I N T E R V I E W

Interview Dag (by mail)

Hello, there. Let me first tell you how glad I am to make this interview. I’m really fond of what you guys do.

Thank you!

First question, I assume quite few people know about MORBUS CHRON (and that’s a shame, really). Could you tell us a bit about the history of the band?

It started out under humble circumstances, with Robba and Edde in their early teens just fooling around with their guitars in a rehearsal space at their school. After hearing Autopsy for the first time, death metal was the only way to go and they started to write their own music. In need of a bass player, they met Adam randomly and asked him if he was up for the task. He'd never played bass before but gave it a shot and, including our ex-drummer Stefan, that's the line-up that recorded the demo tape "Splendour of Disease" in 2009. Shortly after Stefan left the band, Adam - who was really a drummer all along - took over the drums and told me - Dag - about the need of a new bass player. I can't recall if he even asked about it when I said I'd give it a try, but I'd never played bass before either. We've recorded one 7”, one album and one 10” since. And "Sweven" of course.

You first album, "Sleepers In The Rift", was clearly rooted in classic old swedeath. And yet I already found something more in the music, an original sound that struck me as much as the "Necrovation" album of 2012. Now that your sound has continued evolving, I can hear more melodic and rhythmic complexity, which goes with the use of clean guitar sound and some pedal effects. It still combines elements from old extreme stuff and something that sounds quite fresh to my ears that I can hardly describe. Late 60’s, 70’s psychedelic rock feel maybe? What are you into right now?

We're into a lot of different stuff... But there's no telling what inspired this sound. Robba wrote nine out of the ten tracks and masterminded the whole theme of the album, and he didn't really have any other specific music in mind during the process. This is apparently what his mind cooks up when he just ignores the blueprints of the genre. I know he's into Pink Floyd though, so you're probably in the ballpark, but there's really nothing specific that we deliberately threw into the mix.

The album is being released by Century Media, like your previous EP. Quite a change, since you’ve been working with more, let’s say, underground labels (Dybbuk, Me Saco Un Ojo and Pulverised) back in the days. How did you get that deal?

Jerry from Detest records, who released our 7” together with Me Saco Un Ojo, started working at CM and pitched our names to the higher powers.

Once again, you’ve recorded with Fred Estby. He seems to be the man for the job, since you’ve been working with him for the third time. How did you meet and get to work with him? Has he ever been involved in the songwriting ?

This is the second time we've worked with Fred, but yeah, I guess he is the man for the job. He's real nice and easy to work with and captures what we're after. He hasn't written anything for or with us, but he knows music and give us pointers and suggestions when needed.

What does “Sweven” mean ? What are the lyrics about? Who’s writing them?

It's old English for dream or vision. That's pretty much what the lyrics depict : a dream. The tracks intertwine lyrically as well as musically and create a trippy story of transcendence. Robba wrote all of them.

One word about the artwork here. Quite different from the one of your previous album, and yet it was made by the very same Raúl González. Did you ask him specifically to paint the cover according to the lyrics of the songs? Did he work something out of the album title only?

He made one painting for each track, based on the lyrics and some demos, so he did get a feel of the theme of the album. We trust the guy, so we didn't really ask for anything specific, but of course there were sketches and ideas being shared back and forth. The cover for the previous album was not an ordered piece from our side, it's just an old painting of his that we got the privilege to use.

It seems that you’ll be touring with French deathsters Necrowretch, Century Media buddies of yours. Apparently there is one single date in France, not sure about the city and the venue. Where will it be exactly? Will it be your first time in our country?

A place called le Grillen in Colmar. It's our first visit to France, we've never been on tour before and don't play live that much in general. We're looking forward to it!

What’s coming next ? Are you already planning another album?

We're not actively planning anything right now, for the near future we'll just see how the album gets received and see what comes up.

One last word for our readers, and thank you for your time.

Thank you!

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