DEVIAN

Metal anthems

-It took me only one hour to get into the album. It's very intense, brutal, melodic and catchy in some way. It doesn't require 100000 listenings to get into. Was it your goal, while you were working on that album, just to record a bunch of assfucking, exploding right-in-your-face kind of songs?
Yes, dead on. The first pet peeve we got about the first album was that the songs were too long and going in too many places, we wanted to keep the sound we initiated there but just go and make an allout no bullshit metal album that still would last a lot of listens but that would not require too many listens to get into.

-BTW, is that a true that most of the stuff for the new album was written by Emil during your previous tour with VADER?
Emil is a mad songwriter and anyone knowing his capacity should be envyous of his talent, I know I am haha! We had most ideas ready before the tour but kept working on them throughout the whole Vader tour. Me and Emils standing tradition was to watch Vader every night, and we were discussing afterwards all the time about how timeless and ever-green their songs are and that also influenced the album a lot. But of course Emil couldn´t help himself but to write and write and write throughout the whole tour. We did some outtakes in the portable studio for Devian III on the tour already haha! I´ve written 3 new drafts for the next album, Joinus 3 and Tomas the same I think, Emil is up to 20 or 25 so far! What will end up on the disc and how it will sound is yet to be decided since we all modify eachothers ideas so much, and we discard everything that not everybody are fully content with, we aim to never have any fillers even amongst the bonustracks. But to call this guy any less than a Metal genious is an understatement in my book.

-Compared to „Ninewinged Serpent" your newest effort seems to be much more coherent, direct and vicious. What does it come from? It seems that you guys have achieved a point of maturity that you have not been able to capture on your previous album which was more chaotic in some way...
Yes, "Ninewinged Serpent" me and Emil wrote mostly in our homestudios and then we puzzled everything together and with Joinus coming into the band he made everything more guitar oriented but it was still a jigsaw puzzle by a non rehearsing band. With Tomas coming into the band we reached a new level since his musical background is totally different and his talents lies elsewhere than the rest of us. He would stand stroking his chin listen to something and say "This is a frygian riff, if we do it in harmonic minor it´ll kick ass" and then he goes about it and it morphs into something else. The things he has added to the music was the piece that none of us others could.

-„Ninewinged Serpent" was actually a pretty good album. I remember you as you were really happy with the way how that album turned out. How happy are you with your debut release now? Are you still completely and totally chuffed with its content, or maybe now you would like to make some changes here and there?
I love it for what it was and is, the launch of Devian and where we all were at the time. Living in different countries, getting to know eachother and experimenting a lot to get rid of the Marduk tag. Some of the songs we´ll always enjoy to play live and "...Illfated" would not have turned out like it did if we didn´t have had "Ninewinged...." as the platform to launch from.

-DEVIAN doesn't strive to do things untypical and ultra- original way. I read on the promo reverse that in your writing system you focus mainly on oldschool spirit and perfectly written structures & melodies instead of showing off your technical skills and exploring some unconventional musical territories. Why do you think that the way you write songs for DEVIAN is so rare and special nowadays? Isn't predictable in some way?
Yes it is predictable to some extent sure, we have verses/choruses and leads etc because that´s stuff Metal anthems are made out of and we are more interested in having a great flow in the music and write sing a long stuff, be it be nasty and wicked but still, instead of impressing with math skills on our instruments. I always thought the one who can write a timeless song that invoke a lot of emotion than a super tech shredder band that´s fantastically complex and well executed white noise. We all enjoy music like Opeth or Meshuggah and they are kings of what they do because it comes naturally for them obviously to develop in the direction they both have done, but for us where we want to go and where we feel our strenghts lies are in catchyness and melody. If I should put it short we take Judas Priest over Atheist any day of the year.

-Luckily, the album contains all the best elements of metal at its best and true to the bone. There's neither strange experimentations nor that popular emo bullshit trend. How do you keep your music safe from all those modern viruses?
I think on proving ourselves in any way than writing and playing all around good music we have all done that in some way in the past. Emil being progressive and tech with his Legion and I being insane on Panzer Division Marduk for instance. And when that first rush of blood to the head wore off I atleast felt that there was nothing there to explore. Elitists be damned but the truth to me is that music is just a transistor for emotions, and all of us been metal heads since a very young age, I was only 7 when I got obsessed with Iron Maiden, and embrace the values and cult of the scene, there is nothing else we feel like we need to express than solid Metal with our own brand on it. The emo crap I can´t stand, fucking whingers, what are they all feeling so miserable about? That they look ridiculous with that shemale make up or that they can´t see anything because their bangs are carefully combed before their eyes? Or that there hasn´t been any good music written what so ever in their scene?

-Some parts from "God To The Illfated" sound like they could have been on DISSECTION or MARDUK albums. There also can be heard a lot of things coming from US American death metal. For example- the opening track „Mask Of Virtue" sounds almost like it could has been written by ANGELCORPSE and so on... Don't see what I'm talking about as complaining, just wondering what is DEVIAN's identity build upon...
Some stuff just gets stuck in your bones I guess. I remember spending summer time at Jon Nödtveidts parents house when we were all kids. People would hang out and watch TV or just bullshit, except for Jon who was sitting in a trance on the armrest of the couch with his Les Paul playing this increadible stuff that scarred my brain forever. It was a perfect mold of swedish folk music, his dads progressive records and metal, I worshipped all the stuff he wrote. The Marduk reference is self explainatory I guess and we are all fans of American DM bands, plus the fact that I was obsessing over Lamb of God throughout the whole creative process also had an impact. I guess it would be different if we were a new band of young guys but it´s really our musical pasts and the luggage we carry that´s on display, probably wether we want it or not.

-You are responsible for purely amazing vocal parts on „God To Illfated". I would even say that you have never been in such a good shape as vocalist and vocal parts from this new album is the best work you have done so far in your career. Can you agree?
Why thank you so much!!! This is the first album I´ve ever done exercises before getting into the booth. I was trying to evolve while in Marduk but the music didn´t call for it so it seemed futile and I skipped it. But I wish I´d been smarter since I managed to blow my vocal chords out pretty bad at the end of my Marduk days and I needed to start learning stuff if I should be able to use my voice again in a band. So one thing lead to another and now I have a good time exercising my voice and trying to cover new ground. I´m gonna try to evolve to give the band more dimensions to grow in in the future.