1.Hailz Erik, and hellcome to our webzine.
Because this is the first intie with you, please give us some infos about you!
Most people who read this
interview probably know me best as Dutch guitarist of Black Metal band Ancient
Rites, and some also might remember that I was guitarist of the Extreme Thrash
Metal band Inquisitor. What is less known, is that I'm also guitarist for a
Hardrockcoverband called Plusminus. I'm also involved in a foundation called
“Noord Geldersch Metaal” which organises metal gigs in my hometown Harderwijk.
During the daytime I have an office job at the planning department of a local
company in my hometown.
2.Tell us, first, how were you introduced
into metal?
I slowly grew into listening metal, ever since I was
exposed to KISS in 1979 when they had huge hits. Only after listening a lot to
their compilation album “Double Platinum”, I started developing a taste for
hard rock music. An older brother of a friend of mine introduced me to other
hardrock bands like Van Halen and Status Quo. Only a few years later I
discovered metal by checking out albums of
Iron Maiden and Saxon. Around the year 1985, I started to appreciate
Metallica and not much later also thrash metal like Slayer and Sacred Reich. At
the end of the 80's, I started to appreciate death metal. And in the 90's I
became interested in Black metal. Nowadays I still listen to a lot of metal but
I also listen to what is nowadays called Classic Rock. Generally speaking, you
could say that my collection of music ranges roughly from Southern Rock to
Black Metal.
3.Did you played in
other bands before Inquisitor?
It's hardly worth
mentioning but yes, I played in only one band before Inquisitor, which was
called Menticide. Menticide was short-lived and never played live or released
any demo. The very first line-up started in 1989 and was with Alex Bakker and
Wim v/d Valk. For me and Wim it was actually our first experience of being in a
band. Alex already had band experience before. Wim and Alex didn't stay long in
Menticide and joined an extreme thrash metal band called Desultory. When Wim
and Alex left Desultory in 1991, I joined forces with them again, and
Inquisitor was born early 1992. My first live gig was with Inquisitor in 1992.
4. What can you tell about the Inquisitor
days? Are you satisfied now with its works?
Inquisitor existed roughly
from early 1992 till the end of 1996 and was in a way a continuation of the
extreme thrash metal style Desultory did, which was a style we liked a lot, but
we felt that we could improve it to a higher level. Our main influences were
(extreme) thrash metal bands such as Sadus, Kreator, Dark Angel and Sabbat but
we were also influenced by death metal and other styles of metal. The first
line-up recorded the demo's “Blasphemous Accusations” (1992) and “Your Pain will be Exquisite”
(1993) and consisted of: Alex Wesdijk on vocals, Erik Sprooten on guitar, Alex
Bakker on bass and Wim VanderValk on Drums. With this line-up we did several
gigs in The Netherlands, and we even did three gigs in Belgium. At one of those
gigs in Holland we were even support-act for a certain band called Ancient
Rites. In 1993 some local churches searched contact with the organisation of an
outdoor festival in our hometown to get our gig cancelled because they were
very concerned with our “not so christian-friendly” lyrics. An article about
this matter appeared in a local paper a few days after our gig, and the result
of this was, that we gained even more attention in the metal scene. In 1995,
the second line-up with Hans Pos on bass as replacement for Alex Bakker,
recorded “Walpurgis – Sabbath of Lust”, which was released in 1996 by Shiver
Records. With this line-up we did several gigs in Holland of course, and also
three gigs in Germany. I'm still satisfied with the recordings and the music of
Inquisitor. And I'm still proud of what I did with Inquisitor. I do enjoy
reading reviews about Inquisitor on the internet. And without Inquisitor, I
probably wouldn't be in Ancient Rites.
5. I know that you re-released the LP "Walpurgis-Sabbath of Lust".
Tell us more about this (the format cd/dvd/lp and if contains any additional
stuff such as additional tracks or a booklet in it too)!
The original CD is hard to
find for quite some time now, and last year I saw someone selling it on Ebay
for a huge amount of money. Also last year, a friend of mine notified me about
a split-CD with Inquisitor on it, which
I didn't know existed. Apparently someone released this split-CD a few years
ago, which wasn't an official release. So I guess if someone else is releasing
Inquisitor un-officially, then it must be interesting enough to do a proper
re-release. And it seems this is going
to happen, 'cause at the moment I have a verbal agreement with a record company
for a re-release. This re-release will probably contain the demo's too and may
possibly also be released on vinyl. No release date is known yet.
6. Are you still in contact with Inquisitor members? Have you ever thought of a
reunion-show?
I'm still in contact with
most Inquisitor members. Alex Bakker, the bass-player who can be heard on the
Inquisitor demos, is also a member of my hardrockcoverband Plusminus, so I see
him quite often. I sometimes meet our ex-singer Alex Wesdijk. And recently I
got into contact with Wim again. I met Hans, pure coincidentally, a few years
ago on a small open air festival. Nowadays he plays bass-guitar in a band
called “After The Silence”.
I'm certainly not against
a reunion, but I have my doubts if that will ever happen. Only the future will
tell.
7. What do you think about Centurian? What do you think about their latest
album?
Centurian is one of the
best and brutal death metal bands ever to emerge from The Netherlands, and was
founded by ex-Inquisitor drummer Wim. Their music is quite intense. Once in a
while I enjoy listening to their albums. And so far, I only have heard one song
of their new album, which definetely sounds like Centurian, although it is
without Wim on drums.
8. Now about Ancient Rites: when and how did you joined? Was it during the
supporting tour of "Blasfemia Eternal" or afterwards?
