Lobotomy

This interview with Daniel appeared in issue #16

(Editor’s note – Daniel starts off the interview by insulting me) First of all, I guess you don’t know anything about metal.

You’ve read the Grimoire, then?
Yeah, I had to. I was at the office (ed – No Fashion office in Sweden) and they told me to read it so I wouldn’t get offended. There’s some nice chick on the front cover, so that’s OK.

Not everyone in the band is Swedish, correct?
Yeah, correct.

Is one of the band members named “Tonto?”
How do you figure? (laughs) Actually, his nickname is Smurf Tonto. He’s actually from Greenland, but he’s doing his best to play the flute, so that’s OK.

Greenland… that’s the place with the native people. You wouldn’t call them Indians.
Eskimos.

They are very famous for staring down their opponents. See how cool I am? I know everything.
Sure you do.

It seems that Grave was a big influence.
The death scene back in ‘92 was Grave, Entombed, Dismember, and stuff like that… and we had the same influences. We weren’t that influenced by Grave, but we had the same influences as they had. That’s the sound we have.

So why was Grave signed at that time, and not Lobotomy?
Because they were from Gotland, a little island outside Sweden, and the record companies thought that was a lot more cooler. We were from Stockholm. We weren’t awesome enough to release an album, but they were because they were from a tiny little island.

It seems that a band’s biography is a selling point these days. I guess that always has been the case. I noticed that you have no trouble with the English language so I am going to be speaking to thee in an older tongue.
Thou shalt suffer.. OK.

On a scale of 1-10, how gay is Insania?
(laughs) Ten! No doubt about it!

I could hardly believe what was on that CD when I put it in the stereo. I had my stereo tested for A.I.D.S.
You should put a condom on your CD player.

Is there really a demand for that style of music?
German kids.

I wonder how thou feeleth about bands like that.
They were torn from the womb too early to have the normal breastfeeding, I guess. They just want to get some money. I play good ol’ death metal because I’m a man. but I guess these are wimps or fags or whatever.

What about the alternative scene that composes bullshit music that is nowhere near as demanding as death metal like Brutality, yet they look down on metal?
I know exactly what you mean. I had trouble getting jobs just because I had long hair. I actually cut my hair two years ago just to try how it was. It was definitely much more easier to get a job then. We have our own race, the metal people, I guess.

Except we don’t have an annoying organization like the N.A.A.C.P helping us. There are no token long-hairs in the work force.
Yeah, but you had Frank Zappa and Dee Snyder helping out when Tipper Gore was after all the heavy metal albums.

I don’t think those two people should be used in the same sentence. There’s a vast difference in intellect between Zappa and Snyder.
But they had long hair. Frank Zappa was a god, and Dee Snyder was… I don’t know…

A dumb metalhead.
So are you!

The P.M.R.C. didn’t hurt metal at all. A parental advisory sticker is a sign that the album is probably very cool.
Yeah, but the problem was these artists started to emerge that just opted to have that sticker. They just started to focus on their provocative style, Like Marilyn Manson and shit like that. It started to be a fashion band instead of thinking about producing good music. I think that both helped, but it destroyed a lot of the metal mentality.

The same can be said about black metal.
Alice Cooper and Gene Simmons were there long before them.

Getting back to alternative people looking down on metal… 80’s metal helped to perpetuate the stereotype of dumb metalhead. I think that the condescending attitude is also present in bands like Insania. Those musicians look down on death metal musicians.
One thing that is true is that a lot of these so-called power metal bands are old death metal musicians who want to make a buck. At least two members of Hammerfall are old death metal musicians.

Would you change style for money?
Yeah, sure!

That haircut from two years ago is a character flaw, so changing musical loyalty would not be a surprise.
No, it was just me trying to get a job. But I failed, so I’m now back with long hair.

There is an error in the No Fashion press sheet for Lobotomy.
Yeah, we’re influenced by Blind Guardian and Helloween.

Lobotomy is described as “being in the vein of Helloween and Blind Guardian”. I think that is the equivalent of saying that the band is gay.
Yeah, exactly. Actually, I went up to the office and told them that. I don’t know how it occurred, but the promotion guy mixed us… our album was released at the same time as the Insania album. Hopefully it will say that the Insania album is influenced by Morbid Angel and Autopsy and Repulsion.

No, actually it says the same thing on the Insania press sheet. Art thou going to sue No Fashion Records?
Yeah, I hope so. When people hear the album, they won’t hear the typical Helloween influences. Instead they will hear…

A Grave rip-off.
No.


Earache is based in England. The American office of Earache has to translate the British press releases from the faggy way that the English express themselves.
Oh really?

Yes. I think that No Fashion needs an anti-gayness translator, because on their selling points for the album, thy description is “Swedish death metal in a direct, fascinating, and honest way.”
Well you should tell that to Ahriman in Dark Funeral because he’s the one who is making them.

Lord Ahriman is the god.
No, he’s the fag.

He is the one who contributes to the Grimoire.
Yeah, but he is the one that wrote that.

