Interview by Arto Lehtinen Answers by Claudio Necrodeath March 2000

They are back, the Italian death thrash cult Necrodeath has returned back from the beyond with the new and third awesome killer album titled “Mater of All Evil” released by Scarlet Rec. Every old school maniac should pick up that output immediately. It fuckin rules!

* Update - Well the whole reformation thing for Necrodeath was not just to jump on the trend as now in 2007 that whole hype seems to have really died down. Yet Necrodeath is still going and touring. Recently the man interviewed Claudio has apparently left but the band continues onward...

 

 

Necrodeath has returned back to life after spending a decade in the beyond with the new line-up featuring two entire new persons involved in the re-formed Necrodeath, first of all it might be keen on finding out who are involved in the current line-up playing what and what kind of background do these two new guys have behind before Necrodeath ?!?

Claudio : Ok, new line up consists of two old members that are me, Claudio, on guitars and Peso on drums ... The new guys are Flegias on vocals and John on bass ... Flegias is an old fan of us, he's following us since from the beginning in 1985 .. John is a young guy playing with Peso in other musical projects before we decided to come back with Necrodeath again.

After "Fragments Of Insanity" had been unleashed back in 1989 Necrodeath completely vanished without that bigger fuss and didn't leave any traces behind until newer bands started to name Necrodeath as one of the most important influences on their musical development in several interviews, but back to the time when the outfit was put on hold, what circumstances exactly led the outfit to this bitter split up a decade ago ??!

Claudio : Well, after "Fragments" we had a complete lack of interest in the band .. I mean, it was very difficult in that period to play such an extreme music in Italy for us, there were no support from producers, no agencies, no producers, nothing at all.... So, everything seemed to be so difficult, we had great response from the underground all over the world, but no possibility of becoming bigger living here, so at the end we gave up ..

How come you decided to give a second attempt by putting the legendary group together, were you under the mandatory situation that now Necrodeath must be reformed cos every other thrash/death/black of the 80's has returned back like…well as you know the list is massive, but let's say for example Destruction, now seems like Celtic Frost is coming back, Whiplash, Venom… ?!?

Claudio : Well, I can ensure you there is nothing like that ... I have been completely out of music scene for all these years .. I didn't know anything about new bands, new trends, I didn't know that Necrodeath had been so important in the past !!! I met Peso last year, after I had been living for 6 years in a different town for job reasons, and he told me something about new bands talking about us in interviews and things like this ... It seemed unbelievable to me !! Anyway, we are playing again together just because we have fun in doing this ... Something changed in my private life .. I came back in my town, and still wanted to play, I called Peso and asked him to try again, he thought about for some days and then said "OK let's try ...", so here we are .. It has been very easy to find a deal because label's interest in our come back was big .. that's good!!!

The Scarlet rec recently re-issued "Into the macabre" originally released back in 1987, how did this come about after all and will Scarlet unleash the second and last Necrodeath album "Fragments of insanity" before the called its quits in 89 ?!?

Claudio : Well, in the past was impossible for everybody to reprint ITM because the original master was in the hands of the old producer, then me and Peso we bought it and gave a license to Scarlet for reprinting ... I think it's good just because younger fans can understand who we are and what we did in the past.... About Fragments I know anything ... Avantgarde Music from Italy told me they had the master and wanted to reprint it but I have no news.

Finding both the Necrodeath albums over ten years ago usually turned out to be rather a difficult and complex task cos it is obvious the distribution wasn't that well handled and organised like nowadays, presumably the Scarlet rec has much better distribution channels and connections to other labels located in several countries, right? I guess Central and South European countries like Germany, Italy were more important for you back then ?!?

Claudio : Yes, I know it was really difficult to get those records ...There was nearly no distribution at all outside Italy ... So they were all over the world only because of tape trading .. Now it's completely different, Scarlet has distribution deals in different countries in Europe and USA ..SPV works for Central Europe, Metal Blade is going with promotion in Germany .. well, I hope you could find our new cd “Mater of all evil” in the shops, when it will be out on 24th January 2000.

Although your albums weren't available everywhere, but the underground tape trading maniacs used to spread the Necrodeath material all around the world, for example I for one managed to get a hold of Necrodeath via tape trading, I guess this tape trading has helped to get the Necrodeath stuff spread quite well and created such a cult following, do you share that point of view ?!?

Claudio : Yes, I completely agree with you .. If we are a sort of a cult band all over the world it's just thanx to these guys... They spread the message... I remember we received letters from every country in the past, from Japan to New Zealand, USA, East Europe .. It was unbelievable !!

Speaking a little bit of those albums, before starting to make up and write questions down I went throughout my tape collection to check out the Necrodeath releases what they actually included, I was kinda astonished since only one demo track "Mater Tenebrarum" can be found on the first Necrodeath album whereas the rest of the demo tracks are not on any of both the albums, how come you didn't re-record and release "Morbid Mayhem" and "Iconoclast" on either the debut or the last album at all ?!?

