Live-Metal.Net - Interviews: Susperia

What do you get when you have a band of former members of Norwegian black metal titans Dimmu-Borgir with influences such as Machine Head, Pestilence and Slayer? You get Susperia, one of the standout thrash metal bands in recent years. Their new album, Cut from Stone, builds on elements from their best-selling album, Unlimited, which featured the breakthrough songs "Chemistry" and "Devil May Care." Cut from Stone (Read review) takes Susperia's sound to a new level while retaining an accessibility that is uncommon among today's metal bands.

Jeff Maki of Live-Metal.net talked with Susperia's bassist, Memnock. He tells us all about the new album, the band's relationship with Dimmu Borgir and, last but not least--whatever you do--don't say Susperia sounds like Testament!

Live Metal: What's up, Memnock? This Jeff of Live-Metal.net. I must say that your new album Cut from Stone is a modern thrash masterpiece. (Read review) I think you've expanded on what you started with Unlimited and the result is even stronger this time around. Tell us what goals you had for this album before setting in to record.

Memnock: Hi, man. The main goal was to make an album just as good if not better than the previous album. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do, as I think Unlimited was a great album and still is. But I think we managed to do it anyway. I believe that we have managed to take another step forward in the evolution of Susperia.

I think that there were specific standouts from Unlimited including "Chemistry," "Devil May Care" and "Home Sweet Hell." Did you use these or any songs as framework when writing new material for Cut from Stone?

Well, as a starting point it is always smart to use the same recipe if it is a good one. We never try to copy songs from previous albums, but in the long run everyone, even us, tends to have a set way of writing songs. We just have to make sure that it does not get boring for us or the fans. We don’t want every song sounding the same. The music we make is from the heart, we try not to think too much over what and how we make it. We like to let it flow and see where it takes us.

Hmm ... Daniel did the final mix. We actually did the recording at Strand Studio with Marius Strand. But nevertheless it was a fantastic experience for us as a band to watch Daniel work with the mixing. We learned quite a lot regarding sound and so forth. He opened our eyes to some new things. Daniel is very professional and he has strong opinions about how he likes things to sound, which in most cases is a very good thing. There were a couple of occasions when we were unsure about what he was doing, but it turned out well in the end. When you live and work on a recording for a long time, you can get too close and lose objectivity. So having Daniel come in for the mix was good. He could see things from a different perspective.

We were looking at the song "Brother" for the video, but it’s still being planned. We just need to find the right producer that we feel can justify the story and the song in the video. It is too good a song to waste on some cheap home video so we have to see what happens.

Man, I don’t even know what goes through [lead vocalist] Athera's head when he writes the lyrics. He gets his inspiration from his personal experiences and from what he sees is going on in the world. So we have songs about war, drugs and everyday life. He is a profound writer and has lots of crazy ideas about everything. It’s hard to be specific, so it is very much in the eye of the beholder. Everyone takes something different from the lyrics. It’s really cool that people can get their own different understandings from the lyrics.

The album has already had success in the U.S., being added to CMJ's Loud Rock Chart and such. Is the U.S. a priority for the band this time around?

We absolutely, deeply and utterly want to get over to the U.S.A., but sometimes forces that we have no control over get involved. Which usually means money and being able to make it work financially. Touring can be hard at times and we want to have the right conditions. Don’t get me wrong, we are not asking for busses and hotels every night, we just want to make sure that if we get to start a tour in the U.S. that we can get to finish it. I’ve heard so many stories from other bands who have suffered and been ripped off.

Susperia was supposed to open up for Edguy during their North American tour. You guys had to drop off, so what happened with this?

Again it was about the financial situation. The news about the tour was announced before everything was tied up. We have a label in Europe and a different label in the U.S.A. and somewhere down the line things got a little mixed up.

Your drummer, Tjodalv, broke his ankle earlier this year and had his first show back on Oct. 2. How did the incident occur and how was it having him back behind the kit?

It was really just a stupid accident; it was the time of year when we still had snow in Norway. It had turned to ice and fresh snow fell on top making things a little dangerous. I don’t think Tjodlav realized this. He slipped on some ice and fell on to his ankle and broke it. It was a nightmare for various reasons; we were just three weeks away from going out with W.A.S.P. on a European tour, we didn’t know if we should cancel it or what. In the end we got a stand-in drummer [Anders Haave from Blood Red Throne] to do the tour, but we felt really disappointed that Tjodalv had to miss the tour. I know he was devastated and heartbroken. Having him back was like getting back your lost brother or like getting back an amputated arm, man it was great.

For those who don't know, Tjodalv is formerly of Dimmu Borgir. Give us a brief history of how the band Susperia came to be.

Well around 1998 Tjodalv used to get together regularly with our guitarist Cyrus to share ideas and write songs, and Susperia was born from there. At the time he was still with Dimmu, but he left them in 1999 to concentrate fully on Susperia and get a band together. Tjodalv bumped into Athera at the Wacken Festival in Germany of all places and handed him a CD of the ideas he and Cyrus had been working on. Athera liked the songs and agreed to join the band. Me and Elvorn were already in a band with Athera and he suggested that we come along, so we did and the line up was complete.

Yes. We are still close friends of the Dimmu guys and we party every so often. Mustis lives close to me and we get together regularly to put the world right … [laughter]

There were originally some legal problems with the band name, correct? What happened?

No, we never had any problems. The band name was taken from the film Suspiria. We simply changed the name into Susperia to avoid any possible future legal situations that might happen. It was just some forward thinking really.

For myself, it sounds like Testament has been a huge influence on Susperia. Is this accurate and what other bands have influenced your sound?

Ahhh ... the Testament question. A very convenient and easy comparison, but to say we were influenced by Testament is wrong. I think the comparison overshadows all the other things that go on in our albums. The Testament thing is just a coincidence. It’s a compliment that people think we are as good as Testament, but we never sat down and said let’s do a Testament album. There’s no point. I don’t think our first album Predominance was inspired by Testament, do you? What about Machine Head, Pantera, Overkill, Slayer, Death, Obituary, Pestilence and so on ... these are the bands we listened to as a kids. I’ve become a great Testament fan, but that was only since we toured with them in 2005. Before then I didn’t know much about them.

Athera actually joined Testament onstage recently. Tell us how all that came together.

I set it up as a birthday present for Athera. It was his 30th birthday. They were playing a festival in Norway, so I just called up the guys and asked if they wanted to do it and they said hell yeah. We had a blast when we toured with them and made some good friends, so they were well up for the idea.

We want to tour as much as possible and definitely want to include the U.S.A. in those plans. We want to keep the momentum going, but touring is becoming an expensive thing to do, especially for smaller bands. Record labels have smaller budgets for touring nowadays. Album sales are suffering because of illegal downloading, so it all has a knock on effect and we are noticing it. I saw an illegal download site that was showing our new album had been downloaded 20,000 times. Now if that is an accurate figure, it’s a lot of lost money that could help us.

I have heard that you are not a satanic band even though your lyrics may suggest otherwise. So what are your views on religion in general?

[laughter] How do the lyrics suggest otherwise? We are a non-political, non religious band, satanic - YEAH RIGHT.

Is there anything else you'd like to say or that fans need to know about Susperia?

Thanks to everyone who keeps believing in the band. It’s people like you and the fans that makes it worthwhile. We will continue to play true Norwegian thrash metal.