Forgotten Tomb is a Depressive Black Metal band from Italy. Forgotten Tomb started as a misanthropic Black Betal band, but Herr Morbid; the only member of Forgotten Tomb, changed the style into Depressive Black Metal. The album ‘Songs to Leave’ was the first full-length album of this suicidal fellow. After the release of the album Wedebrand (drums, ex-Shining) joined Forgotten Tomb and Herr Morbid and Wedebrand started to write new songs for the upcoming album ‘Springtime Depression‘; to be released in spring/summer this year. An interview by Geert van Mook and myself with Herr Morbid…
Your last album ‘Songs to Leave’ has already been released some months ago; are you satisfied with the reactions you receive so far?
All the reactions have been really satisfying in my opinion, the album sells well, almost all the reviews are outstanding and I gained a lot of fanatics around the world, so I have nothing to complain about the results I’m obtaining with “Songs to Leave”.
Forgotten Tomb started as a sick misanthropic black metal project. After the release of the ‘Obscura Arcana Mortis’ MCD you changed the style into depressive, slow and atmospheric black metal; why did you change the style?
Simply because I felt the need to play a kind of Black Metal nearest to my true feelings and emotions. Considering I’m a completely depressed, paranoid and suicide-fixated person it has been natural to move towards a Suicidal Black Metal approach, with some Doom/Dark Metal influences. I think everything sounds more obscure and deep now, because I’m gathering the darkest aspects of both Black Metal and Dark Metal, creating true black monuments of sadness and hate.
Forgotten Tomb isn’t a one man project anymore; a real drummer, Wedebrand (ex-Shining) joined Forgotten Tomb, can you tell me something more about him, and why did he leave Shining?
Kvarforth (leader of Shining) and Wedebrand were unable to play together again due to their personal problems and I don’t want to talk about it here also because it’s something I really don’t know about. It’s not something I’m interested in, shit happens in a band. By the way, Wedebrand now is the new Forgotten Tomb drummer and I think he made a very good work on the new ‘Springtime Depression’ album. He doesn’ t contribute to the songwriting process, but this is not a problem because I want to write all the material by myself. In the end, I could use some sessions on the next albums too but they’re only tools I need to reach a superior result and to materialise my visions through my music. On this aspect I’m really similar to Kvarforth’s concept about having other people in the band. Forgotten Tomb has born as a one-man band and it will remain like this, but sometimes I must admit session-members are useful to improve the quality of my proposal in order to reach the uttermost superiority in the overcrowded Black Metal scene.
On your website I saw some live pictures, did you use session members to play live?
Yes, and I could say the same things I said in your previous question, they’re useful to spread negativity on a live-situation. Without other sessions I could not propose my music on a live-plain, so they’re useful.
On the album I hear many (old) Katatonia (‘Dance of December Souls’ and ‘Brave Murder Day’) influences. Is Katatonia a big influence for you?
Yes, they were an influence, but I’m pretty bored by this question. Ok, there are Katatonia and Burzum influences on the album, but please stop it. I’m Forgotten Tomb and no one could say Forgotten Tomb is not a personal band. You can hear influences but you can also hear a strong personality, and this is the reason why I received great ratings from almost all the magazines. Anyway the Katatonia influences are almost gone on the new album.
What do you think of the music Katatonia makes today?
I totally worship the old Katatonia releases, I love ‘Discouraged Ones’ too and I also like the recent albums, but I think they lost a bit their typical trademark.
Didn’t you ever think of making Forgotten Tomb into a “real” band, with permanent members?
As I told you, I only need sessions sometimes to reach higher levels, but I don’t need other official members in the band. I don’t need people to write material for Forgotten Tomb, because I AM Forgotten Tomb. Maybe Wedebrand will be a permanent musician on the next Forgotten Tomb releases, but he’s not an effective Forgotten Tomb member because he’s not completely involved in the concept. But on the other hand he’s a really depressed and discouraged person and this is surely appreciated. I could not tolerate a fucking lifelover in the band, because I need negativity to record great albums. Maybe there will be a session-vocalist singing on the new album, a really dedicated person, I’m proud about this but both me and him know that he will never be a permanent member because we have our own strong personalities and this is only a gathering of negativity in order to support our common cause.
