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Interviews

Panzerchrist - Rasmus Henriksen (second one)

14/06/06  ||  Global Domination

This interview was done by ex-staffer Fishermane.

Here’s the deal. I had gotten in touch with Rasmus from Panzerchrist a long time ago and he had agreed to do another interview for GD since he loves us so much. However, I took a long fucking time to send him the questions, and he took a long fucking time to answer them. But here they are. Take into consideration that a lot has changed since I had initially wrote up the questions, so don’t fucking e-mail me saying: “Hey dickhead, Reno is back doing the drums” or “You know, the lyrics aren’t in German” or even “Those offensive cartoons are so passé...” because I fucking know. Also, this was like the second “interview” I had done at the time, and it clearly shows. I’m much funnier now. That being said, I’ll compensate by switching my name throughout this interview to various shitty male actors.

Kevin Costner: Alright Rasmus, for the sake of tradition, give us a quick update as to what’s going on with Panzerchrist these days. How’s the new material sounding, any upcoming shows planned, anybody get shot recently, etc?

Rasmus: Everything’s pretty good. Neurotic Records is promoting the new album very well, and it should be out in a matter of weeks by now. It sounds great too. We went for a raw and more dark sound than “Roomservice”, and I think we achieved that very well. The songs have a more melodic feel, and I don’t mean that in a “nice” way, which contributes to the fact that this record has a much more ravaging feel to it, than “Roomservice”. What else is on? Frederik has become a father for the second time, Bo’s busy with Illdisposed who should be releasing “Burn me wicked” one of these days, Reno is devastating Europe with Hate Eternal, and Michael and myself are still searching for a truly great tank simulator game. I’ve also become aware of that you need a special permit here in Denmark, if you want to be the owner of a tank. That fucking sucks.

Fucking Denmark. On your guys’ site, you mention the new album will have German lyrics. I would usually use this opportunity to express how much I fucking disagree with the idea, but I still haven’t received the copy of “Soul Collector” I ordered, so I’ll naturally just shut up for now and give you guys the benefit of the doubt since from what I’ve heard, it’s a great album. But why back to German, especially considering that last time you mentioned distributors were giving you fucks a hard time with the lyrics?

Shit, guess what. The album is in English after all. Bo wrote the lyrics in English to begin with, and to be honest, we weren’t able to get it translated in time. Not exactly what we had in mind, but it still went out excellent.

Shame. German is sexy. So keyboards and death metal. I’m usually against this, but as demonstrated in the song “Evil”, it can sound hard as fuck if done correctly. Do keyboards generally belong in death metal? And wasn’t it some chick playing them? Do females belong in death metal, period?

I don’t think keyboards generally belong in Death Metal. Actually, most shit I hear with keyboards just sucks. However, it can be good if used right. We don’t think of a keyboard as an instrument that should be played on through the whole song per default, but more as a tool to darken the mood of the song, here and there. Karina, who played the bass on “Soul Collector”, is back and is doing the keys on “Batallion Beast”, and it sounds fucking great. She is a great example of women belonging in Death Metal.

Alright, finish off these 10 sentences, and make sure it’s good, for fuck’s sake:

The country of Denmark is… proud to announce THE BOB MARLEY DRAWINGS!!! We don’t have enough enemies yet, so throw in some rastafaris while we’re at it…

Doing interviews for GD… only slightly beats watching Dr. Phil and drinking beer on a lacy Sunday.

Lord K Philipson… has a name that sounds like he’s one of the cast in a bad Star Wars series, that never made it past the pilot.

Fishermane is sexy as hell, smart, provides great interview questions and… is getting a bit boring.

(Note by Tom Cruise: Ooooh! I got burned!)

Panzerchrist will never… stop drinking. That’s my only promise in this interview.

Lier. IllDisposed fucking rule and… wish they were as good as Panzerchrist.

The first things I’d buy with a million $$$ are… very illegal, so I wont mention them here.

In 10 years from now… we will have jetpacks.

Good fucking call. The dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever done was… just too fucking stupid to mention here.

“Soul Collector” was… recorded and mixed in only five days.

Impressive. Now, if you could smack the shit out of one person/band/politician/neighborhood crackwhore, who would it be and why? Nothing too serious, but just someone or some people who need to be put in line for the fuck of it.

I think Deicide should get their shit together, and come and play a decent show in Denmark. I’m definitely not the kind of person who thinks that a band has to be dead serious, but at their last show Glen was so fucking drunk that he could hardly stand, and definitely not sing. He sounded like a sick pitbull. He couldn’t keep his pants on either.

Haha, Glen’s a fucking whore anyways. So Reno was dropped for the new album. Care to clear this up for those wondering what happened? And how are things going with Bent Bisballe Nyeng, or whatever his fucking name is? (And incidentally, you can let us know how much Reno “cheated” for the recording of “Roomservice”).

Well, as you might already know, Reno is back in the fold. Bent never really fit into the Panzer glove, and Reno was up to it, so this was just the way stuff turned out. Reno definitely didn’t cheat on “Roomservice”. All I can say, is that if all you non-believers ever get the opportunity to watch him play live, you will then understand that this guy is just mindblowing fast, and has unbelievable stamina.

