Tortured Spirit-Interview

Interview with Tortured Spirit

1. Hail guys! Let’s start this interview with a common question that you may have answered several times. How was Tortured Spirit formed?

Oddy: We formed in 2004 after Markus and my old outfit Mandark was without bass guitarist again. We were laying low for several month till I asked Michael to join.

Markus: After a trainee session at the “German-Life-Rescue-Organisation”, Oddy came to me and told me that he searches for a guy that plays the drums. I said "Why not!" and the first session started at that time with the last incarnation of Mandark. At that time the bass man started to study in Oldenburg that is far away from our town, Emsdetten.
We all knew that we could not play in this constellation, so we searched for a new bass man and found him in the “Wacken-Forum”. So Tortured Spirit was born.

MetalB: After losing my first band two years ago, I was desperately looking for some new guys. I met Oddy and after a while he told me, that he needs a bass player. Oddy was a good guy, and after some rehearsals I joined the band.


2. While listening to your album, I noticed your influences by the mighty Pentagram. By which other bands were you influenced?

Oddy: Black Sabbath for all of us I guess. I personally am influenced by old American DOOM mostly. Saint Vitus. Pentagram, Penance, Revelation, Internal Void, Obsessed/Spirit Caravan as well as Count Raven.

Markus: First of all I must say that I did not really know what DOOM was at that time. So Oddy borrowed me a lot of cds so I could listen to them. Now I can say that my favourite bands are: Pale Divine, Pentagram, Krux and Black Sabbath of course.

MetalB: I am mostly influenced by the Metal of the 80’s. First of all thrash metal and good old Heavy Metal, but Black Sabbath was always one of my faves. Before joining Tortured Spirit I had not much contact with doom metal except Candlemass. But today I am certainly influenced by bands like Vitus or Count Raven.

3. Everything started with your first demo “Broken Soul” in 2004.Then, a full length album followed in 2007.Can you please tell us a few things about the recordings and generally about what has been changed in Tortured Spirit during these 3 years?

Oddy: The demo was recorded at the homestudio/rehearsal room of a guy I knew and was kind of a snapshot as we wanted to have our song for the Knock ‘Em Down To Size Sampler ready in time! Nobody could know it was just released late 2007. The recordings for The Mentally Ill took place at our homes. Drums were recorded in Markus’ basement in the summer while we recorded the rest at my basement in September. All was done with stuff we lent from friends and we worked with former Mandark bass guitarist Robbe. When things were recorded, we sent the tracks over to John Brenner to mix it and let me tell you, he did an outstanding job and made to totally best out of the noise we sent him. I am very thankful for all his work and contribution as well as Butch’s contribution. It turned out better than we expected. As for what changed in the three years? I am not sure! Maybe we are a bit better songwriters and slight better musicians.

MetalB: The recordings for the new stuff were really a hard work. I never get a chance to work with first recordings Markus and Oddy did in 2005 and 2006, cause they dumped them completely. We really wanted to make it much better than the first time, that’s why there was much pressure in the work. And after a while we all got hasty, because we wanted to finish the stuff. But after all it was a better work than the first cd, I think.

Oddy: That is right! We already tried to record another demo twice in 2005 and 2006 but it never worked out properly. But this time it worked and so we made it a full length! To record the bass tracks really was a little hasty due to time restrictions. You know things, never work out for us the way we plan them.

4. When I saw your album, I firstly was surprised by the names of your songs, especially with “Me and my booze”.Where do you get your lyrical inspiration?

Oddy: I get my inspiration from nearly everything! Me And My Booze for example was written after I reflected some of my former actions and habits. Other inspirations come from dreams I had, more or less bad experiences with other people, sometimes women, things I see when I walk through town. Hard to tell more specifically as really everything can inspire me to write. I got lyrical fragments based on movies, a sign I saw in Baltimore and stuff like that

5. Do you, as a band, rehearse often? What are your plans and how do you act? I mean, is there one of you who writes the lyrics and composes the songs, or do you work as a team?

Oddy: Not as often as we wished we could. Michael lives quite some way away from us and we have to get our schedules together. As for a plan how the band has to work, we pretty much dumped that. We do what we think suits us. I mean, we have songs like Me And My Booze and Archetype which are totally different in style, but fuck it, we love them both so we do them both. Song writing has been a pain in the ass for me lately. I come up with the majority of the riffs, but Michael comes up with riffs as well. Everybody is responsible for what he does in a song, so Michael works out his bass stuff and Markus works out the drums and we arrange the songs together. It has not happened too often that I came with a totally finished song. Of course I have some ideas but these are never finished before we discussed them.

