MORDBRAND INTERVIEW WITH PER BODER

NAME: Mordbrand
THEY ARE:  Death Metal
FROM: Sweden
FOR FANS OF: God Macabre, Autopsy, Nihilist
LATEST RELEASE: Mordbrand / Bombs Of Hades "No Life" Split 10" (Bifrost Records)
WEBSITE http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mordbrand/121721747901195

Mordbrand may be a fairly new name on the death metal scene but they
are fronted by none other than Per Boder who is most well known for
his fierce death growl fronting the legendary Swedish death metallers
Macabre End / God Macabre back in the early 1990's. Per had taken a 20
year hiatus from death metal but in that time he hasn't lost any of
his ability to growl with the best of them, his very recogniseable
roar still very much in tact and sounds just as potent as it did on
the sole God Macabre album "The Winterlong". Anyway Mordbrand are a
great band in their own right and they have made their own mark on the
death metal scene with a string of quality releases one of the latest
being a split with Bombs Of Hades who also feature an ex God Macabre
member in the shape of Jonas Ståhlhammar. A new EP is set to be
unleashed via Deathgasm Records in the near future (note:- since this interview was done and posted up in an edited form via the Terrorizer Magazine website a new 7" has been released titled "Kolumbarium" - check it out!!).  I sent some
questions to Per:-

Please if you would be so kind give a quick background history on the band and the current line up? 

The band has been around since 2006, I joined in late 2010. We’re a three piece and the members are: Björn (guitars/bass), Rudberg (drums) and me, Per on vocals. The other guys plays together in a thrash band called The Law and have been doing music together in various projects for long.


I will get this question out of the way with early on, many people know you as the ex vocalist of legendary Swedish death mrtallers Macabre End and God Macabre but you had been "inactive" at the microphone for quite a few years and had went into some kind of death metal vocalist retirement before Mordbrand came into existence, what made you decide to form another death metal band after so many years and unleash those potent death growls of yours again? When did you feel that "fire" and urge to play death metal again?

I was approached by Björn (guitars) at a local gig and he told me about this band that he had which recorded a demo a couple years earlier that now was going to be released as a split 12” with fellow deathsters Evoke (UK). He
wanted to continue work on this band and asked if I might be interested since it was along the lines with what I did in God Macabre. I was a bit hesitant (and drunk) but I said I would check up on them. After that nothing was heard of in a while and I thought nothing more about it. I didn’t really have any urge to get in any band; it was quite a while since I left Space Probe Taurus which was the last band I ever played in. Death Metal I had not done in 20 years and had not even considered doing again. But Björn called up (or contacted me via internet most probably) and I decided to be a man of my words and try it. I rewrote some lyrics for a track, tried out and the ball was rolling. The primarily goal with Mordbrand is to play music and enjoy it, no high flying plans at all. So, I joined Mordbrand who’s been in existence since 2006, I’m not the founder.

The bands debut release was a split with UK death metal band Evoke, how did that split come about? Is it still available?.

I'm not sure if it's available still. Perhaps there are distros that still can provide it, but I'd guess it's sold out by now. It was recorded and released before I joined the band, so Björn did the vocals. The moniker was invented because it was needed for this release – and they weren't a fully functional band back then. But after that 12" was released, it gave the guys a will to continue which later lead to my involvement. Björn (L)ars(s)on (strings) is an old friend of John Redfern's (EVOKE's vocalist), and he had sent him the MORDBRAND tracks back when they were recorded and John then asked if he could release them as a split with his old band. Well, it happened!


You followed up that release with a 6 song EP called "Necropsychotic" which was released by American label Deathgasm Records, how did that deal come about? Are you satisfied with the work they have done for the band so far? Please tell the readers abit about this EP in your own words and what they can expect from it? What are your feelings on this recording now you have had some time to reflect on it?

Initially it was to be released by another company but that fell through and we sent out some promotion to different labels and Deathgasm was quick to offer us a deal. Since it was apparent that they knew what they were doing, we jumped aboard straight away. In terms of how I view the band, this was probably a bigger deal than I expected.    Deathgasm has been around for a while and we’re such an unknown band. I’d figure we might get some offers from smaller labels with one or two releases in their catalogue. Evan of Deathgasm laid out some plans and a timeline over how this would be done, and this has been followed straight through with perfection. So we are very pleased with how they handled our release to say the least. The EP contains all the work that I had done with Mordbrand up to that point, the two last tracks were the ones we recorded first so there is some sound issues with those and therefore should be viewed as “bonus-tracks”. Other than that we’re very pleased about Necropsychotic, it contains the blueprint of what we wanna do, old school Death Metal with some bits that maybe wouldn’t been there if the band were around 20 years ago.

 Have you got much new material in the pipeline? Are you planning on doing a full length for Deathgasm? Any new titles etc you can share with us?

We have new material coming and were working on ideas the whole time. We have no desire to make a full length at this point, but we will work with Deathgasm in the future and got some plans surrounding that right now. If we were to release a full album, Deathgasm obviously would be our first choice.


I know you have hooked up with another fellow ex God Macabre member Jonas from Bombs of Hades to collaborate on a Mordbrand/Bombs of Hades split, please tell us about this split, when will it be released etc.. How many tracks from both yourselves and BOH? What will this split be called? I heard one track "The Eternal Feast of Annihilation" and I must say it sounds devastatingly awesome!

It’s a split 10” that has just been  released as collaboration between new founded label Bifrost Rec. and Carnal Rec. (Arckanum, Craft etc). It contains three new tracks from us and 2 new tracks from BoH. We wanted to do a split of some sorts and given the history I have with Jonas of BoH it was an obvious choice. The 10” is called “No Life” and features old school DM and great artwork by Juanjo Castellano who also did the Necropsychotic cover. 

