Updated: 07/20/02

Vomitory spew death metal at you Swedish style, and have been around for over a decade. Their latest album, Blood Rapture, has just been released on Metal Blade, and it's guaranteed to make you hurl with venomous glee. Check out the full text of our e-mail interview below...

Highwire Daze: Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Vomitory, and how long the band has been together.

Tobias Gustafsson: Hi, I'm Tobias Gustafsson, drummer of Vomitory since the start. Urban Gustafsson, who's still in the band, along with our first vocalist, started the band in October 1989. The band today consists of Urban Gustafsson and Ulf Dalegren on guitars, Erik Rundqvist on bass & vocals and me on drums. Urban, Ulf and me are more or less original members. Erik joined the band in early 1997.

HD: If you had to describe the music of Vomitory to an elderly relative, what would you say?

Tobias: I would probably say that we play very extreme rock 'n roll. I think it's kind of difficult to describe death metal to someone who didn't even understand what Elvis was all about when he became famous back in the days. When people around 50 ask me what kind of music we play, I say that we play very extreme hardrock. But I really don't care what they think it is…

HD: Have you had any strange reactions when you've told someone the name of your band? What has been the strangest?

Tobias: I guess there have been some strange reactions on the band name, but it's nothing that I've kept in mind. Usually the reactions are of the humorous kind, when people say smart comments on the band name. But it's nothing to care about. They usually don't know what this is about anyway.

HD: Where did you get some of the ideas for the lyrics on the new album Blood Rapture?

Tobias: I think Erik and Ulf get their inspiration and ideas for our lyrics mainly from other bands (of course), movies and at some extent the everyday life and different situations in the world. Both Erik and Ulf like to write some lyrics about religions and questioning the whole thing, but Ulf often has a more macabre view upon it, hehe…

HD; Describe the current metal scene in Sweden, and how does Vomitory fit into the scene?

Tobias: I think the Swedish scene is quite good after all. There are new bands coming up that are trying to find their own identity and sound more than bands did, say, ten years ago. They also tend to sound more professional these days. Back then everyone wanted to be a "brutal Swedish death metal band". This is really good since the scene offers more variation and originality today. But one thing that really sucks about the Swedish scene is that there are almost no good venues to play at. Well, the do venues exist, but the club culture isn't what it's like in most of the other European countries and the audience is pretty lame as well. I think that phenomenon is because the audience consists of so many musicians that it gets more critical and more laid back than, for example, a bunch of crazy Italians! For a couple of years during the mid '90's, Vomitory was one of the few brutal death metal bands that were still alive in Sweden. But nowadays we have got company when the brutal scene has risen a bit again with awesome acts like Kaamos, Insision, Immersed In Blood and Throneaeon.

HD: Tell me about the recent gig where you play with no vocalist and only performed a few songs.

Tobias: Haha, that was in Vienna/Austria in December last year on the X-mass festivals. The reason why we did that show that way was because Erik (bass & vocals) was at the hospital due to his fever and bad stomach. Erik and me got sick from eating bad food a couple of days earlier. I was bad as well in Austria, but it wasn't worse than I could play a couple of songs. We decided to play three songs with no vocals and bass instead of cancelling completely. We knew there were some people in the audience that had travelled quite far to see Vomitory on stage so we didn't want to disappoint them. We wanted to give them at least something. So we did, and it was really appreciated!

HD: Normally, what is a live Vomitory show like for those of us who have yet to see you play?

Tobias: We try to fit in songs from all our albums in our show. It's sort of a "Best of" live. I think we sound pretty good live, at least from what I've heard others say. We have no special effects or so when we play live, we just give 100% and try to do the best show possible.

HD: How did your recent tour with Amon Amarth go?

Tobias: It was a really cool tour, and the Amon Amarth guys are really cool and we really had a good time together. We did 24 shows in the UK, Holland, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Italy, Spain and France. The other bands on the tour were Callenish Circle, Sins of Omission and Diabolical. The response from the audience was really good and it seemed like a lot of people simply worship our new album! Of course there are better and worse shows, but in all it went really well. One crazy thing worth mentioning that happened on the tour was when the tour bus lost two of the left rear wheels at approximately 100 km/h on a French highway! Luckily nobody got hurt. We were sitting in the back upstairs lounge of the bus when the road began to feel bumpy and Johan Hegg of Amon Amarth joked and said "We'll probably loose a couple of wheels very soon". Then, like 20 seconds later, we really felt something happened with the bus and Ulf looked out of the window and saw two of the wheels spinning at full speed beside the bus, and Rokka, the bass player of Callenish Circle screamed from the downstairs lounge "we're losing two tires, we're losing two tires"!!! Ulf ran like a leopard on crack to the front and screamed to the driver to stop! The driver managed to stop the bus after some hundreds of meters without any problem and the two wheels had stopped and leaned against the middle railing that separates the lanes. We were really lucky that there were no other vehicles around when it happened. That could have cost lives. It should also be mentioned that the bus had three rear wheels on each side so when we lost the two we still had one that kept the bus on the road. But I can guarantee you, we were quite nervous when it happened!

HD: Any chance of Vomitory playing here in the States? Have you ever been here before?

Tobias: I really hope we'll get the opportunity to come over to the States and play in a nearby future, but unfortunately there are no such plans at the moment. We've never played there before so we're very eager to come there. It's kind of our next big goal. We'll see what happens. Maybe next year or after our next album.

HD: If Vomitory were invited to contribute a song to "A Heavy Metal Tribute to Abba," what Abba song would you do and why? And how many Abba albums do you own personally?

Tobias: Haha! Personally I actually own one Abba "Greatest hits" CD, which I really like! Two Abba songs that I really like are "The Winner Takes It All" and "Knowing Me, Knowing You", but if we were invited to that tribute album I would probably prefer to do a death metal version of "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" with blast beats throughout the whole song and extremely down tuned guitars and pitched vocals, haha!

HD: On a few of your publicity shots, you guys are gloating over some dude who has a bloody head. Who it the unfortunate guy -- is he like a roadie or something?

Tobias: No, he's the guy that gave us bad food on the X-mass festival tour last year!

HD: What are the future plans for Vomitory?

Tobias: First off is the Wacken Open Air festival in Germany in August. I don't know how well known it is over there, but it's the biggest metal festival in Europe with like 25 000 visitors. It will be the first time for us to do this festival so we're quite excited about it. Then we have the Thrash 'Em All festivals in Poland in October confirmed. God Dethroned, Monstrosity, Devilyn and a few more Polish bands will join us on that tour. Will be great! Then there will also probably be a couple of shows here and there in Sweden during the rest of the year. We've started a bit to write new material for our next album but most of it is just ideas so far. But we'll probably start focusing on new material after our show at Wacken. When or where we will record the new album is not decided yet.

HD: Do you have any messages for Vomitory fans in the States or metal fans who might be interested in checking out your music?

Tobias: To the fans: you rule! Thanks for your support! It keeps us going! To the curious ones: everybody who's into fast, brutal, powerful and straightforward death metal the Swedish way, with maybe a bit of American touch should definitely check our shit out! Everybody is welcome to visit our website, www.vomitory.net, for more information about the band. There you also find pictures, MP3s etc. And don't for get to sign our guestbook!

HD: Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions!

Tobias: My pleasure. Cheerz!