Interview to Alwin from Asphyx

Interview by Luis Landeo
Hails Alwin is nice to have this interview with you, the band is working on a new album: "DeathHammer" how was the recording session days?
Hello Luis, Thanks for the opportunity to write a little about Asphyx. At this moment we still are very busy with the finishing touch of the Deathhammer album. The music which we composed last year was already mixed and mastered by Dan Swano in November, and at this moment we are finishing the artwork for the cd, mediabook and vinyl version. One song “deathhamer” can already be checked on youtube and also the artwork is released a while ago on the internet. Here is the link where you can hear the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZTH05z3BLoWhy this name for this new release?
The name of this new album is in our minds for a long time. We wanted to make a honest true death metal record, the way we think death metal should be. The hammer stand for a court hammer, and in this title it means the hammer of death metal. Nowadays it seems that a lot of bands are more busy with techniques instead of playing an brutal riff, composing a brutal song. Sometimes I have a feeling that it is more like a competition, who has the fast blast, the most notes, and totally forget about what it is all about; making brutal death metal!Well I had the chance to see the art of the album and is totally brutal, who did the art? and what represent the book, the demons and the man fighting against this album and the sea of blood? what is the concept behind this?
The artwork is created by Axel Hermann. He has done some more Asphyx releases for example The Rack, Last One on Earth and also the Live Death Doom dvd. For us it was a logical thing to let do Axel the new artwork as well. The artwork infact shows you Jesus who is nailed to the “book of death metal”.How was the process of write the lyrics for this new release?
The lyrics are totally Martin’s piece. Paul made the music and together with the band we compose the riffs to a complete song. At that time Martin has a lot of the lyrics ready, so we can immediately fit them to the songs. For the lyrics Martin uses different themes. “Der Landser” is about a German boy who becomes a soldier in WWII and is send to the eastern front. “The Flood” is a song about a flood we had in the 50’s here in the Netherlands. There is a song about the French revolution, some songs about just death metal. For those lyrics Martin has done a lot of reading and research. The whole writing process does take a while then.The album will be released February 27th of this year how do you feel you about that?
We all are very excited. We have taken our time to make this album and finally the release date comes closer every day. With the artwork and the music we are more then happy with this album. It stand 100% for what Asphyx is today and we think it’s a killer album. We already had a listening session with some journalist (Rockhard, Metal Hammer and some more) a while ago and the first impressions and reactions of them are amazingly good. Also the deathhammer song on internet has already some great comment. It would be great to finally share this album with our fans worldwide.
Of this 10 songs from this new album what is your favorite song of this album and why?
Its not easy to pick a favourite song because I like them all a lot. For me it is an album with just good and favourite songs. Deathhammer has a variety of different songs. Some midtempo songs, some doom songs and some of both. I believe that’s the power of this album.I know you play in Escutcheon do you think is possible an Asphyx/Escutcheon split album?
At this moment we are not playing with Escutcheon anymore, so no chance there. I have done Escutcheon for a long time (I founded it), We released a demo and 2 cd’s in those years. We had a good time but 2 years ago we decided to quit because we all were busy with other things in music.I know Asphyx is having a lot gigs in Europe, do you think come to play in south america this year?
Well we do not play that much gigs I think. I guess an average of 15 shows a year. We like to keep it exclusive, and we all have our private lives and families as well. That’s why we don’t do any tours but only weekends shows/festivals. That’s also why it is so hard for us to come to south America…It’s simply to far away to go to for just one weekend show. Maybe some day in the future. You never can tell.Are you thinking release a new DVD?
At this moment there are no plans to release a new DVD. The “Live Death Doom” DVD was released in 2010. It was Asphyx first live DVD ever, and I think it will not add something extra when we would release another DVD so soon.Do you have a message for your fans?
We would like to thank all fans for their support over all the years. Your support keeps Asphyx still going on. Enjoy our new “Deathhammer” album and keep it brutal
Cheers.

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