Inhume pour l'album "Chaos Dissection Order"

Hi Ben, I'm Keyser from the French brutal zine Thrashocore, nice to virtually meet you. So let's begin this interview with the traditional introduction question. Who's Inhume, what do you do and what's your ultimate goal in life?

Hey Keyser, what's up? Good to meet you to of course! Who is Inhume, hmmm..Inhume is a band of just a couple of friends blasting the hell out of everything, no more no less haha! Our ultimate goal in life is world domination … or else we will settle for just a nice gig now and then, besides that we just like to make this kind of music for ourselves so that is why we have been rehearsing/making music/having fun with Inhume for over 13 years now.


You just released your third album, “Chaos Dissection Order”. What do you think about it? How is it compared to the previous ones?

Actually I don't think about it, it's just out there for grinding death metal fans to enjoy and bang their heads to or to mosh it up in the pit of course! If I had to compare it to the previous ones I would say the sound is a little bit better so we are still progressing in that way, musically it should be clear by now what Inhume is/does and always will do!


I reviewed it on Thrashocore, gave it a 8/10. Pure blasting and grinding brutality if you ask me! I haven't been so enthusiastic about a grind album since Nasum's “Grind Finale”! Good job guys! How are the reactions towards the new album so far?

I'm really happy with the reviews so far, it seems there is a more mature audience for grind these days, (it's not every day a grind outfit from Holland scores like an 8 in Rock Hard Magazine and even a 9,7 in Hollands Aardschok magazine!!!) Today the day it's not all bands who like to make noise just for the sake of noise you know? I can also understand if this kind of music is a little to extreme for some people but I can only say they should give it a serious spin or two, you might be surprised! On the other hand if you are not into this kind of music at all just ignore it, I do recall some idiot german girl review (uh it's not worth to call it a “review” but anyway) who hates this kind of music and starts the review with complaining about having a headache already, haha it's just awesome she had to listen through our album all the way !!! 30 something minutes of pure sonic violence!!!


Are you aware the album cover reminds a lot of a picture from Deicide's “Once Upon The Cross”, except it's not Jesus who is disemboweled? Was it intended or not at all?

So I've been told, I'm not into deicide myself so I really wouldn't know, I'll be looking for that cover in the record store for sure but nope, nothing intentional or whatever. We have this amazing guy who already did some artwork for us in the early days (Misja Baas, people should know his work!!) and for this album he was very much thinking along the way of doing an old school black and white drawing/painting or whatever. We think he totally outdid himself, the artwork for “Chaos Dissection Order” is simply put the finishing touch! You should check us out live with this artwork on a 3 by 3 meter backdrop, awesome!!!


How does the writing process usually go for Inhume? Was it hard to write “Chaos Dissection Order”?

It's always hard in a democratic band with 6 band members hehe (since a couple of months ago we are with 5), it really takes a lot of time, but in the end I would not be surprised if a lot of people don't hear half of the stuff we play, it just goes on and on and, grindcore violence to the max! We all write songs together, I think it would suck if there was one or two guys writing all the music etc. Same goes for the lyrics, all of us can contribute but that has been more of a vocalists thing with the last two albums. We should be getting back to all of us writing lyrics again I think. Now with only one guitarist, instead of the two we always used to have, writing new stuff will go much faster, at the moment we will be working on a couple of tracks for the upcoming splits 7”s with Phobia and Dead Infection and we'll just continue at that with songs for the new album which we hope to start recording by the end of this year or early 2008.


I don't pay much attention to the lyrics when it comes to brutal death or grind. So what are your lyrics about? Are they only about gore?

Nah not really, we have topics dealing with all kinds of things, that way it is much more interesting and diverse we think. Usually our lyrics will be about stuff which could happen to you or random acts of violence etc. We are not into this business to make political statements (that does not mix with music at all is my personal opinion, music should be about having fun albeit violent fun haha!) or anything like that, we just have fantasy lyrics I guess, some brutal some not so whatever… as a guitarist I'm in for it for the music anyway.


Inhume have been around for more than a decade now. What do you think about the band's evolution, both musically and humanly?

Perfect! We started out to make brutal blasting and grinding death metal and that is exactly what we are doing until this day and will be doing as long as Inhume will exist! Even after 13 years on stage with this band people come up to us saying they can't believe we are just going like crazy like it has been our first show, but that is a major compliment in it's own way so we are really proud of that.


