Harmony Dies is a german band that is trying to make its own mark in the history of brutal death metal history. The band formed in 1992 and since then has recorded one Mini CD called "Slaughtered" and two CDs called "Don´t Trust" and I´ll be your Master" . I talked with guitarist Kai that gently answered my questions.

 

Can you tell us a little bit about the band´s history?
H.D. is a Death Metal band and was founded in 1992 in Berlin/germany. The first two Demos came out in ´92, "Living Corpses" and "Slope". After that the split single with Krisiun from Brasil was released by MorbidRec. Next there came the Demo "Third Output ..." and the "Promo ´95".
After that there was the time for a selfproduced MCD called "Slaughtered", this one brings a lot of good reaction from the listeners and the Zines. After that we released the CD "Don´t Trust" on Ars Metalli. Actualy we just released our new material, recorded once again in Soundforge Studio with Andreas Hilbert. The line up of the Band changes sometimes but never lose the way of brutal music. The actual members are Robert - drums, Chris - vovs, Jens - guitars, Marco - bass, Kai - guitars. H.D. is a live band and tries to play as often as can, we already did some shows with Vader, Deeds of Flesh, In Flames, Dying Fetus, Deranged, Krisiun, Incantation, Mayhem and a lot of others.

As you are having a new record out in the beginning of 2001, I would like to know which are your expectations on this new record?
We have no special expectations, we hope we will find some people out there who like our stuff and maybe we can do as much shows as possible for us.

Have you got more time to record "I´ll be your master" than "Don´t Trust"? Which do you think are the main improvements between both albums? And which do you think are the improvements since "Slaughtered"?
We take the time we need we just do it in my studio i doing together with Andreas Hilbert, and so we have the opprtunity to do it in the way we wanna do it. We put much more in the whole sound of the new CD and i would say it´s worth.
Since "Slaughtered" we learned so much , on our instruments ,to make our sound and of course in the songwriting process. So i would say "I´ll be your Master" shows the whole thing of what is Harmony Dies today.

Which are your main influecnces? Have you been influenced by classic bands like Bathory, Venom or Celtic Frost or your influences are from different bands?
Of course these are Bands who inspired us personaly , but in our music you´ll find more influences of modern Metal Bands like Suffocation , C.C. or Vader, maybe sometimes you can hear the roots.

How do you compose your music? Is it a group work or someone comes with the whole idea and the rest follows him?
Most of the time somebody come with the whole idea and we work it out in our little practice room, normaly we don´t change a lot of the song so you can see what the different people in our Band sound like.

Which are the plans for touring supporting "I´ll be your Master"? Are there any festivals to play or maybe going to different countries?
We would like to do a lot, but you know it is hard for a underground Band to reach all these Festivals and so we try to get the opportunity being part at some of them , we will see what ahppen with this. We wanna do as much shows in little clubs and place were we can find
some Metal people who wanna hear us. And of course we hope to play some different countries around and maybe far away from germany.

Do you think that Harmony Dies will start to blend different styles in the music (such as classical or fusion, etc.)?
H.D. play Death Metal since 1992 , yeah we learned a lot, but we still like this kind of music and we like it brutal we like it fast, and so we do it , i cannot say what we will do in future but now I say we will not be doing a crossover thing.

I would like to know about the band´s equipment live in studio. Can you tell me about it?
Robert our drummer uses Sonor drum and esp. Live an Alesis DM5 to trigger his foot and snare, Marco our Bass guy uses Ibanez Guit. and a Peavy Amp, Jens (guit.) uses a Jackson guitar and a Crate Amp, and me, Kai (guit.), use Ibanez Guitars and Mesa Boogie Amp.

Are there any plans to reedit older demos or remaster them?
No we don´t plan things like that , sometimes we take older songs and refresh them , so we did it with Living corpses on Don´t trust and it´s a really cool song, i think.

How would you describe Harmony Dies music in your own words? Is there any way to categorize it?
I would say it´s easy to describe a fast and brutal played Metal, better brutal Death Metal, thats what we are.


Why did you choose Soundforge Studio and Andreas Hilbert again to record the new album? Are you comfortable with him? Is there any other producer that you would like to work with?
Soundforge Studio is the first choice , cause I´m one of the owners and we have Andreas there, he is a realy cool Producer you can hear the sound he did for us. It goes on and on , everytime we got a better sound and thats we worked for to make a better record. Andreas does a good
work, we are realy satisfied. Of course there are some dreams of going to one of the legendary studios and work with Jim Morris(Florida) or Colin Richardson, who do real good sounds, but these are dreams. I would say we had a good base to record and we will use it as long as possible.

I would really like to see you live here in Argentina. How can you describe your live show? Is there any possibility of a South American Tour?
On stage we try to give a good show to the guys out there, we play our music and banging around as possible. During a show is it very important for us to transport our feeling of a
brutal fuckin Music to the crowd. We are just putting some showvideos together to make a little Live video coming maybe February 2001, when we are ready with this we will do some
sequences of that on our Homepage Download section, so can everybody have look at us Live.
About the second part of your question, hmm i hope it will be possible , we wanna do such kind of thing but most the time we have the problem with the financial part of this stuff, we are just a little Band, no big Labels or rich Parents at home. So we work for it and maybe someday it works. So be prepared for a Blitzshow of german Harmony Dies.

Finally I would like you to say something to your fans here in Argentina.
Hey thanx to every supporter of brutal underground music, thanx to you Federico, it´s a pleasure for us to hear that we will be recognized in Argentina, thanx. Just keep it alive - brutal &sick.

HARMONY DIES WEBSITE: www.harmonydies.de