Interview with Insane 2012

By Bradley Smith

I know you guys are a rather new and young band, can you tell me how Insane got together?  What are your goals with the band?  What made you choose this band name?  Are you truly INSANE?

It started in October 2009. After some years of playing some bad punk-rock shit we realized that thrash was the coolest thing to play. So we started to write heavier and faster songs and the first result was the song “Fast, Loud and Heavy” from our first demo “Facebreakers”. The demo was written and recorded when we were about 12-13 years old or something, so the quality of the songs are not so high, but sometimes we play some songs from that demo nowadays. We often call “Death Race” our first “Real” demo/EP. The name came up in an art class at school. Erik said “take something crazy” and Gustaf answered with “INSANE”, and that’s the story. Our goal with the band is to play the music we love and spread the evil madness to all Heavy Metal Maniacs out there.

Your new demo, Hollow Death has just started to scorch the underground.  How do you see it as a growth past Death Race EP?  How has Insane developed since your birth to the present day?

The songs on “Death Race” are more like the Bay Area style, like Testament and Death Angel. At that time we were totally into that kind of music. But when we started to write the songs for “Hollow Death” we just moved on to more aggressive thrash like the German scene. And we also had growth as musicians so of course it’s a big diffirence for us between the two releases. If you listen to “Facebreakers” you will notice that the songs and our ability as a band has grown. When we wrote “Facebreakers” we listened to Metallicas “Black Album” and were young and stupid so we have also grown as persons and our taste in music has developed. And after those almost three years of playing together we also have grown as a live band, our first shows as INSANE were not so tight and kind of boring to watch.

I noticed that Joel of Entrench did the cover art for the demo which made me wonder what you thought were the “proper” aesthetics for artwork within the metal underground?  How did you get Joel to do the cover art? 

First we wanted it to be black and white because it’s a tape and it’s more evil like that. And we think that the artwork for a thrash metal release is really important because it will catch the first impact on people. We knew that Joel had done some really cool artworks before, because we played with these guys one time and we also have some cool demos and albums where his name stands under “layout”, so we decided to contact him and ask if he wanted to do our demo artwork. We thought he was the right guy when we looked at Eliminations demo-tape “The Dead”. We gave him some ideas and then he just started to sketch and the result was really awesome. He has also done a cool t-shirt version of the front cover, so we are really thankful for his work on the demo.  

So what sets thrash apart from other styles for you?  In other words by is Thrash better than Death or Doom or Black metal?  When you hear a good thrash band, what feelings surge through you?

We like thrash most because it has all the styles in one. Thrash can be really fast, intense and aggressive but it can also be melodic, heavy and harmonic. But of course Black and Death metal also are fast, intense and aggressive but for the most part thrash is a more varied genre. If you take a band such as Morbid Saint and compare it to Megadeth you notice that it’s a big difference but both of these bands are still thrash metal, and that’s kind of cool. When we put on a really great thrash album on our recordplayers we get a feeling of moshing. As for exemple, when we put on “Evil Invaders” we start to spit on every poser we can find and start to thrash with all thrash maniacs!

Do other people give you a hard time for being so young?  Do you think being young gives you a fresh/different perspective when it comes to classic bands and styles?  I mean you aren’t set in your ways and your mind could be more open to music than a lot of the older, more established bands.

The biggest problem with being as young as we are, is that we are not able to play in pubs and bars with older bands and that sucks. And we also miss all the cool shows at the pubs, like when we were in Gothenburg and played on “Lesson in Vio-lence”, which was a big underground thrash show, all the other bands went to a show with Witchgrave, Enforcer and Angel Witch, but we were not able to go so we went home instead. We use to say that thrash is for teenagers and for young people so of course we got a benefit and a fresh perspective to the music. For most all the “big” bands were best when they were young, but there were not so many bands that were as young as we are today, but of course we are not on the top of our development as a band. 

What do you consider as “Valid” formats for metal music?  Why do you like tape?  Don’t you think it is pretty much a dead format?

Almost all of us love to listen to vinyl records and tapes. For albums and EPs we prefere vinyl and for demos we prefere tapes. The sound of a demo is more real and retro on a tape, it’s more like it was in the old days and we think that demos belong on tapes. But the biggest part of our collections is vinyl records. When we were on a trip with our old school class we went to the record shop and bought records the whole day, our class mates laughed at us (fucking posers).   

