Although Sweden is well known for its death metal manner, labeled as Gothenburg death metal style, here you have something new, a little bit different, a kind of death metal frequently met on some European bands, I don’t want to give you names; but if you count here that some of its constituents comes from Marduk or The Legion, I assume that you have an idea about what is going to happen on its last opus called ¨Ninewinged Serpent¨. But, take care; this material has nothing to do with black metal, ¨Ninewinged Serpent¨ being more death metal oriented, as you will see if you buy this material! Being extremely interested by this name, especially by its last album I mentioned above, I decided to get in touch with Devian’s leader, and mastermind if you want, Tomas, and look what I got for you band fans and metalheads around the world!
1. Hello Thomas and Devian. How are you and how are the things going on out there in Sweden now that the new opus is finally out?
Hey, Tomas from Devian here. I’m doing fine here thank you. I actually just got back from a Devian rehearsal. We are currently working on a shitload of new songs for the next Devian opus. I’m really happy with the outcome of ¨God to the Illfated¨. Thinks it’s a good leap in the right direction for the band!
2. Can you reveal us the history behind this band, and also do not forget to mention why you changed the name from Elizium into Devian. Although tell us what it means and who was the main responsible for such an interesting name I must to recognize.
The band was formed by Legion and Emil… after some time Joinus joined the band. Emil, Legion and Joinus started to write loads of demos during that time. I joined forces with the band when the deal with Century Media was inked, just 10 days before the recording of ¨Ninewinged Serpent¨. After some festivals appearances we hit the road together with Vader, Septicflesh and Inactive Messiah, this for seven insane weeks across Europe. After the warm embrace that we got from the crowds in Europe we started to work on the second Devian opus ¨God to the Illfated¨. It was released in December 2008 and January 2009 in Europe and then we hit the road again with Deicide, Samael and Vader for 2 weeks. After that we did a Scandinavia run with Unleashed.
We changed the name from Elizium to Devian because Elizium has been used a lot already and we wanted to have a unique name that left a heavy impact. Legion suggested at first ¨Ninewinged Serpent¨, which we kept as the title for the first album, and then he suggested Devian. Devian is another form of the word the word Devious and was used as a song title to one of the demo songs that never made it to the album… Devian is a mean son of a bitch.
3. With a line up formed by well known musicians such as Legion from Marduk and Emil Dragutinovic from The Legion you recruited other musicians able to give you the opportunity to record a new material. Can you develop this aspect concerning bands beginning?
With the previous answer I kind of replied to this one also :)
4. The things are going extremely good for you, almost 3 years behind but 2 interesting albums and a deal with Century Media seem to be a very good rhythm at all. What do you think about it?
Yeah we’ve been lucky and very motivated. We are five guys that really wanna do this and we are all working really hard to achieve it. Since we had the honour to work with Century Media we’ve been in good hands right from the start. They have been really kind and shared our vision.
5. As we can see you have been involved in some interesting bands who deals mostly with black metal .So…,Devian is dedicated to this musical style or we can find something else more developed but still extremely as I assume?
It’s mainly Legion and Emil that have been involved in black metal bands. The other members came from a more death metal, thrash and heavy metal oriented background and I think you can hear that on ¨God to the Illfated¨. Devian isn’t a black metal band and was never meant to be that. It’s hard to label our own music. The melodies and the groove are very important for Devian.
6. You worked to collect enough material and you entered into the studio to record the first opus called ¨Ninewinged Serpent¨. Please introduce us this material and don’t forget to give us some details concerning the working process in the studio with the famous producer Rickard Kottelin.
¨Ninewinged Serpent¨ was mostly crafted in Emil’s home studio by himself, Joinus and Legion. We didn’t have that much time to rehearsal before the recording took place. Here are the tracks and some liner notes for each of them:
1. Serenade for the Fallen [Intro]
A real epic, and cool introduction to this debut album. Written by Joinus and it’s a really cool way of opening the album. I actually named the track.
