Никто из нас никогда не думал, что все обернется так удачно, как это случилось!

Hi guys! I'm really glad to make this interview. And let's start with the question about Comatour you've just wrapped up. How it was going? Were there any interesting stories?

Hey man, yeah the tour went pretty damn good. We had a great time over there. Would have hoped for a bit better turn out at the shows, but I guess it will be better next time we go there. A lot of things happened, but I can't really figure out any particular stories that I wanna share right now. We had a great time touring with both Atrocious Abnormality and Coathanger Abortion, they are all awesome dudes!

No doubt that the firth US tour has to be great event for any band. Tell us, please, what's your impression of the US brutal death fans and of the whole country? Did you like the USA?

The impression we got of the fans there was that they are very dedicated and really cool people all in all. The whole country is fucking HUGE and so different from what we are used to back here in Norway. I mean in a good way though.

By the way, Papa Vader sends greetings to you and tells that you owed him a report about your visit to Russia which is as HUGE as US. :)

Hey Papa V!

I'll show him your "hey!" as soon as I see him. Listen I understand that you can't remember all details but could you tell us about Russia and the Russian fans in a few words?

Well, we had a great time playing in Russia and meeting a lot of cool people, great hospitality as well. But some of the smaller cities we vent to seemed very poor and had a really depressive atmosphere, don't know if this was because of the snow and cold winter weather..but it felt weird being in some of the places. Also pretty hard to speak with people, since a lot didn't understand English. The stuff that sucked so the most was the whole organization of the tour and the way Coyote treated us. It was nearly impossible to communicate and we never received information about anything at all. And he was constant drunk. This is fucking unprofessional and we will never work with him again.

The other thing that happened was that on our way from St.Petersburg to Kostroma the bus driver fell asleep behind the wheel, while driving in 80 kilometers an hour, and refused  to stop for a sleep. And then he fell asleep for the second time. So after playing in Kostroma we decided to take the train to Moscow and skip 2 of the shows, coz we feared the driver would fall asleep again and we feared for our safety. But Moscow and Coyote brutal fest was great, except for that Dimitry did not make any effort at all of showing us the way from the hotel to the venue. So we spent 3-4 hours to find the place. Not good!

Oh! It really sucks, man! But I hope someday you'll come back to Russia to play some shows. Because we've already started to talk about shows tell us where do you prefer to play the show? Is it the little clubs or the open-air large stages?

I like both, it depends on the crowd. But however it is easier to get a heavy and compact sound when we play smaller venues. Only outside open air fest we have played was MOD. So we only did that one time.

Lots of bands don't have even this experience playing only in shabby clubs in their native cities. Continuing the talk about gigs I'd like to ask you about boobs and booze. Are they constant companions of all metal afterparty? Is it true that musicians on tour spend every day surrounded by bottles and horny bitches?

Me and my brother, we don't drink, so it's never any booze for us. But the other dudes like their beer. As for boobies, the only time we saw boobs during the Comatour was when we went to the stripclub.

Sounds strange for me because I thought you always have a couple of groupies. And is it the same situation for all brutal death bands?

Don't know, how it is with other bands, but Kraanium is never surrounded by horny bitches when we tour...

OK. I have to ask a few questions about band's history if you don't mind. How did it happen that five men started to play brutal death in the motherland of evil and raw black metal instead of worshiping the Nordic goat?

Guess we only wanted to do something different, and try to bring more of the slamming brutality into Norway. But we really do not play too many shows here, only a couple of shows a year. Wanna try and do a Norwegian tour some time, but this has yet not happened.

I see... And could you tell us about your attitude to black metal music and black metal culture?

We all like black metal, but not the symphonic shit. It's gotta be old school and raw. Multiple members even have own black metal projects that they are involved with.

You've just reinforced my stereotype about Scandinavian Vikings who listen and play only black metal. :)) I'm interested (and I hope our readers are to) why Kraanium had been on hold from 2002 to 2006? What was the reason to start the disembowelment the whores again?

