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Q: So I take it this is your very first appearance here in America. What do you think so far?
A: Yes, it is and we’re doing really well. We’re having a really good time. We didn’t know what to expect before we came over and until now it’s going very,
very well for us.
Beef in action.
Q: A lot different from Holland I bet, huh?
A: Yeah, you know Holland is a very small country so if we can, we’ll play some gigs there but sometimes you have
clubs that are only 50 people and the next week there could be a 100, 200 people, you don’t know so.. and here it’s a different thing there’s a tour with Cannibal Corpse and a lot
of other great bands, ya know. So now every night we have like maybe 400, 500, 600 people so for us that’s really great.
Q: Yeah, and considering your most recent success with the new album, I’d imagine that God Dethroned will finally get
the recognition it deserves, especially taking into consideration that Metal Blade has made the band a high priority act. A far cry from the time of releasing your first independent release, Christhunt, isn’t it? In fact, even til this
day, I don’t think there aren’t that many people even aware of Christhunt, correct?
A: No, because it was on a small label. It was a small German label, you know and they didn’t do that much
promotion. Actually they did nothing and they didn’t want to print the original album cover and things like that so Henri (guitars & lead vocals) started his own record label I think a
year ago and re-released the Christhunt again with the original cover and everything and it’s selling very good because it’s a great album. So yeah.. as for that German record label they were shit. Total shit.
Q: Well naturally I wouldn’t imagine an experience such as that to be anything else but that. In a way, it’s funny though
because a lot of the fans here in America automatically assume that the Grand Grimoire is your first album which came out in like ‘96. Yet God Dethroned was actually
founded around the time of late ‘90, early ‘91. So how frustrating was it for you up until now?
 A: Ahh, you know Henri is the
only original band member so I can’t tell you that. It must have been really frustrating because they were a good band then and when they released a demo tape, a lot of the critics around Europe
were very good and when they released the first album the record label didn’t do anything so for them it must be really annoying to have a good album out and not getting any response out of that.
Q: Not to jump so quickly ahead but I must comment that the new album Bloody Blasphemy is an overall big improvement. I mean, I enjoyed the Grand Grimoire
immensely but when compared to this one, it seems as though though GG was a bit rushed. You can kind of hear it in the production as well. However, with your newest
release I hear a wider variety of textures and influences surfacing about like traditional Iron Maiden and Mercyful Fate to Slayer and Morbid Angel, and that’s just one song!
A: Yeah, the first album you know was a little bit rushed but I think with the second album we had better songwriting and
recording but we did it in the same amount of time. We started the band again in ‘96 and we just came together as a project for one album. We just wanted to do a project for
one album and that’s it. We did only four rehearsals and then recorded an album. So yeah, it was little bit rushed but it came out very good and as far as production, yeah it
could have been better but we tried to make up for it on the new album, okay? But the new album we actually did it pretty fast. We only recorded on weekends and evenings
and it took.. well, I can’t tell you in hours but it took like 2 months or something and we actually wrote songs pretty fast. We have all these different kinds of ideas. Everybody
comes up with something, you know and then we just put it all together. So okay, this fits with this and this fits with that and then we make a song out of that and actually it works very good. After we did the Grand Grimoire, okay we were
playing much longer together so we started to know each other better and it seems to work out very good for us.
Q: Now the name God Dethroned is obviously self explanatory enough. So I assume that one of the goals in the band is to spread a message that is more or less
anti-Christian?
It can’t be a good idea to wear all those spikes in a thunderstorm.
A: Yeah, I think so.. especially in the early days it was and for the first album. I think all the lyrics are Satanic or anti-Xian and on the Grand Grimoire there are still songs like
that and yeah, it’s true that we have a grudge against religion. A lot of people in the Metal scene don’t like that and for us it’s fun to kick at religion. It’s shit which everybody knows but on the Grand Grimoire we did not only try to
write lyrics about that because it gets a little bit boring if you write 3 or 4 albums only based on the same issue, you know. So that’s why we try to get in other things to make it more interesting.
Q: Yeah, I agree with you there because lately there’s been like literally thousands of bands that all preach the same
thing and now it’s even gotten to the point where you can’t tell which ones are preaching it because they believe it and ones that preach it because it’s the fashionable thing to do.
A: Yeah, right. That’s not for us. We’re not trying to fall on the bandwagon. What we write in a song, we really mean it,
you know. Some of the lyrics are written like Jesus got stolen from his grave by a necrophiliac or something. That’s not too serious but that’s just what I said you know, we
just kick at religion so that’s how we try to do it. For the other songs we wrote a lot about Dutch history which has a lot to do with sailing history, you know about exploring
other countries. So we have something like, ”Okay, this may be a good thing to have some lyrics written about,” so we try to get our inspiration from that and as far as we
know no other band in Holland does this. So for us this is pretty original.
