Eternal Evil interview!

I invite you all to an interesting and pretty in depth talk with one of Swedens new killer metal bands! The times of true metal here in Sweden is strong as ever!

1. Welcome to one of the chambers of RAW WAR!

Things have gone from zero to hundred very quickly at least

that the impression i get look from the "outside" in but lets take it from the start shall we?

How did the members meet up and what do you think was the specific chemical reactions between you all that led you to form this very band? I understand most of you (if not all) where

into old school metal pretty hardcore already in 2019 so besides the similar musical tastes what do you think the members work so well together?

-Thank you for having me, well its a long story so lets start from the beginning. Everything started around January/February of 2019 when my longtime friend Jacob Livåg (Ex basist of Eternal Evil) started jamming with this guy named Teddy and they were planning to start a thrash metal band. Jacob and I were in the same class throughout school so during a class we had he asked me if i was interested in jamming with them since they needed a lead guitarist and a vocalist, at this time i absolutely said yes since i was already really tired of my ex band Three Dead Fingers. So i went to one of the rehearsals and we jammed a few covers, one of them was Deathrider by Anthrax and i think the other one was some Judas Priest song if im correct, probably Electric Eye.

At that time they had a drummer named Alvin that was not metal at all, he was just some indie pop fan that happened to play drums so I convinced Jacob and Teddy to fire him since I wanted something serious and not just some kindergarten band. The firing didn't affect the band at all since me and Jacob started to hang out at this time with the drummer Alphonse Bouquelon and we asked him if he wanted to join so he got in the band really quickly. Then we had the first official lineup which was Me (Adrian Tobar) on guitars and vocals, Jacob Livåg on Bass, Teddy Edoff on Lead Guitar and Alphonse Bouquelon on Drums. This lineup lasted around 3 months if I'm correct. After some time there were tensions growing with Teddy and the rest of the band so we both decided to part ways with each other.

So then we continued as a three piece which we were for a year and during that time we started jamming for our first demo Rise Of Death. After playing some shows through out october 2019 to february 2020 the pandemic hit like a fucking bomb so now we were stuck in the garage only jamming. Then we decided that we needed to make our band sound bigger so we went out looking for a lead guitarist.

That's when the guitarist Tobias Lindström contacted us since he was moving from the northern part of Sweden down to Stockholm, we set up a rehearsal with him and everything felt right with him from the first note that he played. And that lineup with Me on guitars and vocals, Jacob Livåg on bass, Tobias Lindström on Lead Guitars and Alphonse Bouquelon on drums went on strong up until January of this year. During the end of the that lineup it was really hard, everyone was just in a completely different mindset and we all fucking hated each other, i am actually surprised that nothing happened on the 2022 european tour, we could barely look at eachother during the rehearsals, That almost killed the band entirely. Then when we played our last show with that lineup with Morbid, after that we knew that a decision had to be made.

Jacob and Alphonse left the band the day after the Morbid show and me and Tobias were left in the band. It was actually quite a relief if i'm gonna be honest because it's not fun being in a band and wanting to punch your members as soon as you see them during rehearsal. After all of that went down i took it upon myself to be the leader of the band to make sure the band will survive in the future, so i hired my longtime friend Niklas Saari from Atonement to do the bass duties, me and Niklas have known each other for years and have hanged out a lot so taking him in the band was a really natural choice.

On the drums I hired no other than my friend Adam Schmidt from Vänersborg, he hasn't played in any bands before so this is his first. Adam and I have also known each other for years and have been drunk jamming occasionally so I knew that his drum style would fit perfectly and my god it did! This lineup is the strongest that Eternal Evil has ever had and the chemistry is so strong between us that we just deliver a massive black thrashing mayhem that we've never been able to do before.

2.When i first heard you in 2019 i felt it was already "good enough" to make a clear note

that this band was worth keeping my eyes out for, solid and pretty rough delivery

of evil Thrash metal, eternal metal music in other words! But what do you remember creating

the four songs to the debut demo "Rise of Death"? How was that first process you feel?

Also it was nice to see two labels jumping on it pretty fast like the Swedish label Iron Fist Productions & then Redefining Darkness Records from the States.

How was the experience with these?

-What i remember of the process is that it was really fun and natural, we basically rehearsed everyday of our summer vacation and wrote the demo in a matter of weeks but we didn't record the full demo until november since that's when we invested in some pretty decent recording equipment, and with some help from my beloved father that has studied sound engineering in his younger years, we recorded and later mixed the demo and we were all really satisfied.

The demo was released on December 19th 2019 on youtube and we made 30 self made copies on cassettes and sold them. The word of our demo got out really fast in the underground scene which we were not associated with at that time, we were all just 3 kids hanging around and rehearsing. Shortly after the release Iron Fist Productions and Redefining Darkness jumped in and wanted to release our demo globally.

Shortly after they sold the demo we signed a deal with Redefining Darkness and started to write music for our debut album.

3. Then next up you released the single "the Nocturnal Omen" from the upcoming first album.

In classic Eternal Evil fashion this track was just dripping with metal and made you/me long

for the album even more! I myself heard the song on the comp tape Screams From the Grave that

Wendys (from Venthiax) little label Black Pages Records released, killer tape!

