Interview

Morgoth Guitarist Discusses First Album in 19 Years

Morgoth’s first two recordings “Cursed” (1991) and “Odium” (1993) put Germany on the map for death metal. Both albums showed the band master mid-tempos in a similar fashion to early Death and Obituary. “Odium” was still mired in groove, but the band took a step into progressive territories, even playing some industrial parts. In 1996 the band released “Feel Sorry For the Fanatic, “ which showed them assume full-on industrial sounds. Just two years later, the group disbanded.

12 years later, Morgoth reformed and started playing shows. Last year the band released its “God Is Evil” EP. This was an appetizer for the band’s return to their death metal roots. Now, they are ready to release “Ungod”, their first full length in 19 years. Karsten "Jagger" Jäger of the band Disbelief assumes vocals over long-time growler Marc Grewe. I spoke to guitarist Sebastian Swart on the phone regarding this new material and the band's reformation.

Rex_84: Morgoth split in 1998 and reformed in 2010. What led to your disbanding and ultimately to your reformation?

Sebastian Swart: We split up in 1998 because we were around for a long time, 8 or 9 years on the road in the studio and back on the road again. The last release we did was the “Feel Sorry For the Fanatic” album, which was not so much death metal anymore. We were looking for something different, so we decided maybe to make a split. We didn’t even split, we just didn’t continue (laughs). November 2010 we were just a year away from the 20th anniversary of “Cursed,” our most successful album. 2010 festival promoters came up to us and asked, “Next year is 20 years of ‘Cursed.’ Why don’t you play at least a handful of festivals, a couple of shows?” Then we said okay, it was 20 years. It was the first time we figured that out. So Marc [Grewe]—our former singer—and me said “Ok, let’s try to do this, but we have to ask our guitar player, Harry [Busse]. So we called him and he said, “Okay, give me 24 hours.” He called back in a couple of hours and said let’s try to do this. That was the starting point for this reunion.

Rex_84: You’ve played a lot of festivals and you played Barge to Hell. How was the Barge to Hell shows?

Swart: I think it is a crazy idea. It was fun, of course. We got to fly to Miami. From there we got on this ship for a couple of days cruising to the Bahamas and having two shows during the cruise and two days at Miami Beach, South Beach. I can’t complain (laughs).

Rex_84: How do you feel about the finished album “Ungod”?

Swart: What’s interesting is it’s the first album we’ve released during the time of the internet. The whole promotion process is totally different than it was with our last record. On Soundcloud we received something like 40,000 clicks. So it’s a different kind of promotion. These days it’s quite exciting. We worked two years on this record. Because it was at the end of Barge to Hell in Miami on the beach we said, “If we want to continue, we should probably record new material.” Harry and I were refusing this. We said, “Why should we do this? Do we have enough ideas?” We were very widely spread over Germany. I was living in Spain at the time, but modern technology like Google Drive and ipads and email systems were in place so we could write a lot of lyrics forward and back. We wrote the first three songs without being in a rehearsal room. We got into this new techni kind of stuff. We had some rehearsals.

Rex_840: Ungod was recorded, mixed and mastered in November and December 2014 by Jörn Michutta and Matthias Klinkmann at Sound Division Tonstudio. How do you feel about the recording and mix. Did those come out the way you wanted?

Swart: Oh yeah. We recorded two songs at the studio for the single “God is Evil” released in August of 2014. We already knew Jörn and Matthias would be the right people for us. It was like the old days. We hit the studio at 12 noon and getting out at four in the morning. It was a lot of hard work, also a lot of beers. It was a good experience.

Rex_84: Greek cover designer Seth Siro Anton (Paradise Lost, Soilwork, Moonspell, etc.) Does this cover art provide a visual representation of what is on the album?

Swart: The title is “Ungod” and we briefed a couple of artists. We sent in some ideas of how “Ungod” could be put into a picture. It’s not that easy because it’s just a word, very abstract. We gave a rough brief of what we imagine it could look like. Seth was the one who really got it in the first place. There were some small corrections but the artwork was ready. We said that was it! To tell what the cover shows it’s about God killing its own creation on a metaphorical level.

Rex_84: Why did Marc Grewe leave the band? He had been on every recording with the band.

Swart: That’s a long story and a hard story, I can’t tell in details but the band made a decision that we couldn’t work with him anymore for a couple of reasons. On one hand it’s very personal. It’s also a business decision or a band decision. Whatever you want to call it. At this point we had to say no, we can’t do this anymore. We had to replace him at a certain point.

Rex_84: How did Karsten "Jagger" Jäger (Disbelief) join the bandWas it important to have someone who could sing in a similar manner as Marc?

Swart: It wasn’t a total coincidence because we had two options. When we decided not to work with Marc anymore we had already been in the studio. It was one week before the vocal recording, so we had to find a quick decision. We had two options. The one option was to work with Jagger. The other was to postpone the release. I didn’t know Jagger before but our management knew him and they said try him, call him. I called him and said, “Do you want to come over and have a session with us? We are looking for a new singer.” He was there within 48 hours. We were jamming with him. It turned out really good. He did some test vocals on the new songs. We were listening to them and sending them all around. Everybody was saying, “Hey, this sounds great!” It sounds like the beginning of the ‘90s. If it wasn’t Jagger, at that point, there was no plan b. We were lucky.

Rex_84: Going into this album, did you try to make an album that sounds like “Odium” and “Cursed?” Like you said, the last one you did was an industrial album.

Swart: When we did a new record it had to be death metal again. It should try to close the gap between “Odium” and “Cursed.” We did not have a lot of pressure “It has to be like this!” It was very immediate that we started with the song writing. First of all comes the riffs, mostly. When Harry and I were writing riffs and sending them back and forth through email we would ask “Is this sounding like old Morgoth?” That was the main thinking behind it. Also, we really founded the sound back in this kind of music. Back in the day when we did the “Feel Sorry” recording in 1996 death metal wasn’t our cup of tea so much anymore. It took us 15 years to find back the energy in this type of music.

Rex_84: Been with Century Media since the beginning. What has kept you on this label?

Swart: First of all, I don’t see a better alternative. I’m not so familiar with other labels. We still know some people at Century Media who have been there 20 years. And we were still contracted with Century Media. We had a couple of talks with our former management asking what he would say about it. We did some corrections in the contract. We talked to Robert Kampf, the head of Century Media to whom we still have some connection. They are treating us good. They gave us all the freedom we need. We don’t have any pressure from something like that. When I talk to the people at Century Media they are always nice. I don’t see any reason to look somewhere else at this point.

Rex_84: Going back to touring and playing shows, Morgoth completed a tour with Bolt Thrower. How was this tour?

Swart: It was just awesome. For us, it was the first tour in 17 years I think. It was two weeks, 15 days in a row, which was not very long but it was 14 shows, so basically everyday on stage. The last show I had to say get it over now because I just can’t do it (laughs). The one reason was I had so much fun with the guys. They are all great guys. Every night it was a big party. It was very memorable. Every show was sold out. It was venues between 800 and 1,500 capacity. The audience was great. We shared a bus together. I can just talk positively about this.

Rex_84: What live shows are you playing in the future. Do you have any tour dates plans?

Swart: There are no tour dates. We have no tour plans right now. I don’t know what will happen later this year, the beginning of next year. There is no offer right now. We got some offers but we rejected them. We will have some festivals this year. Next week we are going to play Norway. Then we will be in Denmark, France, Belgium, Graspop, France’s Hellfest then we play Wacken. We will have four release shows in Germany. Unfortunately there are no shows in the U.S.A. this year. We played in Baltimore two years ago. We did Maryland Death Fest and Barge to Hell.