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Tombthroat was founded in 1996 by Alex Wenz and myself, after we had already played together in such illustrious bands as Angmar , Baal ( both black metal), Necrophallus, Nuclearmageddon and Banal (all three Grindcore) and what do I know where else. With Tombthroat, however, we wanted to take things a bit more seriously and "professionally". We quickly found a good vocalist (who also played the second guitar) and a bass player among our friends. However, this line-up didn't last too long. Dirk (vocals and guitar) left us shortly after the first gig in 1997 (back then with Necrophagist, a "great" memory, haha) and Stefan (bass) already after the first demo. After that we had a lot of problems with the bass players, many came and went for different reasons: girlfriends, lack of playing skills, studies, work, authority problems and so on. But nobody has been kicked out of our band yet. I continued on the guitar on my own for the time being.
The current line-up now consists of Alex Wenz on drums, Peter Hildenbrand on rhythm guitar, Mathias Blaul on vocals and me on lead guitar. Volker Rietz, a former bass player, has recently returned to our ranks.
In the eleven years of our "career" we released a demo in 1999 (still on cassette), then the debut album "Evil fucking zombie riot" followed in 2000 (still with Wolle on bass, who is now with Fragments of Umneboming), in 2002 the EP "The revenge of evil" was released, with which we were able to draw attention to ourselves worldwide for the first time. The next EP "Slaughtered, gutted and pissed on" followed in 2003, which was a bit atypical for us, as it was less brutal but all the darker. Well, it wasn't a nice time back then, haha. In 2004 we decided to go for it and recorded the album "Out of the tomb" and received offers from record companies for the first time. We chose Twilight Records (ceased to exist a long time ago- note from the author), who then released the album worldwide in a new edition in 2005. And a few weeks ago, on February 16, 2007 to be precise, our new album "Bloodred history" was released. I'll spare myself and the readers the usual "our best album ever" talk, almost every band thinks that about their current output anyway. But how the listener sees it is probably more important in this respect, isn't it? In any case, we are very proud of this album...
You're from the Karlsruhe area, aren't you? Tell us something about the scene there. Are there any particular bands that people should keep an eye on?
No, haha, not really. Karlsruhe is about 80 kilometers away from here. I have no idea about the scene down there. We're from Ludwigshafen, although I now live in Frankenthal, but I also spent 19 years of my life in Ludwigshafen. The so-called scene here is not to be sneezed at. There are a lot of cool people, of course there are also some complete idiots, and there are also very good bands. The old bands of Into Darkness, Veneral Disease, the good old Blood from the neighboring town of Speyer, the aforementioned Fragments of Unbecoming, Ab:Norm and also the new blood in the form of bands like Orgasmodemon and Compulsive Slaughter are slowly but surely making a name for themselves in the scene. The established Metal Meeting also takes place here, where there is always a good mix of up-and-coming bands and established bands, some of them international. There is also the Ludwigshafen Desth Fest, which is internationally renowned, and I myself organize the "Not dead yet" festival, which takes place once a year and is dedicated to the underground. There are also a few one-off concerts here, so you can't complain about a lack of offers. Also, the envy of earlier days is no longer so extreme. There are also a few clubs in the Rhine-Neckar region that are worth a visit.
The promotional work is not yet complete. That's why some reviews are still missing, but they should follow in the next few days. So far we have had some very enthusiastic reviews as well as some that gave the album an average rating. So far, there has not been a scathing review. But in some reviews I have the feeling that the critics have heard a different CD to ours. I think the new album is extremely varied, with everything from extremely technical bludgeoning to old school grind to almost - by our standards, of course - ballad-like melodies and harmonies. However, some critics accuse us of the songs sounding too similar. Very strange, but you have to live with it. Nobody can take our pride away from us anyway, we've been working our asses off for too long, haha.
But as I said, the majority of the reviews were very good and I'm looking forward to the ones to come.
How should we imagine your band structure? Who composes the songs? Who writes the lyrics and what are they about? What inspires you? And are you good friends or is the band more of a partnership of convenience?
