Interview with Nils Förster, Lay Down Rotten (May 28th 2009)

Hi, first off all I just want to congratulate you with the release of “Gospel of the Wretched”. Are you satisfied with it?   Hi guys, thanks a lot we’re pleased to hear that! Of course we’re really happy with the result of the new record, it has the best sound quality we’ve had so far. Another fact is that we have also grown as musicians and could improve ingredients of our music as the songwriting is more catchy and comprehensible than before. First press and public reactions are all the way positive and we’re now looking forward to present the songs to a larger audience. So we are some kind of overwhelmed right now.    Who has produced and mixed “Gospel of the Wretched”?   We have recorded all the stuff in a studio near to our hometown which is called Desert Inn Studio, because it’s the easiest way for us to manage it with our jobs and don’t need to take dayoffs.  For mixing and mastering duties we could get the agreement of the death-metal legend Dan Swanö, who’s one of the bands greatest idols. So, for us a dream has come true. He’s a very smart and talented guy, who has a lot of feeling and knowledge. The idea to let him do the job came up when 2 befriended bands had recorded with him and we’ve heard the results. We communicated via email, telephone and changed files by internet. This was all the way a smooth kind of working.    How would you describe your music to any of our readers who may not have heard of you before?   We play old-school death-metal which is mainly influenced by Swedish and US death-metal of the early ninties. Maybe you can describe our sound as a mixture of bands like Bolt Thrower, Edge of Sanity, Amon Amarth, Entombed, Carcass, Death, Dismember, At the gates and Hypocrisy. But we’re also using elements like samples in background to fresh up our sound and let it sound modern. Our lyrics are dealing with versatile thematics like religion, politics, society, authorities, war, hate, media, relationsships, networks and things like that. We mostly have a sociocritical orientation and want to inspire people with our music to challenge up things.    Do you feel that your sound will evolve in some different direction, in the future, or will you still follow the same path?   I think that we will remain true to our style but always try to let it sound fresh and innovative. It’s hard to come around with something completely new in a genre like death-metal where everything has appeared in similar ways. We all listening to different kinds of music and transfer it to our music. Musical limitation isn’t the right way to create something innovative and won’t let you grow as a musician. Surely we constantely working on becoming better musicians and writing better songs, but you won’t expect any radical changes in future. We just will work on improving the elements more and more.   Who has done the cover artwork to “Gospel of the Wretched”?   The cover artwork was done by BjörnGoosses who’s working for an agency which is called “Killustrations”. We told him our ideas and he implemented it perfectly. According to the cover the title means in common that people should fight for theit rights and values, don’t become part of a system which is manipulating and oppressing them. Watch the development of media systems and networks as an example. Informations have become this kind of important that they mainly affect our lifes. In this way reality is a distorted production, which isn’t showing all the truth. We want people to challenge out things and comfort them to create their own minds. The lyrics are mostly dealing with social, political or religious thematics. So this isn’t a concept album at all. You can consider the songs as a unit but also see them as independent elements. Bjorn comments about the cover like this: "The ship is filled with tons of skulls, so their task may be pretty senseless. But this image stands for this kind of passion that leads you to doubtful actions. But some things simply have to be done to find your inner peace, even if they may appear meaningless or senseless to others. The rusty ship loaded with skulls may stand for something precious, for something that may only appear of any value to yourself (...) And the will to complete this mission is represented by the merciless captain, forcing the slaves to go on. Of course the whole scene has a pretty wretched and tragic vibe, but we´re talking about death metal, so beauty may appear in strangest forms."Björn connects the art with album title nicely: "Pulling this ship out of its misery is something like the slaves´ gospel, their mission, their religion. And the album offers their soundtrack."   What tasks presently lie ahead for Lay Down Rotten?   We have confirmed a lot of shows for this year and looking forward to kick some people’s asses. In common we constantly try to expand our music and popularity a bit more and becoming well-known in the scene. The next further step will be to get the chance to play more international. Other goals are to get better playing slots and maybe headline a tour some day or even play a US tour.    Let's speculate - you have been granted a free slot on a tour of your own choice - who would be your ideal touring partners?   Ok, i think i would choose Neaera, Misery Speaks and Hatesphere, because these guys are friends of us and we always had a lot fun when we played with them.   What albums or bands do you believe have had the greatest impact on the history of metal?   It’s always difficult to focus on only few records or bands to say who had the greatest impact on metal at all. So I only will list some bands. Here we go: Black Sabbath, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Slayer, Megadeth, Sepultura, Death, Carcass, At the gates, Edge of sanity, Dismember, Entombed, Hypocrisy, In Flames, Korn, Slipknot, Killswitch Engage and so on.   Looking ahead, where do you want to be five years from now?   As I said we want to enhance our popularity and hope that one day we will be announced as one of the big international death-metal acts. Maybe in five years we have the chance to play international shows and going to other continents. Musical goals will be to become better musicians and growing in abilities.     I thank you very much for participating in this interview and sharing this information and your thoughts with us - these last lines are entirely for you. Any final words you would like to round off with - a tip, a recommendation or a thought for the future?   Thanks a lot for the interview and the chance to spread the word.  Always do the best you can and don’t care about trends and false values. Cheers!       Interviwed by Peter Laursen

Lay Down Rotten - Gospel of the Wretched  Album available on Metal Blade Records. Website: www.laydownrotten.com