Буду играть столько, сколько смогу держать в руках гитару

Hi Denny! Greetings from Brutal Carnage Web-Zine!

Hey guys!

I'd like to thank you once again for this conversation. The very first question goes special to you. Tell our folks about yourself. How long have you been playing music? And why did you decide to play the guitar?

I started to play music in 1999. My first instrument was a bassguitar, but after 1 year of playing bass, I decided to change to guitar for the simple reason, it has more strings. *laughing*

Oh yeah! It's really serious reason to change. When did you start listen to metal music?

At this time, around 2000, I started to listen to metal (Metallica, Korn and stuff). I think my first „brutal" record was Six Feet Under - „True Carnage" in 2001. I was just impressed how weird Chris Barnes sounds, thats why I came to Cannibal Corpse and to Suffocation and even more brutal stuff.

Man, you are brutal wunderkind! It's really cool to pass the way from Korn to Suffocation in one year. And what do you prefer to do when you are free of playing the guitar?

When I not play guitar or care about band stuff, I like to hang out with friends, reading, drive motorcycle, watching television etc... normal things you know...

I'd like to continue our conversation with the questions about your Russian mini-tour that was wrapped-up recently. Could you tell us about Russian metal-fans? Did you like the reception in Russia? It's really interesting to know your impression about Russian bands you've been sharing the stage with.

The mini tour in Russia was an awesome trip and the Russian metalheads were really respectful and nice to us and it was just amazing to see that they have fun with our music. We shared the stage with awesome bands and it was just fun to get to know all these guys.

It seems that you had no troubles. Am I right?

More or less. The only troubles we got were on the flight from Riga to Berlin because our plane had to turn back to Riga after an half hour and the next flight we got was on the next day. Except that everything was just fine (thanks to Maksim for that).

It's enough to speak about mother-Russia, let's go back to the very beginning. I think that our readers are quite interested in hystory of your band. Could you tell us who founded Pighead and when it happened? Why "Pighead"? Who was the author of this name? And which bands inspired the Pighead at the first step?

Morten (ex-vocalist) and me founded Pighead back in 2007. We talked about doing our own brutal stuff because at this time we where really impressed by bands like Devourment and Abominiable Putridity. I was the author of the bandname and it was inspired by the movie „Saw".

You are the only one band member who stays in Pighead from the foundation to our days. Are there other bands you had played with before Pighead was born? Don't you want to create or join any side project to play totally different type of music?

Before Pighead, I played in a couple of bands, the last one for example was Disembowel. The style we did with that band, we called "endtime death". At the moment I started a sideproject with 2 friends called "Intravenous Contamination" and I think it will be also brutal stuff. *laughing*

OK. Let's continue the dialog and review your discography.

No big deal.

Both of your full-length were high-rated by our web-zine so we must check them out really carefully. As far as I know tour first full-length was typical slamming stuff (I was told about it by Papa Vader) but the second one is high-speed and quite technical groovy brutal death metal. Is it evolution or is it revolution?

In the writing-progress of "Cadaver desecrator" we were more influenced by slam-bands and in the writing-progress of "Rotten Body Reanimation" we listened to more technical stuff. I think it is not important how technical or minimal our output is. When we create music we just try to sound heavy and brutal as possible.

Should we wait for deathcore on your third full-lenght album?

Nooope! I think our next output will not sound like deathcore. *laughing*

Oh! By the way I heard that you had started composing material for the third album. I read on your facebook page the first track is ready. Share the details with us!

Yeah thats right. At the moment we are working on new material for the next release. We have some ideas for an albumname but it isn't fixed till yet. I think we will do again 10 tracks and the playingtime will be again around 30 minutes. The cover art was done by Andrey Kroms and it will be released on Rising Nemesis Records...

Not so much time passed after "Rotten Body Reanimation" release but you've already sterted to compose new material. Don't you think that you are in rush? And what is the best period of time between two albums at your point of view?

Honestly I have no idea, what's the right period between to releases. When I have ideas, I just write it down. I can't tell you if our songs would be better when we let them "grow". If a song has the right "vibe" and the right "flow" (sorry I can't describe it in other words), it is ready.

Your first album "Cadaver Desecrator" was self-released. What was the reason not to search a label to promote your band?

There is no secret. Before "Cadaver Desecrator" the interest in our band wasn't really big and we don't want to spend too much time for searching a label. After the release, Morbid Generation does the distribution for us.

