Born from Pain pour l'album "In Love with the End"

1. First, could you please introduce your band to our readers, your main influences and the style which
could best define your music ?

Che: We’re Born From Pain from Holland, we started the band in the summer of 97, and still growing stronger. Our influences range from metal to hardcore, basically the spectrum of hard music. You could best describe our music as an energetic mix of heavy hardcore and aggressive metal which combined sounds like a bulldozer ready to tear your apartment building down.

Karl: Ok, well Born From Pain has been active in the Hardcore and Metal scenes for just over 7 years now. We have 5 members who are Che on Vocals, Rob on Bass, Stefan on Guitar, Roel on Drums and I on Guitar. We play a style of Hardcore that some would describe as Metalcore I guess, since we incorporate a lot of metallic influences in our music, although we have our ideals are taken from the Hardcore scene. The bands that first influenced us were the likes of Hatebreed, Merauder and All Out War. Those bands were the main inspiration for Born From Pain musically, although as you hear over time and through our records that has grown quite considerably and with our latest album “In Love With The End” we believe that we’ve created our most crushing and diverse album to date.

2. What can we expect from your new album compared to the previous ones?

Che: Basically this record is more progressed, it sounds more mature. We allowed ourselves to write different stuff. I think this record is more groove orientated than ever before, where in the past we concentrated on the hardness of the song more.

Karl: The new album is definitely a lot heavier and harder than our previous albums, but at the same time it is more melodic, which basically means that there are more hooks in there. Everything is still heavy and hard as nails, but we’ve managed to incorporate some new ideas in there too which add a new flavour to what we’ve done before, which in turn balance out the really heavy parts. To me, the album is full on Born From Pain as there are definite references to “Reclaiming The Crown” and “Sands Of Time” both musically and lyrically, but we’ve managed to bring in some new ideas and influences that make “In Love With The End” a more versatile and diverse album than the previous two, but without ever losing our identity. I think any typical Born From Pain fan will love the album and I’m sure that people that don’t know us will also like our latest effort.

3. How does the writing process goes?

Che: We all try to write stuff at home, and try and work something out in the practise room. However with this CD most of the songs were for the most part ready before they were played during practise. However we have the policy that most of the band have to really like it, so the last practises before studio we worked on the songs to perfect them for the band.

Karl: Well, the writing process is pretty simple, but at the same time can be quite painstaking as we’re our own worst critics and our standards for what can be a Born From Pain song are very high. Although, that said, it is simple. Basically, Stefan or myself will write a song at home and record a basic version of it with drums so everybody can get a good idea of how we think it should be, and then we work on it as a whole. Maybe we change a riff or a drum beat idea or we don’t change anything or we don’t use anything. We just take what we all like and what is the best music and go from there. Rob writes all the lyrics and puts them onto the songs and that’s pretty much it. It’s a very simple process, but it’s not always easy.

4. Is there a tour planed to promote your new album?

Che: Of course, Born From Pain would not be Born From Pain if we wouldn’t go o tour to promote the record. We going to do an extensive 5 week tour around Europe. Where we visit France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Norway, Sweden amongst other countries.

Karl: We’re pretty much going to be on tour for the rest of 2005 and 2006 now, just supporting the new album, so we’re very busy organising and booking various tours and shows. At the moment we have a headline tour booked for the end of April and the whole of May which takes in pretty much the whole of Europe right from Scandinavia to Spain and from France across to Slovenia and everywhere in between. It’s gonna be 32 shows altogether and I can’t wait. We’re bringing along a band called Zero Mentality who are good friends of ours and who are also a great band so it’ll be an awesome show and a lot of fun. We have a few shows in France, which are in Limoges and Rennes on the 28th and 29th May. Born From Pain will also be playing the Metal Therapy festival on the 16th April in Woippy which should be awesome because we’re going to be playing with a lot of bands that we don’t normally play with which will expose us to a lot of new people.



