Belgian brutal death metal band Aborted is wrapping up the Hell Over North America tour, and on Monday made a stop in Brooklyn, New York, where we were able to sit down with founding member and vocalist Sven De Caluwe, to talk about the tour, their new album and future plans.
Andy Jansons (AJ): You’ve been touring already for a while. How it’s going so far?
Sven De Caluwe (Sven): It’s great, it’s been fantastic, probably one of our best US tours. Obviously there were bigger ones, like supporting Carcass on their comeback, and doing Summer Slaughter tour, but in terms of other tours, this so far is the best one. A lot of fun, with other bands, that are friends of ours. We are like a big family on the road. No bullshit, everybody know everybody, it’s cool.
AJ: Are you tired by now?
Sven: Yeah, it’s heavy, been a while now. But we do it, because we love doing it, so of course every day we have to give one hundred percent to the people who came to our shows. They don’t care how long you’ve been on the road, they want to see a good show and that’s what they deserve. As an artist you need to control and pace yourself that you are able to deliver a good show every night.
AJ: You said you have friends other bands that are touring with you, do you always get along?
Sven: Yeah, super easy. Benighted went home about a week ago, which is sad, we wish they were on the whole tour, but it’s only so much time they were able to take off the work. They are some of our closest friends. Hideous Divinity have our bass player, they are nicest dudes and a great band. Cryptopsy of course, with whom we had very first tour here in 2001, and then maybe five or six time more. So we all know these guys pretty well.
AJ: Are you satisfied with the tour so far?
Sven: We have this comfortable bus, turnouts have been very good, people have been super supportive, and this time this is our tour, it’s not a festival thing. We are very thankful for people coming out and supporting us.
AJ: You have a pretty big fanbase here in US?
Sven: Yeah, we can’t complain. It has been growing steadily. Especially in last two years, we have noticed a big increase, which is good. We hope we can continue to come back and put up a good shows, do something more special every time.
Read the review of Aborted w/ Cryptopsy & Hideous Divinity in New York City
AJ: You are now supporting your new album TerrorVision. How your fans are reacting to the new material?
Sven: Good! Album hasn’t been out for too long, and you notice that with new songs people are not that much familiar about them, so they move a little less than with older stuff. Only now people really know all the Retrogore stuff, so it’s normal for people to have some time to get to know new songs. However it’s been very positive, and with set just being a little over an hour there is only four songs from new stuff. So this set has a little bit for everybody.
AJ: Moving away from the tour, speaking about TerrorVision, how would you describe the albums musical direction?
Sven: I would say, it’s probably one of our most intense records. But at the same time has a lot of ambience and atmosphere, I would not say as black metal or doom, but there these elements that break up all these blast beats, and add a new dimension to this technical death metal.
AJ: How you would compare TerrorVision to your previous albums?
Sven: Retrogore kind of scratched the surface of this dark atmospheric stuff, and with this album we saw how to implement it in the songs in more organic way, and we did just that. Not like, for example as Necrotic Manifesto which was full of blasts, all the time.
AJ: How do you see progressing from this album?
Sven: I think it will be combination of the new ideas that we have combined with old school ideas, and things that we have already introduced. And with new stuff we are really trying to keep in mind live element too, so there is a lot of dynamic in the songs.
AJ: So you are now finishing up this North American tour, what will be your future plans for the summer and rest of the year?
Sven: In the summer we are doing a lot of festivals, I believe about twenty of them. We will be very busy with that, and we will be writing a little bit too, because this year marks the twentieth anniversary of our first album, so we are going to do some old stuff mixed with new stuff anniversary release. I don’t know if it will be out this year, but we are working on it. Also, most likely we will do one more European tour in October, more in Scandinavia and places we did not have a chance visit on last headliner tour.
AJ: Considering fans in Australia will be reading this, are they in for a treat in near future?
Sven: (Laughs) No, unfortunately you can’t go to Australia every year. Last time it was absolutely amazing, we met so many nice people, and we can’t wait to go back.
AJ: Thank You very much!
A special thanks goes to the Claire Roberts from RED Music and Century Media for making this interview possible.
