Listening to Cliteater with your grandma

Hello there clitworshiperzzzz! New album, and of course new plague called "Cliteaten Back To life". What's the feedback so far on your new stuff?
First of all I wanna thx BRUTALISM for putting energy and support in us, we appreciate this very much, just like your review on our new album. Our album is now out more than a month and the critics are very positive so far, the best since our band history so we are very proud of this!

What's the status on your female listeners? I believe that as the time proceeds and you're still not behind bars, your cliteating stories must have gained a lot of respect by the fair sex! Am I right?
I guess you are right. In the beginning of the band many people thought we are a 'woman hating' band and we had a negative name of this, but we proved the opposite while Susan was doing guitars for a while and we never had anti woman lyrics, actually we love them and have many respect for them! And after all these years the fanbase contains more and more women and that's a fact we also like, brutal grindcore girls ;)

Covering titles is something that is fun and not many bands do. You seem really devoted to that, and not only that but you also imitate cover artworks, with your main character (the nasty fat guy) being the leading role. Stupid question but do you think you may ever have to face law, for legal rights on a story like this?
I think our band is to small for those things and we are not making fun of those bands but it's a total tribute to the bands who inspired us to make this kind of music.

Obviously Cliteater is the type of band that really doesn't give a shitload of fuck on passing an inner message to the audience or something like that. Having your fun is your primitive cause and apparently this fun of yours really seems to find others that like it! How nice is it to see that something you first started as a joke has gained audience?
Yeah if you had told me back in the days, that we became so far in the scene I probably had punched u in the face and told you are completely nuts haha. Yeah what started as a project between Vedran and me, became a worldwide recognized band in the brutal underground circuit so we feel very blessed about this!!

So what's the story behind a new Cliteater album? Is it a team effort in the studio or does everyone work at home and finally getting it together in the studio?
We actually rehearse with the band and then create the songs. We record them and send a mp3 to our singer Joost, who will write a lyric on the music and in the studio we record it professionally , easy as that ;)

Put the people that read this, behind the recordings of "Cliteaten". Something tells me that there are many stories of great stupidity to be told!
In the studio we are serious enough to know what we are doing but we are not complicated. We record the new album again in the Soundlodge studio in Germany with mr Jorg Uken and he became the 6th member of the band. He has a highly tech studio with full options but the fun thing is that we only used our own instruments with no digital effects of whatever, and the most was record in one take, punk style! We had plenty of time but we told him, this is okay and he putted some magic and the end result is awesome. Rob and I where the only ones who stayed the whole progress. After each day we went to the same restaurant and order cheap food but good food. In the eve we always get drunk on the Becks or Jagermeister. When Clemens was there, we held a rave party and even watched dvd's of the Village People hahaha. Was fun times. And when you ever hit Rhauderfehn, go to bar California and ask if they wanna play Mathiass Rheim or Peter Maffay hahahahaha ;) Good luck!

Hehehehe, I'll definitely do that! So which one of you is the retarded fellow, which is responsible for all those great love stories told in your albums? I mean, it seems that the inspiration is endless. 5 Full lengths and the engine is still running. What's wrong with you guys? Hehehe
Probably you mean our singer Joost, who is also responsible for our lyrics the last 11 years. And yes. As long if there are sick minded people in this planet, Joost had inspiration to write some stuff down ;)

Such a magnificent atrocity, as "Cliteaten Back To Life", of course needs a good promotional plan, so the people around the world will know. So, what about touring? Any live shows scheduled?
Yes there are now plenty of club shows planned and in autumn we will go on Europe tour with Prostitute Disfigurement and Gutulax. Also we hit some cool Summerfests like Summerbreeze, Extremefest and Vlamrock. So get your ass over there and cheer some beers with us!

Absolutely man!!!! Now you've been active as a band since almost 2002. This is 11 years so far with many full lengths, couple of splits, plenty live gigs. Is there something you would regret in all this time?
I feel very blessed and a fortunate man that I had the chance to experience this whole ride!! It cost me a lot of free time but it was all worthy and it still is!

So what's the band savings paying so far? You manage to get along with the expenses of the band or does it still need a lot of self contribution?? Would it be a wild dream to some point actually be able to live off the band's income??
We earn enough these days to pay everything for the band so we don't put private money in it since 2003. We also pay our drummer cause he has to travel lots of km to reach the south where we come from. With all the stuff sales we can pay the rehearsal room, sound engineer, instruments (we also get endorsed by stuff right now) and other stuff. I know that it is impossible to pay the bills while playing extreme music so I left that dream ages ago, and enjoy the way we can do our thing now.

