»It hasn’t been that long that we released "Nemesis" and right now we're busy in the studio again«
After the release of their latest, very convincing album in 2017, it just so happened that Frederik Møller (guitars) agreed to conduct an interview with BetreutesProggen.de and thereby talked about their own genesis, touring, and plans for the next album.
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On your website it says that you were created as band rather than formed yourselves…
Yes, well, we were created as band per se, but we knew each other before. I've known Niklas since we were both around 12 years old. We met over the internet, playing covers. I also knew Thomas (bass), I’ve been playing in some other bands with him for several years. 2009/2010 Niklas was contacted by two producers, Flemming Rasmussen (Metallica) and also Jan Langhoff, who was the producer for the Danish pop-sensation Aqua; also a big name as producer, but in a completely different genre. Anyhow, those two had a collaboration together. Flemming has heard Niklas' music and wanted to do something with him, but that was only Niklas' own project, he was playing and recording everything by himself at home. He then needed a band to play with, so he contacted me. We initially made a weird mix between the band I was playing in with him as a singer, which was not really focused. And then we pretty quickly realized that it would probably be better to focus on what Niklas was making because he already had Flemming behind him. That was how Defecto started, around 2011.
Sounds like you spend a lot of time together, what about spare time?
We do sometimes, not incredibly often because we see each other all the time, several times a week. I guess we spend our off time with other friends and family. We definitely do see each other, go see a movie, have Barbecue, drink some beer, or go to concerts together. Especially, when we are playing at festivals, it’s very cool to walk around with the band to watch some other gigs.
Sounds like you are getting along pretty well. How does that look like when talking about decisions? First of all: How did the name "Defecto" arise?
Well, that’s actually sort of funny: Defecto was a name that was used by my brother for another band, he was actually the reason I started playing. He had a band called Defecto like 15 years ago. That wasn’t anything special, but when we started talking about band names around 2011, when we were about to release our first EP, we had a long list of names. The problem was that most of the names that we had come up with were hard to remember, hard to pronounce, or simply gave you associations that you don’t really want to be associated with.
How about "everyday-decisions" as song-writing or -naming? Is that a comparable stress-free process or does rather Niklas call the shots here?
Well, that has changed a lot during the past two years. When we started the band, Niklas had some really amazing, cool songs; he had written so much stuff by himself. So, on our debut album, there was only one song that was mine. And then the next album, he still had a lot of material, mainly because he remained so active and creative during the recordings, so most of what is on our second album "Nemesis" is also made by him, except for three or four songs which are by me and one by Thomas (Bass) also. For the next album it’s actually a completely new process for us. It hasn’t been that long that we released "Nemesis" and right now we're busy in the studio again.
That actually would've been my next question…
Oh yeah, there you go. So, the thing is that we've always been collaborating a lot and Niklas is open towards other suggestions. With each of his songs we sit down, look at it, and figure out what works, what doesn’t work, what could be improved, and all that kind. Still, it has been mainly him who has been the songwriter - and we a little bit also. And for the next album, so far it has been really a 50/50 thing between me and him. We are doing a completely different approach where we take every song that we have, strip it away completely, take it down to its elements, and then rebuild it. Then we completely rewrite it with the aim to create the best possible song with what we have here while trying to keep it more minimalistic than we did the last time.
That sounds great, so any idea about when to expect the next album?
Well, we have hopes, ambitions rather... It all depends mostly on things that we cannot control, which are related to the record label. Also, the timing plays a role: When does it make sense to release an album, when to plan a tour, promotion... All these factors play a role there. Most of all, we want to make sure that the product is as good as it possibly can be before we release it. So, we can't say for sure but were hoping around summer next year like August or September, still depending on how things go.
Looking forward to that. You were just touring; respectively are still on festival...
Yeah, that's absolutely correct; we did the European tour with Persefone and Oddland. Then we’ve done a tour in Denmark and now we’re doing, as you said, several festivals, also some German ones, a festival in Finland and two Danish ones and.. I think that's it, but that's going to be nice.
Any Highlights of this European Tour?
With Persefone, for me personally, and I think also for all of us, the people we were on tour with. The bands were just so really nice and cool people. Very down to earth, not like the typical crazy rock star-thing where they drink all the time. They were rather hard-working, serious people, super-nice and super-fun to be with. So that was probably a highlight for me, also because they are so extremely skilled at their instruments. They're way better than like 95 % of all the Prog-Bands out there. Technically so skilled, it was absolutely inspiring to play with them and to watch them play every night.
That really sounds amazing. But you also opened Rammstein and Metallica… How was that?!
That was fun, no surprise there. Both of them just came out of the blue. The largest thing we've done before that was opening Copenhell in 2016 in front of 5000 people or something like that, which was huge for us. We were blown away and we thought: Oh, it's going to be a long time until we try something like that again. Then, there was this competition with Metallica and we won and had a blast playing with the Metallica-show. It was absolutely amazing; we loved every second of it. It was just like the most fun 45 minutes we ever had on any stage... Including Rammstein. With Metallica, we had a 360 degree stage where you could just run and do whatever you wanted to do, you really had the whole stage. Rammstein was also absolutely amazing but it was during the day, so the atmosphere of the concert was completely different. When you’re standing in the daylight, you don't have the lights and all these cool effects, which gives a different feeling to it. Still really cool but for me, it didn't feel as overwhelming as with Metallica.
Sounds amazing. Did you get to meet the bands?
We met Metallica, they had set aside like a 5-minute-meeting, so when the people that bought the VIP tickets for I don’t know how much money, like a million dollars or so, met the bands, just after that we got to meet them as well and, you know, shake hands and say "Oh, nice to meet you"... Lars Ulrich, he is from Denmark, was obviously a little bit interested in us. He came over and asked us who we were and what we were doing. They have tons on their schedule, so they don’t spend their time watching their support band, right?! But that was really cool, they were really nice and everything was good. Rammstein, we didn’t see. I think Rammstein are a very private band, that’s what I’ve heard. They seem to go to work, and then they go home again.
As you already told so much about you and your future plans, I’d come to the point to give you a rather open, last word...
What else can I tell you, we’ve been talking about shooting a DVD, actually. We’re not sure about it yet, but we wanted to make a live DVD from our concerts in Copenhell. This year is pretty cool, we also have another European Tour coming up in September, which we are really looking forward to, with three other amazing Danish bands. We’re going to come to four or five German cities, we love going to Germany, our favorite place.
We have the best beer, I guess...
Well, you have the best people, the best venues... Everything is always so cool when you get to Germany. Everything is under control, people are nice and it’s all good. So it’s always a relieve coming to Germany.
Do you have on hands which cities you are coming?
Let me just check on my cell phone, I have it right here and I always forget. It’s called Danish Demolition tour and… Oh okay, here I found it, so we are playing in London, and then Berlin, and then Hamburg, and then Leipzig and Munich. We also have a couple of shows in the Netherlands. That’s four German shows, anyhow.
You should definitely aim at coming to Cologne!
Yeah, I’ll see what I can do; we will let you know when we come.
Thank you so much for you time and all the information you shared with us.
You’re welcome. Thanks for the interview, and if you live nearby those cities that I just mentioned, we would love to see you there.
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