UN: I think an ideal starting point would be how the band came together. I was a bit surprised to hear that a few of the members used to be in Night in Gales. Who while an amazing band, definitely contrast with the Deadsoil sound quite a bit.

Stefan(bass): Chris (drums) and Jens (guitar) played in Night In Gales since 1994. Three years ago Chris decided to leave that band as he liked to start something new with some new people. The result was the first Deadsoil line-up together with Boris Pracht (guitar), Stefan Eutebach (bass), Marcel Ströter (vocals) and Jan Olejnik (guitar). We recorded the first material in may 2003, entitled “Forever the enemy”. These songs got released through Tribunal Records for the USA and Poisonfree.com Records in Europe on MCD and 10inch format. Marcel left the mic for Friedrich Weber last year and Jens joined Deadsoil beginning of 2004, right before the recording sessions for “The venom Divine”, our new album. Deadsoil was in need of a new guitarplayer to replace Jan, who quit to finish his studies. Jens is still in Night In Gales as well. They just spread a 4-track-promo to get signed again. Both bands play different styles of heavy music, but they differ a lot by means of intention and songwriting.

UN: Was the band started with the intentions of combining metal and hardcore? I’d say you guys definitely draw more from metal, but the breakdowns are pure metalcore.

Stefan(bass): Metalcore is a pretty popular these days, but - at least that’s how it is in Europe - most bands playing this style consist of members just coming from one musical background, mostly the hardcore scene. What I love about Deadsoil is that we really combine the styles by having members from metal and hardcore bands. I guess you can also hear that in the way we write our songs.

UN: How did Lifeforce come into the picture for Deadsoil? I think you guys fit perfectly on their growing roster. All of their bands are playing heavy music and really seem to be making a name for themselves. Look at Trivium. They made the jump to Roadrunner, which is a huge step for this style of music.

Stefan(bass): We were in touch with Stefan from Lifeforce Records in fact for quite a while already before we both decided to work together. Lifeforce was and still is the label we wanted to release our album on. You are right. They did an awesome job for bands such as Trivium, Heaven Shall Burn, Cataract or Caliban. We also got offers from bigger metal labels, but decided to go this way because having the chance to grow on a growing label that offers us all the support we need is the perfect solution for us as a band now. Reactions have been overwhelming for this album so far, that’s amazing.

UN: Your new album “The Venom Divine” is one of the most punishing albums I have heard in a long time. Do you feel like you guys have progressed since the debut EP?

Stefan(bass): For sure I hear a lot of progression since our first songs. It’s basically been Boris and Chris, who wrote 80% of the songs this time. They spent like half of their days and lots of blood, sweat and tears and wrote all the stuff in like 3 months. But this resulted in the songs being more various and the metal parts are more metal while the hc-parts are more hc this time. “The venom divine” turned out more aggressive and powerful as we expected! Some of the breakdowns are very straight and pounding, but there is some nice technical metal stuff as well. The vocals are way more diverse than on the MCD. We could try way more with Friedrich’s voice than ever before, ranging from deep-growls to clean sung parts. I really think it turned out the way we wanted it to sound.

UN: I was surprised when I read that you guys recorded at Berno Studios. It seems like mainly death metal bands record at the studio, but the production style definitely suits the Deadsoil sound perfectly.

Stefan(bass): We've chosen Berno Paulsson and Henrik Larsson and their studios as they still put that typical old -school analog feeling into their recordings. The sound is extremely heavy and pounding. We preferred a rough and harsh sound for “The Venom Divine” while most of the new metalcore acts nowadays try to sound as clean and sterile as new-metal acts. But I think you can hear parallels between some of the latest Berno recordings, e.g. the new Amon Amarth album and the Deadsoil album. There are no big effects or tricks, just the real deal. One should be able to reproduce the songs on stage.

UN: I was wondering if you could possibly explain the meaning behind the album name. I didn’t receive any lyrics with the album so I’m not sure if it comes from a lyric on the album.

Stefan(bass):With the term “the venom divine” we wanted to describe the humans being, as being „god-alike“, but at the same time being venomous for themselves and other people around them. That’s also what the lyrics mainly deal with, as well as we write about the change of us humans through modern societies or the question, how much of yourself you can give away before you stop being yourself. Other songs deal with topics such as the break out of our own vicious circles and connected with that the fact that one cannot and shouldn’t hold back ones anger and feelings connected to that.

UN: I find the album art both unusual and very interesting at the same time. The gun attached to the arm and the scratched out face makes me wonder what the concept behind the art was. Does it tie in with the album concept?