Of course he does. He’s Reno. Nevada, ha. Now it’s quite obvious “Roomservice” has got some really great reviews over the past 2 years. But what we really want to know is how much cd’s you guys have sold, don’t worry we won’t tell anyone. Are you guys able to live somewhat comfortably strictly off music? We all fucking know that death metal doesn’t sell enough, so go ahead and tell us what you guys do for work, aside from the band. (And if for some reason you guys have shitty jobs, like working for a hotel, ironically doing roomservice or something, feel free to lie, it’s all good)...

I have no fucking idea how many copies “Roomservice” sold. To put it nice; the communication with our last label wasn’t as good as one could have wanted. We made some money yes, but it’s definitely not nearly enough to pay the beer bill. Aside from playing metal, Frederik works as a correction officer in a prison, I do boring work at a big Danish communication company, and to be honest, I don’t know where the hell the other guys get their money from.

Danish man-whoring? But seriously, I find it sad to say that not many people I know here have heard of Panzerchrist, regardless of the fact that as soon as I slap on some of your songs, they all fucking love it. Then again, most people I know are just a complete waste of space. Are you guys getting enough attention from America? If you haven’t already, would you guys like to tour here?

Promotion has never been a thing that we are very good at. I hope that’s about to change with the partnership we now have with Neurotic Records. I think we are a more generally known band in Europe than in America, and this I would say is because of the limited promotion our previous label came up with. Great reviews don’t help shit, if the fans’ attention are elsewhere. There are no touring plans for the future right now. It’s not easy getting the guys together with all the other projects going on, but if we one day finally make it, then we will gladly devastate America.

Another typical generic interview question here. Comment on these 10 bands, and don’t hesitate to swear as much as you feel is necessary:

Decapitated: Pretty good band. Sounds very Polish. Not that original, but well done.

Opeth: Rocks. I really like the atmosphere they create, and the vocals are excellent. A great live band too.

Suffocation: I don’t think I have heard a Suffocation song in years to be honest. But they rock anyways.

Aborted: Haven’t heard much, but I like what I heard. I’m gonna have to pick up some of their albums.

The Smiths: The what?

(Note by Nicolas Cage: Ooooh! The Smiths got burned!!!!)

Carcass: Up till and including “Heartwork” they kicked serious ass. Great riffing and great songwriting. Too bad they went down the road they did. I mean, they did it pretty well, but it never was Carcass in my humble opinion.

I agree. How about T.A.T.U.?: I really don’t give a shit about this shitty shit. I know who they are, but I never listened to one of their songs. And I don’t have to, cause it will absolutely suck. Young people today should be listening to Priest or Morbid Angel instead of this crappy shit, and all the other shitty bands out there. Die by tank you shitty sluts.

(Note by Hayden Christensen: Ooooh! Now T.A.T.U. just got burned! By the way, didn’t I so rule in Star Wars?)

Dark Funeral: Fucking great. Not much to say. Cool songs, and a great live band.

Morbid Angel: There are metal bands and there are bands like Morbid Angel. Definitely one of the best Death Metal bands ever. They’ve never disappointed me in any way.

As a bonus, throw in an extra band that deserves some attention.

Horned Almighty. Great Danish band that I will use this opportunity to promote. Sounds like Motorhead meets Black Metal. Lots of balls and attitude. Check it out.

I shall. Alright, 10 questions deep in the interview, I feel it’s now time to talk my shit about “Roomservice”. What a great fucking album. It’s a shame I only discovered the band recently but needless to say, this shit is going to be getting some serious rotation for quite some time to come. Last time you told us (and I quote):

“It would have been great if we’ve had more time in general to make more tank bits in between the tracks and spending some more time on the producing part.”

Almost a year later, what’s your take on the album now? Anything specific that you guys picked up in retrospect and are using to put together and improve the new material?

When I look back on the time when we made Roomservice, I must say that I’m very satisfied with the results, also remembering the fact that we made the album in a pretty short time. Tue Madsen is a great producer/engineer and I think that also shows today. One of the things we have learned, is that we were able to make an album where all the songs were not made using the exact same recipe, something a lot of Death Metal bands suffer from I would say. We have tried to do this again on the new album, by writing songs that are pretty long and atmospheric, and on the other hand, creating songs that have more of a nuclear explosion impact on the listener. We have tried to hang on to the essence of what worked well on “Roomservice”, and still we were always sure that we didn’t want to make a “Roomservice 2”. “Batallion Beast” is the album that we use to show fans what they also can expect from Panzerchrist in the future. It wouldn’t be enough to just turn up the pace, so we have tried to find other means of delivering a devastating impact on the listener.

