Trendkill pour l'album "No Longer Buried"

1. First off, how about you introduce your band to our readers? Musically speaking, where do you come from? How long have you been playing together? What made you start up a band?

Ok, we are Trendkill from Varberg, Sweden.
We started out in 98 as Agressive Serpent and recorded several demos under 4-5 years and
just learned how to play our instruments and trying to find the direction we would like to take as a band.
In 2002 we had a new drummer in Conny from Anata and a new guitarist in Andre from my other band By Night and I think it was then we felt like we had the last piece for the puzzle to be finished.
But back from the start, I remember that me, Erik and our first drummer Fredrik did a lot of party together and every time after 6-7 beers we said to each other that we had to start a band.
But the next day no one would remember it and it was like that for a while: just empty words.
But after a while and after many more beers we decided to start a band… almost 8 years ago now.
And it was bands like old Sepultura, Machine head and Pantera that where our biggest influences to do that.

2. Where does your band name come from? It instantly stands out as a Pantera tribute name (and by the way, there is an "official" Pantera tribute band named Trendkill), was it choosen on purpose? (If I remember correctly, your previous name was Aggressive Serpent or something, right?)

No it´s no tribute name, even though everyone in the band likes Pantera.
And what happaned to Dimebag,one of the best guitar players in all time is just sad and made
me speachless.
Yeah I know that there is some other Trendkills but I don´t really care, to be honest.
We just keep on playing and if they want to fight for the name, let them do it.
For us, it´s just a cool band name.

3. What about telling us about your album? When is it due? How was it written? How much of it is renewed demo material? How much time did you spend completing it?

We recorded the album in Studio Mega this summer.
I Love this studio and the people who work there, it´s a good atmosphere for me to work in.
Erik does all the music for Trendkill and we put it together in the rehearsal room together.
Then I record the song on a shitty cassette player and write the lyrics at home and sometimes rearange the songs a little bit.
You could say that half the album is new material and the other half is made of the demo-songs that we got the Regain deal with. So it was never an option not to put them on the record.
I think we wrote the songs in a 2 years period.
We have a goal to record late in next year again and I think it´s possible, because we already got 2 new songs and a bunch of heavy riffs.

4. Speaking of recording, what's your state of mind when going into the studio?

It´s always strange for me.
I hate it and love it at the same time, I build up so much pressure on myself every time and this time was the worst time…
I couldn´t sleep or eat a whole week preceding the recording of my vocals in the studio.
We had been waiting and working our asses off for this for over 7 years and suddenly, there I stood with the contract in one hand and the microphone in the other, it was strange for me.
But after a few days in the studio I could relaxe a little bit, took control over my head and used my fear for the recording session to push myself harder than I did before.
And this time, I´m almost satisfied.
Even though I think I will do so much better next time… But you always think like that…

5. Is there some touring scheduled to promote the album? As a supporting/main act? As an opening act, who would you like to open for? And as a main act, who would you like to take out on tour with you?

There are some gigs booked in Sweden and I can´t wait to play the new songs in front of the fans, And I can promise you that we will go out and play some euoropean shows but I can´t say much more yet.
For us it´s better to go out as a support act so we can play in front of more people and promote ourselves as much as possible.
The dream would be to open up for Lamb of God, the perfect combination for me.
And when the time is coming for us to be a main act I would like to have Metallica as an opening act for us (laugh) it would be so cool. But realistic, I don´t know…

6. What are the latest albums that kicked your ass (be it metal or country music)? What do you listen to outside of Metal? What about your all time classic/favourite albums? What would you recommend to our readers?

I honestly think that this year sucked in the metal scene.
All the new bands look and sound the same to me. Can´t say one good album. This stupid hair cut with the hair over one of their eyes (you know what I mean? I call them "myspace bands”) and it´s not even metal with all this clean vocals in every chorus.
They can´t sing that live anyway, so why the fuck are they doing that?
Of course they will sell some more copies but I don´t understand it anyway.
But there are some very cool bands out there like Hatebreed and Raging Speedhorn, they do their thing and don´t care what others say.
And it´s cool that Hatebreed are so big, but they really deserves it after 10 years of hard work and touring all over the world.
But I have always been a music fan: rock, pop metal it doesn’t matter, there is good music everywhere.
I love bands like Counting Crows, Dave Matthew, Spin Doctors and metal bands like Hatebreed, Raging Speedhorn and Amen.
I would recommend everyone of you out there to buy any record by the Swedish hardcore band Raised Fist, it´s just one of the best bands out there today and they are in the studio right now and I can´t wait to hear it!

7. What's your opinion on the state of the Swedish metal scene? What about the European metal scene? The American scene? The metal scene as a whole, compared to a few years ago (mid 90s for example)?

The Swedish metal scene is always good and you can hear bands from every corner of the world who is influenced of bands like At The Gates, The Haunted and In Flames of course.
And some times it get so boring ‘cuz it is so obvious that it just makes you wanna puke.
Buy yourself an identity…
There are always some good bands in the metal scene but there are so many bands today so it’s almost hard to have opinion about it.
Some bands release one album and after that you don´t hear about them and that is not the way we want to be…
I want us to work up slowly so we will be around for a ling time.

8. What's your take on downloading?

For a band who is unsigned it´s the best promotion you can get.
And for smaller bands like us it´s good too but I understand how some bigger bands who live from their music could dislike it.
But it´s to expensive to buy albums today, a new album in Sweden is almost 20 Euros and it is too much.
But I think the internet is the future, even though I like to have the album in my hand and not on my laptop.

9. Last words are yours man, cheers and lots of luck for your band!

DOWNLOAD our album and listen to it 10 times and if you like it go to a store near you and buy it.
If you hate it don´t waste your time and don’t listen to it.

HAIL AND KILL