Embracing that darkness that is Europe with the sounds of
Scandinavia circling them, the industrial goth metal band known as Deathstars. Not to be confused by Star Wars has been musically active for the last 15
years. In which they crossed the pond over to the U.S. getting to tour across
North America for the first time ever! Why did it take them so long to cross
over? What was their experience like while out there? Will we be seeing them
return or hearing any new tunes or anything whatsoever? Frontman vocalist Andreas
Bergh or (Whiplasher Bernadotte) answers those questions, plus plenty more of
the band's future and continuing success that is Deathstars!
1. First of all, who are you, and what do you do in the
band?
Whiplasher: I am Andreas also known as
"Whiplasher" and I do the vocals in the band.
2. You guys had just wrapped up your first ever U.S. tour,
how was it? Why did it take you so long to come over?
Whiplasher: We have
been wanting to go over for years, since we started, we had planned to do it, it's just the
schedules didn't work out. I don't know why, because we have been touring all
over the world, for a long time but it's never been in the cards to go,
obviously in North America. So now we just took the chance with this, touring
with Moonspell and Septicflesh to finally go there and it was a great time. For
us, it was like starting from square one pretty much, it's our first tour
there, we haven't really established us as a live band there. Hopefully we do
get back as soon as possible. All of us want to go there ASAP, so if we can go back there within a year that
would be nice. That's how I look at it just one more time.
3. What were some of your favorite things about being let
alone touring in the U.S.? What was the experience like?
Whiplasher: It was overall good. We had as usual we had very
bad luck when it came to the practical stuff like the tour bus. We had a tour
bus exploding in the Austrian Alps. So barely got out of it. Now we had a hit
and run outside of San Francisco, with two other accidents with it, then also
the driver drove into a bridge in Manhattan, so the roof was low. A part from
that there were other issues, like we
had problems getting our second driver, which made us miss a couple of shows. Besides
those things, we did have a great time.
4. Whenever an out of state or country act comes to a
certain terrain, word is spread and shows tend to sell out, was this the case
for Deathstars on this U.S. run?
Whiplasher: No not at all. Also I think it's a huge
difference for us playing in Europe or Mexico or Russia a part from the U.S. at
this point, because we have even had a decent distribution there when it comes
to our albums. I think that from what I heard with Moonspell and Septicflesh,
they usually tour together and like Moonspell have been there 12 times, so I
guess a lot of people have seen them already. Then it's also for us, we can't
have stage props or anything like that in the U.S. So it's like, starting all
over again as I said, just being a band on a plywood stage, performing the
songs, that's where we come from originally and what we enjoy as well, because
growing up with bands like NC5, Iggypop, it just should be the band the music.
It's kind of refreshing to work up from the bottom again so to speak. But I
also did see a huge following there, people dressing up as us, we have diehard
fans from all over the world. So it feels good to see our band breathing on the
streets of North America as well.
5. It's been almost a year since the release of your fourth
full-length album "The Perfect Cult". Do you have any new music in
the works?
Whiplasher: Yes we always write, but since there has been so
much touring since fall of last year, we haven't had much time. We usually sit
and write music while on tours, it's the same thing when you get home you don't
sit down and write music right away. So we need that period of time to start
working on new songs. I guess now after the U.S. European festivals, we will
start working harder on the material, so we can start recording the new album, that;s a goal.
6. Have you ever considered releasing your music in terms of
an acoustic release?
Whiplasher: No not really, we did discuss doing acoustic
shows in the future. But I don't think we would do proper acoustic versions of
songs we have already recorded. Maybe we will see about writing new music in
acoustic. We are an electric band we like distortion, I'm not too sure but you
never know.
7. Out of all that you have released, you have yet to
release a live album or live DVD anything like that in the works?
Whiplasher: Yeah the DVD has been something the people have
been asking for, for many, many, years. We been slow, we have filmed a lot of
shows with professional crews and stuff but there is kind of an inflation with
the DVD, we are definitely going to do something but it's not in a hurry. Just
going through all of the material takes some effort, someone has to deal with
that and yes a live album or DVD we will see, we have always discussed it but
there's no stress about it.
8. Besides the touring and music business with Deathstars,
some of you have been involved in other projects Swordmaster, Dissection, and
Opthalamia, will any of those be coming back to life or consider playing a show
or tour with you guys?
