Technology is out to get us…

Skynet is real and we’re all gonna die.

…and we’re all fucked. How you say? Well for a start #IAmSpartacus just thought we’d get that out the way. If you’re one of those twats who claim that they deliberately ignore social networking because ‘it’s gonna kill us all’ piss off and get a job. I just wanted to make it clear that I am the dude who actually threatened to blow up Robin Hood Airport. The other guy was just covering. He owned me a favour after I brought him a pint… shame it all got so out of hand.

I picked up my Uni’s local ‘Rag’ (I prefer toilet roll myself) but names aside. It contained various idiots sprouting bullshit from every orifice imaginable. This is included some choice pickings; including a review of Todd Phillips’ latest shit film (he’s the guy who made ‘The Hangover’) and before you say anything, I HATED that movie, just terrible, misogynistic bollocks.  But if you want to hear anyone on just why it’s really not worth the time of day I suggest Dr Kermode’s diagnosis. ‘Due Date’ (that’s the new one by the way) just from the trailer looks awful.  Honestly, first time I saw it I turned to my other half and said ‘well that looks shit’ trust me, I really did. ‘Bromance’ isn’t funny.

The second was the words ‘awesome 3D’ used in connection to the cinema really made me realise just how worried I am about ‘3D’ I mean when you’re getting is either bodily fluids, stupid bits of body parts, boobs or whatever else gets thrown out at us. I mean face it Avatar was really bad, just really really bad. Boring, unoriginal and vacuous. I’d much rather go see ‘Papa Smurf’s Sex Tape’ than sit through another screening of ‘Dances with Wolves in Space’.

The question now is what’s next? Am I going to go to see ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean 4’ where Johnny Depp is going to donn his gloves from ‘Edward Scissorhands’ reach out and slice my head off for real? I’m very scared and would warn anyone against it. It’ll be a fucking massacre.

Final thing, the ‘rag’ also listed ‘DVD we’re most looking forward to’ as… no not Toy Story 3 or Inception… but Sex and (the fucking) City 2! I mean COME ON! I LET YOU HAVE THE REST BUT REALLY!!!!!!

Phew, rant over.

Mr Bogle

We chat to Nils Förster, lead guitarist of Lay Down Rotten

1.    If you were talking to a brand new listener, how would you describe your music?

Hi there! We play old-school death-metal which is mainly influenced by swedish and US death-metal of the early ninties. Musically we’re still doing a mixture of all kinds of death-metal we like and combine it to our individual style. Maybe you can describe our sound  as a mixture of bands like Bolt Thrower, Edge of sanity, Amon Amarth, Entombed, Carcass, Death, Dismember, At the gates and Hypocrisy. But we’re also using elements like samples in background to fresh up our sound and let it sound modern. Our lyrics are dealing with versatile thematics like religion, politics, society, authorities, war, hate,  media, relationsships, networks and things like that. We mostly have a sociocritical orientation and want to inspire people with our music to challenge up things.

2.    What or who most inspires you to play this type of music?

When we started to make music in the beginning of the nineties, we all listened a lot to the death metal  stuff  from Sweden, USA and England. As this kind of music took the biggest influence to all of us we always wanted to play this sound and continuously  become better musicians.  To name some persons or bands  which inspired us,  i would mention Dan Swanö  (Edge of sanity), Chuck Schuldiner  (Death), At the gates, Carcass, Bolt Thrower, Entombed, Dismember,  Sepultura etc.  So you can say that we’re doing the music we can handle best and spent the most time for.

3.    What are your hopes for the new album?

At first,  we hope that the people like our new record and it reaches  a wider attention.  First press and public reactions are all the way positive, so right now we’re really happy.  In common we want  to expand our music and popularity a bit more and becoming well-known in the international  scene.  Another wish is  getting  the chance to play more international.