I make 90% of the riffs alone at home and then show them to the others in the rehearsal room, then we work on the songs together. Sometimes I arrive with whole songs, sometimes only half songs or fragments and ideas, or individual riffs. There's also a song ("Soultrade") by Peter on the new album. This is the first one that he made on his own, and I have to say I'm thrilled, the thing really bangs. If he continues like this, I'll be more than thrilled, then I won't be stuck with everything anymore, haha.
But Tombthroat is a band. Even if it's still the case that if I don't like something, it's not used, you can still say that the music is from Tombthroat and not from a single person, because everyone always contributes an idea. This way of working will remain the same, and if Peter does more, I'll be happy. I'm also hoping that our new old bass player will get involved. I think the next album, which we're not really talking about yet, will be a lot more varied. Peter's new ideas at least suggest that. But we wouldn't be Tombthroat if it were any different.
Mathias writes all the lyrics, I just come up with ideas from time to time. We don't have a direct lyrical concept. However, at least on "Bloodred history" you can find a common thread throughout. Most of the album's lyrics deal with a somewhat peculiar species called man. Many basic human characteristics and emotions such as fear, hatred, greed, hypocrisy, ruthlessness, abandonment etc. and what they do to and with people, or what they can drive people to do, are thematized. It's about humanity and its sometimes strange and questionable behavior throughout history...
People should become more aware of themselves and the effects of their own actions. This omnipresent arrogance is the reason for all the shit that happens in this world. I mean, if you're honest, humans are nothing special in themselves, they're just a freak of nature. If everyone realized that he or she could disappear from this planet faster than it takes to get here, if everyone didn't take themselves so incredibly seriously, this world would certainly be a more pleasant place.
Regarding your question about whether we are close friends - I would describe us as a community of friends. But when you've been making music together for so long, you don't want to spend every free minute with each other. Each of us has his own circle of friends outside the band, who maybe only know each other by sight, if at all. We still have a drink together from time to time and sometimes do something together. But you just get older, the band is still not a community of convenience.
Clearly, playing ability has priority when it comes to band members; however, the best at his instrument couldn't play with us in the band if it didn't fit on a personal level. After all, you don't want to play in a band with assholes, even if the five of us are sometimes referred to as such, haha. But that doesn't mean that it's always peace and joy with us, sometimes we're on the verge of fixing each other's hair and teeth, haha. But so far everything has gone without bloodshed and we've always managed to get back together...
So, let me start with the future, a few gigs are already fixed. Among other things, we are confirmed as co-headliners for the Last Winter Night festival, we will play at the Fuck the Commerce festival and at the aforementioned Not dead yet festival which I organize. In the fall we will also do a small headlining tour through Germany with our buddies from Human Bloodfeast, that will be fun! I hope to be able to have a beer with some of you there, we're already looking forward to it.
But I hope that there will be a few more gigs to come. It's sometimes really hard to get gigs, there are just too many bands... Then there are all the reunions, some of which make me think it would have been better to let the band be buried. But of course there are exceptions.
We've already played a few concerts in the past, that's quite a lot in eleven years. Our first gig, which I mentioned at the beginning of the interview, was with Necrophagist in 1997. That wasn't exactly great for a young band like we were back then, of course, they played us mercilessly against the wall. They were already so good back then. Today they are finally getting the recognition that Muhammed (band founder, vocalist and guitarist - author's note) deserves. I don't begrudge him that much. He's also showing how to play the guitar in the USA now, haha. We can only dream of something like that at the moment. But who knows? Maybe one day we'll go on a world tour. We've already played with such illustrious bands as Napalm Death, Pungent Stench, Blood, Diecast and many others. And of course there was our European tour with Vital Remains, which I'll get to in a minute. Unfortunately, due to our previous bass player woes, we weren't able to play as often as we would have liked. Even at the moment, despite good reviews, we hardly get any gigs. It's become really difficult in the meantime...
You mentioned the Vital Remains tour. We were simply asked and said yes after very little thought. The tour was really the highlight of our career so far. It was fun from day one. I wrote a tour diary about it, so if anyone wants to read it, just get in touch. We would like to go on tour a lot more, but our jobs don't allow it...
