 First of all, on behalf of MaximumMetal.com, I would like to thank you for giving me your time to conduct this interview. I know you guys are very busy preparing for the tour with Mayhem. How big of an opportunity is it for Defiled to be apart of such a high profile tour?
Thank you too for this interview, Dave! Hideki (vocalist) from DEFILED here. Yes, the tour is coming really soon and now we are so busy indeed! The tour will definitely be a great promotion for the band and the album [Divination] that we released last year, and we are so happy to join the tour. We thank Season of Mist and each party a lot for their hooking us up for the great tour.
I have seen you guys perform live a lot, like 12 to 15 times, and each time you guys amaze me with how tight your live set is. What contributes to the success of your live shows and how have you managed to stay so close as a band for so long (minus the departure of ex-drummer Naoki Akamatsu)?
Well, this band knows what is important and what is not to maintain the activity. Achieving the higher stage musically and establishing the determined originality is the most important thing for us and we all devote ourselves to this band in this respect. There’s no time for falling out over small things and we always do what we have to do.
| "Please keep supporting the underground, maniacs!" |
The new CD, "Divination" is awesome! Everything from the production to the lyrics and music were much better than the previous release, "Ugliness Revealed". What was your attitude like during the writing and recording process for Divination?
Yes, we are very satisfied with this album! We finally came to know exactly what we should do through composing and recording our work and the studios appreciated the band and songs very well this time. Moreover, we think we succeeded in finding out our firm individualities. I proudly think no one can write the songs and the lyrics like ours.
With "Ugliness Revealed", I was happy that you found a home with Baphomet Records. What happened with the split with them, and how was the transition to Season of Mist for the release of Divination?
We moved to Season of Mist because we thought they would be the best for this album this time. We really thank Killjoy and Baphomet very much, as they did great work for our previous album "Ugliness Revealed". However, we needed more exposure especially in Europe this time and we think Season of Mist is dealing the album perfectly - so far at least!
With each release that you put out, you tend to explore more and more into the realm of weird riffs without taking away from the extremity of the music. How do you manage to merge the two together without compromising the brutality of your brand of Death Metal?
We love to listen to many kinds of music, from Classic to Noise, and this fact may influence our own music, I think. Norihisa and Yuichi are into Fusion Jazz, and Yusuke loves Avant-garde Classic like Stravinski very much. Besides Death Metal, you can find these elements that we all basically love, in our songs.
|  You mentioned to me previously that when you return from the Euro tour, you plan to start on the next Defiled album. Do you already have songs written for it? When can we expect to see it in the CD stores?
Actually we have already written 6 new songs for next album. Soon as we return from the tour, we will start embodying the dispersed ideas for the rest of the songs. Hopefully we can release the next album by the end of this year if everything will go well!
The first time I saw you guys live, you opened up for Morbid Angel at Club Citta in Kawasaki, Japan. Knowing you guys since then, I know that you tour and gig practically non-stop. What are some of the most memorable shows that you've done and where are the craziest audiences located?
We have no specific remembrance. All we must do is kick our audiences’ asses on every stage we play! We have at least one gig per month here in Tokyo and the fans here are so great. They support the band earnestly and we are especially grateful for their help.
Who are some of your musical influences and what new bands do you like that are out today?
First off, we're not bitching about recent hoppy nu-death metal but we are also not interested in following trends in the underground. All we respect is 80’s thrash metal like POSSESSED, DARK ANGEL, KREATOR,VIO-LENCE, etc. Frankly, our roots are not so much into any recent style so I don’t think I should comment on them here. We basically avoid getting influenced from any recent bands in death metal intentionally because being a copycat doesn't make sense for us at all!
What does the future hold for Defiled? Have you guys ever thought about branching off an doing some side projects?
We have no spare time for doing other projects physically and also have no need to do them because now we are fortunately doing fully what we want to do.
Do you have any last words for the fans of METAL that will be reading this interview?
Please keep supporting the underground, maniacs! European fans, prepare for the attack from DEFILED! We will tour there with MAYHEM this coming April-May for 6 weeks. Thank you Dave for this great interview. Hope to meet you again soon our metal brother! Metal on Metal!!
2004 Feb 28
Hideki Fujimoto (DEFILED vocalist)
http://listen.to/defiled/
--Grim Gaijin
|