4.    What is the biggest inspiration for the new album?

One of the biggest inspirations for the new album was the motivation, after playing  a lot of shows and having promoted our debut album on Metal Blade records, to write new tunes and put our music to a further level . Another inspiration was to write a classic death metal album which has  all the elements we like in this kind of music and mix it up in a versatile way.  Another great thing is that we got the chance to work with some of our idols and creating a classic but still modern album. By the appearances of Martin van Drunen, Dan Swanö and Marc Grewe a dream has come true. All these guys had a lot of influence to us when we were kids as they are a big part of death metal history. If somebody would have told us  in earlier times that we have someday the chance to work with them we  had freaked out. It wasnt’ hard work to convince them. After having heard some stuff they all agreed very fast. Back to the question i also want to remark, that all members of the band are listening to different kinds of music and try to transfer versatile ideas to our sound. Musical limitation isn’t the right way to create something innovative and won’t let you grow as a musician. So there can be a lot of inspiration in other styles. Another fact is that we’re all huge music fans and have so many favourites.  From classic over rock and metal to electronic music.  Besides metal, me for example listening a lot to 70ies rock like Pink Floyd, King Crimson and even interested in electronic stuff. We’re also inspired by all things happening in the present world and have an influence to our lifes. Thematically our music has a sociocritical orientation and deals with thematic like religion, politics, society, authorities, relationships, media, networks etc. We’re all not religious and more atheistic persons. But we all respect people who have chosen religion for their life unless it isn’t the fanatic and blind way. Often religion is the cause for great conflicts and seperates people more than it brings them together. Of course there’s a big difference between our artistic and private life. All of us are working fulltime so sometimes it’s difficult  to arrange it with the band. We always spent all our freetime for the band to bring it forward. With our music we want people to challenge up things and support a critical view. We’re just trying to transfer ideas to our style and mix it up in the best way we can. In first case we’re making music for having fun and use it as a medium to express our feelings. So we’re inspired by all the things going on in the present world  and work it up in our music. The most important thing is that we’re friends and making music to have a great time together and to keep an inner balance. We’re trying to be a real band and don’t care about building up an affected image just to become more popular.  So on stage we show the people that we’re having fun to play our music and present it to the crowd as intense as we can. You don’t have to be the toughest and most evil guy to be allowed playing hard music. We’re putting all our heart and soul to our music, this is what you can hear and watch every time, i think.

5.    On that album what track are you personally most proud of? (i.e. which one do you feel has the most of you in it?)

I would say “Hours of infinity” or “Where spirits lie dead” has all the trademarks of the Lay Down Rotten sound.  These songs gives you a good impression of what we’re doing.

6.    What for you was your best tour/show?

When we played PartySan festival in 2007 which is one of the biggest events in Germany. It was a real great experience to play in front of such a big crowd for the first time. Watching so many people going crazy to our music let us feel overwhelmed  and honoured. Another big thing was the first tour in the beginning of 2008 with Dismember and Hatesphere where we had a real good time.

7.    If you could play with any band, who would it be?

Oh, a difficult question. We have so much favourite bands that it’s hard to focus on only one band.  Ok, i say Slayer or maybe when Death still would exist this would be a perfect choice.

8.    What is your best story about this band?(i.e. when touring, recording or writing)

Every tour was a lot of fun and a big experience for us. All the bands were cool and we got countless new friends. There happened so many things that i can’t tell all at once, because there’s not enough space here.  Ok here’s one not very spectacular story, on one of our latest gigs we’ve played  in south Germany with a befriended band. When the gig was finished  we went to a club to get some drinks and after a time the singer of this other band had  disappeared. We all we’re looking for him and couldn’t find him at first.  We found him sleeping at the toilet with his underpants full of vomit.  It was really funny to see this guy rubbing his ass on the wall because of the itching feeling.

9.    What’s next?
I think that we will remain true to our style but always try to let it sound fresh and innovative. It’s hard to come around with something completely new in a genre like death-metal where everything has appeared in similar ways. As i said we want to enhance our popularity and hope that one day we will be announced as one of the big international death-metal acts. We have confirmed a lot of shows for this year and looking forward to kick some people’s asses. Maybe in five years we have the chance to play international shows and going to other continents. Musical goals will be to become better musicians and growing in abilities. Surely we constantly working on becoming better musicians and writing better songs, but you won’t expect any radical changes in future.  We just will work on improving the elements more and more.

10.    What is your most headbanging track?

I think “Sound of breaking bones” is a killer track. It appears on the “Reconquering the pit” album.
Thanks a lot for the interview and the chance to spread the word.  Always do the best you can and don’t care about  trends and false values. Cheers!