DANIEL DISMAL- CREMATORIUM (19.01.06)

Congratulations for your Album " The Process of Endtime " .For me and for many people in LatinAmerica is one of the best of 2005 - TOP 20 ROCKUM –

WWW.ROCKUMWEB.COM Gino - Who was in charged in the process of composition, music and production?

Daniel Dismal – Pretty much it was a group effort as it came to writing the music for the new album. I write all the lyrics but the music itself is the brainchild of everyone in the band. Even if a member brings in a complete song the rest of the band puts their two cents into the mix so that every song that Crematorium plays is a combination of everyone’s ideas and styles. It’s a pretty solid system when it comes to writing music and it’s proven to be one of our staples in defining our sound over the years.

Gino -Why does the album "The Process of Endtime" have this title? . Does it mean something personal for the band?

Daniel Dismal – All of our albums have a pretty straightforward theme that is based around the lyrics I write. Each album is along a timeline structure of the themes I create with my lyrics. With the Process of Endtime we’re dealing with the ways that the human race has reached a part in my time line structure, which could be considered to be modern day. I think that everyone can agree that we’re at a pretty bleak point in our history right now. We’re pretty much on the brink of either heading into a mass global holocaust through war or the Earth is going to unleash a round of serious natural disasters to end our existence. That’s what this album deals with, the processes that we as a collective human race has partaken upon to get to this period in our history.

Gino -The cover art of the album "The Process of Endtime" is amazing. Who designed it?

Daniel Dismal – Anthony Clarkson of MindsI Studios designed the artwork that can be found in the new album. We pretty much furnished him with a very rough demo of the new album and he got to work. He sent me I believe 10 proofs and I helped him put together the final cover that you see today. He created everything from his mind though; all I personally helped out with was the logo, the placement of some of the key figures on the cover art and the colorization. To this day I am still in awe of what Anthony did for this new album and we plan on using him on our next release.

Gino - Which is the difference between the "The Process of Endtime " and your previous works?

Daniel Dismal – I would have to say the major difference is the speed of the music and the condensed sound we achieved. In our previous music we never were able to write a string of songs that could flow together or hold on to one common thread. With the new album I think we really put a defining point on our sound and you can definitely tell that this is a Crematorium album. We put a lot more solo’s, harmonies, straight forward vocal approaches and an over all cleaner, crisper production. D.D. Ehrlich put a lot of time into producing and recording this album as well. His countless hours of work really shines through with this release and much like how Anthony came through with the art, D.D. went well above the call of duty with this album.

Gino -What are your favorite tracks in the "The Process of Endtime"?

Daniel Dismal – Personally my favorite tracks are Testicular, Infinitesimal Acculturation and Born Of The Deadtide. Testicular I just love how the music and vocals came together plus the overall ferocity of the song is something to covet. Over the years we always played Unlearn (from For All Our Sins) as our staple song but to me, Testicular came and knocked Unlearn off its throne with a fury. Infinitesimal Acculturation to me is just a balls out thrash song where I can just get up on stage and belt out some vocals that I rarely do. This is something I’ve always wanted to do but we never had the music to do this to, until now. Born Of The Deadtide is just a pure heavy track that lets me throw out some vocal tones that again, I rarely get to use. This song is slower but it’s just a ball-breaking track that’s been turning heads at our shows since the day we unleashed it in our live show. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love all the songs on the new album for their own reasons but these three hold a special place in my heart.

Gino -We know that Crematorium began into the music world 14 years ago (1991), Could you tell us how was the beginning of the band?

Daniel Dismal – Our old drummer Frank Escalon and his brother Marvin started this band with Adam Perez on vocals and Moshe Alvarez on guitar. Marvin was only in the band for a little while until Alex Villalobos took over on the bass. They pretty much stayed that way for a few years and recorded a demo called “Dark Manifestations.” They added Frank Perez who has been in and out of the band since this time on second guitar. Once Moshe and Adam decided to leave the band Mark Uehlein took over on guitar and I took over on bass. For years the line up of Mark, Alex, Frank and myself tore apart the Los Angeles underground scene. We recorded the Epicediums Of The Damned album and then pretty much broke up in 1998. At the end of 2000 we decided to give it one more shot, recorded the A World Where Only Nightmares Begin EP and that’s when we got signed to Prosthetic Records. The band back in 1991 compared to the band today is really not that much different. Sure, there are no original members but we keep the flame of Crematorium going in remembrance of what the original members started. We’re still friends with all the old members as well and they support what we’re doing so even though they’re not in the band, they’re still part of the family.

Gino -THE name of the music style "Murdercore" sounds very well, who invented this phrase and why?

