Medecophobic

Hi sickos. Tell me in the beginning, how is it possible that such album as yours was only released by you, why there was no deal with any label which could definitely improve the distribution?

Hi man, thanks for this interview opportunity. The decision to release the album ourselves was basically a direct consequence of some of the bullshit we had going on in the recording process and everything else involved (see next answer). You are definitely right though, promotion and distribution for the album were kinda hard, although I believe it did quite well for a no-name DIY underground release. We got it out to some cool distros around Europe and the world and sold a few at shows, so we were actually quite pleased by the result. We might be looking for label support in the future though, as all this definitely consumes time, and we would like to spread our sound to be available to anyone that is interested.

Now, why only one album and two demos through 9 years of existence? I know that the quality comes first but come on! What are the reasons that just a year ago we could listen the debut called 'Pandemic of Existence'?

Haha yeah we’re not very prolific when it comes to creating songs or pushing things forward really, we work at our own pace and I think it’s working out just fine so far. The band, that means the first actual incarnation of it that did anything to speak of came into existence in early 2006, so it’s been 6 years, give or take. Before that we basically just had a name and would have band “rehearsals” which were one riff being played for a couple minutes, followed by hours of drinking.

We had frequent problems with our lineup over the years, which is probably another factor that contributed to our slow output rate. Furthermore, the bullshit in the first recording sessions, which were back in March of 2009, set us back considerably, even to the point that we didn’t know whether or not we would ever get “Pandemic of Existence” out. After we had lost about a year we said fuck it, we’re doing this in DIY fashion and get it out as soon as we can, without outside help that had let us down in the beginning, as we were confident enough of the quality of the material to not let it go to waste.

For some reason or the other, we don’t create songs in the rehearsal room and actually never have. So far, whoever came up with an idea followed through and wrote a complete song and showed it to the others, and we went from there. Seeing how we are down to a two-piece (guitar/vox and drums), I don’t think this method will change anytime soon. So it’s basically down to how much time you have on your hands and how many of your new riff ideas don’t blow, which are two factors that constantly change haha. But I’ve had some good ideas since we’ve decided to carry on as a two-piece, so there should be new stuff surfacing somewhat soon.

Also, but I am only guessing, the reason may be the fact that members of Medecophobic are involved in other projects. Can you tell who, where and why? Hehe

Well, I play in a grind/crust band called Per Capita, and Domi, our drummer, has had various black metal projects over the years. As to why, I guess we just enjoy playing a bunch of different shit once in a while haha. But I don’t believe that any of the projects take away too much focus off Medecophobic, although it can be hard at times to find suitable days to get down to rehearsals.

Ok, let me ask why did you choose such name as Medecophobic to be representative for the music you do. A little genesis of it, please hehe.

Basically it’s not representative of who we are or what we do today, but it might have been when we came up with the stupid ass name back in 2003. We decided to stick with it for various reasons, but it’s not actually something we pride ourselves with. But whatever, there’s been a long history of sick bands having horrible names so I guess we fit right in with some of the greats hahaha.

Inside the booklet there is info saying that there were no triggers used in this recording. Aren't you a fan of it? Why did you choose not to have those as many think that these are obligatory for the power of the music? My opinion is that you did well without it and the whole 'Pandemic of Existence' sounds brutal as fucking a stiff corpse, haha.

Haha thanks for the kind words! It was just about my general feeling towards the overuse of triggers and the horrible, uniform plastic sound that can come out of it. So many great albums suffer from bullshit overtriggered drum sounds it’s not even funny anymore. I have nothing against sensible use of triggers as long as they don’t get into the way of the music or just sound like overly quantized and processed, which in my opinion almost always suffocates the primal caveman rage that death metal has to embody, at least to some extent.

Domi is a powerful drummer and we were confident that we didn’t need triggers to get a good sound, and I think the result was pretty good! We aim to make the next one sound even better, and have already looked into getting some new equipment.

Also, why you didn't do any lyrics? Too fucking lazy, huh? 

