The Band: Mass Deception
Country: The Netherlands
Answers by: Bänziger (guitar)
Answers by: Bänziger (guitar)
In the middle of hundreds of bands that sound
almost the same you discover a kick ass album as “Revelations” and then,
suddenly and as by magic, you recover the fucking faith in Thrash Metal.
Quoting the Bänziger, the guy we interview today, it all has “aggressive
riffing, aggressive vocals, pounding drums and bass”. Read on and if you don’t
feel the necessity to listen to it then…maybe you are pointing in the wrong
direction and you should be seeking some glam metal or Aor thing. Thrash time. According
to the guys this is first Mass Deception interview ever, here, on
Metalbrothers.es (what else?). Enjoy it!
Hello Bänziger and congratulations for the best
thrash metal album of the year, at least in the opinion of the team on
Metalbrothers.es
Thank you
very much for this kind compliment. It means a lot to us that our music is
appreciated this much in Spain.
Before listening to that thrash bomb that is
“Revelations” we haven’t heard about Mass Deception, so please tell us your
story
Mass Deception
was created last year with the intention
of creating music to perform live on a stage. Music that you can play with full
intensity and fury. Getting back the fun in playing metal with five guys and
rehearsing new songs to create something wicked. We’ve got a nice group
together that sounds great when we play. So that was the main drive. Creating a
fully functional no-bull shit metal machine to put our creative souls into. I
played together with our drummer Søren since 1998. We had a band called Defcon-One and released
two demos and three full length cd’s. Our vocalist Janssen also played in
Defcon-One on the demos and on the last full length called 'The Perfection of
Slavery'. At the time of recording the three of us were the only ones left in
Defcon-One, so it became more of a project then a band that could play live. We
asked Van Den Beuken to join Defcon-One to play bass. He’s an excellent bass
player that fitted right in. We rehearsed songs of 'The Perfection of Slavery'
to do some gigs but we played only one last gig in a local venue and decided to
pull the plug and start something fresh. New band, new name. To form Mass
Deception we needed a second guitar player who can kick ass on a guitar. So Waltmans was perfect for this band. I know
him from a band we played in together called Engine of Pain. If we jam together cool riffs and ideas pops
up, always. I had written a song called “Weapons of mass deception” and
Waltmans had written “Condemned to repeat”
so we started jamming on those songs with the five of us. Fun and energy
was back and writing songs became a natural process. Most of the songs were
written in four months time approximately. Rehearsing these songs took us a bit
more, but the decision to record the songs and put it on an album was the right
one.
It’s almost unbelievable that being a band
formed only last year you have been able to release such a great album in 2016,
you have imported some songs from previous bands or projects or something like
that?
No, all new
songs on this album. Most of the songs
were written between October 2015 till January 2016. Except for “Weapons of
mass Deception”. That is an idea I had worked out , but never used until we
started Mass Deception. The same goes for “Condemned to repeat”. This is a song
written by Waltmans.
Time to analyze what you offer in
“Revelations”. We are talking about Thrash with a dark atmosphere, great riffs
and solos and a little taste from cult acts from the past. In other words,
almost the CocaCola formula
Songs do
have kind of a formula to it. In my opinion a metal song needs bad ass riffing,
killer solos, a rolling bass, drums that make your head nod and roaring vocals.
As it being our debut album we paid a lot of attention to details you can’t do
when you play live. For example the samples and touches of synths to create
atmosphere and tie all the songs together. Twin leads, acoustic pieces and
stuff like that. Those details make the
album nicer to listen to and make the listening experience more intense.
Certainly, they do. How was the composition
process of “Revelations”? How does a band compose a masterpiece as
“Revelations”?
After we
jammed a couple of times on “Weapons of mass deception” and “Condemned to
repeat” we had a certain idea in our head of how the songs would sound like
when we play them together. Because of the jamming, new ideas formed in my head
and I started writing songs. Starting off with a riff from Waltmans or me and a
certain drum idea. Writing a lot of lyrics at the same time and fit the words
to the riffs and rhythm. All the lyrics were inspired after reading books from
Michael Tsarion, George Orwell, Michael Tellinger etc. A lot of quotes from
their minds form the lyrics. The song 'They live' is based on the movie with
the same title. That movie says it all and fits right in with the rest of the
Orwellian new world order, Annunaki vibe. After the first two songs were
finished, complete with text and vocals on it, the rest was just a matter of
inspiration and practicing a lot. Riffing together with Waltmans and working on
song structures at home and rehearse those ideas with the five of us in the
rehearsal room. After a couple of months we had enough songs ready and were so
pleased with how it sounded that we decided to record a full album. We wanted
the album to pound so we contacted Erwin Hermsen and booked the Toneshed studio
at the beginning of spring and created “Revelations” with the six of us. The
studio was intense but fun. Everyone performed at their best and a cool album
was the result. Nice times!
Awesome. There are tracks as As Above, So Below
where we feel more clearly that dark atmosphere I mentioned before
'As above,
so Below' was our newest song at the time of recording. It was the first song
Waltmans and me wrote together. Waltmans firing a thrash riff and I returned
fire with a death/thrash riff. When we wrote this song we knew exactly what we
wanted it to sound like. Epic intro and then hit the gas. It turned out heavy
and intense. Aggressive riffing, aggressive vocals, pounding drums and
bass. It certainly has a dark atmosphere
to it. Musicaly and lyricly.
Divide and Rule shows one of the stronger
points in the band: the rhythmic section, it makes your sound so powerful
I am
extremely happy with Søren and Van de Beuken as the band's rhythm section. These
guys have the perfect mix of effectiveness, power and virtuosity. They breath
metal.
