Disinfect, Abaddon and Corona

German death metal band Disinfect released their new album, "Abaddon", on November 2nd 2019 via Brute Management. 2019 the band is celebrating their 20th year of existence so time to catch up with Chris, Jan and Morten.

Please give us a short introduction of yourself?
Chris: Hi Twan. I'm Chris one of the guitarist in the band and creator, main member of the band!
Jan: I‘m Jan, also playing guitar in Disinfect for almost 4 years now.
Morten: Hey Twan, I joined Disinfect in 2005 as vocalist. At this time Chris was looking for a new line up and he asked me if i could imagine to join the band. The music style sounded interesting and I thought it could work out.

So how are you doing these days? Working hard and busy to promote the new album?
Chris: Yes, we made a lot promotion worldwide! Made interviews, talked to people, made a new homepage and other platforms for promotion and selling of our new album. Talking to clubs because of gigs... (Corona is a fuckin' big problem now!)
Morten: Exactly, promotion is going on, we made some new video clips, working on new songs and collecting ideas for the next album. This keeps us pretty busy.

Went into the archives and see we did an interview in 2002 too. Can you remember? There are some questions still up to date haha.
Chris: Sure! I know this! The time is slipping away... And I still wear your cool BRUTALISM T-Shirt, thanks for it! hehe

But when diving in your history we see that between the albums are 8 and 10 years. What is the reason?
Chris: The biggest and maybe reason Nr. 1 are still the members! People don't see that a band need a lot of time and passion and rehearsal and it's brutal death metal and some recognize after learning some songs that this kind of music is not theirs... And then a band is loosing a lot time! We‘ve also changed to a better and bigger rehearsal room!
Jan: I think we will do better next time and people will not have to wait for such a long time! We also learned a lot now about how we should approach the recording of the next album, and we‘ll not have these band member changes any longer. Still looking for a new bass player, but we will not let that slow us down. We‘ve already got new songs written.
Morten: The fluctuation of the members was too high. Unfortunately, that brought with it a certain defocus.

With the 10 year hiatus I guess it is difficult to gain attention. Still receive support from the old fans? And how do new fans react to Disinfect?
Chris: Support is there but like you said after 10 years it's not the same and second a lot people have families or changed their music style... I must say all friends, fans are reacting very positive on this album! It's great to hear and see it!
Morten: Some old fans are still there and new came up after the new album release. We are happy about the mainly possitive feedback and looking forward what comes up next.

But finally there is "Abaddon" and as read in the review it got praise. Was it difficult to come up with ideas and forged them into the 13 tracks on the album?
Chris: It's always a big process working on a new album and concept! This time I had a lot of help because the new members helped a lot and wrote songs! Last album "Screams Of Pleasure" was made mostly by my self (Only 'Casket Born' was written by the other guitarist Markus)
Jan: I think difficult is the wrong word. For me, it‘s always lots of fun writing new songs and putting them together and it‘s great to see the final album now released, but of course it takes some time. We usually start with writing the guitar riffs, then put the arrangements together. Afterwards, drums, vocals, bass parts and guitar solos are added to the songs.
Morten: It took time to bring the songs into a coherent form. However, the concept has been clear for some time and I really enjoyed working out the lyrical side.

And how did recording process go? Lot of practice to record it in couple of takes? Or did the computer helped a lot? What was the goal when recording started?
Chris: It's both to be honest! There's fuckin' a lot practice but after a while you need sometimes help by our friend the computer! Haha If you don't have the money and time you need this!
Jan: You need the computer for the recording, of course, but you also have to practice first to know how to play the songs! We always take as many takes as we need to get a good result, since we want the recording quality to be on a high standard, so we don‘t want to rush anything and settle with mediocre results.
Morten: Indeed, practice was required the get rythms and lyrics in shape. I did that in multiple grinding weekend sessions.





Lot of musician have a computer and recording software and doing it DIY. Did you record at home? Or used studio with a sound engineer? What are the pros and cons for DIY and for studio recording?
Chris: We made only the bass at our homerecording studio. Drums were made by our drummer TMSZ in his recording studio. Guitars were made by Magge and vocals by Andy Classen in their own studios.
Jan: I think the major advantages of the home recording technique is that you can record any time you want and you save lots of money doing it because you don‘t have to pay a sound engineer. I also recorded some of my guitar solos myself, which was a good thing, because I could record them right after writing them, and in my experience, some studio guys seem to not hear small mistakes that can be in a take anymore as soon as you start to play fast, so you have to be careful to find the right take anyway. There are things, as the vocals, that are difficult to record in a good quality at our studio, because we don‘t have things like large professional studio rooms. So we want to keep doing it like this for the next album, with some parts we can do well recorded by ourselves and some professionals doing the other things to get a good sounding record.
Morten: The vocals fianlly has been recorded within 2 days, directly in „Stage One Studios“. „Andy Classen“ did a great job during the recordings, reamping, mixing and mastering everything to the result everyone can listen to now.

Did you get help from others to get this album done? If so, who and what was their part?
Chris: No, there was no help. Maybe by Zoundr they made our CD, vinyl and the stuff behind the streaming platforms.