Now when this next step was taken how was the year/time creating the album and how did your

plans look like then and do you feel it went as hoped?

-We released “The Nocturnal Omen” digitally in September of 2020. The plans of the album were very different then, during the summer of 2020 we started to record our first version of the debut album which was half recorded in a studio and half recorded at home.

9 songs in total were recorded and after that we started mixing. The album was done around September the same time we released “The Nocturnal Omen” but right when we were about to send everything to the label for printing I just got a feeling in my stomach that this wasn't right. The album sounded just horrible and i could not imagine myself having a vinyl of that album with that really shitty low budget production, so i called up all of the guys in the band and told them what i felt and they understood, we agreed upon scrapping the entire album and decided that we were gonna record it in a real studio with someone that knows how to get the best sound of that kind of music.

After some time after looking for studios which was hard since sweden was in the middle of covid and alot of studios were closed, someone said that i should contact a guy called Robert Pehrsson, i looked him up and checked the studio and he seemed really good, in recent years he's been involved in alot of action rock type bands but he had his roots in death and black metal, i listened to some of the work he's done and i was completely convinced that this is the guy we're gonna work with.

We did not have alot of money in the band at this time, we didnt even get a fucking budget to record the album either from the label hahaha. So we only had the money to record a 11 track album in just 5 days. It was really stressful but also alot of fun, the drums took 3 days to record, the guitars and bass were done in 1 day and I recorded all the vocals in 1 day. Considering the limited time we had, I think the debut album turned out great.

4. Also if we should talk about gigs you have been pretty active i think but also i been impressed

that you so quick managed to get into shows along with bands like Dekapited in Switzerland and Deathhammer, Necrophobic(in september) and also Morbid with Pelles borther Necrobird and more.

Do you have any fun or insane or horrible stories/experiences you can share with the readers? I suppose some "stuff" have happend when you have travled and played as many concerts as you done now?

-Wow i have to think hahaha, a lot of stuff happens during shows and after shows. When we played with Deathhammer they were actually really calm and not wild like the stories ive heard. But Dekapited are just on a whole other level…. Those guys like to party ALOT.

They also really like baking soda if you know what I mean. But the bands we've had an honor to play alongside, most of them are pretty calm, it's usually us that cause all the trouble.

When we played at Storsjöyran this summer me and Adam got a little bit too drunk before the gig and during the set a fight broke out between us on stage, it got so bad that the security rushed up to the stage and shoved us to the ground and put us into different rooms so that we could be separated. But then we apologized to each other the day after and everything was cool.

5.Great photos from the show you did at Dalhalla Brinner some days ago, how was it to play on that big stage? Even though i dont care at all about In Flames and Hypocrisy its cool to see you (again) get to play with such big names. How was this expereince and did you talk with some of the "stars" ?

-It was really cool and it went really good! It was kinda weird playing on such a big stage since I'm used to the small stages where I have to be careful to either not hit Niklas with my headstock or not get hit in the head by a stage diver. We played a 40 minute set including songs from the new album that not have been released and everything went perfect.

The guys in In flames and Hypocrisy were really nice, They loved the show and they gave us very wonderful words about us. I spent some time talking and beering with Chris Broderick and Anders Friden, really cool down to earth dudes. Hopefully we'll maybe tour with one of those guys soon.

6. Oh by the way have you heard the other Eternal Evil band from Croatia?

-Haha yes i actually have, i've heard about them but i've never listened to them.

They are split up if I'm not mistaken.

7. So the time is again soon upon us with a new full album release! From what i have heard you have once again gone to the bands next level but keeping the true essence, the single FUNERAL PRAYERS just builds on what you done and blasts off and gives another new promise of a great album! Feels also a bit darker and brutal even if the melodies is present!

What can the listeners expect from the coming album "The Gates Beyond Mortality"?

Do you ever feel you gonna use up all of the riffs someday?

-What I can say and reveal about the new album is that now with the new lineup of Eternal Evil we have freed ourselves from any rules or status quo that was followed before, with this lawless mentality in the band we have crafted an album that is darker then we ever have released prior to this. The listener can expect a complete Lawless Black Thrashing Mayhem. This album is great but definitely not the peak of our music. I believe that we can break more rules in the future.

8. Last question! As i was born in the 70´s i saw the metal world grow naturally through the 80´s until now and as you know Sweden have always been strong in this regard but i felt the force was weaker in the early 00´s but these recent 2-5 years the new young generation as your self have put Sweden on the map again with many great and true metal bands!

But from your point of view how do you feel about the current metal climate in Sweden?

-I feel that todays metal climate is good but i think that more kids need to be convinced that metal is the superior music. We have some great bands today like Maniak, Atonement, Xorsist, Sarcator and Disarray. But i hope that our generation of bands can accomplish something big and inspire the next generation to come to deliver extreme music. The generation before us inspired Eternal Evil alot, bands like Antichrist, Beastiality and Deathhammer but i think that wave was much weaker than the one we have today.

I feel like the past generation started bands just to prove something to their metal friends instead of having big ambitions.

9.Thanks for your time, last word is yours!

-Thank you for having me, and to everyone reading this:

Fuck Off In Hell!

Take a listen here on some of the music:

https://eternalevil.bandcamp.com/album/the-warriors-awakening-brings-the-unholy-slaughter