We had other bands that were active and from the start, Kraanium was just supposed to be a not so serious, but more fun band. But then some of the old members wanted to try and start up the band again, so we did and the rest is history. We never really thought things would work out as good as they have for us!

Only two drummers were changed during 11 years it seems your band is quite stable. What is the reason of this constancy? And why all changes are for drummer's vacancy?

This is not quite true. Coz we have actually had 6-7 drummers involved in the band since the beginning. But only 4 drummers (Jonas, Fredrik, Hannes and now Mitch) that have really contributed to the band. The other ones have just been unprofessional people, that tried to fool us into believing they had what it took. So a lot have been going on "behind the curtain" that we didn't wanna bother the rest of the world with. Too much crap and drama, just like a bad soap opera...haha!

It's really great that you aren't left only with drum-machine. And now I've got the question special for you, Marty. You've made a lot of guest vox for a bunch of different bands. Are you always paid big money for this or just can't refuse to do even if it's for free? How do you choose the band you will make vocals for? It's a big question for me because your voice was working for a few really boring slam bands so I started wonder why you had done that. Weren't you taken hostage to do it unwillingly? :)

No payment, only received free copies of the CDs and maybe a shirt. He did it because he wanted to help some other bands out.

Don't be offended, man. Your voice is good no matter in which band it sounds. But it sounds everywhere recently. :)) Do you know that your motto «No glam just fucking slam» became very popular? It is used by slam fans in their social networks profiles, it's appears in lots of communities which are dedicated to slamming brutal death. I've even met it on personal band pages that had just started playing brutal death.

Haha yeah its weird how our little slogan has gone to be such big in the slam scene worldwide, had no idea this would happen at all so it's pretty cool...

So what? Is it fucking popularity? Are you guys fucking rock-stars?

Guess that makes us kinda rockstars yeah :P

«Post Mortal Coital Fixation» kicked my ass hard. It's mighty piece of brutal stuff. How long had you been composing it?

Well it took us around 6 months to work and record in the studio, but we have been working a lot with the song writing before that, we are constantly writing new material so it's hard to say exactly when we started working on these songs. Thanx to tell us you like it, much appreciated!

Could you tell us how music is usually made in your band?

Well usually Mats comes up with some riffs, and we start from there, to construct the song, maybe take it apart and re-writing them a couple of times n then when we get it right, then we work on putting the lyrics and vocals to it .

Continuing the conversation about you third album I have to ask why did you covered "Entrails Full Of Vermin"?

Abominable putridity has always been a great inspiration to us, so we wanted to pay them some respect and tribute by doing a cover song of them, and since "Entrails..." is one of our all time favorite AP songs, this was a natural choice.

By the way what do you think about AP's second full-length?

Their second full length is pretty cool, but it sounds kinda like a total different band. Prefer their old stuff!

Here in BCwz we've been discussing your third album cover-art for a long period of time after it was reviewed. Some people think that design is fucked up, some of us say that it's epic win. It's for sure that every following cover is sicker than previous one but it's more cartoon at the same time. What do you think about it?

If you are referring to the split CD, we all think it's cool and at that time we wanted to change things up a bit, so that's why this cover looks like it does.

Hm... I wasn't talking about that split but it doesn't matter now because I understand your idea. So tell us, please, how do you usually choose the design for your new album?

As for choosing design, we just get an idea and then go along with it. And find some artist that we want to get our ideas out on paper.

There are a lot of women who are put to death brutally on your CD's cover pages. That's why I want to ask you about the reason of hate the woman's body by brutal death bands. Why do metalheads try to rape and smash it on the covers and in the lyrics? Maybe they were rejected by the best girl in the class when they were young so they became women-haters and started to listen and to play metal? :)))))) What do you think?

Well, we play death metal you know. And you can't exactly go around singing about rainbows and unicorns. So of course the lyrics and artwork needs to go along in the same fashion. We love women and we never want to do anything to hurt them. Just wanna kill them, haha!

