Bio:
In February 2008 Mental Killing Spree from Wilhelmshaven, Germany recorded their first 5-track demo VAE VICTIS at Rosenquarz Tonstudio in Luebeck. The sound quality was at international standard and didn’t have to rank behind when compared to established bands with a label. By exclusively publishing this demo via Internet (Myspace) Mental Killing Spree were able to establish contacts all around the world, that resulted in two gigs in Sweden (Gothenburg and Malmoe) and their songs being played in several radio-shows (Internet or “broadcast stations”) and in receiving several magazine interview requests from Europe, Asia, North- and South America, not to forget the very positive feedbacks they received so far. Due to MKS’ attitude that the most important thing is to spread the music and not to prefer the financial aspect, the complete demo can still be downloaded for free on their Facebook-page which is still the band’s main page.
In October 2012 MKS decided to record a longplayer titled “Centrifuge of Man”. This was achieved by choosing the Sound Division Studio in Warsaw, Poland, known for adding dynamical drives as well as a certain genuine Polish style to the band’s sound. Over there, the whole recording, mixing and mastering procedure was performed by Filip “Heinrich” Halucha (former bassplayer on Decapitated’s “Carnival is forever” release). The cover- and booklet artwork was designed by Björn Gooßes of Killustrations.com who already created some famous artwork e.g. for “Aborted” on “Archaic abattoir” and the current “Facebreaker”-release. Included on the latest longplayer “Centrifuge of Man” are two re-recordings of the Demo-tracks “Atrocious Generosity” and “They still have a God”.
Hi, first of all I’d like to say thank you for your interest in our band and the possibility to do this interview! 
Well, we are Mental Killing Spree, since 2008 a Brutal / Old school Death metal band from Wilhelmshaven, Germany. The band and its name were originally founded in 2003 but we found our final musical style and final line-up in 2008, when we released our first EP called “Vae Victis” that was recorded at Rosenquarz-Studio in Lübeck, Germany. By exclusively publishing this demo via Internet (Myspace) we were able to establish contacts all around the world, that resulted in two gigs in Sweden (Gothenburg and Malmoe) and our songs being played in several radio-shows (Internet or “broadcast stations”) and in receiving several magazine interview requests from Europe, Asia, North- and South America, not to forget the very positive feedbacks we received so far.
Now, in October 2013 we finally published our first 10-track-full-length called “Centrifuge of Man” that was recorded mixed and mastered at the Sound Division Studio in Warsaw, Poland by Filip “Heinrich” Halucha, who is known as the former bassplayer of Decapitated’s “Carnival is forever”.
Genre: Our genre is deathmetal and that is exactly our favorite music style that we like to listen to most and that we like to create in our rehearsal room. In our opinion deathmetal also stands for a certain way to see and live life, it’s more than just one of several musical styles in which people try to find their needs fulfilled, deathmetal itself with its ability to express musical aggression is a need for us that no other style can provide.
Evolution of the initial musical and thematic elements: We’ve all been long term friends since the end of the eighties, had countless parties together and were/are all a part of a bigger common circle of friends who all liked Metal in its varieties here in Wilhelmshaven, when we finally decided to found an own band after each one of us had played in several different bands before. Jörg and me (Timm) played together in a band in the early 90s, then our ways separated and he started to found a band with Slav, while I played in a different band until we all finally assembled again in 2003, this was the year when we founded Mental Killing Spree. Until 2007 we played a mixture of death- and thrash metal with two guitarists but when the other one left we decided to continue only with Slav and that’s when our interpretation of deathmetal started to become as it is today. The lyrical elements mainly derived from psychology and sociology since the beginning.
Lyrics, themes and concepts: Our lyrical topics are mainly deriving from psychology and sociology, they’re about human exploitation in capitalism, psychiatric sickness and common strains and stresses of the daily grind that lead to a certain common madness. Lyrically we follow the opinion that hell is always an entity of the subject’s brain, there’s no objective hell, and the hell is inside the person’s mind and its interpretation and perceptions of life. Things that can be mentally imagined by Man can by far be more cruel and sick than the things that can be executed or achieved in the physical world. That’s what our lyrics are all about, the personified and personalized horrors that everyone experiences even in so-called civilized societies. Our overall concepts always develop in a quite spontaneous way, first there are some riffs being introduced during the rehearsal by Slav and then we try to arrange the mood of the riffing with the rhythm section and the lyrics. Sometimes a new song is created within a few days, sometimes we modify it over and over again and sometimes we even kick the whole song afterwards.