We also
find some power thrash approach in Condemned to Repeat and a pure exercise of
divine brutality in They Live
Condemned
to Repeat is a 'pedal to the metal' song, we love it. They Live was and still
is a great movie so if you call a song “They live” you must do the movie honor.
The twin lead in the middle gets me on my toes every time I hear or play it.
Hahaha, it also turns me on, a beast of a song.
Another proof of your classic base is that you include an instrumental song,
Ancient of Days, where you show all your skills and good taste
The melody
in this song is the same as the melody in the intro of “As above so below”, and
the same melody is played again at the ending of “Unslaved”. Though it has no
lyrics, it fits perfectly on the album due to the melody and it’s title. Richard
Brunelle did a similar thing on “Blessed are the sick” with a brilliant
acoustic piece. In between all brutality it is an acoustic resting point. The
intro for “Unslaved” has the same effect. And after a more subtle song or
piece, the songs with drums in it have much more impact.
Defiant to the End is the top moment for us. A
psychodelic solo and a brutal pace, with a slow down end and a complete show
time by Søren
What can I
say? Søren is one of the best talented metal drummers in The Netherlands,
period. Playing live with Søren on stage is like standing in the centre of a
battlefield and have the feeling that here is no way out.
What has been the reaction to your album in The
Netherlands, a country with long tradition in Metal?
Great. We
have good reviews like from the biggest Dutch metal magazine Aardschok and a
couple of other magazines. We also got
great honest responses from friends and family which are most important for us.
Bänzigeri, in our review we have named several
bands that seems to have an influence in your sound, but we would like to know
by your own words what are really those bands?
For me my
biggest influences are the more underground bands like Coroner. I always liked
the viciousness in Tommy T. Barons riffing. Mike Davis and Sean McNenney kicked
ass in Nocturnus. Nasty Savage, Sadus,
Dark Angel, but also the bigger bands like Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Testament,
Forbidden all left a bit of a mark. Death metal bands like Pestilence, Death,
Obituary, Devastation, Demolition Hammer had excellent riffing and solos in it.
All great bands with excellent musicians. But through the years of listening to
metal you master your instrument, develop your own style and you just make
music that feels good to you. In this case vicious thrash.
And you do it very right, for all Thrash
maniacs to enjoy it. This is your first step, if there was justice in the Metal
world (I doubt it) you should have many doors opened right now, to gigs around
many countries, a big label, etc
If we had money
to spend or were good at kissing ass we could play everywhere. You have to know
people in metal world. Metal became an industry, like an image you can buy,
like Rock star bull shit. It is nice that we have some good reviews and
reactions on what we created. Things like this interview keeps the spirit up.
It is better to keep the mind focused on creating new songs than on a scene
that is rotting. To me it is all about the music not the image or money. Some
nice gigs or festivals would be nice though. So if there is any concert tour
promoter reading this: if you have a nice proposal, just contact us!
The cover,
layout and lyrics are all connected. The two individuals on the cover are two
Annunaki who are stationed on the moon Iapatus from Saturn. They alter the
vibration of the earth which effects all mankind and keeps us in a slave like
trance. A long time ago they visited
earth and mixed their DNA with ape like beings and created mankind to mine gold
for their stargate and healing. Later on they started breeding with the women
who came from these experiments and successfully created the first fertile
woman, Eve. Adam was created from the DNA of
Eve's rib. Then the creation of slaves could begin. That's how the story
goes. You can read this in the old testament, the Indian Mahabartha, the Norse
Edda and in many stories that are written in the old days. All different books,
all the same story! Nowadays, the elite
know these stories and who our original ancestors are. The bloodline of the
first line of successful sons of gods is still intact. The people who descent
from this bloodline are the people in power.....at least some of them. The cult
of Aton, the Brotherhood of the Snake, New world order, Royal blue
blood.....all the same!..Same club... They know something we don't and use that
info to herd us like sheep and destroy this planet in an Orwellian way. They
always ruled, and still do! A lot of books
were written about this subject. It is
an interest of me for a long time now and these books are a huge source for
lyrics. No religious, satanic or political bullshit lyrics, just a history
lesson and a warning for the future.
Actually, it’s very interesting. The Thrash
scene, as others, is full of many good bands but doing too many similar things
or just replicating sounds from the past. It’s not easy to surprise or at least
not sound the same as so many hundreds of bands…
I think
most of the bands sound like copies of other bands because nobody does their
own thing. Just sound like another band and you can’t go wrong. Wear the same
clothes as they did in the 80’s and you are in the safe zone. We try to be
different and we try to let our musical influences do the talking instead of a
pre-created image.
How can any guy in the world buy “Revelations”?
Easy man.
Just go to RVPrecords.com or visit our website www.massdeception.nl There you can find all the details!
Gigs… Are you touring? Any dates around for the
next months?
No there
are no gigs our touring planned yet. We are busy creating a second album and we
play gigs along the way.
Well , if you are creating another monster then
we can wait for gigs a little J But…, if this is the
first thing we get from Mass Deception, I don’t dare to imagine what we can get in the
future… any vision or forecast about it?
We are
already writing songs for a second album. I think it is going to be more like
the “As above so below” song. That song was written by Waltmans and me
together, and that is the vibe we were looking for.
Nothing to add. Thank you very much Bänziger! And
keep this level please, if you wanna add something...
Thanks for
the interview! All you Spanish metalheads be sure to like us on the goddamn
Facebook so we can stay in touch with you!
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