Interview with ... KRAANIUM

01.KRAANIUM signed to Comatose Music in 2012 how did that come about and why you split up with Pathologically Explicit Rec.How is your releationship?

We split with PER cos they could not help us to go tour or book shows, and escpecially over in the USA, So Comatose basically offered us a deal and also to book us for the next Comatour they had (2012) and we decided to go for it. No bad blood between us and PER, we are still friends an support each other as good as we can. Its important to do that in a scene which is such small and underground.

02. Are you going to work with them in future?

Well we are not in talk about any releases for cds and such but merchwise we keep the talk open .Also maybe gonna release some of our older albums on vinyl.

03. Personally this one is hard to ask but I should... Unfortunately,You your brother Martin one of the original band members .How is life going on after he passed away?

Its fucking hard man, what can i say! Loosing my lifetime band mate and best friend like that, i struggle every day, and im sure that will never go away ,but try to live my life the best way i can and to move the band and music forward, cos i owe it to my brother and i know that this is what he wanted me to do . Its also what keeps me happy and in focus, my best therapy is by far the music, and i will stick to this for as long as i can. Its my lifestyle and i love it

04. Band have a many line up changes through the years. What is current line up and are you in contact with ex KRAANIUM members?

Mikael: Currently Kraanium is
Jack-Vocals
Mats-Guitars
Jason-Guitars
Mikael-Bass
Tobi-Drums

Erhan who recorded Slamchosis left recently so thats the only ex-member at least im in touch.

Mats: im still in contact and friends with most members yes, no bad blood there .Except a couple of people who decided to fuck us over, but im not mentioning any names here, hehe.

05. KRAANIUM is now co called international band with members from Norway, Finland,Denmark, UK... How you come to an idea to make line up from different countries?

Mikael: I think since early days was hard to have a drummer in Norway who liked this style of music,after the old Norwegian members left was easy to search for members in Europe and with technology nowadays is easy to have band with members of different countries, i personally knew Mats and his late brother Martin for past 15 years and i knew for about 4 years before i joined the band so was easy to interact with them, Jack and Tobi met after but super good guys to play and tour with.

Mats: yes it what he says thats kinda the right story here, we already had several people that we were thinking to ask to join the band after we fell out with out Norwegian members. Cos we were always travelling and met other cool bands/members and always expanding our network in the scene, so we bascially just made a list of who to contact and found out who was interested. Thats how we found Jason, which now also helps me running the band after my bro passed away. He has his own booking company and that helped us alot ant still helps us alot in booking tours and shows. As for Mika, i always knew at some point i wanted to have him with us in Kraanium, just not when, but that mysteriously worked out exactly when we needed him. As for Jack i just knew he would be the right person to take over for my bro cos Martin was was his biggest vocal influence and a long time friend of both of us online as well.

06. Mats, tell me more about your side projects as a Fermented Masturbation, secret Mutilation, Dragging Entrails etc

Well for now , the only active bands/projects im running with is Dragging entrails. Too hard to run the rest of my project now after my bro is gone . Also As for the other bands, right no they are on infinate hiatus unless we decide to start again, all other mmebers are busy with their own bands mostly so not sure anything more will happen ( FM and SM) As for Dragging entrails, we jus announced a comeback som weeks ago with a new line up and a new record which will be released through Brutal mind, hopefully sometimes this year.
Also worth mentioning here is my Sludge slam band Diphenylchloroarsine, which we are currently writing music for our 2nd full length record with. Will be release through Rotten music some tim later this year.

07. How did you write your new slamming brutality album called Slamchosis?

Mats : I just watching one day the "Faces of death" and wanted to write an consept album just based on different ways of torture/murder/deaths, like in this series of documentaries, and the "plot" for the cd was born. Also came up with the idea of "Slamchosis" and the term it was cos of these voices from doctors or specialists that always comments on these kind of documentaries about killings and crazy killersa. So thats where we came up for the slamchosis sample as well were a "doctor" describes the illness. The term itself is fictional offcourse, and also an idea born out of my head.

Mikael: Usually Mats and Jason do the riffs,they get together and program drums to arrange the music, everyone in Kraanium has a different role but mainly Mats and Jason are the ones who do the creative process.

08. What kind of an album was in your mind when you started to collabrate the new songs?

Mats :Devourments slamasterpiece "Molesting The Decapitated" was by far my main inspiration for this release

09. How and why did you choose themes like Gore, Torture, Rape etc What does Slamchosis mean for you?

Well i get inspiration from everything. News, tv shows, documentaries, movies, books and series. Its a fucked up world we live in so pretty easy to find topics

10. KRAANIUM have been releasing ultra sick of good releases.Do you think that you get enough reputation about band from all around the world? What kind of metal music genres and bands influenced you the most to start Kraanium?

I think the reqognition we get for what we do is super sick! Could not ever dreamed to make it this far as being one of the top bands in the brutal genre as we is now when i started Kraanium with my brother almost 20 years ago now.

Mikael: The band has been around and toured a lot i think we are pretty known now in this style and underground scene, i think the obvious influences were Devourment,Internal Bleeding, Abominable Putridity and Cannibal Corpse.

11. What do you think about this new wave of slam and brutal gore bands last years?

Mikael: I don't personally see a new wave of slam,I see more bands calling themselfs slam when they are musically more towards deathcore, and there is nothing wrong if people like that style just slam is a easy word trown around nowadays to sell records and merch.

Mats: Slam seem more like a label for new bands to put on themselves to fool people into believing they are not a genre of music but more a comodity and that sucks because alot of new kids cant really differ from what is real or not. Bands get credit that they dont deserve and that is poison to our scene. I think we all share the same views on this in the band cos we have all been around for many years to know the different between the real slam bands and those who are not.

12. What do you think about today's extreme metal scene in Norway and Europe?

Mikael: Europe got a great scene, some good fests that mix our style of death metal and many others, like Obscene Extreme that we played last year.

Mats : Norwy is as always, its the land of black and thrash metal, not too many people who are into slam and brutal death sadly

13. Are there enough extreme bands,are there enough good shows?

Mats: Mostly black metal but some cool tours come up here as well yes.Lame crowds tho, mostly headbanging. People dont understand a good moshpit up here, they just stand around drinking their beers, haah.

Mikael: Good bands for me, Kataplexia just released a new cd, Skulmagot from Finland old style cannibal corpse and Cumbeast personally some bands from here worth checking.

14. How does a Kraanium show looks like ?

Mats: Go to Youtube and search for us and you will see:) Mostly violent and moving crowds, which we love! Some broken noses and split skulls have occoured too.

Mikael: Intense, brutal, violent.

15. Do you play live often?

Mikael: we try to, we are 5 guys in 5 different countries so not always easy to take time off, coz of job,family,etc but we got confirmed a 4 week USA tour in may/june and two shows in Finland this september.

16. Let's talk about every song pariculary on Slamchosis

01 Bound to Kill 02. Blob of Inhuman Metamorphic Transfusion 03. Gratification Through Annihilation 04. Forced Rectal Exhumation 05. Slamchosis 06. Larva Infested Cum Sluts 07. Midget Fucker 08. Slam Her Guts Out 09. Face Fucked with a Brick 10. Putrescent Indulgenelce.

Mats: Dont really know what to tell here, cos every song is pretty much just a chapter in a big tale, and they dont stand out as sepertly significant. Listen and judge for yourself :)

17. Thx for your time and good luck, Fans here really would like to see you performing here in Serbia... Is there anything that you want to add (merchandise etc.

If ya wanna book us just get in touch! and thanx alot for sending us this interview! We would love to come play Serbia some day since we still have never played in your country !