SAMAEL Frontman: 'We Wanted To Do A More Stripped Down Metal Album'

Bulgaria's Tangra Mega Rock recently conducted an interview with SAMAEL frontman Vorph. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Tangra Mega Rock: [Let's] talk about [the upcoming SAMAEL album] "Above". Where does the excitement for this one came from?

Vorph: Well, you've probably heard about that. First we thought we'd do a side project called ABOVE, so we were doing this without knowing we are going to release it as a new SAMAEL album. So it was a different work. We wanted to do an album that was a more stripped down metal album. We didn't want to use the new influences that we had on our last three albums. We wanted something like what we would listen to when we were teens — 15, 16 years old.

Tangra Mega Rock: You said it has something to do with the bands that had influence on you when you were teens. Could you name some of them please?

Vorph: Well, you know, basic stuff — SLAYER, IRON MAIDEN, MOTÖRHEAD, VENOM, BATHORY, early POSSESSED. We put the names of these bands in the booklet, saying "it is these bands that make us do this music."

Tangra Mega Rock: Was it a challenge? Because, you know, making a record like that in the end of this century's first decade, it's not the same as in the mid-'80s.

Vorph: Yeah, definitely. But it was also easier to make this album than some others we did, because we had more experience now. And it is something we know about, not some kind of an experiment. It was a lot more instinctive, more fluid than the last three albums we did, where we had a lot of experiments and a lot more of work mixing it together. It is music that we know, so we were more comfortable this time.

Tangra Mega Rock: Knowing your recording history, you're like all searching minds, I'm sure that while making this "Above" record you still have a lot of experimental stuff in your heads. so, it is it like very far away from the day this new stuff is going to see light?

Vorph: Well, I can't say when the next album will come out in this moment. It is neither going to be the continuing of "Solar Soul", neither the following of "Above". Probably something in between. We still have some things we want to experiment with I think we're going to have some more lightness, but also keep the spontaneity. Because I think we are going to have some different writing on the next album, definitely.

The entire interview is available in text and audio format at this location.

Fan-filmed video footage of SAMAEL's February 6, 2009 concert at Mostovna Nova Gorica, Slovenia can be viewed below (clip uploaded by "xDamon").