Now, I understand that in order for someone to play in Cliteater, he must have a large dose of humor, and maybe an even larger dose of self humiliating mood. But I am sure that the madness among the band members is not the same. So from a scale of 1-10, which in your case, 1 would be 'a little crazy' and 10 would be 'Seriously fucking Demented personality-Capable of anything". How would you rate each of the band members (yourself included)?
Cool question, here we go:
Vedran: 1 Because he is the quiet one and he almost never get drunk. He is also the most serious member and he never gets angry on something.
Joost: 3 Since Joost became housefather of 2 cool sons he became much calmer than in the early days. His road behavior chanced from a drinking machine into a sleeping monster. Non stop sleeping and snoring and play the diva when stuff is not arranged well, yes that's my main man Joost haha ;)
Me (Ivan) 5 I also became a bit calmer cause of health problems but I still have the character that when I am drinking, I will drink till I drop and probably that will never change haha. Also I don't give a fuck about everything and my other bandmates call me redneck cause I am!
Robbie: 9 On first place he is also a very quite with a low voice, but when he is drunk he becomes a madman. He always pukes and shits everywhere where he stands or lays. And if you have to know a metalquestion, he is a walking metal encyclopedia.
Clemens: 10 He is from a another planet. He always shoots short movies on his phone and put this direct on his Facebook, also he makes pics of himself with posters of Europe or a leather Freddy Mercury hat. This guy also delivers the music in our tour bus and don't think it's metal all the way: David Hasselhoff, Ron Brandsteder, Mathias Rheim, Peter Maffay, BZN, Village People, Abba, Boney M, Patrick Hernandez, Milly Vanilly just to name a few… He is on the the coolest guys I know and he is for sure the King of Bad Taste. Come on, if you wear a pink shirt, with a propellerhat and use Crocs as shoes while playing a brutal grind show… you probably missing something in your head!

Hehehehe indeed man!!! So since 2002 you've played numerous shows, with almost every death metal beast there is out there. Your new album is in my opinion, the best of all 5, and of course it needs good promotion. Tell me what would the dream gig be for promoting "Cliteaten Back To Life". The place and the bands!
Damn, I guess that will be a tour with Blood Duster, The day everything became nothing and Mortician. And then play in countries where we have never been like India, Japan, South America, that would be awesome!!

How happy are you from the collaboration with War Anthem Records so far? Do you have the typical (nowadays) deal that you just get some copies of the CD when printed, and the rest of the copyrights belong to the company, or is there more?
We are signed by War Anthem records in 2007 and no, we don't have such deal. They pay and provide everything for the band, and they have a exclusive right to press merchandise with our permission to use our logo. We get some stuff for free cause our name and logo is registered and if we need more we can buy it from them with discount. The last 4 years several bigger metal labels asked us for a signed by them but there was no one else better then War Anthem. Besides that War Anthem is our label, they also became very close friends of us. Mieze, the boss visit us each year for a check up and talk about the new plans of releasing dates etc. We don't want a other label right now and feel very happy within the War Anthem family!!

Typical question that I love to ask is this dilemma. There are two guys coming at you, the first one says: Dude I have bought all your CDs and they seriously suck a ton of shit. I am crying for my lost money. And the second one says: Man I downloaded all your CDs and split CDs and I never paid a penny for anything, but I really have to say that I liked Cliteater so much, that I had your band name tattooed with hot iron on my butt chicks. The question is: which one would you punch in the face?
No one. At the first person I would say that he is a honest guy with his own musical opinion and I respect that more than asskissers who say they dig your shit and behind backs they stabbing knives and I would share a beer with him. At the second guy I would say the same, but I will also try to explain that when people still download music, this will be the end of the quality music underground industry. Indy labels will rest in peace, cause they loose lots of income and can't pay the bands anymore. What's left are some major labels with fake musicians and younger people going to believe this is real music. Real music is in my opinion music made and created without computers and digital stuff, just people who play. Downloading is killing the underground more and more and people should see that. What you see now is that there are tons of DIY bands, make there own records with digital programs, release it on iTunes and the quality is bad. That's what u get and if this is the future of music…

So besides the band what would someone find you doing on daily basis? Hang at home or drinking booze at local strip clubs till morning?
From Monday till Friday I work at a big tree nursery company where I manage all logistics, have to check every tree on diseases or quality and being responsible for all the orders in whole Europe. Besides that I also confine people with a mental disorder at our company. So I work around 50 hours a week nonstop outside in the nature, no matter what the weather is and I really like that. Trees are cool! I also swim once a week, mountain bike, walk a lot and I play squash with my best friends. For the spare time that's left I put into the band. And when we don't have to play in the weekend I prefer to go to a bar or concert, or visit some nice places.

How would you try to convince someone to purchase your new album? Why would you believe someone should buy "Cliteaten…' and what you think would be the appropriate method of torment for those who still after this intie won't buy it?
haha I will say this is the most commercial and rocking album we ever made even your grandma would like ;) If you like cool, brutal heavy metal with rock and roll influences and doom, stoner and reggae you sure can dig our latest disc!

Ok bro. That was it. Thanks a lot for this shit. Congratulations once again for your new full length, and I wish every success for Cliteater and you personally. Close this, anyway you want!
Thx many much for this interview!! I would say feel free to visit our website on www.cliteater.net or like us on Facebook. See you on tour, drink some beers with us and remember: Always stay loyal to the clits and meat is murder, but Tofu is duurder!