Swedish Traditional Death Metallers Puteraeon are working on a brand new album due for release later this year. I caught up with vocalist/guitarist Jonas Lindblood ..
Hi Matt! I'm fine thanks. Too much to do and too little time, haha. We've recorded all drums and are working on bass and guitars at the same time. I just put down my last three songs today. Rune & Daniel still have some tracks to do. While waiting for the other guys, I will start with some solos tomorrow I think. When all this is done I will start with the vocals. Rune will do some vocals as well since he's backing me up when we play live. It will be great!
For me, The Esotoric Order was my favourite release of 2011 - has it had a good response with other people too?
The response has been a lot better than we thought and obviously we are very happy that people like our stuff. We have never written music for anybody else than ourselves, but of course, we're pleased that people seem to like it. People come up to me and say "This is real Death Metal, like it used to sound back in the early '90's". That kinda warms you, you know? Feels like we've done something right.
Who would you say had influenced you and inspired you most to make music in Puteraeon?
Mainly Old School Death Metal bands I listened to whilst I grew up. Not only the Swedish bands that everybody probably already figured out like Entombed, Dismember, Grave, Unleashed, old At The Gates, but also non-Swedish bands like Morgoth, Bolt Thrower, Carcass, Autopsy, Deicide, Morbid Angel. Many of these bands have done less good stuff later, but I mainly listen to music from late '80's to like 1994. After that year I feel like much of the extreme music became less good.
How did your demos sell? They are still available from your website right?
I'm not really sure on how many of the demos are sold and how many were given away, haha. Our first demo 'Fascination for Mutilation' has probably somewhere around 400 copies out there, the 2nd demo 'The Requiem' around 200 copies and the third demo 'The Extraordinary Work Of Herbert West' somewhere around 200 copies as well. Yeah they are all still available.
What was the idea behind the bonus track on the second edition of the Requiem demo? Are you guys all really big Dr. Who fans?
I remember I liked that series and the theme and it was mainly done as a fun thing. I think the track is alright. Mayby we show our humour in this track.
What can we expect from the new album?
We are recording 11 songs. Not sure if any of these will be a bonus song or not, but yeah, 11 songs. We've been working through the songs more this time but I don't think we've changed anything really. We still play the same style as before, we just got a couple of new songs. Rogga from Paganizer is also doing some guest vocals by the way. It's gonna be hard and dirty and smell of old pungent death.
You released a demo called The Extraordinary Works Of Herbert West. Are you a big fan of H.P Lovecraft and did you set out from the start to make a concept demo?
I personally like Lovecraft and I guess the other guys like his work too more or less. Our material didn't have much lovecraft inspiration before the third demo. Up until then the lyrics was more primitive and often inspired by different horror movies and so on. I wanted a bit more thought through the lyrics and while playing a Lovecraft game on my Xbox I got more and more drawn into his world, not that I havn't been into him earlier because of course I have. I saw the first Re-animator movie sometime as a kid back in the '80's. Anyway, I thought that Lovecraft's themes worked really well as lyrical inspiration for our music. We don't have a complete release with only Lovecraft lyrics, neither demo nor album, but on the upcoming album 'Cult Cthulhu' there's even more Lovecraft than on 'The Esoteric Order'. I'm not saying that we will try only doing Lovecraft themes in the future, I still get inspired by different authors as well. There's a song on the new album with heavy inpiration from the Clive Barker story 'The Great And Secret Show'but on the other hand, this book feels a bit Lovecraft inspired haha.
Where do you see Puteraeon going in the next few years?
I have no idea. We take it one step at the time. We have families that take up a lot of our time and that's the way we like it. We love this genre, that's why we play it but I'm not sure that we want to become huge rockstars touring all the time. We're kind of happy where we are right now.
What modern day bands do you admire?
I love Behemoth and that I probably the only "modern" band I listen to. Another band I really like is Ghost, but I guess they don't sound that modern. I mainly listen to old stuff or some newer bands doing old stuff. New Paganizer is nice for instance.
What does Puteraeon mean and where did the idea for the band name come from?
It means rotten aeon. It's got no deeper meaning than that. Perhaps a warning finger to myself never to try to do something else with this band other than playing old rotten Death Metal.
Are you a fan of Black Metal?
To generalise, I like the growl and the heaviness of Death Metal more. I'm not a big fan of either the tape recorder in the rehearsal place guitar sound, the lack of humour, the try to be so fucking serious attitude or the more gothic (nerdy) Black Metal. I do like some of the old stuff though; the first Dark Funeral mini, 'Those Of The Unlight' by Marduk, Mayhem 'De Mysteriis..'. Some people call Dissection Black Metal, I don't. To me it's Death Metal and I love it.
What is your favourite UK Death Metal band and why?
Carcass I think. I love 'Symphonies...' up to 'Heartwork'. 'Swansong' was crap though. I Listened very much to Carcass as I grew up. Other bands are the obvious ones; Napalm Death, Benediction and Bolt Thrower and among these three I like Napalm Death best. My absolute favourite album with Napalm is 'Utopia Banished'. Many people say that 'Harmony Corruption' is better, but I like 'Utopia...' just a little more.
Any last words?
Once again thanks for your support! To the readers; Go check out our stuff, check our website, like us on Facebook and please spread our videos. 'CULT CTHULHU' is coming!
Thanks for the interview Jonas. Remember to check out 'The Esoteric Order' out now on Cyclone Empire and check out the bands website here.
Killer band and really cool interview! Can't wait for the second LP!!
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