How are your relations with Osmose Productions? Are you satisfied with this label?

I think after being on Osmose for more then 6 years now it is not the best label for releasing grindcore in general, I think we do quite alright with Inhume but the majority of the people who know about Osmose always will think about them as being a Black Metal label, I know they are into all aspects of brutal metal music but in the end it's the audience buying records etc. and grindcore fans do not think of Osmose as a label they should check for brutal grind releases. But with all the downloading and sites like myspace / youtube and who knows what else these days it really does not matter that much, right? People will find the music they like one way or the other. I can only say: Support your local underground scene!


Is a full European tour planned to promote “Chaos Dissection Order”? Will you visit France in the near future?

From now on we are doing business with a great booking agency called TMR-Europe and so far things are going really well but we haven't heard anything about promoting this album like we got to do with the last album (3 week full European tour with Cephalic Carnage and Exhumed) from Osmose but we'll just see what happens. We have some cool fests planned for this summer and so far we have been playing all over Europe and even made it to the USA for a couple of gigs so we are quite happy!


You cancelled Sacré Grind 2 back in 2005. Do you remember the reason of the cancellation because nobody has never known…

I do not recall us cancelling a show ever! Unless some band member breaks a leg or whatever we always want to play! Inhume is a live band, it's what we do best and love the most so… I seriously do not remember us cancelling this gig especially after we already said we would play? Does not sound like Inhume at all! Sorry man… I can only imagine we had another gig on that same day or weekend.


Do you know why Joost acts like that on stage, you know, those high-kicks and shit…haha so funny!

Hmm, better ask him next time haha, I guess he gets all pumped up from the grind attack on stage, he needs to let it all out and then the switch in his head goes……..You should see both of our vocalists live together!! With Dorus being the new vocalist since this album and being with us live and everything since 2003 they almost kill each other on stage, great fucking show!!


Inhume members have all other bands. Isn't it too hard to save time for Inhume?

We all manage to squeeze everything in between, we rehearse with Inhume twice a week and everything else has to be in between there somewhere so…the answer is no, it's not hard at all!


As we're talking about other bands, what's up with Cliteater, Bile and Malignant? I heard Cliteater welcomed a chick on guitar and Bile changed its name to Skullhog…

I'm really surprised to hear anybody knows about malignant, it's the band Roel (our drummer) and me where in just before Inhume! We did this band from 1988 or so until 1994 and when this band broke up Roel immediately started Inhume which I joined in 95 after doing some more crap with the other guy in Malignant. Cliteater is going strong and yes they did get a female guitar player. I am also the guitarist/vocalist in Skulhog so...err…yes we did change our name from Bile to Skullhog but that's it, just a name change. (it sucks when there are several bands out there who happen to have the same name)


Why do you enjoy playing grind? What do you like in it? What do you feel while making so much noise?

You tell me, we don't know. When we get together this is what comes out! We do know we want to make brutal shit but why?? aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


The Dutch brutal death/grind scene is the best in Europe to me. You have so many great bands: Sinister, Massmurder, Bloodboil, Severe Torture, Prostitute Disfigurement, Disavowed, etc. What is your opinion on your national scene?

If you would be here and check out the size of Holland you would be even more amazed!!! When we play a gig over here and see the people in the audience it's like everyone out there is playing in a band as well and so far dutch bands are doing pretty well I think. Maybe that helps raising the bar a little?


You're signed to a French label but do you know some French bands?

First thing which comes to my mind is Massacra! Haha great stuff man back in the old days! We did some shows over there in the past years from Paris to Toulouse, Rennes, Bordeaux, Strassbourg or Marseille and have played with several French bands like Korum but besides that we are friends with Seb and S.C.D of course!!


What are you listening to these days? Any band to recommend?

At the moment some new tracks from Regurgitate and Coffins from their upcoming splits are spinning in my car stereo, I can only recommend people to try and listen to some underground bands they never listened to before, there is a lot of good stuff out there which maybe has not been signed to a label or whatever!


This interview has come to an end. Thanks a lot for your answers Ben, hope to see you guys on tour soon! I let you conclude (in Dutch please)

Alright, cheers ‘n beers to all en hopelijk zien we iedereen deze zomer op de diverse festivals/concerten etc. onder het genot van bier en brute muziek! En mochten we op tour gaan dan komen we zeker blasten in Frankrijk!