Interview by: KN
Ahh, the 80’s.What a time it was. Amidst a horrid landscape of new wave, synth-driven “hard” rock, and polished pop music came a
new and exciting crop of underground bands popped up and created a form of music that took the extremes that Motorhead,
Mercyful Fate, and Venom had previously reached and completely took it over the top. It’s debatable where it all exactly started but
one thing is for sure; thirty years later it’s still going as strong as it ever did but somehow it just isn’t the same. Trust me, I was there.
I remember buying “War and Pain” on cassette the day it was released at A & A Records. I remember lining up early on a Tuesday
morning before Sam the Record Man opened to get my “Reign in Blood” cassette the first day it came out. It wasn’t only the sound
and the style that made thrash the phenomena that it was. There was a feeling. It’s hard to describe what that feeling was but it
was surely there and I still get “that” feeling today when I listen to the old classics in my vinyl vault.
Which brings me to this thrash resurgence of today. First off, it’s great. The bands are amazing. It’s all super technical, well recorded,
and attempting to recapture that vibe from the heydays of the genre. I use the term attempting because for the most part, this is
where all the modern thrash acts fail to equal their forefathers. But then I heard Keller. Hailing from a country pretty far off the metal
map (Slovenia), their “Awake the Forgotten” demo blew me out of the water and dragged me back to the days of yore in a big way.
I have never heard a new school thrash band recreate what I loved so much about the old school bands as I did with this demo. So it’
s with great excitement that I await their full length NHR Records debut CD “Spreading Evil” and the absolutely fantastic old school
thrash chaos that it will surely carry.
I recently had the chance to catch up with the lads in Keller and see how the album is progressing, how things are with the new line
up, and to get a feel for what it’s like to be a metalhead in Slovenia.
Greetings Keller, first off let me congratulate you on your amazing “Awake the Forgotten” demo and for bringing back the true spirit
of thrash.
Thanks! We still can’t believe that our demo made such a huge impact on so many people, this really gives us tons of motivation for
future thrashing!
Before we get on with the interrogation, can you give the readers a bit of information about your band to bring them up to speed?
First of all we are a very young band, me and Etien (guitarist) started the whole thing in mid 2007, but the first full line-up came
together in early 2008, that’s when we also had our first gig. After that gig, things just got better and better every day – we
recorded “Awake The Forgotten” and sold 200 copies of it in little more than three months, which I think is a really big success,
especially in such a small country as Slovenia. Then we signed with NHR Records, which really was a big deal for us, since it’s really
hard getting a label these days, not to mention that it’s even harder to be noticed by people from around the globe if you’re from
such an unknown country… Then, in November 2009, we signed a contract with Vlad Nowajczyk, a promotion manager from Poland,
who helped us a lot with promoting our debut album, which is sadly still in the progress of making. We also went through some line-
up changes in the past two years, but the kind of crew that we are now, is gonna last for quite some time I think, because we are
all very close friends and we’re getting along great!
Was it the intention of Keller to recreate this “vibe” and “feel” of the old school or did it just happen to turn out that way?
Actually me and Etien just wanted to play fast, that was the whole idea, that’s why our previous heavy metal band broke up. We
were smoking, drinking, jamming in our rehearsal place day after day, hating this modern metal movement, you know … that tidy
skaters trying to play metal ... we hated that shit so much and we were so pissed at the world (still are, haha), that I think the songs
that we made came out straight from our hearts and souls, we never specifically said what will we play …it turned out to be some
aggressive thrash – the old way, the only way!
Did you use any vintage or special recording equipment to help forge your specific sound?
No, we recorded the demo for free and it was all done with some programs (like Guitar Rig and stuff), that’s why we were never
really satisfied with the sampled sound of that demo, because it was so unnatural. We’re recording the debut in a real studio though,
so the sound is very different from the demo’s …it’s a bit more full and raw, which we like, we don’t like that clean an polished
perfect modern sound, we’re aiming for something more old school.
Although it’s pretty obvious to the ears, what bands helped inspire and form the blueprint for the sound Keller has today?
There is really millions of bands which inspire us, from various forms of music, but these bands I think really made the biggest impact
on Keller: Coroner – the greatest metal band that ever existed, Kreator, Incubus (the real Incubus, not that MTV faggots), Iron
Maiden, Judas Priest, Death, Slayer, Saxon, … and so on.
How do you see the thrash and metal scenes today? Are you interested in this modern thrash movement or do you think it’s just
another trend?