5. What do you do for a living apart from the band?

Che: Well I’m a part time student for I don’t know how many years, and I do data entry stuff where I teach new dudes how to work with the program. Rob is a Microsoft teacher and he does “A&R” for GSR records, Stefan works part time in the same office Rob works at and is a part time student as well. Karl works at GSR records where he does “PR”. Roel works as a courier.

Karl: We all have jobs in the band. I work for GSR, which is a HC label in Holland, which is actually the label we were on before we signed to Metal Blade. I take care of promotion there for our bands. Rob and Stefan both work for a computer company. Rob teaches courses there and I’m not too sure what Stefan does there. Che works for Vodaphone in the call centre and Roel works for DHL as a delivery driver. We’re pretty busy people I guess.

6. What is the best (an the worst) memory you have from your musician’s life?

Che: The worse probably was when we had to sleep in the bathroom somewhere in Italy, whcih we didn’t do obviously..
Best memory? Going on tour with all my old youth heroes like Madball, Agnostic Front, Biohazard, Hatebreed.

Karl: Wow, thats quite tough for best moments as a musician for me personally. I mean, it can go as far back as actually learning to play the guitar and getting things right. It can be quite frustraiting not being able to do something and then suddenly it just happens. They’re always good moments. Other stuff would be a lot of the shows I’ve played, both with Born From Pain and in previous bands. One of the best things is that I’ve had the opportunity to travel to a lot of differnet countries and cities and pretty much see the world by doing something I love. The new album is definitely high up on the list too. The people I’ve met through being in band is always great. I’ve made some really good friends in the time I’ve been playing. As for bad memories, I don’t really have too many to be honest. There are always gonna be small things like having equipment problems, the odd bad show etc, but it is very much outweighed by all the positive and good things that happen from playing in a band.

7. Do you know the French metal scene? What do you think of it?

Che: I’m pretty known with the hardcore scene in France and I know a couple of metal bands from France as well.

Karl: I honestly don’t know the French metal scene too well. We did some shows in early 2004 with Inside Conflict which was awesome and we’ve played some shows with the likes of Le Spirit Du Clan, Count To React and Kickback amongst other bands which have been great as well as playing numerous shows all over the country in the likes of Paris, Marseille, Rennes, Toulouse etc so we know a little about the scene in that we always have a good time and the French kids are always great to us and support us really well. But, I wouldn’t be ignorant and say I know what the French scene is like because I haven’t been to enough shows there. All I know is that whenever we play France, the shows are awesome and the kids are great. We’ve had some of our best shows in France, especially at the Furyfest last year and in 2003. Both of those shows were amazing for us, really great shows and the line-up’s for Furyfest are always great and it’s one of the best festivals in Europe for sure. I’m sure we’ll be playing France a lot in the next 2 years.

8. The same question goes for the metal scene as a whole. How do you think it will evolve in the few years, and how would you like it to evolve?

Che: I would like to see more people at shows, I’d like to see hardcore and metal kids going crazy at shows in general.

Karl: The metal scene as a whole is like any other scene really, it goes through certain trends and gets popular and unpopular. Right now, Metal is probably at one of it’s biggest peaks in the history of metal which is awesome and there are a ton of amazing bands from all over the world right now writing awesome albums and playing crushing live shows so it’s a great time. I’m not sure how things will evolve in a few years, probably like everything else, something else will come along and will be the new trend, but the metal scene will always remain strong, that I’m sure of. As for how I would like it to evolve, that’s pretty tough, because right now I love how the metal scene is. There are awesome bands, awesome tours and a lot of great places to read about metal either in magazines or online. So, it’s pretty tough to see how it can evolve in a better way really. I just hope it can stay like it is for the foreseeable future as it’s a good time for metal right now.