The underground is all about forming connections with other like-minded maniacs.  So tell me how you form these connections and how did you get in contact with Bifrost for your demo?  How did you get included on the Gallery of Rogues mix?  There are some amazing bands on that mix, so what are you favorites?  (Mine are Hot Graves and Amebix)

After the release of “Death Race” all the songs already was done for recording so we started to send some demos and mails to different labels all around the world but for the most here in Sweden. But no labels were interested, so we thought that we had to release “Hollow Death” on our own. When we had recorded all the songs Bifrost Records contacted us and said that they were interested in releasing our upcoming tape. So we talked for some time and we agreed that we had a deal. The Gallery of Rogues Mix was put together by the website Thrashhead from the USA and they had done a review of “Death Race” some months earlier and one day they contacted us and asked if we were interested in being on their digital mix with metal and hardcore bands, and we thought it was awesome so we agreed. Our common favourite is of course the thrashing maniacs from England, Onslaught!!! It’s not an awesome song but their two first albums kick ass so we are really proud to be on the same mix as them.

You and several of the band members write for a Magazine called Heavy Paper.  As a musician, how do you approach writing for a magazine?  Why did you start the zine and what bands do you cover?  What band would be your ultimate interview and why?  How do you separate your journalist side from your musical side, or is that even possible?

Erik and Jocke had talked a long time about having their own fanzine so one day when they hungout they decided to start working on the first issue. Just before they split up for that night Erik asked Jocke “What are we going to call the zine?” and after some silence Jocke bright up and said “Heavy Paper!!!!” and that is the story about the only metal fanzine in Sweden right now that is written in Swedish. It took a long time for us to work with the first issue but when it was done we had interviews with Cauldron, Raging Steel and Entrench for example. We also had a new writer in the team, Gustaf. When we are planning a new issue we choose some cool bands that we like and send them questions for interviews and ask them if they want their stuff to be reviewed and for the most it’s bands that we like. To be a musican and writing in a fanzine is not a problem, we only do it for fun and for the reason that it’s so cool to read and spread the undergorund music. We want to help and support bands in the same situation as ourselves. And it’s hard to choose a dream interview so instead it would be cool to know that you have helped and spread underground bands.  

Since you have an EP named Death Race, I was wondering what you thought of the movies of the same name, the original Death Race 2000 and the more modern movie with Jason Statham in it.  What is the story behind your EP’s title?

The song is inspired by the new one. We didn’t even know that it was an old “Death Race” movie until just now, we just checked the trailer and it was so cool so we must see it as soon as we can. The story of the song is almost exactly the same as the new “Death Race” movie but the reason that we chose “Death Race” as the title on the EP is because we thought it was the coolest and it fit because all the songs is about the death, life is a kind of a death race, sooner or later we all die.

After listening to the new demo, I was just contemplating on Swedish thrash.  I was wondering if you thought there was something distinctive about Swedish thrash separated it stylistically or sound-wise from other thrash bands from other regions.  Or do you think that Sweden has no distinct sound? 

Swedish thrash has never been “big” if we take the old bands for example like Mezzrow, Fallen Angel and Agony they never got as much attention as they deserved, but maybe that was great in some ways. And if you look at those three bands they sounded as they could been Bay Area bands. But when we look at Merciless they are more like Possessed and early Kreator, more brutal and evil and also Hypnosia was a band that sounded evil and played really fast so we don’t really think that Swedish Thrash is seperated, or maybe a bit. If we look at the scene nowdays it’s really great and we think that the Swedish scene, together with our friends from Norway, is the best in thrash metal right now.

So what are your upcoming plans for Insane?  When can we expect a full length album?  Any live desecrations coming our way?

Right now we are writing songs and rehearsing for an upcoming 7” so we have a little break over the summer from live shows but after the recording of the 7” we will start playing live again and we have some really big plans on a big show here in Sweden. We are going to play a lot here in Scandinavia, and hopefully we will release the 7” in fall/winter this year.

As a Tormentor of Life, what would you like to say before you bring our existence to its end?

When doomsday is here, you should put on a Nuclear Assault album and face the toxic radiation of the nuclear war…