I think that metal is becoming more and more popular and that’s good, but it’s also bad … I have a feeling that metal lost it’s primal
meaning, there’s nothing rebellious in this modern bands, no anger, nothing. Everything sounds the same to me in this new waves of
metal, there’s nothing fresh in there. It seems to me that the main priority of a lot of today’s bands is that they look nice, have their
expensive equipment shining … fuck that, we just play our hearts out and don’t care about nothing. We’re hoping that the modern
thrash movement it’s just another trend that will go away, hehe, we really dislike it.
Where do you see Keller fitting into the metal world?
Like every young band, we have a dream of making it big, but we never thought about this things, we always just go with the flow,
what happens, happens, if we’ll ever make it, we’ll probably be the luckiest bastards on this planet, if we don’t make it, well … what
can you do haha. I think the biggest difference between us and today’s bands (at least the bands that we saw or met) is that the
only thing that we have is our music, we have some shitty equipment, we’re always broke, we can hardly buy cigarettes and beer...
but we have that burning anger inside us and that’s all you need for thrashin!
Unlike a lot of new bands today, Keller seems to be touring quite extensively. We have been following your touring schedule from
over here and see that you’ve been able to play with some very influential and high ranking metal acts and in quite a few different
countries. How have you been received by the audiences?
In 2008 we had our first tour, Slovenian tour with a local band Eliminator, which we will never forget! Also, we were supposed to go
on European tour with Destruction as a support act last summer, but everything went wrong because some other band payed a lot
more money than we did (if you are a support act, you have to pay everything with your cash – that’s just the way it is), so that
really sucked cause we were really looking forward playing with such metal giants as Destruction. Actually the only show we played
outside our country until now was in Italy with Gama Bomb that was a really cool gig, the crowd liked us, they liked the songs and
they were really excited. We also supported Artillery when they were in Slovenia. Our manager is also booking some shows for us in
Austria, Italy and Czech Republic in the near future, so we are really happy about that, seeing new countries, meeting new people…it’
s gonna be great.
Do you think this touring has helped the band leading up to your debut? Any plans for further touring?
Definitively, fans go to your shows and they are the ones that push you forward and give you motivation and inspiration, you have to
show them something, so yes this touring did help a lot, if the fans weren’t so enthusiastic about us, we would never record a damn
thing. We will do a small Slovenian tour after the debut is released and we’ll hopefully promote it in other countries aswell.
I see that you’ve encountered a few problems, delays, and line up changes during the recording of this album. Are all the problems in
the past now and how has the new line up been working out?
Yeah, we really had some bad luck with the guitarists and the studios. First we fired our original guitarist Peter (the one who played
on our demo), because we thought that his style of playing simply does not fit into Keller, especially the solos…We than hired Edi from
a local band Fosgen, but he would soon drop out due to the lack of time. The right replacement was found in Marko, but we needed
to move fast since we were already late with the recording. Then the studio guy’s soundcard broke down, so we had to record four
songs all over again. And when we did, the soundcard broke down again! And when we had to wait for two or three months so he
could buy a new one, but then he cut his hand with a chainsaw and couldn’t do anything, so we had to go to another studio, in
which we’ve just finished the recording. But then our original bassist Vasja decided to leave, we still don’t know why, but we found
the right replacement for him in Blaz from a local hard/heavy band Shutdown. So yeah, there was a lot of delays with everything,
cause you have to teach every new member your songs and that takes some time … but that’s all in the past, we hope the future
will bring better days, cause as I said earlier – the line up now will probably stand for quite some time because we’re really getting
along great.
When do you think the debut will see the light of day?
We are hoping that it will be released before June this year. We still need to do the finishing touches, mixing and mastering, booklet,
then the printing will take some time …I think that we’ll manage to do all this by then.
What can we expect from the debut? Is it in the same vein as your demo or has the sound progressed or changed?
Most of all you can expect a different, more old school sound than on the demo. We wanted to catch the spirit of the eighties (good
old microphone-box recording, without those stupid samples) with a raw sound, but not too raw, just so you can hear clearly what’s
going on. We’re curious to see how people will except it, it’s not going to be anything like the demo, the record will definitively sound
more natural.
Admittedly, I know very little of Slovenia minus the exploits of your senior men’s Hockey Team and the players from that team in the
NHL. How is the metal underground in Slovenia? Is there a solid scene and good fan following?
