Interview With Henri Of God Dethroned

The Goat: First off, thanks for the interview. The new album, Passiondale, is a concept album based on the battle of Passchendaele during WWI. It is obvious how the lyrics are inspired by the concept but talk a little about writing the music, and how it may change the writing process in order to follow suit with the lyrical theme.

Henri: Well, after doing a lot of research about World War One I got really impressed by the things I read. This war was pretty harsh and sick. Soldiers fought in the trenches for 4 years and there seemed no end. In order to win the war certain countries put a lot of effort in technical developments to win the war. So they saw the coming of mustard gas and the tank for example. But reading about life in the trenches was really blowing me away. Imagine you’re stuck in a trench for months, your feet in the mud, but nothing to drink or eat. In the pools dead soldiers, excrement and remains of mustard gas. You lost all your “friends” so you start a friendship with a rat or a thing. Then because of the lack of women you fuck each other up the ass. Nice eh? So this gave enough inspiration to write the music fitting to the lyrics. Fast & furious riffing, blast beats to represent the battles on one hand, but also the melodic, melancholic & epic parts to represent the misery of the war.

The Goat: While living around all these effects of war you see in your daily life, can you tell me how that may change ones outlook on the world, compared to the U.S. where we really don’t live around such imprints of war?

Henri: It doesn’t change my outlook on the world. The situation then cannot be compared to the situation in the world now. Here in Europe we are tought to memorize the wars of the past so we won’t make the same mistakes again, but nothing changes really. As long as there’s money and/or oil involved we will make the same “mistakes” again.

The Goat: God Dethroned had two line up changes, adding Susan Gerl on guitars and Roel Sanders on percussion. How have they changed the dynamics while writing for the new album and what new elements have they brought to the table in general?

Henri: They didn’t affect the writing of the album. I wrote the album the way I wanted it. Roel contributed in a great way though. I wanted to go back to our roots, so I wrote songs that would fit in our Grand Grimoire / Bloody Blasphemy era. Roel played on those two always as well, so Passiondale sounds like the third in line from that era. Susan joined the band right after the recordings so she couldn’t contribute to the actual album.

The Goat: Passiondale is receiving rave reviews from metal critics alike. Where does this album rank, in your opinion, to all the previous releases?

Henri: Well, every musician thinks that his latest recording is his best. The same goes for me, but according to the reviews we receive world wide, this actually is the best album we’ve ever made. We worked with a guy who wasn’t a well known producer yet, but now since our albums out he’s getting tons of requests from bands who want to record with him. He’s already booked until March 2010...

The Goat: Can fans expect to see a video in support of the new album?

Henri: Yes, we are doing a video for “Drowning in Mud” right now. It’s nearly finished and will be published pretty soon. Then we want to do a video for “Poison Fog” as well.

The Goat: If you are fans of Horror movies, tell us what recent European titles you have seen that are worth checking out and what is your favorite American Horror film?

Henri: I’m personally not a big fan of horror movies, but one that I really like is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

The Goat: Can U.S. fans expect to see God Dethroned in states in the near future?

Henri: Yes, we’ll be touring the America’s starting September 1st in Brazil and by September 30th we’ll play the first US date on this tour in Tucson, Arizona. On the US & Canadian tour we will be supported by Abigail Williams, label mates Woe of Tyrants and Augury.
Just check out our website for details.

The Goat: Thanks for the interview, is there anything you would like to add or say to the readers and fans?

Henri: Anyone who hasn’t checked out Passiondale yet, should definitely give it a try and see you somewhere on tour!

Cheers, Henri
God Dethroned