The underground metal community is these days revisiting a bygone era via a new wave of bands that authentically play a classic style of heavy metal. Ghost and In Solitude are only two of the acts with the highest profile and better quality material. Sweden’s Witchgrave are right up there, but somehow during the review process of their debut EP The Devil’s Night they got me thinking of Germany in the 80’s. There is something really loose about the music of Witchgrave, something spontaneous that may or may not come from the fact that at the time of the recording the band was a duo. It took months to get this interview back to me and by the time it did, Witchgrave had evolved into a quartet. With new material being developed as of now, I am quite certain we can expect great things. Read on and spread the word...

DS - Witchgrave is a duo. You guys hail from Växjö, Sweden which I far as I can tell it is a pretty small town with less than 70,000 inhabitants. My question is, does that have anything to do with the band being a duo?

Actually, we are now 4 members in the band, me (Jocke)-bass vocals, Sven-drums, Gabbe-guitar and Tobbe-guitar. But it’s true we started as a duo. The band started with me and Sven writing some songs which we decided to record. And since I’m not a very good guitar-player we asked Gabbe to play some ‘guest-solos’ on the songs and he did. I think the plan was to release the recording ourselves as a demo tape, but then we got in contact with High Roller Records and Metal Inquisition Records and they wanted to release it so they did. Then we decided that Gabbe should be a full-time member in the band, and we also started to look for one more guitarist so that we could play live, so then Tobbe joined the band too.

Yes, Växjö is quite a small town, but I think there are quite many people here who are into metal. Some other metal/hard rock bands from Växjö worth mentioning are Antichrist, Bullet, The Scams, Birdflesh, Entrails, Eviscerated. I think most people who are into metal in Växjö know each other, and you meet people at parties or the pub or the swimming hall.

DS - You two are also part of a death metal band called Eviscerated. What happened to the band?

Yes, that’s true and Gabbe was also a members of Eviscerated, and no that band is not very active. We have all been busy with other bands and projects but maybe we’ll record something in the future. I don’t know if we decided to form Witchgrave. I think it just happened, we wrote some songs and then we just continued to make songs. Eviscerated and Witchgrave are two very different bands, Eviscerated is/was a death metal band and Witchgrave plays some kind of heavy metal (call it what you want), so no, I don’t think the music of Witchgrave would fit in Eviscerated.

DS - You guys were or are also in a band called Antichrist. Is that band still active? Please elaborate a little bit about this band.

Sven and Gabbe are in Antichrist and yes, they are active and they will soon release their debut album. I can’t really tell anything about them since I’m not in the band, but it’s a great band. Also, Witchgrave and Antichrist share the same rehearsal place. I don’t know if any band takes priority over the other, that’s something that we haven’t discussed. We haven’t been in a situation where we have to choose. But I guess Gabbe and Sven see Antichrist as their main band because they started that band before Witchgrave.

DS - With so many projects going on, what is the motivation behind Witchgrave? What do you think you can express with this band that can’t be expressed with the others?

I think the motivation is just to write good songs and play the kind of music we would like to listen to ourselves. There is no deeper thought behind it.

DS - I heard somewhere that the Swedish government is generous enough to provide grants to people who want to get into music. Is that the case? What part does the government play in helping out musicians? Rehearsal spaces. Please elaborate on how this works.

Hmmm, yes, that’s probably true, hehe, haven’t thought about it so much since I don’t know how the situation is in other countries. The only thing I know is that it’s easy to get rehearsal places. That has never been a problem. Actually, we pay nothing for our rehearsal place because it’s some kind of education association.

DS - A friend told me that the best 80’s metal records have been released in the current decade. What do you think about that? Would you agree? Why do you think it is that there are so many bands playing a classic style and doing it so well, in some cases better than the originals? Please elaborate.

No, I think all 80’s metal records were released in the 80’s, hehe. I don’t know, we just play metal the way we think metal should be played. And I don’t think of our music as classic or 80’s metal, I just call it metal.

DS - Let’s talk about The Devil’s Night. First thing that struck me was the cover. Pretty awesome. It’s a little bit trippy. Please talk about the concept behind it. Can you please describe it a little bit?

Yeah, it’s a really nice cover. The guy who painted it is Kristoffer Palmgren, a friend of ours and he was also a member of Eviscerated. We just asked him to do a cover for our MLP and he did, so I don’t know what he had in his mind when he painted it, hehe. He had heard the songs so I think he just painted what he thought fitted to the music and he did a great job.

DS - About The Devil’s Night. Why did you decide to start with an EP instead of waiting around for a full-length? Was this all the material you had written at the time?

As I wrote before, the idea was to make a demo-tape but instead it turned out as a mlp. And no, we didn’t have more songs at that time. Hmmm, I don’t know I think I had some ideas for the songs since long time ago, but it didn’t take long time to finish them. I think we rehearsed like three times before we started to record. And one song wasn’t even finished, we changed the whole song after we recorded the drums so it became a different song from the one we recorded the drums for.

DS - How would you describe the sound of the band? It's old but still fresh. Are there any older bands that you hold as templates to what you are doing with Witchgrave? Influential bands? Is it pure heavy metal? Is it very European?

Maybe I would say we play some kind of heavy metal, but with a lot of other influences too. We listen to a lot of different styles, heavy / speed / thrash / black / death / doom metal, punk, 70’s rock and so on. Some people say it sounds like a mix of Venom and Mercyful Fate, and that’s cool because they are both great bands. I don’t know if we sound European. I don’t think that’s something you can hear in the music. I wouldn’t say we are NWOBHM because that’s something that happened a long time ago, but we like many bands from this era and I think you can hear that in our music. I don’t know what you mean with fresh but no we are not trying to do anything new or modern, but that doesn’t mean we are some kind of retro band, we just do what comes natural for us.

DS - Witchgrave play a style that’s very 80’s. I said in my review that it made me think of German bands that came from coal mining towns. I am not sure why, but I think about that when I listen to The Devil’s Night. What is it that you had in mind when you recorded the album? It has got this very authentic 80’s feeling. The sound is dead on vintage. How did you achieve this?

We just wanted a raw and not overproduced sound with a dark feeling to it.  We recorded everything ourselves with a portable studio in our rehearsal place, and I think it turned out great. I don’t know how we achieved it. Maybe it was the alcohol in our blood.

DS - Has Witchgrave been gigging around much?

We have done seven gigs, only in Sweden so far but we will play at Live Evil in London in October. No, I don’t think we’re planning to be a touring band but I don’t know what will happen, I mean we haven’t released a full-length album yet so right now we don’t have any bigger plans.

DS - As far as new recordings, when and what can we expect a full-length from Witchgrave?

That depends on when we have enough material, but I think we will start to record at the end of this year. I think the music will be in the same style but better and more varied since we will put more time into it. And since we are two more members in the band now and we all write and arrange the songs together that will affect too.

DS - Finally, what are you listening to right now?

Johnny Bode

DS - Last words?

Beware the release of our full-length album.

MySpace

Read our review of The Devil’s Night

Interview by Bobby Peru