On the Forgotten Tomb homepage you tell the visitors that you hate this world, and hate the people etc.; where do these feelings come from?
This is natural for me since I don’t feel to be part of this human world and I don’t have nothing to share with the others except for eating, drinking, smoking and working. During my lifetime I understood “normal” people are completely useless and depreciable individuals, and surely the 99% of humanity should be erased without any mercy. You just have to take a look around you to understand what I mean. I feel to be completely inhuman, I feel emotions and I know things that are still unknown to the big part of standard humans, I’m living just because someone decided to put me on this filthy earth and I’m surviving to this unbearable suffering always trying to find a sense to all this stupidity called “life”. I still have to find it, and I’m almost sure I will never find it, also because my life goes down deeper day after day and I’m just watching all my few certainties drowning into the horrible nothingness of this earthly existence. I hate life, I hate people and I hate myself too, I’m just infecting this world with every possible method before to finally find the courage to end this endless suffering. I’m condemned to be alone.
Your vocals sound very overdriven, almost industrial, like the voice of Varg (Burzum) on the Filosofem album, especially the song “Entombed by Winter” sounds the same as Varg on that album…
I like Burzum and I know there are similarities between Forgotten Tomb and Burzum, and I don’t care. I will tell you more, maybe I’m one of the few ones able to really recreate in a personal way the Burzum lesson, to bring back his true original spirit. I used some distortion on my vocals for the “Entombed by Winter” song, so it’s natural that it could be compared to ‘Filosofem’. Personally I completely worship Burzum, it represents the true spirit of Depressive Black Metal.
You are also playing in three other bands; can you tell me something more about those bands?
I have 3 side-projects.
(The True) GASZIMMER is fucking Grim Unholy Black Metal with no compromises. The main influences for this project could be old Darkthrone, old Mayhem, old Carpathian Forest, Morbid, Celtic Frost, Hellhammer, Diaboli? I recorded a demotape called ‘Scorn Triumphant’, to be released originally on a new-born Italian distro, but the guy is a fucking rip-off moron, traitor and backstabber, so he can die and fuck himself!!! Anyway I don’t care, because the demo songs will be probably re-printed this year directly by me on a split-MC together with another great italian band called TOD. In the meantime Nox from the swedish terrorists CRAFT entered the line-up on vocals and I also found a real drummer to complete the line up. We will record the new full-lenght album called “Totalitarian in His cruelty” during this summer. Contacts: gaszimmer@libero.it www.gaszimmer.cjb.net
DAKRYON is Avantgarde Fusion Death Metal. We started in 1997 as a Melodic Death Metal band and we recorded a demo in 1998, but I never been a great fan of this kind of music, so we decided to move towards something more particular and technical, with some fusion/jazz influences and other tribal/experimental stuff. We can be compared to Atheist or Cynic, but our proposal is really more original and avantgarde? I do the vocals and I play the bass, the other guy (Wudang, session lead guitar for the Forgotten Tomb live-shows) plays all guitars, synths, effects and drum-programming. Totally untrendy stuff, I can assure you! We will record the long-awaited new promo-CD called ‘Hypnotic Fire Circle’ this year.
DIED LIKE FLIES is me and Zos Kia 93 (my wife), it’s Serial-Noize-Death-Industrial, in the vein of Brighter Death Now, MZ 412, Atrax Morgue, Cazzodio, Merzbow, etc. Totally sick and disturbing sounds, the final way towards oblivion. A limited-50 MCD called ‘No beauty without sickness’ has been released under Treblinka Prod. in December 2000, and now we’re ready with the full-length album called ‘Enuclea il vuoto. Ingoia. Muori’ and we’re searching for a good label. We’re also going to release some limited split-CDs with SS 3 Industries and Uji, but we’re not working on this project now due to some problems. It will arise in the future probably. Contacts: diedlikeflies@libero.it www.diedlikeflies.cjb.net
I’m also working on some other interesting projects, but there is nothing sure currently.