What does the name "Mordbrand" mean and why did you settle upon this name when deciding what to call the band?

It’s Swedish for arson and the guys had problems finding a good name for the band when they started out. They thought of calling it plain arson but went for the Swedish translation instead. It packs more punch in Swedish, mord = murder and brand = fire. Murderfire would have been a lousy idea though.

Lyrically what inspires you to put pen to paper?

That’s a hard one and something that’s been a bit of a challenge. I haven’t done this in a long time, but nightmare scenarios, world downfall and the bleak apocalyptic future that’s creeping up on mankind is what I tend to concentrate on. The regular DM-themes about ancient shit that’s about to return and annihilate I guess.

What bands shape and influence the sound of Mordbrand?!

Pretty much the same stuff I was listening to back in the early 90’s, Autopsy, Nihilist, Candlemass etc. There are new bands that are great as well which probably serves more as an inspiration than influence. We are all on the same page about how Mordbrand should sound, it’s a mix of what we have done in the past and maybe some new stimulus from whatever gets the shit done in an interesting way. The main concept is clear though, old school DM.

The current underground death metal scene seems VERY healthy right now, what is your personal opinion on it, any bands out there you feel an affinity with and who you would also recommend to the readers out there? How would you compare today’s scene to when you first started out in the death metal underground all those years ago when it is all fresh, new and just kicking off? What do you miss about those days? Are there any aspects of the modern scene that you do not like? 

There are a lot of commons with the scene today and that of yesterday. Loads of great bands doing basic DM picking up on the early days. I guess today bands will more be judged by the actual music since there is no media hype surrounding DM, back then there seemed to be more interest of bullet belts, black clothing, stage diving and violent lyrics.
I don’t miss anything back from then except maybe the usual hanging out and being hellbent on talking death metal all the time. Everything is based on internet these days, which in a way works very well for a band. Back then when you went to a gig it didn’t really matter where in Sweden it was, the same people had a tendency to show up whether in Strömstad or Stockholm. So you kinda belonged to a “scene” where you actually met people and traded your zines, demos whatnot. This might happen even today, but as an old geezer I miss out on that if that’s the case. I don’t feel that I belong to a scene nowadays, so I really can’t comment on that.

Have you guys started playing live yet? Or do you have any or many plans to play live, if so what can people expect from a Mordbrand live show?!

We got one show together with BoH planned, other than that we have nothing in the works. There is a logistic problem with this; we live far apart in different places in Sweden so we really have to plan how rehearsing and adding live members will come together. Everyday life is a bit more complicated today vs. 20 years ago. There are other obligations that need to be prioritized,  like it or not.

Who would you consider to be some of your personal vocal influences? At what age did you first realise you had the ability to death growl like you do?! How does it feel personally to you being active vocally again with death metal? A lot of time has passed since you left the microphone at God Macabre. You did continue with another band called Snake Machine for a while playing more fuzzrock style stuff, but you were not in that band for long, so what happened inbetween the mid 90s and forming Mordbrand? Were you involved with any musical projects worth mentioning?

I like growls that are comprehensible and not too over the top/low end. Nick Holmes from the early Paradise Lost days is always on my mind and so is Troy and Duane from Devastation. That’s what I’m aiming for when I do my stuff. My growling simple evolved through the early days with GM when we were more of a grind/noise band and my voice had to stylistically match the music when we headid into the Death realm. I was 19 when we recorded the Winterlong album, and that’s pretty much how I sound today as well.
As for Snake Machine; that band soon turned into Space Probe Taurus and I played with them (alongside Ola Sjöberg ex-GM) for about 10 years so I’d say I was with them for a very long time. The only record I did with SPT was the Insect City 7”, where also Jonas Stålhammar (again, ex-GM) was included in the line up for a short time. I had a lay-off from music for about 10 years before joining Mordbrand, didn’t do anything musically during those years. I hade no motivation at all, that’s why I left SPT.

What other bands are the members of Mordbrand currently involved with?

Björn and Rudberg has some projects, most notable the thrash-outfit The Law. Also Karensdag is a project that plays live from time to time. More grind/hardcore oriented that one.
I’m not involved in anything else than Mordbrand.


Apart from the upcoming split with Bombs of Hades what else doe the band have in the pipeline? I read something about a 7"? What are the plans for 2012 and beyond....?

Plans are to continue to churn out some quality brutality, there are some offers we’re considering and as it looks right now we’ll soon start working on a 7”. We want to do every format that is out there, so who’s up for a flexi?

I know you also teamed up with Bombs of Hades to do some guest growls on their cover of the Carnage classic - "The Day Man Lost", is this the closest we can expect to a God Macabre reunion anytime soon?! Have you even considered reforming the band at any point or do you think it is best to just let "sleeping dogs lie" and just focus on current projects/bands? Would you not rule out the possibility of a GM reunion at some point or is it definetly never going to happen ( I know Ola has always ruled it out!).

No GM reunion, we have all agreed on that. There’s no need for it. Some of the past members is involved in new bands and others have left the music scene long behind. I don’t wanna ruin all the great memories I have of what it was.. Jonas asked me if I wanted to that cover with BoH and of course I did. We used to play that one with God Macabre, so there’s somewhat of a reunion for ya!

Thanks for the interview and support, people interested in our stuff can check it out on: http://www.myspace.com/mordbranddeath http://www.reverbnation.com/mordbrand 
Buy merch/records: http://www.bifrostrecords.se/ http://www.deathgasm.com/ 
We’re on facebook and youtube as well, google it!

No life!