I will hear nothing negative about Lord Ahriman! He is a benefactor of the Grimoire!
Yeah, he is a nice guy, but… you know.

Me not speaking badly of him is the equivalent of you getting a bad haircut.
Enough about Ahriman, ok?

Has anyone from Grave ever heard Lobotomy?
We actually had Jergen, the lead singer, sing back-up on our last album. It was released in ‘97.

Did he write all of the riffs?
No. He actually gave us a tape of midi samples and we just picked them from there. He produced it instead. We had these riffs and he said, “That sounds pretty much like our sixth album.” We made it from there.

What is the likelihood of anyone from Grave telling metal journalists that Lobotomy is ripping off their songwriting?
That would be great. We would sell a lot, then Grave exists no more. These members are in Entombed and stuff like that now.

Which is the equivalent of getting a gay haircut. Is it true that Rikard from Deranged attacked thee with a sharpened drumstick?
That was a long time ago, man. I don’t want to talk about it. We were actually competing blast beats to each other. He won because I’m the lazy fucker. I’m more into doom. I actually punched him and then he started to offend me because he said he was better than me.

How dost thou feel about labels like Headfucker in Italy that have turned their backs on all trends and decided to release only brutal death metal?
To the point where it sounds like a vacuum cleaner?

I’m telling them you said that!
Ok, do that.

Have you heard Cephalic Carnage?
No.

Malignancy?
No.

Hmmm.. maybe if you did, they would be suing you for ripping them off the way Grave should.
These bands are ripping us off.

Thou art not impressed with vocals that are more of the grindcore nature?
Well the thing is, you can hear what Glen Benton is saying on the Deicide albums, correct? Is that hardcore vocals?

I would not say those are hardcore vocals.
No. You can hear what our singer, Max, is singing. Are those hardcore vocals? No. I think it’s great when you can hear what the singer is saying. It’s not great to hear that hardcore style. We’re not D.R.I.

You are not interested in bands in which the words cannot be deciphered.
I like Obituary… the old albums. To be honest with you, I buy a lot of metal albums, but when it comes to these brutal-to-the-death albums, I think they sound just the same. It’s enough with the first album from Immolation. Then the rest sounds just the same. It’s just copycats out there. These albums are good, but I don’t need the copy.

“Copycat…” how that word must be so alien to your tongue… Grave-boy.
(laughs)

So did Lobotomy start as a Grave cover band?
No. We started as a Dismember cover band. But then we heard about Grave and we started doing Grave covers. We were thinking about calling our band Coffin, but there was some hip hop band called that.

You should have stuck with the name Coffin. You should have had wheels on the bottom of a coffin that you rode on stage with. I heard that one band tried to perform something like that, but they weren’t very careful with the set-up, and the singer who rode in on the coffin with wheels was bumped by the guitar player, and the coffin zoomed off stage. Because of the great height it fell from, it had a lot of momentum that carried the coffin out of a club and down a street. It somehow entered a pharmacy and was racing through an aisle of medicine. The pharmacist asked if there was anything he could do to help, and the singer replied, “Yes, do you have anything that will stop this coffin?”
That’s very funny.


My friends want to pay me to go to a comedy club during open mike night just so they can watch the crowd boo me off the stage.
That was a good one.

I heard that Wounded Love Records in Italy wanted to sign Lobotomy, but that no one in the band would offer prolonged homosexual favors.
Yes. They offered us a butt-shaped picture disc, and that was the thing that we wanted. But then, the facial stunts we couldn’t agree with
because our bass player is married.

What is a love handle in the Swedish language? What part of the body does that refer to?
Actually, I don’t know what a love handle is. Do you mean a significant part of the body?

I am just confirming things. I know that in Japan, north and south have differences in language, as well as do east and west. So I think that in Sweden there might be different dialects.
Yes. There definitely is. We have the southern and northern dialects. There is a Stockholm dialect as well. We can compare it to the States. We have rednecks down in the south as well.

The guy Janne from…
Abba?

Hypocrite… I didn’t know he was in Abba as well. I knew he was in Hypocrisy, but I didn’t know he was in Abba. I should have asked him questions about that. Abba actually invented corpsepaint, didn’t they?
Corpsepaint?

Yeah, the girls wore it. It was blue corpsepaint, though.
Yeah, Abba co-founded black metal.

Yeah, it’s something that’s rarely discussed in interviews because of the code of secrecy. They do not want to reveal the actual forefathers. You’re very brave. You and I both have a death sentence now, I guess. Well anyway, Janne was telling me about love handles. Is there a high concentration of homosexuals in that area?
I guess they are from Stockholm. And I am from Stockholm. That’s the capitol of Sweden. We have these bars..

I heard that the band members of Necrophobic date each other and bring each other to these bars.
You’re damn right. We definitely don’t hate each other, but I can go on talking shit about them if you want that.

Continue.
They are not called Necrophobic. They are called Heterophobic.

