Thanatos Interview

This is the Interview with Stephan Gebedi Guitar/Vocals of Thanatos!

1.Tell us a little bit about your name Thanatos.

-It means 'death' or 'god of death' in ancient Greek mythology. When we chose this name we wanted a word with a dark, deadly meaning to it, without using the English word death...

2. Can you tell us how was the band formed?

-Yeah, I formed the band in 1984 with a friend from school, Remco de Maaijer... the first line up lasted until 1985 and then came a period with many line up changes.The current line up has been together for 5 or 6 years now I think

3.What bands would you consider that has strongly influenced you?

-Death, Possessed, Celtic Frost, Slayer, Venom.... I guess those bands were the strongest influences when we started Thanatos

4.How is the metal scene in Rotterdam?

-Not so good. A lot of bands come from Rotterdam like Thanatos, Sinister, Houwitser, Officium Triste, but apart from one small club called Baroeg there are not many places to play over here. Rotterdam is also inhabitated with many immigrants from Africa and Asia and they listen to hip hop instead of metal, so there's no big scene here really, that's more in the eastern part of Holland

5.Is there in Netherlands another recent metal bands that you really like?

-Yep, Hail of Bullets of course and Legion of the Damned!

6.Express in 3 words the sound of Thanatos.

-Death/Thrash Metal

7. In all you long career as musicians, what has been the most rewarding aspect of metal music?

-I think holding my first ever record/cd in my hands, I think that was the best thing. Of course playing shows with some of my heroes like Morbid Angel, Kreator, Destruction, Sepultura etc was great as well!

8.Comparing to mid 80´s what is your personal point of view about metal music nowadays?

-I think the musical and technical level of bands is much higher nowadays, but sometimes these new bands miss the real feeling that the old bands did have. They rely too much on techniques and speed and sometimes fail to create the right atmosphere and write great songs. I mean there's a big difference between being a good musician and being able to write good songs.

9.Do you like any mexican metal bands, and if it is so, could you explain why?

-I don't know any Mexican bands except for Asesino.

10. Way to go with your ultimate boxed set man! tell us more about it.

-As far as I know it's already sold out! The idea came from this Chinese label and we really thought it was a great way to make the old albums available again and especially a great opportunity to release a better mixed version of the 'Angelic Encounters' CD... that was one of our condition; we wanted to re-release all the stuff but that album HAD to be re-mixed cause the original version sounded like shit.

11. Anything that you wanna add?

-Yeah, we're working on new material for our next album. after the Summer we'll spread a new promo-CD to record labels to get a new deal. Dan Swanö (Bloodbath, Edge of Sanity, Hail of Bullets) will probably mix/produce this promo CD... we'll put those songs on our MySpace page after the Summer, so watch out for that!www.myspace.com/thanatos666Cheers!