Can you also give some insight in the meaning of the title and artwork? Just a cool subject or is it metaphor with a reference?
Chris: I made the artwork, pictures, videos, homepages and so on haha. And there is a meaning it's like the end of all but a new beginning after that, too!  You can visit my page here.
Morten: I came up with the idea of a more apocalyptic topic for the new album reflected as a 7 seals concept we all know from revelation. The seals are processed cronologically which, due to the enforced order, also produced some discussion material on the song order. I chose the mythological figure "Abaddon" as the album title because I think it fits very well into the overall apcalyptic concept and should give freedom to interpret.

And who would you consider nowadays Abaddon when following global news?
Chris: Abaddon in religion, was the ruler over darkness / hell and the king of destruction! For me it's the time we're living now! Like a gate to a more chaotic time!
Morten: I don't think it makes sense to clearly personalize Abaddon. Depending on belief, there are other interpretations regarding Abaddon. I would associate the entire violent and irrationally as well rationally evil happening with Abaddon.

Very cool that the album is released on vinyl. Long desire or following trend?
Chris: It was a long desire! For sure! But also we had our 20 years band celebration and we decided the fans need more then only a digipack it should be something really cool and of big quality! Everything was manufactured in Germany.
Morten: Chris and myself grow up when Vinyl was all around. Releasing the album on vinyl was morelike a must for us after 20 years of Disinfect.

"Abaddon" is released by Brute Music. Why started your own label?
Chris: We had a lot requests and there were some really bad, embrassing offers therefore our vocalist, guitarist and me decided to create our own label! And it's the best label in the universe there are so nice people and really everything is fair!!! haha www.brute-music.com
Morten: hehhe, yes.. nothing to add!

Do you collect vinyl or CDs yourself?
Chris: I've vinyl but not a record player! I need one really fast! (can't wait to listen to some classics like Crumbsuckers on vinyl again!) And, yes I still collect CD's I'm old and old school!haha
Jan: I‘ve got a big CD collection, but also some LPs and a record player for them. I‘m mainly listening to the digitalized versions of the CDs on my computer or on the mobile device, but I like collecting the records I and having them physically!
Morten: I collect both, but having more CD’s then vinyl.



Now the album is out the promo caravan has to go full speed. Getting media attention? Spotify streams? Live gigs?
Chris: We decided to take every chance we can! You can stream our new album on tons of platforms, we've Bandcamp, Discogs, different pages...Yes, we invested really a lot in promotion and now we started talking to clubs and like you see Corona Virus fucked everything up! We don't know how it will end now?!? 
Jan: We tried to book some live gigs right now, but as Chris said, with this Corona thing going on, it‘s no good timing for scheduling concert dates, so we will wait on how things develop and maybe we can play some concerts in autumn. Got lots of reviews for the CD, so far, all of them have been positive, so people seem to like the album. Spotify streams have also been going up since the album was released, and we now also have published our first album on the digital download and streaming platforms.

And don't forget a video as Youtube seems to be a place for people to discover. To be honest, I thought you would have a proper video for one of the songs...
Chris: Since now I‘ve made 3 videos! One for the album and one for the song 'Obeisance' one for 'White Lightning' and some days before I made the fourth video for 'Ulceration' and this one will be different and more occult!
Morten: We released the 'White Lightning' clip even before the album was out. The 'Obeisance' clip followed on Feb 2020 and 'Ulceration' release is on 21’st March 2020.

Which serie are you following on Netflix these days? I am watching Vikings now and that is some decent slashing.
Chris: I can tell you some of my favourite series and there are to many... Penny Dreadful, Preacher, Ash vs Evil Dead, The Exorcist, The Strain, Game of Thrones, Spartacus, Vikings, Dexter, Hannibal, Boardwalk Empire, Breaking Bad, Gomorrha, House of Cards, Daredevil, The Punisher, Gotham, The Boys, Mindhunter and some more haha
Jan: I seldom watch films, the last series I‘ve been watching was Game of Thrones, which I liked except for the last seasons, where the quality of the story line in my opinion declined. Apart from this, I‘m more into reading books.
Morten: Unfortunately I don't have time to watch series at the moment. Series I followed in the past: Preacher, The Strain, Ash vs Evil Dead and Spartacus.

What are the plans for Disinfect in 2020? And did you make some new year resolutions for yourself?
Chris: The biggest plans are to play live us much us we can!
Jan: We hope the situation with Corona will soon be better so we can play many concerts! We want to work on the next album and maybe start recording it.
Morten: Playing live and working on the next album!

Coming to an end, is there anything you want to shout out?
Chris: We are searching for a bass player get in contact: info@disinfect.de
Morten: …stay brutal „ahhhhrgh!“



Thanks for "Abaddon" and your time to answer these questions. Take care.
Morten: Thank you, Twan! I hope to see you again in the future with another release.
Chris: Thanks a lot for the possibility to reach more new people with this interview Twan!
And YOU could visit us on different pages and if you like it order our new album: Official Page, Facebook, Youtube or Bandcamp.