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Please can you give our readers a short introduction of the band? Of Course! Kaotik was formed by the end of the year 2007 with Fred and Sam on guitars and with Jeff on drums. Shortly after, I joined in on the bass guitar and PL came in on the vocals! In 2009 we released a self-produced a 5-song EP called New Born Khaos. Back then we were doing what we could call a mix of thrash metal and death metal, with even a touch of black metal in it. Since the EP our style has evolved into a definitive death metal sound and you can hear that on Starving Death ! I guess the first reviews of your new album ‘Starving Death’ are coming in, how are the reactions so far? Good ! People seem to understand that with this album we are not pretending to bring something new to the table, but that we are trying to show that old-school straight-forward death metal is still relevant in the music scene today ! Who is responsible for the song writing in the band? We all throw in some new ideas at each other during rehearsals, but I got to say that Fred is the one with the most creative mind. He comes up with many new riffs everytime we play, and we just work them together until it fits the mood of the song. The style of the band is a combination of death metal and thrash. In my opinion the first tracks on the album sound a bit more death metal and after that the thrash riffs get the upper hand. Is that just a coincidence? Yes it is ! We did not put the tracks in any order that would show the progression of the different style in our songs. However, that being said, you can hear the evolution of our own style of writing. Some of the songs on Starving Death were written not so long after the release of our EP while others are way more recent. Which way will the band go on the next album, more thrash or more death? Actually we are already writing some new material for our second album. The ideas are really flowing and it is definitely going to be more death. I can even tell you that right now we are going into a more European-styled death metal.
Are bands like Death, Obituary and Morgoth influences for your style and what other bands are you influenced by? Yes definitely! Death, Obituary and Morgoth influences are everywhere in our music since we grew up listening to these classics! As a band, we listen to a lot of old-school death and thrash metal bands like Pestilence, Asphyx, Hail of Bullets, Autopsy, Cancer, Atheist, Entombed, Gorguts, Bolt Thrower, and more recently Jungle Rot. Otherwise, we pretty much have an eclectic 'palette' of bands that we individually like or listen to. For example I am really into jazz and classical music, as well as bands from every corners of the heavy metal world! In the Netherlands we have a rather big death/thrash scene and a few good bands like for example Legion of the Damned, Hail of Bullets, Pestilence, Asphyx , Thanatos, Sinister etc. etc. Do you know these bands and do you follow the scene world-wide? Yes ! Not only do we know these bands but we love them !! HOB, Pestilence and Asphyx must be in our top bands that we all like. As for PL's vocals, Martin Van Drunen is a big inspiration for him. Vocalists like John Tardy from Obituary, Marc Grewe for Morgoth, Luc Lemay from Gorguts and Chuck (especially on Spiritual Healing). How did you get in contact with the Gorguts vocalist Luc Lemay, and what is he doing at the moment? Actually, PL (vocals) was attending a death metal festival called the Maryland Deathfest in Baltimore, US, and he just ran into Luc Lemay walking in the city. He got in touch with him and invited him to record some vocals for the upcoming album of Kaotik and he said yes right away! When the time came he was ready for it and we are really glad with the results !! I think that in the moment he is mostly spending his time working for an guitar/bass amplifier company and Gorguts are still playing some gigs too ! Wasn’t it difficult to get Dan Swäno as a producer, he is a very busy man? We simply got in touch with him and asked him if he was interested in working on the mixing and the mastering of the album. When we had recorded the whole thing with the great studio engineer Franky Blastbeat (he is also the drummer for the extreme band Superior Enightenment, check them out on youtube !!) we came back at Dan and he said let's do it ! You can imagine the feeling we get from having two great names on our debut album! What’s next, touring perhaps? Sure! We are now looking for some European gigs for the summer 2013 ! Things are looking well and we should be able to get on the road soon ! Which 5 albums should every metal fan have in his/her collection? That is a tough one Reinier!! I'm pretty sure you would get a different list for each Kaotik band member ! As for myself, I would say that you should definitely have (and if you don't, go and get it !)
As you can guess I could go on forever hahaha! Anything else you want to share with our readers? I would like to thank you very much for your time and your interest in our music !! | ||||
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Interviewed by Reinier de Vries | ||||