2. Dressed In Blood
One of my favourite tracks of the album. A real catchy chorus and some really crunchy thrash riffing going on!
3. Heresy
A real interesting chorus in this song and the guitar harmonies in the middle of the song are a real highlight on the album, too bad that it’s pretty low in the mix!
4. Scarred
The song we choose for being the video track for the album and the first to be presented on myspace.com before the release. Think it represent the album pretty good, pretty melodic, pretty raw and with a lot of attitude.
5. Suffer the Fools
Damn I love this intro riff… it’s so HEAVY! The fires of heaven are comin’ down and crushing you!!!!!!!!
6. Fatalist
Another of Joinus songs for this album…
7. Gemini Is the Snake
One of the more epic songs of the album… really not one of my favourites… Dig the introduction though!
8. Instigator
Damn! Love the feeling and the atmosphere of this one! And the short melody theme after the intro is the best theme of the whole album!
9. Remnant Song
Actually an old demo, written for the Plague Angel album by Emil. Since Morgan thought the song sounded too much like Emil’s other band – The Legion, they never used it and when we were putting down the last details for this album we found it and arranged it. I’m very happy how the arrangements turned with this one. The intro riff is a real neck crushing riff!
10. Ninewinged Serpent
The title track, a thrash odyssey written by Joinus. One of my favourite tracks of the album and you can’t finish the album in a better way than this!!!
7. Did you choose Rickard because it wasn’t so expensive or because one of you worked with him in the early years? Also do not forget to tell us something about the mixing process because at the desk was Fredrik Nordstrom very well known for his cooperation wit bands such as At The Gates, Arch Enemy and many more to be mentioned here.
We have chosen to work with Rickard because his studio is at our rehearsal room. That has given us a lot of peace when we have been recording the albums. We’ve been able to record when we have time instead of going to a studio and then record everything in a short period of time. Well Fredrik has a good reputation and has done a lot of cool stuff, we got the chance to mix it there and it turned out very heavy!
8. What was the feedback on it and what country did you toured to promote this album?
The feedback was very good and when we did the 7 weeks long XXV Anniversary tour with Vader, Septic Flesh and Inactive Messiah people embraced us with open arms! We did the major part of Europe but not Scandinavia during that tour. It was the first tour I’ve done and it was a real nice experience!
9. Your new opus is finally out and you named it ¨God to the Illfated¨. Tell us what stands behind this name and give us the usual technical details about it.
The album is about finding beauty in ugliness. ¨God to the Illfated¨ is the God to all the outsiders in the world, the ones that’s being rejected by the other “God”. A God seeing beauty in the ugliness.
10. As I can see you used the same studio and almost the same persons to record the new album. But we can find some references to Peter from Hypocrisy/Pain. Can you tell us more?
Once again we used Studio Art Decay for recording the music. This time we wanted to try another studio for the mixing and we wanted to get some help with recording the vocals too. Legion suggested Peter directly since he had so much good experiences with him from the Marduk days. Personally I’m a big Peter-fan so I thought it was a killer idea! He took care of the recording of the vocals and the mixing. As you can hear on the album it turned out outstanding! I really hope we can work more with Peter in the future.
11. Who made the CD booklet and what it represents for you? Is it in a perfect connection with the lyrical concept or did you used it just to impress ,because as you can see the visual effects are almost all the time a good opportunity to gain more fans and to attract peoples interest to it?
Seth provided us with allot of artworks for this release so when we chosen one picture as the front art of the album we had like 7-8 killer other pics that still looked great but weren’t fitting that well as the front cover. We gave them all to Century Media and Legion told them about the theme of the album so then they sent us back this killer designed booklet made by one of their workers. I really think that the lyrics are coming more alive when you are reading the lyrics and looking on to the artworks while you are listening to the CD.
12. Compared to the previous material what can you tell us about ¨God to the Illfated¨? Which are the main interesting things that can attract our attention and what is the major difference between this new one and the first opus?