Now I want to talk seriously. What do you think about the current slamming brutal death situation? There is no secret that lots of people think that slam degenerated and was consumed by itself. There are large amount of extremely boring and uninteresting slam bands now and that's the source of mass slam intoxication. Is this a problem for you or you just don't give a fuck and continue slamming?

I think that in any genre of extreme metal it will always be good and bad bands performing and not necessary just in slamming death metal. For ourselves i will say that we just continue to do what we do no matter what other thinks. We will continue to play this type of music as long as we enjoy playing it. And if some people find it boring they should just listen to other type of music.

Your brutal death colleagues are moving confidently to technical brutal death style. Abominable Putridity and Cephalic Impurity changed in that way. It seems that Katalepsy are going to make unexpected stuff different from usual slam. And it's not only for Russian underground I think. Is it not cool to play slam anymore? Aren't you going to change your way or you will slam 'till death? :)))))

I think I already answered this on the previous question.

I thought it was good theme to talk for very long time. OK! If you don't want to talk about technical brutal let's talk about relationship between bands and labels in our days. Can you describe it? Are there any changes or everything is as it was before? Are the labels interested to promote their bands actively?

Well there is not a secret that a lot of labels takes advantages of their bands and not promote them as they should, etc. But this is no big news, it has always been like this! There are good and bad labels out there, and it's up to each band to find their own label and what suits them the best I think. As for Kraanium we have been lucky with both labels and they have taken good care of us and never been any trouble at all. So I can't really speak about labels that fuck bands over.

Why did you change the label where your first two CD had been released (Pathologically Explicit Recordings) to Comatose Music? It seems that everything was good.

Our main reason for changing label was that we felt that PER hat done their part in promoting Kraanium as a brutal death metal band in Europe but could not help us out to promote as much for an American audience, plus we also needed a label that could help us put up tours and this PER could not help us with.

Enough talking about labels we have another related theme. What do you think about underground future? People buy CD less than before. People visit gigs less than before. Open-air are closing on-by-one. Is apocalypse coming or I am just hysterical like a tearful girl?

I think you are just a hysterical tearful girl :P

Oh! Thank you for your words. :))) Do you guys have any jobs except playing music in Kraanium?

Yes we all have jobs besides Kraanium. Playing this type of music doesn't make you a famous rockstar with girls and a lot of money, haha!

Yeah! You've already said that there were not many girls around you. Haha! Listen, in Russia it would be difficult to find a job if you are covered with tattoo like you. I think that beard, long hairs, dreadlocks wouldn't help to become top manager too. What is the situation in Norway? Are people still judged by their appearance?

As for the appearance we all have in the band when it comes to tattoos, long hair, beard n all that, it has never been any actual problem for us over here in Norway which is great, people seem more and more acceptance towards this than before, so we have never actually encountered any problems when it comes to this.

Lucky you are! You live in a really progressive country. My next question is about job too. Is it possible to combine the usual job and long time tours? Or if you want to be successful musician you have to be poor and have no constant job?

Yes it is to a certain degree. But as you progress as a band and get more and more offered to go on tour and play shows outside your spare time, this will always be a problem when it comes to regular jobs beside having the band. I guess in order to be doing what we love to play music all the time you would have to do that yes, so we just try to find the best balance for it but this is not always easy when certain band members are not willing to sacrifice as much as other will for the band, but this is always a problem when you have different individuals in the band with different goals in life.

I think it's time to wrap up our interview. And the last question is not about Kraanium at all. What were the best albums you've heard this year? Can you suggest something for our readers?

7 H.Target - Fast-Slow Demolition

Aeon - Path Of Fire

Begging For Incest - Orgasmic Selfmutilation

Engorgement - Excruciating Intestinal Lacerations

Epicardiectomy -  Abhorrent Stench Of Posthumous Gastrorectal Desecration

Carnivorous Voracity - Debasement Incarnated

OK. Thank you so much for answers! Keep on slamming! :))))

No problem, sorry for being so damn slow with the answers though, haha! Keep it sick and brutal brotha \m/