Well you know one thing about Slovenia that we don’t haha, we’re not that much into sports, and we’re too busy having fun, haha.
The metal underground here is getting bigger and stronger everyday I think. Metal and rock music became really popular these days
around here, which is great, tons of new bands – most of them are thrashers - are coming out. But you can find everything from
death, heavy, black, gothic … Slovenia really has a lot of great bands (such as Thraw, Negligence, Scaffold, Eruption, Shutdown, … to
name a few). All of these bands, including us have a really good and quite large fan base around here, especially if you take that the
population in Slovenia is smaller than in one American city … New York, for example. But It’s quite hard to go abroad and to be
recognized if you’re living here, because as you said – lot of people don’t know nothing about this country, large number of people
don’t even know that Slovenia exists – most of them think it’s Slovakia, but that’s a whole different country. But I think that even
that will change in the future... at least in the metal world.
With the critical success of your demo and your touring schedule has the profile of the band risen in your homeland?
Actually we became pretty popular in Slovenia this last year, people really dig our music and that is the most amazing feeling. People
know the name Keller, they know who we are and it’s really nice to see that you have a good fan following.
Before we close down this interview I just have to know, what does Keller mean and where did you get the name?
Haha, almost everybody’s asking us that same question. It’s a funny story behind our name actually …we rehearse in a 200 year old
house, which used to be a German hospital in the first world war. Behind the house, there are two doors, the entrance to the
basement and the entrance to the washhouse. Since there was no better place to take a piss, we were all pissing all over the
basement door and above that door there was a sign – KELLER – a German word for basement. Since we didn’t came up with
anything better we said fuck it, we’ll just be Keller, haha.
Well I would like to thank you for this interview and for releasing what I consider to be the best thrash metal out there today. In
closing can you let all our readers know what they can expect from Keller in 2010?
Thank you! We’re all curious how the new record will be accepted by the audiences; we hope there are a lot of people out there
that think the same way as you do hehe. In 2010 you can most definitively expect our debut “Spreading Evil”, which will include ten
songs, as I said earlier, we’re going to have some gigs outside Slovenia (Austria, Italy, Czech Republic) and we will concentrate on
some new material, which is already in the process of making – for the second record which we hope we’ll start recording by the end
of this year if we’ll get lucky! Keep on thrashing!
WEB: www.myspace.com/kellermetal
new and exciting crop of underground bands popped up and created a form of music that took the extremes that Motorhead,
Mercyful Fate, and Venom had previously reached and completely took it over the top. It’s debatable where it all exactly started but
one thing is for sure; thirty years later it’s still going as strong as it ever did but somehow it just isn’t the same. Trust me, I was there.
I remember buying “War and Pain” on cassette the day it was released at A & A Records. I remember lining up early on a Tuesday
morning before Sam the Record Man opened to get my “Reign in Blood” cassette the first day it came out. It wasn’t only the sound
and the style that made thrash the phenomena that it was. There was a feeling. It’s hard to describe what that feeling was but it
was surely there and I still get “that” feeling today when I listen to the old classics in my vinyl vault.
Which brings me to this thrash resurgence of today. First off, it’s great. The bands are amazing. It’s all super technical, well recorded,
and attempting to recapture that vibe from the heydays of the genre. I use the term attempting because for the most part, this is
where all the modern thrash acts fail to equal their forefathers. But then I heard Keller. Hailing from a country pretty far off the metal
map (Slovenia), their “Awake the Forgotten” demo blew me out of the water and dragged me back to the days of yore in a big way.
I have never heard a new school thrash band recreate what I loved so much about the old school bands as I did with this demo. So it’
s with great excitement that I await their full length NHR Records debut CD “Spreading Evil” and the absolutely fantastic old school
thrash chaos that it will surely carry.
I recently had the chance to catch up with the lads in Keller and see how the album is progressing, how things are with the new line
up, and to get a feel for what it’s like to be a metalhead in Slovenia.
Greetings Keller, first off let me congratulate you on your amazing “Awake the Forgotten” demo and for bringing back the true spirit
of thrash.
Thanks! We still can’t believe that our demo made such a huge impact on so many people, this really gives us tons of motivation for
future thrashing!
Before we get on with the interrogation, can you give the readers a bit of information about your band to bring them up to speed?
