VM-UNDERGROUND

Extreme Metal Fanzine est. 2012

Latest Updates

Filter by: band
[%] - [[0-9]] - [A] - [B] - [C] - [D] - [E] - [F] - [G] - [H] - [I] - [J] - [K] - [L] - [M] - [N] - [O] - [P] - [Q] - [R] - [S] - [T] - [U] - [V] - [W] - [X] - [Y] - [Z]
Filter by: label
[[0-9]] - [A] - [B] - [C] - [D] - [E] - [F] - [G] - [H] - [I] - [J] - [K] - [L] - [M] - [N] - [O] - [P] - [Q] - [R] - [S] - [T] - [U] - [V] - [W] - [X] - [Y] - [Z]
Filter by: style
[A] - [B] - [C] - [D] - [E] - [F] - [G] - [H] - [I] - [P] - [S] - [T] - [V]
Filter by: country
[A] - [B] - [C] - [D] - [E] - [F] - [G] - [I] - [L] - [M] - [N] - [P] - [R] - [S] - [T] - [U]
Filter by: vmu-author
[A] - [B] - [C] - [D] - [E] - [F] - [G] - [H] - [I] - [J] - [K] - [L] - [M] - [N] - [O] - [P] - [R] - [S] - [T] - [V] - [W] - [X] - [Y] - [Z]

Audiopain – “Thrash you haven’t heard since the good old eighties!”

audiopain – “thrash you haven’t heard since the good old eighties!”

Info

Audiopain, a Norwegian thrash band which is still very underground and hardly anyone outside Norway has heard of them. After three very good demo cd’s and alot of good metalgigs it’s about time for the rest of the world to get more familiar with these thrashers from the Oslo region.Audiopain is a band which still lets the music speak for itself, and believe me, it DOES speak for itself. Their last demo “Revel in Desecration” is one of the best demos from the last couple of years!!! I had a talk with Sverre, handling the guitars and vocals in Audiopain, and besides that also a good friend so read on what he had to say about Audiopain and other interesting themes.

 

Greetings Sverre, how are you doing?
Very well, thank you!

Because alot of our readers don’t know Audiopain well enough this is your chance to tell the history so far. And can you introduce all members for us?
We started out in ’96, but by the name Hæ?. We played some shows, and recorded one demo-casette named “L.V.T.”. After a few years we had evolved into more of a thrash act than what we were when we first started, so we changed name to Audiopain in the beginning of ’99 to have a better suiting name. By that time we had already finished writing material for the “Contagious” demo which came out about a year later. Only 8 months later we released the second demo as Audiopain, another six-tracker named “1986”. Then we had a year of concert focus, before we went to record our third six-track demo cd “Revel in Desecration”. It was recorded and released in March ’02, and was printed in 500 hand-numbered, pro-printed copies. As it sold out, we have now re-printed it in another 500 copies. Still for sale. Since then it has been live focus again, and now we are writing and rehearsing for upcoming releases, which we expect to be out December this year. In between we’ve also recorded one song to be featured on the Mysticum/Audiopain split 7″ called “The habit of fear”, and one song for the Inferno festival cd, named “Lucified”.

What were your influences to start Audiopain in the first place?
Hmmmm….hard to say really. We met at a school, and just started a band. Then it just formed itself after we got to know each other better. We started out by playing a very strange mix of whatever felt natural, but all the way on top of a metal fundament. After a year or so we had evolved into more or less of a thrash band, but as we never planned it to be like this, I can’t say just  how it ended up being what we did. I guess it is just natural, as we’re all very much into the eighties thrash metal and similar genra’s.

In Norway you’re getting quit big nowadays. How does it come that the rest of the world isn’t familiar with Audiopain yet?
Because we don’t have any distro. We are not very professional on that specific area of marketing, as we are way to lazy for that kind of administration. Neither have we ever played concerts outside Norway, so that might have something to do with it. But we have connected with some guys here and there that do some sort of distro for us, so the stone has slowly began to roll. Though, we hope to get better on this in the future.