During the “Blasfemia
Eternal” tour in 1996, when I was still in Inquisitor, I was a
session-guitarist, and I had a great time on that tour! It was definetely a
tour with a good vibe between all the bands. That tour also helped Inquisitor
getting some exposure in Germany. It was also during that tour, that Gunther
and Walter already had plans to have two guitarists again in Ancient Rites. So
when Inquisitor was struggling with internal problems later that year, the idea
of me joining Ancient Rites as second guitarist was born. So I contacted
Gunther and since someone else was also interested, an audition was organized.
I was chosen, and became second guitarist of Ancient Rites, the first gig was
in January 1997. The other guitarist back then was Raf Jansen. Later in 1997
Jan Yrlund replaced Raf.
9. On the albums you played with Ancient
Rites there was lot of melody. What were your influences on those albums? Are
you interested into history too, like Gunther?
Throughout the years I've
become a more melodic and versatile guitarplayer, which especially culminated
on the album “Rubicon”. Although a lot
of melody is present on the albums I take part in, some of my thrash metal influenced
riffs were also used in several songs. Fast melodic riffs like the ones which
can be heard in “Mother Europe” and “Invictus” are definetely influences I
brought into Ancient Rites. I also add my skills on guitar to the music of
Ancient Rites but without comprising the music. On the “Rubicon” album there's
for example one melodic/lead guitar which I play in the Harmonic minor scale
(instead of the regular minor scale), which sound a little bit (so-called)
Neo-classical, which I created just to make a little difference musically.
Furthermore, I think that my guitarsolo's are an influence too.
I am interested in history
but I don't absorb myself that much into that as Gunther does. He knows much
more about history than I do.
10. How was the Ancient Rites show in
Rotterdam? Did it everything went well? What can you tell about the crowd?
I think we delivered a
good show in Rotterdam.The reaction of the crowd was really good and quite a
lot of them were banging and singing along. The sound on stage was good
and really comfortable to play. Although
I was a little bit struggling with my floorboard, I'm in general very satisfied
with the gig.
11. As I know You wanted to play live and in
rehearsals a kvlt-track, Blasphemer from Sodom. Do You want to record then in
studio also?
As far as I know, Ancient
Rites has never performed songs from other bands live or in the studio, and
probably never will. “Blasphemer” is definetely a kvlt track, and certainly one
of my favourite songs from Sodom, but I don't have a real desire to perform or
record this song with Ancient Rites. Last year during the rehearsals I
sometimes just played the beginning of that kvlt song and Gunther simply
reacted to that! It's something that just developed after Gunther and I
listened to “In the Sign of Evil” from Sodom in my car after a rehearsal.
12. How it's goings the things with Your
guitar-parts for the upcoming Ancient Rites album?
At home I have recorded
some guitar-parts and ideas, of which most of them I intent to use for Ancient
Rites. Everyone is doing their share in writing new material and I'm working on
a few demo-songs for Ancient Rites too, which are almost ready but I'm still
not yet satisfied enough with them. It'll take me some time expirementing with
ideas but in the end I will get a satisfying result. Most important thing is,
that the music has to feel right. Some of my guitar parts will only take shape
during the actual recordings of the upcoming album.
Ancient Rites is
definetely in writing-modus again and we already have written a few songs.
13. Your top 10 all-time favourite metal albums are...?
- Judas Priest – Unleashed
in the East
- Dark Angel – Darkness
Descends
- Kreator – Pleasure To Kill
- Holy Terror – Mind Wars
- Sadus – Illusions (aka
Chemical Exposure)
- Slayer – Hell Awaits
- Massacra – Final Holocaust
- Iron Maiden – Live after
Death
- Sathanas – Black Earth
- Metal Church – Metal
Church
14. What are your hobbies besides the music?
In my freetime, everything
I like doing is more or less music-related. But besides music, I like to take
time to enjoy the beautiful nature in my area. There are plenty of beautiful
forests and there is a lot of heath.
15. Do you know any bands from Hungary, Ukraine, Romania and Moldova?
Not that much, but I know
Sear Bliss and Negura Bunget, and thanks to you I know your old bands Castrum
and Dohmring now. I also saw a few Romanian and Macedonian bands when Ancient
Rites was on tour in the Balcan.
16. What bands can you recommend us? (from Belgium and the Netherlands, and
then from over the world)
In The Benelux we have
known metal bands such as Heidevolk, Legion of the Damned, Aborted, Hail of
Bullets, Asphyx, Epica etc..
From the lesser known
bands I'd like to recommend Lord Volture, which is a great dutch Heavy/Power
Metal band. For those who like Death Metal, I would recommend The Lucifer
Principle, KhaoZ and Victimizer from The Netherlands. If you like hardrock,
then I would recommend Vanderbuyst. From my own area I would like to recommend
Thrash Metal band Portall. And last year I saw a promising heavy metal band
from Sweden called Steelwing.
17. Now about your local cuisine: what
foods, drinks, cigars and tobaccoes can you recommend?
A typical dutch food is
Kale aka borecole, although I wouldn't consider this as Haute Cuisine, it does
taste good in my opnion. It is mostly served in combination with a smoked
sausage known as Gelderse Rookworst., which is a speciality from the province
Gelderland where I live. When it comes to dutch beer, I would recommend Hertog
Jan. A typical Dutch drink is a spirit called Jenever, which seems to be comparable
to Gin. I don't smoke at all, so I can't and won't recommend cigars and other
tobacco related stuff at all.
18. Dank je wel, Erik! The last (hateful) words are yours!
Thanks a lot for this
interview and space in Sadistik Witchfukk! Keep supporting the metal scene and
keep it alive! \m/
.
INTERVIEW TAKEN BY GEORGIUS AND NECROTROOPER
