Summon: How did the band get started?
Hendrik & Tobias: The band starts in September 1989. We were 4 guys without a bass player at first. We came out of the Death Trash scene In Oldenburg Germany our hometown. We knew each other for several years and through other bands / projects. Our Drummer Sascha came up with the band name ” Obscenity” one day including a full drawn band logo made by himself. We were practicing in a youth club where the first songs have been written for the ” Age of Brutality ” Demo. The demo was sold already 2000 times worldwide until we got our first deal with West Virginia Recs. in 1991.
Summon: What kind of music do you play?
Hendrik & Tobias: Death Metal that is often considered old school nowadays. We pair it up with melodic hook lines and blast beats whenever we think we should. It´s a powerful combination of catchy riffing and pure massacre.
Summon: How has the fan response been?
Hendrik & Tobias: The response has been very good for all our releases so far. We got the best reviews worldwide. Always in between 75 and 100 %! And that is a good reason to listen to AiA!
Summon: Where did the band name come from?
Hendrik & Tobias: Like said before, our Drummer came up one day with the band logo and we all agreed. We had a few other names before, like for example” Artificial Intelligence” and stuff like that… hahaha.
Summon: Introduce the band members and what they do in the band.
Hendrik & Tobias: First of all there are the two left founding members, Henne on guitars and Sascha on drums who rejoined OBSCENITY in 2011. They grouped up with Christopher on guitars and Joerg on bass in 2011, too. For a couple of months there´s also a new singer, named Tobias.
Summon: Who writes the music? Lyrics?
Hendrik & Tobias: The music has been written by the guitar players and the drummer. The lyrics are the vocalists business. We act like many other bands in this genre i think. First of all there were riff ideas. Then the drummer came up with a rhythm and patterns. The riffs were arranged and edited, and finally the vocals were set up.
Summon: And where do the lyric ideas come from?
Hendrik & Tobias: Like every Obscenity songs the lyrics came from the vocalist. He is the one who has the ideas for the themes and has to perform and sing his mindset.
Summon: What is your view in Satanism and Occultism?
Hendrik & Tobias: We don´t give a shit about religion and spirituality at all. The problem with Satanism is that everyone has his/her own interpretation of what it means, like the hundred of Christian sects. For us there are no gods, that´s all about it.
Summon: How many albums/CD’s have you released?
Hendrik & Tobias: So far we have released album Nr. 8 last year. It was ” Atrophied in anguish”, released via Apostasy Records our current label. We also have released 2 Demo cassettes in the beginning of the 90th….
Summon: Tell me about some the songs on the latest CD?
Hendrik & Tobias: Okay, that would be a very long answer.. hahaha but Atrophied in Anguish contains 10 songs and each of them sounds different like the other.. every song has it´s own character. we like to experiment with different tempos and harmonics.. and that is what makes the stuff very interesting. i have written 90% of the CD and made the arrangements on my own, but there are 2 songs we had arranged together out of the rest from another song, and this song is a very strong one and shows the way to the next Obscenity chapter.. I am talking about the title track AiA.. but there will be another change… this will be the Voice from our new vocalist Tobias Mueller. He is a fixed member and a famous replacement for Jeff, who left the band a few month ago….
Summon: Do you have any side projects?
Hendrik & Tobias: There´s no place for any side projects if you´re playing in Obscenity, because everyone of us hates colliding time schedules. We´re all devoted enough to take care for the one band that is important to us.
Summon: Who are some of your musical influences?
Hendrik & Tobias: Hmm, we started in the late eighties where only a few death metal bands were existing. we heard Sepultura, Morbid Angel and stuff like that but on the other side we were influenced by Kiss. That was the main influence for Sascha and me and in my opinion you can hear a lot of hard rock influences mainly in the solos…
Summon: Which current bands?
Hendrik & Tobias: When I am in song writing mode, I always get in distance to other music. it is very important for me so sound not like another band of this genre. but hey, to be honest…. every guitar riff sounds like something you heard before. it is because Death Metal riffs seems to be limited on a few scales and notes.
Summon: What is the band like when you play live?
Hendrik & Tobias: When we play live the front rows went crazy and the guys beyond are listening and sing along or just enjoy the scene. it is very important for us to sound good and as possible as on CD, hahaha.. but everyone knows about the local mixing guys 😉
Summon: Have you guys ever played in another country?
Hendrik & Tobias: It´s not that difficult when you´re living in Europe. The single countries are small more or less and you don´t have to go a long way to reach the next border. As we´re settled in the northern part of Germany, it´s way easier for us to play in countries like Denmark or The Netherlands than in the very south of Germany. To make it short, our last gig took place at the Stonehenge festival in Steenwijk, Netherlands.
Summon: How big of crowd shows up at shows usually?
Hendrik & Tobias: Depends on what kind of show you´re playing. If it´s a festival and you´re playing on the main stage, you´re possibly lucky enough to have a crowd like up to 20,000 people or such likes. A normal club show is usually filled with something in between a hundred to a couple of hundreds.
Summon: How is the crowd response when you play?
Hendrik & Tobias: I would say it depends on the mood… it is often a good response and we are getting a cool feedback after the shows… but maybe u know if u are a musician, u are never satisfied with yourself!
Summon: What do you think of the US Black Metal/Death Metal scene?
Hendrik & Tobias: We haven´t been there so far. So we don´t really know anything about that scene. But it seems there´s a lot of stuff going on, many gigs, many great bands. Seems to be interesting.
Summon: What do you think of the Overseas scenes?
Hendrik & Tobias: Europe´s great, no questions about it. Here are so many festivals, such a huge amount of people involved and interested in Metal, you can visit a show literally every day – okay, depends on where you live. Definitely no boredom in the European Metal scene!
Summon: What are some of new favorite black metal/death metal bands?
Hendrik & Tobias: Typical stuff, I´d say. Like Carcass, Cannibal Corpse, Brutality, Deicide. Whatever, you name ´em, there are so many.
Summon: When do you guys plan on writing any new material?
Hendrik & Tobias: We already started writing some new material and will continue during autumn and winter. In spring we should be able to rehearse a lot and maybe summer, who knows, it´s time to start recording the outcome. Be prepared!
Summon: What does the future hold for the band??
Hendrik & Tobias: Hopefully a lot of interesting places to play many shows at. Definitely a new record sooner than later. We´ll see what opportunities we´ll get and what we´ll be able to achieve.
Thanx for the Interview and stay obscene!
Contact them at:
https://www.facebook.com/Obscenity.Official
http://obscenitywebshop.bigcartel.com/
