Fetus In Fetu breaks the ice

After so many line-up changes and eager anticipation from fans, Fetus In Fetu recently put out their debut album. Following the likes of bands such as Deicide or Cannibal Corpse, the band is bringing back the glory of 90s death metal for all who think that the genre is getting a bit too generic and melodic these days. It’s powerful, brutal stuff that is worthy of being in the BRUTALISM halls of fame! Drummer Dennis “Hatten” Nielsen was kind enough to answer a few questions about the band’s newfound stability and a bit about the album as well.

Hails from BRUTALISM! So how does it feel to finally have your debut album under your belt so long after you came together in 2002?
Hails!! We feel really good. We have been quite excited with all the reviews and we’re surprised that “Abnormal Disfigurement” has been so well received. We recorded the CD ourselves in our low-budget studio so we didn't expect that any record companies would be interested in it. Actually, the plan was to print and copy the CD through a printing company in 100-200 copies. But then Casket Music came along and offered us a deal we couldn't say no to. Still we have to pay most of the expenses ourselves, but we hope Casket will help us promote the music and spread the word of Fetus in Fetu. We have done at lot in the band and in cooperation with our manager, Carsten Brogaard, to promote the music as much as possible. So it is really awesome to see the great response from the brutal death metal fans out there!!!

Does the new lineup seem to work well for you guys? How is the band better than ever now as opposed to how things kept changing since 2008, which has been pretty shaky, so it seems?
Yeah it has been quite a shaky ride for us for some years actually. Every time we seem to have a stable, well-functioning line-up, something gets in the way and that gets frustrating in the long run ‘cause we seem to have to go one step back instead of forwards. Right now we are looking for a new bass player but we have some in the looks and hopefully this time we will find the right one. The backbone in the band- Bekker, Astor, Johnni and myself- have been and still are working well together in creating the brutality in Fetus in Fetu.  And with the passion we share for death metal, Fetus in Fetu will exist for several years to come.

What elements did you (want to) incorporate to make Fetus In Fetu a harder, faster metal band compared to back in 2002?
I guess we just got a more serious approach to our music and we got better musician. A couple of changes in the line-up were necessary to make Fetus in Fetu a better band. We got more focused on where we wanted to go and how we got there. We started doing small live gigs which gave us experience and slowly as we progressed the gigs got bigger and we got more self-confident in continuing playing old school death metal, which we love. We began working with the structure of the songs and the pace of the music. We wanted fast, brutal death metal with lots of blast beats and hellish growls, but still we wanted to keep a groove to our music. We wanted people who saw us live to be able to connect with the music so it was important to us to not just blast away but keep a balance between blasting brutality and catchy, "headbangable" riffs.

What would you consider some of your greatest influences on your music? How do you try to keep your music as underground and unique as possible as opposed to being more mainstream and accessible, but at a tradeoff of limited expectations from the industry and fans?
I would say early 90´ US bands like Suffocation, Deicide,and  Cannibal Corpse just to mention a few. We are also inspired by bands like Cryptopsy, Severe Torture, Flesh Grind, Lividity and Beheaded. We are into most death metal as long as it’s not all that melodic crap that seems to be so popular now-a-days (at least here in Denmark). We have no focus on keeping our music underground. That’s not a goal for us. But we want to keep the music fast, brutal and groovy and just play the music we love. We want to record our next album, which we are working on now, in our own studio again so we can get that same brutal sound there is on “Abnormal Disfigurement". We are not interested in a more "clean" or delicate sound. We want to go with the brutality and that will automatically make us an underground band.

Is there any large concept behind your debut album ‘Abnormal Disfigurement,’ or did you mostly want to just create some heavy, old school death metal with an interesting name?
There is no concept behind “Abnormal Disfigurement.” As you said we just wanted to keep the lyrics real to old school brutal death metal. In this brutal music we are playing we need to have brutal lyrics to match the music. It’s all about brutality!!

Death metal can be a pretty stomach churning genre, for both fans and performers. When creating the songs do you ever pause and wonder ‘where the hell does this stuff come from?’ or is it something that everyone is comfortable from being ingrained in death metal for so long?
It’s not something I think about everyday but sometimes I stop and think it is pretty sick shit. Especially when it comes to a song like “Raped in the Crypt” because it is such a sick title! Even though the song is not about religion I can just imagine a priest raping newborns when I hear this title. Sick shit! But In my opinion it is necessary to have sick titles/lyrics to this kind of music we play. Some bands write about themes like religion or politics and that’s fine too but I don't really give a shit about those things. - It has to be brutal and sick and I guess it is easy to find inspiration in the lyrics from Cannibal Corpse. We don't take the lyrics we write serious. Most of them just make us laugh because they are sick and brutal.

Fetus In Fetu is a pretty technical term, along with a lot of the lyrics/ song titles on the debut album. How do you guys usually come up with such precise titles; either someone in the band is medically educated or Google gets a lot of use?
No one in the band is medically educated and none of us know how to use Google so it’s none of those!! I come up with most of the song titles and some of the lyrics ( Bekker writes most of the lyrics himself) and I think the ideas just pops up in my head. The inspiration probably comes from listening to a lot of brutal death metal and sometimes I watch some sick shit on the Internet or in TV that can end up inspiring me.



Your website says that you have a European tour planned? Care to share some information in that, such as how long it will take or are there any particular places you want to visit?
As it seems right now we will not be touring Europe. We have to pay all expenses ourselves and we simply don't have the funds to that right now. But hopefully as more and more people hear our music, booking managers will be interested in us and start looking our way. We are still a relatively unknown band, also here in Denmark, but we hope that will change with “Abnormal Disfigurement” so we get the chance to go on some tours. We love playing live and we would love to go on tour. Touring Germany could be awesome and a gig at the Wacken Festival would be great but besides that we have no particular places we want to go. We would love to play everywhere!

Have you done much touring before, or is this to be the first ‘big one?’
We have never been on a real tour before and we hope we get chances in the future.

Do you think you’ll do a U.S. tour ever to try and expand your influence around the globe? Since Fetus sounds like a lot of American death metal bands such as Deicide or Cannibal Corpse you’d probably gain a huge support base there.
We would love to tour the US and if we get the opportunity to go on a tour there we won’t hesitate. But to my knowledge, you have to be well established on the death metal scene and have a big label supporting you before that can be made possible. We do not have the funds to pay for a tour ourselves so we just have to wait and see what happens and if we get any tour offers and in the meantime keep progressing with our music.

If you could tour with any other fellow bands, who would they be and why?
Here in Denmark it would be the bands Die and Dawn of Demise. They are simply the best death metal bands in Denmark in my opinion. A worldwide a tour with Suffocation, Cannibal Corpse and Hate Eternal could be fantastic cause they are 3 legendary bands. I know Hate eternal is a newer band but in my opinion they took over where Morbid Angel failed. Erik Rutan is simply amazing.

With Fetus In Fetu being around for so long, surely even for an underground band you must have a lot of fans. What’s the nicest/ best thing that the band has received as far as in praises or gifts from a fan that has really inspired you guys to keep going?
Actually we do not have so many fans. We are still relatively unknown in most parts of Denmark but we have some loyal fans that show up and support us every time we play live. They are the reason we love playing live. Every time we play live we get new fans supporting us and it is just amazing to see people headbanging and going crazy to our shows. We really appreciate all the responses we get also from the fans joining us abroad and contacting us on Facebook or by mail!!!

That’s about all I have for you at the moment. Best of luck on the future tour and stay brutal! Hopefully album no. 2 will be more ferocious than the first!
Thanks man. We promise the next one will be one brutal fucker!!!