Vader Interview

The founding fathers of Eastern European Death Metal, Vader are back with their new album. "Impressions In Blood" heralds in a new line-up and a new dawn of brutality. Metal Chaos spoke with the godfather of Polish metal Peter to get the low down.

The 4th September saw the release of your new album “Impressions In Blood”. How do you describe the album to those yet to hear the record?
"Impressions In Blood" is like a refreshed Vader. It's the same Vader, but with a fresh spirit put inside. New production, refreshed sound but the same old feeling of brutality.
My initial reaction to the record was it is very reminiscent to “Litany” with the speed and ferocity. Was it intentional to write such an aggressive album capable of challenging anything you’ve produced for aggression?
Vader has always had a mix of brutality and melody. We just write. It has been the way of the band almost since the beginning, somewhere between the second and third album we found our sound, and we have just followed that way since. The writing comes pretty natural, so it is hard to say it comes from anywhere other than the heart.
How did you approach writing a Vader album?
The motivation is why we do music at all. It's why we are Vader. Nothing special makes me write other than it is time for the next album, the only difference with this album was we started a new chapter in the history of Vader. Not just because of this refreshed sound, but we finished a part of the Vader story with "The Art Of War" album. "The Impressions In Blood" in my opinion is more like a summary, a retrospective of what we made in all those years. We just tried to put what was the best characteristics of Vader into this album.
"Impressions In Blood" lyrically is very dark, almost oppressive. Where did the concepts originate?
There are a couple of guys responsible for the lyrics on "Impressions In Blood". The first guy is Paolo Frelli. Paolo started co-operating with us on "Silent Empire" years ago. When he came back he came with a concept for the album, which was blood. Not just blood as a liquid or the fluid of life, but blood as an inspiration of life and death. You know, how it inspired killers. So we tried to use blood in all those different concepts and feelings. Hence the title. We first were going to call the record "Impressions In Red", but that title would have been artistic and after all we are a metal band and blood we thought would be more powerful. The other guy is our webmaster of our official website. We never talked about writing lyrics together, finally he showed me some of his lyrics, and his lyrics are very similar to what we do. We use the same symbolic imagery, always something between the lines, always some hidden meaning. Then there is my work on such songs as "Helleluyah". It all comes back to the blood reign of religion and religious leaders. That was the theme that motivated us all.
You guys chose to record the album again at Hertz studio. What makes it such a creative environment for the band to want to return time again?
You mentioned our album "Litany". This album was pretty rough from a production side. "Impressions In Blood" is more like speed mixed with melody that comes from our roots to make it total Vader. The production was important so we choose a good studio.
The Wiestwtwsy brothers were again behind the production desk. Why bring them back for this record, what do you feel they give Vader?
Probably you should ask them (laughs). It was them that gave us this new spirit to this old Vader body. "The Art Of War" was a kind of test for us in working with the producers in a new studio and developing a new sound. All the ideas that came from that mini album were almost and introduction to "Impressions", and we just continued that onto a full length album. The only difference was the atmosphere. With "The Art Of War" there
were more futuristic topics, whereas "Impressions In Blood" is a return to our roots. We focused on more devilish things, the dark thing things of life.
In support of the record the band are heading out on a monumental European tour. 90 dates is a gruelling schedule, are you looking forward to the tour? Is touring an environment you enjoy?
Touring is nothing new to us as we've toured a lot throughout our career, we've just tried to change the our tactics. We want to have more intense periods of touring and then have longer breaks in between. Giving us more time to spend with our friends and families. So we're touring pretty much intensely in support of "Impressions In Blood" for the next year. We start with this European tour, the first part is in Poland, then western Europe and finally the Balkans.
The band has not long returned from the Metal Crusaders tour in the USA. How did the tour work out for you?
Oh pretty good especially to play on the same stage as Destruction. Destruction is a band that influenced myself. It was just sad that we had to explain how important these guys were to the scene, and what the name means to so many people. As many people see them as purely as a European metal band, which isn't true. They influenced bands everywhere.
Have you noticed any significant differences between the US and European audiences?
In the US the fans certainly look different. In Europe, at least 90% look like they did lets say as they did in the past. You know the leather jackets, long hair, patches. In the States, they look like those Nu-Metal guys. A mix of Hip-Hop and Metal. The difference makes it interesting though. So long as they are moshing you know they are enjoying it.
Seth has produced very dramatic artwork. How did you hook up with Seth? What input did you have in the artistic process?
	I gave general directions, but wanted to give Seth a free hand to do his own work. I wanted symbols of magic on the album cover, but you'll find reference points from all our albums on that cover. I really wanted a fold out cover with this person with the crimson mask in the centre. There was however some technical problems with doing it so finally we decided to go with cover, no logo, nothing. The only expection is with the American addition where there were some problems, so we had to find a space for the logo.
	2006 is the 23rd anniversary of the formation of Vader. Did you ever imagine you’d still be producing music 23 years on from your inception?
	The name Vader we took in 1983. We wanted to play extreme music, but extremity was something different in those days. We were all of course influenced by Madien, Priest, Saxon and Motorhead, but it all changed when "Show No Mercy" came out, that changed everything. Slayer changed the meaning of extremity in Metal. After that we began to play more extreme and I began to sing in English, before we sang in Polish. We never thought we's still be going this long, that would be over expectations. We never dreamt of being a professional band, being able to do this ever day.
	“Impressions In Blood” is the first full-length release on your new label, Regain Records. How is the deal working out for you, is this a multi album deal?
It is hard to say because it is the first release. For now we are full of hope as they released the mini album "The Art Of War", which was a release between two deals as we had just finished up with Metal Blade and before we started with Regain. This is like release zero so to speak. Regain promised us that they were not full of false promises, and they are musicans so they know what they are talking about. Which makes it easier to talk to them.
Being the flag carriers of Polish Death Metal for so many years has a domestic scene developed? Are there any new bands coming through the underground we should look out for?
There are of course bands like Behemoth, Decapitated and Hate, so the scene is pretty strong, which is special for Poland and the Polish Metal scene. You can see the all sorts of bands in all sorts of categories
What are you thoughts on the recent re-interest in Death Metal and many of the ‘classic’ bands regrouping, touring and recording?
First of all they are missing something about the music. Secondly their hunger for the music. Today we may have bands with much better technical ability but there is something about the old brutality. If you look at Bolt Thrower for example. They are back on tour with a great new album, it so great to see them again as they were the first band we toured with outside Poland. They showed us the right way to do things and great to have them back. They respect the fans. The most important part of the music are the fans and just to many bands have forgotten that. You know that rock star shit. When we started we never expected money we were happy just to play. Today bands expect everything from promotion to money, all on the back of maybe less than a demo tape.
Any final words for all the Vader fans out there?
Well I'd hope that these aren't the final words from me (laughs). We are looking forward to getting out on tour in Europe. We've refreshed the set list and tried to do something new for all the Vader fans out there. Thanks!

All images used with the kind permission of Vader.