Interview with Jonny.

In order to fulfil assessment objective AO3, I have to demonstrate the ability to plan and construct media products using appropriate technical and creative skills. I also have to meet objective AO4 and demonstrate the ability to undertake and apply appropriate research.

First off, I searched the internet for examples of an interview.
Below is an example of an interview that Metal Hammer had produced.

MH: Maybe it would be the best if you introduced the band to our readers at the beginning, to say something about roots, history, ideas from which all this came from.

WHIPLASHER: All band members come from extreme metal underground, from the core of death and black metal. We brought devil into the ballroom. We developed a bit our extreme roots, we wanted to make them more luxurious. We've kept the frustration and agression from the past, we only wrapped it up into a more acceptable package.

MH: I've read that personal issues influenced the total outcome and sound of Termination Bliss. What happened exactly?

WHIPLASHER: You're right. We've all been pretty depressive during past years and it took a long time to start writing songs. We weren't in a good condition at all, we barely got out of bed, Nightmare especially. It can be felt significantly in his songs. The material he wrote is pretty dark, and the lyrics aren't lighter either. We've had many death cases in our families, in one moment there was a complete chaos. There's also themes about complex relationships between people, breaking relationships...

MH: How was it to combine many hard sounds into one industrial whole?

WHIPLASHER: I really don't know. We've never discussed about how we need to sound and what sounds we need to sample. We've never set to ourselves guidelines by which we'd have to work and how our music should sound. The first album was some sort of an experiment for which we didn't know how it would turn out to be. I think we've gone much deeper into that kind of expression on Termination Bliss. We don't think about music, we just make a combination which results from us.

MH: You've mentioned that all of you have roots from underground music, does that mean Deathstars is an underground band?

WHIPLASHER: NO, I think underground doesn't exist anymore. By underground I meant exchanging letters, listening to cassettes with demo recordings, and those are things which we used to do during the 80's and beginning of 90's. Now we have Internet and all that is gone. No, I definitely do not consider Deathstars to be an underground band. I just hope people who appreciated underground music will see we still have that kind of mentality.

MH: Talking about Internet, did it bring more good or bad to music?

WHIPLASHER: Probably...well, I don't know myself, because I don't use it at all, I don't have it. I'm not so familiar with those things, I hardly looked at our own website. I think that before the Internet, people believed they are a part of a certain subcultural group, because then it was much harder to come by certain albums. Exchanging tapes was a unique thing, it only required finding a way to variety of people. Today all you need to do is press a few buttons on a keyboard and it's already in the computer. Before you really needed to be into it. There was much more passion in music. I suppose Internet is just the thing for young bands who want people to hear about them.

MH: Why did you decide to use "stage" names instead of real ones?

WHIPLASHER: It comes from a fact that we all are big KISS fans. It's just one of the details in our image. Those names we used while we were playing with old bands, so it was natural for us to take them to Deathstars as well. I don't care if someone refers to me as Andreas, but we try to make a certaing image which consists of the visual, but our stage names too. It's part of our expression.

MH: By now you're pretty famous in Sweden...Where do you think you will also get support?

WHIPLASHER: For now I really can't say, I suppose we'll find out in the next few months. We'll probably do good in Germany, France... We'll have tours in America and south Africa, we'll see what reaction will someone have to our music. We hope we'll make a good impact with this album released by Nuclear Blast, and I believe we'll have good promotion all over Europe. That wasn't the case with our first album, we have it'll be interesting to the people and that the world will explode and fly into space. That would be perfect! Ha, ha, ha!

MH: Which are your other interests besides music?

WHIPLASHER: Women, champaigne, drugs and sometimes cigarrettes. And yeah, did you know we shot a video in Belgrade?

MH: Yeah, and...?

WHIPLASHER: There's so many incredibly goodlooking women in Serbia. I was astounded, and I fell in love with Belgrade.

MH: Then at the end, tell something to your future fans, among who there's probably those women there as well.

WHIPLASHER: OK, what should I say? I sincerely hope I'll visit Serbia again. I hope we'll get drunk together.

These are questions that I am more than likely to use.

Louise: Maybe you should introduce the band to our readers to start with. You know, to establish something about roots, history and any ideas from which all this came from?