Claudio : Well, I'm happy about this question .. I do think Iconoclast was a great song so, you will find a new killer version of it in the new album !!! It's only 4 minutes against 9 of the original one but believe it sounds great !!! It was written in 1985!!!  Anyway, in the past we just wanted to play always different things ... There was not a particular reason for not putting demo songs on the records but, simply we had new songs and we wanted to play them ...

What kind of stuff can be expected to hear on the third album anyway, does the material on the third album follow the same paved way as on the previous albums having a lot of nasty aggressive black thrash elements in the vein of the 80's or have you tried to somehow refresh the Necrodeath sound to match with the stuff of death black metal groups of the 90's ?!?

Claudio : We haven't tried anything particular, we just play in the only way we're able to play, so at the end everything sounds macabre, evil, violent and bastard like in the past .. We always have the same kind of atmosphere .. Flegias voice sounds a little black metal ...But it fits completely with the evilness of our style ..Anyway, obviously there are no keyboards or stuff like that ..

In the beginning you used to draw possible influences from bands like Kreator, Bathory, Hellhammer etc…But do you view that you can still adopt influential factors from these bands nowadays ?!?

Claudio : For sure Kreator were one of my favourite bands in the past ... But my absolutely favorite band ever are Slayer, they're so far the best in everything they do, so, I think you can find a Slayer influence in our music, that's sure, but, when we play we just think about what we like or not and nothing more.

Even though you got influenced by those bands stated in the previous question, the whole thing has come around during these years as several groups of the 90's have mentioned and labelled Necrodeath as one of the most important and distinctive outfits as well as influences on their musical development approach and career, presumably that must feel extremely good for you, probably you definitely take all the feedbacks regarding Necrodeath as nice compliments ?!?

Claudio : I'm very pleased about these compliments, it's amazing if you think that we just were 4 young guys coming from Italy ... Well, I just hope that people would like Necrodeath even now, believe me our new album it's absolutely our best album ever, so far better than the two old ones.

But have you basically utterly been surprised at getting labelled as one of the most important and distinctive names all of a sudden and everyone is willing to get a hold of some Necrodeath album ?!?

You said it right, the reprint has been made for letting the youngest fans know who we are and where we come from.... Now that they know this... Well, they have to listen to our new album and get ready for destruction !!!!!

Speaking a few words of the Italian death/black metal scene having its, in my opinion, glorious years back in the '80s and was extremely well known all around the world for its bestial, unique and aggressive groups because of their image and of course music definitely represented something new and totally wild and especially bands like Necrodeath, Bulldozer, AngelDeath, Astaroth, Death SS were adorned everywhere, in my eyes the Italian underground death metal scene used to live and well over ten years ago ?!?

Claudio : Yes, there were some good bands in the past .. I know a very few of the actual scene, as I told you I have been out of the scene for a long time ... well, at least you have your Necrodeath back now !!!!!! isn't enough for you then ???!!!

Well did Necrodeath have a lot of side things on the stage ?!?

Claudio : No, at all, we just have Flegais, our new singer !!!!

By the way what sort of respond have you got from the audience on gigs nowadays and what is the biggest difference between the audience back in the 80's than nowadays in my point of view ?!?

Claudio : At the moment, we just played one gig opening for Immortal during they're last date here in Italy, because we didn't want to play new songs before the album was out, so, I can't tell you a lot about audience .. we're gonna play in the next months on some different gigs .. I think today there are a lot of live concerts so maybe it more difficult to have a lot of people coming to see concerts ... anyway, I hope they could be interested in our come back ... I'll let you know.

I guess it might be about time to conclude this interview, but before writing the last questions I can't help inquiring your fave bands at the moment, so could you name a few ones ?!?

Claudio : Yes, obviously you know I could say Slayer and nothing else, but, talking about new ones, I like Carnal Forges, Darkane and The Haunted ...

So time to finish the whole interview now, but you may have something on your mind, so let it go and I for one thank you for your time with this interview… Gracias…

Claudio : Thank You Arto, I'm pleased to see that you know a lot about us, I truly hope you like our new album, so let me know your impression when you'll get it, so we could have another interview to talk about it!!!!!

http://www.necrodeath.net

 

 

 


The Complete Necrodeath Discography 

The Shining Pentagram Demo Tape (1985)

Into The Macabre CD (1987)

Fragments Of Insanity CD (1989)

Mondocane: Project One [with Schizo] CD (1990)

Into The Macabre CD (1999)

Mater Of All Evil CD (1999)

Black As Pitch CD (2001)

Ton(e)s Of Hate CD (2003)

20 Years Of Noise CD (2005)

100% Hell CD (2006)


 

 

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