Maybe there’s that, but maybe it’s also the fact that nobody could decipher shit anyways, so why bother? I’ve heard of various, also well-known bands who came up with vocal patterns first and wrote lyrics to fit the burping sounds afterwards, although it still doesn’t make any sense at all to me. I mean listen to Deeds of Derangement, Dawn of Ash or Festival of Death and tell me that any of the vocalists actually say the shit they printed in the booklet haha. I’m pretty sure that there’s a ton of bands without lyrics that still bring the embrutishment nonetheless (Orchidectomy comes to mind, although I’m not sure there). The idea of printing it there for everyone to see basically came from the Dyscrasia album, one that has definitely influenced us in various ways.

Another factor is that I’m in no way interested in writing shit about zombies and slicing cunts and zombie cunts or whatever, it’s fine if bands are into that, but 98% of brutal death lyrics are bullshit to me so I don’t pay them any mind at all. I don’t care what you have to say (as long as it’s not some racist crap), play some brutal shit and we’re cool.

Tell me how do you work while creating new tracks? Is it any specific scheme or simply putting everything piece by piece together?

Basically the guitarists (we had three including me) sit down at home, write a song and see if the others like it. As soon as a song is done there’s only minimal tweaks here and there, but basically if a song is done it’s done, on to the next. Although I have had the tendency to go back and change shit years afterward, it was often just to reflect the different possibilities we have had in our different lineups, which have been 2 guitars, 2 guitars and bass, 1 guitar and bass, and 1 guitar.

If you would have to point out the biggest influences that engraved a mark on Medecophobic music that would be? 

I think you can hear a lot of our influences, but basically everything that has ferocious energy influences me to some extent. But to stay with Death Metal bands, I’d say the scenes in New York, the Netherlands and Texas have definitely left their mark in our sound, apart from all the ultra brutal stuff ala Brodequin and the likes. Origin and Angelcorpse played a large part in our sound, as did Incantation and Immolation. But obviously, you can hear some influences more pronounced than others.

Tell me, do you think that with 'Pandemic of Existence your band may become more known worldwide? How do you think a band who just released a debut album can progress and gather many fans across the globe without selling out like a whore their own ideas?

I do think that we managed to reach a number of people who didn’t have any idea of who we were before the album, but that’s basically the way these things work. We didn’t really spread the demos around a whole lot, there were a few people who stumbled upon our stuff via the web but the album really helped.

One way of getting new fans would surely be touring a lot, which is pretty much impossible for a band of our “size” I guess. Another one is just having Mike Majewski draw up a t-shirt art with a ton of dicks on it and BAM everyone will at least know your name haha. I think the way we’re gonna choose is just release some quality stuff and hope people like it. No need for any promo stunts or whatever. Music these days has a way of getting spread around forums, youtube, and facebook, so if your sound is good, people will find out about you sooner or later I think.

Do you think that for the band like yours that recorded a debut album, is it better to handle by yourself whole promotion? Probably you have everything under control but it is also a lot of time consuming while doing all the packages, spending time in fucking post offices. Also don't you think that even being in smaller label it would be better due to all the distribution channels?

You’re basically right, it does consume a ton of time and it’s impossible to think of every way to promote your stuff. An experienced label of any size could probably do a better job at it, and again, the internet handles these things in its own way anyway. For distribution it would definitely be a step up to work with a label, especially if you are not really interested in trades. We sold our stuff wholesale for the manufacturing costs back when the album came out, but not a lot of distros or labels were interested, although we managed to move quite a few CDs. Nowadays I’m open to any kind of trade to spread our stuff around, even when it means I’ll be sitting on boxes full of unsold stuff forever – Munich is almost impossible for brutal death metal. There is no real scene for that kind of stuff here, so it’s often pretty hard to sell trade items. But whatever, I can live with that and I’m happy as long as people get a chance of getting our CD in their area.

Your music is mostly focused on technical skills but it doesn't lack any groove feeling or break-downs like Slam for example. Question is: where do you think this brutality, skills will lead Brutal Death Metal to? Do see any line that shouldn't be crossed?

