Interview with Alwin, drummer of Departed Souls.
Have any of you played in other bands? All the members are old friends. We played together in several local Death Metal bands in the period 1989 untill 1994. Then we all went several ways. Nick and I never stopped playing music. Erik and Rai did quit and never played in other bands after this period.
How is it that you started playing music? I started playing drums when I was a kid. Playing songs of bands like Status Quo in my bedroom. I always liked Rock ’n Roll. Heavy guitarmusic. When I was 11 I discovered Iron Maiden and I became hooked to Heavy Metal. After that I discovered more extreme bands like Slayer, Destruction, Possessed and Venom. For me these bands were shocking but interesting at the same time. These bands actually inspired me to play in local metalbands.
What are your names, who plays what How old are you?
Rai – Vocals
Erik – Guitar
Nick – Guitar/Bass
Alwin - Drums
Jeroen – Bass
We all reached our 40s.
Have you had other previous members? No
Did you make music even when you were young? Yes. I played all my life. When I was six I got my first drumkit.
Where are you from? We are all from The Netherlands.
What year did the band form? We formed our band at the end of 2013. Rai and I are both fanatic vinyl- and cd collectors. We hadn’t seen each other for about 20 years. But we ran in to each other at a metalmarket. We talked about old times and decided to make music together again. We asked some other old band members of the early days and that was the actual start of Departed Souls. Now Jeroen Pomper, bassplayer of God Dethroned, joined the band and it’s a total blast.
What’s your style or genre? Old School Death Metal. One of the main reasons we started this band was that we wanted to sound like the stuff on the old demo-trading days. No technical polished triggered Death Metal for us, but the way it was meant to be. Raw and dirty.
What inspires you? The bands that inspire Departed Souls are Death (early period), Possessed, Asphyx, Obituary, Autopsy…that kind of stuff.
How often and where do you rehearse? We try to rehearse every week in a town in the North of the Netherlands.
How have you developed since you started the music? I played all kinds of music in my life. Started out with Thrash Metal to extremer Metal. In 1996 I had enough of playing drums on high speed. I wanted to get more groove and explore other kinds of music. So I did. I personally like many kinds of music, as long as it’s Rock ’n Roll. Rai and Eric on the other hand only listen to Death Metal.
Do you have other interests of work outside the band? Rai and I are fanatic musiccollectors. Personally I have a great interest in very old (cult)movies and motorracing.
What are the songs about? The lyrics on our debut are about the cruel middle Ages. It’s concept that fits our music.
Who does the composing or the lyrics? Rai writes the lyrics. Mostly Erik comes with a lot of riffs tot the rehearsalroom. As band we create complete songs out of these riffs.
Do you start with the music or the lyrics? First we make the song. But mostly Rai has already written some lyrics. Then he reworks them until they fit the music.
Have you done any covers live? Until now we haven’t played any coversongs. We talked about a few options, but we have always enough great riffs of our own. So we work them out first.
What language do you sing in? English.
What was your first gig like? We don’t know yet. Our first gig is next month.
Where do you plan to gig the coming year? We play some gigs in The Netherlands and Germany this year. And on the 21th of November we play at a festival in Fredericia Denmark.
When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? We have very nice t-shirts, shorts and posters which do very well. Also our first demo which we released in 2014 did sell very well.
Where can people buy your merchandise?You can buy the merchandise at [email protected] or at www.ancientdarkness.dk.
What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? As a recordcollecctor I don’t understand the people who are downloading at all. I just don’t want 3 million songs on my mobile and next week 3 million other songs. I like the hunt for the real formats. I want the whole piece of art at home. I enjoy playing a record. That’s a moment of my own. I don’t want shitty compressed songs on my computer without bass and depth.
How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? Not only the music industry. The whole world has changed. There is too much of everything available. Too much games, too much music, too much news, too much art. Twenty years ago you had to make some effort to get that one record you wanted, or that one movie on VHS. You travelled, went to markets. Nowadays it’s one single push on a button at home en you can get anything you want. That’s what makes people lazy. Younger people don’t want to do something for it. It must been thrown in the womb and then maybe they’ll be interested for half a day. On the other hand I must say that most Metalfans still have that “tape trading” blood in them and are willing to search for special items.
What do you think of my work? Great! It’s support like yours that keeps the scene alive.
Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? For us; yes. We play Old School Death Metal. We want to sound like the bands in the old tape-trading days. So obviously we get more inspiration from the older bands.
Do you have any new material? At this moment we have recorded a killer bonustrack for the vinyl version of ‘Barbaric Tortures’ which will be released by Ancient Darkness Production in November. Yesterday we got the first unmixed version and it’s a crusher!
What are your web sites? https://www.facebook.com/pages/Departed-Souls/199852183551629?fref=t
How can people reach you? Email: [email protected]
What are your plans for the future? We take it from day to day. We started this band for fun. Old friends get back together again drinking a beer and play heavy music. There’s no big commercial plan behind it.