Interview with: Chris Wetterström
By: Sabine van Gameren
Walking around at Trashfest always brings surprises. Expect the unexpected and feel free for whatever comes up has become our motto by now and so come that we somehow ended up at an almost comfortable couch in Gloria, Helsinki with Chris from Defueld doing a totally spontaneous guerilla interview.
Being her with this Swedish metal band was already a surprise since their music does not seem like a stereotypical “Trash” band as if there might be a stereotype for that. The connection with Mama Trash Promotions comes more clear if you know their drummer is Patrick Jansson which joined the band in 2008. His former bands (Maryslim, Hellsingland Underground) were part of the Mama Trash family.
Today it is their first show in Finland. Sweden and Finland are both known as countries where quite some metal is coming from. Would this fact be an advantage for them is something to find out in future. “We don’t expect anything, we are not that well known. We are going to do a very good show and hopefully the crowd will appreciate it” says Chris.
| Besides the fact that it is their debut gig in Finland, they also just released their self-titled debut album. Chris talks full of love about their baby, which they prepared so carefully. “We have been working on the album since January last year. We have done everything ourselves.” That all this work has an outcomes shows when the charts bring us the facts that Defueld reached place 4 in most sold metal albums in Sweden. Chris: “We are very proud, very happy about the outcome.” Also, the band also reached a 60th place seen over all genres. Seems like there is a little place for them in the mainstream world as well. The band not really looking for a specific genre crowd, but does look for fans in the metal genre above the mainstream. “We are looking for everyone who is into metal actually”, explains Chris. About their music he wants to add: “We try to get a new metal sound, in the same time we are also aiming for the old metal sound. We try to combine it and make a little different stuff out of it.” To return a bit to their debut album we asked Chris, what he considers as highlight from the album. Without thinking about it for longer than a second he has his answer ready: the song “Retarded”. With a little flashback to our talking about the mainstream his explanation is not really a big surprise. “It is a kick in the nuts for most mainstream people. It is about Big Brother shows. How retarded they are.” |
With the new album out shortly and it success it already had the question will be whether to start conquer Europe. The summer is coming and festivals are completing their lineups. Would there be plans for them to do either festivals or club gigs or has the world to be patient a little more. Chris says: “There are no plans yet. We are planning to plan!” so it seems like the world will have to be more patient. Though, expect the unexpected, the band has done something fairly unusual before. They have been gigging in Senegal. Not the first thing that jumps to mind thinking that the band had not even finished a debut album yet. “We actually have been there twice now” says Chris when we bring the topic up. He continues: “We were the first heavy metal band ever to play in Senegal. That was really cool, very amazing thing to do.” So twice in Senegal, that means the band must have left an impression. And surely you can say that they are probably more known there than big names in metal. How the hell did they came on the idea to go to Africa anyway? It is not really known for having a big metal crowd there. It all started in the studio Chris is working. “A lot of my customers were from Senegal. I made a lot of contacts there. One day this guy came up and said like: why don’t you bring your band to Senegal”, Chris explains. So then the band decided to go. “The first thing we went there we did sort of a workshop in which we combined the Swedish heavy metal with the Senegalese music. Hiphop and R&B… stuff like that. We tried to mix up some African feeling into it, to make it so fucked up as possible.”
Then they had their name settled, but the band actually played a gig on a festival they were headlining. Other bands were all local so they surely were the big crowd pleaser. Chris says with full pride: “There were more than 6000 people there. Actually they stopped counting at 6000. So it must been up to somewhere between 6000 and 7000 people.” The band must have had a glorious feeling as Chris mentioned all the promotion photo’s of them were spread everywhere. Still, in Senegal things must have been different than what they are use to in Europe. The band was also impressed by the security they got. “They hired 20 police officers and about 10 military officers which were sitting around the stage with automatic rifles to protect ‘the Swedes and their stuff’”. Chris continues telling about the bodyguards they had. “After the show we wanted to the crowd to say thank you to the people and these bodyguards were very protective”.
So surely this adventure had a lots of great sides for them, but it must have brought some problems with them as well, as there are always troubles on tour even when it is just a tour in Europe. Chris confirms: “A lot of things did not work as they use to, so every day we were having a different problem to solve.”
As if that was not the main issue Chris tells us how hard it was to get alcohol there, the gasoline of each self respecting metal band. “At the second day we had emptied the bar at the hotel. There was no more booze at the hotel. We had to go and find it elsewhere.” Chris tells.
Chris is talking all passionate about their times in Senegal and you can see it all made a huge impression on him. “We love that country, it is not so exploited by tourists, you really get a great feel of it,” he says and by seeing this enthusiasm we would not be surprised to see them going there again someday.
Links:
Defueld MySpace
Defueld Official
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