Ideas about the album: Yes, we are very happy with our final version of the CD! During the recording process we had a great time in Warsaw with our producer Filip and Tomek who runs the Sound Division studio over there and the whole stuff was recorded without any metronome and any pilot guitar-track so we were able to maintain a certain live-feeling on “Centrifuge of Man”, although thx to Filip it has an amazingly differentiated and dynamic sound. Of course in the end there are always some small details that might have been managed in a different way but overall we are more than satisfied with the final product.
Reception: According to the quantity and quality of reviews we received so far, we are very hopeful, the feedback since the official release has been awesome! The deathmetal-scene, as far as we can evaluate it by the received feedbacks now, seems to like our new stuff!
Preference; live or studio: Well, both activities include certain excitements. When on the road, you always meet lots of great people to have fun and party with, the show itself is the greatest fun, especially when you see some people at the stage getting in rage or when they even know your songs; when in the studio you also meet lots of people and have loads of fun but you have to show a certain concentration as well, it’s always the coolest thing on earth to listen to the own stuff in studio quality after the first recording session.
Next step; live or studio: Yeah of course, we will now work on expanding our radius and apply for some gigs in Germany (festivals or open air) and beyond, if possible, so we are parallel working on spreading our word all around the world. We plan a small tour in next year’s summer through Poland at the moment but we are open for all gig-offers we can get (England, Ireland, US, France and Spain would be very cool too)!! So don’t hesitate to contact us via Facebook, which is currently our main page as well. Further-on we are still looking for some fair offers according to distro and labels.
Future plans: Right now, we are already working on writing new songs and it seems that our main direction will remain the same, we will stay straight and brutal because that’s our way to interpret Brutal / Old school deathmetal! In the meantime we will wait and see how our new CD will be accepted within the deathmetal community and if we’ll be allowed to spread our word not only in Germany. But right now, we all have some very optimistic notions according to that.
Composers: Slav and Jörg are mainly responsible for the songwriting and I am responsible for the lyrics but of course we always except hints from each other what parts of the song could still be improved.
Inspirations: This is always a difficult question, we’ve been compared with several death-metal bands like Morbid Angel, Decapitated, Asphyx, Hail of Bullets, Vital remains etc., every single comparison is a big compliment for us but we would never ever compare ourselves with one single band, well, when we are writing a song the final product is always a product of all the bands we ever have listened to in the past and we are listening to right now. I think it’s always better to just enjoy the music without thinking in stereotypes or similarities. When we’ve created a new song it’s always a symbiosis of other bands’ sounds we have listened to and still are listening to but it’s more or less an unconscious process. We never had the intention to write a song that should sound like a specific band we like.
Preference; cater to the audience or music for its own sake: It’s most important for us to perform and create music for our own sake, if the audience likes it as well then it’s the best that could ever happen to us. We can’t imagine how it would be to follow a certain opportunism in music, whatever the result might be, it couldn’t be as motivating as writing songs that the entire band likes to play.
Greatest Accomplishment: Well, our greatest accomplishment happened not so long ago, it was the execution of our plan to record a full-length in Warsaw; this has been a dream for a long time because we are big fans of Polish deathmetal and now it became true!
Anything else? We’d like to thank you very much for the possibility of this interview, further-on we’d like to thank all the other fanzines and magazines as well for the outstanding support they granted us! You’re the ones who keep the scene alive! Our special thx go out to Filip “Heinrich” Halucha and Tomek at Sound Division Studio in Warsaw, Poland and to Björn Gooßes at Killustrations.com for the creation of the great CD-artwork. We want to send out greetings to all our fans and friends and to those who haven’t listened to our stuff yet: check out our facebook page and listen to some of our brandnew songs there or just watch out for some MKS gig dates near your place!!
Horns up!
See ya!
Want to read more about them? Visit their Facebook and MySpace pages!
No Comments