The bands got on really well with each other - we all traveled together in one bus, and the pagan/ black metallers from Lifthrasil were also there. Glen Benton wasn't there, but Anthony (Geremia; live vocalist 2006-2007 - author's note) did a great job.
Personally, I'm on a death metal trip again and I'm listening to the new album from Suffocation (this must be the self-titled album from 2006-author's note), Immolation (as always good and again better than the last album- Björn certainly means the album from 2007 named "Shadows in the light"-author's note), Devourment (I somehow like this frog vocals, haha) and I can only recommend the new album by Spawn Od Possession (the album "Noctambulant" from 2006 is certainly meant here- author's note) to anyone who likes good death metal.
But we don't just listen to death metal. Peter and I, for example, probably have the broadest musical horizons in the band. We both listen to everything and are always discovering bands that we then recommend to each other. There's everything from prog rock like Spock's Beard and Kino to art rock like Porcupine Tree and Deadsoul Tribe to power metal (okay, only I listen to that, haha) to black metal like Shining to the roughest gindcore a la Gut and Nasum. But things like Genocide Superstars or Driller Killer are not despised here either. Our singer also listens to hardcore, I personally even listen to gothic metal, hard rock and I don't know what else. But my favorite band is Iron Maiden. Basically, you could say that we don't worry about what kind of music fits into which category, we listen to what we like and what's good...
However, I'm very excited about the new Vital Remains album. It's sure to be awesome, the last album "Dechristianize" is one of my absolute favourites.
What else do you do in your free time? What do you do professionally?
Hm, I'd like to claim that we're all well-paid porn stars who just copulate all day and make women happy, sit in the pool, smoke fat cigars, throw money around and drink, unfortunately this is a dream of ours that has yet to come true, haha.
We don't really have any hobbies. Mathias does a bit of sport, but apart from that we're not much different to anyone else. We sometimes go to a pub, a club, sometimes to a party. Nothing out of the ordinary really.
Professionally, we're also not what you'd expect from a death metal band, I'm afraid. Mathias is a business economist, Alex is a master in electrical engineering, Volker is a graduate engineer in chemical engineering, Peter is a computer specialist and I make a living as a barman, graphic designer (I make booklets for albums) and occasionally I work as a studio musician for bands whose guitarists can't play their stuff properly, haha.
Of course it's our dream to be able to make a living from music. But we don't need to have any hopes or illusions about that. It's not possible with our noise. However, when you're on tour, you get paid for everything you need. So we should only go on tour eleven months a year and that would be it, haha.
Well, you can dream sometimes. But what we all have in common in the band is our love of good beer, haha.
Yes, "letting it grow" is indeed an effective way to get a long beard, haha. But I never thought about it, I just kept letting it grow. When it got so long, I shaved it off once and now I've been letting it grow again for five or six years. There's no particular reason why I wear my beard like this, it's just the way it is...
The reactions are sometimes extreme, as you can imagine. People always stare at you and whisper, of course. But what really annoys me is when people think they can just touch my beard. Do I touch people without being asked? Of course not! So why does everyone think that just because I have a long beard, they can just grope me? There have already been one or two disputes about this...
Well, individualism is very important to me. However, I can't say that I dress or style myself accordingly. I'm just me and that's it. However, my beard has now become my trademark and therefore many people also associate the band with this beard. Without it, nobody would recognize me anymore, haha.
What would be the band's dream? A tour with Dying Fetus? 10,000 albums sold? Let your imagination run wild!
It's strange, somehow since our new album came out, Dying Fetus have been mentioned all the time. To be honest, it confuses me a bit, haha. So I think every band's dream is to reach such success and status like Metallica. What could be better than being so loved and respected for your music and getting rich from it? Nobody can tell me that they wouldn't want that. But to be realistic, I would just like to see more respect and recognition for Tombthroat. We've been working our asses off for eleven years and we definitely wish for more opportunities to perform. It's very depressing that we get so few gigs, especially now that we have a permanent bass player again after years of searching, it's more than frustrating.
But apart from that we have the usual wishes: hookers, porn, pizza and beer, haha.
The last words belong to you!