I think that the new album is more melodic and have some really interesting harmonies, even though it’s still very brutal and really aggressive. I’m very satisfied with the new album and really think it’s the best album of these two. Personally I think it’s the best album I’ve been involved into in my whole career.
13. Can you introduce us each track of ¨God to the Illfated¨, by telling us the story behind the songs?
1. Mask of Virtue
The opening song… A real punch in your face. I really dig Legion’s chanting in the beginning before the inferno is unleashed!
2. Assailant
One of my songs… I think this is one of my favourites of the album. A midtempo song that have got groove and some interesting melodies. We also did a video to this song, check it out if you haven’t seen it!
3. The Unspoken
One of the most intensive Devian songs ever written. If Mask of Virtue is a punch in your face this is the kick that’s coming after. I love to play this song live!
4. Saintbleeder
On this one we started to experiment some Joinus vocals, he’s doing the clean back up vocals in the chorus and it turned out killer, so you’ll defiantly be listening to more of this shit in the future!
5. I'm the Pariah
Another midtempo groove song. Peter Tägtgren is doing some killer back up vocals in bridges. I even convinced him to do a Roswell 47 scream in the end of the song haha, an honour to have such a fine vocalist as a guest on one of our songs!
6. God to the Illfated
The title track… pretty funny, we didn’t know that this would be the title track of the album but this is the only track written by all four of us, just in the good old thrash ways!
7. Summerdeath
Murder Murder Murder !!! haha
8. South of Halo
The first song I ever wrote for Devian… pretty based around melodies, the way I like it and prefer. Think this track has some really interesting melodies and check out Joinus slide solo, killer.
9. Awaiting Doom
This intro crushes all opponents! I’ve done a clean guitar solo in this song that turned out really cool!
10. When the Vultures have Left
The most epic song of the album and here ends this journey if you didn’t have the limited edition version of this album. This is a perfect closure for the album.
11. Reap the Storm *
One of the two bonus tracks on the limited edition version of the album. I think I’m doing my best guitar solo on this album on this track. I like this song, it’s pretty catchy :)
12. Raison D'etre *
The other bonus track of the limited edition version of the album… Well, we love playing France so why not give a track a French title? ;)
Every time people describe our music I hear new artists that they are comparing us with. Personally I LOVE Dismember and I’m very influenced by them sometimes when I’m writing riffs, so you can probably find some influences from them, at least within the music that I’ve been contributing with.
15. Unfortunately for me I left Paris before your show with Deicide, Vader, Samael, etc. Are you satisfied with the final result of this winter fest?
Ow, bad that you missed the Paris show. It’s always a pleasure to perform in Paris. I think it’s one of my favourite scenes in Europe. The Winterfest was a killer! We had a great time together with Deicide, Vader, Samael, Order of Ennead and The Amenta, all kick ass bands! We played for allot of people for two intensive weeks and I couldn’t be happier about it. It was great to play for the first time in Poland and Luxemburg. Especially the Polish crowds were very crazy haha!
16. Did you have something else to promote your album? If I’m not wrong you are going to cross Scandinavia with Unleashed. Am I right?
We did the Winterfest to promote album and then a few weeks after that we joined forces with Unleashed on their Hammer Battalion North tour across Scandinavia. We played for the first time in Estonia, Finland and in Denmark and did some gigs in Sweden too.
17. Are you going to continue the actual musical line or you have something different for the future materials?
We’re always trying to evolve… We are writing and rehearsing on material for the third album right now and it’s going to be a very interesting release, trust me. And… we have evolved ;)
18. As you can see we are at the end of the interview and I would like to thank you for your kindness and I would like to assure you that I will sustain as much as I can Devian in the future. Do you have something to add in the end, a few words for your fans over here?
Thanks for the interview and keep you’re updated, a lot is going on in the Devian camp right now!
Official web: www.devian.se
Interview by Litocranius, February 2009