Interview with Arvin Palma of Tortured Palm Art - 2012

You buy a disgusting, graphic, beautifully detailed and gory t-shirt from your favorite brutal death metal band.  You proudly wear the shirt to school/church and you are surprised at the lack of questions you get about it.  People are too thrown off or possibly offended to look past what they perceive as gross and offensive.  The art itself is under appreciated.  This is brutal death metal.  The art that goes along with it is beautiful and full of passion and hard work.  This is the first interview in a series of artist interviews with the purpose to further expose these artists and show what they do.  Please share!

Arvin Palma is a 22 year old Filipino who creates art under the name Tortured Palm Art.



"I do Artworks.  T-shirt designs, Logo, Cover art.. as long as you trust me.. I will do my best!"

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Cerebral Reviewment-  Hello Arvin, thanks for taking the time to talk with me!  Could you please tell everyone a brief history of you and how you got into drawing?

Arvin Palma-  FIRST OF ALL, GOOD DAY CEREBRAL REVIEWMENT!  I WANNA THANK YOU FOR THIS INTERVIEW.  AS I REMEMBERED SINCE I WAS A KID I ALREADY DREW BUT IT WAS ONLY FOR FUN.  I WAS 6 WHEN I STARTED DRAWING CURVES AND LINES TO FORM SOMETHING FROM MY MIND.  NOW MY WORKS ARE WAY DIFFERENT.  IT’S NOW RELATED TO MY KIND OF MUSIC AND THAT’S BRUTAL DEATH METAL.  AND THAT’S HOW I STARTED UNTIL TODAY. HOPE TO DO MORE SICK BRUTAL ARTWORKS AND IMPROVE MY SKILLS. ‘COZ IM STILL LEARNING.




The Gurchick Tree

CR-  Have you always done brutal/gore art?

AP-  TO BE HONEST I WAS JUST A YEAR OR TWO DOING ARTWORKS THAT’S WHY I ALWAYS GRAB EVERY OPPORTUNITY I GOT IF SOMEBODY WILL HIT ME UP FOR A DESIGN OR SOMETHING.  I ALSO DRAW SATANIC ARTWORKS.  I’M A FREELANCE ARTIST I DO ONLY BLACK AND WHITE I DO LOGOS AS WELL.

CR-  What are some things that influence you while drawing?

AP-  ABSOLUTELY YES! METAL MUSIC!  BRUTAL, DEATH, GRIND, BLACK AND THRASH!  AND ALSO SEEING THE WORKS OF MY FAVORITE ARTIST SUCH AS MIKE MAJEWSKI, MARK RIDDICK AND CHRIS MOYEN! THEY ARE MY INFLUENCES. ESPECIALLY, IN BLACK AND WHITE ART DEPARMENT.

CR-  What is some of your favorite music to draw to?

AP-  MOSTLY I DRAW ARTWORKS FOR BRUTAL BANDS WHEN I WAS STARTING.  BUT NOW I DO SOME DARK AND SATANIC ARTWORKS.  I’M NOT CHOOSY, AS LONG AS WE GET ALONG WELL AND THEY ARE INTERESTED WITH MY WORKS.  AND WE WORK SMOOTH.



Sevared Records




CR-  In your opinion, can brutal art ever go too far or be too gross?

AP-  FOR SOME PEOPLE THIS KIND OF ART IS NOT ART AND THEY WILL JUST SAYS IT’S GROSS!  NASTY!  BUT FOR THOSE WHO REALLY APPRECIATE ART THESE KIND OF WORKS ARE AWESOME.  MOSTLY MY PATRONIZERS ARE MY FRIENDS AND THE BANDS LOCAL AND FOREIGN.  OH!  MY MOM IS ONE OF MY GREAT FANS ALSO. LOL

CR-  What is a favorite piece of yours?

AP-  I REALLY LOVE EVERY PIECE I MADE.  BECAUSE IT’S THE FRUIT OF MY HARD WORK AND DEDICATION TO BRUTAL DEATH METAL.  BUT IF I WAS TO CHOOSE MY ACES ARE THE ARTWORK FOR ATROCIOUS ABNORMALITY (STEVE GREEN OF COMATOSE MUSIC), DISFIGURED (TEXAS), AND MY VERY FIRST COVER ART SCREWROT (ISRAEL). FOR ME THOSE ARE MY BEST WORKS SO FAR!



Atrocious Abnormality






Disfigured






Screwrot




CR-  Do you have a dream band that you have always want to draw for?

AP-  OF COURSE I DO! I REALLY WANNA DO ART FOR MY FAVORITE BRUTAL BANDS: DEVOURMENT, ABOMINABLE PUTRIDITY, CONDEMNED, CEPHALOTRIPSY!

CR-  I know the Philippines has a pretty good brutal death metal scene and the brutal art going along with all the music seems to be getting better and better. More less known artists are popping up all over the place. Are there a lot of artists doing this sort of art where you are?

AP-  YEAH!  BRUTAL DEATH METAL SCENE IS RISING NOW HERE IN PHILIPPINES AND I’M VERY GLAD FOR IT!  LOTS OF SICK BANDS GETTING DISCOVERED.  THERE ARE FEW ARTISTS I KNOW HERE.  THE MOST KNOWN IS THE MIGHTY BIN BAUTISTA (BRAINDRAINED) AND MY HOMIE PRIX (PRIXTOI MADNESS ART) THEY ARE THE ONLY ARTIST I KNOW HERE.  AND ALSO ME MYSELF! HAHA!



Autonomy


CR-  Anything you would like to say to fans or aspiring artists?

AP-  I WANNA SHOUT KEEP ON WORKING ON YOUR SHIT AND NEVER STOP THE DREAM!  WORK HARD, PRACTICE, AND DEDICATION IN WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS REALLY THE KEY!  I’M NOT THAT GOOD BUT I JUST WANNA SAY THESE THINGS TO THE ARTIST OUT THERE LIKE ME.  KEEP IT BRUTAL MY FRIENDS!

LASTLY, I WANNA THANK YOU FOR THIS GREAT INTERVIEW!  I’M VERY GLAD FOR THIS! YOU GOT MY SUPPORT MAN. THANKS AGAIN AND CHEERS!

HORNS UP!!! \M/



CR-  Thanks a lot man!

SUPPORT TORTURED PALM!

Kraanium Interview 2012

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 10^th 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!