Eternal Evil – The Sounds of the Past still Reign Supreme

I look at Thrash Metal a bit like I look at the sub-genre Heavy Metal: the gateway heavier sounds, and the genre as a whole.

How? Most of us started with Heavy Metal with bands like Metallica or Iron Maiden, right? Some of the people from my generation, at least. Not that both sub-genres are of lesser quality, but it just happened. Iron Maiden might still be, alongside some bands people insist in calling Heavy Metal (Slipknot and such), the "welcomers".

What happens next is either you settle for that, truly holding those genres as the ones that express who you are in terms of Heavy Metal, or you want something harder and more violent… and in comes Black Metal and Death Metal. It is not like people get tired of Thrash and Heavy Metal, it is just that, they are not the most inventive sub-genres from the pack (my own opinion… kill me for that).

Thrash has become, for me, a sweet memory from the Past, to which I go back from time to time, and these young men have given me hope that the genre will not parish tomorrow. Many bands have come, in recent years, and blew us out of the park, and that is amazing, but these young fellows have such a spirit, and such a conviction…

This conversation dates back to 2020, if I am not mistaken, and it came out due to the eminence of a new release – "The Warriors Awakening Brings the Unholy Slaughter" – on November 26. Let us enjoy their first Demo, and wait for what they have for us.

Thrash on!

First and foremost, thank you for your time and your words. The first question will have to be: tell us a bit more about the band and your history so far.

Thank you for letting us do this interview! Well the band started back in January of last year when our bassist “Ginger” started to jam with the ex-guitarist Teddy Edoff and some other drummer, Me and “Ginger” are classmates and he asked me at school to come to a rehearsal because they needed a guitarist and a singer.

After that I decided to join the band as the lead guitarist and singer. I, “Ginger” and Teddy felt that the drummer we had back then wasn’t right so we decided to get rid of him. After that we got the kickass drummer we have now Alphonse. We met him at a friend’s gig and I was so blown away by how he played so fast and being so young, at the moment there were no drummers in our age that could play that fast, so we asked him if we wanted to join and that’s how we got started! Then about 2 months later we decided to get rid of Teddy because there were some musical conflicts between us so that’s how we became a three-piece. 

You are all very young. How did you come across Heavy Metal and the idea of being more than just Heavy Metal fans?

Well, all of us started to listen to Rock and Metal because of our parents at a very young age although Jacob didn’t become full on metal till the 7th grade. I picked up the guitar when I was about 6-7 years old because I was a big fan of Dave Mustaine (I Still am!) and wanted to be as good as he is and my dream was always to make music! Alphonse also started to bang the drums of doom at a very young age, “Ginger”’s first instrument was actually a guitar but he thought it was boring so he picked up the bass instead! 

You are aware that your music reflects a golden time for Heavy Metal music, and I mean this in a very positive way. Is that the sound you identify with, the most? We see more and more bands, especially those with young people, “going back” in time and replicate those tendencies. 

Well we basically want to do what our heroes did back in the day and bring that raw old school feeling back which a lot of today’s metal bands lack. A lot of the new young bands try to get that feeling but most of them don’t really make it but there are some ass kicking new young bands like Nattkraft and Sarcator!

How do you look at today’s scene? Is it weaker, in a way? Is there any band with which you connect, musically speaking? 

Of course it’s weaker today because there are not that many bands as back in the 80s but some bands keep the true genre alive like it should be! Examples like Commando, Lethal Steel, Insane, and Antichrist even if they have been a band for quite some time. The band that we connect with the most would probably be Sarcator!

What are your main influences? Musically and lyrically.

Our lyrics can literally be anything, everything from demons coming down from the sky and attacking the world to people getting slaughtered by fucking swords We don’t really think about the lyrics we just find something cool and write something about it. And the musical inspiration comes from everything we listen to! 

How was the recording process? The final you pulled off, fits perfectly with the music. Was it your intentions or was it due to equipment limitations?

We recorded everything in my garage where we do all our rehearsals. We are really happy with the final product but there are some mistakes, like you can barely hear the ride on the drums and the crash cymbals make your ears bleed and you can’t almost even hear the bass but who cares! We are still very happy with the outcome, it was better than we expected! 

Just out of curiosity: you come from a country with plenty of tradition in terms of Heavy Metal in general, and Extreme Metal in particular. Did that weigh on you, at any time? 

We are especially inspired from Bathory which is one of the best Swedish metal bands ever to exist! And I and “Ginger” are really big fans of the FVASHM (First wave of Swedish heavy metal) And we take a lot of inspiration of bands outside of Sweden like KAT, Deathhammer, Destruction, Slayer, Turbo and all those bands!

And how were you looked at, by older musicians? I take the Swedish scene as an open-minded one. Does that correspond to reality?

The people that listen to new mainstream metal on the radio like Sabaton, Ghost, Volbeat and all those shit sellout bands are open minded but the ones who listen to the old school ones aren’t that really open minded and we think that’s a good thing! We surprisingly have got really fucking good response from older musicians and we haven’t really heard any bad critics at all at this point!

You signed with Unholy Coven Productions, a Dutch label run by young men and women. Are you, youngsters, taking over the scene and trying to leave a mark and conqueror your spot? 

We don’t actually really think like that, our goal is just to have fun, drink and destroy everything in sight and play loud and hard music! We don’t really care if how unknown we are in the scene or how known we are in the scene, we just want to have fun playing but it’s still fun to hear good things about our music!

Do you follow what comes out? Are there any bands that you find interesting and captivating? 

There are a lot of new bands appearing today but most of them aren’t really that good but of course there are some good bands in the scene always! 

Sweden, as I said before, has a worldwide famous Heavy/Extreme Metal scene. What records do you consider to be essential and/or have influenced you? 

For me probably every 80s era Destruction album and basically the early Teutonic big 4!And for “Ginger” even if he only writes lyrics at this point is a really hardcore fan for Venom! 

Are there any plans for the future that you can share with us? 

We are planning to record our first EP this summer when we all are free from school and there will probably be a vinyl and CD release! And a live demo will be recorded on the gig with ANTICHRIST and Bestiality

I  would like to show our gratitude for you taking a bit of your time to answer these questions and tell us more about the band. We wish you all the best, and may we speak again in a near future!

Cheers!

Eternal Evil Official Bandcamp

Redefining Darkness Records Official Bandcamp