TVL: Hello Charlene! Thanx for the great review! Severe Torture got together as band in 1997 but before that, bass player Patrick, drummer Seth and I played together in different (cover) bands for a couple of years. The three of us went to the same school and that’s where we met. After playing those covers for some years (Metallica, Slayer, Death, Grave, Entombed, Cannibal Corpse, Autopsy & Hypocrisy to name a few…) we decided it was time to write our own songs and start a serious band. That was in 1997, we wrote 5 songs and recorded a demo in 1998.

CR: You have been attributed to Death Metal legends Cannibal Corpse in the past, do you think you have evolved beyond this? And what do you think are your inspirations for your more recent material?

TVL: I definitely think we have created our own style over the years. When we started we were very much influenced by Cannibal Corpse and a little bit Suffocation & Dying Fetus I guess. After our second album we moved away from that and started to combine different elements like old-school death metal and a hint of thrash metal with our original sound as well as guitar leads since we added Marvin as extra guitar player in 2003. With ‘Slaughtered’ we created exactly what we had in mind and I think it’s the perfect combination of our first 2 albums with 3 and 4. With ‘Slaughtered’ our inspiration wasn’t certain bands but more the lack of brutal bands that write good songs nowadays. Except a few bands of course…..

CR: What was the Death Metal scene like back in 1998? And has it changed much since then?

TVL: I think the scene then was much easier and clearer than nowadays. There were the ‘big’ bands who were around since the eighties, early nineties and of course a lot of underground bands. There was no myspace or facebook so every contact had to be personal or through paper mail. Shows drew a lot of people and everyone was buying cd’s & shirts. Nowadays the scene is chaos and every band can use the internet to promote themselves, even if they suck big time. A lot of bands tour their ass of and there are many, many shows. Too many in my opinion. You can see some foreign bands more than 5 times a year!

CR: You toured with Death Metallers Macabre, what was that like? Any crazy stories to tell?

TVL: What happens on the road stays on the road, hehe! We had a very good time with them, it was our first well-organised tour and it turned out to be a big success with a lot of sold out shows. The tour also included Broken Hope, which of we were fans since their early years, and we had lots of alcoholic parties every night! CR: What is your favourite performance to date? Are there any places that you have not played that you would love to visit?

TVL: Pff, that’s a tough one! I really enjoyed our first tour in Mexico but our show in Athens was also awesome. Doing that tour with Cannibal Corpse was great too, I still have good memories of the London show, it was crazy! We would love to go to Japan & Australia in the future and a good US tour would be cool again too! And playing in the UK again would be nice. Maybe one of your festivals wants us for 2011. Who knows!

CR: Do you think the Death Metal scene is dying out, with less people attending gigs? What’s your view on why you think this could be happening?

TVL: Like I said, I think there are too many shows (and too many shitty bands). Bands are asking higher fees nowadays because they’re not selling that many cd’s anymore and that makes tickets more expensive. In Holland the big shows still sell out but all the smaller underground shows suffer from the overkill. I hope eventually the scene heals itself, with only good bands remaining and not doing too many shows. A show should be something cool to look forward to, not something normal that happens 3 times a weekend!

CR: What instruments are you using, and do you have any endorsements? If not who would you like to be endorsed by?

TVL: Our drummer uses a Tama drum kit and is endorsed by Amedia cymbals and Balbex drumsticks. Marvin uses Jackson guitars (Warriors) and is endorsed by them. We both use the Peavey 6505 guitarhead and are also endorsed by them. I play a Gibson Les Paul Custom and would love to have a Gibson endorsement to buy a second one for a nice price! But that’s only a dream I guess…. For strings we are endorsed by SIT strings. Our bass player plays Tobias basses and Gallien Krueger amps for which he also is endorsed.

CR: Are there any particular films, books, etc. where you get ideas for your lyrics?

TVL: Seth and Marvin are responsible for the lyrics so I guess you would have to ask them. As far as movies it’s probably horror and violent movies. I know Seth reads a lot about serial killers & forensics. Of course the daily news will also influence their writing. Especially all the paedophilia in the church…..

CR: Have you a favourite track off the new album ‘Slaughtered’?

TVL: Ah, that’s a difficult one. I like all the tracks but for me there are a few standing out because of their diversity. Opener ‘Grave Condition’ because it starts so brutally and then evolves into an epic song with a beautiful ending. Also the song ‘Inferior Divinity’; this one starts slow and ultra heavy and then erupts in a superfast organised chaos. 3rd I would like to mention ‘Feeding on Cadavers’ because it’s just a brutal one with a sludgy middle part which reminds me of Neurosis a bit.

CR: Who came up with the impressive album artwork?

TVL: We wanted to go back to the gory cover art because these songs definitely deserve that. Another death metal band from Holland called Ichaos had a cool gory-looking cover and we decided to contact their artist and he reacted enthusiastically and created this cover for us. His name is Erik Visser and he’s also from Holland. I think he did an excellent job!

CR: Is any of the band currently involved in any other projects with other musicians?

TVL: Our drummer Seth is the octopus in this case. He’s also playing drums in NOX (in which he did vocals before) and he’s also involved in a doom project called Extreem Cold Winter. He recently did drums for the Spanish band Infected Flesh for their promo and will do a full-length with them I believe. For the rest our singer Dennis sometimes joins this Dutch cover band Stormrider to do vocals in some death metal classics. The rest of us aren’t doing anything else at the moment.

CR: What’s in store for the near future of Severe Torture? Any festivals, tours (especially in the UK)?

TVL: For the rest of the year we only have a couple of Dutch & German shows planned and in November we will do a 7-date tour in Mexico again. No UK yet, hopefully that changes because we always like it there, although we did some shitty shows there…..

CR: There was a three year gap between the release of ‘Sworn Vengeance’ and ‘Slaughtered’. What did you do during this time?

TVL: Basically working from 9 to 5, haha. After the release of Sworn Vengeance we did a tour and some single shows and we started writing for the new one. We were planning to enter the studio after the summer of 2009 but then we got this stuff with Earache and we had to postpone the studio until we found a new label. That took us a few months and we started recording in January this year.

CR: Why did you split with Earache, and how are things with new label, SoM? Are they happy with your new album?

TVL: From both sides the end was reached I guess. Earache did not see any use in releasing another Severe Torture album and we were also pretty finished with them as well. Only bad thing was that they brought us the news a week before we would start recording the drums so we had to do a lot of cancelling and re-organising. But after all we’re very happy with this change. SoM is very professional and much better in communication. We get to do a lot of interviews and the album/digipack is looking awesome. Hopefully they can get Morbid Angel to take us as support act on their next tour, that would be perfect, hehe!

CR: Any plans on changing the themes of your music? Possibly with all those great coffee shops in the Netherlands there may be room for a stoner hippy band…or not?

TVL: We often think about changing everything and trying to make serious money but I guess the only product the five of us can deliver together is brutal death metal, haha! But there’s always room for a good stoner band, would love to do that. But without the smoking though……

CR: Anything to add?

TVL: Well, thanx for your questions and your nice review. Hopefully we get the chance to come back to the UK and drink some lager and eat some fish & chips! Cheers!

http://www.myspace.com/severetorture

Interviewed by Charlene Rance

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