First of all we are a very young band, me and Etien (guitarist) started the whole thing in mid 2007, but the first full line-up came
together in early 2008, that’s when we also had our first gig. After that gig, things just got better and better every day – we
recorded “Awake The Forgotten” and sold 200 copies of it in little more than three months, which I think is a really big success,
especially in such a small country as Slovenia. Then we signed with NHR Records, which really was a big deal for us, since it’s really
hard getting a label these days, not to mention that it’s even harder to be noticed by people from around the globe if you’re from
such an unknown country… Then, in November 2009, we signed a contract with Vlad Nowajczyk, a promotion manager from Poland,
who helped us a lot with promoting our debut album, which is sadly still in the progress of making. We also went through some line-
up changes in the past two years, but the kind of crew that we are now, is gonna last for quite some time I think, because we are
all very close friends and we’re getting along great!
Was it the intention of Keller to recreate this “vibe” and “feel” of the old school or did it just happen to turn out that way?
Actually me and Etien just wanted to play fast, that was the whole idea, that’s why our previous heavy metal band broke up. We
were smoking, drinking, jamming in our rehearsal place day after day, hating this modern metal movement, you know … that tidy
skaters trying to play metal ... we hated that shit so much and we were so pissed at the world (still are, haha), that I think the songs
that we made came out straight from our hearts and souls, we never specifically said what will we play …it turned out to be some
aggressive thrash – the old way, the only way!
Did you use any vintage or special recording equipment to help forge your specific sound?
No, we recorded the demo for free and it was all done with some programs (like Guitar Rig and stuff), that’s why we were never
really satisfied with the sampled sound of that demo, because it was so unnatural. We’re recording the debut in a real studio though,
so the sound is very different from the demo’s …it’s a bit more full and raw, which we like, we don’t like that clean an polished
perfect modern sound, we’re aiming for something more old school.
Although it’s pretty obvious to the ears, what bands helped inspire and form the blueprint for the sound Keller has today?
There is really millions of bands which inspire us, from various forms of music, but these bands I think really made the biggest impact
on Keller: Coroner – the greatest metal band that ever existed, Kreator, Incubus (the real Incubus, not that MTV faggots), Iron
Maiden, Judas Priest, Death, Slayer, Saxon, … and so on.
How do you see the thrash and metal scenes today? Are you interested in this modern thrash movement or do you think it’s just
another trend?
I think that metal is becoming more and more popular and that’s good, but it’s also bad … I have a feeling that metal lost it’s primal
meaning, there’s nothing rebellious in this modern bands, no anger, nothing. Everything sounds the same to me in this new waves of
metal, there’s nothing fresh in there. It seems to me that the main priority of a lot of today’s bands is that they look nice, have their
expensive equipment shining … fuck that, we just play our hearts out and don’t care about nothing. We’re hoping that the modern
thrash movement it’s just another trend that will go away, hehe, we really dislike it.
Where do you see Keller fitting into the metal world?
Like every young band, we have a dream of making it big, but we never thought about this things, we always just go with the flow,
what happens, happens, if we’ll ever make it, we’ll probably be the luckiest bastards on this planet, if we don’t make it, well … what
can you do haha. I think the biggest difference between us and today’s bands (at least the bands that we saw or met) is that the
only thing that we have is our music, we have some shitty equipment, we’re always broke, we can hardly buy cigarettes and beer...
but we have that burning anger inside us and that’s all you need for thrashin!
Unlike a lot of new bands today, Keller seems to be touring quite extensively. We have been following your touring schedule from
over here and see that you’ve been able to play with some very influential and high ranking metal acts and in quite a few different
countries. How have you been received by the audiences?
In 2008 we had our first tour, Slovenian tour with a local band Eliminator, which we will never forget! Also, we were supposed to go
on European tour with Destruction as a support act last summer, but everything went wrong because some other band payed a lot
more money than we did (if you are a support act, you have to pay everything with your cash – that’s just the way it is), so that
really sucked cause we were really looking forward playing with such metal giants as Destruction. Actually the only show we played
outside our country until now was in Italy with Gama Bomb that was a really cool gig, the crowd liked us, they liked the songs and
they were really excited. We also supported Artillery when they were in Slovenia. Our manager is also booking some shows for us in
Austria, Italy and Czech Republic in the near future, so we are really happy about that, seeing new countries, meeting new people…it’
s gonna be great.
Do you think this touring has helped the band leading up to your debut? Any plans for further touring?
Definitively, fans go to your shows and they are the ones that push you forward and give you motivation and inspiration, you have to
show them something, so yes this touring did help a lot, if the fans weren’t so enthusiastic about us, we would never record a damn
thing. We will do a small Slovenian tour after the debut is released and we’ll hopefully promote it in other countries aswell.
