One of the highlights of 2014 was Bloodbath’s album death metal masterpiece Grand Morbid Funeral with the addition of new vocalist Nick Holmes of Paradise Lost.
I was able to catch up with bassist Jonas Renkse to discuss the album
Grand Morbid Funeral is a great album, one of the true highlights of 2014, What was the mindset like when you guys hit the studio?
– To create a death metal album we would have loved ourselves, back in 1990! To find the certain kind of darkness that some bands had, back then.
The album shows a lot of elements of classic death metal as well as some elements of doom metal, thrash metal and almost black metal spread out across the album. Was there a particular goal or sound you were trying to achieve on this album?
– Just a little bit of everything that’s good within the extreme metal genre, things that we have picked up along the way the last 25 years or so, influences, inspiration, everything compressed to an albums worth of music.
With bringing Nick in on vocals, what was that process like and how did this change the writing process?
– It didn’t change the writing process, but rather boosted it! We wanted to do a real old school sounding album, and what better then to have one of the godfather voices of true death metal?
Did Nick bring in any idea or add any elements that you were able to capitalize on that you wouldn’t have been able to do so before without him?
– He did a couple of lyrics, which I think was fun and inspiring. Also, once he was here to record, we could discuss and “produce” the vocals together. A lot of good ideas were done on the spot.
Being considered a death metal super group what do you feel the future of death metal is, a return to a more classic old school sound or branching out into other areas incorporating other genres
– I think it will always move forward but sometimes in a regressive way. I think we can see a lot of bands going back to basics. To me, that’s great because I really like what death metal sounded like 25 years ago.
What are the plans for 2015? Is there any chance of an Australian tour?
– We have 13 festivals to play, but that’s it. Unfortunately, it is pretty much impossible for us to commit to a tour since our main bands are quite busy and time consuming…
Are there any Australian bands you’ve heard or toured with that you would consider yourselves fans of?
– Never toured with an Australian band… would love to come back though, one of my favorite places in the world!
Any last words you want to leave your Australian fans with?
– Please attend our grand morbid funeral!
Grand Morbid Funeral is available now
https://www.facebook.com/bloodbathband
http://bloodbath.biz/
https://twitter.com/BloodbathBand
http://www.nervegas.com.au/bloodbath-grand-morbid-funeral-deluxe-mediabook-ed
http://www.nervegas.com.au/bloodbath-grand-morbid-funeral-lp