I know that they did not like black people in Stockholm. They don’t like the immigration of black people into Sweden because they take advantage of the welfare system. They said that it is unlawful to sing the Swedish national anthem in school because it would offend the black people.
No, that was just some scared principal who told the kids to shut up. I mean, I wouldn’t be offended if I was in Africa and they sang their national anthem. Why should I?

If I were in Africa, I would be an American African.
Wearing those baggy clothes, right?

Dost thou think that Necrophobic should actually be called Niggerphobic?
Yeah. Why not?

So tell me more about Negrophobic.
They used to be picking on us all the time. But I haven’t heard them lately. I think they kind of bent over for the black metal style. They used to play death metal, and suddenly their second album was black metal.

I agree 100%
It’s cool to bend over.

It’s the equivalent of getting a haircut. In a photograph, two of the members of Necrophobic looked like girls. Do they look like girls in real life?
Yeah, the singer is using make-up.

Gothic style?
Yeah.

See, I think Sweden could benefit from queerbashing. Can’t Sweden summon the rednecks from the south to go to these bars?
To be honest with you, I am not homophobic really. But when I go to bars, and I look from behind and want to squeeze something and I find out it’s a guy, that’s not that funny. I get pretty angry, actually.

I see something wrong here. You are the sort of person who would grab a girl you don’t know, in a tender location?
Sure. Anything to get beat up.

But in all seriousness, would you? Or were you just being metal when you were talking?
No, I wouldn’t.

How do you hold your cigarette? That can tell a lot about you.
Well I use my fist and I hold it with my whole hand.

Is there a bottle that the band always carries around?
Containing what?

I heard that there’s a bottle that’s very special to the band. If I take that bottle away from you, would you rather have that bottle in front of me, or a frontal lobotomy?
I can’t say no more to that, actually. That stand-up stuff, you know…

I am not actually known for printing the correct band photos in interviews.
So I have noticed. There are some different members.

But if I publish your photo, I will have to do some image correction. Two of the members have very gay hair styles. Are they part time in a Metallica cover band?
No.

One of those guys has a tribal tattoo on the forearm. That wouldn’t be you, would it?
It is. But that picture was taken a year ago.

Did you have it removed with laser surgery?
No, I put Saint Vitus on the other arm.

OK, because in America it is extremely gay to have a tribal tattoo. It’s like a sign. Before tribal tattoos, you used to wonder who the fag was. But this is instant I.D.
I know I look pretty faggy. People told me I look like some glam rocker. I don’t know how to explain it.

You should have asked the Eskimo in the band to give you an authentic tribal tattoo, using sharpened wood. I am sure he would have helped you if he was a true primitive. Isn’t it funny how Greenland is icy and Iceland is green?
Yeah, it is.

I somehow wound up at a frat party once, and I can’t count the times people came up to me to tell me that they used to have long hair until they had to go to court. There seems to be some need of people with gay haircuts to try to become accepted into the long-hair coolness society by concocting tales of former manes. I go to court all the time but I never cut my hair. When someone tells me about a court-related haircut, I think that the person is a jackass.
To me, I don’t care how long your hair is.

No, I am applying the same thing to you.
Fuck you!

I don’t know if you were anticipating that I would get to your hairdo.
It’s fluffy and wonderful.

So you are sure that your hair grew since that picture?
Sure, it was a year ago.

You wouldn’t be mad if I called up Ahriman and asked him how recent that photo is?
You can call him now.

Have you been interviewed in some other magazines?
Yeah.

Have they talked about your hairstyle?
Yeah, that’s a common theme.

Are you sure the hairdo is not just a strategy to appeal to every kind of music lover? The race-traitors will love the Eskimo in your band. The Nazi’s will love the Arian in the band. Fags will like that one queer. And alternative people will like the Metallica look that you have… with the tribal tattoo to complete it. I am beginning to think that Lobotomy is a corporate invention now. I think that when you know that you are going to do a metal interview, you should pretend to have gotten a haircut because you needed a job. But if you are interviewed by a fag mag, you probably brag about your barber.
We are on the label No Fashion because we have no fashion. Just a bunch of mixed up fuck heads.

I guess your drummer is happy that it is no longer legal to capture Eskimos and take their hands off as souvenirs.
There’s one thing that I haven’t told you. To tell you the truth, I think our label sucks, promotional-wise. We haven’t done any tours. Our album has not been that great promoted. We haven’t got any ads. We haven’t got any free t-shirts. I have complained a lot to them. Sales-wise, it’s important for us to stay in shape. if we don’t sell any records, we can’t continue. We want to continue because we want to get offended by the Grimoire.

Even though it is unlawful to maim an Eskimo, the prejudice still exists in Sweden. No Fashion is a traditional Swedish label. So maybe if you got rid of the Eskimo, you would find that the label support increases.
Actually, he’s from Chile.

You liar! You lied to me!
Of course! He moved here when he was 12 years old.

Did his parents move to Sweden to take advantage of the welfare system?
No, to get away from the dictator.

Holocaust Cannibal gets Re-edited

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