Q: Well, there’s no doubt in my mind that there’s a humorous side to all of this. Of course one song that
presently comes to mind is “Under a Silver Moon.” I mean, it’s downright sick and cruel how the Virgin Mary is portrayed as a whore, not to mention a whore that
fornicates with the devil to add insult. Let me be the first to say that the song has got to be one of the most blasphemous pieces I’ve heard in such a long time! Yet, the
lyrics are ironically funny to say the least.
A: Yeah, well that’s what I’m trying to say. You can’t try to be really serious about this kind of thing you know, but I
think some people in Metal are. However for us, it’s like we’re anti-Christianity though we’re not Satanists. We’re not worshipping anyone. We just try to do what we like to
do. It’s our life. We do what we want with it and not to follow any kind of thing.
Enormous fart, stage right.
Q: Right, I’ll tell ya though most of the lyrical standpoint kind of makes me recall the early days of Venom. Back in like
‘81, they came off musically and imagewise as a heavily Satanic Kiss. Basically, it was all about spectacle to them more or less.
A: Yeah, that’s true and I like Venom very much. Maybe the playing isn’t very good but at that moment when it was new
and nobody had seen this kind of thing it was like, “Alright! This is cool,” and maybe that’s the sort of thing we like to do with the lyrics.
Q: You also mentioned that a lot of the lyrics were inspired by Dutch history as well which I find to be very interesting.
In fact, both “Firebreath” and “Soul Capture 1562” are just two examples that illustrate that. Now I was wondering if you can clue me in as to what those two songs are about
specifically or rather where exactly did those stories originate out of?
A: Alright. “Firebreath” is about Michael DeRuyter. I think everybody knows him, well most people do I think. He
started a war against England and England is very close to Holland. And so he sailed the river Thames and bombed the English. There’s no other country that did that you know
and for us it was a cool thing to write lyrics about. The other lyrics for “Soul Capture” are about the Flying Dutchman and that’s a real known story. There was a ship full of slaves
sailing out of Africa but it sunk ya know. Since then a lot of sailors claim that if you happen to see the Flying Dutchman, ya know the ship, you will be doomed and your ship will be
gone forever. It fits a little bit in with mythology, and we like that a lot. So again it was cool to write about.
Rolf: source of stage right fart.
Q: As far as future material is concerned, will there be any other subjects of interest that perhaps you’d care to research and write about?
A: Maybe, we don’t know yet because we have only a few songs ready for the new album and it’s only like 2 or 3
maybe. The music is ready but for lyrics we have some ideas but I really can’t tell what’s going to be on the next album. I think it’ll be like the previous two albums so don’t
expect a different thing. I don’t think that will happen.
Q: Although God Dethroned firmly re-established itself around 96, it appears though that the band has re-emerged
at the tail end of the so called Death Metal explosion. Between the time of 91 to 94, Death Metal was huge but now that it’s sort of obsolete where does God Dethroned fit in?
A: Yeah, we talked about that a lot because in Europe like 4 or 5 years back Black Metal came up really strong and after
Death Metal was dying out a little. So when we recently started again in 96 we were like, “Okay, we don’t want to be a Black Metal band.” All of us as musicians have roots in
Death Metal but we like certain things in Black Metal which are the melodic parts and things like that. So we try to write songs that are in-between and maybe it’s not done on
purpose but they all came out that way. However, I heard that Black Metal is now coming on in the United States really strong and I think in Europe it already has reached the top.
Okay, now I can’t say this because you don’t know for sure but I think Black Metal in Europe is already on its way back. So I think with us fitting in between these two styles and
having a little bit of thrash in it as well, we have a good mixture and if we keep on writing songs like this it’ll stay very brutal. That’s what we want you know. We don’t want
to get soft. We want to stay fast and brutal, that’s the main thing but we want to keep most of the melodic parts as well. So yeah, I think we can survive if we keep it that way.
Q: Right and I think the key factor here is trying to maintain your own identity. You see, back in 91 when Death Metal
became unexpectedly huge, you had Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Deicide, Obituary, and Death. So those were the top 5 bands right there. However, then you had 20 or
30 other bands that were beginning to sound like them just because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. On the other hand, that’s not really the case with God
Dethroned because I said earlier, there’s definitely a more wider range of influences taking part other than just Death Metal.
A: Yeah, as I said we try to keep it that way. The thing about songwriting is that everybody comes up with their
own part and then we try to mix it all together. And the way that we’re working now it works good. So why change that?
Q: So when you say that everyone comes up with their own part would it be safe to say then that everyone has a fair share of the responsibility?
I can’t be the only one that noticed how much Henri looks like Patrick Stewart of Star Trek and recent X Men movie fame...
A: Okay, somebody might write more than the other one but basically we all do our part.
Q: I see but do all four of you tend to come from different backrounds altogether, musically speaking that is?
A: Well, our private backrounds are almost similar but musicwise it’s way different. We all have a little bit of an age
difference so that means a lot. One person might be more into technical Death Metal and I, for instance tend to like a lot of Black Metal. Our drummer tends to incorporate a lot
of Grindcore elements and things like that. So I think that’s also why we have a good mixture of all these things.
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