Six Dumb Questions with Deville
Next week, Swedish rockers Deville head out on a 10-day tour with Dutch counterparts Sungrazer (dates here or on the flier below). In honor of this, I thought maybe I’d hit up Deville guitarist/vocalist Andreas Bengtsson with some dumbass questions about his band, in case maybe some of you reading, like me, were unfamiliar with them and their work.
Bengtsson — who’s joined in Deville by guitarist Martin Hambitzer, bassist Markus Åkesson and drummer Markus Nilsson — was happy to oblige, and below, he discusses some of the four-piece’s history, their album, Hail the Black Sky on Buzzville Records, the upcoming tour, and about three other things. Hey, it’s only six questions.
Enjoy:
1. You guys have been together for seven years. How has the band changed in that time? What do you remember now about when you first got together?
If you can call it natural progress, I think we’ve done that. We started because of a love for heavy riffing and grooves. We played for a couple of years before in different constellations but were searching for more power and heaviness, which we didn’t know then but is obvious now since this has been a nice ride so far. Looking back on the records we made, I think we found ourselves pretty good, even though we always have the dilemma between doing hit-riffing and slow, longer more spaced out songs and that has followed us since we started. We have the passion for both so our dream is to combine it. When we started we just wanted to riff as much we could, tired of playing all the other stuff we’d done before, and during the years since, we have been trying to look for some other paths also.
2. How was the reaction to Hail the Black Sky, and how has it been working with Buzzville Records?
It feels like it was a bigger buzz around our first record, Come Heavy Sleep, releasing our debut and all, but after we toured a lot on that record we had more people coming to the shows and interest on the Hail the Black Sky record and touring. It was kind of an opposite to the first record since that one took very long time to get together recorded during different periods of time. Hail the Black Sky was recorded during two weeks and mixed and mastered during two weeks so its more like a rock ‘n’ roll record. The reviews has almost been better on this one, you never know why because you always keep getting surprised what the reviewers think. Working with Buzzville is quite simple; it’s a small label doing it for the love of the music. They put out bands they like and as you can understand in these downloading times they don’t do it for the money.
3. How did you hook up with Sungrazer for the tour this month?
We have the same booker for Holland and we did some gigs together last year and earlier this year and it worked out really well, so when the idea came up it was no question to try to get it together since this package could be a really good combo. And another good thing is that they are really nice guys so its gonna be a 10-gig long sweet party!
4. Do you consider yourselves a stoner rock band?
I would like to describe ourselves as ‘70s rock for the 21st Century. Being influenced by Sabbath and the founders of early stonerrock and many other heavy rock bands in metal and rock like Soundgarden, etc., we try to take this and do something for this time of period, even though timeless. Riffs never get old, haha!
5. I’m a great admirer of the Swedish heavy rock underground. Who are some of your favorite countrymen bands, and are there any newcomers we should know about?
Yes, many bands have quite good reputation and I think it’s a pretty high standard here. I really couldn’t say I listen to Swedish bands in this genre that much. I don’t know why really, maybe it doesn’t feel interesting enough. For the newcomers, it’s always interesting when so-called stoner bands try to take it to another level and make something new themselves, then I think it can be really good. One cool band to check is — not from Sweden though but close; Norwegians — The Zoids who have a new record out soon. Really talented guys!
6. Is there anything planned yet to follow up Hail the Black Sky? Do you know where/when you’ll be recording again?
We have already started to write on the next record and will start to demo soon. We got access to a great studio just outside Malmö where we live and can work there as much as we need so there are all possibilities to make it all that we want. There might be a bigger thing coming up for this release but nothing set yet so I can’t say that much. We plan to release it someway late-Winter/early-Spring 2011 and then try to tour on places we haven’t been before like the States and Australia, but also where we have been before. If you would like to bring us over, get in touch!
Tags: Buzzville, Deville, Malmö, Sweden
Some Swedish on the Radar is The seance of Noctum. Not original but very nice. Another one that has its moment is the 3rd of Stonewall Noise Orchestra, comes out in a few weeks but was given as a free download a while ago.