INTERVIEW: Feral

Swedish Death Metal titans FERAL took some time to discuss their lethal music with me, so let’s get right into the carnage with David, the bands vocalist.

1. Right, let’s get right into it! FERAL plays old school Death Metal in the vein of your fellow Swedes, let’s start from the beginning and ask, which bands played the biggest influence on the FERAL sound?

Well, funnily enough we didn’t really start off with a death metal direction, but in our earliest years as a full band we played mainly covers of Norwegian black metal bands and “first wave” black metal bands, like Mayhem or Venom/Bathory. It was first when we started writing our own songs and releasing our first couple of demos that we were compared to other Swedish death metal bands, so we got into that scene and ditched the corpse paint. I’m not the sole composer in the band, even less so in the early years, but a band that inspired me very much back then was Carpathian Forest. Especially their more black’n’roll oriented stuff. Over the years Grave has been my biggest inspiration when it comes to bands from the Swedish scene, but also German thrash metal bands like Sodom have been important to me, and a couple of newer acts like High on Fire.

2. Since your inception in 2007 (according to the Metal Archives) you have released 3 full length albums, alongside a couple of demos, a split and an EP! Talk us through the progression that has occurred from each, and which do you deem the most important FERAL releases?

As most artists I’d like to say that “we’ve matured as songwriters”, even if that is the most tired answer you could give to that questions… I’ll try to go a little deeper! Our debut “Dragged to the Altar” consists mostly of re-recorded tracks from our demos, which we later wished that we’d maybe used more of the new material we had written instead as most of those tracks already felt very old to us and maybe didn’t represent us fully. The last track on the album is the song that was also written last “Malevolent Summoning”, and when you listen to it I think you can hear that this track would fit better on our later albums. After our debut we had a tough time with some member changes and trying to find a new label so a lot longer time passed before we released “Where Dead Dreams Dwell” than we had initially planned. This did however result in us having A LOT more material than we needed for an album, so this album and the following EP “From the Mortuary” was actually recorded at the same time. At this point we wanted to get more advanced, not as in technical mind you, but instead writing more intricate songs. There’s a lot more going on in the background, with bass fills and the drums playing along in the rhythm of the guitar solos and stuff like that, and the songs take more twists and turns. This kind of thinking we to took to it’s peak (so far) with the next album “Flesh for Funerals Eternal”, which is why I deem it as our most important release alongside “Where Dead Dreams Dwell”. You could say that “WDDD” is where we found our sound and “FfFE” is where we achieved it.

3. Your last two full lengths “Where Dead Dreams Dwell” (2015) and “Flesh For Funerals Eternal” (2018) are probably the most known works of the band, what do these recordings deal with in terms of moods, lyrics and overall execution? There is certainly similarities when listened to together, almost like they are cut from the same cloth. Are the two linked in any ways?

Well, as I mentioned earlier we had a lot of troubles before releasing “Where Dead Dreams Dwell”, and the name of the album is closely linked to the attitude we had in the band at that time. The dream was dead. When you’re a new band and FINALLY get signed by a label you believe that everything will be easy from now on, and that is seldom the case. The label that put out or first album was put on ice, members left during the writing of the next album and we didn’t have that many contacts in the scene yet that could point us in the direction of a decent label. So we actually recorded the whole album without a label in kind of a “last ditch effort” and tried finding a new one first after having a finished product, which proved much easier since we could show the quality of the album. Lyrically the album mostly consists of my own “ghost stories” and a couple of historical- and real life- inspired lyrics, like “Carving the Blood Eagle” and “Succumb to Terror” as well as some H.P. Lovecraft pieces. I actually re-wrote a lot of the lyrics kind of late in the process to remove some HPL-references as I felt that there is a lot of other bands doing that stuff and there has been since metal started. Not that our other lyrics are super original either, but at least it’s not that specific. I wanted to make the link between the two albums somewhat obvious, that’s why the two titles are similar in the way that they both consists of four word whereof three start with the same letter. “Flesh for Funerals Eternal” is in many was a continuation of “Where Dead Dreams Dwell”, only darker and meaner, almost the same feeling as you get when you put the two album covers (made by Costin Chioreanu) next to each other. We wanted to continue on the path we set, and how I feel right now is that we will probably continue down this road for quite some time. Lyrically it is very close as well, with almost exactly the same ratio to my own stories, “historic” themes and HPL. I’m glad to hear you’ve picked up on the connection, not that we’re trying to put out the same album again and again, but the two albums are definitely linked in our minds as well.

4. Regarding your most recent record “Flesh For Funerals Eternal” which marked your shift onto the superb Indian record label Transcending Obscurity, how did you come into contact with Kunal? A Swedish band on an Indian label is certainly something that shows the international community of the underground is not defeated by mere political borders. How is the deal working out thus far and will you remain with this fast-rising label?

Before we moved over to TOR we were signed to another label that was nearing it’s end, or at least close to becoming inactive. We were actually supposed to release our next album on this label as well, but we had an honest talk with them and said that we had to move on in order to do what was best for the band, and the label agreed with us. So there was no hard feelings there, even it was sad that us working together would come to and end. At this point a couple of the bands from this label had already moved over to TOR and we could get in touch with them to ask how their experience had been, and they were all very happy with it and I must say that we have been as well. I am surprised that since we’ve signed with the label furthest away from us physically we have experienced the best and quickest communication we’ve ever had with a label. The only “problem” we have had so far is when sending physical items, like CDs, LPs and shirts, transport time being a bit tricky and paying customs fees. We are still signed to TOR and will be releasing our next album, which is completely written at this point, through them. As well as another smaller release that we have planned as well.