You have released three demo cd’s which all sound very good and promising. Aren’t there any labels interested in signing Audiopain?
Well, to tell you the truth, we never send out demos to the companies in the first place, so they are never even aware of us. But still, we have been contacted. We prefer to do everything ourselves, so that’s how we stand on that matter. Simply, we don’t want a deal by now, as we like to do it ourselves. Total control!

How are the sales doing for all three cd’s at the moment? I think specially the “Revel in Desecration” cd is selling good because it is a real masterpiece of dirty music!!!
Well, “Revel…” has sold very well, considering the availability. Now the first print of 500 are sold out, so we have re-printed it in another 500. The two first demos are also selling good, when we have them for sale. It’s been a while since last time we did a re-print of them, so they’ve been pretty unavailable for a period of time. Recently we did a reprint of them as well, so I guess they’ve both sold about 400 copies. Hard to say as it’s been  four re-prints on both of them since the original releases.

Are you still satisfied about all cd’s? Anything you would like to change nowadays?
Ofcourse I would have done something different now, but still, I like them as they are. We are playing songs from all of the releases live, and I feel the older songs are just as good as the new ones.

You also co-operated with some more “famous” Norwegian musicians like Fenris, Maniac and Apollyon. How did you came in contact with them ? And can we expect more of these kind of co-operations in the future?
They are all friends of the band, so to get them to help us was only natural to ask. An honour anyway. Maniac was actually our teacher on the school where we started Hæ? back in ’96, so he’s been around since then. Whether or not we’ll do anything like this in the future is hard to say.

What are your lyrics dealing about and who is responsible for them?
The lyrics are mostly Petter’s work, but I write some of them as well. They don’t have any special theme, just everything inspiring us at the moment and things that annoy us. There are everything from day life hell, like rape and torture, to more comic-related dragon-story tales. Nothing too serious though. We’re just a band, not politicians.

How do you create new songs ? Do you write by jamming or…?
Often we write the riff’s first, and then jam these already made parts and riff’s together at the rehearsals. Sometimes the songs are written completely before we start rehearsing it. It all depends. Then the lyrics are written at last to capture some of the atmosphere of the music.

Audiopain is one of the few bands who don’t have an own website. Why is that?
We don’t feel like being a website band. There are too many bands focusing waaaaay too much on their appearance on internet and pictures and so on, that don’t give the music enough focus. I could have given you a long, lame answer on this one, but I’m not going to. Some hint’s: We don’t have any interesting/important info to offer, opinions to share, pictures, statements to spread, image to build or poser-attitude to feed. What’s left then?

Live gigs! I have seen you four times already and every time it was a real slaughter. Alot of headbanging thrashers and people going completely crazy, specially the warm-up gig for Inferno 2002 at Elm Street with Amok and Aura Noir was a killer gig. When can we expect Audiopain outside of Norway?
Thanx! But when we will play outside Norway is pretty much up to you, isn’t it ?! I believe you are working on that matter, so you know better than me, hehe. We come whenever it suits you. You can enlighten your readers yourself !

That’s true haha. At the moment I’m still working on a small Benelux tour. But…still in progress! You supposed to do a small Norwegian tour with Nocturnal Breed in may this year. What has become of that? And what has come out of the Norwegian tour you should do with Aura Noir, your partners in musical crime?
we haven’t played any concerts with Nocturnal Breed yet, and all the talk about touring Norway with them turned out to nothing. With Aura Noir we’ve played many times, and in May we did one insane gig with them in Trondheim, at an occupied place called UFFA. We were thinking of doing some more, but they are all so tied up in so many projects, so it is kind of hard to make things fit with them. We’ll see, maybe we can do something later. We have finished off playing live for now, until we have some new releases out.

What are the highlights in the career of Audiopain so far?
I believe playing at that Elm Street gig you mentioned is one of them. Other highlights are both times at the Inferno festival, and ofcourse the Hole in the Sky festival in Bergen 2001.

