Interview withJohan van Roy of Suicide Commando
With the upcoming new album ‘Implements of Hell’ casting already a big shadow back into 2009 we thought it’s high time for a little chat with Johan van Roy, regarding his new “baby”. Another, more in-depth interview is going to follow in the near future so keep your eyes peeled for it.
Reflection of Darkness (RoD): Let’s first talk about the preceding single ‘Die, Motherfucker, Die’. Was it chosen to be the appetizer, apart from it having a representative function for the album?
Johan: There wasn’t any specific reason why we did ‘Die Motherfucker Die’ as appetizer for the upcoming album, it just happened to be one of the few tracks that was finished first and somehow also fitted best between the last more danceable suicide commando songs and the more darker evolution on the new album.
RoD: When did you start gathering the first ideas for a new record?
Johan: First song that was finished after the ‘Bind Torture Kill” album was ‘Hate me’ which you now will find in a new updated version on the new album, but the original version was already finished over 2 years ago. So I guess you can say that first
ideas were gathered about 2 years ago already, but it actually took me quite long to finish any further songs, and most new songs even were written in 2009 any way.RoD: How long have you ultimately been working from the first ideas to the final end result?
Johan: Well, you could say I’ve been working over 2 years on this new album, but all in all I wrote most songs in about the last 9 to 12 months.
That might seem as a long time but you also have to know that I’ve been doing lots of other things in the last 2 years, for example I got married and meanwhile even became daddy.
RoD: Can you already tell us anything about the direction of the album’s sound? Is it more of a step towards perfecting the original SUICIDE COMMANDO sound or rather a foray into other sonic territory?
Johan: I’d say it’s my darkest album since a very long time. While many other bands still move further into the techno industrial scene and still pace up the tempo, most of my new songs became a lot darker and slower again. So perhaps I’m stubborn, I don’t know, I just didn’t want to do another ‘Bind Torture Kill’ album as that was full of danceable tracks.
I think the new album is the perfect balance between the early more atmospheric suicide commando sound and the latest more danceable tunes, I’d say it’s the prefect blend between the ‘Bind Torture Kill’ album and the ‘Mindstrip’ album from 2000.
RoD: On another note, even before the new single release was out there’s been a vinyl. Who came up with that idea and are you a vinyl fan yourself?
Johan: I grew up with vinyl and I always loved it, so it actually was one of the few
things missing in my own collection, so it kind of was a dream and one of the few challenges left to release a vinyl some day, and with signing to Out Of Line I finally was able to realize this dream.RoD: That release contained two new songs named ‘Until We Die’ and ‘Severed Head’. Are those tracks, left from the recording sessions of ‘Implements of Hell’?
Johan: Initially they indeed were planned to be only released on the vinyl, but as we got so many reactions from people who don’t owe a turntable anymore, we first decided to release these songs digitally as well and later even decided to put them on the new album as well because of the high demand.
RoD: Will you be touring in support of the album or aren’t there any plans yet?
Johan: Well, we won’t be doing a REAL tour this time, but we’ll do several new single and festival shows in 2010. I just became a father so it wouldn’t be the right time to do extensive touring in 2010, but we for sure will do lots of festivals instead, so opportunities enough to catch us live somewhere.
RoD: Any last words?
Johan: I’d like to thank all of our fans out there for their never-ending support, I hope you all will enjoy the new album coming up really soon now and I hope we’ll see us some time some place somewhere soon at one of our live shows. And on a more personal note, I’d like to thank Daniela here for her tremendous live photo work and support.
RoD: Then that’s all for now. Thank you for taking the time to answer the questions
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