Jonny: Well the band is called Hand of Grief. We've been around for about 2 years pestering anyone foolish enough to let us play. It started off as a project called Words Fail with Sean and Gaz. They had a different singer, a different second guitarist and a different drummer. They were going down a Killswitch Engage kind of vein and originally the old drummer left and was replaced by Ager. Who then pushed the band to give it some more bastard. Then Si (guitar) left leaving the band as a four piece. A bit after that Rich (vocals) left and I was asked to give it a go. I was given a rough demo of seven songs and set about writing some stuff for them. We were basically starting again as I have more Hardcore and less melody in my voice than Rich. Because of this we were looking for a new name and one day I was listening to some Black Label Society and in one of the songs it mentions a Hand of Grief. I suggested this to the rest of the guys as a name and it sort of stuck from there. Not long after I joined I introduced the guys to Rhodesy who played guitar for us for around 8 months until he had to leave due to personal differences. Not long after that we settled Rob in and thats how we've been rolling ever since.

Louise: I’ve heard that personal issues influenced the total outcome and sound of King of Misery. What happened exactly?

Jonny: To answer that I think I need to explain about my writing process. I try and write my lyrics as ambiguous as I can. I want to write things I know about and have experienced in such a way as to allow the listener to go "oh yeah I totally relate to that" how successful I am is down to the individual listener. If they get where I'm coming from then that's cool, if not but they like the song that's also cool. For me that song is about isolation. It doesn't matter if it's isolation from a loved one, family, friends, whatever, that's the theme of that song. That's how I was feeling at that time. It didn't matter that I had people around me, I still felt cut off and alone, which no one wants to be, hence King of Misery.

Louise: How was it to combine many hard sounds into one chuggy whole? And what genre would you describe yourself as?

Jonny: It's pretty easy to be honest. We're all good friends and hang out together outside of the band so we're on a more personal basis. However we know that when it comes to the band it's all business. If I've got a problem with a riff or a beat I'm not afraid to say, and I'd expect everyone to do the same with me. As far as our writing process goes I usually stay out the way and get an idea about what I want the song to be about and build it up from there. The guys will get the riffs and beat sorted then we record it burn it onto CD and I start to flesh out my structure and write the song to the demo version.

I'd say we were metal. I don't like to pigeonhole us as it won't be a true representation of the music. We have hardcore vocals over groovy NOLA-esque riffs like in 2 Bagger and we'll go from that into the full on thrash onslaught of Eyegruntwork so to say we're one genre is selling us short, haha. I'm much happier letting people judge for themselves what style we are.

Louise: To say you’re underground, you’re actually pretty well known. You toured with Ted Maul who are really well known in the metal scene. What was it like to tour with them?

Jonny: It was good. Or so I'm told. Haha. Those guys are sound as fuck, we had a blast every show. Without sounding big-headed I think we can quite easily blast most bands off the stage but with Ted Maul they were on a whole different level to us. It made us play harder, play more aggressively, play tighter and I think we held our own. We didn't out perform them we just did a good job supporting them and warming up the crowd. I'd do it again tomorrow if i could. Haha.

Louise: Have you got any stage names? (Answer this with Kojak please Jonny, or I will have to penetrate your face with my fist)

Jonny: No like fully official stage names but some people often refer to me as Kojak so we just made some up for Bio and Myspace purposes, haha. Ager is Beast, Gaz is The Noise, Sean is Chuggy and Rob is Count Drugula.

Louise: And how did the name Kojak come about?

Jonny: As a joke. When I used to work the Practice Rooms in Rotherham I was talked into having my head shaved with a Mach 3 as I had nothing better to do at work. I basically had my head shaved and then shaved again with a regular razor. Then the next day Bing out of Hiram started calling me Kojak. It's not a very interesting story but there ya go. Haha.

Louise: Which are you interests besides music?

Jonny: Apart from music I enjoy my Xbox 360, generally wasting time on the internet reading things on varied topics from religion to string theory. Hanging out with my mates, I love a good horror film. I like going to the cinema and going to corp and trying to drink my own body weight. Haha.


These are the questions I am going to use for my mag.