You did have a suicide contest on your site, the pictures of the winners (that you can see on the forgotten Tomb website) are very sick, did many people send you pictures?
Not so many actually. It’s not that simple to find really sick people. And it’s difficult to find people who want to send you pictures of their injuries because usually people who cut themselves are very misanthropic and they don’t like to show their wounds. I understand them, but with the Suicide-Contest I only made a sadistic experiment to see the reactions of the audience. People are ready to do everything just to win some fucking CDs, it’s incredible. They’re ready to destroy themselves, and this is really great because it means that I can inspire people towards self-destruction in a way or another. I’m sure there are a lot of other people destroying themselves while listening to my music, I can feel it from the e-mails I receive sometimes. Actually I think a guy killed himself while listening to ‘Songs to Leave’ and this has to be glorified for the sake of our cause. I will always keep on spreading the suicide-propaganda through my music and my interviews, I need to see fanaticism, and to perform live-shows is useful to spread the plague in a bigger way. The Suicide-Contest was a bizarre experiment, but the propaganda has just begun and it will be spreaded in a more venomous way in the future.
You make it very clear on your site that Forgotten Tomb isn’t a Nazi band, did some people really think this?
Yes, I had to clear up some misunderstandings due to a pair of pictures representing killing fields included on my first release, the ‘Obscura Arcana Mortis’ MCD. They were referred to my concept of extermination of the human race, it was not something related to politics, but I must admit it was simple to misunderstand those pictures, considering the current growing NS Black Metal scene. I’m not a nazi and honestly I don’t care about politics, I don’t believe in politics because they’re a fucking human lie. I have extreme ideas about society, in some ways I could be near to some right-wing concepts but this has nothing to do with my music and anyway I don’t want to be associated with nazi and politic ideologies, I don’t want problems with this because I really don’t care a damn fuck about nazi stuff and generally speaking about human politic scum. Forgotten Tomb is an anti-human band and I’m only focused about Suicide-Propaganda.
What is your opinion about bands who mix politics with music?
I don’t care, honestly I don’t appreciate particularly the NS Black Metal bands because Nazi ideologies have nothing to do with Black Metal ideologies. I think you can mix politics with music only if you play Hardcore, Punk and Oi! .
Do you have a favourite song on ‘Songs to Leave’?
Yes, I love ‘Entombed by Winter’ and ‘Disheartenment’, they’re the most depressive ones in my opinion.
Didn’t you ever think to commit suicide?
A lot of times, I’m still thinking about it in these days? But I have a strong sense of survival, and maybe this is the reason why I’m still here. I’m too strong to commit suicide actually, but this sometimes could be a curse, because so often I think my existence is completely senseless. But I don’t want to speak about my current personal problems, so I will skip to the next question now?
What is the ideal world for you?
A world without humans? Or at least, a world with deep-thinking people, but this will never happen, and in the end I need to hate someone, ha ha…
Why did you choose for the Abyss Studios to record the new album?
I had the opportunity to fly there to record the album, so why not? Tommy Tagtgren is a good producer, Abyss is a good studio so I tried. The result is pretty good and the sound is not classically Abyss-standard as some people could think. It’s very raw and obscure. But anyway I think I will record the next one in Italy because everything has been really stressing there, and I need to be quiet when I have to record an album.
When can we expect the release of it?
I think around May/June 2003, but nothing is for sure because this album is cursed (as every Forgotten Tomb release, though), so it could be delayed again for some strange reasons. I’m already experiencing some problems with it.
What can we expect from the new album, more depressive music?
Obviously. ‘Springtime Depression’ is another journey through depression, misanthropy, hatred and solitude. It sounds more obscure and perverse than ‘Songs to Leave’, a bit less melodic but very twisted and insane. It’s a very strange album for me, because it’s the first one with a real drummer and another vocalist. I played guitars, bass and a few synths. It’s a cursed album as I told you, it’s a true gathering of negative inputs and people.
Do you have something to add to this interview?
Yes, kill yourself!
For More information about Forgotten Tomb and Herr Morbid: http://www.forgottentomb.com/suidice