Whiplasher: No never. I mean with Deathstars, especially me,
I decided not to be in any other bands. But to focus on this band, and everyone
is in the band and the band is successful. No I don't think, we try to keep it
as Deathstars as a thing of its own. We come from the death metal, black metal
scene of the early 90s' the extreme part of it, when we grew up and I still
enjoy that music, maybe I will do a project like that in the future. But it is
something I have been thinking about, but I won't ever combine it with
Deathstars.
9. You went from being a 5-piece to a 4-piece act, how come?
Do you prefer the line-up this way or the other way or does it not matter?
Whiplasher: Because Cat who played guitar with us, was just
fed up with touring and didn't want to tour anymore. I mean he wanted to be in
the band but didn't want to travel as much as we did. Some other stuff was
going on in his life which we respected. For us, there was no need to finding a
new guitar player, just for the sake of having
5 members. But it's something we never know, maybe someone else will
join in the future, but it works fine as a 4 piece so we will stick with that
for now.
10. In your publicity photos, you guys go all out with your
attire and make-up, but during your performances it's toned down to just casual
attire with or without make-up, have you performed the way you look in the
publicity shots or would you consider it?
Whiplasher: Yeah we have a lot of different outfits from the
uniforms to the leather jackets, we just want to visualize music somehow. Not
just go out in t-shirts and jeans. So yeah of course, we have certain face of
the band, we put out there. It's not super important but it is part of the
band.
11. How many of those military hats do you own? Do you still
own all of the previous one's?
Whiplasher: Everyone keeps stealing it. All of the fans,
when I throw on the side of the stage when not using it, someone is crawling
from the shadows stealing it. I don't know how many I have had. A lot of the
custom made one's are expensive, made with symbols, the logo, etc. it's kind of
irritating. I don't have many of the hats left, but I think all of us still
have a lot of the old uniforms we used throughout the years, people steal stuff
all the time. I think someone in Mexico stole my custom made leather jacket
that was very expensive, then something happened in North America, it's like
that all the time.
12. Would you ever consider doing a show or a tour where
each of you wears a certain outfit from that time period of that release?
Whiplasher : Maybe we will do that we will see.
13. Will we ever see you perform any of your releases in
their entirety from front to back?
Whiplasher: That would be interesting and I would enjoy
that, would be really fun. But I don't know, but it's not something we are
thinking about right now. Maybe at some point, we will see, it's an idea.
14. On some of your previous releases, you have some
unreleased tracks here and there, how much more back catalog do you have
leftover that we may get to hear?
Whiplasher: The thing is, we a lot of stretches of songs,
about 95% of them we throw away. We have a lot of stuff we really don't, I mean
we do it as demos or something but never. Sometimes we look back at that
material and look back at it and see if it would fit, but mainly we don't use
it. Songs we have recorded and not released yet, will not be released. We are
very picky about what we release. We don't release material that we don't like,
just because of showing new material, you kind of destroy the band. We are
pretty strict about that.
15. You had turned to using the IndieGoGo campaign as your
source of helping you get over here and in general, reaching above your goal,
why did you turn to this outlet and why do you think others do as well?
Whiplasher: That was amazing that we got help to do this.
You don't earn that much money. We have so many things happening, it's been so
much bad luck and the fans willing to help, it was amazing. I think we got that
info from other bands, and our management set it up. In the future hopefully we
don't have to do that stuff and can go over there by ourselves. It was great
help this time but hopefully we will manage it some other way in the future. I
have even seen my favorite director, he's getting crowd funded and it's just
another way to participate and help out.
16. What else can we expect to see from you guys for the
rest of this year, leading into the next year?
Whiplasher: Well right now, since we have been touring so
much since fall of last year. We have some festivals, always getting offers to
tour from different areas. But there comes a point when you have to say it's a
enough and try to focus on writing new material. I think right now all of us
are into trying to get another album out there, instead of it taking 5 years
like this last one. This is our biggest priority than going out touring again.
We already toured for this album so hopefully focus on the new album.
17. Do you have any last words for fans, or potential new
fans?
Whiplasher: If they want to listen to sound of Scandinavia and the darkness of Europe, then you must
check us out because you don't get that in America there is no chance. We would
like to come over to the U.S. as soon as possible again so hopefully you can
check us out!
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