I see that you’ve encountered a few problems, delays, and line up changes during the recording of this album. Are all the problems in
the past now and how has the new line up been working out?
Yeah, we really had some bad luck with the guitarists and the studios. First we fired our original guitarist Peter (the one who played
on our demo), because we thought that his style of playing simply does not fit into Keller, especially the solos…We than hired Edi from
a local band Fosgen, but he would soon drop out due to the lack of time. The right replacement was found in Marko, but we needed
to move fast since we were already late with the recording. Then the studio guy’s soundcard broke down, so we had to record four
songs all over again. And when we did, the soundcard broke down again! And when we had to wait for two or three months so he
could buy a new one, but then he cut his hand with a chainsaw and couldn’t do anything, so we had to go to another studio, in
which we’ve just finished the recording. But then our original bassist Vasja decided to leave, we still don’t know why, but we found
the right replacement for him in Blaz from a local hard/heavy band Shutdown. So yeah, there was a lot of delays with everything,
cause you have to teach every new member your songs and that takes some time … but that’s all in the past, we hope the future
will bring better days, cause as I said earlier – the line up now will probably stand for quite some time because we’re really getting
along great.
When do you think the debut will see the light of day?
We are hoping that it will be released before June this year. We still need to do the finishing touches, mixing and mastering, booklet,
then the printing will take some time …I think that we’ll manage to do all this by then.
What can we expect from the debut? Is it in the same vein as your demo or has the sound progressed or changed?
Most of all you can expect a different, more old school sound than on the demo. We wanted to catch the spirit of the eighties (good
old microphone-box recording, without those stupid samples) with a raw sound, but not too raw, just so you can hear clearly what’s
going on. We’re curious to see how people will except it, it’s not going to be anything like the demo, the record will definitively sound
more natural.
Admittedly, I know very little of Slovenia minus the exploits of your senior men’s Hockey Team and the players from that team in the
NHL. How is the metal underground in Slovenia? Is there a solid scene and good fan following?
Well you know one thing about Slovenia that we don’t haha, we’re not that much into sports, and we’re too busy having fun, haha.
The metal underground here is getting bigger and stronger everyday I think. Metal and rock music became really popular these days
around here, which is great, tons of new bands – most of them are thrashers - are coming out. But you can find everything from
death, heavy, black, gothic … Slovenia really has a lot of great bands (such as Thraw, Negligence, Scaffold, Eruption, Shutdown, … to
name a few). All of these bands, including us have a really good and quite large fan base around here, especially if you take that the
population in Slovenia is smaller than in one American city … New York, for example. But It’s quite hard to go abroad and to be
recognized if you’re living here, because as you said – lot of people don’t know nothing about this country, large number of people
don’t even know that Slovenia exists – most of them think it’s Slovakia, but that’s a whole different country. But I think that even
that will change in the future... at least in the metal world.
With the critical success of your demo and your touring schedule has the profile of the band risen in your homeland?
Actually we became pretty popular in Slovenia this last year, people really dig our music and that is the most amazing feeling. People
know the name Keller, they know who we are and it’s really nice to see that you have a good fan following.
Before we close down this interview I just have to know, what does Keller mean and where did you get the name?
Haha, almost everybody’s asking us that same question. It’s a funny story behind our name actually …we rehearse in a 200 year old
house, which used to be a German hospital in the first world war. Behind the house, there are two doors, the entrance to the
basement and the entrance to the washhouse. Since there was no better place to take a piss, we were all pissing all over the
basement door and above that door there was a sign – KELLER – a German word for basement. Since we didn’t came up with
anything better we said fuck it, we’ll just be Keller, haha.
Well I would like to thank you for this interview and for releasing what I consider to be the best thrash metal out there today. In
closing can you let all our readers know what they can expect from Keller in 2010?
Thank you! We’re all curious how the new record will be accepted by the audiences; we hope there are a lot of people out there
that think the same way as you do hehe. In 2010 you can most definitively expect our debut “Spreading Evil”, which will include ten
songs, as I said earlier, we’re going to have some gigs outside Slovenia (Austria, Italy, Czech Republic) and we will concentrate on
some new material, which is already in the process of making – for the second record which we hope we’ll start recording by the end
of this year if we’ll get lucky! Keep on thrashing!
WEB: www.myspace.com/kellermetal
