I am very pleased that Martin Funderud, vocalist for
Norwegian band Kraanium, took time out of his busy schedule to answer a few
questions for me in the below interview:
Cerebral Reviewment- Thank you Martin for setting aside the time to talk
with me!! I am a long time Kraanium fan and am very excited for your
upcoming full length “Post Mortal Coital Fixation”! Could you give people
who don’t know a quick history of Kraanium and what you guys do?
Martin-
Yeah man no problem! We started up (again) back in 2006
after the band had been broken up for some years.
But we mainly just kept the
name and concentrated on writing more slamming death metal inspired stuff. Also
with some new members and line up changes. For the last couple of years we have
had a lot of changes when it comes to drummers. Been having 5-6 different
drummers but now we finally have a new one.
So the line up now is:
Martin
Funderud - Vocals
Ian Slemming- Bass
Mats Funderud - Guitars
Vidar Ermesjø -
Guitars
Mitch Rider - Drums
CR- I remember reading that you were excited about the deal
you got on recording time for the album? Something about tons of time to
work with? How did the recording process go compared to the other albums?
M-
Yeah we rented a studio from a friend really cheap and
basically had limitless time for the use of it. And for this album we have used
alot of time for the whole process. But we also have had some problems along
the way. Had to kick out our old drummer coz his drumming for this album was
not satisfactory enough for us and he didn’t have time to re-record it. So we
had to put the process on hold for a bit to find a new drummer. And also had to
re-record the guitars 2-3 times before it all sounded as good as we wanted
(this was because there was some problem with the equipment in the studio).
And
usually on the other albums we had all songs ready and written before we went
in to record them, but this time we actually wrote 2-3 songs while in the
studio. So this was a new and cool experience for us!
CR- Any major differences in the style of writing this time
around? Still slammin?
M- Yeah bro still slammin, kraanium style! But think we
also have added some stuff that we didn’t use too much in our songs
before. We kinda grew a bit when it comes to the songwriting
on this album!
CR- Correct me if I am wrong but I think this is Kraanium’s
10th year
together! Congratulations on staying together this long and getting along
with each other and pumping out amazing music! Comments on being in a
band with your brother? Any tips for young bands??
M- Thanks! I guess it have been around ten years since we
actually first started yeah! But I mean I don’t really feel like the
“real" kraanium began exisiting until we started up again with Ian on bass
and Vidar on second guitars, hehe!
Well, It’s a privilege to have a twin
brother to play and make music together with. I feel very lucky about that
part, hehe! But we do fight like hell over riffs and writing new stuff all the
time so that might be a bit frustrating sometimes for the 3 other members in
the band, but I guess they have gotten pretty much used to it over the years.
CR- What is your opinion on lyrics? How important are
they to the genre?
M-
I think lyrics in the death metal genre are as
important as in any other genres! And to be honest I don’t like this new trend
with bands that have no lyrics, to me this seems like a very lazy solution for
the singer!
I mean, when you are a guitarist you use a lot of time writing
riffs and perfecting them to the max, and I think the same should be done when
it comes to the lyrics. As for myself I also think its much easier to
have lyrics, to remember what to sing when you play live, it’s a lot harder to
try and remember just vocal patterns. And yeah of course people can say:
“What’s the point with lyrics when you can’t understand what we are
singing" but that’s what we have the lyric sheets in the albums for :)
CR- How are things with Comatose? Can you say a
little about how that came to fruition?
M- Comatose is great! Steve Green is hardworking and dedicated 100% to the underground brutal death scene! The collaboration with him so far has been great, and he really takes care of business. The way we got signed was that we got tipped off by someone that they were looking for new bands to sign and talked to Steve about it and he was very interested in signing Kraanium. So we just went for it and have not regretted it since!
CR- I understand you’ve got a big tour coming up! Can you say anything about that?
M- Yeah! We got a USA tour starting on the beginning of June together with Atrocious Abnormality & Coathanger Abortion. It’s called COMATOUR 2012 and will feature all Comatose music bands, and we are doing 16 shows on the tour and we will also be playing at Las Vegas Deathfest. Its gonna be great!
CR- Is there new merch in the works for Kraanium?
M- Yeah we are gonna have brand new merch for the tour and might do some other new merch before that as well. Will also be re-releasing the 5 tracks from our split as its own MCD thru Rising Nemesis records from Germany. The songs will be re-mixed and we will probably have some new merch together with that release. MCD will be called “Ditch Full of Bitches"…so stay tuned for that stuff as will!
CR- Who are some of your favorite vocalists?
M-
My personal favorites are Angel Ochoa, Wayne
Knupp and Vladimir who used to sing for Abominable putridity. But I also like
some of the old school dudes, like Chris Barnes and Frank Mullen!
CR- Is Norway still constantly birthing black metal? Do you like black metal?
M-
Yes black metal is still the “big thing" here in
Norway, but seems some people, at least the younger generation of metalheads,
are starting to open their eyes for slamming death metal. Which I think is
awesome!
I like black metal yeah, but not the symphonic shit! Its gotta be old
school stuff. Me and my brother Mats actually have a black metal project
band called DAUDEHAUD, and we even have released a cd.
CR- Anything else you’d like to say to your fans?
M- Thanks to you bro for supporting us by doing this interview! And thanks to everyone worldwide supporting Kraanium and the underground death metal scene!
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