DESASTER – Total Desaster

Desaster’s history is going back to the year 1988 when two young Metal- possessed maniacs wanted to follow the path of bands like VENOM, HELLHAMMER or DESTRUCTION (whose song „Total Desaster“ gave the band its name) – to play some fucking Black Metal without compromises was their aim. Now, 24 years later, they are releasing their seventh full length album called "The Arts of Destruction". Eternal Terror writer Olver Kolden contacted vocalist Sataniac and here is the band’s debut on Eternal Terror.

Hello Germany! Surely you are gonna heat up the cold winter with your new album "The Arts Of Destruction", coming Feb 27! Since I (at this moment) haven’t heard it yet: What can we expect?

What will you expect from a little German piss band called Desaster. This is the seventh full length album, and a natural follow up to "Satan’s Soldiers Syndicate" from 2007. I think it’s Desaster with some fine differences that keeps it interesting to buy another record of old school metal. Hahahahaha…

On last album "Satan’s Soldiers Syndicate" (2007) you had three guest artists from, have you anyone on "The Arts Of Destruction" too? Do you still work with Proscriptor of ABSU?

This time we have Marc Grewe (Morgoth) sharing the vocals with me on "Beyond Your Grace".

What studio did you use for this recording? How do you do the recording process, do you arrive the recording studio with fully written material and/or pre-versions of the songs, for example?

Of course we go to the studio with full written material. We have done demos of the new songs, so it saves a lot of time in the studio. Desaster prefers the live performance, we don’t need total perfection in the studio. We need a raw and dirty feeling, that’s the most important thing. We know our songs very well before enter the studio. This time we went to TOXOMUSIC Studios in Koblenz (our Hometown) to record wirh Wally Walldorf (Toxoplasma) again.

Metal Blade Records releases "The Art Of Destruction", and as far as I can see: High Roller Records will take care of the vinyl instead of Iron Pegasus Records; why did you choose HRR this time?

HHR gave us the best offer belonging to the quality of the vinyl, including some special layout and bonus stuff like the DVD within the vinyl version. It’s important to us to have a "good looking" piece of vinyl in high quality. We want to give our fans, who really bought the album something very special. 

The "TOAD" cover artwork; who is the artist behind it?

The artwork to "The Arts Of Destruction" was done by Axel Hermann who also had done a lot of covers for bands like TIAMAT, MORGOTH, ASPHYX…he worked a lot for the Century Media bands in the past…

DESASTER releases are often on vinyl too and thank you for that! I see on your website that you also have several of your releases on cassette tape, do this cassette releases sell well and how did you get that idea?

The idea to this came from people from Serbia and Singapur, who wants to have a cheaper Desaster release for the people who haven’t enough money to buy the expensive CD or LP.

So we said ok, do your tapes and send us some for our archive and to sell it to die hard maniacs. The booklet of these tapes were really great, with lyrics and photos. Very professional! This was great we have some tape versions of our albums, and the fans get a cheap version of the album.

Back in time: With the "Stormbringer" mini album (1997) you presented a sudden change to Thrash Metal from the more Black Metal influenced "A Touch Of Medieval Darkness" album the year before. What made you want this change?

I were not a member of the band back in these days. But I know Desaster was pissed of, of all these gothic black metal keyboard shit with female vocals, so they want to show them how black metal has to sound.

Listening to DESASTER, the raw and sharp vocals of Sataniac are remarkable. I also think his vocal style is not far from your former vocalist Okkulto, did you have to search a lot for Okkulto’s successor back in 2001?

I think there were two vocalists Desaster tested. But I’m not really sure!

DESASTER seem to be tyrants of the netherworld yourself; on one side you’re often on top of concert/festival posters, on the other side never really out of the underground. Do you wish this was different or do you see it as a good thing in being a part of the non-commercialized Metal world? Can you fulfill your expectations with the band at the present state?

We never want to life on Desaster, and for me everything is perfect. We can do what we want, and we have offers to play nearly everywhere on this rotten planet. That’s really perfect, and much more you can’t expect if you stay true to yourself.

What are the plans for near future? Gigs, festivals, further releases? Plans of going to Norway again?

We have planned some single shows at the weekends. And there is only one very small tour in Columbia in April this year. But we prefer to play at the weekend. We only played in Oslo once, so it would be great to get invited once again!

http://www.total-desaster.com/

http://www.facebook.com/666Desaster666