Stefan(bass):We first decided the general topic we wanted to go for with this album. Then we started writing the lyrics. Almost everyone in the band contributed to this and we still managed to have something like that red line going through all of the lyrics. We presented all the material to different designers and finally decided to go with Christof of Japanische Kampfhorspiele who did all the final artwork upon those information and managed to create something that I think makes this record outstanding alone, let alone the music itself, although it might be a bit unusual for the current trend in metalcore. We play fucking outstanding Metalcore, so it fits alright for us, haha.

UN: Breakdowns seem to be a huge part of the bands sound, and the bands sound itself is fairly midtempo most of the time. Would you say it is important to write breakdown riffs that fit into the context of the flow of the song? A lot of bands throw in the same generic breakdown riffs.

Stefan(bass):For sure, we did some extra mosh parts as for us it’s an important stylistic element in metalcore-music, especially for the live show. It is obvious to see that people need them and are waiting for those parts to go off. The ability to perform the songs live was and is very important to us and a live show should be different from just people standing around watching some lame guys perform music. Those breakdown riffs give the songs a certain flow live and people can go off. The important point in here is to include variation into these parts to make the songs more interesting. Otherwise it starts sounding boring - for me at least - after quite a short period of time.

UN: Metal influenced hardcore is all the rage these days in the US. Would you say that the style is the current in style sound in Europe as well? Bands have been playing the style for years, but for some reason it’s just sort of catching on like wild fire right now.

Stefan(bass):Hardcore and especially metalcore is growing bigger and bigger here as well. There are videos of bands on all relevant stations, you can find a metalcore corner in the bigger chain-stores as well as aggressive music nights in corporate discos. That’s just a few examples of the current hype and the huge promotional base for metalcore bands that’s going on here right now. Until now it was still mainly focussed on people within the hardcore/alternative music scene, but recently the huge metal mags also caught attention of this musical style here. It’s described as the new interesting (because strange) thing for the metalscene as well. But it’s just starting here. Lately we were asked how we feel being the only german metalcore act besides Caliban. So you see there’s still a huge lack of information. All the big metallabels signed their own metalcore sensations here lately. So it’s like the beginning of the end, haha.

UN: I know that Germany has a huge power metal and metal scene in general, but I don’t know much about the hardcore/metalcore scene. Is there much of a scene for this style of music? To an outsider at times it seems like every band wants to sound like Helloween at times.

Stefan(bass):In the main part and concentrated in the south it's exactly like that still with the metal scene. And it`s true: we all grew up with “Keeper of the seven keys” and “Walls of Jericho”, haha. But new bands who still go crazy on this Teutonic-speed-metal-thing are just the never dying nerds. New styles develop very slowly inside a closed scene. That’s the positive thing about putting styles and scenes together as it happens to metal and hardcore these days. But concerning the hardcore/metalcore scene in Germany: It’s already amazingly huge. Nowadays you can have metalcore festivals with a crowd of several thousand people, like at the Pressure Fest we played this June with Killswitch Engage, Hatebreed or Blood For Blood. Of course, there are also still many underground shows as well, but I sometimes miss the old days where you got a bunch of new zines at every concert.

UN: Bands from the US who play this style of music seem to always be on the road, touring pretty much constantly. Would you say that it’s the same with European bands?

Stefan(bass): I guess its the same to some extend. The bands need the money they make by selling merchandising at shows if they don’t do much besides making music. I mean the european territory is smaller than USA. Bands tour, but I hardly know any bands playing more than 60-70 shows a year. So it’s maybe not that excessive as compared to the US and it’s still only a few bands that make it over to the US. We’ll see, I hope that changes one day. We also have tons of great bands that deserve to be heard by a broader audience.

UN: How much touring will you guys be doing to promote the new album? Any chance at a US tour possibly being put together?

Stefan(bass): We just came back from a one-week tour with Hatesphere and Born from Pain and played a couple of shows with Terror before that. The new record is out now in Europe and will be released for the US end of September. We’re currently working on another tour through mainland europe around end of 2004 and hope to make it over to rock you guys somewhere early 2005. We’d love to play way more, but we have other obligations besides Deadsoil, be it stressy jobs or other bands, so we really have to think about where and when to tour. We’d definitely love to come over if there are some kids digging what we do.

UN: When someone picks up The Venom Divine what do you hope for them to take away from the album? Are there any specific reactions you hope for people to have?

Stefan(bass): We want people to enjoy the music as much as we do. “The Venom Divine” turned out to be very powerful, aggressive and shows much more variation than our previous effort. Would be great if the listeners would also feel that power and energy the music transports. It’s a perfect soundtrack to release some anger. I can only speak for myself: I get my daily dose of venom in the morning and got a good start into every single day!