AGGRESSIVE MUTILATOR INTERVIEW WITH MIKAEL HOLM

So Mikael, what was your idea/goal to form AGGRESSIVE MUTILATOR two years ago? From where come the idea to establish the band? Hello and thanks for doing this interview and for being interested in our music. I am a very big fan of hard music and drawing so it was natural that I wanted to play myself and do my own artwork. And I always have liked horror-movies, monsters, vampires, skeletons and ghost-stories so this music fits me very well. To be creative, you could say was the main reason to establish this band. Also a reason to start it was to use it as a way to speak. I am a bit shy and this is one of my ways to speak. What bands would you cite as your musical influences? Oh thats many diffrent band. Both member in Aggressive Mutilaor like hardrock from the seventies most of all. Thats what influenceses us to play. Right now I am very much in to Queen, and have been since i was like 13. I love there first two albums, they are masterpices. But For Aggressive Mutilator the inspiration, music wise, mostley comes from bands like, Entombed, Treblinka, Holocausto, Mayhem, Sepultura, Nifelheim, Celtic Frost/Hellhammer and Bathory, you get it!. Also a lot of punk is a big influence, like Sex Pistols and the Clash and other swedish raw punk bands like Moderat Likvidation and Rövsvett. Is it your first band or did you play already in previous acts before? No, I played in some other bands long time ago. But none of them made any progress so they died without any significant remark. And also this was before I got in to Black Metal. Do you consider AGGRESSIVE MUTILATOR a project or a –so called- normal band? From the begining it was a projeckt, when I was the only member. But now that we are two members and have released a lot of demos it is moore like a band nowdays. Would you say, that you want the flame of old school thrash/black metal keeping alive? Yes you could say that. We are both not interested in making radical changes in the sound. It is also easier for the listener, so they know what the are listening to. If you like a big and fat production then you shold listen to someting else, we make this mucis for those who really like primitive and raw old school BM. I read on your bandcamp site, that the free creativity is important and also the minimalistic artwork, how would you comment it? Thanks for asking, because the creativity is one of the most important thing in this band. You are free to make you own thing and with a artwork that you would like yourself. We can mix punk and BM as we like. The artwork in inspired by Swedish bands from the eighties like Nihlist and Morbid. In 2012 you released three demos and a single, from which the first demo Skull Torture and the Gutpuking – Satan’s Hammer 7” was recorded only by yourself, how did that happen? What about the recording sessions as a whole? Yes the first two releases did by myself, I did not had anyone to play with.. I am very thankfull for playing with Micael Zetterberg now, he knows this music very well an have played in etablished bands also. All of our recording have been done very fast. We mostly do them in our rehersal room, with like 2 microphones. First we record drums and guitar on one track. Then we add like 3 moore tracks on top of that. And then some mixing and then it is finsihed. At which point did Micael Zetterberg join the band who also takes part in bands, such as TERRORAMA, WARDENCLYFFE, but also played in SPETALSK and FORGOTTEN WORDS? Is he a session musician or a full time member? We meet at work (the cemetary) an he knew I was playing and was into same kind of music, so we started to play togheter. It is not so many people here in Norrköping which are into this kind of music. Didn’t you think about to have a second guitarist or a permanent drummer or bassist in the band? Do you continue/do AGGRESSIVE MUTILATOR as a two-piece act? Yes maybe we will take in other members if we will play live sometime. But it is very hard to find somone who really like this kind of primitive/extreme music in our town. Now Micael is playing bass-guitar and drums and I do the vocals and guitar and it is working fine for our recordings. Crushed By Tyranny and War Of Extermination were released also in 2012, were the songs ready, when Micael joined the band or did he also have the opportunity to write some tunes or parts? On those two recordings we have done it all toghter. Micael has done all drums and also written some of the songs. How do you view that War Of Extermination is bringing many good old memories from a time long lost? Thanks for the fine words, sound very fine that it does. We are both big Bathory fans and hope that this in some way can refer do that period. This year you