Haha, I’ve been at all those gigs you’ve mentioned!!! Does any of you have any side-projects?
Yes. Petter is playing in several other bands. The Happy Nihilists, which is a avant-garde band he plays in together with our designer, Kim Sølve Madsen. Virus, the side project of Einar ( Beyond Dawn, Inferno etc. ) and Aggressor ( Aura Noir, Cadaver etc. ) . A band named -M-, which is a grim metal band, also with Kim. He’s also playing in a electronica “band” with Kim, I believe. And then Bjarne and Petter have a jazz-band together named Denture.

You also produce alot of other bands, like for instance Vesen. Where do you get all the time for that and which other bands have you produced so far?
In between I take the time to work with some other bands. Bands that I’ve worked with are Vesen, Hellish Orkestra, -M-, Ghoul-Cult, Bomberos, Mysticum, Amok, Mancha Negra and some other non-metal projects.

What about the long awaited Audiopain/Mysticum split EP. Why did it took so long and when will it see the day of light? How is the relationship with Mysticum?
The Mysticum guys are really good friends of ours. The split will be out any year now I believe…he he. No, seriously, the master and cover have been send to the record company months ago, and it should be out early autumn I hope. The reason it took so long are simply some disagreement on the cover artwork, and very slow handling on that matter. After it was finished, it took some time to get the correct proportians to the cover from the pressing company, as this will be an unusual release. As it turned out wrong, that’s what met the releasing company when they received the artwork. So, now they are working on the cover as well…hehe. All the music was recorded and finished almost a year and a half ago ! We’re waiting for the test press now.

And how are things going with the Audiopain/Amok split tape? Can you tell a bit more about the release?
I have no idea of what’s happening with that release!! That is Petters thing, and I don’t think he’s heard anything from the company in Thailand since he send over the masters three or four months ago. The release itself is nothing special, just our “Revel in Desecration” demo, and Amok’s “Lava Dictatorship” demo. It has been made a new cover for the release though.

What can we expect in the future from Audiopain?
You should expect more music in the same style as what you’ve heard from us before, because that is what you eventually will get. We have already invented “The Krutt” , so we are not going to do that again, he he. We are rehearsing the new material, and are still in writing process, and we have scheduled for a release this year (year 17 that is! ). So far it seems like it will be very “Audiopain-ish” music. Maybe a bit less “in your face” than the “Revel…” demo, but some longer and more dynamic song structures. We’ve also a pretty slow song this time, which is rare for us. All in all you will get more or less the same as before.

Now I give you the oppurtunity to ask me a question so go ahead Sverre!
OK ! You are travelling around alot in the name of extreme underground metal, whitout any other reason than your die hard interest in this very genre of music. What insane reason and motivation do you have for offering so much for something as abstract (stupid?) as metal music?

Well, yes I do travel around alot and it does cost me alot, if not almost all my money, but I do it simply for my love for this music. I also like to help some bands with whom I’m friends with to spread their name and do some promotion/distribution for them. Call me stupid or whatever but this is what I like to do. And in time people get to know you at certain places and that can result in free entrances at gigs or even VIP passes and free cd’s so it will pay back a bit !!!And yes, I like to travel to Norway as well alot. I have seen alot of interesting gigs which are not be seen outside of Norway and furthermore I have alot of friends overthere with whom it’s cool to party with!!! 

Well,the last words are yours Sverre, thanks for the interview and we see eachother around somewhere again and share some beers!!!
Thanks Marcel. Always a pleasure! First of all I would like to say to you all that Marcel is a great guy, and if anyone want to hear some samples of Audiopain, you can visit him at home and ask him if he can show you. He will! He will also give you the address to our e-mail (which by the way is audiopain@hotmail.com), so you can order cd’s and merchandise from us for VERY low prices. Or he will tell you that he can do it for you, as he has done that several times before. Then he’ll give you as much alcohol and food as you want, before you’ll end up having sex for two intense minutes. Then you go home and wait for Audiopain to visit you with thrash you haven’t heard since the good old eighties! (keep your eyes on that weird looking guy that always smile to you in the public showers!). Salute to Marcel!!!  Remember, YOU are a failure!

Haha, good last words. You make me flush. Well, see you at the next drinking session!!! Take care!!!