This is always a hard question or issue to think about. I mean back in the day, nobody could imagine anything fiercer than, say, Reign in Blood or Human Waste or any other groundbreaking record, but time and again they were proven wrong by a bunch of dudes who pushed it way further. So I don’t think there are any boundaries, especially in underground genres such as this one which only exist to push things way over the top, at least to some extent.

Then again, there is a definite limit of exaggeration of certain elements for me personally. This is basically the Brodequin vs. Enmity discussion. Brodequin (and related bands such as Liturgy and Pustulated) had exactly the perfect amount of retardation and fucking balls-out brutality to make them some of the best bands around. Enmity does something very similar, but it’s all just a senseless mess of neverending blasts and gurgle vocals to me (seriously, the vocal guy never shuts up for a second). So that’s one step over my personal limits of enjoyment.

Or look at Beneath the Massacre, who just decided to play retarded sweeps for minutes only to dive directly into some bro beatdown crap. What the fuck? Alright you can play, but if all that you do with your talent is play sweeps and ‘break the fuck down’ you need to get the fuck out. Again, there is a band that has a similar formula, but is not as insanely repetitive and monotonous, at least for the first couple of albums, and this band is Dying Fetus.

So to answer the question, there is no line that cannot be crossed in this genre, but there is a limit to how much shit I will put up with to get to the stuff I actually want to listen to.

What about the bands that play old school Death Metal? How do you feel about all the great past bands that did reunion recently or some time ago? 

I’ve always been a fan of the obscure death metal style of Incantation and similar bands, but the recent kvlt death metal resurgence has been 90% shit. But you can probably say that about any genre and any resurgence of once forgotten styles. I mean the world got some great bands along the lines of Dead Congregation, Cruciamentum, Swallowed, and many more, so I guess it has been a good development for death metal, all things considered. At least it stopped the Necrophagist copycat thing that was going on for a while.

Most reunions of old bands have been absolutely worthless, but one I enjoyed was Divine Eve, for example. But I’m sure there were a few others as well.

Anyway, it is very good that Medecophobic can create technical but also moving tracks. Somehow it is well balanced between the technical madness and the well flown structures of the songs. And even it is brutal as fuck, it is still catchy. What do you think about it? Would you agree?

Thanks a lot! Yeah I’d agree, because that is absolutely what we are aiming for. Our sound draws influences from many different subgenres of Death Metal, and we like to keep things varied and interesting, although we’re clearly not above going into some extended blastfest or include the occasional caveman slam, because fuck, we love that stuff.

Tell me know what can we expect from your live shows? How often do you play gigs?

You can expect two guys on stage brutalizing your face I guess! We don’t play too often; it’s mostly been 1-4 gigs a year. We don’t go around sending emails or promo packages to show promoters, but are always open and willing to play every kind of show if we can make it happen somehow! This is the underground, give us some money for gas and a couple beers and we’ll play your barbecue or whatever it is you have going on, it’s cool. However, the other bands should be in a similar vein so it can be an enjoyable experience for everyone.

Ok, I have to ask this... why on the cover is a dead bloody bug? Wouldn't be any better to put there a rotten corpse of a dismembered bitch?

See the question about lyrics, none of that shit is interesting to me, and virtually everything has been done already. We don’t wanna be the 456^th band with a Zig cover, but if that’s a band’s style, who am I to judge?

The cover of “Pandemic of Existence” reflects the album title very well I believe, and everyone in the band was quite pleased with the result. We got some good feedback for it as well, so everything worked out just fine I guess.

Future plans? When can we expect future move of yours and what it will be?

New music and possibly new shirts, if there should be enough interest in those. We’re currently putting together some new tunes and might have something out soon, possibly an EP or a promo. But time will tell.

Thank you for your time, and sorry for the delay with the questions. Keep it brutal and sick!

Again, thanks a lot for your questions, it’s been a blast answering those! Keep up the great work! Anyone interested in checking us out can either visit our blog (medecophobic.blogspot.com) or our bandcamp page, where we have uploaded half the album (medecophobic.bandcamp.com).

Interview by Waldemar  / May 2012