My next question continues the previous. Why did you decide to choose the Morbid Generation Records to release the second full-length? I'm sure that you could capture any underground label using "Rotten Body Reanimation" because it really kicks ass. What was the special trick to sign you?

Frank from Morbid Generation was a long time friend of us and we decided to go on to work with him and released the "Rotten Body Reanimation" on his label.

It was reticent answer but I caught your idea. You've changed your logo recently. Previous logo had been there for five years. What was wrong with it? Why did you ask Steve Crow but not any other artist to make the new logo? Tell about changes in band's life with new brand style. Did you become more sexy, more brutal or more successful?

*laughing* I did the logo years ago and I wasn't 100% satisfied. I can't describe why. It wasn't planned to change the logo. It just happened. A couple of month ago I talked to Steve on facebook if he has an idea to overwork the old logo, but he tried a new one. Thats it.

Pighead had great band changes in July. The band split the path with bass player and vocalist. Tell is it hard to overcome? Does such kind of changes strongly affect the band?

Pighead is a really time-intensive band. Rehearsals, gigs and touring. It is a matter of priority and not easy to combine with your normal life and it depends on "how important is the band for the members?". I think we have found good replacements for Martin and Aike. Both guys, Wille and Conor, doing a good job and bring in new ideas for the new material.

Do you and your bandmates hang out after gigs and rehearsal? Maybe you hate each other enough and don't want to see these faces out of Pighead?

Yeah, sure. We hang out with each other.

Do you think it's important to be good friends to provide band's progress or it's enough to be very professional musicians but not really good friends?

I think it isn't necessary to be "best friends" in a band, but you need a normal friendship.

This summer me and Papa Vader together visited a huge and glorious German open-air. That was a great event of passed summer and we're still impressed. How often do you manage to visit open-air as spectator or play the show there as a participant?

I really like open-airs, but if you play often gigs, you just don't have time for spectating a open-air because my band has priority. I think I go to 1-2 open-airs in a year just as a visitor.

Haha! It seems that you do it as frequently as we do. Could you tell a story about the best show in Pighead's career and a story about the worst one? Come on! Let's shake band's history!

The last and this year we had some really great shows. For example at Deathfeast open-air or at Tel Aviv deathfest, but I think the most incredible show (and I think I speak for the whole band) was at our Russia-tour in Arkhangelsk. The crowd freaked out completly. *laughing* We are still talking about that show at every rehearsal, because it was so much fun.

I think the worst gig was in 2008. It was in Rostock (in the north of Germany) and I had an car-accident in front of the club, at the show the sound was horrible, we played horrible and only 5 guys were listening. *laughung*

Such horrible shows are so horrible. May be somebody isn't really interested in your process of making music but I do. How often do you usually rehearse?

We not often rehearse... maximum 2 times in a month... and most time we are just moving to the music because it is fun...

How much time do you spend a week playing the guitar? What do you do for growing your guitar skills?

Sometimes I play not very often and sometimes I play 3-4 hours a day.... if I go on tour or I have to prepare for recordings I play more and if I have some weekends "off" I just chill...

Maybe lessons, special exercise or just practice?

I don't use special exercises... I just play...

Suddenly I realized that lots of metalheads listen to pop, gangsta-rap and dubstep. Except brutal death metal what kind of music do you listen to?

Sometimes I listen to classical stuff and some rock stuff, but not really often... normally I listen to metal.

Brutal music for you and your band is just fun or something more important? Are you going to slam till death do you part? Or maybe you are going to give it up in a couple years and start to raise pigs on daddy's farm?

I think music is the biggest passion in my life, so I will play as long as I can....

It's worthy answer, dude. Hope you'll be able to play music for a long time. Can you advise anything to guys who play death metal but haven't yet reached success like your band? Which things they have to pay special attention?

Hmmmmm I don't know if you can call that what we have reached "success", but I think the love to the music is the most important... and you always have keep on working and push the band forward (write new material, play more gigs), but if you want to earn money and have REAL success you have to change to POP... *laughung*

And it's time for our final question: advice us the albums released this year we should listen to for sure (except "Rotten Body Reanimation").

2012: Cytotoxin - Radiophobia

2013: Defeated Sanity - Passages into Deformity

Denny thank you so much for your time! Stay brutal!