5. Excellent news! Back to the last album, some of the songs have a more occult aesthetic such as “Black Coven Secrets” and “Stygian Void” while others such as “Dormant Disease” and “Vaults Of Undead Horror” are maybe more typical of Death Metal. What roles does each theme have within the band as opposed to say a singular concept? Or do these in fact all tie together?

I’ve actually tried to move a bit away from the more typ death metal subjects, that’s why there’s more of these occult, or the historical as I mentioned earlier, themes here. I don’t know why, I actually have nothing against the gore- or horror- themes, but I guess I kind of got tired of writing them and more excited about exploring other parts of the horror genre. It’s a direction I’ve decided to try to take our lyrics, but you know the band is called FERAL. So there has to be some violence in there as well. Songs like “Vaults of Undead Horror” I imagine take place in my own little mythological universe alongside songs from earlier albums, like “Altar of Necromancy” or “Inhumation Ceremony”, it helps me set the mood in these songs as well. So I would say that we have a red thread that run though a handful of the tracks, but not a singular concept. In my mind the lyrics are divided into a couple of different categories.

6. Costin Chioreanu has handled the artwork for your last 2 albums and the EP in between them. What is it about his otherworldly artwork that works so well for FERAL and is there any plans to maybe change visual direction or do you feel only Costin can convey the right visuals to accompany the soundscape you create?

Costin is so extremely talented, and also extremely expressive in his art. Every time we have let him create the art without any sort of direction from us in the band, as we believe the best art is made without any constraints. I mean, we would not want any one dictating how we should write our music. And he seems to have a tradition to create crazier art for us each time! We have just given him the album title and the song that the title comes from along with a couple of tracks that we think represent the album, and then he makes the magic happen. I personally am a fan of bands continuing to work with the same visual artist for as many albums as possible. You know how you can identify some bands albums from far away before even reading the title or logo, because you know how a (for example) Iron Maiden album is SUPPOSED to look, I love that! We have not discussed this for the next album yet, but I think that as long as we don’t make any drastic changes to the musical style we will continue to use the same visual style as well.

7. In the last few years we have seen a huge boom in “Swedish Death Metal” style bands, utilising Boss HM-2 pedals and harnessing the energies of Entombed, Nihilist, Carnage, Dismember, Grave etc. Do you see this as a positive explosion in continuing a legacy or an over-indulged trend? Personally, I see this as a great thing, as long as the Death Metal is packed with creative musicianship rather than just relying on a specific tone, do you agree or see it in a less positive light? While talking about this sound, I want to hear you opinion on why the Boss HM-2 guitar tone is so perfectly grotesque for Death Metal and what it offers your sound that say another guitar rig would not allow?

The “boom” has been going on for a surprisingly long time in my opinion. We felt that there was a boom when we were starting out using it in 2008, and that was nothing compared to how it is now. I have to agree with you, in the end it is a positive thing that the genre is getting a lot of attention, although one is afraid that the scene will become saturated because of bands, as you put it, only relying on the tone. Sometimes that seems like the tone is the only thing that people care about. Sure, comparing us to Entombed is not far-fetched most of the time, but you get the feeling from time to time that we could probably bring in as many new influences as we want and we will still get reviews where they state “THEY SOUND LIKE ENTOMBED”. Regarding my opinion of the HM-2 pedal, it has probably ruined me forever! I simply don’t think a guitar sounds like a guitar without one any more. Other than that it sets the mood perfectly, you know what you’re in for as soon as you hear it. And performance-wise you can “get away” with a lot of weird riffs that simply wouldn’t work with another guitar tone.

8. Finally, it is perhaps an awkward time to ask whether there are plans for playing live again with this virus, but do you have any such plans or at least aspirations for when you can? Building on this question, regarding FERAL’s next steps, will we hear new music from you soon after the 3 years since the last record, and if so what shape can we expect this to take?

We do have a show booked for September in our hometown, but I don’t know if that is a little too optimistic. We’ll just have to wait and see, I sure can’t wait to get back to it. Just as everybody else. If it wasn’t for this pandemic you probably would be listening to some new stuff right now. We did a studio session almost exactly one year ago now where we recorded a smaller release to keep people entertained while they wait for the next album and we were planning on recording the new album right now. But with some of the guys in the bands life situations and work we simply couldn’t motivate rehearsing any more with the current restrictions that was in place. Therefore there as been a huge delay in our plans. As the vaccine starts rolling out now we hope to be back in the rehearsal room in the next couple of weeks, both re-learning the old stuff for our shows and re-learning the new stuff in order to prepare for the studio. It sucks, but I guess we’re not the only ones in this situation. As for the direction we have been going, I’d say we are continuing on the path set on our previous albums. Swedish death metal with a lot of twists and turns, but very intense this time. We have always tried, and prided ourselves in, writing varied material, but we can’t really force ourselves into writing something that we are not in the mood for. So this time the new stuff leans more to the faster side.