9. If you could organise your own metal festival,vwhose bands would be invited?

Che: Good question! Euhm, Black Sabbath, Faith No More, Bolt Thrower, Paradise Lost, Machine Head, Danzig, Slayer, Metallica, Testament, Crowbar, Pantera, Down, Corrosion of Conformity, Anthrax, Sepultura with Max Cavalera, Hatesphere, Rise and Fall, Terror, The Setup, Full Court Press, Hatebreed, Cro mags, Madball, Killswitchengage, Stigmata, Merauder, Sick of it All, Fear Factory, the Haunted. And many many more

Karl: Wow, this is a good question, I guess it depends how big the festival was, how many days, how many stages. If I was to name say 25 bands I’d like on my fest, right now it would be; Metallica, Slayer, Killswitch Engage, Hatebreed, Chimaira, God Forbid, Zero Mentality, Rise & Fall, Converge, The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Setup, Terror, Sick Of It All, Unearth, Black Sabbath, Down, Cataract, Hatesphere, Rammstein, Misfits, Dimmu Borgir, Fear Factory, In Flames, Crowbar and Born From Pain.



10. What are you listening to these days? Any good metal / non metal albums to recommand?

Che: I want to have the new Tori Amos album, I’m going to buy it tomorrow if it is out yet. I didn’t buy anything new last couple of months.

Karl: I listen to a multitude of things at all times really, but I mainly listen to HC, Metal and 80’s pop. Here are a few things I’m listening to at the moment

God Forbid – Gone Forever
Down – Nola
Zero Mentality – In Fear Of Forever
Unearth – The oncoming Storm
Tears For Fears – Greatest Hits
Carcass – Heartwork
Rise & Fall – Hellmouth
Converge – When Forever Comes Crashing
Bruce Springsteen – Greatest hits
Depeche Mode – Violator
Earth Crisis – Gomorrah’s Season Ends
Killswitch Engage – The End Of Heartache
Bolt Thrower – For Victory
American nightmare – Background Music
Metallica – Master Of Puppets
Disembodied - Diablerie

11. If you could change something in this fucked up world, really anything you want, what would you choose?

Che: I would put an end to racism, and related crimes.

Karl: Hmmm, there are so many fucked up things in the world at the moment, so this would be hard. I think something that would be great is if there were no wars, because that’s a very fucked up thing and after visiting places like Auschwitz and Hiroshima it’s quite inconceivable what some people have been through in the past and at the present with wars that are happening now. There are millions of people that have suffered because of war and I’m not just talking about those that have died, but obviously family, friends and loved ones and it’s just a totally fucked up thing that happens, despite the fact that we have all this history throughout the world that tells us that it’s something we shouldn’t do. Obviously there are tons of other things such as poverty, famine or diseases etc and for one thing to take priority over the other is tough because there is a lot of stuff that is of equal importance that is making people suffer all over the world and needs to be addressed so……

12. This interview is made for a French webzine (http://www.thrashocore.com). Any good / bad comments
to make about this (be careful :p) ?

Che: I’ll have a look at it if I have more time, and then get back to you on that!!! Is that a deal?

Karl: I actually checked out the site before I did the interview and I like it a lot. It’s really neatly set out and is pleasing to look at and it looks to have quite a lot of information on there for sure, but a lot of it is in French and I don’t speak French, so it’s hard for me to see what’s being said, but it definitely looks like a good, informative site.

13. Last words are yours!

Che: Check out our new record which will be out april 18th on Metal Blade records. It carries the title “In love with the end”. Hard as nails!!!!
Thank you for doing the interview, and to the reader thank you for investing a couple of minutes of your time in Born From Pain. We hope to see you al in venue soon!!!!

Karl: Thank you very much for the interview and support, it’s much appreciated and to our French fans that have been supporting us through all the years. For anybody that’s reading this, we’re gonna be playing shows in France, so check us out in Woippy at the Metal Therapy Fest on the 16th April and also look out for our new album “In Love With The End” which is out on Metal Blade Records on the 18th April. If you like Crushing, hard and heavy Metalcore then you won’t be disappointed. Check out our website www.bornfrompain.com for all our tour dates and up to date news.