayer would become such a big name.

For us, from the start, underground was the rule. Fame or popularity was never a goal, especially for a band with this kind of music and lyrics. We were always immune to metal trends and fashions that could have made us better known at one time or another, and we certainly take pride on that.

If I've seen that correctly, you haven't played live for a while, have you? You probably get a lot of feedback and more requests for gigs than you can handle, especially from the active people from the underground, don't you? But not all the band members live in Peru, right? That probably makes everything a lot more difficult, also in terms of live gigs. Will there be any again soon?

That's correct. Our last gig took place at the Mass Destruction Metal Fest in Georgia in 2019. The good news is that we will play at the KillTown DeathFest 2024 in London, and we are pretty excited about it!

As you mention, it's hard to get together, since I live in Arizona (USA, Southwest), Nebiros lives in Georgia (USA, Southeast), Wilber (guitar) lives in Germany, and José (bass) lives in Peru.

You've already played gigs with Slayer, Kreator and Destruction. What were the most memorable gigs, for whatever reason, be it negative or positive? 

We have played with those bands, but also with Sarcofago, Immolation, Pentacle, Malevolent Creation, Deceased, Sadistic Intent, Headhunter D.C., Cardiac Arrest, Cianide, Varathron, Acheron, The Chasm, Morta Skuld, Master’s Hammer, Torturer, Demolition Hammer, Nunslaughter, Morbosidad, Skeletal Remains, Nile, Terrorizer, Sacrocurse, Demonic Christ, Diabolic, Samael, Satyricon, Resurrection, Suffocation, Perdition Temple, Unaussprechlichen Kulten, Rebaelliun, Sigh and many other great bands.

I would say that the most memorable gigs were opening for Slayer, and playing in fests like Gathering of the Bestial Legion, Maryland Deathfest, California Deathfest and Mass Destruction Metal Fest. Pure bestiality and savagery!

As outcomes of playing with all those bands, we developed a close friendship with Headhunter D.C., Immolation, Pentacle, Torturer, Sadistic Intent, Perdition Temple and Unaussprechlichen Kulten.

When you look back on your entire discography, which is your personal favorite release and why?

I love the compositions on all of them, but perhaps my faves are "Demon Tales" and "Deinós Nekrómantis". The debut was long-awaited for us, and it has songs from different periods: old ones such as "Tormented by The Undead" (originally “Evil Dead”) and new ones -at the time- such as "Daemonium Vobiscum" . "Deinós Nekrómantis" had the best sound we have achieved to this day, and we had pre-production stages that allowed the songs to mature in a way that we were all satisfied with them. Besides, it was tuned to D, as opposed to the rest of our discography, tuned to E flat. It was something Nebiros had wanted to do for years, but I had opposed to keep that “Slayer” vibe. However, this “Death” tuning suits our music perfectly.

What else can you tell us about the Peruvian metal scene, both past and present? I did an interview with Disinter ( read the interview here - the band from Peru, not the band of the same name from the US) about a year ago. Do you know them?

Yes, Disinter are from our neighborhood, haha! An anecdote: they used Nebiros’ old white B.C. Rich Bich to record their second demo.

As for the Peruvian metal scene, we still have old zines like Headbanger, Testament and Cuero Negro, which keep the old flame alive. Same with old bands, like Hadez, Sepulcro, Armagedon, Kraken, Kranium, Mazo, M.A.S.A.C.R.E. , and ‘90s bands like Necropsya, Anal Vomit, Goat Semen, Gore, Estigma, Psicorragia and Epilepsia.

I must point out that there are ten times more bands and styles now than there were in the foundational years, so it’s impossible to mention all of them in a single answer.  Among the younger bands (not necessarily with young members!) we have Blizzard Hunter, Necrofagore, Rito Profanatorio, Putrid, Morbosatán, Apocryphus, Spectral Souls, Metal Crucifier, Dämonik, Tunjum, Cobra, Spectral Souls, Signs of the Evil, Blasphemous Division, Evil Damn, Bestial Possession, Infection, Icons of Blasphemy, Teratos, Destroying the Corpse, Decomposed Flesh of Humanity. The Peruvian metal scene has grown exponentially, and bands like Anal Vomit, Goat Semen, Blizzard Hunter have already played in Europe.

Please list your five personal extreme metal all time faves, maybe with a short explanation why exactly these.

Here we go:

1. "Hell Awaits" (Slayer): the heaviest, darkest and most evil album delivered to this day.

2. "Beyond the Gates" (Possessed): evil and dark in its own way, with godly guitar solos and fantastic lyrics.

3. "Abominations of Desolation" (Morbid Angel): atmospheric evil with jackal-like vocals and the most savage whammy bar abuse displayed to this day.

4. "None Shall Defy" (Infernal Majesty): complex, with lots of tempo changes and harmonies, fantastic riffing and lyrics which are poetically evil.

5. "Legion" (Deicide): extremely fast and complex, tight and precise evil unleashed.

Honorable mentions: "Torment in Fire"/"Forward to Termination" (Sacrifice), "Scream Bloody Gore" (Death), "Consuming Impulse" (Pestilence), "Season of the Dead" (Necrophagia) and "Altars of Madness" (Morbid Angel).

The last words belong to you! Here you can get rid of everything that has not yet been said.

Thank you very much for this interview, Gerald and Systematic Desensitization Zine. Infernal hails to all the German maniacs out there! Mortem still has some crushing black death metal to deliver, and we hope we can do a full European tour soon. Fiat obscuritas!

Pics used with kind Permission of Mortem, showing the current bandmembers and pictures from the past, together with band members from Morbid Angel, Slayer and Immolation.