Daniel Dismal – I pretty much came up with the name but that was due to a few key things. Around the time I put this label on our music we were trying to shop around our demo to record labels and they always ask for the type of genre your band is in your bio or band submission form. We’ve never been a straight up death metal or hardcore band so it was always a rough task. A few reviews for our comeback EP stated that our music made people want to murder someone and the same was said by a few of our fans at our shows. Since we always had a tie in with hardcore I decided to put Murder and Hardcore together to form what we have today, Murdercore. As far as I know we were the first band to put this name to our music and we’ve been heralded as the inventors of this genre. I’ve toyed around on the internet and searched out other bands going by this genre and they’ve started to spring up in the last few years. The cool thing is that a lot of them list us as an influence so we can definitely tell they got the name from us. I personally take great pride in the fact that if anything, Crematorium will leave its mark in the history books as being an innovator rather then a follower.

Gino -Which bands are the considered the music influences of Crematorium?

Daniel Dismal – That’s a hard one as many types of music influence everyone in this band. For me I would have to say bands like Sick Of It All, Metallica, Obituary, Carcass, Napalm Death, Agnostic Front, Black Flag, Doom, Dead Kennedys, Suffocation, Hatebreed, Ice Cube, NWA, DJ Quik and many many more bands have influenced me with the way I write, the way I sing and the way I put my vocals together. Bands like Testament, Overkill, Metallica, Megadeth and all the earlier thrash bands have always influenced Mark. As time went on Mark found bands like In Flames, Dark Tranquility, Hypocrisy and all the seminal melodic death metal bands. As for the rest of the members, they just take whatever they hear around them and use it as an influence. This band is almost like a sponge and while fusing together different styles is common now we’ve always been one of the first to openly do so.

Gino -Do you know something about the Latin-American Metal scene?

Daniel Dismal – I know of some of the bands that I am sure are pretty much the staples of the Latin-American scene but unfortunately Crematorium has only done a few shows in Latin America. One thing that we know for sure is that the fans in these areas are diehard unlike in the US. The US scene tends to be one where people are influenced by trends and what’s “cool.” We’ve noticed that in Latin America as well as most of the European nations that when a fan loves a band they’ll love them forever. Festivals outside of the US seem to be so much larger then the ones in the US and to us, that’s amazing how people support the music they love in these areas. We’re actually trying to put together a Mexico tour for November of 2006 and this will be our first taste of a true tour down south.

Gino -What is the difference between Metal Scene of today and the 90´s?

Daniel Dismal – I think the metal scene was stronger back in the 90’s and bands were creating new sounds that people are re-hashing today. I do think that the music scene of today can grow to be stronger and more established in mainstream culture then the scene of the 90’s but that all depends on how dedicated the fans stay. One thing is for sure; there was a hell of a lot of dedication shown to bands in the 90’s compared to today. Hopefully the modern day fans can live up to that to make the new scene something to be proud of and not just an overnight fluke.

Gino -How do you see the future of metal?

Daniel Dismal – It seems pretty strong but then again, I lived through the 90’s and saw metal rise to the top only to fall down to the bottom out here in the US. I think right now a lot of mainstream figures are embracing the metal lifestyle so that’s bringing metal into a lot of homes across the US but as we all know, that’s a double-edged sword. I am sure metal will still be popular for a few more years but to make it last this time there needs to be an over abundance of dedication rather then band-wagon hoppers like in the past.

Gino -what do you think about occultism, black magic or Satanism?

Daniel Dismal – I really have no thoughts on the matter. I believe that everyone has a right to practice his or her own religion but I also don’t like it when something is pushed down my throat. I think that Satanism has been so tied into metal that it’s kind of hard to get away from it but for people like myself, I don’t think of my music as a religious tool. I have plenty of friends who are both Satanists and Christians and I get along fine with both sides of the spectrum. Hell, I have friends who play shows together whose ideologies are so far apart as it comes to religion but they just love the music so much that it brings them together. In my mind, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Your personal choices are your own; this music is all of ours to share together.

Gino -What was your best Show with CREMATORIUM?

Daniel Dismal – I would have to say the last day of the tour we did with Immolation, Grave and Goatwhore. It wasn’t so much the show itself; it was how bittersweet that show was. We achieved a full US tour with some great people and we had to see it come to an end. We had so many good times that over shadowed any bad times we had on that tour. The last show was just fun and carefree. That night was the hardest night for the band I think and we’ve never relived a bond with other bands like that to this very day. What made the show our best show was the fact that we performed with our good friends rather then a bunch of other bands. Sure, we’ve had better crowd responses, played for larger crowds but this show it was just something special.

Gino -What are your future plans?

Daniel Dismal – We’re writing the music for a new album as we speak, we’re planning a whole bunch of mini-tours out here on the West Coast of the US, we’re planning a full scale Mexico tour, we’re trying to finally get over to Europe in support of the new album and we’re being offered a whole slew of US tours in the Spring and Summer. We really think that 2006 is going to be a busy year of touring and writing for us so everyone should keep his or her eyes open for us!

Gino -What are you last comments in this interview?

Daniel Dismal – Thanks to Rockum for naming The Process Of Endtime as one of their top 20 albums of 2005! Thanks to you Gino for the support and thanks to all the fans for standing along side of us throughout the years. Remember, you all are our family and we love you all!

Thanks very much for your time and my best wishes for the band!