Exclusive Interview: Demoralizer talk “This World is Suffering”!

A calendar month on from our 2nd January review of “This World Is Suffering” by Dutch Death Metal enthusiasts Demoralizer we had a conversation with guitarist Yuri de Wolf about his crimes, convictions and feelings on the sentence subsequently handed down to him in punishment. He is joined in the prison cell by vocalist Reinder Dorman, bassist Jacco van de Haar and drummer Pascal Payens with all four co-conspirators contributing the end product, which in case you haven’t heard, comes with a health warning…

How have you found the reaction to “This World is Suffering” so far? “The reviews and comments we received so far are beyond our expectations and we are very proud. Especially the last weeks we receive quite some exposure online and requests in our mailbox, seems like we opened some doors and we can expect some more exposure in the near future. We worked hard through the whole year creating a complete concept of our EP. For us the concept is not only the music but also the art-work, recording of a videoclip, band photo’s the lyrics etc. Also the 6 songs are purposely recorded in a particular order. The first 3 songs collide into each other and we slowly build up the atmosphere in our songs before it really starts to take off”

You’ve described your band as wanting to create contemporary Death Metal but nothing prepared us for some of the Progressive and even Jazz inspired moments like the solo on “Silence“, which is stunning by the way. What made you want to take the sound to the boundary pushing levels? “As guitarist I am mainly responsible for the song writing of the guitar parts and song structures. During the writing and recording process, my intention is to write brutal death metal tracks with heavy but also catchy riffs.And always try to find a sort of relief part within every song part where the listeners can take a break before we take off heavy again. So for example in our song “Silence” we start off heavy with brutal death metal riffs and in between this song I created a kind of melodic / jazzy solo part where everyone can take a breath. The same for our track “Alive to Die” we slowdown from fast blast beats and turn into a melodic and dramatic part after ending as much heavy as we started. In my opinion if you write songs with continuous fast technical riffs and shredding, it will be harder for the average listener to understand and fully enjoy your music. Not to mention live it would be more of a show-off rather than headbanging with your crowd. So that’s the balance I try to look for. Also for our vocalist it recording his voice will be less effective in my opinion. So for me the goal was to write song structures where your vocalist has enough space to create lyrics with enough repetition, catchiness and with enough room to express his different vocal sounds. What’s interesting to note is that our vocalist Reinder, was in fact a death metal drummer in a technical death metal band “El Chupacabre“ after his band felt apart, he wanted to explore his grunting & guttural metal vocals in another metal band. So we were happy we got in contact with Reinder while we were searching for a vocalist. And I think he proved himself and others he has become also a great death metal vocalist”

As a new band with a limited number of songs do you contemplate playing a cut from one of your previous bands live to fill time or would you rather start fresh and play a cover? “At the moment our six tracks of our EP are not enough to play a complete live performance. In the past 10 years I wrote almost 30 songs which have never been released. Most of them are technical & progressive death metal and way more melodic sounding than our current songs. Some of those songs fit into our concept. I already made a selection which songs we can use in the future and have to convert everything from 6 string to 7 string. I also wrote some new songs for Demoralizer which we need to finish in the future. So we don’t have to worry about ideas or new songs in the future.”

If we are made up of our genes and our influences, what is in your jeans and who would you consider your influences? “For my personally most of my musical influences come from many different metal bands. That is one of the reasons you also hear some “progressive and Jazz” influences like you mentioned in Q2. Music has no boundaries if you find right amount of creativity.

So if I may mention few bands I would say:

Death Metal bands: Cannibal Corpse, Job for a Cowboy for the groove, brutality, filthiness.

Technical Death Metal bands: Soreption, Necrophagist, The Faceless, The Zenith Passage.

Metalcore / Deathcore: Chimaira, Jinjer with their grooving riffs.

Progressive Metal bands: Opeth, Haken, Between the Buried and Me.

During the song writing I take elements of these bands and make try it our own unique piece of music. If you want to know more just check my Spotify playlist called “Daily Extreme Metal Routine”. But what’s most important to mention is that every bandmember has its own inspirations and has its own creative space in the band during our song writing process to express himself”

What’s the local scene like in Harderwijk, Netherlands? Are there any local heroes or bands from your neck of the woods you would recommend we check out? “To be honest I don’t know what the scene is nowadays. Like 15 years ago we use to have a rock / metal café in Town and metal bands were playing on regular basis at different venues. Unfortunately it’s that time is gone. But every year we have one bigger metal event with great names which is definitely great to be there and the finals of the NL Metal battle contest finals are held in my town. But I think the good old times are gone and hope it will come back soon. If I have to mention some local metal heroes, I think most will agree with me that it would be the members of the extreme trash metalband “Inquisitor”  which had a great success in ‘the nineties” in our country and across the borders. Also their guitarist Erik is still playing with his black / folk metal band Ancient Rites and they are still active and greatly accepted here and across our borders. When I was a lot younger and wanted to learn and play metal, Erik was the first person I got into contact with. Although we have a different taste and playing style, his previous successes and experience inspired me to continue playing metal and develop myself as guitarist as I became now”

What’s next for Demoralizer? “At this moment we still need a second guitarist. After doing some advertising, we were in contact with some guitarist and we hope we can introduce one of them at the beginning of next year. In short term more reviews and exposure about our release will follow and we hope we can start planning gigs in Q1 of 2023. (We also have to write a few extra songs).”

“This World is Suffering” by Demoralizer is out now and available over at bandcamp.