Sounds good to me. Now I might be mistaken here, but I recall reading something recently about this danish newspaper that printed some “offensive” caricatures dealing with Muslims, related to Muhammed or something like that. Anyhow, it generated a large amount of protests, and just seemed to increase the tension that seemed to be somewhat more and more present in some previously stable European countries (from a religious perspective). Do you feel that this is just typical media b.s. or is there really a growing conflict in between certain regular citizens and immigrants, such as dedicated followers of Islam? What’s your take on this shite, and religion in general?

This exact case is in my opinion total media bullshit. There have been drawings of Muhammed published all over there world by the thousands, and you have never before seen a reaction this big. Other than that, I have no comment on that specific matter. As far as I’m concerned, people can believe what the hell they want.

I believe in fairies. Now I don’t know about you, but I love to indulge. What would be your personal favorite consumptions, whether it be alcohol/intoxicants/lubricants, etc. Also, how about you tell us a funny drunken story?

I love Beer, Mead (spelling?) and snaps. If that’s all I got, then everything’s just fine. Can’t remember any drunken stories right now. Was probably too drunk.

Go figure. Alright Ras (I’m gonna call you Ras from now on), we’re more than halfway done here. Do you like answering interview questions? Are you as bored as you probably thought you were going to be when I sent you that initial drunken e-mail about this interview? And while you’re at it, what would be the worst question you’ve had to deal with in an interview? (Aside from mine, of course.)

Call me what the hell you want. I’m pretty hammered right now, which helps it all not get too boring.

I hate those speculative question people drag out of nowhere. If we were Nazis we would have the balls to put a fucking swastika on the album cover, but we’re not, so stop fucking asking.

As long as you fuckers aren’t commies, you’re cool with me. So you guys are obviously grown fucking men, have you ever just woke up one day and say fuck it, I need to quit this metal shit and focus on something else?

No fucking way. Metal gets better as you get older. I’ll play Metal until the day I fucking die. It’s like a battlefield when you are out there playing live, and the war is set on the stage. And you fight for domination. Metal rules.

Indeed, it does. So last time, you gave us an elaborate description of how a fistfight between Panzerchrist & IllDisposed would go down, and let me say it was well done. Now, if it really came down to it, who would win a fistfight within Panzerchrist itself? My money’s on Michael.

That’s a tough one. These bastards are all tough motherfuckers. All communities of a certain size have these individuals that you just know that you don’t want to fuck with. That pretty much sums up the description of the Panzer crowd. Fortunately a such internal showdown has yet to be seen, so it’s hard to say where my money should be put. Michael, with his military experience and years of experience, is probably a good guess.

I fucking knew it. So what do you think of black metal as a whole? Whether it be the ideologies, the “lifestyle”, the corpse paint, the tight spandex, the cemetaries, the wolves, moons, black cats, caves, or more importantly, the actual music itself?

I very much enjoy Black Metal. The music that is. Corpse paint can even do the trick for some bands live, but there are sure as hell also a lot of bands where the physical appearance has grown into something plain ridiculous. I don’t mind spikes and leather pants, but some bands just look like they belong in a German gay S/M magazine.

S/M Germans are cool, but not the gay ones. Ok, here’s a good question. If every member in the band was a flower, who would be what and why? Nah, I’m just kidding, haha… So what’s the most fucked up kind of porn you’ve ever seen?

I once saw a woman stomp a kitten to death. That’s just stupid. And cruel. It would have been much more humane and easy to roll over it with a tank.

(Note by Keanu Reeves: Oooooh! That kitty so got burned! Who, what, where, why? Whoa!)

Haha, right. Last time around you were commenting on how you were fond of the new Deicide album. What’s in Panzerchrist’s CD rack as of now? Any bands that you guys are really feeling these days, metal or not?

I listen to a lot of Bloodbath these days. It kicks ass. That’s about the newest music that’s on these days. Otherwise its a lot of Morbid Angel, Satyricon, Emperor, slayer and other good stuff. Nothing new and exciting.

Semi-corny question here, but fuck me… Anyone who’s remotely following world politics these days can tell that the world is pretty fucked up right now, to say the least. Cynical or not, what’s your outlook for the human race as a whole? Are we just inherently evil in nature and pre-destined to constantly seek power at the expense of others, or do you think that peace and efficiency can be achieved, under a just government?

I think Lemmy should rule the world. He would know what to do.

Lemmy rules. To top it off Rasmus, give us a little idea of what we should expect from Panzerchrist for the future. Bottom line, “Roomservice” was hard as fuck, the next album will most likely be the same, so tell us what you motherfuckers have in store for us.

We will hit harder this time. This album is made to be played loud, and it’s perfect drinking music. Expect a more dark and grim panzerimpact this time. Total fucking violent and devastating Metal.

Ok, I lied about 20 questions, here’s one more since I know you love us at Global Domination. Alright, you have 100 points to attribute to your ideal woman, and they’re to be split into 4 sections: Ass, tits, face & personality. How do you split it up? (And if you say 25/25/25/25, you end up getting a gay German man midget, just for being so damn unoriginal)...

I’m gonna put my 100 points in the “Cooking skill” section you left out. Give my regards to Lord K.

Thanks for the questions. Keep up the good work.

Same to you Ras. Cheers man.

Interviews