MetalB: Most of the leading riffs are worked out by Oddy. That’s just because he has so many riffs in his mind. But we all together form the riffs into a song by working out the arrangement and the parts we play. And sometimes I came around with some stuff. Halls of the Blind is nearly half-written by me, for example.

6. Let me guess, that apart from a Doom metal band, you are doom metal and generally heavy metal fans as well! Is that right? Which bands do you like most?

Oddy: I am the biggest doomhead in the band and like everything traditional. I listen to some good old Heavy Metal as well. Stuff like NWOBHM or Manilla Road and the like and some old Death Metal and 70s Rock from time to time. And a local band called An Rinn got me into traditional Irish and Scottish Folk. I really love that stuff. See I am a traditional man! Haha

Markus: I listen to all kinds of Metal I can say. From the old 70’s Rock to the new wave of American Hardcore. But lately I spend very much time listening to Death Metal with melodic influences.

MetalB: Well, like I said before, I am mostly interested in Thrash. Old Metallica, Venom, Exodus, Kreator, Destruction and that kind of stuff. But I also like Heavy Metal and traditional Doom. These three kinds of Metal are kind of my basic. But there are single bands from other styles that I listen to as well. For example Haggard, Helrunar or Vader.

7. What are your plans for the future? Are you going to search for a label, record a second full length album or play any gigs? If so, I would be grateful if you come to Greece!

Oddy: Plans for the future? Good question. We would not say no to a good deal with a label that knows its Doom. At the moment we work on some new songs which might all follow a certain concept, but I cannot tell you if that really works out. A split vinyl release with another Doom band would be great. And we would love to play out more but it is hard for a Doom Metal band to get gigs around here. We surely would love to play Greece but our financial situation will not allow that at the moment I fear. We just take it as it comes.

Markus: We don’t really know what the future will hold for us, because I don’t’ really know if I’ll be going to America next year. And if it happens I think that Tortured Spirit will have a break for one year. And sure we hope that we can have a few more gigs in this time between.

MetalB: I am very interested in a concept-ep Oddy is thinking about. Beside that we have no real plans, we just wait what will happen. I hope, that we will play much more gigs in future

8. Let me tell you that here in Greece there are quite a few doom metal bands. How are things in Germany and what is your opinion about doom metal nowadays?

Oddy: We got some bands as well and you mentioned some already in the coming question so how is Doom Metal today? That is a tough one as we all know there are different borders for what is doom and what not for different people. But that Death Doom stuff is not mine anyway so … the traditional scene is where my heart is and I still love it though nowadays it seems like everybody has a band or project and I just hope that we do not get some kind of overkill like Death Metal had in the 90s. In Germany I think it is a regionally imbalance as regards fans I think. I mean there are Doom Fans all over Germany for sure but is seems like there are more of them in the south east than in the north west, where we come from. Though I must say I was really surprised by the amount of people that showed up at the Days of Doom in Dortmund, where we played lately.

9. Germany is famous for beers, heavy metal fans and heavy metal bands! Apart from some well know doom metal bands like Doomshine, Mirror of Deception, Voodooshock and Dawn of Winter would you like to mention any other doom metal bands from your county?

Oddy: Surely Dreaming. Their second album is cool and their performance on the last Doom Shall Rise was killer. I heard their bass guitarist Thomas has another band called Petrified going. I have not heard it yet but knowing the man, it must be good stuff. There are some cool bands like Dust, who are not traditional because of the rough vocals but I like them as well and hope to play with them soon. Grief Of Good returned as well and I still hope that the legendary Virgin Witch will finally release something. We got a couple of other cool doom releated bands like some cool Sludge Bands, Beehoover, the band of the Voodooshock rhythm section or 70s Heavy Rocker Earth Flight, with whom we played lately.

10. Ok guys! We have reached the end of our interview. I would like to thank you very much and I hope you were not tired with the whole thing. I wish to you the best and good luck with Tortured Spirit. Close this interview as you like!

Oddy: Thank you for your interest in the band, Alex. And thanks to everyone who read this. Download the album and if you like it, we’ll have the CD version out soon. TMDFOH!

http://www.myspace.com/torturedspiritdoom