released They Want To Cut Off My Head, is it a better representation of the band in your opinion? Yes that one is our best release so far. Raw production, simpe songs and angry vocals. This is how we want to sound. Is this last release a big leap forward compared to the previous ones? Yes we think so, the earlier one are fine but this one is the best we think. Better songs and a more raw recording. How do you view, that you has been very active since the inception of AGGRESSIVE MUTILATOR and it’s nice to hearhow the music’s quality is taking part and progresses from release to release? Thanks for appreciating the progress in our music. We want to put focus on the making of the music. When we are playing it is just focus on the songs, no jamming. We want the music to be the important thing. The joy of beeing some guys in a room playing toghter, having fun, is not the most importat thing. This is usualy what destroyes the cretivity, when focus is on the fun in playing rather then on being creative. We are rather listening to somone who have something interesting to say than to somone who are a skilled guitar player. The base is a some kind of „I don’t give a fuck” attitude, isn’t it? Yes thats right, we don care what other thinks about this. Of cours it is important when people like it, it makes us very glad. But we dont play and hoping that all people will like us. That not what we intend to do, that everyone should like us. But (as said) we get happy when people into this kind of music, appreciate it. Do you have a very own expression and sound? Not really, the music is not so orginal. But the lyrics maybe are a bit diffrent than other BM band. They are about terror, sickness, racism and native american rituals, for example. No trendy occultism, grim reallity... Crushed By Tyranny was a promotional CD-R, while the other stuffs were released on tape, was your goal perhaps to send the material to attract some label interests or…? We have 3 release on the way. Blazing obscurity record in costa rica will release our first recorings on one tape. It will be out now in april 2013, hopefully. Then we have one release on Extinction productions in chile. That well be a tape with both ”war of extermination” and ” they want to cut of my head”. Will also be out soon, hopefully this spring. In the summer of 2013 we will be on a compilation tape released by Swedish label ”To the death”. It will be a follow upp to the compilation tape ”Nidingsdåd och andra muntrationer” tape. Why are your releases limited? Are they sold out? Oh that is becuse I got lazy and did get tired of copying tapes, after have done like 120 tapes. Did all the layouts by myself and did all of the artworks, but I like working with that. There are some tapes left to order from www.ihate.se. Metal label/distro from Norrköping Sweden. What about your new/next effort Death Toll 6? Can you say some details about it? It was finished just some days ago, 4 new song and 1 cover (Massacra by Hellhammer).The songs are as good as on the last tape. Maybe better. It also have amazing artwork made by Klaudiusz Witczak from Poland, Who also have done artowk for SABBATH from Japan. The artwork is inspired by the Thin Lizzy - Fighting album cover. We are looking for someone to release it now. Do you plan to record and release a full length record too? We hope we will be able to do that, but we have not got any final signs from any record label yet. Sweden has/had a lot of cool old school influenced thrash/death/black metal bands, such as HYPNOSIA, NIFELHEIM, MAZE OF TORMENT, SUICIDAL WINDS, GUILLOTINE, DEFLESHED, TERRORAMA to name a few, they left their mark on the underground scene, made a name for themselves, what do you think about them? How do you view the present Swedish underground movement/scene as a whole? We very much like Hypnosia, Nifelheim So there are som really great bands out here. There was many great metal bands from here in the past, but now we dont really know, we are not so familar with Swedens underground scene around here. Mikael, thank a lot for your answers, anything to add that I forgot to mention? Thank you Leslie, Very fine questions hope you like the answers and that people in Hungary will be interested to listening to Aggressive Mutilator. Here you can see our upcoming release by Blazing Ocurity Records. http://blazingobscurity.blogspot.se/

AGGRESSIVE MUTILATOR

Current Playlist

1. DEATH: Scream Bloody Gore/Leprosy 2. BARBED WIRE: Demo '91 3. ANTHRAX: State Of Euphoria 4. DEAF DEALER: Keeper Of The Flame/Journey Into Fear 5. MOONLESS: Calling All Demons 6. RAZOR: Evil Invaders/Malicious Intent 7. MINOR THREAT: Complete Discography 8. ACCEPT: Balls To The Wall/Metal Heart 9. HYPNOSIA: Everything 10. BLACK FLAG: Damaged