Forgotten Tomb Interview

All The Answers By Herr Morbid.

1. - Brutal regards guys, how are you? To begin, could you tell us what was the main inspiration in this album "Negative Megalomania? For moments this album reminds me bands like Danzig.
HM: Hi, apparently we're still alive. The inspiration for "Negative Megalomania" has been the usual: Negativity, and all the consequences of it. Musically speaking, the album has a very Rock-oriented approach, and of course it includes some influences from stuff like Black Sabbath, Danzig, Alice In Chains and Acid Bath, just to name ta few. These are influences we never put within our music before, but we felt this time we were ready to try new things and add a new dimension to our usual depressive Dark Metal stuff. This is a new beginning for the band.

2. - Since 1999 to this time, how was your evolution musically?
HM: The band started out as a Occult Black Metal band, in the vein of MayheM's "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" with a touch of Burzum. This was the main style on the first Demo/MCD "Obscura Arcana Mortis". Shortly after the band moved to a more depressive and dark style, with many Doom Metal influences, and the album "Songs To Leave" was spawned. It instantly became a classic and helped creating a new subgenre in Black Metal, which has been called "Suicidal/Depressive Black Metal" nowadays. The following "Springtime Depression" defined the style of the band even better, and was hailed by many as a cult-album. The style was always slow and oppressive, with extremely dark and vicious atmospheres. "Love's Burial Ground" was a mix between the first 2 albums, with a better songwriting and a totally negative and sick mood, and it definitely confirmed FT as a leading band in this genre. "Negative Megalomania" opened up a new season for the band, and it showed how FT is able to mutate and evolve its sound while keeping its distinctive mark.

3. - Your first album "Songs To Leave" and the second "Springtime Depression" are a really really depressive albums, in some songs do you reflect aspects of your life?
HM: Yeah of course I was particularly depressed when I wrote the music and lyrics for those albums, though they were only a picture of that moment in my life. They remain very good albums musically speaking, but they don't mean anything to me personally nowadays.

4. - How do you get this harmony between Black and Doom Metal?
HM: Who knows? It simply came natural to me. It works out good, that's what I like.

5. - Can you describe your last album "Negative Megalomania"?
HM: I already did it in the answer to your first question. What could I add? It's an extremely dark album, but it includes also Rock influences and it's very varied. There are both scream and clean vocals in it, and this creates different moods and emotions within the songs. You can hear references to our past albums, but there's also a whole new dimension within the songs. It's just unique, there's nothing like that around nowadays.

6. - For you what is Black Metal?
HM: To be honest, nowadays Black Metal for me is nothing but a genre of music. I don't like most of the people involved in it, and most of the current B. M. bands suck big time. Black Metal used to mean a lot to me years ago, but now it's just a very small part of my existence. FT doesn't play Black Metal, and probably never did it except for the "Obscura Arcana Mortis" MCD. We play Dark Metal.

7. - How big is the Italian Xtreem music?
HM: There are some good bands and a lot of bad ones. I have some friends playing in good bands and at times I take part to their releases as a guest-musician, but everything is still quite underground.

8. - Could you describe me the best gig in your career?
HM: I don't know, we mostly played good gigs all over these years, I have some good remembrances of certain gigs more than others, but I wouldn't know what to choose. Probably Festung Open Air 2007, because it was the first time we played in front of 1000 people. It felt good. There have been also some other cool shows in small and packed clubs though.

9. - Avantgarde Music is your label now, you have a good relation with them?
HM: They worked pretty good on our latest album. They're cool guys. We'll see if the next one will be released through them again or not, we're still undecided.

10. - Mayhem or Darkthrone?
HM: Burzum?

11. - Plans for this 2008?
HM: Release a new album and try to make a living.

12. - For last anything to say?
HM: See you on the road sometimes, thanx for reading and buy our fucking albums.